Lessons

Lesson Info

Creating Your Enterprise

So for those of you who have actually acquired the fifty step action plan we're on page where a number eighteen page three seven so you can follow along and if you you know so just focus on what we're going to talk about now we're going to talk about something called the swat analysis sounds very business because any does anyone are they weren't familiar with what that stands for. What does that stand for? Uh, strength and weakness assessment strength, weakness hold on what's the oh oh well it's written right here actually oh, okay, I gave you the page and then tea is for threat threat. Yes, there are threats in a business there are opportunities in a business there are weaknesses, their strength some of these may be part of your enterprise, right? But he also might be you personally like what if you're a perfectionist? Does it? Does anyone suffer from perfection? Itis now good for you what is I mean in terms of an enterprise but in terms of creatively what is perfection? I just d'oh w...

hat is it? What is it done? What's happened paralyzing its paralyzing right? It kind of seizes up the factory and if we're going to make a business analogy, if you're if you're going to get into perfection itis then you know, operations may cease so that would be for bringing that up because that's ah that's a weakness that I suffered from perfection itis was very stifling kills creativity and it kills any joy there's just nothing better than just loosening up in letting it flo you know what? Actually you're much more creative in that process so that's how you know a personal weakness could undermine your success as an artist, but they're also you know, weaknesses or habits that you might possess that might under undermine your business freight and cheryl, you were open enough to talk about one what was that again? Well, that was not getting my business processes in a line um and being ready for being busy right busy season so I know you've overcome this weakness, but would you say and that's a great thing if you can identify the weakness, you have an opportunity actually overcome it right to actually do something about the plan to do something about it and to secure resource is to do something about it so we're going out now with that? Is that something you still trouble with you? Is it better? Well, I've learned to love the excel spreadsheet what she did not like it when I tio I don't know if you recall, but I hardly even knew howto use it, I gave you an excel tutorial on the phone I remember that yeah, me too and I'm not the one to give an excel editorial either. It's just not so but now you've learned to love it. No. Why do you love it? Well, because it makes my life so much easier for instance, tohave an automated system of inventory, right? If somebody calls me I have some jewelry and retail locations if somebody calls me and they need a pair of earings for instance, of specific pair I can look at the sheet in a minute and let and know whether or not I have them in stock or whether I have the schedule the time to make a new pair so it sounds like you flipped it. Ugh. Ugh! That's great to hear still a work in process. Okay, so this is what's called a swat analysis it's used in business too kind of you kind of get a really brief snapshot of the state of the union, right? I want to emphasize again that you are where you are, right cheryl's been at this for a while. I've been at this for a while some to you just maybe it just occurred to you you in the audience online maybe is just occurring to you that you actually to want to make an enterprise out of this and you don't really know what your mission is or your unique value pop position it's okay, just start where you are. The point is to start the point is to take action wherever you are on the yellow brick road, right wherever you are is ok, remember you know, I had never painted before remember I had never you know for this time, vernon never saying before, right? Or you were shy. I remember you were shy and you were it was really paying teo I can't I don't know if I can open my throat shocker and put all these people so vernon now, if you saw her and now you would never think in a million years that was an issue for him, but at one point you know that's where he wass in his evolution, so just really be gentle with yourself and respect where you are don't compare yourself to others. I think that's where a lot of artists really injure themselves and even entrepreneurs, they compare themselves to other people it's not fair it's, just not fair and it really doesn't serve you in any positive way. This is just what it says in your fear following along with the action plan. What you could do is just shot these things down just by writing them down and you're identifying them, you're actually bringing them into physical form and you could do something about it if you have these things rattling around in your head, I promise they're just really going probably cause confusion or anxiety or lack of focus. And we did a feasibility study for making art making money. One of the things that became very clear was that as a chant focus what to focus on or focus in general was a real challenge for a lot of artists, a lot of creative people but there are ways you can manage your focus. Writing things down is one way that really puts things into perspective and clarifies things so let's just take a could if you from the audience had come. A couple volunteers were to start with strength. Okay, it's a good place to start. What's one of your strength. I'd say marketing marketing? Yeah, like online marketing using social media. Okay, all right. That's. Great. Okay, that's a good one to have that's a great one to possess that's important. All right. And change age eight. I'm gonna let that work for me. Well, I think what you're saying is maturity in perspective, right? That and it kind of won without death idea because I gave you