It is often reported that creative people lack the means or business acumen to make money from their wares, but is this really the case? asks Joanne Birtwistle
"Somebody asked me very recently: "People pay you money for that?'" says sculptor Charles Hadcock, visibly upset. "This was a business woman - I'm working on sculptures worth £3150,000. It's so insulting."Hadcock's large-scale creations can be seen in public arenas such as Brighton beach and Holland Park in London, but he also works to corporate commissions and clients include Allied Domecq, BAA, Gatwick Airport, ICI and Scottish Widows. Right now, Preston-based Hadcock is working on an 18-tonne sculpture to go outside the new City Lofts development on Salford Quays.
It angers him that after years of output as a successful sculptor, he still comes up against the view that creatives don't run proper businesses. "I don't want that. I want to surround myself with people who know damn well that being a creative is actually a profession," he says.
Marian Catteral, investment director of Merseyside Special Investment Fund's (MSIF) £320m Small Firms Fund, agrees that creatives are misunderstood. "It's true that there is a perception in some parts that creative industries are not really valid businesses and that people think many of them are run by people with little or no business acumen," she says.
She says MSIF has seen a marked increase in the quality of applications from the sector over the last two years, but qualifies this by adding that there is a big difference between, say, a sole trader making jewellery and a media business with staff. "We can only support propositions that can demonstrate their ability to become a commercial success," she says.
"We are seeing a wide range of genuinely commercially viable creative propositions coming to us for finance." Frank Collins is project manager at the publicly-funded Design Initiative in Liverpool, which has incubated over 100 businesses across the North West since 1993 through the Setting Up scheme it manages on behalf of the Arts Council. He says that labelling creative industries as lifestyle businesses does an injustice to a sector that employs one in 20 of the region's workforce.
"The creative sector is no longer the preserve of hobbyists. By treating it as such we are simply holding back the successful exploitation of ideas," he says. "The real issue lies in persuading talented entrepreneurs of the importance of their commercial skills and the value of their intellectual property to the region's economy." The scheme offers facilities, equipment, mentor access, marketing services and a comprehensive two-year training programme. Ninety per cent of participants have established successful businesses by the end of their time on the scheme. "Developing the appropriate business acumen is vital for start-up companies to survive and flourish. However, businesses within this sector require customised skills development and in the past have not been served well by traditional business support," says Collins.
Tailored support is the order of the day at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (MMUBS), where a New Entrepreneur Scholarship (NES) programme specifically for creatives is being piloted. The scheme, for people from underprivileged areas of Greater Manchester, will provide support, mentoring and funding to help get creative businesses off the ground. NES scholars who complete the programme and business plans are eligible for up to £31,500 of NES start-up support. Research shows that 91 per cent of people who complete the NES programme go on to set up their own businesses.
Dominic Martinez, NES project manager at MMUBS, says: "There is a perception among creative people that it is more important to fulfil their creative potential than to make money. The purpose of this programme is to show them the importance of getting the balance right.
"All the principles about starting a business are the same, but there is a different emphasis and a different language that's used. If you say "this would be a great business development opportunity' they go "wooah'.
But if you say "go and tell people what you do and network', they are happy with that. For me, they are the same thing."
Sculptor Hadcock rails against what he thinks is a misconception that creative businesses aren't run as well as they could be. "As creatives, we have better business acumen in many ways than a lot of businessmen because we think laterally," he says. "We have often started out as one-man bands, so we are the bog washer as well as the accountant. The idea that we are woolly creatives that don't have a clue and aren't professionals is an anathema now."
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