Those damn creatives.
Creatives are massively undervalued these days. I said what I said.?
That said, I think our business culture is using them the wrong way. Bidding a logo project down to the lowest cost isn’t exactly an exercise in extracting value. It’s used car shopping. Hiring some random writer to make your website copy punchier and more SEO-y is hardly the cure for lack of relevancy in your category. And definitely won't help sales. Before you get excited thinking I'm going to make a pitch for hiring an agency, calm down. I'm not. I'm challenging you to rethink how you get your story out there.
Let's back up. A month ago I promised myself I would find the missing link between creative wisdom (supply) and business need (demand) this month. As an advocate for the 1099 career choice, I felt it was my duty. Naturally, I went fishing to think about it. My first thought was “creative” doesn’t package and sell to businesses as easily as a fractional CTO, CMO, CIO, CFO or COO does. Those are pretty easy problems to identify that a wise fractional pro can pop in and solve. In my mental musings, I realized creative as we know it is more ambiguous. Boom. Found the missing link.
Thats the key phrase.
"Creative as we know it."
Businesses have been buying creative the same way for decades. Businesses have been selling creative the same way for decades. It gets packaged up (scoped) and bought and sold for a cost with a beginning, middle and end. That is creative as we know it.
Why don't the dots connect in this structure? Because unlike a project with a scope, business doesn't end. Long after the creatives leave and the last bill is paid, the business show must go on.
So don't buy creative as we know it.
Duh.
Perhaps, just perhaps, businesses would do far better stopping the nasty habit of stringing creative scopes together and pretending the collective effort is what makes their story relevant. Do you really think the customer gives a shit if your logo is on or off the color palate you created? Or that you use always use a circle R after every time your business name appears? YOU care. Customers? Nope. Those are your issues. Customers care about their issues.
On this cathartic train I was on, at least cathartic to me anyway, I realized that EVERY business struggles mightily with their story. And I mean mightily. Not only that, it’s a constant struggle. Like, daily.?So why don't we have CSOs? Chief Story Officers?
Get a CSO in your mix.
Chief Story Officer.
A good story, and storyteller, is 100% needed at any company. Why? Because there is a story problem every single day at every business.
Sales needs story help.
Product dev needs story help.
Finance needs story help.
Investors need story help.
These aren’t projects, these are part of the daily process. They are a gear.
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Someone recently told me that they recently got an email for a discount on tequila. They work at a rehab clinic.
Who then are great at telling the story and keeping it fresh? Gray haired, scarred and scabbed writers and designers that’s who. My god the story work they have done in words and pictures over the years.?They can tell your story in words and pictures. They can keep your team from telling the wrong story. They can be your checkpoint on your story everywhere it matters. They can do it for product. Sales. Finance. Investors. IT. And yes, marketing.
As things continue to change, I don’t know if this is going to manifest in a CSO (Chief Story Officer) but maybe we’re headed that way. By the way, I am fully aware I will get my ass kicked by my creative friends whose hair I just petted the wrong way for creating that ridiculous acronym CSO. But a business focused own growth simply can’t not have a good story, day in and day out. You’ll lose. You can’t really offload it to an agency as the cost and outcome are a mismatch for small businesses. Besides, your story is an inside job, it percolates up from your customers and product and sales team. You just need a person there to help tell it.
So in this world of massive change by the day, maybe we’re headed for a world of CSOs. What do I know? It seems to make sense. More importantly it seems like a far easier line item budget than the costs for buying creative as we know it today. I don't think we'll be talking about creative for much longer. I think we'll be talking about story. And just in case you want to shoot darts at me about the existing market for branding, story processes and all of that jazz I'll stop you right there. Whatever you pull out there will never even closely match the wisdom, lessons learned, failures, skills built and overall chops of a seasoned story teller with decades of blade sharpening behind them, built into your team and living in your business every day.
I digress. There are far far smarter people than me on this subject. I suggest calling them and bringing them in. Which brings me to a few amazing story tellers I know. People who have sharp, sharp tools when it comes to writing and designing stories for companies. People you would want in your L10 meetings, investor pitches, vision sessions, as their experience is exactly what you need as a gear for growth. Here are a few great story makers I have worked with in my years. Call them creatives if you must. But they are far more than that.
I will add something to this, after agreeing with John pretty much wholesale. Creative people do help considerably with creating and narrating a company's story. The more strategic the creative person, the more relevant and enduring the story. The other thing we bring to the table, from the outside looking in, is valuable objectivity. This is also why it's so important to look for story-help based on someone's experience as a story teller first, not as a category expert first. I very often get people asking me if I have experience in this category or that category as a way to build a rationale for hiring me or not. Categories can be learned. Gut-level story-telling is a bit more mystical, yet it's based on real experiences, emotionally teased apart. And this ability can be applied to "any" category. In fact, in many ways, working with someone outside your category brings a freshness you might otherwise miss. There's so much more to get into here, but perhaps in another post. Story, as John says, is king. Belief systems and the props we carry in our lives are also part of the narrative. But that's material for another discussion, over coffee perhaps...bravo John.