Aesthetic Whiplash Alarm

I recently heard the sage advice of an artist. Her experience was very much that to make a living, it's best to become known one thing. She used subject matter as example. You get talked about as the painter of say, cows, and you find your community of bovine art lovers.

Thirty years back I actually met a painter who'd become known for his flowers. To such extent he had his own shop, lived above it in a beautiful space, and had begun plastering all manner of goods with his creations. That guy is still around. Bigger shop, probably bigger pad, and certainly bigger merch operation with tons of happy buyers.

Lest you feel this restrictive, remember that most great ideas come from inside the box, not outside. Specifically when the spec is as tight as can be, not as broad as the sky.

After all, see in part the classic series of bull depictions of Picasso. Showing his range of minute detail to single line. And like Van Gogh, you could own not but a subject, but a style.

I myself came up against this in my mid-twenties. Selling myself as a kind of consultant that could do anything for companies who sold around my area at that time. I soon faced a futility. Once I realised business leaders switched off at the wide angle, I struck success. Which back then was basically around their drive for new customers.

Yet the whiplash of my title above is real beyond art. It's where the potential clients get confused. So much that they disengage with you.

Your pushed output shifts in such ways they can't keep track. Any pattern enjoyed gets shattered. Friction causes disconnect.

Just as you set yourself up for rejection by offering to solve everything, by starting on one thing, then quickly switching to another also gets doors slammed shut.

Whether you've a sole expertise, or draw on a sweet suite of skills you uniquely conflate into riches for them, what must stay paramount is that single, isolated rock solid problem you resolve.

For instance a few years back, for obvious reasons, I majored on Video Calls That Sell.

I still change lives through that on occasion. Yet I no longer lead on it.

My prime aim now is around my longtime worldclass New Product Rescue slant.

Principally, even better when helping with Enterprise new products before they hit any rescue-required stage.

And then once a commission is underway, drawing on my wealth of knowledge beyond that may not by necessary, but when it is the ecstatic client cannot believe their luck.

Whatever solution you sell, getting yourself in this position will undoubtedly set you apart.