We have a special guest joining us today to talk about the challenges that we, as entrepreneurs, often face when developing our businesses. Clamorate! would like to give a warm welcome to world-renowned humanitarian photographer, best-selling photography author, founder of Craft & Vision, and one heck of a swell gentleman – David duChemin.
David truly embodies what it means to be a successful entrepreneur. He’s achieved the type of success that any self-employed person would aspire to, but like all things in the arena of business, success didn’t come easy. David made his success through hard work, a few life lessons, and the ability to find opportunity in every experience. In this Q&A session, David candidly shares his insights on overcoming the challenges we face as entrepreneurs.
clamorate!: What was your biggest challenge when you first made the decision to work for yourself and what did you do to overcome it?
David: I’ve been working for myself my entire adult life. I kind of fell into it as a comedian and if you can make a living in comedy, you can make a living at just about anything. But learning the finances didn’t come easy. I spent money as I had it, ignored tax issues, failed to save or even consider seeking some help. I overcame it by going bankrupt; a hard process to walk through, but I had a great trustee who helped me learn some financial sense and knocked it into my head that business is largely about money and you need to learn about it in the same way you learn your craft or marketing.
Beyond that, and you’d think this one was obvious too, it took me a while to learn to work. I mean really work and hustle. As I’m writing this it’s 6:30am and I’ve been up an hour. When I started I just kind of let the day happen to me. Now I hustle. I work hard and smart. And while we don’t all work well in the mornings, you’ve got to find your sweet spot. Mine is not the middle of the day. I photograph, write, and do my important business stuff in the early mornings and in the evenings. The idea that creative entrepreneurs don’t have a real job is crazy. While others work 40 hours a week for someone else, we work 80 hours a week, and in part that’s the love of it, but it’s also got to be pure, old-fashioned elbow grease.
clamorate!: One of the most difficult challenges for a creative entrepreneur is maintaining a balance between developing their craft vs staying educated and current with their industry-specific trends. How do we deal with the balance between “actually working” and “learning?” How much (if any) should we be outsourcing?
David: Outsourcing is great, if you can find the mix. My manager, Corwin Hiebert, literally holds my business world together. His presence allows me to concentrate on the creative stuff, and to do the work of photographing and writing. But it also gives me time to read business books and play with social media. But he does similar things, so we share what we’re reading, and we try not to double up on things. Learning is key, but I think it needs to happen organically or we just won’t have time to do the work. So install a new Twitter client, but learn it as you do the work of maintaining your online community, don’t take a day to fiddle with it. I did the same with Adobe InDesign. I wanted to learn it but had no time to sit down with tutorials. So I gave myself a project, and that turned out to be my first eBook, TEN. I learn faster when things have an immediate application, and some urgency attached to them. And if whatever I am learning isn’t working for me in real-life, I can identify that faster and move on.
Other than that, I think we need much less than we’re told we do. You don’t need to know it all. And, you don’t have time to absorb it. I have stopped reading most blogs. I don’t do forums. The people I like and follow on Twitter are my aggregators. If enough of them mention something I’ll look into it further. All this learning can just create a fog and make us think we’re making progress. It’s the same with purchasing. Buying that new laptop or camera makes us feel we’re making strides. We aren’t. We’re just procrastinating. Use what you have and get the work done. If you can do so, find someone to do the work that isn’t you-critical. Like bookkeeping. Stop doing your own bookkeeping and taxes!
clamorate!: Typically, entrepreneurs in creative industries face high numbers of would-be competitors who are all trying to “make it” in similar fields. How do we deal with that (and actually make money in our industry) when there are so many others trying to do the same thing, potentially even within the same market?
David: Aside from out-hustling them, you be the most unique brand you can be. I think I succeed because I know who I am and who I am not. And when you know that, there is no competition. Just opportunities that fit or don’t fit. You take the ones that do, and when things dry up you make them. Creative entrepreneurs are their own rainmakers. Look at the ones that are doing interesting stuff and not starving and they share two things – they’ve got a very clear sense of who they are and what they offer, and they out-hustle the others. They work harder. They have more conversations. They follow up more. And they do that without neglecting the creative work.
clamorate!: Looking back over your well established career, what do you feel is the most important business lesson that you could share with us?
David: My first inclination is to say, “Figure out your brand and remain true to it.” But that’s so obvious, it’s like saying to a shop-owner, “Ok, first figure out what you’re going to sell.” It’s good advice, but still, a turnip would tell you the same thing. I think the best business lesson for me was to tear down the wall between work and play. Obviously you need time to do the things you love, and go fly-fishing or whatever – but you should be doing what you love. That gives you more time because now you aren’t distracted by the thing you wish you were doing.
More than that, it stops you from ever thinking the words, “it’s not personal, it’s business.” Especially where people are concerned. Everything is personal because unless you work with vending machines, you work with people – they are your vendors, your fans, your clients, your cheerleaders. The more you care – genuinely care – about them, the more they’ll care about you. This is the old model – the one where people care about each other, refer business to each other, become each others’ advocates and evangelists. Collaboration and word of mouth are still more powerful than slick marketing and SEO (Don’t even start me on SEO).
Tacking on to that, and it’s related, I think the best reminder I could give is this: Every opportunity begins with a conversation. Have more conversations. Be curious. Be generous. Be kind. Be engaging. This isn’t touchy-feely smoke and mirrors; it’s the way people have been doing business for hundreds and thousands of years. The smokescreens are the laptops and the iPhones and the Twitters. Those things aren’t magic, they’re just ways for us to have more conversations, to reach out more, and to out-hustle and out-care the so-called competition, but it’s we that have to use them for that instead of just mindlessly surfing the blogs.
David duChemin is a nomad, a world & humanitarian photographer, the accidental founder of Craft & Vision, and the author of Within The Frame, The Journey of Photographic Vision, VisionMongers, Making a Life and a Living in Photography, and, Vision and Voice, A Vision Driven Workflow for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. David’s latest book, Photographically Speaking will be published late in 2011. David’s work and blog can be seen at PixelatedImage.com.
Perhaps this would be a need to be seen by many readers. Thus, as one, I just want to say that “All of us face both minor and major challenges in our lives. How we deal with those life challenges determines how we experience life – as a struggle to survive or as an ongoing adventure in growth and fulfillment.”
I am follwoing David from 2-3 years and I am fan oh him, his words, his photography and almost everything he do. He is a great guy. He knows love is the secret of living a Great Life.
Love and get loved.
What a great short interview! Thanks David and happy healing.