How to maintain your enthusiasm when things get tough

How to stop worrying when you’re under pressure

Drew — I’m with you on the contract checking. Only last week a friend told me he’d been offered a book deal, the first thing I did after congratulating him was to make him promise me he would go to the Society of Authors and run the deal by their contract vetting service. I trust myself to close a sale or tweak my website, but I know I can’t spot a dodgy clause in a contract. Having said that, I am glad I studied intellectual property law as part of my Masters — it should mean I make much smarter use of a lawyer’s services should I need them in that department.

And my answer is an emphatic, “Hell yes you need an agent/lawyer/manager/all of the above.”

There’s a line about playing poker that applies here: “There’s a sucker at every table. When you look around and can’t figure out who it is, it’s you.”

If you think that *maybe* someone is trying to take advantage of you, then you need someone who knows what they’re doing to represent your interests.

Finding a *good* agent/lawyer/whatever is still a challenge. But it’s not something I think I can do without.

I’m having an agent and/or lawyer look at it. One who specializes in exactly the type of contract I’m dealing with.

Drew, absolutely. But speaking as a former attorney, people need to realize that the agent or attorney works for *you* and at your direction. Not paying keen attention to your own interests when in a representation situation sets you up to be exploited.

I think all Mark is saying is it’s not rocket science to learn the basic issues that allow you to have a productive relationship with your representation, rather than letting them take advantage of you. Ultimately, it’s still our job to make business decisions on our own behalf after taking the advice of counsel.

With most aspects of business, I agree that you can work at it and develop the skill. You don’t have to be the *best* salesman to be able to sell your own product well enough to make a living, after all. But I make an exception for negotiating.

No matter how much the guy on the other side of the table talks about a win-win situation, negotiating is a zero-sum game. More for them = less for you. People who do it for a living *will* take advantage of your inexperience. Just imagine a used car dealer saying, “Oh yes, this intellectual property clause is industry standard boilerplate.”

We may learn sales, customer service, all the other aspects of business. But if I’m signing a multi-year contract with someone, I’m having an agent and/or lawyer look at it. One who specializes in exactly the type of contract I’m dealing with.

Besides the job the most interesting thing I think has to be these posts for this article. I am always finding myself good at many different things, but feel I spead myself way to thin. Which doesn’t make me an expert in anything.

If I had to reget anything, it would be going to school in a way and also to grad school, since I’ve been in there so long, I’ve been in a protected enviorment and also out of the real world and it’s own learning it has to offer. Also looking back now at my student loans and debt which I have incurred equaling to more than 150k. – and I still don’t even has my masters degree. I feel like what the hell did I do.

I think school take advantage of the artist as well, for their money.

At least at this time, I have one project and a company under my resume that it very good. I just hope to find some work soon, without people taking advantage of me. Where I was working I felt like I was paid what I was worth, but my friend who has a similar job get’s paid half at another company.

Sorry but the losing of my job is still bothering me and I need to move on and it’s hard. Also when I was at the job, and work was slow, I just kept wondering what the hell am I doing here. I have no job title and nothing ultimately, I was just a PA, which frustrated me in so many ways, but I have grown to like the many different facets of not having to do the same thing everyday.

I was trying to make the point that creative and business skills are actually of similar complexity and require similar dedication and hard work to master. Because I’ve met too many ‘creative’ people who regard business as an impenetrable mystery that they could never hope to understand — hence the ‘rocket science’ remark.

If you read other posts on Lateral Action you’ll find we don’t subscribe to the myth that creativity is the preserve of a ’special few’. I agree that that’s an unhealthy attitude for any profession — so I find it odd that you say creative people can’t learn sales because it’s ‘a separate specialty’.

I don’t think it’s as black and white as that.

For example, I wouldn’t describe myself as a natural salesman, but out of necessity I’ve devoted a lot of time and effort to learning to sell my services. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that I can sell — maybe not as well as people who dedicate their lives to it, but well enough for my purposes.

And my experience of sales has given me enormous respect for people who have made the effort to master it. People like Brian – who you may know is one of the partners here at Lateral Action. I wouldn’t dare to have a pop at salespeople with him around.

That’s the problem right there. *Every* profession tells itself that it’s unique, that only the special few can do what *we* do. We could do all that other nasty “support” or “sales” or “business” work if we really wanted to.

Except you can’t. Sales is a separate specialty. Some people are naturally gifted at it, and some work damn hard at it. And of course there are the ones who are gifted *and* work hard at it. Same with negotiating. Or purchasing. Or customer service.

The simple fact is business deals nearly always favor the better negotiator, *not* the side with the stronger position. Unless you want to devote your life to becoming a negotiator, you’re going to have to find someone to do it for you.

Yes, it *is* that hard to learn. You can’t do it as well as people who do it for a living.

The best you can hope for is to never trust anyone to put your interests ahead of theirs, and never sign a contract that extends farther into the future than your trust.