Creativity has been cited by the World Economic Forum the third most valuable future job skill for 2020.
There are more opportunities than ever before for creative thinkers to capitalise on their passion, craft and unique perspective – but unless you can view your inherent creativity from a business perspective, you will miss out.
Creative job seekers need to look beyond and beneath the mere trading of artefacts in order to create value for clients and succeed in business. This will require a shift in perspective. It will take courage and perseverance, and these are the steps that need to be taken.
The mindshift
Creative professionals have in the past built their career on honing their craft and its execution to create a product to trade – tangible artefacts and closed experiences that customers were willing to pay for. These included sculptures, albums, designs, campaigns, scripts, books and reproducible live performances.
In this era, the creative professionals who will succeed are those who can see their value beyond the artefacts they know how to execute. They are the ones who can create value for business clients by applying the way they think into innovating and adapting the client’s products and services – similar to the way of the polymaths who drove the renaissance. Da Vinci applied his genius across all aspects of Florentine society including medicine, biology, military defence, aeronautical engineering, psychology and philosophy.
Meaningful connections
Art connects people all over the world and can resonate with audiences in a deep, meaningful way – a sharing of experience. This is the holy grail of marketing, which aims to achieve both depth of experience and breadth of reach. The ability to do this is valued by clients.
Brands today seek to build communities, not just customer networks. This entails deep, meaningful connections. For example, Red Bull gave us the experience of watching a man fall from space, and continues to host community events for adrenaline junkies. Adobe offers the annual three-day Max creative conference, and Commonwealth Bank hosts an annual two-day thought leadership event that spans everything from neuroscience to quantum physics to poetry – all examples of artists and the business community sharing their wisdom and collaborating in the commerce of connection.
Learn the language
To be able to negotiate their true value, creative professionals need to use terms that business clients can understand. Creativity is a subject matter that appears intangible and vague to the business community. Articulating how your creativity will help solve a client’s problem or help them realise an opportunity is the first step. The next step is to value that service in measurable terms.
Creative professionals must practise asking clients the value to them of solving a problem or realising an opportunity, and price their work based on that return on investment to the client. The hourly rate is dead.
Trust essential
Finally, many creative professionals shoot themselves in the foot by seeking and reinforcing a separation between themselves and their clients, sponsors and benefactors. These creatives regard the commercial art sector as a kind of malicious casino where the house always wins, leading to resentment and a false sense of entitlement.
If creative professionals don’t trust the corporate sector and continually define themselves as its antithesis, it is unlikely any kind of mutually beneficial relationship will result. Trust has to be given before it can be received.
Matt Jackson, founder, affectors.com and author, “The Age of Affect” (Richmond Publishing)
This article first appeared in issue 13 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
