I started freelancing over thirty years ago, and never considered that one day I would be a ‘proper’ business, until I opened my first production company in the early 1990s. At the time I had a...
Business Basics
Plan A vs Plan B
So many young creatives embarking on their professional career are urged to have a Plan B. Once it becomes clear that their youthful enthusiasm for dancing or drawing or words is moving into a more...
All Part of the Plan
When I started my first film production company about twenty-five years ago, I wrote a business plan for my fledgling company to try and encourage a loans officer from a big bank to give me money. I...
Crisis Marketing
It may seem counter-intuitive, but maintaining your marketing activities as a creative practitioner is more important than ever during our current crisis. We’ve been helping our clients navigate...
I Will Survive!
This article is based on our recent free webinar I Will Survive, which is still available as a recording. You can access the webinar, as well as more resources and links, any time you like until...
Leap Into Freelancing
So many of my employed friends daydream about freelancing, especially as a creative professional. From the outside it must seems like the ideal life, to work in a field that you love, in your own...
How to Make a Map
I love travelling. I love everything about it, but a particularly delicious part is that magical moment when I decide where I want to go. As soon as the destination presents itself, whether for work...
The Value of Creative Industries
In August 2019 Monica appeared in the Arts Northern Rivers SOAPBOX newsletter, ranting about being creative, being valued, and our contribution to the economy - particularly in the regions. We...
Finish Your F*!&CKING Business Plan!
The business plan is dead. Long live the business plan! A few years ago I wrote an article about the death of the business plan – the traditional business plan, that is. That long, weighty document...
How To Sack a Client
I spend a great deal of time with creative people, helping them to build their businesses and overcome the challenges of combining creativity and commerce. I truly do love what I do, but I do not...
F*ck Luck
My daughter is a talented writer. She’s been writing obsessively since she was small, and at the age of 14 some of her satirical writing was published by the State Library of Victoria. She was so...
Backwards into the Future
Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua "I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past" I fell in love with this Māori whakataukī or ‘proverb’ when I first heard it at a...
Creative Innovation in the Regions
In September, Irene Lemon presented her monograph, Innovation Has A Creative Mother, at the Australian Regional Development Conference, with thanks to Regional Arts NSW and a QUICKS grant....
Woman of Influence: Geoffrey Jaeger in Conversation with Monica Davidson
In 2013, Geoffrey Jaeger enrolled in a three-day course at AFTRS* designed and facilitated by Monica Davidson: Running Your Own Creative Business. Since then, his life has never been quite...
Unicorns vs Workhorses
I invented the ‘Unicorns and Workhorses’ analogy years ago, as shorthand for helping people understand the creative business experience. It’s an idea my clients and workshop participants...
How NOT to S.W.O.T
We highly recommend conducting the S.W.O.T analysis around here, as considering your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is a great planning tool. We also like the imaginative...
Goals by the Dozen
Like many people, I’ve taken the New Year as an opportunity to come up with a few personal resolutions and business goals that I want to achieve in 2018. I’m keen to make some differences, overcome...
The Getting of Wisdom
If it wasn’t for unpaid work experience and interning when I was younger, I don’t think I would have progressed as far as I did in my chosen professions. I wrote words without pay, on the promise of...
What Clients Want
I‘ve been working a lot lately with creative practitioners who are really struggling with client management. They’re either attracting clients that micro-manage, or they’re dealing with clients who...
The Business Plan is Dead
I have been writing and talking about business plans to creative people for a very long time, but recently (with the help of Linda Hailey), I’ve come to understand that the traditional business plan...
Quitting Time
It’s December, a time to look back over the achievements and mistakes of the last twelve months, and vow to make it all different or better or less sucky next year. It’s a time to reflect on the...
Package Pricing Pointers
Creative businesses are often very resistant to setting a fixed price for their services. Goods and products? Sure. It would be weird to put your jewellery or garments on Etsy without...
Copyright or Wrong?
Copyright or Wrong? You work it out with this short introduction to the rules, by Sharon Givoni*. Content on the internet is not ‘public domain’ and intellectual property rights exist in the...
The Monday Morning Meeting
I first started having the Monday Morning Meeting when I was still at university, and discussing the idea of setting up a film business with two friends. Every Monday the three of us would...