Everyone should be creative. Whatever your art is, it should invigorate you and bring you joy. And if it happens to be your business, it should bring you the money you need to keep being creative.

October 25, 2010 Denver Creative Business Symposium

The Art of Your Creative Business

8:00 am - 3:30pm  Sage Room of the Oxford Hotel

Catered lunch and light  snack to be served.

Workshop will focus on identifying the core principles and philosophies that should drive every creative business.  

• Passion: The unending, visceral, overwhelming desire to create the art that you do.  There are far easier ways to make a living than to run a creative business.  Nobody needs what you provide.  Your clients hire you because they think you and your art can transport them to wherever they want to go.  Hard for me to ever imagine that you would be able to honor and embrace this responsibility if you were not deeply passionate about what you create.
• Philosophy: What is the purpose of your creative business?  To be famous? Rich? A means to an end? The end? What do you want your clients to feel about you, your art and your creative business? Your employees?  Vendors, friends and family? You?  Your creative business has to have a purpose beyond delivering your art.  Your business is simply the vehicle through which you can share your message.  The integrity of what you believe is what infuses what you are selling regardless of whether you are creating it for yourself or a client.  Your clients buy the message as much as they do the art.  Soulless art is an oxymoron and is unsustainable as a business.
• Platform: If you do not deliver to your clients what is most valuable about you and your creative business, you cannot hope to get paid what you need.  What makes Apple different from Dell?  The Flip different from Sony?  Target different from Hermes?  The better question is why each cannot sell the others’ products?  Platform – each of these businesses message is designed to elicit a response (i.e., sale) from the audience that cares most about it.  If you are confident about your philosophy and what you are truly passionate about, designing (or fixing) your platform will become obvious.
• Process: Nobody will be able to see your passion, philosophy or platform if you do not have a defined process.  Yes, you have to write it down so that everyone – clients, employees, vendors, colleagues, even your mother – knows what comes next.  There is not just comfort in everyone knowing how you do things, there is trust and faith.  Talking the talk is necessary, but walking the walk is what defines a creative business.  Tell me what you are going to do and then do it.

About Sean Low 

Sean Low is the Founder and President of The Business of Being Creative consulting firm focused on providing practical advice to those in the business of being creative.  Prior to founding The Business of Being Creative, Sean spent six years as the President of Preston Bailey Design, Inc. representing Preston in his business endeavors around the world.

Sean has a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his business experience ranges from law, investment banking, financial executive to small business owner.

Through his work with Preston and his other creative clients over the last six years – Vicente Wolf, Marcy Blum, Tara Guerard, Michelle Rago, Style Me Pretty and Sylvia Weinstock to name a few – Sean has discovered his own creative passion: thinking about creative businesses – how they run, how to make them run better, helping them know who they are and then be the best at what they do.

You can read about Sean’s approach to managing creative businesses on his blog: www.thebusinessofbeingcreative.com