Design from our Ye Olde School Video that was part of a rejected book concept
COPYRIGHT MARGOT POTTER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!
I helped to coordinate a teleclass yesterday with editor Julie Stephani from Today's Creative Home Arts magazine. She is an accomplished woman with a wealth of information to share and the class was fascinating. It was all about creating and presenting effective proposals, which is something everyone needs to know. You can have all sorts of grand ideas, but if you can't organize them and present them in a way that other people can understand, chances are your grand ideas are going to remain ideas. The pitch is everything and having a good pitch and knowing to whom you need to pitch it is key. This class got me to ruminating about today's blog post.
The first step to taking an idea and creating an effective pitch is research. I can't understand how people don't seem to have the vision to research their way to being sure that their idea is fresh and timely and marketable. It always baffles me how creatives can live in a bubble of creativity and forget the business part of the equation. Yes, your idea may be the most brilliant idea ever and your work may be exceptional, but if it's been seen before or if it's too far ahead of the curve or if you can't tailor your work to suit the current style, it's not going to sell. Success is being in the right place at the right time with the right idea. (I'm of the mind of having as many great ideas stored up as possible so I'm ready when the right time and right place occur.)
Even if you have a great idea and a great pitch and you've done the research and you feel it's timely and you present it with conviction and panache, sometimes the answer is no. In fact, often the answer is no. If you give up after the first no, you're not made of the stuff it takes to be an entrepreneur. I've pitched and reworked and repitched ideas multiple times until finding the right fit. If Hemingway had given up after his many, many rejections we'd have missed out on some mighty fine literature. In fact, some of the most treasured literary masterpieces met with a slew of rejection letters before finding a publisher who had the vision to take them on. Authors like Dr. Seuss, Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, Nabikov and many, many others were presented with sound and stark rejection letters over and over again. It was their belief in their ideas and their tenacity that resulted in their success. I truly believe that there is no real failure if you make the effort. You live, you learn, you grow and if you keep throwing stuff at the wall eventually something is gonna stick.
So even if the answer is no, don't hesitate to ask why and take that advice for what it's worth and keep on swinging. Keep fine tuning, keep doing your research, keep working on your presentation so that when the right moment arrives, you'll be ready. Think about how you can repurpose your ideas, maybe break them apart and use them elsewhere, like I did with my mixed media necklace above in our video. Sometimes no is the best word you can hear because it will force you to take a good hard look at what you've got and that can result in the changes you need to succeed next time. I keep a file of rejection letters, some of them have ended up being quite ironic and I've even ended up working with and for the people who rejected me at a later time in another capacity. I love when that happens! Sometimes no means, not this time or for this project. If you didn't give it a shot, you'd not be in their mind for another time and another project.
You can't just rely on your artistic talent. There will always be people more talented than you. That's a tough pill to swallow, but it's a humbling one. What do you have that they don't? How can you use the talent you have along with your smarts and your street savvy to market you and your big ideas successfully? That's the question you need to ask yourself every single day.
Love
Madge
No comments:
Post a Comment