He’s a rebel and a runner, He’s a signal turning green, He’s a restless young romantic
Wants to run the big machine
As most of you will appreciate, starting my own business for the first time was a pretty daunting affair. There was a lot of things that I had to learn very quickly and most of them were so far outside of my skill set they were almost out of sight. But moving on was a necessary evil.
As grateful as I’ll always be for the opportunity that was working in advertising, especially since I was basically unemployable when I started there, after a while I realised that I was never going to fit in to the whole office politics thing. As much as I liked the people I worked with, I just didn’t see the world in the same way as them. I was the square peg that refused to be rammed into a round hole.
Local media deals with – in my opinion – some of the most difficult advertising clients. They have small budgets and expect every penny to show measurable instant results. Add to this the grind and constant pressure of daily deadlines and you’ll quickly develop some real skills with plenty of opportunity to hone them.
It’s kind of like the graphic design equivalent of being the walk-in artist.
Local advertisers, (like walk-in clients) simply can’t afford to listen to fancy ideas about long term awareness campaigns and nuanced advertising. They need every penny to work as hard as possible for them, today.
The truth is they’re mostly nothing more than market stalls traders masquerading as designer brands with all the ‘ethical’ values of your average ‘Delboy’. Dodgy counterfeit companies trading off the hard work and expense of bigger companies. Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s what I thought. So I decided that it was time to move on.
I really struggled to get my head around all the new skills I needed. I’m no business genius and I quickly realised that – even though learning sound engineering and graphic design was challenging at times – it was nothing compared to learning the ins and outs of running a small business by myself. I’ve witnessed everyone of my apprentices get to this stage in their tattoo careers and to soften the blow of the terrifying realisation that learning to tattoo is actually the easy bit, I’ve built plenty of conversation about actually running a tattoo business into their training.
But, all alone in my ‘office’ (a converted garden shed) I persevered and quickly discovered the skills I was trying to acquire we’re all professional services that I could engage. One of the people I contacted during this time would give me some of the best advice I’ve ever had about running my business. Advice that I still use everyday, to this day. He would also eventually be the person who suggested that I should lean into my passion for art and hatred for commerce and make tattooing my career. But that’s a story for another time.
The hobnob man – I’ll call him this because when we first met he told me that he was part of the team of people who created the legendary English biscuit, The Mighty Hobnob. He was a retired exec who offered start ups like me, business advice.
I liked him the moment I met him and we ended up chatting a lot about life, the universe and everything over terrible vending machine coffee. During this time he gave me some of the most important and pivotal advice I’ve ever had and will always be thankful for. Amongst other things, he taught me to ‘keep the main thing the main thing’ and to ‘start today and use what I have’
These single two pieces of advice both fundamentally changed how I approach business and life and they were also the catalyst for this very column/podcast. I started by sharing these stories on That Tattoo Show quickly realising that the info would be better delivered in it’s own stand alone series.
He’s got to make his own mistakes And learn to mend the mess he makes
He’s old enough to know what’s right And young enough not to choose it
He’s noble enough to win the world But weak enough to lose it
He’s a new-world man
Leaving the only ‘proper job’ I’ve ever had, my most pressing task was to find new clients. Any clients. And that was my first mistake. Fear had taken over and I took work from anyone who would pay me. The business grew, it was a success, or so I thought.
My ‘office’ became a dungeon. The shed of dread. I’d inadvertently used the local newspapers attitude to finance to build a successful business based solely on profit. I was cranking out dog hydrotherapy leaflets, German street cleaner adverts, maternity websites and all number of truly shite unmemorable projects. I was better of than I’d ever been, I was a success and I hated every fucking minute of it!
But, money had given two things I’d never had before. Freedom & choices. The work I was doing was so mindless that the only useful thing it afforded me was time. So I started reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances. Mostly musicians and artists. And, some tattooists.
I thought briefly about a return to the music business even releasing an album to the internet that was downloaded 100,000 times. This was years before iTunes would become ‘a thing’. But things had changed, I’d changed. I was no longer a musician, that was always plan b. I was a graphic designer now and I was pretty good at it. But I was yet to find my voice. I was unremarkable because the work I was creating wasn’t mine. I was a shill, a cog in the media machine. Selling magic beans & snake oil.
What was needed was a course correction. I’d steered myself into murky waters and I was lost in the fog of commerce. I was so blinded by fear that I couldn’t even see it at the time. In retrospect all the signs were there, toxic business people with shallow world views, wannabe music biz gangsters that reeked of cheap aftershave and their vinegar faced wives with lipstick on their teeth.
THE DEVIL & THE CROSSROADS
Legend has it that Robert Johnson had a late-night encounter at the crossroads with the devil — or with an African spirit-being named Papa Legba. The Devil promised to make Robert Johnson the greatest Blues musician in the world in return for Johnson’s soul. With little thought, Robert Johnson agreed.
Embarking on the path of your dream job is undeniably significant. But, in the realm of creatives, there exists a constant tension — a delicate balance where the desire to craft remarkable work collides with the pragmatic demands of life, from paying bills to putting food on the table. If you’re lucky you’ll eventually understand that it’s not merely about doing it; it’s about doing it right.
The pursuit of a dream job often starts with an idealistic vision, my mistake was that my primary goal in those early days was freedom from the drudgery of office life. Freedom at any cost. That was my ‘deal with the devil’.
The simple truth is that I had to get to my own crossroads to even understand that, that was going to be the decision. It’s unsurprising to me now that I struggled to realise something so simple. It was the first time in my life when I actually had a choice, any kind of choice. And, it’s a choice you’ll hopefully face one day and hopefully you’ll remember this advice and do a better job than I did. When the pursuit of passion collides with the pragmatic realities of existence, our decisions will ultimately shape not just our careers but the very essence of our identities.
But I was lost and it was going to take something big to jump my needle out of the groove. The universe was going to have put a huge test in front of me in order for me to realise my truth and the value I put on artistic freedom over glittering prizes. And I’ll tell you all about that next time. Until then, here’s the take-away.
Artists, musicians, designers, and writers, are all driven by an innate desire to birth their cool creations into the world. But, bills accumulate, hunger knocks, and the artist, despite their fervent dedication to their craft, is eventually confronted with the choice; what takes priority? The art or the money?
Each of us has to decide what’s of most importance to us. Whether to keep our souls or sign on the dotted line and dance with the ole ‘Legba’.