The Business of Creativity is a new series from Emily Cohen and Hunter Vargas of Casa Davka, a consultancy that helps creative firms evolve their business strategies and practices.
Our industry is at a critical juncture, and now is the moment to advocate not just for ourselves, our employees, and our firms but for the creative profession overall.
Over the last few years, we have made some reactive decisions to challenges both in and out of our control that have impacted the long-term sustainability of our businesses and damaged how our clients perceive the value of our creative services and the creative industry in general. Paired with this, we face steeper and steeper competition as our industry becomes increasingly saturated. And, now, whether we like it or not, we have to face the consequences of our actions as well as the realities of the market and be more intentional in how we move forward. And by “we,” we mean ALL of us, including individual practitioners, firm principals, industry leaders, employees, educators and students, and professional associations. We—yes, you too—must all be in this together, and the opportunity to do so is now or never.
Going into 2024, let’s embrace the challenges ahead of us and turn them into opportunities to evolve and advance our creative businesses and the creative industry overall. Let’s change the narrative from “challenge” to “opportunity,” starting… now!
THE CHALLENGE: Many of us do what we do for love, not money → THE OPPORTUNITY: Why not both! Let’s stand up for ourselves and what we love and demand what we deserve.
We know you love what you do, and we love that you love what you do, but we are still in the business of running a business, and love should not be the only factor driving business decisions. We need to re-prioritize the needs and values of our creative firms and the industry over those of our clients.
Let’s stop taking on work just because our egos have been stroked (e.g., “They really want to work with us, but they don’t have the budget”) or because the project is cool/fun/challenging or because the client is a “big name” or insert any other subjective reason. Instead, let’s say “yes” to opportunities that we love and align with our firm’s vision and values, as well as pricing, organizational, and operational structures.
Let’s stop letting clients walk all over us because we want the client to be “happy.” Instead, let’s appropriately push back on our clients, hold them accountable, and enforce consequences.
And we should begin at the start of the relationship by not letting clients dictate the terms of our relationship. We should be reading each and every clause in our contracts—whether we’re providing them or the client—to understand and analyze their implications within the context of the long-term impact/effect on our business and industry overall. Specifically, we should push back on work-for-hire terms where the client owns everything we develop and on clauses that limit our right to promote our work. We should limit the client’s usage rights to only the final concepts and ensure we are credited for our involvement. Alternatively, if a client insists on work-for-hire terms and/or clauses that limit our ability to promote the work, then our fees should be appropriately increased to reflect the additional value we are giving away. Our industry is already struggling with a value perception challenge, and allowing clients to take away our rights through contractual terms further diminishes our value and kicks off the relationship on an unequal footing. We have the power to negotiate contracts, and we should do so.
We should also stop letting clients misbehave because we’re worried about losing them. Instead, our clients should respect that we are equal partners in the relationship, and we should do everything to educate them and facilitate these healthier relationships. We should hold our clients accountable to agreed-upon scope and schedules, as allowing for scope/schedule creep (i.e., additional and unplanned work) can lead to significant time and cost overages and, as a result, loss of profit. We can protect ourselves by including language in our agreements that states the consequences of schedule/scope creep and by doing our part with consistent, direct communication throughout the project. We also shouldn’t allow our clients to mistreat our team for reasons that don’t need explaining.
We also should reconsider and stop doing pro bono/free work. By doing work for free, we are further devaluing our industry. Just recently, Emily (co-author of this article) spoke at a major industry conference and was disappointed, but not surprised, to hear a prominent industry leader proudly state to the 2,000 attendees that their large creative firm does work for a major cultural institution for free (and has done so for many years). Such practices hurt our industry, as they effectively take away work from smaller/growing agencies. That’s not to say we can’t (very) selectively offer discounts to our clients who really do not have the means. But, if we offer a discount, we should make it fully transparent, showcase our normal rates, and explain why we are making a one-time exception. We also should determine what is in it for us—e.g., more creative freedom (and ensure this is evident in the scope of work), that they will support/join us in PR efforts around the project, more prominent credit, etc.
Ultimately, we need to remember that we bring value to our clients’ businesses, and not just the other way around. Let’s stand up for ourselves, our employees, and our firms and demand the respect we deserve. But, to do so, we also need to know who we are.
THE CHALLENGE: Letting others dictate who we are, what we do, and who we work with → THE OPPORTUNITY: Let’s get to know ourselves, define who we are, and take control of the story!
Over the past couple of years, many of us have made business decisions that are subjective, reactionary, and/or driven by external forces. Maybe these decisions have been made out of desperation to sustain our current business structures (e.g., retain employees, match clients’ “budgets”). Or because we never laid out—or perhaps we did, but we abandoned—long-term strategic visions for our businesses. Or because our new business pipelines are built largely on referrals. Or perhaps we have made these decisions due to a combination of any/all of these. For whatever reason, the result has been the same.
