Entrepreneur Megan Duckett.
In my line of work, I'm surrounded by creative entrepreneurs. Artists who are trying to carve out a living from their artistic pursuits. Writers and authors who would love to earn a full-time income from their words. Accomplished actors who are in between roles on stage or screen and who earn income through other activities. They need to straddle the creative side of their life with the nuts and bolts of running a business. But it doesn't always work.
It's not uncommon to find creative artists at the lower end of the income scale. In fact, in some cases it's almost a badge of honour, as if the only way to be truly creative is to starve in a garret and suffer for your art. Personally, I don't find that especially appealing. Particularly when it doesn't have to be that way.
Being creative isn't enough
Megan Duckett runs Sew What?, a business that sews theatrical draperies and fabrics for concert tours and special events. Duckett started the business 20 years ago, after landing in the US from Australia. She was 19 and wanted to work in the music industry. With a knack for sewing, she began doing it as a weekend hobby. However, in 1996 she realised that the income from her weekend hobby exceeded the income from her full-time job. It was then she decided to quit her job and focus on her business.
Surrounded by creative people herself - she has draped concert sets for the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga - she's an example of someone who has successfully turned her creative passion into a viable business. However, it was not without some harsh lessons in business along the way.
Nine years ago, Duckett pitched to a major client. Her client told her that she ticked the boxes on all counts. The price was right, the product was right, the clients liked her, and so on. She had all her ducks in a row - except for one. The client give the job to someone else and told her: "The only reason you didn't get the job was because you don't have a website."
Duckett says: "I didn't think that we needed one. I felt that people knew what we did and we did it well. But I learnt a lesson that your website gives you credibility. So I went out that weekend, purchased a program and built a basic website. I rang the client on Monday morning and told her I had a website - but it was too late. They had given the job to someone else."
Since then, Duckett has grown her business to 45 people. This week, she was announced by Dell as a face of its Take Your On Path campaign featuring Australian entrepreneurs.
Duckett says that three key factors have helped take her creative business to the next level: partnering with a technology company (Dell), implementing a firm client credit policy and overcoming that language barrier. Many of her seamstresses do not have English as their first language so Duckett created customised software that spits out pattern instructions in the language of the seamstresses. This has reduced wastage of fabric from 15 per cent to five per cent.
While smart business decisions are important, Duckett says: "It's important never to lose your creative mojo – whatever it is that really fires you up, whatever your craft may be. I would encourage others to deliver their craft in a way that their clients are expecting. Be willing to go and meet them there and allow them to get your craft from you in a way that may not feel natural."
Will "business" quell your creative genius?
Too often I hear cries like: "I just want to concentrate on being creative. I don't WANT to be bogged down with accounting." Or "I'm much better using my right brain. I love ideas. I'm just not as good using my left brain." Or "I just want do my creative work. People should judge me on that, not on whether I can fill in an invoice correctly."
It drives me bonkers to hear this. Sure, I agree that it's important to give yourself enough freedom for your creative genius to spark. But I can't stand it when I hear it being used as an excuse not to deal with sales, marketing, accounting or organisation.
Activities like sales, marketing, accounting or organisation may not be your forte. But who in the world is going to know about your creative talents unless you do some sales and marketing? And how will you optimise your tax position if you have no clue about what to do? The reality is that none of these functions are rocket science. They don't take long to figure out. It's not like studying nuclear fission. They are core functions that any entrepreneur has to understand.
I'm not suggesting that you have to become a marketing guru or a tax expert. You just need to understand the basics that any small business owner should. Because when you have that foundation, you can embark on your creative pursuits with far more certainty of your financial position. You can also estimate your likely revenue based on the marketing that you decide to do.
I've heard creative entrepreneurs tell me that they don't understand superannuation so they don't contribute. For goodness' sake, what is there to understand? You pay money into a fund so that you can put it away for retirement. You fill in some forms to make it happen. It's not even hard. But they throw their hands up in the air and say: "I just don't have time for it."
Burying your head in the sand isn't going to make the buying public magically come along, recognise your talents and scoop up your work.
Are you abdicating responsibility?
I know some creative entrepreneurs reading this will say that they just want to outsource all the functions they don't want to do. They want someone else to do the sales and marketing, someone else to do the accounting and someone else to organise their schedule and their life.
That's a lovely fantasy. But it's an achievable fantasy if you can afford it. However, if you are struggling to pay your bills and can't afford to outsource it because you haven't yet established a strong revenue for your business, then the only person left to do it is ... you. The Accounting Fairy isn't going to creep in overnight and do your business activity statement while you sleep.
What does the creative class look like in Australia?
My colleague once said to me: "I love how, in Los Angeles, it's the creatives who have the big mansion and drive the fancy cars. Here, it's the bankers and the CEOs. I'd love it if our creative class could be recognised that way."
Okay, Cate Blanchett may well have a fancy mansion in Hunters Hill but most creative entrepreneurs don't live like Our Cate.
It got me thinking: what does it take for creative entrepreneurs to be successful in a sustainable business that also fosters their creativity? This is what I came up with.
1. They value their work
2. They are professional
3. They run their creative pursuit like a business
4. They don't shy away from understanding the non-creative areas of their business
5. They realise they can do this without compromising their creativity.
The bottom line is that creative entrepreneurs who shun the "business" side will struggle with longevity and will struggle to survive. But if you are serious about making your creative mark on the world, you'll know that "creativity" and "business" go hand in hand.
As a wise man called Jon Bon Jovi once said in a scene from the documentary When We Were Beautiful: "I'm the CEO of a major corporation who has been running a brand for 25 years."
is a freelance technology journalist and social media strategist.