When Is It Time To Ask For An Entrepreneur To Pay For Help?

Switching from DIY to DIT

This is the third article in an ongoing series. Check out the previous installments, What it Costs to DIY a Book Tour and DIYing My 1st Book Tour Could Have Been a Disaster; Instead, It Launched My Career.

The Problem

The problem was clear, and it was a good one: too much business; a waiting list; an overbooked schedule. But the problem was also a mess: no flexibility; turning away potentially loyal clients; only half of my services running at any given time. When I saw how a friend’s website went from “pretty good” to “gorgeous and unique,” and watched her business re-launch with fully-realized, clear aesthetics, I knew it was time to DIT: do it together.

I hired Smartsy, a branding, design, and creative consulting firm that focuses on business and website launches (or in my case, re-launch) for arts entrepreneurs, to help with my business and my site, called Writer@Large.

“Writer@Large doesn’t tell me anything about how you serve your audience or what you can do for them, let alone how you engage with the world and what you stand for,” said Smartsy co-founder Cathy Shap, during our first consult about my business. I originally conceived of the name because I spent three years on the road writing my first book, launching my business at the same time. I could help people from anywhere in the world. That made me a writer at large, right?

“Sure,” Cathy said, “but the name doesn’t connect you to anything in particular. You don’t want to leave room for people to guess about what you do, or worse, to dismiss what you do altogether.”

I was persuaded, but I still countered with the evidence of the waiting list. I tried to explain to her that the problem wasn’t being dismissed but having too much business concentrated in a few areas.

I then summarized the model I’d had in place for Writer@Large since 2009. In this solo operation, I offered the following services to my clients:

• Monthly Critiques: a submission of 10–20 pages of prose for critique each month, for 4, 8, or 12 months, paid in advance
• Weekly Flashes: one flash writing prompt and critique a week for 4 weeks, paid in advance
• Manuscript Critiques: a submission of a full manuscript for developmental editing and review. Pay: 50% down, 50% upon completion
• Consults: a one-time Skype appointment to discuss goals for a larger project, paid at conclusion
• Artist Statement & Web Writing Package: a complete overhaul and upgrade to an artist’s existing bio, statement, about page, and CV to achieve less “art speak” and more “narrative value” and genuine representation. Pay: 50% down, 50% upon completion

I’ll confess that I felt pretty good about this business model. I conceived of it on my own, based on the needs I routinely saw from client to client. I never went to business school, and still, with the exception of a short stint as a waitress during some of those years, I was able to make the numbers add up using this model for quite some time. I got through the Great Recession without debt beyond my education loans.

But Cathy saw a flaw in my plan, one that — had I realized it years before — might have made the entire mess of impossible schedules avoidable in the first place. Every single service I offered was at a 1:1 ratio, requiring the highest level of time, output, investment, and energy from me. How could I possibly run every 1:1 service at the same time?

Can you think of any company that would rightly go seven years without a round of employee evaluations? Promotions? Infrastructure overhaul? Expert advice completed by an unbiased third party? I can’t. Self-employed artists shouldn’t go without these things, either.

Sure, I gave myself a few raises. I did some professional development. But mostly, I was too busy to step back and take a critical look at my own operating system. My spare time went to my creative life: writing every morning from 7:00–10:00 AM, submitting and revising on weekends, etc.

The Process

Those early insights were the first among hundreds that rose to the surface as Cathy and I worked through interviews, background information, client profiles, financial goals, published work, creative influences, childhood experiences, educational philosophies, brand appeal, visioning for the future, and the foundational aspects of my life as a creative writer. The experience was so immersive that it felt like that punch-drunk, dive-head-first rush of a new relationship. After working for seven years by myself and as my own boss, her intelligent attention provided tremendous relief.

“Here’s everything I know and love,” I got to say to Cathy, and later, Holly Moxley (Smartsy’s artist, designer, and co-founder). “And here’s what I have no idea how to fix.” The bounds of our $5000, four-month contract stated our communications would be limited to:

• Six 60-minute collaborative video meetings with Cathy
• Up to two 30-minute follow-up meetings with Cathy
• Up to four 30–60 minute collaborative phone/video meetings with Holly
• Collaborative document share via Dropbox and Google Docs
• Reasonable email support between meetings
• Post-launch website walk-through to learn how to manage my site on my own

Additionally, we would create content: naming and tagline, an about page (about the author, about the brand), a home page (to articulate my signature value proposition and establish my impact as an author), up to four offerings pages, a book page, and a blog page. When it came time for design, they promised logo creation with two additional refinement cycles; a style guide including font usage, color scheme, and other imagery to evoke emotions connecting audience with the brand; website design template based on style guide with up to four brand-aligned banners or badges; and three draft page layout options with two additional refinement cycles. Last but not least, a whole host of website programming services, including PayPal functionality and video creation.

