July Retrospective: Back in July 2014, I wrote a daily series exploring the realities of navigating the creative economy. Twelve years later, looking back at these entries (and my original awful hand-drawn illustrations!), I’m struck by how the core truths of a creative career remain completely timeless. Each day this month, I’m opening up the archive to share these foundational lessons—with a few modern reflections layered in.

If you’re a new creative graduate looking to find your footing in the creative economy, a Gen X looking to pivot into a creative business, a side-hustler or someone who just wants to up their creative business game, there’s something for you in this series. Just don’t judge my drawings 😉

Serve Don’t Sell

Last week we spent time getting clear on the products and/or services you are offering.

Now the question is who can be served by those products and/or services?

Your work now is to figure out WHO needs what you’ve got? There is someone out there in the world who needs what you have to offer – but who? You need to figure out who is going to be served, or satisfied, but what you have to offer.

Our work for this week is to identify your audience. You can’t sell to everyone, nor should you. It would be a waste of your time and resources to even try to do so. Instead, you are looking for a narrow slice of the pie that can be yours. A market that you can properly and adequately serve with what you have to offer.

You need to match what you’ve got with who needs it most.

Once you figure out who they are, you don’t need to sell to them. They already need what you have to offer. Your job is to serve them. Make clear offers to them about the value of what you have to offer and how it can solve their problem. Your desire to serve, married with a solution that fits, means that you don’t have to bend over backwards trying to sell what you’ve got.

When it feels like hard work, when it feels like selling is an uphill battle, is when you are trying to convince someone to buy something they neither want nor need. That’s hardcore selling.

Figuring out who NEEDS what you have to offer, and then making them aware of the solution you have, is serving them.

There’s a difference.

Now obviously we aren’t selling medical equipment or food to the starving. It can be harder to figure out who NEEDS artists or art. Some people do need art – they need paintings, novels, music, dance to feed their soul and nourish their spirit. Great, you can serve them! Other people may not NEED it, but they sure like it, they might even LOVE it. You can serve them too.

But the people who are indifferent. Or have no interest at all. Don’t bother with them. You can’t serve them and it will be really really hard work to try and sell to them. Move on. Put your time and energy into finding the people who really do NEED or LOVE what you’ve got to offer.

Action: Who needs what you’ve got? Who will fall in love with your work? Don’t be arrogant enough to say ‘everyone.’ No one’s work is that universal. Drill deep. Figure out the exact type of person. They’re your tribe. They’re the ones with whom you’re going to spend your time and energy trying to connect.

Longevity in a creative career isn’t accidental—it’s built on strategy.

While the landscape shifts, the core principles of thriving as a creative freelancer haven’t changed. For deeper, modern frameworks on building a sustainable creative practice:

• Read the Book: Looking for a step-by-step field guide to building a resilient career in the creative economy? Pick up my recent book The Thriving Creative: Successful Freelancing in the Creative Economy available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and from my publisher Routledge.
• Stay Connected: Join my community and to receive the complete 31-day hand-drawn playbook as a single PDF at the end of the month. Sign up below.