Choosing A Creative Business

Guess what? I'm frigging back! I took a hiatus because my body needed a little bit of a rest. And so did my brain and literally so many other things, and I've got really exciting news, I'm engaged! That is a very exciting thing for me to share with everybody. I'm so excited. 

If you want to see how the proposal went down, you can find that literally everywhere. I post things because I'm so freaking excited to be engaged to Justin Decloux! You can also listen to him on past episodes, or you could find us on our Pineapple Skeleton YouTube page.

Let me tell you why I'm back. I decided first of all, that I still really enjoy doing podcasts for my clients. But the other thing that I really enjoy is helping people find a way to make money with their creative pursuits.

So I thought, why not share with you what I know about how to start a creative business? And today I'm going to start things off with an episode about choosing a creative business.

And I’ll be asking these questions to help you choose your creative business!

1. Can you picture yourself doing this creative thing for more than a few weeks, with sustained interest?
2. Do you have a background in this creative thing, or do you need to take a course to become proficient in it?
3. Is someone else already doing this? If so, how can you differentiate? (Bonus - the fact that someone else is already doing it means there’s a market for your product or service! This is a good thing!)
4. Does the amount of time it takes to do your creative thing equal out how much you want to get paid? Look at the current market and see how much people are paying for your product or service to get an idea of this.

That’s all for now! If you liked this episode and want to hear more, make sure you follow me on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts! You can also find me on TikTok and YouTube. 

If you’re interested in starting your own creative business, in the new year I’m launching an exclusive program to help you get started! It’s limited to 5 people and I’m developing this program RIGHT NOW! FOR YOU! So if you’re interested, click here to sign up for more info! 

Instagram: @the_ultimatecreative and @emily.milling

Transcript

[00:00:00] You're listening to the ultimate creative. I'm your host, Emily milling. I am a multi passionate multihyphenate entrepreneur, comedian, podcaster, musician, filmmaker. You name it. If it's creative and it has something to do with business, I'm probably in on it. If you're looking for a way to earn money through your creative passions, or if you need help finding your creative side, you are in the right place.

[00:00:36] Greetings of the day. It is. I your host, Emily milling. And guess what? I'm frigging back. K. I took a hiatus. I took a hiatus. I took a break. Because my body needed a little bit of a rest. And so did my brain and literally so many other things, and I've got really exciting news. Okay. First of all, I'm engaged.

[00:00:54] That is a very exciting thing for me to share with everybody. I'm so excited. If you want to see how the proposal went down, you can find that literally everywhere. I post things because I'm so freaking excited to be engaged, yay. To Justin, to clue. Uh, you can also listen to him on like, Things that I've done, or you could find us on our pineapple skeleton YouTube page.

[00:01:17] Oh my God. Okay. Let me just like, get into why I'm back. I decided first of all, uh, that I still really enjoy doing podcasts for my clients. But the other thing that I really enjoy is helping people leave their nine to fives or not even leave their nine to five, but like find a way to make money with their creative pursuits.

[00:01:39] Or maybe it's like find a way to transition whatever they were doing with a freelance business and turn that into like a full fledged business with like a team and all of those things too. So I thought, why not share with you what I know about how. Uh, I really love to help people succeed and I thought it would be a really fun idea and a good way to get back into things and start showing my face, showing my face and sounding my voice.

[00:02:10] So I guess I have to work on whatever that is. Anyway. So today I'm going to start things off with an episode about choosing a creative business. So like, Let's say you're in the place where you're like, man, come January 1st fucking out of there. I'm out of my job. I never want to be back there again. And I want to just like start my own business.

[00:02:31] And I know I have a couple of things in mind that I want to do, but I'm not really sure which one to pick because I don't know exactly how to go about all of this stuff. Also. Dear friends, dear listeners, dear viewers, don't worry because I'm going to actually be giving you tons more. Productive productive, practical, practical tips on like how to make this stuff happen for yourself, how to start your business, how to get clients, all of these different things that I've been learning over the last couple of years, I'm gonna be sharing all of that with you because I've just, I just really enjoy it.

