8. Generating Demand for Your Services

Marketing is a lot more than just being available to the market. By sharing fresh ideas, sharing your unique attributes and leadership, building a brand that’s memorable and meaningful, and putting it into action, you’ll draw a crowd instead of just standing out in one.

Creative Work: Designed and crafted by Vancouver-born Kari Bergrud, Belvedere is a collection of gentlemen’s accessories inspired by the 1950s with a dash of modern style for today’s classy gent.
Web: www.belvederegents.com
Twitter: @karibergrud
Image credit: Zach Bulick

I was not a tough kid growing up, so as a young boy I survived the school playground not with muscle but with speed. When bigger boys would taunt me or try to make my existence miserable, I would either try to win them over with quick-witted charm or simply run away. One day in the fourth grade I responded with a third tactic: weaponry. I needed a more convincing method of getting what I wanted and, as an avid jackknife collector, I figured if I brandished a blade I’d be able to take charge of my own destiny.

The next altercation happened on the swing set and, instead of trying to make nice, I pulled out my knife, flipped open the blade, and said with a nervous voice, “It’s my turn. Get off.” The older, stronger boy jumped off and ran away. A couple of minutes later the monitoring teacher confronted me about the incident, confiscated my knife until the end of the day, and said I would be serving a detention. After school, she instructed me to come to the front of the class and write, “I will not bring a knife to school” repeatedly on the blackboard for 30 minutes. Lesson learned. The teacher returned my knife to me and off I went.

Creative Work The Belvedere brand was created by Zach Bulick, a Canadian-Texan designer/illustrator from Vancouver, Canada.
Web: www.zachbulick.com
Twitter: @zachbulick

By today’s standards, I got off pretty easy—the school never even notified my parents. But the situation often comes to mind as I think about the current-day creative entrepreneur and the marketplace you play in. Creatives tend to respond to the challenge of marketing their businesses in a couple of different ways: either they run for the hills, claiming it’s too hard to promote themselves, or they take the extreme approach of pulling a stunt that produces short-term results at the expense of building businesses they can sustain.

Eliciting Curiosity

Putting yourself out there as a talented and serviceable creative is tough stuff. I get it. With more and more small businesses springing up, and skilled people in the workforce, it appears that on a macro-level creative valuation is being targeted from multiple angles; clearly these are forces you can’t control. However, you can control how you present yourself to your sphere of influence and shape the perception of you and your business. This microcosm can act contrary to the general market based on what your prospects need, value, and who they hope to engage. Building a meaningful connection with your target audience should be the focus of your marketing efforts, and you can do that most effectively when they come to you.

Many business owners feel they’d be more successful if they had less competition, but I disagree. I see countless creatives approaching their marketing efforts in ways that aren’t attractive—or worse, aren’t creative. Creatives seem to either run scared from the big, bad buyer or act like a loud, annoying bully trying to convince buyers they’re the real deal. The mediocre ones who don’t fall into those two categories flit about from stunt to stunt, not sure what to do or say or how to get the attention they feel they deserve.

The solution is to stop chasing. Stop spinning your wheels, stop marketing like your competitors, stop regurgitating stale schemes, and stop making noise about your work because everyone else is. A successful marketing mindset seeks to generate a spark in the mind’s eye of an ideal client (and those who influence them), rather than to simply make noise.

All the marketing jargon that has been filling your head for years isn’t useless; you simply need to sift through all the junk and make sure that what you do attempt serves a greater goal than just pulling in some more money. It needs to build your brand, it needs to satisfy your purpose, and it needs to make the long game an adventure you’re proud of. When your actions—both as a creative humanoid and as a business owner—pique just one person’s interest, you’ll have produced the most valuable sales opportunity there is: being in demand.

Demanding attention = illicit marketing
Eliciting curiosity = generating demand

Your creative legacy deserves better. Your creative spirit demands to be handled more deliberately. Your business will succeed as you develop the habit of doing and saying things that make people curious.

To help nudge you in the right direction, consider the concept of push/pull marketing, at least how I see it as it pertains to a creative venture. Pushing your offering onto an unsuspecting network only works if the viewer takes the bait and reaches out to you. There’s no engagement; it’s simply guesswork about which tactic will land in a willing party’s lap. You’re going for volume and you’re hoping for the best. On the other hand, pulling is an action that is customer-initiated as a result of you connecting with the right people, at the right time, in a manner that meets their individual needs. Demand may be scarce but it’s there, and you know it because your level of engagement is high. Defining your target market right down to the companies and the people you want to serve and then taking the kinds of risks that excite you, both creatively and personally, will put you in a position to be noticed. That’s the kind of foundation you can build on. Survival of the fittest has less to do with marketing wizardry and more to do with looking good while making valiant attempts at activities and ideas that convey who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

Scott Stratten, in his book UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. (Wiley, 2010) reminds us that we need to market in a way we can stand behind. “We’ve been taught to market to others in ways we hate being marketed to (cold-calling, flyers, ads, etc.),” Stratten writes. “So why do we still keep trying the same stale marketing moves?”

