ISSUE SIX: A RALLYING CRY - Moving Forward into New Realities

When I felt pangs of despair, from time to time, my stepfather would ask me: “Baby, if you don’t do this anymore, what would you spend your time doing?” Most often, I would reply with some form of: “I don’t know, this life and professional path is still what I want.” His reply to that would be “Then you ain’t broken, you’re just bent—onward.” Many years after his death, I still hear his voice whispering  this message in my ear… but this time, at the end of 2024, it stings a little bit more than it inspires.

I write this newsletter today with all the energy I could muster, up post-election. What I know to be true is that we are living amidst wild division. More than half of the country I not only reside in, but am a citizen of simply does not want to live in the world I dream of. I believe that’s the world perhaps my readers—and my clients—want to build toward. But what’s happened is real. It’s not an illusion. The future ahead of us will absolutely continue to be shaped by extreme cultural polarity. 

That said,  now more than ever,  my belief that Creative Entrepreneurialism has an important role to play in our society persists. I believe we can continue to set new standards through everyday activism,  the integration of our values into our business models, and flexing our sociocultural muscles. Every one of us is imperative to this resistance movement, going forward. There will never be a better time to channel resiliency, call in grit, and strategically plan for a future being built to disarm us. Our responsibility as creatives is to stay true to the course of what we believe in. All 647,000 of us together can challenge today’s supremacy othering so many.

SOME STATS WORTH DIGESTING:
via Pew Research, Americans for the Arts, National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, The Reynolds Center
 

Of the roughly 35M small businesses in the United States…

• 85% are majority-owned by White Americans

• 11% by Asian Americans

• 7% by Hispanic Americans 

• 3% by Black Americans 

Overall, 22% are majority-owned by women (of any race.) 

Most small businesses don’t have paid employees… only 6M do. About one quarter of those have between 5 and 19 employees (i.e., micro businesses.)
 

There are over 673,000 creative businesses in the US, and 90% are solo or micro operations - that’s just shy of 2% of all small businesses.

• 35% women-owned (235,550) 

• 38% people of color-owned (255,740) 

• 7% by Hispanic Americans (245,0000)

• ~4% at least partially owned by someone who identifies as LGBTQIA+ (26,920)

Recall the concept of adaptive entrepreneurship. It’s not exclusive to forward thinking, progress- oriented realities—it can and should be embraced in the face of conservative regression. An adaptive, creatively curious approach to problem solving will be essential. We must evolve so that we can be prepared for the traumatic forces coming for us. “Big” business policies aren’t going to be built with us in mind, and won’t work for micro-to-small businesses—full stop. 

WHAT IS A DIVERSIFICATION STRATEGY? 

Business diversification is expanding a company's operations into new or unrelated products, services, markets, or industries. Diversification can reignite growth by testing new opportunities, and helps to identify if your core business can be specialized further. The goal of diversification is to generate new sources of revenue with less risk than, say, pivoting your entire business model. The word to be thinking about, again, is RESILIENCY. 

Here are some ways small businesses can build resilience: 

Understand potential negative outcomes and plan for them.

• Plan for risks
  Given where we’re at right now, this may feel like adding insult to injury, but you can’t prepare for what you’re not willing to envision. Already this year I’ve been discussing with clients things like: 

  • Identifying employee responsibilities, and ensuring back-ups and redundancies are in place 

  • Preparing for customer fall out, or  customers’ discretionary spend budgets rapidly changing

  • Assessing communications strategies to ensure you’re not  unintentionally come across as tone deaf 

Have contingency plans in place so you can respond quickly when the shit hits the fan, and anticipate that policies and procedures will need to adapt.. often.  

• Create checkpoints
  Schedule recurring  reviews for anything big ticket NOW, ‘cause it will be imperative to remain nimble while simultaneously not being taken by surprise. Built-in checkpoints help ensure you stay informed and aware. This can work retrospectively, too—for example, put a recurring question like "What did I do in the last 30 days to ensure my longevity, beyond this quarter/season/circumstance?" in your calendar today.

• Collaborate and learn from mistakes
  Discuss resilience with whoever you can, and glean from what has and hasn’t worked for others. Participate in (or form!) a small business group in your community. Think locally/regionally, in terms of impact and being of service.
   

Diversify AND double down

• Consider how your product or service could be varied upon, or redefine your target audience with a focus on  deepening loyalty.

  • Pick a lane—lead with your values, or remove them from your customer AND employee experience. No shame—shit’s weird right now, and simpler is often better— but it’s definitely not time to try to have your cake and eat it too. Either path will greatly impact all facets of your business, internally and externally.

When I was getting my MBA, I didn’t realize I had actively set myself on a path of service, rather than extending my career as a creative director. When I think back on that—and the conversation I would have had with my pop if he’d still been alive—it’s the first time I actually had a vision beyond my creative work. “Baby, if you don’t want to do this anymore, what would you spend your time doing?” I've chosen to build a career helping creative professionals embrace and harness their power and responsibility to push culture forward, not just indulge aesthetic desires. 

Now, more than ever, I’m feeling galvanized by my choices.  Helping  my community to live their values and build them into the foundations of their businesses has been the most rewarding part of my entire career, seriously.  There has never been a better time to let it all hang out, in terms of being true to yourself, and having your business truly reflect that.Life is short, and may be getting shorter—there’s no time not to integrate activism into every facet of our professional (and hopefully personal) pursuits, every single day. 

#getwithit

gJ