Category Archives: Creativity

Distribution is the new marketing

When I was in college, I took a logistics course.

We studied the business discipline of distribution, which included topics like supply chain management, warehousing, inventory, shipping and trucking.

Riveting stuff.

But that was long before the digital revolution and the direct to consumer era and the infinite shelf space of the internet changed everything. Especially for artists. Now, creators can take their truth to market faster and freer than ever before. Now, an artist’s work isn’t limited to living in one place. Now, creators have multiple entry points into the marketplace.

Because technology has allowed them evolve their definition of distribution to include anybody or anything who has influence on someone who can access their work.

This concert documentary is being distributed independently, and my hope is that it’s a reminder to other artists that how we go to market is just as important as who we are when we get there.

How could you make distribution your competitive advantage?

All art is selfish art

When it comes to writing, I’ve always been as selfish as possible.

I write about myself, to myself and for myself. I don’t care about being right. I don’t care about being the best. And I’m not trying to deliver some systemic worldview for people to follow. I’m just trying to explain my own life to myself. I’m trying to metabolize my experiences, organize my thoughts and process my feelings.

That’s why I make art. It’s completely selfish. Because it’s not about the product, it’s about the transformation inside of me that happens during the process of making it.

Like my mentor used to say, first you write the book, then the book writes you.

Proving my theory, that we should be selfish when we create art, but generous when we share it.

What are the barriers to getting your work in people’s hands?

The byproduct of creating value

Raising your fee is moot point.

A more strategic approach is to wonder, what could I create, that would enhance my offering and diversify my identity and upgrade my context and grow my skillset and raise my credibility and strengthen my leverage, that would earn me the right to command a higher fee for my work?

That’s how value is created. You keep adding to the collection. You continually engage in new projects worth pointing to. You seek opportunities that make yourself more attractive, regardless of the outcome. And your fee changes as a natural byproduct.

If you want to get to the next level, you have to raise your game.

That’s why I made this movie.

If you were arrested and charged with creating value for people, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Make whatever you feel like you’re missing

Treat others as you’d want to be treated. Be the change you want to see in the world. Two sides of the same philosophical coin.

Interestingly, artists have their own version of these maxims. They create what they want to see in the world. The write the book they’d want to write. They make the movie they’d want to watch. They paint the murals they’d want to see.

I’m reminded of a podcast with the principal songwriter of a multiplatinum rock band. Fascinating origin story. Back in the late nineties, Mike finally got fed up of flipping through the radio dial and never hearing the hard, aggressive rap music he so badly craved.

And so, he started a band and created just that. He made exactly what he felt he was missing in the world. Because he knew that he wasn’t alone.

Sixty million albums later, his audience proved him right.

And so, if we’re not happy with the art we see around us, it’s our responsibility to try and do better. To let our work do the talking, not our words. Because the best way to complain is to make things. To invent the world we want to live in.

How could you leverage your frustration in the world as motivation to grow into the artist you’ve always wanted to be?

Your niche is you

Through our unique combination of capabilities and attitudes, we can become the go to guy. We can position our talents to create an entirely new product category.

Like my mentor used to say, the best way to beat the competition is to not have any. That the best way to bring home the bacon is to raise your own pigs.

Something my mentor also used to say, your niche is you. Because it is our work that creates the market, not the other way around. We are the ones signing the paychecks, not the ones waiting around to see if we’ll get one.

Yes, it takes confidence and courage and perseverance to open a boutique, but if we can do it successful, people won’t just buy from us, they’ll congratulate us for cracking the code and getting into the club.

How can you change the rules so you can win at your own game?