While the artists featured in the 2010 Old Town Art Fair are chosen by an independent jury of professional artists, gallery owners and museum curators, who looks at their professionalism and how they interact with the public?  I think the answer is no one because it’s art right? It should sell itself, right?  I can also tell you there were far too many booths that offered no artist statement, or ONLY offered a hand written statement on a scrap of paper that was pinned to their booth… I kid you not.  Even worse many had no story about them or their artwork woven into their display. There was no “Why” to latch on to… And the really sick part was that the majority of the art at the fair was indeed pretty good. But yet, no one was inside these faceless art filled booths could tell their potential customers a compelling story about why they do what they do. NO wonder everyone walked right by them and instead mobbed those that could.

Out of the roughly 20 artists Chuck and I were seriously interest in, less than 1/2 of them had functioning websites. The common excuse was it was being updated or had only been down for a short period of time for some reason or another. In fact, one artist proudly told me she had been featured in “the” ceramic magazine and had 6 galleries representing her and did not need a website because all anyone ever did was go and look at “the pretty pictures”. This particular artist even won a prize at this years fair which was juried for the first time.  Her work indeed was good but clearly she does not care to be connected to her audience or know who they really are- I found this, and her attitude, totally scary. I know another visual artists just like her who has had a great deal of success selling the same way- until the bottom fell out on the economy and now she has no idea who her clients are because she directly sells to so few of them…And what about trusting your brand to a gallery? While they may represent your work do you really want to leave your image and “brand” up to them? Yikes.  How do you build Why? with no direct connection to your tribe?  No wonder there are SO MANY STARVING ARTISTS!!

But what is THE MOST troubling about this experience today is this is a well established, higher end fair. Most of the art is at least a couple of hundred dollars and a significant portion of it falls in the $2000 to $8000 range.  It costs $500 to $575 for a 10X12 and is considered 37th out of 200 best art fairs around the country.

Our newest addition: JOY

But, my husband and I went to enjoy our day and indeed we did. My 46th birthday was yesterday and in celebration we bought “Joy” from clay sculpture artist Steven Olszewski from Pinckney, MI. (734.878.6439  clayart@cac.net)  When I entered Steve’s booth his sculptures really spoke to me through their serenity. Steve was, coincidentally, indeed, one of the two artists who also was quick to speak to me and also quick to tell me he needed to sell some of his work and if I liked it he would make me a deal. He was sincere and not pushy in the least. Of course I took him up on his offer for a discount, but truthfully if he had not offered first, I would have paid full price.

Steve’s booth did not tell me Why? at all. His sculptures did with their serenity, peace and joy written all over their faces and poses, but there was no story in his booth had I needed more encouragement to connect to his work. Steve does not have a website and also readily admitted he needed help with his marketing and connectivity to his market. He even said he wanted to come to Boost Camp, which of course made me feel a little more Joy.

This peace filled man is another one of Steve's sculptures. Chuck and I really liked him but he, and a slightly smaller one like him, were both out of our price range. I did however help Steve sell the smaller one to another couple while I was in Steve's booth.

Ironically, when I first saw Joy I said to him, ” Her name must be Joy because she looks full of it..”  and ironically and magically it turns out indeed it is her name.

A BUDGET IS A PLAN.
A budget is only a plan for how the venture is going to spend the money it raises and earns. So, in the simplest terms, the budget plan is a list of all the sources of revenue and a list of all of the anticipated expenses. The accounting that happens afterward is an opportunity to assess how well the plan worked in achieving the goals of the venture or project.

REVENUE SHOULD EXCEED EXPENSES.
My quick lesson on financial management is equally simple: the total revenues must meet or exceed the total expenses. THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

It will probably come as no surprise to hear that sometimes student arts entrepreneurs don’t include everything they should on their planning budgets. What is surprising is that the most common mistake on the revenue side is the exclusion of earned income from the budget. That’s right, they don’t realize they can count the money they will generate from ticket sales or DVD sales, or tuition to the community arts workshop they’re starting in their budget. These students are smart and have big ideas, but they’re not yet fully thinking entrepreneurially. My guess is that leaving earned income off the budget plan is a problem of mindset. These students don’t expect to make a profit right off the blocks (if at all) so why include earned income. Because……

REVENUE AND PROFIT ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
Revenue is all the money that comes into the project. Profit (or deficit) is the difference between the revenue and the expenses. Most of our student arts entrepreneurs aren’t out to make a profit out of the box, but it is our hope – and theirs – that they’ll make the money needed to sustain their venture.

BUDGET PLANNING DOES NOT REQUIRE HIGHER LEVEL MATH
Some arts entrepreneurs are intimidated by the math needed to create a budget. There really isn’t anything more than basic arithmetic needed – primarily addition and subtraction. Multiplication may be needed if sales projections are part of the plan, but that only involves multiplying the unit price (e.g. ticket price) by the number of units projected to be sold.

RESEARCH REQUIRED
Sometimes, student arts entrepreneurs leave key items out of their budget or grossly underestimate the cost of something important — like marketing materials. It just takes a small amount of research to find out what it would cost to print and mail a thousand flyers, buy a domain name, or the like.

With a little research, some basic arithmetic, and the necessary foresight, putting together a budget can be pretty simple – especially when we’re only talking about four figure numbers. Multiple funding streams will make things more complicated, but by the time there are multiple funding sources to keep track of, the venture may want to consider a professional business manager or accountant. Think ahead, face your fears, and get started!

It’s almost summer- and you know what that means?  Summer art fair season is almost here!  I have spent the last few hours on this rainy Saturday morning wading through 8 pages of possible art festivals PR Chicago helped us identify as shows The IAE might consider attending. From high end to the smallest ones,  I am an active attendee of summer art festivals but work them? Now, that is a whole other matter. That is going to take another cup of coffee to decide how much of my summer fun will include working” the booth”. The joys of launching a business!

Anyway, as I flipped through yesterdays email I had yet to read, coincidentally I discovered an innovative twist to the summer festival waiting for me- SeaFair.  Seems like the universe is telling me this is the subject matter I am going to be forced to ponder today.

So what is SeaFair you ask?  It’s a specially built $30 million art exhibition- a floating “megayacht” art fair. Like the gambling boats in the river, SeaFair stays tied to the dock and serves food and drinks while patrons shop for art.  Each deck is loaded with art exhibition booths- but before you get too excited. Take a seat. SeaFair is probably not for the start up art business. $10K will just barely get you through the door with a 200 square foot booth.  Of course if you book it 180 days in advance you can get a 25% discount- which certainly helps.

SeaFair’s packaging is brilliant. It’s the paradigm shift here, really, that is sparkling bright in the water.  But don’t be too bedazzled by their $30 million “megayacht”.  Their business idea is transformed THROUGH the glitter of the word “megayacht”. Octopus, a megayacht owned by Paul Allen, the co-Founder of Microsoft, cost $200 million.  What $30 million for a yacht buys them is just enough of the glitter they need  to execute the idea. It always comes down to how to cost effectively execute the idea. Always.

