Climbing the creative career mountain - and how to avoid getting stuck at base camp
Our creative careers progress in steps. After each one, we need to adjust - or just cope initially. Then, once we’ve found our feet, we consolidate and develop, before preparing for the next big jump.
Some of this happens quite naturally, especially in the early phase of our career. But a few years in, usually around the Senior Designer level, we reach a point where it’s easy to get a bit stuck.
It can feel like we’re victims of our own success. We’re delivering lots of value, so it can be hard for our companies to move us upwards and continue increasing our rewards at the rate they had previously.
I’m going to focus on this career point, but before we get there, let’s set the scene.
Getting ready
The first big step in a creative career is often (but not always) getting onto a higher education course. We might need the right grades and have a portfolio. We probably also need to be comfortable committing to student debt - but that’s another post…
In between all the college fun, we learn a lot - from both our tutors and peers. Understandably, the focus during this time is mainly on developing the hard skills needed to get a first job. I’m a huge supporter of placements and internships while at college, but they can be hard to find.
Then we graduate.
Beginning the journey
This can be a really tough time. Until now our lives have largely been structured, with the next steps mapped out for us; term follows term, academic year follows academic year.
I can clearly remember graduation feeling like standing on the edge of an enormous canyon. The world suddenly wide open in front of me, waiting for me to pick a direction and jump.
Success can feel a long way away. The creative field is super-competitive and flooded with a new crop of talented new grads every year. It can take a long time to find a job, and we often have to take anything, just to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder.
But when we land our first job, we learn A LOT - and quickly. Not least, how much work it’s possible to get done in a day!?
We often switch jobs a few times, working our way towards our preferred field, hopefully collecting a few promotions and pay increases along the way.
During these early years, we build maturity, our work ethic and a sense of what goes on in the ‘real world’. But like our uni-years, they tend to be spent primarily developing our creative hard skills: how to use software tools, put together presentations, and so on.
That’s OK - the value we bring to our companies at this stage in our career is getting the work done, at a relatively low cost, and high utilisation rate.
Reaching base camp
So far, so good. But then we enter an interesting phase. What comes next is a critical point in our career.
To make the next step we need to offer a new type of value to our company
At this point, it’s easy for our trajectory to flatten off - both in terms of learning and progression. Promotions and pay increases begin to slow down. To make the next substantial step we need to offer a new type of value to our company.
A few, more enlightened companies recognise the need to provide (and reward) a skills-based career pathway. This allows us to continue to progress as we hone our craft as an Individual Contributor (IC), perhaps working towards the position of Principal Designer. But for many of us, this isn’t an option - or we want to take a different approach.
Frequently, progression involves moving into management. Often starting with overseeing someone junior to us, and running a few smaller projects.
This is fine, and I could fill the rest of this and many more articles with how to develop management and leadership skills that help us fulfil this new role confidently and effectively.
But instead, I’m going to focus on something else; something that in my experience, can accelerate our careers far more quickly.
Towards the summit
Note: a lot of what follows also applies when working within an in-house creative team, but I’m going to focus on careers on the agency, or consulting side.
For me, making the next big step started with gaining an understanding of the commercial dynamics of the company I worked at - a fairly typical, small to mid-sized, independent design consultancy.
I began by helping to put proposals together. I learned how to resource projects, and importantly, how to price them. This taught me, in pounds and pence, or dollars and cents, both the monetary cost - and value - of each person at our company.
The lifeblood of every creative agency or consultancy is new business
It quickly became clear that the lifeblood of my company was new business - whether from new, or existing clients. This is true of every agency or consultancy I’ve worked for and with since.
The real ‘unlock’ to the next stage in my career came when I began to contribute to bringing revenue into the business.
This didn’t mean moving into a business development or client service role, but looking back, I was learning a lot of those skills.
The change happened fairly naturally for me. At around the same time, I began to lose a little of my enthusiasm for my design ‘day job’. I didn’t leave it behind, I still provided ideas and creative direction, but I developed an interest in more commercial aspects of projects too. Things like:
College and my career to date certainly hadn’t prepared me
It wasn’t easy. I had to learn on the job. College and my career to date certainly hadn’t prepared me for this. I made a lot of mistakes…
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After a good run, in both the US and UK, I was offered a Partnership role, but turned it down. I left the company, seeking new challenges. But a few years later I ended up ‘boomeranging’ - returning to co-run the company as a Partner.
Then things came full circle. My team members who progressed the fastest and furthest were those who, in addition to being great creatives, directly contributed to bringing in business.
Where should I start?
Here’s how I recommend you start to make this next big career step up:?
1. Observe others
Shadow the people at your company who do this stuff already. Carefully watch how they build trust and relationships with their clients - and ask them about it. A lot of what they do will have become second nature to them, so get them to break it down and explain it. Organising internal ‘lunch-and-learn’ type sessions can be a great way to do this.
2. Take an interest in the commercial side of your business
Ask to be shown some of the numbers. It doesn’t have to be everything. You could start by gaining an understanding of how the projects you work on are planned and costed. Then things like time-management, utilisation and project/client profitability.
3. Help with business development
Consciously become more proactive - offer your assistance and opinions. Look for situations where your senior colleagues would appreciate help and offer it before being asked. Great places to start include: compiling case studies, helping to prepare for and attending credentials meetings, and contributing to project proposals.
4. Throw yourself into the deep end
Learn to become more comfortable outside of your comfort zone. Seek out client-facing situations so you can meet them in person and learn about their world first-hand. If opportunities present themselves, don’t think too hard about them - just say yes. The worst that can happen is rarely as bad as you might fear.
5. Learn the power of asking clients great questions
We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. We don’t tend to learn much when we’re speaking, but if we ask a question, then listen and observe, we learn a lot. Practice getting other people to speak first and more than you do in a conversation. Try it with friends or family first. It sounds easy, but it’s not.
Summing up
Management of people, then a team; plus projects, then client accounts, all came with my progression - and no doubt helped. But it was adding a commercial contribution to my creative one, that really propelled my career.
If you find yourself a bit stuck around the Mid/Senior/Design Director level, think of yourself as at base camp. You’ve worked hard to get where you are and have a solid foundation from which to progress.
It won’t be easy to take the next step - you’re probably extremely busy, with your company relying on you to deliver. But I urge you to make the time to lift your head up and look around for opportunities to intentionally change and move forward.
Explain to your team/company leader what you’d like to do, and ask for their support. You should have a Professional Development Plan (PDP) that you can build this into. Maybe a training budget too.
From internal-facing practitioner, to external-facing consultative role
To sum it up in one sentence: the key is to expand from an internal-facing practitioner to an external-facing consultative role.
Don't worry, this doesn’t mean you have to leave your creative work behind. But polishing the hard skills you’ve spent years developing should become less of a focus. If you want to step up, you’ll need to feel comfortable spending less time doing your usual tasks - which I realise isn’t for everyone.?
Then you can concentrate on building your all-important commercial acumen and relationship-building skills.
Never has the title of Marshall Goldsmith’s book been more true:
“What got you here won’t get you there.”
I’m an experienced leader of both agency and in-house strategy, innovation, and design teams.
Trained in industrial design, my professional journey has navigated a route upstream from hands-on design to strategy and innovation consulting.
I oversaw the growth of my brand strategy, innovation and design agency, Webb deVlam by 3x in six years, before directing the sale of our international group of companies.
Now I work independently, doing three things:
INNOVATION & DESIGN STRATEGY: Clarifying what brands do next
GROWTH ADVICE: Invigorating creative leaders
COMMERCIAL SKILLS TRAINING: Boosting creative careers
Learn more at: tp-consulting.co.uk
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