The Mission Paradox Blog

Once in a while

Here's my last thought for the year.

The world of the arts is just like the world itself.  That means it can be beautiful, ugly, fair and unfair at the same time. 

The people in the arts are just people.  Just because someone wears the label of artist doesn't mean that they are creative, noble or good partners.  The artist label also doesn't mean that person doesn't understand business or strategy.

Arts organizations are just like any organization in any field.  Some are awesome, many more are mediocre.  A few are horrible places you should avoid at all costs.

My point is that this place isn't necessarily special.  If you entered the world of the arts hoping to avoid the issues that makes the world in general a challenging place then you will be disappointed.

But on the other hand . . . .

The reason I stay in the arts is because every once in a while something magical happens.  Every once in a while art puts something special in the hearts and mind of those who receive it and create it.

Those moments are worth fighting for. 

I hope you had a fantastic 2011.  I wish you the best for 2012.  See you on Monday, Jan. 2nd

 

 

The Raised Hand

A few days ago I found out that my day job is going to receive an honor that recognizes their efforts to bring diversity to the stage and the audience.

This isn't the first time that such efforts have been recognized but it is still nice to see that others notice.  It has also been nice to play a small role in helping bring in a diverse audience.

Over the past few years I've moved away from a lot of the arts/diversity talk.  The issue is still very important to me.  In fact, I think the nonprofit arts sector general challenge to recognize and empower people of color, younger people and just those with different ideas is the elephant in the room.

Any successful field reflects the future and all too often the arts reflects the world that was.

But I also think that the blueprint for success is there.  There are plenty of organizations and industries that have tackled these challenges.  Those who want to learn from those lessons can do that. 

At the core, it's a very simple idea.  You open the door.  You share power and responsibility with those who don't necessary look or think like you.  You continue to do this until it becomes an institutional habit.

I've never seen an organization who honestly wanted a different, more robust, more diverse culture fail at the task.  It doesn't happen overnight but it always happens.

I've never seen a token, bullshit effort, win over the long term.  That's just how it is.

But I've got to admit, it breaks my heart when I see some well meaning person making a "case" for diversity in the arts.  It's almost 2012.  If people still need a case before they embrace where the world is clearly going then they are already in a lot of trouble.

I truly wish that those who care about diversity in the arts would stop making cases and instead look for the raised hand.

Look for those who raise their hand and say "we get it, come help us." 

Let's use our limited time and energy to assist those who want to embrace the future.  Let's assume that embrace is authentic until it is proven otherwise.

I think that's the obligation we have.

 

Help those who want it.  Ignore the rest. 

 

 

 

The Myth of Effort

Few things annoy me more then the myth that if you just "try hard" success in the arts (or any field) is inevitable.

Effort is really overrated.  You can try hard and flop just because you're trying hard at the wrong things. 

Effort only helps when it is combined with a strategy makes sense. 

In fact when I'm helping folks directly one of the first pieces of advice I give them is to stop trying so hard and really think about what they are doing and why they are doing it that way.

Why are you marketing your work that way?

Why do you have those sort of revenue projections?

Why are these people a part of your team?

Once you ponder those sorts of questions, your efforts will go a lot further. 

 

 

Looking for my 2012 clients

Here's the deal:

Every once in a while I work directly with a handful of individual artists and arts organizations.

For example, this year I worked with a visual artist, a theatre that focuses on highlighting artists with disabilities and a few other interesting folks.

We are headed toward a new year so I wanted to open the door to a few new clients. I'm going to do this the old fashioned way. I'm going to explain what your getting and offer you a discounted price for a limited time.

Technically what I'm offering is called marketing coaching. You are going to come to me with your marketing challenges. Challenges like these:

You need to sell more of your jewerly on Etsy.

You need to build awareness for your Kickstarter campaign.

You need to sell more tickets to your plays.

Then we are going to break your problem down into pieces and tackle the thing one week at a time. We do that through a series of phone calls.

The phone calls last about two hours. At the end of each call, you'll get some homework. DO THE HOMEWORK.

We do that for six weeks, maybe seven if we need it.

At the end of the process you should have some answers to your challenges. That's cool, but that's not the point. The point is the process. The goal is that when the next tricky marketing challenge comes up, you'll have a way of finding your own answers.

The price is normally $750.

If you sign up by Monday, Jan. 2nd, I'll knock it down to $500. I'm comfortable with taking payments in installments. If you need an installment plan, email me and let me know. Payments are done via Paypal.

Need some testimonals, click here

Got questions about the process? Email me at mission.paradox(at)yahoo.com

Ready to get to work? Email me.

Louis offers all you need to know

Comedian Louis CK on how he got the authority and freedom to due his well respected sitcom:

"I got it by demanding it and refusing to do the show any other way at all and by having the leverage that I was completely willing to walk away without doing the show and by agreeing to an extremely low budget so that they could offset the risk of giving me this freedom because they are risking less money."

The next time I get one of those "how to build an artistic career" questions I may just give them that quote and call it a day.  But what the hell, let's break it down a bit.

"Leverage" - We talked about this.  Louis wasn't some starry eyed kid.  He has spent a lifetime honing his craft with all the failures and blow ups that come with it.  Over that time he built his own audience.

"Willing to walk away" - Isaac talks about that in this post.  It's a very basic idea.  The one who wins almost every negotiation is the one who is willing to walk away from the deal.