As the four months progressed, they routinely encouraged me to throw anything at them. The team went above and beyond.

The Solution

Within two months, we had a first draft of a logo and new business name. Writer@Large became Maximum Impact: Precision Courses for Writers, Artists & Trailblazers. This brand will be embedded within a subcategory of my leading identity as an author, Katey Schultz.

It took me two weeks to come around to the new business name and brand, because there were several very deep, personal challenges hidden within my initial resistance. I suspect I’m not the only one who has struggled with this.

First, how we identify as artists and makers, versus how we identify as entrepreneurs. I personally identify as an author and feel satisfied with my accomplishments. Many colleagues have shared with me that they feel I’m “really good at self-promotion that’s not gimmicky.” Yet I’d been running a business from a website for seven years that barely gave a nod to this biggest, most essential part of who I am and the skills that, in large part, make the success of my business possible.

This is a trap I think self-employed creative entrepreneurs fall into. The fear of limited resources and the unpredictability of income, at least early on, means we put the money-makers loud and proud on our websites, rather than the heart-work that led to our relative success and confidence in the first place.

There’s a subtle violence in that sort of denying, and fear, too. What’s to lose by owning our lives as makers and dreamers first? On the one hand, everything: financial security, reputation, respect from others. But what’s to lose by failing to own that we’re the kinds of artists who breathlessly pursue a life-work-love practice expressed through the arts? More, I’d argue, and not just in terms of dollars and cents.

Second, branding for who we think we serve best, versus branding for who we strive to serve. The first time I heard “Maximum Impact” I did not have pretty thoughts. Gym membership? Porno? The name did not sit well with me. To top it all off, I had this other problem to contend with and it goes back to what Cathy had insinuated in our first conversation: that people were dismissing my services because of my branding. The fact is, 70% of my clients are Caucasian women, ages 45–70, and middle to upper-middle class. (Dear 70%: I love you. Soon enough, I’ll be you. I genuinely appreciate the growth we’ve shared and wouldn’t trade it for the world, nor do I plan to discontinue that growth.)

But as a self-employed instructor, I don’t have a department sending me to pedagogical conferences or colleagues to swap ideas with as we pass in the hallway. I don’t have an admissions office recruiting across a broad spectrum of potential clients, or offering scholarships to those in need. If I want to grow, that growth has got to come from whatever I fight for, or from the diversity of challenges presented by my clients themselves.

In short, I needed and wanted to attract more men, more writers from urban areas, younger writers, and writers from every ethnic and economic background possible. “Writer@Large” wasn’t going to do that for me and neither was a host of expensive 1:1 services.

Maximum Impact not only sounds like a craft concept I might talk about while teaching a class, it also speaks to an audience that’s perhaps a bit bold, aggressive, edgy, and determined. Someone drawn to “maximum impact” is hungry and focused — like me, really. Why hadn’t I thought of capitalizing on that aspect of my work before? Oh yeah, I was too busy. That’s why I hired Smartsy. That’s why Smarsty is so damn … smart.

Mind you, those 70% may be bold, aggressive, edgy, and determined, too, but they’re also not a handful of other things. As a teacher, I want to work with, learn from, attract, and be challenged by those “other things.”

The logo and new website colors will echo these desires and that’s where Holly’s expertise has become especially critical. For my relaunch, we’re ditching the “soft” tones of my current site, losing the text-heavy look, using professional author pics and my own high-resolution photography from urban and rugged landscapes.

Will it help? I will report back and let you know.

Katey Schultz is the author of Flashes of War, an award-winning short story collection featuring characters in and around the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. Hew new site will undergo a “soft launch” this week, with formal and final features completed by the end of this month. Her next book, a novel set in Afghanistan, is represented by Nat Sobel of Sobel Weber Associates.

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