“I’m An Artist. I’m Bad At Business.”

I talk to people who have been in showbiz for decades who say “I’m bad at business.” To be blunt, this is just victim mentality and victim mentality is shirking responsibility. I will tell you how to take responsibility.

According to Josh Kaufman, there are 5 parts to a business…

  1. Value Creation – Discovering what people need or want, then creating it.
  2. Marketing – Attracting attention and building demand for what you’ve created.
  3. Sales – Turning prospective customers into paying customers.
  4. Value Delivery – Giving your customers what you’ve promised and ensuring that they’re satisfied.
  5. Finance – Bringing in enough money to keep going and make your effort worthwhile.

If we’re running a business that’s still operating (even as freelancers), we are adequate at this collection of tasks, but probably not great at all of them.

The way to take responsibility is to pick a major part and work on it. Someone’s better at sales than me isn’t smarter than me. They don’t have some sales gene. They have a skill. Skills can be developed. So, I look at sales, and I subdivide that. What part of the sales process needs work? Looking into a prospects eyes when I say the price? I can google that.

I know, this takes some of the magic out of being a creative person. Suddenly, it’s not a world of good and bad. It’s not a world of destiny. It’s a world of “Do I make the decision to putting in the work for the future of my business?”

Step 1, decide it’s a lacking skill. Step 2, figure out what skill it is. Step 3, divide that skill down into a manageable piece. Step 4 work on learning that skill.

Most skills can be learned via a youtube video. Getting accountability can help us follow through. Mentors / coaches can help us do both and can help us ask the right questions for google.

When we take responsibility for our missions, we get the great feeling of being the hero in the hero’s journey!

Written for folks who want to attract and energize groups

Scot Nery is an emcee who has helped some of the biggest companies in the world achieve entertainment success. He's on an infinite misson to figure out what draws people in and engages them with powerful moments.

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