Business opportunity lies within ones ability to innovate. Most successful businesses offer something that no one else does. A certain style, sound, product or service that is unique and very much one of a kind. Thankfully, this is where creatives shine, what sector can be more innovative than content creators, artisans, artists and musicians? Every piece they produce is often unique. Lately, the trend of creative individuals forming their own business organizations is rapidly increasing thanks to the gig economy and social media platforms.
Whilst many creative entrepreneurs have already succeeded in forming excellent brands for themselves, issues arise when creativity is obstructed by the mundane but necessary requirements of administration. After all, regular administration is crucial to a business’ growth and survival. In this post, we explore some of the reasons why creative entrepreneurs may need to delegate their business administration.
Freedom from restriction:
True art requires freedom, spellbinding music requires tranquility and an excellent YouTube video requires focused thought and ingenuity. All these aspects become substantially more difficult to achieve when coupled with the burden of daily business administration, a set of meticulous and time consuming tasks. Precision is essential to ensure accurate data analysis in the long-run, however, if the artist spends too large a portion of their time on the management and administrative aspects of the business, they may have a minimal amount of time left to improve their craft and consistently produce high quality work. A creative entrepreneur is likely to find they have to compromise on their product's quality to meet administrative demands. In the short run, it may be possible to successfully juggle both duties but as the workload increases, something often has to give.
In many cases, focusing on the product derails the daily business management. On the other hand, excessive focus on daily management compromises creative quality. In both cases, the artist's business suffers. To prevent this eventuality, foresight is needed, the entrepreneur will need to think of how the business would run as a bigger and more successful enterprise and start laying down the foundation of what that looks like from the prospective of daily operations. This is the time to consider delegating certain tasks to skilled professionals. This way, both the management and creative production can move forward successfully.
The right person for the job:
As a creative, your artistic skill is your strength and unique sell point. You hold the ability to produce a great number of things that many others cannot and it is for this reason they seek you out. While it not impossible to possess the skills and desire to wear both hats within the business. It is a rare bird that relishes the monotony of business administration along side their creative en-devours and while these wonderfully individuals do exist, the best of them recognize that is not the most efficient option for the business in the long run.
A skilled professional can help the founding entrepreneur, streamline and optimize the sectors of the business their have been entrusted to manage, allowing for faster growth and greater stability of the brand.
Increased workload:
More business, more sales, more work. This is the goal for you as a creative and a hopeful inevitability for a small business with it's house in order. Having focused on further developing your creative skills, you are likely to see an increase in demand for your product/services sooner than later. However, if you have been controlling and managing the business administration yourself, you may reach the point of overload. Let's face it, in the business of creativity and originally, teaching someone else to take on your creative duties is not only more difficult but hardly a good idea. Why would a customer pay you a premium for creative work that can be done by your assistant? As your work load increase focus on the tasks you do best, your time spent on them improves the overall quality of your product and brand. As your business gains momentum, your focus on creative production should also increase, because no one can replace you nor should they be able to. Your creative production revolves around you and you may become overburdened if systems are not put in place to prevent this.
On the other hand, delegating the administration to other people in your business prepares a team to help you during expansion. Your team are already prepared to take over the major administrative tasks, meaning when orders start coming in, you can trust your administrative workload to the people you have trained through delegation from the very beginning. As a result, you are left with more time to increase the creative quality and production capacity of the business. Early delegation simply prepares your team to administrate the business for you as you slowly let go of the reins.
Conclusion:
Most entrepreneurs, at any scale, prefer delegation as an important tool for business growth. It helps you prepare a team under your supervision to work in a manner that you feel is best suited to your business. Similarly, when growth within the business occurs and the time comes, the team can assist with more important management tasks and you get more time to do what you do best, the creation of unique art!
Comments