"Risking less money" - A bit of wisdom helped Louis to understand that artistic freedom and money go hand-in-hand.  If he went with the network with the top production budget and salary he knew that money  came with strings.

He left the money on the table in exchange for the freedom.

-------------------------------

So if you want a "path" to success, there it is.  Do the work for years (Louis has been in comedy for about 16 years).

Fail a lot.

Use your successes to build an audience and an asset.

Then leverage those assets on your own behalf.

Easier said then done, I know.

But that's true of almost everything.

Valuable Real Estate

When's the last time you actually looked at your website?

Are all the links working?

Is the relevant information current?

And (more importantly) are you using your web presence, some of the valuable real estate you have an artist or arts organization, to good use?

Here's an example of what I mean by that, take a look at my day job's website.  My brilliant associate director of marketing has created a site that has three really useful spots on the main page:

1.  The header, which we use to do a bit on institutional marketing

2.  The middle block, where video is being used to current single ticket and subscription opportunities.

3.  The "rotater" on the right side of the page which highlights upcoming shows and other current initatives.

Most of our web traffic touches those three areas, which makes it the most efficient, effective marketing tool we have.

This morning, spend a few minutes navigating your own web presence.

Don't let that valulable space go to waste.

VARP

Value.

Above. 

Replacement.

Player.

It's a sports statistic, but I think it's a useful way of thinking about your value to the people you are associated with.  I don't just mean your job.  I mean any place where you devote your time and energy.

How much worse (or better) would things be if you were replaced?

If I get removed from my day job, or someone starts working with my consulting clients, how much better (or worse) would things be for my employer and clients?

I ponder that a lot.

Maybe you should do the same this weekend.

What's your VARP?

How do you measure the value you provide to the people you work with/for?

Trolling the Uninterested

I don't have many rules, but here's one:

Never outgrow your audience.

Stick to that and everything else is cream cheese.  Here's a bit of explanation:

The audience for your play/handmade crafts/sculpture/novel is a real number.  You could right it down on paper if you had too.

For example, I know that when you put together my unique blog visitors, Twitter followers (@missionparadox), people who get the blog via email/rss feed (HEY GUYS) and those who follow me on Facebook mostly for my arts/biz stuff that comes out to about 10,000 people over a 12 month span.

I would call that my organic audience.  It's an audience that has grown naturally over time.

How many people would you consider part of your natural audience?  Think about it.  Write it down.

The question then becomes what sort of business can you build around that natural audience?

For many, the answer is that they could only build a very small business around those folks.  There's no shame in that.

The issue arises when you either decide to build a bigger business then your audience can sustain or decide that your audience must magically grow in a way that isn't healthy or natural.

For example, I'm pretty sure I could double or triple my readership.  But I don't want to do the sort of things necessary to make that happen.  I don't want to post multiple times a day.  I don't want to post the sort of tabloid-esque stuff that tends to drive online readership. 

So I've made a choice to work with what I have.  For me, it's much more enjoyable world.

What if you decided to make the most of the audience you had instead of looking for more?

What if you decided to get more value out of the people that are already interested in what you have instead of trolling the uninterested?

 

 

No longer connected

For about 50 years seeking permission to do art, get people to see it and getting paid for that art were connected concepts.

Sure, it was hard to get the attention of that book publisher, but the publisher was really the only one who had access to bookstore (and therefore the audience).  Plus the good news was that the publisher would pay the writer for the work.

Yeah, it sucked to have to beg a theatre to hire you to act and/or produce your play.  But the theatre was the only one who had both the mailing list and the ability to reach the folks on the list.  Plus, they would pay you if you got chosen.

What this new world has done is broken the permission/audience/pay connections.

You no longer need permission to produce anything.  I think that is always the good news.  You or I may not like a lot of what is out there, but it is nice to see so many people expressing themselves.

Every artist now has the ability to cultivate and manage their own audience.  That audience may be smaller then they wanted, but the ability to directly contact people who are interested in what you do is revoluntionary.

Then there's the whole "getting paid" thing.  One consequence of smaller audiences is that it can be difficult to leverage that group into a lot of money. 

Want to sell enough art to your audience to make it the equivalent of a nice part time job?  I think that can happen.

Want to sell enough art/tickets/whatever for you an your friends to make a full time living?  Totally different ball game.

The point here is that was once one thought (get permission, seen, paid) are now three distinct and separate thoughts (No Permission.  Get Seen.  Maybe get paid)

If you are looking to make a living from art, you have to deal with each issue separately.

Harder then it looks

I get asked:  "What's the ideal size for an arts organization?"

My answer, one person.  Any organization that involves more then one person is really a b*tch to operate.

Folks laugh, but I'm being serious.  It's my little way of reminding people that running any sort of "artistic" organization is way, way, more challenging then many realize.

It's hard enough to get 3 people to agree on a place to eat dinner.  Imagine the challenge of getting artists, volunteers and others to agree on an tangible, executable, artistic vision.

Then there's the money issue.  There's never enough.  How do you determine an equitable division of the funds?

Then there's the unpredictable outcome.  It's art.  Sometimes it hits.  Sometimes it misses.

So when you combine people (and their complexity), money (and it's scarcity) and art (and it's unpredictability) then you are signing up for a challenge.

It's harder then it looks.

It just is.

But it's not impossible.