the dump assignment, you're gonna get the data sign that something look forward to I promised at the end of the day today I'm going to give you a homework assignment and I can't tell you it's a very clarifying assignment is going to help your mission and your values come into full focus if you're willing to just dive in and be open and be vulnerable for use at home I'm not going to read your not going to read it so it's for you and for whoever you feel safe sharing it with it's a very very clarifying remember we're looking back at the artist in history right? We looked andy warhol's pain as a sickly and socially awkward child who's you know he's kind of a little bit embarrassed about his parents and his ethnicity and so he felt kind of goofy and kind of awkward right? But those celebrities stood in stark contrast to him but you know I'm sure he didn't do my homework assignments because I hadn't met him yet but he would have had me but I want to just understand there is a really important purpose in doing that exercise jenny who you met earlier jenny mcgee you know if she hadn't been willing to dive deeply into her pain and you know so anyway so be open not only in that exercise but be open with this um fernand what's one of the threats that you perceive you you have look a threat in your mention what what what what could threaten your you build continuing to build your enterprise probably not being consistent not following through time okay here are getting discouraged because something because an outcome is not happening right away yeah that's not what you think it is you should I mean, it didn't happen fast enough for me I know what I want to be down now now and colleen who will be meeting later on you know, she she actually if you she's actually just don't you know in this book that you all get for with enrollment I've included some artists who have worked within the ten lessons they have learned and one of things that colleen says um it's just keep planting seeds you know you can't like peel them open and make them grow he don't know when they're going to go like peeling open arose to insist that it will blossom it's going it's going it's going to be very dependent on a number of conditions somewhat you have control over and some that you just have to let go but if you keep planting seeds likely that you'll have a beautiful garden at the end of it as long as you tend to that garden like following up right following up on that phone call or that email okay, so opportunity tara what opportunity do you feel you have uh the one opportunity I know you have a bunch, but what's one I really targeted market really very specific we do now, right? Yeah, how about before it was a lot more difficult to assess that right and therefore reached them right yeah okay so that's an opportunity that you have um who wants to volunteer ah weakness okay he went right out how about you what's a weakness so I would say I have like I feel like a very private person so I have like an allergy to bee I got off facebook so like asking people to come to my art show I just I didn't I just didn't like doing it then no one would come you were right and I know what were you afraid that no one would come is that why you well think about it I think I would see people self promoting and I would be like feel like that wasn't me like I didn't want to do that and I didn't feel like I wanted to have to do that um but you just wanted all the fame and success to show up I don't want to have to ask for it like oh please come and enjoy even though because that's essentially saying that um not saying that your work has a benefit to others I think that's what the being afraid to say that to somebody like so being afraid to stand up like in boldly and confidently explain what your value proposition is right right that's scary so that is scary that scary for a lot of we don't want to be rejected right right I mean I think you're very articulate you worked with an amazing group of creative people here I doubt that you really can't do it but I understand that feeling a bit of a lack of confidence and maybe I'm guessing don't put words in your mouth I would say it confidence in doing the sale sale in the sales aspect okay do you see how when we looked at what jenny is is all about and a little bit we heard a little bit from grammy dan you know can you see where they are going boldly with confidence now does it could you relate to that oh yeah does that excite you? Okay all right so I'm just curious um who else wants to volunteer here who else opportunity because what you know what you guys what you guys are feeling and what you guys are experiencing there's someone on the globe who's tuning in from who knows where who's probably experiencing the same thing so please help them out yes I'm fear of yet another disappointment okay so fear fear is what I think it's a weakness and a threat okay probably yeah so how do you overcome fear? Well I just keep working you do it right pushed to the side right um one of the rules in my book the last rule in my book is meditate daily I have a rule one hundred and wine is meditate daily because then you can actually tune into this self sabotaging thoughts that may be undermining not just your success in business is an artist but your personal happiness and you could start to make a choice and steer in the right direction. Some of my artist clients pray do you call it whatever you want to call it but it's really about quiet, meditative time tuning into the inner dialogue because if what we've heard so far it's mostly what where's it coming from the threats of the weaknesses between the two year right right I haven't heard the word competition come up I haven't heard the week weakness being I just do not paint I understand color theory it all my reds don't look so good I haven't heard that right? So do you get a sense of how you can fill this out on your own and really get a um you know, taken honest assessment