Their idea hinges on the fact that if your wealthy (or wish you were) and want to spend a day going to an art fair, wouldn’t it be a better experience to be on a yacht?  And the art community, of course, wants to hang with the rich and famous too- or at least be in the same room with their credit cards. SeaFair offers artists a sophisticated atmosphere to meet potential clients. Although they claim that artists will meet “thousands of pre-qualified attendees and potential collectors each week” seems a bit of a stretch for a boat this size, for a few days of exhibition. Of course their docking locations are good to draw the audience they seek. SeaFair will dock in Newport RI from Sept 2-5 and then in Miami Beach from Dec 9-12.

SeaFair has been developed by well known art festival creators International Fine Art Expositions (IFAE).  In 2001 IFAE owners David and Lee Ann Lester sold IFAE for 18 million to dmg world media. dmg produces 260 public shows and trade exhibitions worldwide and a diverse mix of conferences, publications, and online services. dmg has shows and publications in North American, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East, operating out of 33 offices in nine different countries. A major newspaper publisher, dmg owns the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, and numerous newspapers throughout the United Kingdom. Significant holdings in the art and antiques sector include Antique Trade Gazette (UK), Antique Week (US), the Original Miami Beach Antiques Show (US), and more than 100 regional art and antiques fairs and events in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

Despite dmg’s mega star studded influence as stake holders, IFAE founders David and Lee Ann Lester continue to be the face of IFAE. Their charge is to help dmg begin to launch international exhibitions.   “It is an important step in our long-term strategy to add international events of such outstanding caliber to the growing dmg world media art and antiques portfolio,” said Mark Carr, executive vice president of the art and antiques division. “We are especially pleased that David and Lee Ann Lester have chosen us as their business partners and that they have agreed to head our new group specializing in prestigious international fairs in future years.”

“Clearly, there is an ongoing consolidation and realignment at every level within the international art and antiques markets,” said David Lester. He further noted, “It is increasingly difficult for smaller independent firms such as IFAE to have the necessary resources to make a significant impact in today’s increasingly competitive international markets. Through this partnership with dmg world media, our fairs will now have substantial new resources available to create even more global marketing power for our clients.”

“Our art and antiques sector will continue to aggressively seek new opportunities and venues throughout the world,” noted Mark Carr. “We believe the demand for first quality art and antiques fairs exist elsewhere, and we will encourage and enable this new group to launch new shows to serve international art and antiques dealers in the coming years.”

This, of course, makes the portability of SeaFair even that much more brilliant. Clearly the real hope behind SeaFair is to help reinvigorate a number of different markets and potentially art markets all around the world. SeaFair can serve as both a portable marketing and sales vehicle, attracting new artists who will pay for the boat through exhibition fees and large scale collectors around the planet with whom they can forge new relationships for international level exhibitions. Simply brilliant.

SeaFair and IFAE founders, David and Lee Ann Lester,  had this to say about their new floating project.  “The Show provides an interactive experience for artists and artisans with current and prospective clients,” said David Lester. “Collectors can directly view contemporary art, glass and jewelry in a luxurious shipboard environment. This innovative program offers artists and artisans an upscale platform and direct channel to sell their works and meet new collectors.”

Regional gallery owners are invited aboard to meet with participating artists and view their work, making possible future gallery representation. A series of onboard lectures and seminars are included in the SeaFair experience. They also boast a sophisticated marketing and promotional strategy that they will help coordinate with key local press, museums, collectors and designers to enhance sales for each participating artist. Advertising is conducted through local and regional publications and broadcast outlets, as well as direct mail to demographically pre-qualified attendees. Commercials will air on such outlets as CNN, CNBC and FOX Business News, and color advertising inserts would be placed in Manhattan and regional editions of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

So, if your art career is in the perfect spot to leverage this opportunity and you can afford to, contact: Heidi Marie Grassley at hgrassley@ifae.com or call 239-949-5411 ext.103. You can also download the application here.

Every good business idea must go through a two step process to become a successful business

• First, you have to identify something people want that you uniquely can deliver.
• Secondly, you have to figure out how to make money giving it to those who want it.

Take Google for example- early on google did a fantastic job building a product people wanted. Google was equally able to get users, see massive user adoption and gain traction. They had only one problem- it took them literally YEARS to figure out how to make money doing it.

How many times have you experienced something you have created being interesting and desired in the market place but yet few, if any, are willing to pay (enough)  for it? Can you afford to fund your start-up for years, like google, without turning a profit until you can figure out how it will generate the right amount of income for you? It’s ok- don’t worry about it.  Not too many of us creative types– including this postmortem restaurantier– can.

You will have no need to forgive yourself if you learn how to iterate your idea INTO the perfect business for you.

On my way home from a meeting today I  found this empty restaurant on Randolph Street with the words Forgive Yourself scrawled on the awning. Did this chef/creative entrepreneur BEFORE they committed to an expensive location, and the possibility of both financial and emotional ruin, inexpensively and strategically test and iterate their concept until they were certain it would work as they envisioned?

You will never have to be in the position of having to “forgive yourself” if you have the proper training and entrepreneurial support systems around you to build the know-how to test, iterate and ultimately launch a creative enterprise.  There is a reason why it takes 2 years to go through The IAE. It’s because we know what it takes to help you to help yourself succeed…

Our fortune cookies and No More Starving Artist Button Board were a big hit at the Chicago Creative Expo.

On Saturday April 10th, at the 7th Chicago Creative Expo held at The Cultural Center in Chicago, The IAE was in full blooming form.

Our imagination training ensemble, The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble, performed What’s Your Imagination Worth? to a just about full house in the Claudia Cassidy theater.

During the day, Bite-Size Arts Ensemble members Shawn Bowers, Lance Hall, Dharmesh Bhagat and a helper from our PR firm, PR Chicago maned the IAE booth, fielded questions and  handed out applications for our workshops and 2 year program. We had so many different kinds of artists stop by, and every imaginable question asked about our workshops and programs, that not only were these guys talking all day but they gave almost ever brochure, button, and application we brought with us away!

Meanwhile, I spent the day in the Consult-A-Thon helping artists work through various issues with their existing business or start-up ideas.

Bite-Size Arts Ensemble member Dharmesh Bhagat signs up a potential student to our mailing list.

Shawn Bowers fields a question about The IAE curriculum

Bite-Size Director Lance Hall answers questions about our 12 week imagination training workshop that begins June 7th.

Here are some quotes from emails I received already today from some of the artists I met at the Consult-A-Thon!

“Thank you for giving me such a positive experience at the Consult-a-Thon.”

“You showed me so many different angles to look at things I would have never thought of (or it would take me a very long time).”
“I’m still decompressing from this weekend but will  regroup and take action!”

Is Your Imagination Worth Investing Into? The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble gave away over 300 fortune cookies with our special message inside.

“Just wanted to tell you thanks for the wonderful meeting on Saturday at the Expo. You may have changed my life!”

“You gave me so much to think about. I have been in a buzz with friends ever since.”

I have already signed up for the boost camp online..”

So what about you? While the Chicago Creative Expo 2010 may be officially over, the energy, enthusiasm and support for The IAE it created has just begun and we are calling YOU to action too!

Do you know what your imagination is worth? Is it worth investing into by becoming a Bite-Size Arts Ensemble member and creating your own show to build your communication skills and test your business ideas in our 12 week workshop beginning Monday June 7th?

