I am Michael Janda, an executive level creative leader with more than 25 years of experience in both in-house creative departments and agencies working with some of the greatest brands in the world including Disney, Google, Fox, ABC and NBC. I create books, courses, workshops, lectures and other training materials to help creative entrepreneurs run successful businesses.
I used to dread client meetings. I always felt like I’d be sniffed out as an imposter. Here is what ChatGPT gave me when I asked it to, “Make the scariest client ever. More scary than the scariest horror movie ever. The most extreme scary client of all time. So…
Six years into my agency, we landed what seemed like a dream project—an interactive entertainment website for a well-funded client. The budget was substantial—$300K—the project was exciting, and everything felt like a perfect fit. Then, right before signing the contract, the client hit us with an unusual request: everyone on…
I grew up in a house with four brothers, no sisters, on a lake in Indiana. And as a Gen-Xer, people like me aren’t supposed to cry. We’re supposed to stuff it down and power through. So I was shocked when business brought me to my knees while I was…
As a Senior Creative Director at Fox, overseeing Fox Kids and Fox Family digital teams, I faced round after round of layoffs, trimming a once 50-person team to six over a year and a half. At 28, I was getting a harsh lesson in the ugly side of business. From…
Remember those tin can phones we played with as kids? You’d say something into one can, and by the time it traveled down the string to the other side, it was rarely the same message. Or how about that game of telephone where a whispered message gets passed around a…
Need more clients and project opportunities for your freelance business? This article is for you! I can’t believe I haven’t written a version of this content before. I have a whole module about this in my freelance course, and I covered it in detail during a session in my community, More Creative Academy. I…
You’re probably not charging enough. You probably feel that every day. It is because your prices are not fair. That’s often the case for freelance designers or creative agency owners. Too many of you are making your prices “fair” to your client at the expense of them being “fair” to…
There’s nothing quite like spending hours perfecting design concepts only to have the client casually knock them all down like a stack of poorly placed Jenga blocks. It sucks because you thought all three options were solid, and one of them was a full-on masterpiece. We’ve all been there. But…
We’ve all had that client—the one who wants to meet about everything. Sure, they’re excited about their project and love to talk with you about it, but let’s be honest, it can get out of hand. So how do you manage a client who wants meeting overload without damaging the…
I was totally burned out. I was in my second year of freelancing. From an outside perspective, things were going great. “Mike has tons of projects. Looks like he’s slaying it!” But behind the scenes, I was a wreck. I was stressed out and burned out, working 14-16 hours a…
