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.
Get More Sales With This New Year’s Resolution During my 15-year agency run, I was mostly a passive salesperson, far too passive. I built great relationships, and the work would come, but in fear of ever coming across as “a salesy scumbag,” I made the error of being far less…
The First Time I Had to Call a Business Lawyer Cost Me $52,375: Here Is How You Can Avoid It My agency was just pulling out of the recession that brutalized us at the end of 2008 and through 2009. Finally the bigger projects started coming again at the beginning…
Hope and the End of Your Rope: Encouragement and Perspective for Creative Entrepreneurs I’m deep in the trenches with many creative entrepreneurs via 1:1 coaching and my community, More Creative Academy. There are many creatives struggling right now. Some have had a rough year and others just a rough final…
The Fearful Freelancer: 05 Mindset Tips to Help Your Business Grow When I embarked on my freelancing journey in 2002, I was gripped by fear. My wife was not employed at the time, we had two children, and the weight of a California-sized mortgage payment loomed over me. The overwhelming…
Is An Email a Legally Binding Agreement? – Avoid the Deadly “No Contract” Mistake Some clients have ants in their pants. You have your first meeting with a prospective client…you know the one where you think you are qualifying the client BUT they think they are kicking off the project….
How to Make Your Price Seem Small – Price Anchoring Scripts Price anchoring refers to the tendency people have to use the first price presented to make subsequent judgments about the size of other prices. In the example below you see three cars advertised. The Audi is $48,99, the Buick…
The Client Won’t Reply – Email This The project was going smoothly, and then, all of a sudden, a day goes by with no response. One quiet day turns into two, then five, then two weeks, and no response to your check-ins. If you work in the creative industry long…
The 10 Minute Project Update Email That Will Spare You (and Your Client) Emotional Agony Transitioning out of the day to day operations of my agency was a scary step. What will the clients think? How I will make sure they are confident that my team is on top of…
The Project Is Ending and the Client Wants More Changes – Help! You’ve been working on a project and the client keeps asking for more and more changes. They have exceeded the number of rounds you included in your agreement and you need to push back and start charging more for…
Agency outsource work can be extremely lucrative. I know an agency that built their entire business on agency outsource work, mostly to the mega agencies. Large agencies frequently outsource to freelancers for overflow work and to fulfill a specific expertise they may not have with their in-house team. If you’re…