Or what about shaping or re-shaping your business idea to create a better plan of action to move your career and ideas forward with our 2 week Boost Camp that starts Monday July 26th?

Or what about joining us and learning how to live life on your own terms  ONCE AND FOR ALL by attending The IAE’s 2 year weekend program that begins January 5th, 2011?

Early Bird registration discount of 20% for The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble Workshop or Boost Camp if you apply by May 15th. Discount code is: ICanFlourish

And for all you local artists- this Saturday is the big event! The Chicago Creative Expo runs all day! The Bite-Size Arts Ensemble is performing at 1:30 in the Claudia Cassidy Theater.  I am also offering free one on one consultations.  The consult-a-thon will be on the 5th floor on the Washington side of the Cultural Center, 78 E. Randolph. To schedule an appointment click here. I am also willing to set up additional times after the expo for any of you who are unable to schedule a time with me there. Email me at lisa@theIAE.com if you are interested.

Here is the complete list of all of the FREE workshops being offered at the expo and where they will be held! Hope to See you this Saturday at the EXPO!

Peter Singer is famous for posing a stunningly difficult question, paraphrased as, “If you are walking by a pond and you see a child drowning, do you save her? What if it means ruining a very fancy pair of Italian shoes?” Okay, if we assume the answer is yes, then why not spend the cost of those shoes to save 20 kids who are starving to death across town or the world? There’s really no difference. Or by, extension, invest in research or development that solves a problem forever… The issues are proximity and attention.

My take is that most people would instantly save the kid, but given the choice, probably wouldn’t take the road by the pond again any time soon. We like to avoid these situations, because these situations make us uncomfortable.

Avert your eyes.

The reporter tells you, I’m going to show you a video of the meat you’re going to eat for dinner being slaughtered. Avert your eyes. Or the fundraiser says I’m going to tell you about easily avoidable suffering in the developing world. Avert your eyes…

It boils down to a simple question, “how much is enough?” She knows that one iPod is all she needs, but she wonders how much philanthropy is enough?  And this is a key marketing question for anyone seeking donors.

Do I have to use up all my Italian shoes? How much is my share? …and at some point, will we end up avoiding Singer’s question altogether?

If you don’t give anything to good causes, then you define enough as zero and you have no worries about achieving ‘enough’. A sad but effective strategy.

If you give money to emergencies, friends with the guts to ask and the occasional feel good moment, you’ve also defined ‘enough’ in an easily achievable way. Your gift is a reaction to inputs.

What about people who make substantial, anonymous donations to long-term causes? How do they know what’s enough? How do they decide that now it’s okay to go out for a fancy dinner and not send the money to the worthy cause instead? If the solution isn’t clear, if it’s limitless, how do they avoid the temptation of avoiding the problem by doing nothing?

Marketers at good causes have a real challenge as they try to raise money from people who aren’t billionaires. As they approach people with $10,000 or $100,000 in the bank, this fear of not seeing a limit is very real, and if it’s not confronted, they will fail at both raising the money and generating satisfaction for the donor.

The Mormon Church says, “tithe”. Loosely paraphrased, they say, “10% is a lot, and 10% is enough.” This is actually very smart, because they’ve created a difficult but achievable standard, a way to be a member of good standing in their tribe.

When my dad ran the local United Way drive as a volunteer, he pushed for one percent. “One percent isn’t a lot, but it’s enough.”

What’s enough? I don’t think good cause marketers need to worry so much about which number or figure they choose, but I think they need to dream hard about whether giving people comfort with a ceiling will bring in a new class of significant donors. Too many people still avert their eyes.

PS this same thinking works for marketers trying to persuade people to join a gym, learn an instrument or go on a diet… if people can’t figure out what ‘enough’ is, where the end lies, they may decide it’s not worth starting. Sad but true.

A Case for The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship™

Introduction:

Founded in 2009, The Institute for Arts Entrepreneurship™ (The IAE) is a Chicago-based 501c(3) organization committed to helping artists create sustainable artistic careers through achieving self –sufficiency.  Our mission is directly tied to the belief that artists have an extraordinary amount of yet-to-be-realized value they can provide to society, especially in these economically challenging times, if they can be taught to apply their artistic capacity in new ways to allow their talents to become relevant and necessary.

The 2009 Artists and the Economic Recession Survey created by Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) demonstrates how financial difficulties can impact an artists’ ability to sustain a productive creative life:

• Artists often have to hold multiple jobs to make ends meet – 66% hold at least one job in addition to their artistic practice, while 21% hold two or more additional jobs.
• Two-thirds reported their total 2008 income was less than $40,000, including nearly one-third who earned less than $20,000.
• Artists have experienced a decrease in sales of work (48%) or a need to lower fees/rates charged for work (44%), both of which suggest the arts are experiencing the contraction in consumer spending as much as many other industries.
• More than a third of artists reporting a decrease in the monetary amount of grants (37%), the number of awards granted (36%), and the number of grant opportunities available (35%). More than a third of artists’ report that compared to 2008 they have fewer bookings scheduled (38%) and fewer opportunities to exhibit/perform/present their work (35%). About three in 10 say there are fewer services available by nonprofits (31%) and fewer teaching (30%) and artist residency (27%) opportunities.

And yet these financial challenges pose more than the obvious problems they reflect in an artists’ ability to create their art or deliver quality cultural experiences to their audience. It is the belief of The IAE that the economic stability of artists, or lack thereof, has not only significantly contributed to the erosion of the demand for cultural and artistic expression in general but, in today’s economic environment, has put at risk the very need for it to exist entirely.

With roughly 100,000 fine arts majors graduating each year from institutional arts programs around the country, and no decline insight of prospective students who want to study art, the fact that only 2.1 million tax payers in the US report that they earn a living as artists demonstrates the attrition rate after graduation is quite high.

While the romantic stereotype of the “starving artist” to a young artist/student initially often serves to only further fuel their artistic imagination and desire of what life can be like living a bohemian lifestyle, comments from family, friends, employers, colleagues, and distant admirers as to their career prospects as an artist, once he/she graduates, creates both external and internal pressure to embrace a profession that assures stability. After all, even the bohemian lifestyle of an artist gets old when you can’t afford your car payment, let alone buy a house and raise a family—which an annual income, at best, of $40,000 a year income does not provide.

The IAE believes that the rate of attrition of post-graduates has contributed to the decline of the creative sector. The value of the full-time work these artists could have been doing has never been realized inside the communities they would have served. And the communities in which these artists began to work experienced, on some level, these artists inability to survive — reinforcing the lack of relevant value the arts must hold, despite their patron’s attraction to them.  Thus the notion of the starving artist syndrome continues. And as we know, perceptions create reality. And as such, over the course of a 40-year career span, the impact those artists could have made, we believe, has had a slow, steady and now significant and measurable impact on society’s view of the need and relevance for consuming cultural experiences in daily life today.

