The conflict of selling our creativity
- Jan 16, 2024
- 4 min read
If you're of a certain age, you might remember the 80's classic horror film, Poltergeist. There’s a scene where the mom is frantically trying to reach her kids in the bedroom at the end of a corridor. She starts running towards the door, yet the corridor unnaturally stretches away from her. As she steels herself and accelerates forward, it feels like the door is moving further away and she's not going to reach it.
It's disorientating. It’s nauseating. It's nightmarish.
It's also the way a lot of creatively minded people feel about promoting themselves and navigating the sales process. I know, I was one of those people.
As photographers, artists, designers, musicians et al, our dopamine-addicted brains excel when we're in creative flow and it is this Eden we both yearn for and retreat to. To some, it's their safe place. Selling the output of that so-treasured state doesn’t seem right, somehow. The cliché of “If it wasn’t my job, I’d be doing it anyway” is all too real for many.
I've been a photographer for over 10 years and have had some success, yet the Poltergeist scene is a great analogue to the gnarly, knotted belly and the cold sweats that trying to conduct the sales process filled me with. It is the dread of the unknown. A dread I built a whole belief system to avoid.
My model was: "If I just learn to use this new tool, this new technique and put in enough hours and do more creative things, then my work will be perfect, everyone will see me and I'll be successful. It's just a matter of time". It was a mantra I repeated to myself daily.
A large part of me always felt that selling my work meant having to be like one of those old-fashioned salesman stereotypes - you know the ones - cornering unsuspecting victims and bullying them into buying stuff they neither want nor can afford. They'd sell their own grandmother to make a buck. No thanks. Not for me.
As creatives, we see ourselves as the total opposite of that salesman stereotype.
We know, of course, that we’re supposed have to have a good Marketing and Sales game to succeed, however those disciplines seem to directly oppose the inner story of our best selves - stories where we hone our talent and work long hard artisanal hours to make the lives of others better, not worse. We give, we give and we don't take. Some of us find it hard to say 'thank you' when someone compliments our work and even harder to actually believe them - a rich irony considering that validation is invariably what we all want, deep down. To the sales-afflicted, a career in service of others sits at odds with making money.
Yet, make money we must. For without financial sustainability, that which we love doing will certainly not survive and our talent will become at best a hobby and at worst, a tombstone.
Fortunately, as creatives we are blessed with the ability to embrace new ideas.
“Nothing changes if nothing changes” they say. So let's explore one effective change. If you’re open and willing, there is a way to make the sales process more approachable, more enjoyable and, perhaps, more creative.
If you’ve got your sales game licked, then I’m envious. If you think it could do with some improvement and you’re stuck on how to feel better about it and move forward, here’s an idea:
Try not selling.
By that, I mean try not to concern yourself directly with the activity of selling. That may sound counterintuitive, but consider setting the initial goal as simply to invest in having conversations. The exercise is not to present, pitch or convince but to learn. Forget speaking about yourself and what you can do - justifying yourself - and simply start by asking questions. And listening. With intent.
As the Dalai Llama said: "When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new".
When your client has finished talking, take a breath and wait for more. Or, ask another question that continues the exchange, not a pre-prepared shoe horn that you are nervously - or self-indulgently - eager to lever in.
You see, we creatives are inherently problem solvers. Navigating the puzzles of our work is what we’re good at. The knack is to lean in and extend that facet of our industrious abilities towards helping our clients to discover and solve their puzzles.
Be curious.
Why have they come to you? Why do they feel they need to do this project now? What have they tried in the past? What would success look like to them? If they had a magic wand, what’s the biggest problem would they wave it at?
Start with being a guide then let the conversation flow. Shed the broadcaster mentality and become a receiver.
Be human.
"Creativity, remember, is not the ability to write, draw or code, but the ability to see—the knack of bringing a fresh perspective to problems, of seeing things in ways that others cannot." ~Blair Enns
Try it. Practice it.
Get good at it and believe me, the dopamine receptors will thank you for it.
By having meaningful exchanges, we build relationships. We get to understand more about the challenges our customers have, their pain points, their aspirations and their goals. When matching our client’s needs with our talent through conversation, the sale looks after itself. It becomes emergent, almost inevitable.
It may be a change of approach, but only by truly listening do we learn where we might be able to add our experience - value our prospective clients perhaps weren’t expecting - and in time become a trusted asset rather than a tolerated cost-centre.
Conversations are the key. The sales process is no longer a closed door at the end of a retreating horror-nightmare corridor, but a door that feels open, inviting and, importantly, much easier to step through.