The life cycle of a creative business
Every week we talk to designers at different stages of their career. Some are fresh graduates bursting with confidence, others are successful studio owners questioning if they’ve lost their mojo.
This article explains why understanding both your personal career stage and your firm’s growth phase is crucial for success.
Firstly, the three stages of a creative
We’ve talked about career stages before, but understanding these three distinct phases helps make sense of how we, and others react to change and progress.
Feeling wobbly mid career?– that’s completely normal. And understanding where your team are in their career cycle helps you make hiring and training decisions.
Stage 1: Confident incompetence
Fresh graduates typically exude supreme confidence. They’re ready to tackle any challenge, redesign any brand. What they lack in experience they make up for in enthusiasm. They don’t know what they don’t know and that’s OK.
At this stage, creatives often compete on price, taking any job to build a portfolio. They undercharge because they don’t yet understand the true cost of running a business.
Tip: understand you don’t know what you don’t know and search for answers. Watch this or this YouTube video to understand the cost of doing business and watch this about recognising your pillars of expertise to attract higher-fee clients.
Stage 2: Unconfident competence
Usually hitting around the 5-7 year mark, creatives realise how much they don’t know. Despite being more skilled than ever, they feel less confident, in skills and business sense.
This is the danger zone. Many talented designers change careers at this point, thinking they’ll never excel. They charge market rates but struggle to justify them to clients, often discounting to win work.
Tip: Hire with more judgement. Could be a seasoned creative who introduces new ideas to the studio, broadens your skillset and your offer. Understand your deep knowledge base and intentionally market to specific markets
Stage 3: Confident competence
The sweet spot. Designers understand their strengths and limitations. They’re comfortable saying “I don’t know” and confident enough to ask for help.
Most importantly, they understand their value. They price on impact rather than hours, confidently turning down work that doesn’t meet their minimum fee threshold.
Your firm’s growth phases
Interestingly, a business follows a similar growth phase to a person.
At the beginning…
- we hire available, affordable talent with broad (if any) job descriptions
- often work to brief: trade $ for design
- design-for-hire, we work with any client in any industry sector
- have a sporadic income.
In the middle…
- we hire with more judgement about what we need and why
- we’re better at targeting and intentionally market to our ‘ideal’ client
- salary is more reliable.
A mature business
- we hire experts to broaden/teach the studio (and us) new skills
- focuses on work to feed our soul
- have a significant, reliable income that keeps us motivated.
So what?
Understanding these stages helps navigate the ups and downs of running a creative business. It’s normal to cycle through stages as you tackle new challenges or enter new markets.
Most importantly, recognising your current stage helps you make better decisions about pricing, hiring and growth.
That’s why we wrote our How to build a great creative business, good for people and profits half day workshop. It’s the perfect way to identify your career stage, and analyse businesses maturity then understand why it matters.
Carol Mackay
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About Carol Mackay
After 30+ years running a design studio, I accumulated a pretty special network of fellow designers. One thing most have in common: a need for more information about the ‘business’ side of design. Most are impatient with any task competing for time spent doing what they love – designing so they wanted more info about how to work more efficiently and effectively.
Not me. I love that intersection between design and business. I built a career working with Ombudsman schemes, the Emergency Services sector and the Courts. My special power has always been an ability to use design to translate the difficult to understand or the unpalatable message.
I now use exactly the same skills with creative business owners. I translate the indigestible into bite-sized chunks of information. I share insights, introduce tools and embed processes to help others build confidence business decision-making skills. More confidence makes it easier to grasp opportunities. More confidence makes it easier to recognise a good client from the bad.
Outside DBC I have mentored with Womentor, AGDA The Aunties, and most recently Regional Arts NSW.
And I’m a proud volunteer and board member of Never Not Creative.
Always happy to chat, I can be contacted here.