Henry Fogel in a speech he gave to the National Association of Schools of Music in November 2009 said this: “Any careful examination of newspapers across America over a fifty-year span, will demonstrate dramatically the shrinking of arts coverage. Fifty years ago, every small town newspaper had an arts critic, sometimes more than one.  Now, many smaller communities have let that lapse completely, and even many large cities have offered buyouts to retire their art critic, and chosen not to re-fill the position. Look at Public Television if you want further proof of the decreasing importance of the arts in America. Public Television was started precisely to broadcast programming that would have too small an appeal for commercial TV. (Never mind that in my youth, classical music was seen regularly on commercial TV – the Ed Sullivan Show, Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s concerts, the Voice of Firestone, the Bell Telephone Hour, and live operas on NBC). Now, PBS considers Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, or André Rieu to be “highbrow” programming. The number of symphony concerts, quality jazz, dance, and even staged operas, available in this country on television has been declining at an alarming rate.”

Specifically, as a result of the absence of proper training to ensure more artists who graduate from art school can fill needs in their communities and financially afford to remain in the creative sector, we believe society has been left with little choice but to be unable to perceive the impact, value and relevance of the arts in their daily lives as a whole.

According to a 2003 major study, Investing in Creativity, completed by The Urban Institute and financially supported by over 38 foundations, only 27% of adults think artists contribute “a lot” to the general good of society, far fewer than recognize the social contributions of teachers (82%), doctors (76%), scientists (66%), construction workers (63%), and clergy (52%). The public perceives the contributions of artists in much the same way it perceives those of elected officials (26% say they contribute a lot to the general good), and just slightly better than it perceives the contributions of athletes (18% think they contribute a lot).

And yet, as noted by John Cimino, Creative Leaps International, scholar Thomas Homer Dixon says the space between problems that arise and our ability to solve them- the “ingenuity gap”- is growing today at an alarming rate in business, scientific research, education, the environment and world affairs. And innovative thought leaders like Ken Robinson, Daniel Pink and Richard Florida are helping to create a mindset that the arts, and artists, are capable of offering so much more to society. Author Ken Robinson proclaims we are “Out of our Mind” to have sidelined creativity and the arts when every layer of American society from elementary education to supply-side economics is starved for more imagination, more original thinking, and more creative intelligence”. According to business writer/entrepreneur Daniel Pink, “Artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big-picture thinkers – can now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.” Economist Richard Florida argues that artists and other members of the “creative class” are vital to regional economic development.  He suggests that they comprise the vital cultural core essential to attracting and developing workers for knowledge industries, which are increasingly important to the U.S. economy.

In these economic times, innovation is a critical tool that can grow revenue like never before and catapult our largest companies and newest start-ups to new levels of international competitiveness and profitability that we truly need to not only save, but redefine how we achieve our future economic vitality. Certainly the arts offer, with training, fertile ground to devise new ways to contribute and become vital, integral and again relevant to society.

After all, the visceral nature of the arts provides a unique barrier breaker -a unifier- regardless of race, religion, gender, age, status or income across all sectors of society and industry. No matter what the subject matter, using the arts in new interdisciplinary ways can bring people to new levels of understanding and simultaneously create new sustainable financially viable career paths for artists.

According to the Investing in Creativity study by The Urban Institute, their research suggests there is a substantial demand for artists in hybrid markets and yet few programs exist to support their development. Artists are involved in art and community development, social services, education, health, civic engagement, and youth development, among other areas through arts-based organizations such as Project Row Houses in Houston, Street Level Youth Media and Little Black Pearl in Chicago, Cornerstone Theater in Los Angeles, El Centro de la Raza in Seattle, Life Pieces to Masterpieces in Washington, D.C., Zumix and Troubador in Boston and many more examples can be found in every one of LINC’s case study sites.

Although many artists do important work primarily in the context of conventional cultural markets, LINC found scores of examples like the ones listed above.  Investing in Creativity research suggests that many artists work in all of these sectors, either at the same time or switching from one to another. Their field research in fact highlighted this pattern.  It also reveals that artists seem to benefit when there is a wide range of different sector opportunities in which they can engage.

And yet demand for what artists do is not fully conceived or well articulated, in large part because the formal validation mechanisms in both arts and non-arts contexts are relatively narrowly developed.  For example, if an artist is working at the intersection of arts and community development and making contributions in both areas, it is very likely that the full extent of those contributions will not be recognized or valued in either the cultural realm or the community development realm.  Moreover, adequate language to describe such practice and contributions currently does not exist.  The IAE seeks to bring clarity to the value of these hybrid roles to the community by focusing on the development of self-sufficient career paths for artists who will be motivated to illuminate the value of their hybrid roles to society.

Additionally, arts administrators, researchers and analysts, funders and policymakers tend to view the public, commercial, nonprofit and informal sectors as separate realms with little connection to each other.  Often artists seem to be categorized as “nonprofit” or “commercial,” as if those categories were mutually exclusive and as such funding sources are difficult to obtain and not rising in priority as demand, and need, is growing because of the cross pollination that occurs in a hybrid artistic role.

Respondents to the Investing in Creativity study emphasized the critical nature of peer-to-peer and mentoring relationships for training and professional development across the discipline spectrum and how important these relationships are to successful career transitions. Artists working at the intersection of arts and other fields, such as community development, education, health, justice, or other areas noted that the public validation and training programs needed to sustain and advance these practices is generally weak. Furthermore, many artists feel they lack the skills to market themselves to the wide range of realms where they could potentially be successful.  Our own survey, currently underway, indicates the same results. Over 83% of all respondents have said they would undertake a two year course of study to increase their skills to earn a living as a self-employed artist.  Additionally, LINC’s research revealed that many higher education and training institutions for the arts are not proactive in developing markets for artists or teaching them the business skills they need to succeed and that funding for such programs is virtually non existent.

The IAE believes that by helping artists imagine and create new innovative career paths we can play a significant role in helping both artists and the community rediscover new ways for artists to be recognized as contributing “a lot of good” though the development of self-sustaining hybrid careers that can become relevant to the communities these artists will serve. As such, through our programs at the IAE, we seek to helps artists grow their artistic imaginations about what is possible, while teaching them tangible necessary skill sets to give them the assortment of tools they need to turn their creativity into self-sufficiency.

The IAE seeks to make it possible for artists to develop a business arising from identifying gaps in the market place they can uniquely fill with a form of their creative practice. These businesses will be varied and may relate directly to a product, societal problem, service or process, a form of expertise, consultancy, or their values, beliefs or knowledge.  IAE training will provide the means for artists to understand how to create the infrastructure and environment for new creative opportunities to be realized.

Although there are increasingly quality arts entrepreneurship courses and programs in colleges and universities around the country, given the attrition rate of artists exiting the field, the need for more quality programs is self -evident. Furthermore,  The IAE knows of no other school focused exclusively on the development of self-sustaining hybrid career paths in the arts leveraging the strengths of ongoing one-on-one mentorship and experiential learning across all artistic disciplines. The most notable nationally recognized program happens to be here in Chicago, at Columbia College. Unfortunately,  the Arts, Entertainment and Media Management Program,  not for a lack of student enrollment or interest, but instead because of a change in institutional priorities, it is in the process of undergoing a major restructuring that will result in a majority of its programs being eliminated or significantly diluted.

The IAE is committed to bringing artists and their creativity into the center of economic activity.

