ArtBizVoice: In Mentorship Language is Everything

Dear Mr. Trump,

 As an artist, I speak the language of Artists. We sometimes speak little; sometimes in long flowery phrases of description, that translate into color and brush strokes. As a Journalist and Writer, I speak the language of a reporter, asking too many questions and trying to build pictures in my head of details and minutia, that I can share through the written word.  As a business person, I understand a growing vocabulary each day; however. I still have conceptual trouble trying to  think outside of my emotions and into practical successful business practices. When I translate business language into a picture its easier to understand.

This is where I think we artist’s always run into trouble. We are conditioned to solitude, with extreme explosions of creativity, that demands focus in order to do our best work. If we work totally alone we actually develop a language set that only we understand. If we are lucky, we also have an assistant who understands it too.

The small amount of time we have outside of the studio requires, at least for me, direct concise answers to our questions so that we can let the information process in our brains. Then we can come back into the conversation at a later time and correct the problem or adapt to a business process we didn’t understand before.

Convincing some business people to give us the non-idioms, strait talk version of a concept in “every day people” language is sometimes very difficult. Especially, if the person talking expects us to understand what they are saying the first time and dismisses the us if  we don’t understand.  It can be even worse if the business person is trying to impose their preferences on a very creative person who’s skills sets run to non-conformity, especially if it seems to be conformity for conformity’s sake. Artist's often understand the nuances of business but have little knowledge of the lingo.

This is one reason I think that mentorship is really important. A good mentor realizes the creativity, out  of the box thinking and exuberance of the artist .  A good mentor speaks in direct simple terms that  answers each question while still being factual and tactful at the same time. A good mentor is going to recognize the process the artist uses and help them translate good business practices into it. A good mentor will not only give practical help, they will also learn from the person they are mentoring.

Understanding that creative emotion can translate into good successful business, can have a healthy out come, without the frustration of communication breakdown, because people don’t understand one another. All that it really takes is the desire to make it happen and a mentor with the ability and willingness to view things from a new perspective he or she had not thought of before. (Artist tend to be trained that way already)

My thoughts and prayers are with all of those in the North East today who are still without power after the snow.

Blessings,

~L

ArtBizVoice: Seriously? How are you allowing your business self to appear to others..

Dear Mr. Trump,

Yesterday, I found a blog that was new to me. It was by Shannan Trenholm. Her post was on people who hear what you are up to and tell you to "Be  Realistic" every time you share an idea or dream with them.

Most of my "seemingly successful" friends  who have this "Be Realistic" Attitude are successful because they had chosen to work for companies instead of starting companies of their own.

These friends judge the worth of a company or a business idea by these two things:
 *Are they top among their competitors in profits
*Does the company have  a good reputation among the community.
In other words those businesses have to be paying big salaries and on the social fast track.

One of these friends once told me "I will never put my name with anything that is not successful."

Not to fault my friend, because she is amazing in every way and worth every penny of her hire, but her perspective is that she doesn’t see potential in people or small businesses.  This means she inadvertently says and does things that show me that she doesn’t believe in what I’m doing. Or so I thought.

This past week I was talking with another friend of mine. I told her how exciting everything was becoming how many new possibilities were opening up in my business. Her response was "What do you mean, you just do some of your art on line on t-shirts, right?"

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

My successful friends had been demeaning my work all this time. I never noticed. Maybe I let  them do this because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my work. It has taken me a while to have a clear plan and really run the numbers. Then I mistakenly thought that my friends would support what I was doing simply because they were my friends. In effect they were not taking my business or me seriously.   I had let them demean my business. I wasn’t accepting what they said, I simply didn’t correct their negative attitude and words about what they thought I was doing . I, of course didnt let her demeaning of my business stand this time. I admit it was a little painful standing up to a friend I assumed was being supportive. Amazingly, we are still friends.

I have to say that my world view of being a self starter and taking the risks, while noble to me, it was not something my successful friends could relate to. In fact, those friends would never be able to run a business ever. They had no desire or talent for it. They are highly paid skilled worker bees that provide, sometimes white collar, services to large established firms. That sort of explained to me why people making 6 figures feel like they are middle class. They are workers but they just get paid more and have more social exposure.