and honest inventory that makes sense different for everybody so it's no sense and you know you didn't do this on your own you can do this, you know during this course so you can do it later but it's important to understand that this kind of continuous self assessment will help you keep your compass pointed north um one of the things about making money plan also known as a business plan is that it is not a road map it's a compass it starts with a certain it starts with a mission at the very top and really remember how I said I had a I had a blue ocean strategy that served the wine industry and wine enthusiasts when I started and then when I check well, my values were it wasn't really one hundred percent alignment and so I changed my value proposition and it actually worked out better I was very upset and dramatic and mad for a while and felt sorry for myself I got stiffed by two major wineries and you know who you are you stiffed me it's coming back but actually with a gift because by that despite suffering that disappointment and suffering those financial losses, I had to reinvent myself so again it's where failure can inform success in the long run if you keep walking down the yellow brick road all right? So doesn't have a pretty good handle on what this kind of assessment, how it works and what it could do for you okay, so let's move on to another topic. All right? I'm gonna show you this plan, but I'm going to show it to you not in one page I think that a business plan in order to be very useful, useful or I should say in order for a business plan to actually be used, it shouldn't be more than one page not for our enterprises okay, we're not stop procter and gamble here right citing creative life is just one page and we'll do it and don't use micro type that only ants can read write make it legible what I'm going to dio the thie the one page plan itself is here in the action plan on page thirty nine but in this next bit what I'd like to do is just go down each element of the one page business plan and some of them will already read rink familiar to you and we're going to just take a look at take a deeper dive and it's again it's the making money plan it's really not a business plan because why does a business exist to make money great so if you're if you're not aiming to make money as an artist and I mean artists in the broad sense of the term if you don't have a clear goal to make money, then what is it then? If it's not a business, what is it it's a hobby? No shame in having a hobby that's completely there is nothing dishonorable in having a hobby, you know it's not better or less itjust is right, so obviously you've come to the department where we're making it a business and so that's what we're talking about but please you know it's a conscious choice to be in business or not and your heart's no more worthy or significant if you're making it a business it is what if it gives you fulfillment and circle of your friend's fulfillment than that's beautiful thing yes so I've always thought about that too like it so if it's not a business if the hobby but there's got to be some other if it's not making money um and if you're not out to set out to make money but you're still making it our peace well what is it for you sounds like this is your question it's not for me personally but I'm that's just what I've been hearing so uh I'm not quite sure I understand what well let's say for instance you have an art piece that is not for sale um then but it's not your hobby in terms if it's not making money it's not a hobby I'm not sure I follow you I mean I have a painting that's not for sale it was the first painting I did when I didn't paint for over seven years that painting is not for sale is that what you mean? Right? Like if it's either a business or a hobby it's not either or well unless you can identify the third version I don't I don't know what it is do you have a third version? I don't I just feel like there might be some gray area where like for instance in our piece that I had I purposely sold things but I made that part of the art piece so in general my solutions I wouldn't sell any of the items on it all right somehow had to do with the entire art piece we'll go back to your intention you know is you're into I guess it it falls on you what is your intention is your intention to make money or not there's no good or bad in that decision but I think that when artists try to hang in the middle of being in a hobby and being in a business that's where I see them suffering the most does anyone relate to that decision pick elaine really just pick a lane and I think it's so you'll have peace of mind more than anything right I think the reason to make money is to continue to be able to make it the art pieces it could be that's your wreath in jenny's reason is she wants to help support her family vernon's reason is I gotta pay the rent my reason is because I gotta pay the rent everyone's got their own personal financial motivations is that right or wrong how could they be right or wrong it is what it iss if you're not on fire to make money there's nothing wrong with that like I said there's no shame and having art is a hobby and there's no shame and keeping a day job but just don't when you confuse the two that's where you run into trouble I think I think the thing is like if you call it a hobby it somehow so that you're less of a serious person to do it so that's on lee I think that's a matter of perception I mean if I had another word I'd use it but I don't have another one do you guys have another one? I think it's the same thing is selling out what does that mean? Hobby I mean you you make it what it means and hobby for me hobby is not it's having a great hobby is awesome doesn't make it any less then he being an artist I mean I have lots of things that I do is a hobby and I do them really really well, you know, like professionally, but I don't necessarily I'm not making money off of it I'm