Business owners who promote themselves through the very methods they detest convey an attitude of desperation. Marketing efforts that employ means that don’t connect with you will fail at connecting with those you’re eager to reach. It’s a matter of authenticity; it’s off-brand because you are your brand, and as an independent business owner your marketing efforts must reflect your talent, expertise, passions, and ability to deliver on a promise. If “push-marketing” isn’t your style, don’t use it; creatives should never apply marketing strategies that contrast with the character of the person behind the creative work. If you judge the marketing ploys of your competition as cheap stunts, don’t use them. Put the same critical eye to your own efforts to ensure they’re producing high levels of engagement; if they’re not, it’s time to hit the reset button.

Leverage your bravery and confidence, and rely on your ideation and influences. Put more energy into being more attractive to watch, cheer on, support, brag about, and engage with. Let your creative mix shine.

Developing Auteur-like Attitude

Great artists tend to have a certain je ne sais quoi—an elusive yet attractive way about them—but the self-employed can rarely feel they can afford the luxury of such artistic sensibilities; however, nothing could be more important. The marketing conventions out there appeal to your insatiable desire to stand out from the crowd, but why struggle to fight off the competition? Why not try to rise above and strive to attract a crowd?

Skills and experience are the foundation of a creative business, but in the end they don’t matter as much as many would like to believe. I wish I could buck the trend here and tell you that talent and longevity are all you need to be successful, but I’d be lying. The market doesn’t care about talent in the same way a craftsperson does, and it sure does love to chase the new kid on the block. We’re exposed to mediocrity at an unprecedented level these days, so I’ll just assume I’m preaching to the choir on this one.

We live in a jacked-up creative economy. The labor market has changed dramatically these past few years and, due to a suppressed economy, affordable technology, specialized education, and fake money (credit), the market has been saturated with talent. Every new small business owner is likely more wet behind the ears than they’d care to admit. Naivete reigns if skills and experience are the only thing you’re counting on to differentiate yourself from the competition. Success requires taking a venture well past the realm of talent and pursuing, with great fervor, something deeper, something more valuable to your business in the long run. Creative entrepreneurs should strive to become auteurs.

When a creative’s style permeates their work to the point that they control every facet of their output, they have achieved a level of uniqueness that is definable and recognizable. An auteur has a discernible vision they can, in some way or another, claim as their own. This is very much a film industry term and, in that vein, Woody Allen stands out as an auteur. As a film director, his work consistently explores the same themes and notions regardless of the cast, setting, or script.

Comparing ourselves to an award-winning American icon probably isn’t the most useful exercise, but his example is potent nonetheless because we all know his work, regardless of whether we like it or not.

I value the lofty ideal of creatives wanting to become auteurs in their own right because it resolves the dilemma many artists prematurely worry about: whether it’s worth selling out to become successful. The real issue behind selling out is not a matter of whether you get a big payout or not, or whether one person’s ethics are in line with those of her peers; it’s whether you’re giving up control of your art. Determining the level of control that means the most to you is the mature way to assess a business opportunity.

Many creatives appeal to their artistic sensibilities by chasing their muse around dark hallways in the middle of the night or brooding in the way only an artist knows how to brood. But what if you spent your time and energy on something a little less mysterious? Get your hands dirty and evaluate your creative inputs; grind out your unique vision; establish your voice, your message, and your story; and put your ideas through the wringer until they’re repeatable and manageable. The results of that process will show the market who’s boss, and new challenges and opportunities will come knocking.

If aspiring to be an auteur sounds over the top to you, consider adopting what I call the street-wise auteur, the linchpin of author Seth Godin’s philosophy of creative business: “Be remarkable, generous, a creator of art, make the tough calls, and bring people and ideas together.” To grow a successful business, stop looking for inspiration and start the difficult work of transforming your craft into something truly unique and definable.

Creating a Marketable Brand

Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be, and who people perceive you to be. Your brand is your promise to your customers. Your brand tells them what they can expect from you, and it differentiates your offering from your competitors’. A marketable brand is a combination of elements that create trust and trigger manageable action. A marketable brand is a springboard that inspires you to jump to the needs of potential buyers and motivates prospects to discover more about how your creativity can serve them. When buyers instill trust, they show their faith by pulling out their checkbooks.

My friend Brian R.G. McKenzie is a marketing professional with a nonprofit organization in Kelowna, British Columbia, who consults on a part-time basis to entrepreneurs of all types. He’s a former agency manager who regularly takes up the call to help startups focus on making marketing problems go away so they can focus on what they do best and deliver their unique value. Brian believes in the marketing value of building trust because it identifies the business transaction with the business owner behind it. “As the ultimate authority on your brand, you get to choose what others think—about you and your brand,” he says. “It’s the essence of who you are and what you offer. It encompasses all of your products and services. It even drives what you talk about during meetings and who you have business lunches with and why.” As you work to develop a brand, never think of it as just a logo; think of it as a full-scale scene that captures the essence of how you fit into your business.

