As creative professionals, it’s second nature for us to inject a significant level of sensitivity and emotional thought into our craft. After all, the ability to connect with deeper insights during the creation process is part of our expertise and provides us with a unique ability that clients value and (usually) pay for.
What most creative professionals don’t realize is that this sensitivity can cripple your business. Without being able to separate the emotional from the practical, you put yourself at risk of being pushed around by clients, pushed over by colleagues, or even pushed out by competitors – all cases resulting in stunted growth potential.
Before we go further, I want to make clear that I am not an advocate of throwing all emotion out the door or losing the personal connections that make your business yours. Instead, I propose increasing your ability to decouple the personal from the business – just enough to help maintain objectivity and clarity, especially during times of conflict.
The concept is simple and can be adopted by even the most sensitive of souls, and so I present:
The PSC Framework of Being Tough:
1 – It’s Not Personal
Creatives love to tie personal worth or merit into their work. With critique and conflict, what usually results is immediate personal internalization with what they did to make things to go wrong, or, inversely, how they could have made things better.
Business, though, is not about you or the arbitrary scales you hold yourself to. It’s about providing value to clients and making sure that’s in balance with the value (usually revenue) you’re receiving.
Think about the last time you lost a client. What typically comes next is a huge wave of personal failure. What did you do wrong? What could have you done differently? Was that email too harsh? Were we not creative enough? You continue to revisit the relationship, looking at the emails, conversations, and meetings, trying to find some insight under a rock to see where things went wrong. Eventually, enough time passes or another client comes into the picture and you move on, probably without much resolution aside from blaming the client for it all.
With certainty and without knowing the situation, I can tell you right now what happened: your services were no longer valued.
Unless you’re a real ass, they probably love you as a person; they may have even said that to your face. But what they didn’t tell you is the simple fact they no longer valued what your company was providing.
This is where your post-client diagnosis needs a healthy shift. Instead of looking at personally-driven factors, evaluate the business side of things for slips in value. Did you provide the right capabilities? Did they understand your process? Did you provide unique services or solutions? Realize that it’s not personal and that being tough on your business (rather than yourself) will help increase the value of your service with your next engagement.
2 – Get Over It
Problems with clients have existed since the dawn of time. When was the last time your half-hour grumble session resolved the issue at hand? How many times has recounting the client horror story to everyone in the office magically spun back time to make things right?
Your time is valuable and precious. Make sure you spend every minute of it creating – creating work, creating knowledge or creating solutions.
The next time your “worst client” pushes your buttons, spend 5-10 minutes developing strategies or solutions for the next encounter.
The faster you can get over it, the sooner you can start providing real value to your company, clients, and team.
3 – Talk About Money
Just last week I was in a meeting with other creative professionals; some were freelancers, others had their own business, and the very instant the topic of fees and revenues came up, a thick, uncomfortable air filled the room.
It’s almost absurd how taboo the topic of revenues, profits, or fees can be with new or small agencies. And it’s not limited to engagements with agency peers, but also with clients.
Your ability to confidently talk about money is directly related to the confidence you have in running your business. Uncertainty or insecurity on the topic gives people little confidence that your creative work is going to be any better. Complete avoidance of the topic paints a big target on your back to either be taken advantage of or leaves the door open to conflict down the road.
Talk early about money. Be resolute in your fees. Believe in the position of your company, and then move on. Set expectations early and you’ll significantly reduce the chance for surprises down the road.
In my personal experience, intimately understanding my company’s finances allowed me to better assess the overall market – which resulted in better (and more profitable) price positioning for our services. This was only achieved by being transparent (obviously to the right people) about where we stood and where we wanted to go.
4 – Ask Tough Questions
The final piece of Being Tough comes down to simply being able to ask tough questions. These are the questions that we frequently skip over to get new business. These are the questions we dance around if things begin to wander astray, afraid to admit anything is wrong.
