I gave my wife the best Valentine's Day present she's had in years -- the whole day to herself, while I attended an Editors' Association of Canada workshop :-).
John Vigna presented "Thinking Like an Entrepreneur: Growing Your Writing & Editing Business." As I recall, John has been running a writing and editing business for about three years now, and appears to have picked up a lot more business sense in that period than some of us who have been toiling away on keyboards for much longer.
Business plans? Managing cash flow? Marketing? Networking? All topics I suspect most creative types don't like to think about, yet that are crucial to success.
John told us about how he'd had a stellar rookie year, with gross sales that far surpassed his expectations, and then how in his second year he'd slacked off on his marketing and soon found himself pinching pennies.
By focusing on marketing basics, he pulled himself back up, and during the workshop he ran us through those basics, plus a number of excercises to see how we were doing, and where we needed to improve our business skills.
I can relate to John, as we too started out strong, had a stellar second year, and then became complacent, only to see sales slide for two consecutive years.
So it's back to the basics. We have to write a new business plan, and update it regularly. We have to devote more time to marketing instead of waiting for work to find us.
What a great way to spend Valentine's Day! My wife, who is also my business partner, got the day to herself, and I came home charged up with new plans for making money. How romantic :-).
Posted by Paul at February 14, 2004 07:39 PM