We have lost clarity around who we are, what we do, and who we work with. Many creative agencies have even become jack of all trades, masters of none. And, in an industry already oversaturated, being yet another generalist does not set you apart from the rest. Not only that, generalists are also perceived—and paid—as a commodity, not as value-added strategic partners.
We have let external forces—clients, employees, existing connections, the market—dictate our present and, therefore, the futures of our creative businesses, and the only way to escape from this vicious cycle is to take control. We should define our positioning—who we work with, what services we provide, and what makes us different—and communicate this both internally and externally. That’s all to say: we should be specialists because what we provide our clients is specialized expertise.
As a specialist, you can develop clear and powerful customized messages that resonate with your target markets, which means you can position yourself in the market and compete more strategically and effectively.
As a specialist, you are positioned as an expert and can prove your expertise with success metrics (more on this later), which allows you to command higher fees.
As a specialist, you are in control of your story, which means you can be intentional about new business efforts instead of just relying on inbound business and referrals. If you know who you are, what messages you’re communicating, and to whom, you are more likely to invest the necessary time and resources in consistent and active outbound business development strategies because you know where to begin. You can focus on building very specific relationships, attending and speaking at conferences/events that reach your target audience, sharing content that resonates, etc.
As a specialist, you know what level/depth of experience, skill sets, and even personality and behavioral attributes you need on your team, both now and in the future. As a result, you can build and grow a team more strategically and not make hiring decisions based on the latest need or challenge or even on a whim (by hiring someone that you love at the moment but only fills a partial vision of what you need in the long term).
Ultimately, we at Casa Davka have observed that, during the trying times over the last few years, the majority of creative firms that thrived have clearly defined visions and positioning strategies. They are consistent about outbound new business development and building relationships because they know exactly who to target. They are specialists and have become known experts in their clients’ industries. And because of all of this, they can command fees that reflect this value.
THE CHALLENGE: Plummeting fees → THE OPPORTUNITY: Embrace and prove our value to command higher prices!
Simply put, we are not charging enough, and paired with this, our industry is both highly competitive and has a bad habit of lowering our prices during hard times (or in times of intense competition) instead of making tough business decisions. And, while we know that most of us do what we do for love and not money, we are still in the business of running a business. We must charge what we are worth to keep our firms and the creative industry sustainable.
To command higher prices that reflect the value of our work, we need to embrace and prove our value by capturing success metrics on how our strategic insights, concepts, and overall consultation have helped our clients “move the needle.” Success metrics are quantifiable data—not just subjective testimonials—on how the work we do solves our clients’ challenges and meets specific business goals (e.g., expand market reach/presence, generate sales leads, change spending patterns, raise awareness, increase market share). We need to develop more powerful case studies that speak to the results of our work, not just the “quality” of our work, which can be subjective. To do so, we need to work with our clients to align on project goals and success metrics at the kick-off phase to capture these results and prove that we’ve done what we’ve set out to do (and more). Even small achievements speak to powerful results.
And, if we are specialists (i.e., experts), all of this is made easier as not only can we demonstrate a proven track record of success, but we can also be more strategic in helping our clients identify, define, and even track these metrics as we know what our other clients have done and can leverage those insights to advise others. Results resonate with prospects, demonstrate our value, and ultimately, how we will command fees that align with the value we provide.
Are you ready? If not, you’d better be!
We know that facing these challenges head-on and turning them into opportunities won’t always be easy, but it is vital that we do so now and even more vital that we do so together. And we mean all of us (yes, you!): individual practitioners, firm principals, industry leaders, employees, educators and students, and professional associations. The present and future sustainability of our creative businesses and the industry is at stake.
Let’s all commit to doing a better job of standing up for ourselves. Let’s commit to making smarter, more intentional decisions, defining who we are (i.e., positioning), and capturing and communicating our value so that we can command higher fees. We must show a united front. Our collective duty is to lead by example and make decisions that consider the short- and long-term impact not only on our own businesses but on our peers/colleagues and the creative industry as a whole.
The very future of our industry is at stake, but we’ve got this!
Emily Cohen and Hunter Vargas are business partners and consultants at Casa Davka who offer customized business solutions to creative firms so they are able to refine, evolve, and elevate their strategies and practices. Emily has been in the business for over 30+ years, partnered with 500+ leading creative firms, and is a frequently requested main stage speaker. Hunter is an experienced marketer, project manager, client partner, and business development manager. They also happen to be a mother/daughter pair, so they work together seamlessly, complementing (and challenging) each other in many ways.