6 Creative Entrepreneur Essentials
1. Run Your Job like a Business
If you do choose to strike out on your own, run your job like a business. Incorporate it. Set up your bookkeeping to reflect good practices: proper invoicing, paying yourself a salary, tax payments, retirement planning. Ensure your website reflects that level of professionalism. You may be working in your pajamas, but no one should be the wiser.
2. Protect Your Intellectual Property
Be sure to protect your intellectual property! I cannot stress enough the importance of copyrighting any art or trademarking any brands you try to introduce to cartoon, toy and merchandise companies unsolicited. Make any possible co-collaborator sign a non-disclosure agreement before you begin the conversation. These industries are rife with creative plagiarism, so tread these waters carefully, and if necessary consult a lawyer. I have done this with several of my own properties. My Cherry Bombs brand has had limited success, but my new series of historically themed ABC books for publisher Gibbs Smith and my collaboration with the animation studio Deep water on a cartoon concept has been among my biggest professional accomplishments.
3. Build Your Reputation
Entering the design world as a free agent also takes a monumental shift in attitude. You need to develop a service-based profile that attracts and maintains your client base. Many of those relationships I fostered 15 years ago in New York are still people I receive work from regularly, and I hope it’s because I have a reputation of producing and being amiable to work with.
4. Choose Flexibility over Victory
Flexibility is a must. And while, yes, your opinion as a professional is why they hired you to begin with, the buck starts and ends with the client’s vision. If you feel very strongly about a creative choice, be courteous and suggestive, but going to the mat for your opinions may alienate your clients. Sometimes a job is just a job, and kicking it out of the door and collecting your paycheck is far more important than your vision for the project.
5. Keep Tabs on Industry Rates
And though your clients may call the shots, do not ever undervalue your services. Remember, you possess talent that they do not. Have a good grasp on the going rate for design services and charge accordingly.
6. Find Your Confidence
Most of all, have the confidence that you can pull it off! I’m not suggesting that you take on a project that you’re not equipped for, but tune in to that voice in your head that is telling you that you are good enough. Believe in it. Then, it’s likely your clients will too.
Maybe you are ready to take that leap. This is one of the fastest magazine subscription India And if you jump and find the whole endeavor is not for you, agency life really isn’t so bad. I desperately miss venting at happy hour with coworkers. And while it’s great to not have to deal with a commute or a toxic work situations, my office is always just steps away. Work is ever-present and unescapably, even if your kids are screaming at each other while your wife is vacuuming.
So pick your poison.