As you’ve already witnessed, I believe entrepreneurs need to seek professional help whenever possible; and building your brand should be added to the docket of things you shouldn’t try to create in a bubble. Regardless of your marketing prowess or design expertise, your brand is an extension of yourself, and the harsh reality is that you’re too close to your business to effectively extrapolate all the ways in which your business can develop or how it would be perceived by potential buyers. Find a trusted advisor or a skilled peer to be your sounding board or to help you hammer out some of the nuances of your brand. Or hire someone you respect to help take you through the steps, either to provide you with expert approval or help fill in the gaps (or hit the reset button).

I’m not a “branding guy,” but I’m exposed to the inner-workings of creative business brands on a regular basis and I can tell you that isolated branding efforts show their true colors more often than not, and sexy-looking graphics have nothing to do with it. Get backup on this one. Trust me.

Speaking of sexy—I mean backup—Luke Taylor is a Branding Specialist in Victoria, British Columbia. He started his sole proprietorship, fiVe, in 2005 (@fivegraphics), and he’s a service provider to a couple of my clients, so I know his work really well. This guy knows logos. His target client is a company that needs to build and design a new “brandmark.” He has adopted this terminology rather than “logo” because it helps his clients understand a logo’s place within the structure of their brand and their business, and he meets their needs in a very specific way. He guides clients through the process of developing a brandmark that, as one of many elements, fits into the brand strategy they’re developing.

A successful brand brings together all the elements that make up a creative endeavor into one cohesive package that clarifies your reason for working and serves as a catalyst for action:

• Purpose: Who are your customers, what do they like, and why are you serving them?

• Values: What is most important to you and why does it impact your business?

• Goals: How will you know if you’re successful, or if your customers are happy?

• Uniqueness: How do you differ from other providers? Is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) clearly defined? (For more on USPs, see Chapter 2, “Planning for Success.”)

• Style: What will the words convey? Are you casual, formal, conversational, friendly, urban, or action-oriented?

• Name: What is your formal commercial name? How do you want the marketplace to identify you?

• Tagline: Can you communicate your most important benefit in just a few evocative words?

• Logo: What graphical element can you create that embodies your business offering and attracts eyeballs?

• Visuals: What images, colors, styles, fonts, treatments, and aesthetics will help you earn your buyers’ trust?

A well-crafted brand doesn’t put your business into the action; you do.

In the everyday world—one filled with decisions, transactions, failures, and successes—a brand is an identity. It’s a business name, a symbol, visual treatments, words that state an offering, and the voice and tone in which they’re delivered. When these things connect with a need or want, the potential buyer initiates contact. As clever as creatives want to be with their branding efforts, the most difficult challenge is simply to stay out of the way of a potential buying decision. As you already know, your USP sets you apart from others. A solid brand removes barriers and creates opportunities that build up your creative legacy while helping buyers focus on what’s most important: your creativity and your ability to make good on your promises.

Creative at Work David Airey is graphic designer and design author from Northern Ireland. His popular book Logo Design Love is full of inspiring logos and real-world anecdotes that illustrate best practices for designing brand identity systems that last. He shares his experiences in working with clients, including sketches and final results of his successful designs, but also uses the work of many well-known designers to explain why well-crafted brand identity systems are important, how to create iconic logos, and how to work with clients to achieve success as a designer.
Web: www.davidairey.com
Twitter: @DavidAirey

Putting Your Brains and Your Brand into Action

The most successful way to generate demand is to proactively connect with the clients you want or the ones you have, and to do it with your brand leading the way. When you repeatedly care for, support, and over-deliver to buyers big and small, you aren’t just providing a service; you’re leveraging your character and charm. Nothing creates a spark more than a personal touch, and that takes some scheming. Too often, the traditional sales call or networking attempt is dry and boring, but when you can incorporate your brand into the experience, and produce a good feeling or a memorable moment, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to make more than an impression.

The value of your business lies in the fact that you’re in it for the long run. The long run is what true demand requires. Demand builds over time when you build trust and give people more than they expect. It shows that you’re not a flash in the pan, but rather a skilled craftsperson who is building a legacy, a résumé of being the go-to person for this particular creative product or service. You rely on your craft; others should feel like they can rely on your craft too. In the end, your brand is not really for you, it’s for your buyers. So as your brand develops, expand your thinking around how you can put your brand into the minds, hearts, and hands of your target market. Your captivating style can’t just be shared with those who are currently paying you. Let your brand be something you use beyond your website and stationery. Find unique and recognizable ways to share the big ideas and big heart behind your business. You don’t want to end up with a sharp logo and no crowd to attract with it.