Value vs. Values

Aha Moments of Managing an Art Business—Axios-ology

John Anderson, AHA

April 5, 2022

Series 2—Blog post #5

In our last Art Chat (April 5, 2022, we discussed the extreme importance of communicating your thoughts, ideas, and conversing with others as it relates to value and values. There are literally hundreds of contexts in which to use the terms and each one can enhance conversations, or by misusing them can become the elephant in the room. The point is words matter. Your personal presentation on subjects can build confidence and trust while being a key factor in selling a piece of art and gaining a customer for life. Your communications become the lifeblood of your business and are a reflection of your conversations.

My personal viewpoint is that words shape our thoughts and beliefs, that thoughts become things, and can connect to things that are good or bad. By making decisions, which is often referred to our Choice Point or the tipping point of change, our thoughts and choices can bring insight and awareness to that point to move from impossible to possibilities. My hope, and AHA’s foundation of thought is to convey Opportunities for Good.

What’s the difference in value and values? Assessments of business in general are based on analytics and are founded in terms of qualitative and quantitative measurement. Value may be interpreted as the “worth” in several ways—value structure, social value, value theories, psychological values, financial (what’s it worth?). I put financial value last because most creatives want to understandably go there first and often miss the financial value included in the qualitative and quantitative analysis of worth-related value. Again, we will go over this in the “AHA Value Series Art Chats” and in the business-related courses.

Values target the positive and negative aspects of decision making at the Choice Point. These good and bad choices can identify where a creative, or an aesthete, are in the evolution and the parts of self and business that need development. The aim is to reach a comfort zone of mutual respect. A few of the values that are important, and believe me these are only a few, are loyalty, honesty, compassion, humility, integrity, and spirituality.

Here’s a path worth exploring, and it pertains to me putting financial worth last on the Value list. Everyone in business wants to know the ins and outs of “how much do I charge?” Some businesses use worn-out methods for reaching a finished product price and for services in dollars $ (€ – ¥ – ﷼ – etc.). AHA is going to provide a proprietary program that introduces a new proprietary pricing strategy that qualitatively and quantitatively provides a new method of understanding price.

I want to remind you, if you are reading this that there are some areas to consider in developing your business. “What is your purpose? How passionate are you about it? Why do you dream, or desire to do it? Are you solidly part of the entrepreneurial spirit? How do you decide when, where, and how do I do it? And woven into the viability of the idea is the need to know if it is workable and sustainable? How will your potential business align with your expectations of a personal and positive work-life balance? And the simplicity way of addressing your business possibilities… use critical thinking! It comprises five basic steps: evaluating “self” (a systematic assessment); collecting information (research), evaluating information (analysis), drawing conclusions (choices and priorities) and evaluating those conclusions (risk assessment and decision making). Think about the questions asked above.

Join us for the next Art Chat with Linda Riesenberg Fisler and I when we will discuss Asking Questions of Priority.

Until then, continue to visit the website https//artisticharmoniesassoc.com, read the blogs, and join us in our mission by becoming a member of Artistic Harmonies Association Inc. If you haven’t already, sign-up for our newsletter too!

If you would like to take a FREE Personal Value Assessment, drop me a request and I’ll send you the link. I took it and it was amazingly accurate.

Respectfully,

John Anderson