SELF – Defining Yourself in the SWITCH System of business development for individual artists and arts organisations
Having worked with several individuals and organisations in the arts and creative sector, we noticed a shortage of business development skills. Having identified the skill shortage, we thought we could address and raise awareness so that individual artists and arts organisations could understand and implement a straightforward plan to develop their practices.
To this end, we devised the SWTICH System together based on the mentoring and teaching we have done in the arts sector over past few years. It became obvious that artists of all genres are taught how to make great works but not how to sell, market or identify exactly what, how and why they do it.
What is the SWITCH System?
We wanted to ensure the system was as easy to remember as possible. We wanted to make it memorable. The SWITCH System discovers the Self that defines your way forward by getting your audience Involved. By telling your story, you will Create a movement that makes change happen repeatedly.
S – defining your SELF, who, why and what you do
W – finding the WAY, sharing your uniqueness & your work
I – getting your crowd INVOLVED, find out who they are
T– TELL your story that engages people to what you do
C – CREATE a movement, move your crowd
H – Making change HAPPEN, and keep it happening
SELF – Defining Yourself
In this part, we will look at ourselves. Without knowing who you are, what you do and most critically, why you do something, you cannot expect to achieve your goals or truly align with your (and most critically) crowds’ goals, aims, interests and expectations.
So let us start,
Who are you?
Yes, who are you? It might seem like a strange question to ask, but it is serious. Can you articulate exactly who you are? Why are you doing what you are doing, and what is your motivation for doing it?
Moving forward will be very difficult unless you can do this and identify why you are doing it. There is a great quote that we use in our training that encompasses exactly what we are trying to highlight: “Everyone and every organisation is perfectly designed to get the results they are getting.” – Tim Knight. You might think you deserve better results than you are getting, but do you? Can you tell your crowd exactly what, how and above all why you are doing what you are doing? If you can’t, how do you expect anyone to understand which angle you are coming from, what influences your work, and why they should care? – People need a reason to engage, your work needs to fulfil their goals, their interests and their values as well.
Hopefully now you can start to see that the question who you are is not such a silly one after all.
So we need to break this down again into four main parts. Why | Motivation | Purpose | Impact
Why do you do it?
Ask yourself the following questions – Why do you do it?
Be honest with yourself; you will not fool anyone if you are not honest with them. Also, if you are not honest with yourself about why you do something then you are only being dishonest to yourself. You need to build trust, not just with your crowd but also critically with yourself – trusting yourself to be honest and authentic at all times means that our work, and lives have real purpose. We know why we are doing something and whatever we do aligns with that why.
What do you do? – really what is it that you do?
What makes you unique? A lot of us will work in different genres but whichever genre we are working in I am sure there will be other people working in the same field. Now we can look at these people as competition which in some ways they are but we can also look at these people as giving a greater impact to the genre we are in, but, and it’s a big but, what are we doing that sets us apart from the others? Why are people going to engage with my work as opposed to someone else? well without knowing your why it is going to be very difficult for you to show your uniqueness – sorry guys but people don’t engage with someone just because they can, no they engage with someone who has the same or similar interests, values and goals as they do – I know I am going to sound like an old record but without knowing who you are, what you do, how you do it and of course, your why then how can they know that your work resonates with them? – simply, they can’t.
Just quickly following on from that, I know this feels as if we might miss someone who really would like our work but we won’t – we can’t target or get everyone to join our crowd, that’s impossible, but what we can do is to give ourselves the best chance to engage with people who do share our values, interests and goals – these people, if we treat them right, will champion our work to other likeminded people so we end up getting a greater engagement.
So what makes you unique? – think about this, write it down and keep doing back to it again and again.
How do you do it? – or rather, how are you going to achieve your goals and values?
Do you have a plan in place at the moment? Do you set goals – personal and professional? Do you keep to them? Are they time bound?
If you do then you will know where I am coming from, if you don’t then you need to think about what your goals and values are – but – without defining your why how can you know what these values and goals really are, and being even more specific, if we don’t set a time scale for them how are we ever going to achieve them, measure them or modify them if needed? – we can’t, but we also shouldn’t modify them to meet the expectations of others, they are our goals and values so they should come from us.
• What are your GOALS? How will you achieve your Goals and when?
• What VALUES do you adhere to? Why are they important to you?
• What are your expected OUTCOMES?
Driving us forward
Motivation
What motivates us to do what we do? Why do we get out of bed in the morning? why do we keep going? this is motivation. Motivation is critical because if we are not motivated then we do not achieve our goals, we probably produce work that we are not happy with, that doesn’t match our expectations. Also if we are not motivated how are we expected to motivate others? – it’s impossible.
Purpose
Purpose is not something you decide, it is something you discover …
Living your purpose is like nothing else you will ever experience – Your purpose feeds you with energy, inspiration and ideas.
What is your Impact?
The difference you make in the World. The section of society that you engage with. And critically who engage with you. Impact also allows you to choose the altitude that you talk from, if we think about when we engage with people we do so on different levels. As I said before people want to engage with you because their goals, values and interests align with what you are doing, so what do you think they want to hear? – yes the why. Think about an airliner flying, at 30,000 feet, it’s maximum ceiling we want to engage with people at the WHY – the vision, the values, the goals. As we’ve said this is what people need to understand, they are not really interested at an initial stage, until they have figured out if things align on the what or the how – so talk about the why first. Then maybe, if we take the idea of the airliner again at 14,000 feet we can talk about the WHAT and the strategy and at 3 feet the HOW and your execution. If you ever find yourself talking solely about the what and the how then go back up in altitude.
So start with The WHY (PURPOSE) Once they are ON BOARD… move to The WHAT (PRIORITIES) Once they understand… it’s on to The HOW (PLAN) How you are going to execute it.
Because IF you want different RESULTS … you are going to have to CHANGE your THINKING AND DOING!
Your story is unique to You
What makes YOU or your WORK / SERVICE UNIQUE? – YOUR STORY.
You came into this World with noting but you come out of it with your story. This is the story you need to share.
Understanding who you are, and what audiences you’re trying to reach, will mean nothing unless you can clearly identify and communicate your story. Your story identifies your passions and serves as the foundation for all your future content developments. The purpose is simply to help view your content through a storytelling lens, with passion, purpose, and—yes—heart.
Help with business development in the arts sector.
Ian Oliver
Head of Operations
Head of Operations at Letcombe Production I have been working in the arts and culture sector for over 20 years in Ireland. I am passionate about business development for artists and creatives as well as building totally inclusive societies.
Letcombe Production
The Digital Agency For Arts & Cultural Organisations
Letcombe Production is dedicated to the arts, creative and social enterprise sectors. Our website has dedicated reels on running your creative or artistic practice as a business, articles and opportunities for artists. In addition, we can organise digital media, marketing, project management, grant writing, application assessment, and tools to help you run your creative and artistic practice.
Working predominantly with arts and social enterprises, Letcombe Production can assist in all getting projects from idea to distribution. We can look after any size of project.
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