[00:03:02] So anyway, here are a couple of questions that you should ask yourself. Number one is, can you picture yourself doing this thing for more than a couple of weeks with sustained interests? And what I mean by that is like, are you going to get super bored of this really fast shadow to my ADHD pills? Like I know we get very bored of things very quickly.

[00:03:23] And I have talked about this before. I am amazed. I am truly amazed at myself for actually being able to continue my podcast production business for more than like, It's been almost two years, well, a year and a half, and I'm still really enjoying it and I'm loving, helping my clients get their voices out there.

[00:03:42] So can you picture yourself doing this for more than a couple of weeks because, and you have to be really honest with yourself here too, right? Because if you can't then like, You're really just going to set yourself up for something that is going to ultimately make you feel like a failure. And we're wanting to avoid that if you are leaving your current, full-time nine to five job, my guess is that like, you might already feel a little bit like a failure because you're like, I hate what I'm doing.

[00:04:10] I don't want to do what. So, how can we set you up in a way that makes you feel like, yeah, I actually feel like I can accomplish this thing because I know that I can stick with maybe it's macrame, maybe it's crochet. Maybe it's knitting. Maybe it's some other string thing, like embroidery, maybe you're really good at embroidering things.

[00:04:30] These are all things that I totally gave up on when I was a kid, because I got bored of it. But maybe you don't get bored of them and maybe this is what you want to pursue. And maybe this is how you want to make a living with your life. Right. And if you can picture yourself, you can truly visualize yourself doing this.

[00:04:45] Long-term this is a really great first step. So the second thing that you should be asking yourself is, do you already have a background in this creative thing, or is this something that you're going to need to take a course in? If you're looking to start immediately? Maybe choose something that you already at least sort of know how to do.

[00:05:05] If I started a macrame business right now, I would be. Pretty dang broke pretty dang quick. However, if I started a business for podcasting, I would know how to produce shows and make that happen for clients pretty much instantly also that's because like, I already know how to do that, but like, let's say I wanted to start a video company, video production company.

[00:05:26] I do have a really good skill set in that. Maybe I want to start a. Trading company. I should do that. That would be really fun, actually, a scheduling company. And I can teach other people how to write sketches and all of those sorts of things. These are things I already have a background in, and it's not going to take extra work for me to figure out how to do it.

[00:05:46] Right. Because if you're putting together a creative business, you don't want to be necessarily learning the skill as you are trying to sell it. It's sort of counterintuitive. I mean, like it could be a really freaking cool idea, but maybe. The extra layer of that is something to add on later in the business.

[00:06:05] And here's the thing too. I truly believe that. Like, if you want to do a thing and you want to make it happen, you can absolutely make it happen. However, there are some realistic things to consider here. If you don't know how to play piano yet, and you want to start playing piano at bars for your creativity.

[00:06:22] Maybe take a couple of lessons, listen to a bit of Billy Joel, listen to a lot of Billy Joel. And then maybe from there you can start booking gigs and marketing yourself as a piano player. You can start playing wedding gigs. Hey, guess what did I, did I tell you that I'm getting married and maybe I'll be looking for a person to play piano.

[00:06:41] It is possible. Oh my God. I can't believe I'm getting married. I'm so fricking excited. So that's the second thing you want to think about. So the third thing that I want you to ask yourself is, is somebody else doing this already? And if someone else is already doing this, please don't worry, because that means that there's already a market for the product or service that you want to be.

[00:07:04] There's tons of market for people who want macrame wall hangings. It's true. I need more. I need plant hangers. If you have a macrame business, please let me know so that I can buy your macrame. Do you see there's already a market for it? However, if there is already somebody in your field in this industry, that's doing what you want to be doing.

[00:07:26] You need to make sure that you can do it differently. You need to make sure that you can put your own spin on it. Maybe it's your own process. For example, podcast, producer companies, like they all have totally different ways of running their business. Mine is very like you batch all your content and you send it to us once a month.

[00:07:43] We send it to you back to you once a month. That was a lot of TIAs. Anyway, uh, there are other podcast production companies that will do this. Like one-offs like. Couple of weeks, maybe you send one episode and they do that and they turn it around for you. Everybody has a different way of doing things and every client is going to be different.