Stephanie Sack changed prices at Vive La Femme from high-end to "cheap and chic," which "completely saved the business," she says. Photo: Erik UngerBy: Christina Le Beau November 09, 2009

Written By: Christina Le Beau  Crain’s Chicago Business, November 09, 2009

The “new normal” is forcing entrepreneurs to rethink — and in some cases completely reinvent — their businesses.
The need to diversify, dump duds from the product line, tweak pricing, get into new markets or find new uses for old technologies has become keenly relevant as shell-shocked business owners grasp the reality that they’re facing a structural — rather than cyclical — shift in the economy.
“Last year and into this year, a lot of people were more reactionary and impulsive. Now they’re thinking more strategically,” says Raman Chadha, executive director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul University. “Once everybody realized this is how it’s going to be, they had to find a way to adapt.”
Clare Hefferren found her new niche by repositioning Callosum Creative Ltd., her 4-year-old solo graphic design firm, as a corporate image consultancy.

After realizing last fall that ad agency layoffs were flooding the market with freelance competition, Ms. Hefferren, 40, hired a strategic adviser to help her determine a new revenue stream that drew on her background in fashion as well as marketing. They came up with a service called People-First Branding, which offers coaching in communication, business etiquette, appearance and other aspects of “personal branding.”

Wanting to focus on the repositioning, Ms. Hefferren stopped seeking new business in the first half of the year. “Clearly this affected our goals, numbers and my personal finances,” she says. This year, she brought in only $20,000. But the upshot is that her new personal-branding business is on track to bring in 70% of her projected revenue in 2010.

Another successful repositioning: Two years ago, retailer Stephanie Sack sensed that consumers’ discretionary spending was about to shrink considerably. So she switched Vive La Femme, her plus-size boutique in Bucktown, from high-end price points (up to $525) to a “cheap-and-chic” model with prices from $35 to $175.
REVENUE IMPROVES

Ms. Sack, 35, who opened the store in 2002, says revenue since the price change has been the best ever. This year she expects to take in $400,000, up from $360,000 last year and $240,000 in 2007. “I had a spidey sense that my decision to reprice the store would play well,” she says. “And it did. It completely saved the business.”

Ms. Sack and Ms. Hefferren were quick to take action in seeking out a reinvention, but that isn’t always the norm.

“Recessions have occurred routinely throughout American history, but they’ve been minor by standards of recent memory, so there’s an entire cadre of executives who’ve never seen anything like this,” says Steven Michael, an associate professor of business administration at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and co-author of a 2005 study on recession-fueled business failures.

“Executives and entrepreneurs are naturally optimists. They want to focus on what they’re good at,” says Mr. Michael, whose report states that about 500,000 businesses fail in each recession. “It’s a second order of consideration to think about the risk (of continuing to do the same thing).”

In September, New York-based ThomasNet, which connects sellers and buyers in an online industrial marketplace, released the results of a survey that asked 800 executives and professionals how they were handling the recession. About 70% were looking for business in new industries, increasing their marketing, and exploring new sales channels as a way to increase cash flow and dilute risk. And 38% were developing new products. All good signs.

But another study released the same month by New York-based credit card issuer American Express Co. found that 68% of 763 small-business owners and managers were stressed out, and 41% focused mainly on retaining current revenue sources (rather than seeking new ones). Only 26% said they were looking to grow this business.

In which case Jim Flanagan’s case is instructive.

GOING GREEN
Mr. Flanagan, 55, is president of Nuance Solutions Inc., a 37-year-old Chicago company that develops and produces cleaning chemicals for private-label and branded clients. Nuance Solutions was strictly a commercial and industrial manufacturer until 1999, when it began dabbling in retail cleaners. But it was still using mostly conventional chemicals.
Then, in 2002, Mr. Flanagan was referred to a job for Seventh Generation Inc., the huge cleaning products company based in Burlington, Vt. “We’d always prided ourselves on using greener raw materials, but there was no advantage to marketing that because people weren’t buying green just to be green,” Mr. Flanagan says. After Nuance got the Seventh Generation referral, things changed.
‘IN CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY’
“We had to look hard at our company and where to go, and all arrows pointed toward us developing more markets for green products,” he says. “That was a significant difference.”

And, in hindsight, a prescient move. Sales at the 70-employee company have been rising steadily ever since. Today, 75% of Nuance Solutions’ $25 million in revenue comes from green cleaners, commercial as well as retail. And it’s the reason, Mr. Flanagan says, that the company has grown even during the worst recession in his lifetime.
“We were ahead of the curve, so we felt we were in control of our destiny and had better seize the opportunity to go out and grow the company before (green manufacturing) gets more crowded,” he says. “It’s a scary time right now, so I feel pretty fortunate.”

Happy 10th anniversary SEA! The SEA conference is coming right up and if you have never attended you need to! Come learn more about how to turn your artistic passion into a living from other successful artists.

What The Conference Offers

In addition to keynote presentations, topic specific sessions by artists, panel discussions, faculty sessions, and workshops,  come hang out with a lot of really fun, creative artists and entrepreneurs.  I will be speaking and hanging out there too! Hope you will join the fun.

Here’s the list of speakers and topics that will be presented:

Visual Arts:

Robert Fishbone – Keynote & Social Media Panel
Jeanette Smith (Art Consultant) – Art Licensing
Robert Lee Fritz (3-D Artist) – Creating niches and corporate sales
John McDavitt (Commercial Artist) – Heroic Decision Making
Janet Bloch (Artist & Consultant) – Exhibiting Professionalism
Andie Burchett (Pencil Artist) – TBD
Jessica & John Page – Photography & New Business (Alum)
Ping Wu – Fashion Design (Alum)

Media Arts:

Kelley Baker (Filmmaker) – Guerilla Marketing & Self-Distribution
Julie Freestone (Sundance Institute) – TBD
Jeffrey Fisher (Fisher Creative Group) – Be a Mobile Media Mogul

Performing Arts:

Matt Hennessy (Musician and Recording Engineer) – Recording Industry
Greg Eichelberger (Musician) – Creating & Managing a Career
Lisa Canning (Musician & Entrepreneur) – New Economic Opportunities for Artists
Victoria Lyman (Dance Boutique)- Turning Your Artistic Passion into a Retail business
Vanessa E (Singer) – Multiple Income Streams
Matt Boresi – Mock Auditions & Closing  Keynote

Literary Arts:

Jennifer McCord & Sheryl Stebbins – Publishing Today
McCord & Stebbins – Writing a book proposal
(A limited number will have the opportunity to have a book proposal reviewed.
Please see website for more details.)

Nuts & Bolts:

Elizabeth Russell (Russell Law)- Legal Issues
Tim Kelley (Columbia College) – Legal Issues for Performing Artists
Kay Osborne (Drury University) – Accounting for Artists

Panel Discussions:

Marketing
Social Media & Websites
Portfolios
Getting Started
Faculty Sessions:
2 Faculty Panels of Coleman Fellowes
Pam Mickelson (Morningside College ) – Brand Builder Matrix (for faculty & students)

Learn more about the speakers presentations:

Here is the schedule at a glance:

There is no time like RIGHT NOW to register! See you at SEA.