Here is the thing, every business out there started with an idea or a dream. All of them had small beginnings. The success of a business is simply the pay off in the gamble in my opinion. All those successful friends of mine would not even have a job if someone like me and you had not taken the risk. It takes creative people with big ideas that they are passionate enough  to make it happen. As you know it can take a life time.

I am not against  being "realistic"; however,  I must say that realistically without people who have the dream and the passion to take the risk there would be no place for any one to be successful.

~L

If  you would like to see Shannon Trenholm's blog you can read it here: http://shannatrenholm.com/2011/work/be-realistic/

ArtBizVoice: State My Passion, Then SUPER SIZE IT

Dear Mr Trump,

Today my goal is to figure out how to state my what my vision for my business is in One quick sentense and then in the second sentence say how I am doing it.

What is my Vision?
Ok, this is going to be a bit harder than I thought. Why? Because just defining vision is probably too broad. People would assume my vision would be simply for my business.  I have bigger fish to fry and my business is going to get me there. And no I’m not really that political, so politics is not actually part of my vision. However, they possibly overlap as politics affects policy, and policy affects the daily lives of everyone living in the country.

So what is my true Vision for my life:
To  provide a platform for the issues I care about while providing entertainment and education for  my community, my state , my country and the world ( I guess that would be globally). 
Ok let me say it this way.

My Personal Vision is to build a company that will provide entertainment and educational opportunities for issues I care about that will benefit the local community and can positively impact the world.

How am I going to do that, you ask?

I am doing this by passionately creating art that encompasses those issues and working that art into designs that can be incorporated into everyday things that people wear, use and collect , then marketing those items globally.

Gosh, I could really use some input here.

Simply put my Mission is to: Use my talent and skills; build a business,  then help make life better for as many people as is my ability to reach.

I saw this quote by you yesterday on twitter:

"You have to love what you do or you are never going to be successful no matter what you do in life.” - Think Big

I do indeed love what I do. I love connecting with people who love their animals and want to make a better life and I love creating things that bless them.   I am already living it.. now its time to Super Size it!

Today was my kind of snow btw. Just enough to be beautiful.

Blessings of the Day to you,
~L

ArtBizVoice: 30 Seconds

Dear Mr. Trump,

I’ve been sitting here for the last two years thinking about  what direction I would like to take my business in.   And as I did I realized that my communications skills need some major improvement.

So before I go any further I’m going to say that It has really taken me a long time to figure this out. In business we don’t want to be friends we want to be beneficial acquaintances. That means that time is of the essence. That means in the first sentence I have to state my proposal.

I have to say its very intimidating. Everything in one’s life boiled down to one sentence and spoken with concise passion so as to convince the world that your project is the one they should choose. Scary!

I have of course seen your program, The Apprentice. Well I did years ago. That was the first time I  ever saw it in action. I think writers and artists, because of the time they spend alone and in their heads, sometimes are not aware of how to condense and efficiently  use  language for  busy people.

I remember seeing writer Dick Francis in an interview years ago when I still had TV, I remember how he had to think about answers and then slowly spoke. He wasn’t aware of the 30 second sound bite. There was a lot of dead air space that seemed like an eternity and it made this brilliant man seem a bit less intelligent than he really was.  I suppose that is what it boils down to. ..yes, between 15 and 30 seconds to get  one’s point across.

So here it is… you want to make a proposal.
1. Do it on one sentence  to get the attention
2. Follow through with details in the next 2 sentences
2. Keep it narrow
2. Have all the information so you can answer questions.
3.Get the message out as quickly as possible.

So  Tomorrow I am going to try this out on my blog.

Have a great afternoon. Think we might have some snow here tomorrow.

~L

Bloggers Note: I gave up TV in 2003 because of the expense of Cable. When the new change over to digital happened in 2009 I had to give up watching most TV because the antiquated TV's  I have (black and white) and an archaic Color set  are of little use in the "digital age of TV. The money I could use for that entertainment I put into  my business.