Working with creatives and communities and a few things in between
I say that I work with creatives and communities, but what does that really mean? Who is it that I help with the work that I do?
For years, I’ve shied away from any kind of niche, preferring to offer general support to a range of clients. And that’s still true, to an extent. But it’s become clearer that I have carved out a small specialism in terms of types of clients, to some degree. Earlier this year, I took a good look at the clients I work with and the leads and recommendations that come my way, they fall quite often within two categories: Creatives and Communities. These aren’t mutually exclusive. But first, let’s look at what I mean for each one.
Creatives:
One who is creative.
In my case, that means my client is in the business of creating something – content, words, copy, courses, books, photographs. Not necessarily in the creative industries.
Communities:
A body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society.
This could be a defined community such as a membership body or a community that has built up around a product, brand or person.
For solo creatives such as copywriters or content designers, the value from having an extra person on their team – even just for a few hours each week – frees up headspace for creative work, to focus on their work for their clients knowing that they have someone to take care of routine tasks such as website updates, social content calendar creation and scheduling, laying out a newsletter or even holding the fort while they’re head down in deep work.
For communities, to have an engaged and heard group of people means having a forward-facing email that your people can speak to and having systems and processes in place to communicate with them. Whether that’s a regular update to all in the form of a newsletter or on a more customer-journey level with customer touchpoints mapped out, that reliable friendly face on email becomes the welcome party, the sign-poster, the gatekeeper and the space holder – to answer, respond and field any incoming enquiries and facilitate communication flow in both directions.
Arguably, most businesses create something.
And most businesses would probably want some kind of community to build up around them.
But I’m not talking about churning out product to sell or a well-liked Facebook page or a long email list, although sales and social perception are always important.
Community is about the collective, shared, collaboration, open space, the greater good.
Creative is about a deeper-driven work that will make a difference, motivated not by profit but by purpose.
It’s not what you do, it’s who you are. No. It‘s what you do because that’s who you are.
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When I work with clients for any length of time and provide continual support for them, I get to know them – this is where I can add the most value. At that point, tasks don’t necessarily need to be assigned. I’ll identify what needs to be done and do it, pre-empt situations and make recommendations for improvements and provide support you can rely on and that your customers/members/community can rely on.