Hi there folks!

Creatives Meet Business is an event and podcast series based out of Austin, Texas for creatives of ALL disciplines to get from zero to one in thinking of themselves as business owners (in the creative sector).

This episode features Jen Spencer, Founder of The Creative Executive, who joined us in April during our roundtable event on Managing Professional Relationships. As you'll soon find out, she's basically crafted a Professional Relationship 101 course that you get to partake of in under 15 minutes. She begins with defining various types of relationships then walks you through how to design them to work for you. Because there's so SO much that's exciting about this episode - let's hop in and hear what Jen has to say!

• 0:00 to 0:57 - Ashland Opening Remarks and Intro of Jen Spencer
• 1:00 to 2:14 - Introduction of Self and Topic (Designing Professional Relationships)
  • She isn't referring to all of the relationships that are part of your network (some of those are at a more superficial level), instead she's talking about the deep, meaningful relationships that are part of your business or career
  • Assumption that there's a mutual relationship of giving and taking (reciprocity, not one-sided)
• 2:15 to 6:05 - Types of Professional Relationships
  1. Guides - could be a mentor or coach, colleague. Someone who helps guide you in your business and on your career path
  2. Partners - can be formal and informal.
     1. Link to Jen's blog post: "10 Things to Think About Before You Get Work-Married" 
     2. Uncommon to have a 20 year business partnership
     3. Collaborators 
        1. Alliance / Affiliation, a more formalized collaboration
     4. Conduit / Channel Partners
  3. Workers - employees or subcontractors. With workers, you make the call, you're in charge
  4. Clients - everyone has them!
• 6:06 to 9:13 - Three Phases for Designing Relationships
  1. Creating - you need a direction for where you're wanting to go. Creation is about the initiation phase or "dating." Do you share values with your partner / collaborator?
     1. Link to Jen's Values Assessment (you'll need to share your name and email address to download it)
     2. What's the agreement part of the relationship, figure it out beforehand
  2. Maintaining - you're being assessed and you're assessing other people about what's working and what's not working.
  3. Refining - Use action around what you've learned in the maintaining phase. You can:
     1. Course correct
     2. Expand the relationship
     3. Pause it if it didn't feel like a good fit
     4. End it 
• 9:14 to 9:40 - Three Questions to Think About for Your Professional Relationships
  1. Where are you going?
  2. List top 10 to 20 relationships that fit inside of Guide, Partner, Worker, Client categories
  3. What's working, what's not working, and what's missing for where you're going? 
• 9:43 to 11:41 - Ashland Closing Remarks
  • Stay in touch, email us ([email protected]) or connect with us on social
  • Come check out our three day "Experience" this September - www.cmbxp.com (September 14-16)
  • Need help with goal planning? Connect with us for a goal planning session!

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Get ready for more info on Managing Professional Relationships, stay tuned!

Thanks!

Ashland, Creatives Meet Business