not doing it is a hobby just because you're to make not making money it's not a it's not anyway dishonor so this was to the use of our language and the meaning we attach to things like the phrase selling out like the phrase starving artist my hobby a salsa dancing alright, I'm pretty good salsa dancer I don't get paid to salsa dance someone might buy me a drink but I don't get paid to salsa dance and I consulted dance latin women have told me so I know I came latin mantle just so you know anything and I get a great amount of joy out of it. I love it. It's, fun and it's not easy if the master it I'm from ohio, I had to learn that rhythm took awhile. Okay, so let's go into the elements of the making money plan. The first thing is the mission going back to your values, going back to your purpose, why does his business even exist in jenny's case? It's? Because she wants to genuinely help people express their love for one another in grammy dan's case, he really wants artists to actually connect with their mission musically and have that fully expressed in the recording studio. And he really takes a deliberate approach to that that he writes about in his book, cheryl is, you know, she recognized that importance of relationships in a really meaningful way. It isn't it beautiful, like threw her gift giving kind of gone on. And so now other people can are really on the same mission that cheryl is celebrating relationship, celebrating friendships so that's, that's, the that's, the mission that cheryl came to, and I just think they're beautiful, inspiring and you can really create, you know, if you have any if you've a tainted definition of business and money that's another issue that you have to go to a life coach or some other like I can't help you with that you have to come to this with a certain amount of openness that that money is just a tool or congealed energy is really what it is very precisely congealed energy it can be used for good and it could be used for harm it's up to you but if you've been viewed it with negativity have you been beauty with greed? You need to take care of that or you're going to fail in business I promised you yes questions that maybe we could ask ourselves to better define our mission or to discover why we create the art that we create and why we are in business yes actually their homework assignment that's out going to be very much in helping you to find your values and therefore potentially your mission and then from the mission then we can take a look at with what are the possible unique value proposition so yeah, definitely. So make sure you do your homework tonight whether you're here in the studio or you're watching online it's a really it's a really very powerful exercise get your kleenex out, get ready, get ready to feel all right and then vision what are you building right so what are you building? Are you building a retail store that sells jewelry you building what do you building cheryl just give your best shot at it I'm no I'm putting you on the spot well but that's the I don't have really a a short answer for what I'm building that's okay, but what I'm finding especially in this last six months period for me that it's that is morphing into many different areas of enterprise that I had never considered before can you name a couple of those? Yes actually have been asked design a line of jewelry for amazing nonprofit in oakland called charlotte maxwell complimentary clinic and what I've agreed to do is to sell it for they will get fifty percent of the proceeds so they're like wholesale account yes yeah so no different for the wholesale account so you're sounds like you're form your relationship probably with a target market that would resonate with your unique value proposition very smart local artist love that so all right, so that's actually s so when we say well, let me give you an example so let's go back to my mission here why I'm here a creative life I really am on a personal mission to eliminate the starving artist mythology the whole I gotta suffer I gotta strain it's dirty to make money I am blowing that away because it's what stifled me for over seven years and it made me very sad, and it made me really not live my purpose, and I've seen this with other artists and what I've also seen as a big fat lie, and I want to wipe away that lie so that's my mission as it relates to why I'm here now what I'm what am I building? I'm building hopefully for you in the audience and you at home? I'm providing you with basic business savvy, basic foundational business education as in a way, that's relatable to you as an artist. And then my larger vision of what I'm building is a art agnostic supportive community art critic stay home that's not where? That's what we're going to dio that we really start to learn how to network and build one another up like so many business communities dio naturally. So I just wanted to really those because you can connect the dots, tow the mission and the vision, all right and again, this is just like the making money plan is just like it's, an eternity of process, just like making art, right? You have to do it a few times to screw up a few times and you just keep going back to it. Questions about the the slides and the fifty steps book number nineteen for example is that one of the fifty steps that you're talking about if they have the book in the nineteen is in page thirty eight of the thirty eight that's where we are and you are number nineteen nineteen of the fifty steps is that how you yeah it's nineteen of the fifty steps yes thanks for clarifying that yeah yeah um okay then we go to unique value proposition I think we've got a pretty good sense of the different unique value propositions there all there entirely unique right there all offer value they're all in other words they're all of service to someone somehow write a target market um the pain solved problem alleviated right I think we're getting a sense about with jenny