Can’t come to Lisle, Illinois?  Here are a few other opportunities to get involved:

March 13th SEA OzArts : Coordinated by Drury University in Sprinfield, MO

March 26th & 27th SEA BizArts:  Coordinated by Edmonds Community College in Washington

March 27th Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference: From Survival to Success
Coordinated by The University of North Carolina Greensboro

TBD SEA South: Coordinated by The University of Tampa

The most recent shout out came from  ENTmind– a blog devoted to Entrepreneurs helping them develop their skills in web design, blogging, web hosting, search engine optimization (SEO)  social media optimization (SMO), and search engine marketing (SEM) . ENTmind has over 128,000  that subscribe to their blog via feedburner alone.

On a daily basis, they blog to help their readers learn how to make money online. Their basic goal is to educate internet users and train them to be successful online entrepreneurs. They have a lot of valuable content on a wide range of topics. I would recommend checking them out.

How many times have we gone to a performance at our regional professional nonprofit theatre and been greeted at curtain time by the artistic director or managing director making a plea for support? The curtain speech plea has become ubiquitous in the last 18 months as theatres have struggled to stay alive. But, it’s a technique not confined to the nonprofit market. Broadway cast members have been making their annual Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids fundraising plea for the six weeks leading up to the New Year. Both certainly have the air of the begging cup about them. The most successful development efforts, however, have nothing to do with begging during a curtain speech. Successful development efforts have at least three major components: partnering with community, developing audience, and effective grant-getting.

When development focuses solely on asking for money, it is doomed to fail. (So Jim, I agree with you on this point.) However, when a theatre (or any non-profit arts organization) meets a community need, then the community will support it. The question is not “how can we avoid the begging cup?” but rather “who can we partner with in our community?” and “how can we better serve our community?” I don’t have any easy answers, but in general, arts organizations need to be focused outwardly rather than inwardly: “who are our constituents and how can we give them something of value?” rather than “what do we need to do to maintain our current programming and structure?”

This is where the second component comes into play: audience development. If the current audience is not supportive, its time develop new audience, which usually means a change of direction or expansion of programming, rather than a contraction. I’m trying to expand our audience for my current institution by offering more performances, some at nontraditional times. Is it working? Unfortunately it’s very unclear, but we haven’t lost anything in the trying (yet). We took a risk. We’re expanding services to niche audiences like elder hostels and children. But we can’t measure success based on ticket revenue alone. We will measure success on whether or not the organizations and programs we partner with want to continue the relationships we form.

I listed effective grant-getting as a component of development because grant writing and grant-getting have several benefits. The mere act of writing grants (which are usually only available to nonprofits) forces an organization to focus and articulate its mission. Grant getting is also a form of community partnerships. Foundations want to partner with organizations that help advance the mission of the foundation. It is a bi-directional relationship.

Jim expressed a utopian idea of having many small for profit theatres, privately owned, and risk taking. Here Jim and I disagree. We have a model of for-profit theatres: Broadway. Some are privately owned, some owned by large corporations, but very very few are risk-taking and none of them small. (The risk-taking exceptions are the commercial Broadway productions mounted by nonprofit theatres – here we see riskier fare like Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room”). But, much as small independent bookstores and mom-and-pop grocers are few and far between, so too would be privately owned for-profit theatres. Such theatres would have no choice but to pander to the ticket buying audience (a demographic not always known for risk-taking) and, driven by a profit motive, would not stay small for long because if successful, there would be buy-out offers from Comcast or Universal or Disney. Making art is risky enough without the art makers having to invest and risk losing significant capital.

That having been said, maybe theatre makers should look to filmmakers for a for-profit model in which a company is formed around a specific project, money raised for that project, and then return on investment may (or may not) take place after distribution. Perhaps the way to have a for-profit theatre infrastructure is to avoid the institution structure completely and consider each project as an independent venture. That would be an idea worth pursuing – but fundraising for a for-profit project-based venture brings us full circle back to the begging cup. Perhaps there’s no escaping it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (And don’t forget to give generously to the arts organization of your choice!)

When I talk to people though, people who run theatres, people who work for nonprofit theatres, people who know about theatre management, their mantra is almost 100% in unison: cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. A theatre that can manage its cash flow, whether by maintaining a cash reserve or accurately predicting revenue and expenses — or better yet both — seems more likely to persist. I note that given the current economy, it’s a lot easier to do the former (maintain a cash reserve) than it is to do the latter (accurately predict revenue and expenses) but both are challenging.

I’ve been preoccupied with academic matters recently, but hope to resume more regular postings after the first of the year!

It is no surprise when I say that our country is obsessed with celebrity. Celebrity sells and celebrity images are pumped out to the point of exhaustion.

I think that most young artists, if honest with themselves, would admit to having celebrity lust. They, themselves, in fact, may be using their educational environments as a stepping stones towards what they believe will increase their odds towards achieving celebrity and the schools that cater to these dreamy eyed prospective students, do not always guide them differently.

But why do so many of us desire to be famous?

Is it the potential deification we give celebrities for a time?
Is it the money? * Duh. *
Is it the freedom that money brings?
The parties?
The flirtations with strangers?
The public eye being cast upon you?
Mass appreciation and praise to stroke your ego?
Mrs. O’Reilly from World History will finely see?
A feeling of success?
A feeling of having overcome others or having “won”?
Again, the parties? Come on. On a scale of 1 to 10…where do parties rate?

The celebrity game is like high school, but high school with money…and all that that brings. Do you desire to be in the circle of the “cool kids”? Is that what this is about? Does it really come down to the fact that you were a nerd and wanted to be a cool kid in junior high? Surely for some it is.

Are celebrity dreams what brought you into artist training or was it something else?

For a large number of artists, it’s the love you had/have for the work, ‘cuz it was fun and inspiring. Is it the joy and pride you feel while creating? Did it or does it give you a feeling of self-expression (an outlet with form) and even self-knowledge? Is your “art” (or the act of creating)? Is creating enough? Is that what it is about? Would it be enough to simply make a living with your craft or will the dreams of starlight haunt you, indefinitely?

Would it be enough for you to live a life, with a modest income (but one that is much more potentially sustainable), doing what you love? Would it be enough on your “happy meter” to make much less, potentially never have fame, but get to do that thing that gives you bliss?
What kind of artist do you want to be and where in the market? What city would you love to live in, if you could live anywhere in the U.S.?

Tricky thing about survival jobs…is that they take up all of your energy and time. If you are an artist who has waited tables (or some other non-desired, but necessary work) while trying to make a living, you know how you NEVER LEAVE a restaurant or survival job. In such catch 22 scenarios, it is very difficult, when engaging in the act of creating your art, to create anything of significant worth…as when you do get around to creating, you’ll often find you are very tired…from delivering meals for other people (and while not working as an artist).

If you surrender your driving ambition of fame and fortune, the field of opportunity expands. I call this a need for a “wider directional perspective”. Suddenly, we are potentially talking about local markets, which may be non-saturated markets (with less competition). Granted, many of these markets have fewer possibilities, due to their size. However, if you create a market, if you build what is necessary, if you command greater control over your creativity and output as an artist, suddenly, your chance of living wherever you might like to live (with some limitations, of course), becomes possible.

Now ask yourself…do you need to make a living in your small area of interest? Note: I say small in comparison to all of the roles possible to play in the field of artistry. Ex. Nearly everyone begins their career in theatre in an acting class. Many then shift and  go on to discover other interests and talents (like writing, directing, producing, designing, etc).

Or

Do you just need to make a living via your creativity?