[00:08:04] Your particular way, your unique way that you're going to put your creative business together is going to attract those specific clients. Right? We'll get into clients and like who your business is for and your products and services are for like much later that will happen for now. Is there already someone else in your field doing what you do is good.

[00:08:26] Remember, because that means there's already a market for it. And if so, how can you differentiate? All right. The fourth question I want you to ask yourself is does the creative thing you want to do take the right amount of time for how much you want to get paid. Because if, for example, you were putting together really ornate, intricate cakes, and they take you hours to put together and decorate.

[00:08:49] And I know this because my very first business was a cake decorating business. 13 years ago, God, I'm getting old. Anyway. If it takes a really long time and people aren't willing to pay money for that, you may end up in a deficit. We don't want to be in a deficit when we're running a business. Am I right?

[00:09:08] We're doing this because we want to make cash and we want to be happy while we do it. At least that's how I think about it. Anyway. So if you. Are looking at a particular type of creative business. And I'm just going to keep using this example of cakes again, where people are expecting like a grocery store cake.

[00:09:26] You go to the grocery store, you pay 20, 30 bucks to get a cake that says happy birthday, Belinda. Belinda's now it's bullet happy birthday, Belinda. Anyway, if Belinda's watching or listening, I'm so happy for you that it's your birthday. People are used to paying that amount of money for these cakes.

[00:09:44] They're not necessarily used to paying a, more of a premium price for very intricately decorated cakes. They want the same kind of value because they, they, they aren't really. Aware about how much time it's going to take. This is a challenge, of course, for all artists all the time, because it's like, Hey, we'll pay you on exposure.

[00:10:05] And we're just like, oh, I'm exposed. And I feel naked and cold, and this is uncomfortable for me. So like, perhaps think about if you were to do these really exquisite and intricate detailed products or services, will the market bear the price that you want to charge because. Friend. I gotta tell ya, like, if you're this talented and you are, I know you are, cause I know you all are, then you should be paid your value.

[00:10:31] You should absolutely be paid your value. And we will get into pricing on some points here, because like, let me tell you pals, so many people are not charging enough and I just really want you to have money and no worries. This is part of my life goal. I think my general life goal. Anyway, that is the final part of choosing your creative business.

[00:10:53] So to summarize, the first thing you want to ask yourself is can you picture yourself doing this for more than a couple of weeks? Can you sustain this with like enough interest? The second thing you want to ask yourself is, do you have a background in the creative thing, or are you going to need to take a course or a program or like a lot of stuff in order to make this happen?

[00:11:13] You could still make it happen. You just need to know it's going to take you a little bit longer to do that's all the third question you should be asking is, is somebody else already doing this? If, so that means there's already a market for your product or service. That's great. That is fantastic. So if that is the case, make sure you have your own unique spin on what that is going to be.

[00:11:33] And then the final thing that you need to be asking yourself to start a creative business is, does the amount of time you have to spend on this product or service actually equals. The money that you should be paid for this, and if not, perhaps consider a different way to make your creative business habit.

[00:11:50] All right. That's it. Guess what? I'm engaged. I'm just, I'm just gonna tell you this again, cause I'm really fricking excited about it. Uh, I will have more episodes coming out on Tuesdays because that is the day that the ultimate creative podcast comes out. Is a podcast for you, a creative entrepreneur, somebody who wants to just like make their lives amazing by selling their creative skills.

[00:12:14] And not, and not feeling like dang, my soul is being crushed into a thousand pieces. Anyway, thanks for listening to the ultimate creative. If you heard something today that helped you get. Closer to building your super awesome dreams. I would love it. If you shared a rating and written review on apple podcasts, that helps more people just like you, that want to break into their passions and build a life they love with creativity and entrepreneurship.

[00:12:45] And if you know someone that needs a boost of inspiration and this episode will help please share. Spread the love. I truly believe that the more we encourage each other to take steps towards building our dreams, the better our lives will be and the happier we will become. Pretty awesome to learn more about how I can help you build your dreams through podcasting, more coaching, head over to the ultimate creative.com or follow me on Instagram at the underscore ultimate creative and let's chat.