it's a real problem in our for many people to express their love in a way that's a meaningful and memorable and I mean one of it one of the people she talked about was a gentleman who loves his wife but he's very shut down emotionally and a really hard time telling her and so he commissioned jenny and I mean he's a really like button up business guy and jenny started to interview him to draw out his love list and he too started crying jenny started crying they showed the painting and wife started crying actually she cried less than those two so that's a big pain that's alleviated vernon helps people open up their throat chakra what does that mean? He you know you quote your your tag line which is an african proverb if you have a voice you khun saying how many people walk around saying I can't saying I can't say I can't think right well dr burdon anyone khun saying as long as you can speak, you could sing it's so true so the pain that you are alleviating is tremendous and when you I know when teacher s alone and you've got people having complete emotional breakthroughs, they think they're going for saying lesson wrong much more than that. Okay, then if we go to the other element of the making money plan it's okay the tart who which what target market is served right? So my target market is not vernon's target market they're very different. They look different, they act different, they re different publications, they were different clothes. They even manicure their nails differently. I always look for that. I can I can spot him from miles away now who my collectors are. Um so what? This is really important to get your whatever you offer it's. Not for everyone, it's not if you think it is you haven't done enough homework about your unique value proposition in your mission it's not for everyone it's not going to be for every person who's been adopted is going to resonate with your value proposition it's a nice first cut but it's not gonna be everybody right that's important to recognize and appreciate that that's a good thing it's not a bad thing objectives okay, so what objectives will you meet? Are you going to sell x number of dollars x number of pieces of of necklaces this year is your objective to increase your social media following with certain metrics, right? What are those specific objectives that you want to accomplish this year? Write them down and you will increase the chances of actually manifesting it many fold there's lots of science that studies behind that, but I can't you know I'm not gonna even need to cite you know that if you write it down and your specific and you're clear, chances are you're going to eat that objective if you just walk around with it in your head, you're going to forget about it and you may or may not chances go down if you're not clear on what your objectives are the other part of this the final part? Well especially the second final part of strategies and tactics so strategies and tactics so for example, maybe a strategy is to build your email list because you have an e commerce site right? So email addresses opted in email addresses are very valuable to you and you've made it an objective to have I don't know five thousand by the end of the year okay, one strategy would be teo obviously get more people to opt in right like that's a strategy actually so one one, some tactics you could employ right? People give away free things or when you have a trunk show, for example, let's say for example, I'm gonna give you a tactic to increase your and I'm making this all up, okay, so you let's say you have a trunk show and you have an email sign up list or you have your ipad or something like that for them to type in their email address, address and opt in to your list and you make a game of it, you know? So they get a get a piece of chocolate if they do it, but that's the only way they're going to get it, I'm going to make it fun, right? And that idea resonates with you, then you can use it if it doesn't that's fine, she could see you could think of lots of ways to execute on these strategies the difference between strategies and tactics, strategies and overall strategy would be to increase social media engagement right by certain hopefully you've got some metrics for that and the actions of that the tactics of the actions we're gonna take to do it like you're going tobe logged once a week, right? We're going to start doing video blog's and making all of this up right now but you get the difference between what the strategy is and what a tactic is this is often very confused that's how you think through it all right and then last but not least I love this part okay, so I remember actually one of my collectors was very supportive collector when I was working full time and she was an architect her fat whole family were her father was a very well known landscape architect there was an interior designer and her family and she she collected my work and she bought a lot of paintings and one day she took out a cocktail napkin and she said and if you just sell okay your average cost of your painting is this amount of dollars let's say it was like a thousand dollars in making that up and if you did let's see let's just do the math if he sold an average of, you know six then you know that six thousand dollars in sales less your expenses of course right so it's really simple math but we do have to know are two things about expenses. There are the business expenses which how much it costs for my supplies she also are going to have to cover your monthly nut, right, your rent and your groceries and your shoes, or whatever it is, which means you may be working a day job for a while. No shame in that it's. Certainly more. You know, it's, actually it's. Easier, because you have a plan. You have an exit strategy. When you create a plan to make money, that is, if you want to make money with your art, right, we've covered the assumption that you all do, and that's why you're here, okay.