Are you afraid of the “B” and “M” words?

Many cre­ative peo­ple have been nur­tured to look down on the “B” word and espe­cially hold their nose at the men­tion of the “M” word. After all we are above such mun­dane worldly things as com­merce! That may have been true in good times but it is becom­ing harder and harder as times and val­ues change.

If your work, your art is the most impor­tant thing in the world to you, some­thing you could not imag­ine NOT doing. Then your abil­ity to con­tinue doing what you love and shar­ing that love with the world is not only depen­dent but also crit­i­cal to your accep­tance, under­stand­ing and embrac­ing both the “B” and the “M” words.

So what are these words?  The first “B” is busi­ness, the sec­ond “B” is brand and the “M” is mar­ket­ing. So whether you like it or not if you want to con­tinue doing the work you love and being sup­ported by it is impor­tant to start look­ing at your self not only as an artist but more impor­tantly as an artist whose busi­ness is mak­ing and shar­ing your art with the world.

The sec­ond of “Bs” is Brand, no it is not mean Madi­son Avenue, instead your brand rep­re­sents YOU, your val­ues, how you want the world to see you. In art terms your artis­tic style is the crit­i­cal part of your brand. Just as your style and choice of medium reflects your view of the world  so also does your brand.

The next word, the “M” word is mar­ket­ing and once again we are prone to con­jure up images of TV adds that luck­ily we can now Tivo past. How­ever, just as your brand rep­re­sents you and your val­ues, mar­ket­ing rep­re­sents the ways in which you can com­mu­ni­cate those val­ues to those peo­ple who are likely to “get” you. Mar­ket­ing is a tool box for con­nect­ing with the world. It is full of tools you can use to find out who really wants what you have to offer, find out what they like or dis­like and craft your mes­sage to them so that it can be heard over the ever increas­ing din grab­bing at each and everyone’s attention.

Stay tuned for more on these issues and for some spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn more.