The Mission Paradox Blog

Welcome to Paradox

This is the Mission Paradox Blog. I'm your friendly host, Adam Thurman

Since 2007 this has been a place where artists and those who work within artistic organizations get insight on marketing, leadership, diversity and other topics.

The main source of that insight are the blog posts that appear right below this one. Typically you'll get a new one every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can get the blog post directly in your web based reader (like Yahoo or Google news) by clicking here

You want more? I got more.

My e-book Authentic Arts Marketing is available as both a free download and as a cheap buy in the Kindle Store. Get details on that here.

Want to work with me directly? I do a limited amount of presentations, workshops and private coaching. Details are here. Testimonials are here.

I hope you find this place a helpful resource as you go about the hard work of connecting your art to an audience. Feel free to drop me a line at mission.paradox(at)yahoo.com.

Remember, new blog posts appear below.

 

Vital Assumptions

Every project includes a set of assumptions.

For example, a theatre may be producing a play on the assumption that 10,000 people will pay an average of $25 to see the show.

A painter may assume that she can build relations with 10-15 gallery owners that are willing to showcase her work.

The issue is that often these assumptions are unspoken.  Or they aren't fully considered.  What if you do work in a market that doesn't support the idea of 10,000 audience members?  What if you just don't have the skill or willingness to network with so many gallery owners?

What happens to the plan then?

We know what happens.  The plan falls apart and there are a lot of time, energy and resources wasted in the process.

So it may be helpful to write down the vital assumptions that need to be true for your project to work out.  This will help you stay focused on what's important. 

It will also be a helpful reminder that a lot of other things are NOT important.  They may be urgent, they may be annoying, but they aren't important.

Spend your time making sure that the few important assumptions work themselves out.  Everything else will take care of itself.

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Note:  I've got one discounted coaching slot left.  Offer expires Friday.

The Flaw of Tactical Thinking

I say "marketing" and you start thinking tactics.

You start thinking about tweets and Facebook posts.

You start thinking about the creative copy you can use to describe the shows.

Stop that.  It isn't helpful to you.

Take a few steps back.  Start with your purpose.  Why, in a world with infinite options, did you decide to bring this particular piece of art into the world?  The purpose informs the strategy.

Every strategy comes down to one basic question:  How are you going to use your limited resources?  You only have so much time, money, audience attention, etc.  Given that reality, who do you plan on talking to you and what do you plan on saying?

Once you figure that out the tactics, the actual things that people do from day to day, becomes a pretty easy thing to figure out.

Purpose, strategy, tactics.

That's the sequence.

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A few notes:

1.  If you want more thoughts on how purpose can inform your marketing strategy, then grab your free PDF of my marketing ebook.

2.  My arts marketing coaching offer (5 weeks, $500) is only open for a few more days.  It looks like one spot is getting taken soon, so I have two discounted spots left.  Details here

When it works

When the artist presents her work to the world as a gift and is rewarded with engagement, attention and (sometimes) money . . .

When the right play, with the right performers, touches the right audience at the right moment . . .

When the dancer performs a move that touches the heart of young girl in the crowd and then SHE becomes a dancer . . .

When the author writes a book that causes someone to see the world differently . .

It's awesome. It's incredible. It makes all the BS you go through worth it.

There are a lot of reasons to never start an arts organization, to never ship your art into the marketplace, to never try to earn a dollar from your art. I've even offered a few on this blog.

It's truth. All of it. The intersection of art, audience and commerce can cause havok.

But when it works . . .

It can change lives.

Never forget that.

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One quick piece of business.

I'm wrapping up my last marketing coaching assignment, which means I have an opening for three more artists or arts organizations.

Here's the deal, coaching is 5-6 week process where we will identify some of your arts marketing challenges and work our way to some viable solutions. I've worked with all sorts of artists and I'd be honored to work with you.

For one week (until about May 18) the price for coaching will be $500. That's about $100 a week. It's a bargain. You'll get your money worth.

Want some details, click here

Testimonials? Here.

Ready to get to work? Email me at mission.paradox(at)yahoo.com

 

Only the strongest

Most of the advice I give to artists boils down to this:

If you don't feel strongly about the project, don't do it.

You've got a limited amount of energy, time and resources to devote to any particular thing.  You don't have enough to waste on stuff you're doing "just to do it".

Sure, that may mean that you're doing nothing for a while.  But this market is so cluttered that doing without passion is pretty much the same thing as doing nothing.

This market hates your B- stuff.  They want A+ and it can take a lot of time and effort to get there.

Devote the time, don't waste it on anything less then your best.

 

No one needs a suit

. . . that's what the salesman told me as I bought a suit a few weeks back.

He was a fantastic sales person. Smart. Helpful. I gladly put my credit card on the table when it was time to buy. I was fascinated by his skill, so I asked him how he developed it.

He told me that he understood that no one really needs a suit. You can wear jeans to damn near anything from a wedding to a funeral. Plus, even if a few people do really need a suit, they certainly don't need an expensive suit. And they certainly don't need to drive to a store to get one.

So why buy something you don't need?

You realize that question applies to you right? Even if you could argue that people NEED art, you know they don't really need YOUR art.

Right?

This salesman understood that. He understood that people aren't really paying for a suit, they are paying to work with a person that truly gives a damn about how they look. They are paying for the feeling they get when they look good.