I will rephrase.

Do you desire to:

A.    Simply make a living with your creativity

or do you need to:

B.     Reach glory in your one dreamed about role? Ex. A TV or movie star.

If you answered yes to A, the field of possibility and opportunity expands incredibly. There are simply more possibilities when you are active on a plane with more opportunity and possibility. As more opportunities arise, more possibilities follow.

Must celebrity continue to be the goal? If so, why? Beyond ego, what drives our desire for celebrity? Whatever your conclusion, is that what you want your motivating energies to be committed towards? If yes, God speed you. If you answer no, look, listen and dream. What community do you want to be a part of? Where does that community need you, your creative energies, your vision, your leadership capability, your many skills acquired through your artistic study?

Jim Hart is the founder of The Hart Technique and The International Theatre Academy Norway (TITAN Teaterskole). www.harttechnique.com

What they didn’t expect—my question wasn’t simply theoretical. Four hours of time could actually lead to a million plus dollars.  And the proposed activity is easy.  Yet I suspect some of the students won’t be savvy enough to do what was suggested.  At least not now.  How about you?

Here’s the strategy:  Read one book about personal finance.

As artists, we work tirelessly to develop into outstanding practioners.  We practice hours each day, get (often multiple) college degrees, study privately, attend master classes, read trade books and magazines, and more.  As a result of time and energy devoted over the years, we develop excellence in our field.

Mastering the money game is a lot like the arts.  It takes education, practice, patience, discipline, and a clear plan. 

Financial literacy doesn’t mean raking in piles of cash, or becoming filthy rich.  (Many people and organizations command huge profits, but aren’t smart with their finances and wind up broke or worse.  Just look at the current economic crisis!)  It does mean that you have enough to survive, realize your dreams, and retire comfortably someday.  Excellence requires attention to earning, spending, and saving.  Short and long term planning are essential. 

One critical rule about money is that your decisions today will have consequences (positive or negative) in the future.  The sooner you begin to make smart choices with your dollars, the better off you will be.  Someone who learns to become a master of money in their twenties will have more success than an individual who waits until their thirties…or forties…or fifties..or…yikes!   

A good place to start is by reading one book about personal finance.  Doing this will probably take around four hours to six hours.  And the lessons you learn could result in one million dollars or more by retirement. 

One of the students argued that while he’d like to have money, his time would be better spent practicing.  “If you want an orchestra gig, you must devote 100% of your efforts to that,” was how he justified his outlook.  Taking off even four hours was not an option.

First of all, I guarantee that everyone (even this student) could find four hours to read a book without affecting the results one way or the other of an audition he might theoretically take in several years.  Secondly, even if he gets a great paying orchestra job, that doesn’t guarantee financial success. Once again, lots of people earn tons but spend more than they have and find themselves in the doghouse.  Third, what if his great paying orchestra job doesn’t pan out?  He may have a different financial profile than the one he now imagines.  And finally, waiting to be smart about money, even five years, can have huge detrimental ramifications. 

Here are a few money books I recommend, but there are many others.  Read through the tables of contents to see which ones best match your needs and concerns.

1)      The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke, by Suze Orman.  This book focuses specifically on people who graduate from college with mountains of debt and are greeted by a weak job market.  Suze Orman is one of the most famous and accessible financial gurus around. She has a TV show on CNBC and appears frequently on Oprah, Larry King, and all kinds of other programs. Her approach to finances is conservative (i.e. don’t spend what you don’t have) and smart. Any of her books are recommended. 

2)     The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko.  In this book, the authors show how many millionaires live well below their means.  They don’t buy fancy cars or crazy mansions to impress others.  Instead they make conservative, financially sound decisions that lead to financial independence.

 3)    The Automatic Millionaire, by David Bach.  This is not a get rich quick book. It can, however, help you achieve financial independence in the long run. Bach suggests investing a fixed percentage of your income into retirement funds, and then living on the remainder of your salary. Many musicians who claim they don’t have enough money to save for the future spend $5+ a day on coffee and a muffin, cigarettes, eating out, or other non-essential activities. Bach calls this the Latte Factor. By investing that money instead, it can accumulate into large amounts over time.

4)     Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.  What I love about this book is that it’s not just about accumulating as much greedy wealth as possible. Instead, it helps you establish a healthy relationship with your money. If a purchase doesn’t bring you true fulfillment, it’s probably not worthwhile. Though some of the text is a bit outdated, the basic premises are more relevant than ever.

5)    The Savvy Musician, by David Cutler.  This book, geared directly to musicians, has a full chapter devoted to personal finance.  It’s a great primer to get you started.

Money is a Symbol of Energy.

Paper money. Is it not just an agreed upon symbol?

I like to think of money as being a symbol of energy.

People exert energy (working) to earn money (a symbol of energy).

When one has money, they can exchange the paper for other peoples’ services (or their energy). One can also trade this paper for goods (which required energy on other peoples’ part, to construct).

The more money we have, the more energy we can put into action. The less money, the less energy we can put into action. To gain money, our exertion of energy must be of value to others. Is that not what entrepreneurship is partly about—providing value—while assuming risk for financial gain?

I think a lot of artists think of money as something that they either have or do not. This lack of money, often controls whether or not they will work at all. I find that to be a shame and lacking in imagination.

Altering one’s perspective on money can enable one to think of ways to develop value for others. What services or goods can you provide, which will cause others to want to give you their symbols of energy?

What value can you offer? What value might you offer?

Jim Hart is the founder of The Hart Technique and The International Theatre Academy Norway. For more on Hart, see   www.harttechnique.com

Think about the things that only money can buy—a better education for you or someone in your family; medicine to bring health of comfort to a parent who is gravely ill, or maybe a beautiful ring for the girl you want to marry. Are these things possible without money—99 percent of the time, the answer to that question is no. Too bad no one has invented a “money tree” just yet. Sure would make life easier, wouldn’t it?

Yet as important and vital as money is in our lives we often don’t stop to consider the long-term effect our values and beliefs about money will have on the outcome of our lives and our careers.

Let’s face it; to a great extent, our financial resources determine what our lives will be like. The amount of money you earn effects most options and choices that are available to you: where you live, the number of children you can afford to raise in the way you envision, how much you can save for your retirement, where you travel, and what kind of car you drive.

Your bank account balance determines where you can or cannot shop, how much discretionary spending you have as well as what kinds of experiences in life you can have that only money can buy. While creativity may be priceless the MasterCard ™ bill is due at the end of the month and if you cannot pay it in full easily, eventually the way you live will have to change.

To fully develop an economically freeing life through your artistry requires a very close examination of what your true belief system is about money and where those values and your career goals intersect.

A Dollar for Your Thoughts

Maybe you were raised in a family that offered money as an allowance, in exchange for doing household chores, or for making good grades. Maybe you grew up in an environment where you were given money sporadically “just because”, or maybe you come from a household where there wasn’t enough money to go around and from a very early age, you had to earn whatever you needed and wanted on your own, or do with out entirely.

As children, it is likely there were times when we felt over-paid and other times when we felt that we weren’t paid enough. Rarely in either situation, young in life, do we reflect on how those early experiences shaped our feelings about money, or how they affected our feelings about our own worth—how they made us feel valued or less valued.

