This year The World Economic Forum named Creativity the third most valuable future job skill for 2020 (after complex problem solving and critical thinking).
The opportunities for creative professionals to be valued for the way they think are ripe for the taking if they can articulate their value proposition to clients beyond the mere trading of artefacts.
Unfortunately not every artist is suited to capitalizing on their inherent creativity. Plenty are repelled by the concept of opening themselves to connecting with and helping business. They would prefer to stay behind the closed door of their garret defiantly waiting for someone to knock on the door and offer them what they believe they are entitled to on their terms.
If artists cannot find a way to trust the corporate sector and continue to define themselves as its antithesis it is unlikely that any kind of mutually beneficial relationship will form. Artists who isolate and separate themselves from others are narrowing their options for remuneration. Following are five ways that artists can pivot off their creative strengths to create value for business clients.
1. Create connection
Authentic artistic expressions connect people all over the world. When they resonate with audiences in a deep meaningful way the audience shares that experience. This is the holy grail of marketing which aims to achieve both depth of experience and breadth of reach through self-propelled word of mouth. Your ability to use your creative work to create connections between individuals and community in an authentic and original way is a valuable commodity for a business client, enabling them to reach the customers they want.
2. Teach business how you use your intuition
Making decisions in the moment based on an intuitive sense of the dynamics at play in the environment is the magic of live performance. As the ways we collaborate and trade keep accelerating the need to intuit the circumstances and decide a course of action quickly is a key source of competitive advantage that the new breed of business is embracing.
3. Affect the affect
Affect – the psychological term for emotional state – is essential to our behavior as employees and consumers. Business has learned that motivational speeches and inspirational posters are interpreted by employees as propaganda and are not the way to create a sustainable workplace culture. Artists who are sensitive to the way people interact with each other offer a great service in being able to affect the mood of a workplace or a sales environment.
4. Demonstrate collaboration
Companies can see the value of bringing a team of diverse experts together to solve a problem however they struggle to manage the egos. Combine that with the complexities of aligning a diverse group of experts, who are not on salary, to a common goal and you have a market opportunity for any creative professional who collaborates with others to execute their vision. Photographers, directors, musicians and sculptors are all creative professionals who enlist the help of others in order to bring their ambitions to life.
5. Set a price based on your value to business
The hourly rate for creative work has never been profitable because the artist’s inherent pride in their work drives them to work through the night but not to charge accordingly. The successful creative professional in this rising age must be able to articulate their value in terms of the problem they are solving or the opportunity they are realizing on the client’s behalf. Charging an hourly rate in an age that values the fastest execution is a misguided underestimation of a creative professional’s value.
In the past the value of creativity has been difficult for business to understand because it hasn’t fit neatly into any efficient economic model. Now creative thinkers are in demand as organisations pay more attention to how business can serve society better. The businesses succeeding are those delivering value and meaning through the human experience and they are enlisting the sensibilities of artists to do so.