It takes a certain humility to embrace that thought. It takes a humble artist to understand that it isn't all about her or her art, it's about the audience and the feeling they get from the experience.

It takes humility for a dance company to get that the world doesn't revolve around their dancers.

When that humility is lacking trouble is inevitable.

Remember, no one needs a suit.

Growth and the Arts, Part 3 - AntiGrowth

It's really about balance.

If you work in a field that has a strong (understandable) thirst for growth, then you need something to balance it all out.

So what if you decided not to grow?

What if you decided to stop marketing for new audience and kept sharing your story with existing audience?

What if you were very, very, very slow to hire ANYONE that could increase your overhead over the long term?

What if you performed in the smallest reasonable venue that could hold your work?

What if you did one less play a year?

Recorded one less album?

Cut your touring dates in half?

I know, it sounds extreme. It is. It's extreme because the force that is calling you to grow is extreme and maybe you need to be a bit crazy to deal with it.

Maybe an anti-growth strategy will get you right to where you need to be.

 

Growth and The Arts, Part 2 - The Unstoppable Force

If you accept the idea that unchecked, or poorly considered, growth can be a major source of headaches for an arts organization (or an individual artist) then you may end up wondering why it happens so often.

Why does a nonprofit theatre build multiple performance spaces, only to end up stuck with the responsibility of filling way too many seats?

How does a craftsperson - who just wanted to make stuff she loved - end up building a company with more employees then she can handle and more stress then she needs?

A major reason is because of this simple fact:

Cost always go up.

It's such a simple thing that it's very easy to miss but for a lot of folks, particularly live performing arts organizations, it's the root cause of everything.

The arts are a labor and capital intensive business. That means it involves a lot of people and a lot of equipment. In that sort of world, cost increases are always a factor.

This is true even if you are an individual artist. Maybe you're a musician that tours with your band. It's natural to want things like better music equipment, the chance to sleep in a decent hotel every once in a while, maybe even a little help handling administrative matters.

All those things cause costs to rise.

So it's important to understand that when you look at a nonproft arts AD, or a musician with an entourage you are looking at someone who is under constant cost pressure. Every year then need to bring in more.

More donors.

More revenue.

More audience.

It doesn't matter to them that donors may be reducing their support, or that audiences are scattered and hard to bring in. They know that, but that doesn't change the unstoppable force of more that is chasing them down.

I know that's feeling. That's why it's hard for me criticize the choices that many people in the industrial arts complex make. Even my Twitter shots at the Guthrie AD were as mild as I could manage, because I don't envy his position. Yeah, some of those folks make a lot more money then me . . . but I wouldn't change places with them.

Battling the constant need to grow can be a real b*tch.

The thing you need to understand if you want to build an organization, or if you want to have an individual career as an artist, is that you aren't entering neutral territory.

The place you're entering has an agenda and it's agenda is growth.

In such an environment it might be a good idea to be actively, anti-growth.

We will talk about what that means on Friday.

 

The Paradox of Growth and The Arts - Part 1

I want to spend a little time this week talking about growth.  That growth comes in many forms, from an arts organization breaking ground on a building to an artist getting an agent and a manager.

The questions that come with growth:

When to grow?

Who do we add?

How big do we get?

Are some of the most complicated and important questions we face.  In fact I would argue that many of the things that we "don't like" about the arts industry (including the recent uproar around the Guthrie) have unchecked (or poorly considered) growth as a root cause.

So to open this conversation, read this post by Seth

On Wednesday we will talk about the perfectly logical reasons that lead many arts organizations to decide they have to grow . . . and the mess that decision can create.

Misplaced priorities

You know that the person answering your phone, or responding to emails is WAY more important then that fancy promotional piece you're working on, right?

Right?

You know that if one of those hippy, edgy members of your acting ensemble decides to treat one of those "old" patrons poorly that patron will suddenly embrace the power of social media and tell everyone, right?

Right?

You've got to remember that behind all our fancy ass websites, slick postcards and what-not, plain ol' customer relations can ruin (or enhance) your best marketing efforts.

How much time, energy and money are you investing into the people who interact with your audience?

Is the way your spending your time give the impression that the poster hanging on the wall is much more important then the person who is saying hello to the people once they show up?

Something to ponder for the weekend.  See you Monday.

 

Solving interesting problems

That's our only rule job now . . . to solve the interesting problems.  I didn't come up with that statement, but it is a very true one.

To me, one of the most interesting problems we have in the arts is the relationship between an artist (or arts organization) and it's audience.  This applies to both the current audience and the intended audience.

I mean isn't that what the whole (sad) blow up at the Guthrie Theatre is all about. One group thinks the responsibility is to offer what will fill the seats, getting the donors coming in and keep the institution alive.  Another group thinks the theatre has a responsibility that goes beyond institutional survival and should be serving a broader community with it's programming.

The truth is that most of the easy problems in the arts have been solved.  We know how to "market" our work (if by marketing . . . you mean selling).  We know the mechanics of fundraising.  We have the means to get revenue from individuals.

All that's left are the hard issues:

What's the appropriate relationship between an insitution and a community?

How do you keep an art form relevant?

Our job, as a field, is to keep asking and demanding viable answers to those questions.  Even when it's uncomfortable.  Even when many would like it if we just shut up and keep the wheels of commerce turning.

That's our job.

That's the only job worth doing.