Think about your earliest memory of being paid for a job. What was the value of that money to you then? How did earning it make you feel?

Did you feel valued, important, excited, depressed, taken advantage of? How did receiving that money for the work you did ( or didn’t do) made you feel?

Just as the first few years of life are important in the development of a child, the first few years you earn money shape your views on money for the rest of your life.

My first job was working for my father, a criminal attorney, when I was 10 years old. My father’s office had lots of filing to do. My job was to alphabetize personal files and organize business expense receipts by date. It was challenging work for a ten-year-old, but I did it.

My father paid me $3.50 per hour in 1974 (minimum wage was $2.00 per hour), and I liked the job because I felt I was really doing something important to help my father and his clients. I looked forward to going to work with him on Saturdays to do “my job” and felt a great deal of pride when he told me how easy it was for him to locate information after organized a client file. I also liked that my father always paid me right on time.

My father was teaching me that the work I did was valuable and that a job well done should be well rewarded; and paying me promptly made me feel that way.

Our feelings about money are often deeply embedded in our past and that impression affects our future efforts to earn money if we don’t take the time to look at our “money value” system as re-evaluate our attitudes later on in adult life.

The Faces of Money

“My Mom did not think I did a good job cleaning the house” Doris told me, “so she would only pay me half of what she promised. I didn’t think it was fair because she never told me what she expected me to do in the first place. ”

Now in her thirties, Doris has trouble paying her bills because she can’t keep a job. Doris told me recently” What’s the point! Everyone I have ever worked for takes advantage of me, so I only do what it takes to get by and if they fire me they fire me!” Doris has no respect for herself or for doing a quality job thanks to how her mother treated her when she cleaned her family home a long time ago. If only Doris could develop some self awareness and see what her past has done to shape her money values so that she could reshape them into something more helpful for her life.

Mary, on the other hand, hated to part with money. As a child she would hide her allowance under her bed and often would claim to her family that she had either spent it or lost it. A number of times her father felt sorry for her and gave her another allowance to replace the one she lost.

Later in life Mary had not changed her ways much. She often refuses to turn on the lights to save on the electric bill frequently the house is either freezing or stifling hot because she won’t run the furnace or start the air conditioning. Joe, her son and a friend of mine in school, grew up acting just like his mom. I don’t know how many times I bought him lunch because he said he never had any money; of course he never paid me back.

Joe went on to become an entrepreneur and opened a bunch of movie theaters. One day he called me and asked me if I needed a loan. I asked him why? He said, “Well I have been skimming money from the theaters for over forty years now and I have more then a million dollars under my mattress not earning interest. I thought you might help me out by borrowing some of it and paying me interest.”

Like Mother like son. We formulate our personal monetary value system for everything from what we see and how it makes us feel.

Francis sat with her family at her grandmother Annie’s funeral. Everyone expected Annie, her grandmother and her father’s mother, to die; after all she was 94. But as Francis, who was 13 at the time, sat there what she heard deeply upset her. “ Well now that Annie’s is gone, I bet my sister Jean, since she is the executor to my mothers will, is going to get the lions share of Annie’s estate.

Yeah, Jean has been sweet talking Annie for the last six months just waiting for her to die. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she got her to change her will over the past few months,” barked the harsh words of Francis’ father.

Francis adored her father, idolizing him in every way. But in that moment, and for every moment for the rest of her life, Francis always heard those horrible words come from her father’s lips and it changed her dramatically. Francis never felt exactly the same way ever again about her father or about money.

Francis went on to drop out of high school and life. Last time someone heard from her she was walking the streets homeless and high on crack.

As these “every-person” stories attest, money and what it is capable of doing in life can be dramatic and life-defining.

Monkey See; Money Do

Usually we learn about money and its purposeful and less than purposeful uses from families, friends, and teachers as we are raised and schooled. Depending especially on our family’s attitudes toward money that education may be well-defined and intentional or it can be haphazard, casual, or for that matter there might be no money training at all.

Unfortunately the national statistics about the development of financial literary are not encouraging. For example, more than half of us are not putting aside enough to maintain our present standard of living upon retirement. By the year 2010, 78 million Americans will be 65 or older. One in three has no retirement savings; according to Senator Paul Sarbanes, Maryland, Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
Additional statistics from the Office of Investor Education and Assistance, Securities and Exchange Commission www.sec.gov/investor.shtml conclude that:
• Only 5% of investors believe they know everything they need to know to make good investment decisions.
• The personal saving rate went negative for the first time ever in 2005. Americans are spending $100.50 for every $100.00 they bring home.
• Only 32% of American parents talk to their children regularly about personal finance.
• 20% of employees are unable to carry out normal work activities three days per week due to financial concerns.
• 2 out of 3 households will probably not be able to accomplish one of their major life goals because they did not plan for the future.

As these statistics indicate, most of us are not taught or raised with any sense of how to handle money, so it is more our own experiences than any outside teaching or instruction that drive our decisions, values, and future outlook on what money can and can’t do for us and for the future of our lives.

If you decide being independent and building your own arts based venture is for you, you are going to come smack up against your money value system and need to not only know where you stand, but access if your ideas are productive and helpful to the creation of your venture. Ongoing Arts Entrepreneurship Training can really help you work through your relationship with money and learn how to use your current value system, or the new one you shape, to serve you productively in your personal and professional creative life.

Remember my friends from my post An Entrepreneurial Lesson and a Little Bit of Magic? Well, they seem to have fox trotted right past more than a few explosives. They have managed to find new space at a price they can finally afford, allowing their business to survive, but not with the landlord I referred to in the post. Of course many weeks of negotiation and uncertainty had to pass to bring them to this point.. and I am sure a few sleepless nights as well wondering if they would get through this…

Remember those 200 film editors I told you about in my post 200 Resumes, $1200.00 dollars? Well, I have received a total of 373 resumes from out-of- work or under employed freelance film editors wondering how they too can get through this period of time and make the bucks they need to survive.

Entrepreneurship is NOT for the faint of heart. You need an original idea or a new twist on an old one to stand out from the crowd in your field. This alone can seems difficult to find, as evident by 373 film editors in Chicago alone- and counting- looking for work.

And yet having entrepreneurial vision does NOT mean your entrepreneurial idea will work smoothly, quickly or be easy to scale, let alone survive, no matter how good and valuable it is– as my entrepreneurial friends from the first post I mentioned demonstrate.

Having vision ONLY means you see a unique path that you feel will have value to others and are inspired to try and turn into reality. The REAL HEAVY lifting comes from actually beginning to navigate your way THROUGH the obstacle filled field in front of you to turn your vision into a valuable resource for others and, as such, an income producing path. (Let the rumba begin!)

So, how long does it take to do this? And how difficult is it, really? ( Funny you should ask. It seems I have been in need of reminding myself of the answer to this very same question lately.)

It all depends on:

How much time you spend daily focusing on what you uniquely have to deliver and who will want it.

Your willingness to accept that a good idea is not enough… you need self confidence, tenacity and to figure out exactly how to market the hell out of your ideas without running out of cash until they resonate with others.

None of these skills, in my opinion, are any harder than learning how to excel at your artistry. They just are riddled with different problems, new challenges and a few explosives. What in life isn’t….