A fear we have with asking tough questions is that we will be perceived in a way that might jeopardize the relationship. But remember piece #1 – It’s Not Personal. If you’re committed to growing your professional character and your company’s value in the industry, you need to be able to cut straight to the core of any issue at hand. If a question is continually eating at the back of your mind but you squirm at the thought of asking it, chances are it needs to be asked.
Asking tough questions is simple. Here are just a few starting points:
- Be direct – do not dance around the issue. The less words, the better.
- Avoid yes/no questions.
- Keep things on a broad level; don’t get bogged down in details.
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Being Tough is not about being mean. It’s about being able to approach your business and anything that relates to it with respect and confidence. The better you’re able to separate business away from personal, focus on outcomes, familiarize yourself with finances, and cut straight to the core of any issue, the better your businesses will become.
Even if you are a real ass, if you’re still providing great value, they’ll probably keep you around. I consider myself a nice person, so I don’t fit in that category, but I’ve worked with some real assholes who I’ll keep around because they are that good…
There’s always a fine line, I think it’s more about the expectations going in vs. what really happens. If you know they are going to be an a-hole from the get-go, then you’re probably ok with it when it happens!
Lesson applies quite well to photographers as well – or really any creative independent. Nice thoughts man!
Thanks Matthew, hope you enjoy the content and come back often.
Question for everyone: in the past few days I had an issue with a job that I lost. the person at the mgmt hiring me wanted to pay me $350 for a couple hours of work, almost as a favor but that word never materialized. He is a friend of a friend, met him several time. Also in the past this guys knows I just fought a very bloody battle over copyrights with another artist over my images and knows that I am a younger artist, so he felt my pain. Anyhow he offered me $350 for a few hours of BTS work but it was a WORK FOR HIRE contract and in the contract it said that if the said company could not reach me, by signing this agreement I give them the right to sign for me in the future, etc… WTF is that?! And this is a very major company too! the mgmt also called me and said this is a new artist for us, she’s bigger and well established but “if the contract if the agreement is too binding for you, don’t worry about it i will not get mad”. So I read the scary contract and said I’m sorry but this does not allow me to even showcase or mention that I ever photographed this artist and for the said fee, I cannot do the job. He said no worries, but I hear through the grapevine that it great upset him that I didnt accept his job and he was only trying to help me. did i do the right thing?
i feel like if I start with this major artist for $350 a day, give up ALL rights and not ever showcase the work then I cannot even get another job because nothing adds to my port. our mutual friend says i should have taken it and increased my wage on the next job. is it not true that once they start you at pennies, it’s hard to raise up from there?
advice anyone?
Dear Curious,
For what it is worth, I think you did the right thing. And another note, with ‘friends’ like this, who needs enemies. Everything about what you described is legal robbery. That is no favor. This friend was going to legally steal your image & images of your in the future, you would not have made more money working for them in the future because they’ve already got you by the pennies. And the mutual friend is in the same category. If the celebrity you were making an image of does get huge & you can’t use your image, what is 350 in the end. There was nothing for you in this equation you walked away & keep it that way.
Of course, my favorite thing to say when faced with these kinds of situations & contracts is with a big, thick, black sharpie right “GET FUCKED” or “GO FUCK YOURSELF” depending on how I feel, over the whole contract & fax it back to the main fax # so everyone can see it.
But that’s just me, & I bet you’ve never heard of me, but I’ve got my own respect, & I’m emotional.
Legal work, especially copyrights are always going to be tricky, especially as more and more people are willing to compromise them.
My tried and true opinion is that you get what you pay for and you never ever want to be the guy doing the bottom of the barrel cheap work.
I think you made a GREAT choice. You help define where you value yourself and it will come back around to pay you far more than the $350 in the long run.
Thanks for the comment and I hope this blog helps you in the future!
Great post! It can be very tricky to draw the line between personal issues and business issues, but definitely less tricky as you keep getting more work and more used to dealing with clients. Thicker skin grows with experience.
Thanks for the comment Bjarte and I hope you enjoy the blog!