Here’s a thought experiment I want you to try: Imagine reading your list of responsibilities, time commitments, and pay as if it were a job description for someone else’s company.

Would you take the job?

Would you be excited by it? Feel supported by it? Or would you dread it? Feel like it would drain you?

What we’re really talking about here is business culture. And yes, even solopreneurs have a business culture. It’s the environment, values, and day-to-day experience you’ve created for yourself. It’s how you treat yourself as the primary “employee” of your business. It’s whether you’ve built a workplace (even if that’s your home office) where you really, truly want to show up every day.

“Would you work for you?” isn’t just hypothetical. It’s a culture check that reveals whether you’ve built a business that honors your life or one that’s slowly consuming it.

This question applies whether you have a team or you’re a business of one (though if you are hiring, you absolutely want to consider these things). You need to learn how to build a business you actually want to run, while treating yourself the way you’d expect others to treat you.

We’re always hardest on ourselves. Boundaries are easy to drop when it’s just you. It’s easy to say, “I’ll just do this,” or “I can make this exception,” or “I can compromise here.” And at the end of the day, all of that stacks up.

So consider this your encouragement to look objectively at the decisions you’re making, the actions you’re taking, and the dynamic you have within your creative business. Because you’re showing up to this business day after day, and you deserve to be treated well within it.

It’s up to you to make it happen.

The Myth of “Only Affecting Yourself”

Building an accidental business happens more often than you’d think. Things just… become what they are when you’re not being intentional, especially when it’s a business of one. Because you’re the only one affected, right?

That’s a myth.

The decisions you make in both your business and your day-to-day life impact your family, your clients, your network, your competitors and peers, and honestly, the creative industry as a whole. That might seem like an overstatement, but it really, truly is not.

• Your family feels it when you’re answering client emails at the dinner table instead of chatting about everyone’s day. 
  
  
• Your clients feel it when you’re stressed and stretched too thin. 
  
  
• Your competitors, peers, and the creative industry notice when you discount your prices to win business, inadvertently affecting how people value the products and services across your entire field.

Even your turnaround times can influence expectations industry-wide and how clients decide to go with you versus someone else.

So get this right. Treat yourself (and your current or future team) with respect. Build your business in a way that you would be thrilled, honored, and excited to work for if you were being hired into it.

Signs Your Business Operations Are Working Against You

Okay, so you’ve decided to take an honest look at your business. Where do you start? By looking for signs that your operations are working against you. Most of the time, these are systems issues, though they can also tiptoe into boundary issues or even business strategy issues.

The good news? They’re all 100% fixable.

But if you have any of these symptoms, you should pause, diagnose, and adjust accordingly. Because even if you’re making it work right now, these symptoms will gnaw on you and grow and have the potential to burn you out or sink your business down the line.

These red flags reveal your business culture needs attention

Watch for these signs that you’ve created an unsustainable culture in your business (yes, even as a solopreneur):

• “Duct tape” everywhere. If you’re figuratively duct-taping things together behind the scenes, eventually that duct tape is going to give. Things will break. The bigger you grow, the more duct tape you have. Plus, the longer it’s there, the less it holds.
  
  
• Constant fires to put out. If there are often emergencies in your business, you have systems that need attention.
  
  
• The feast and famine cycle. If you go from a full pipeline to wondering where your next paycheck is coming from (and it’s not driven by intentional seasonality), you likely have sales and marketing systems issues to work through.
  
  
• Late nights and early mornings are necessary to get it all done. Sound familiar? If so, you likely have capacity issues and systems issues in how you’re managing it all, selling things, and knowing what your business can tolerate.
  
  
• Things regularly slip through the cracks. You probably have project management issues and (most likely) client experience issues.
  
  
• Not knowing your numbers. If you don’t know how much money is coming into and out of your business, it could be a sign you have financial systems issues that need addressing.
  
  
• No clear next steps and reinventing the wheel every time. If you’re starting from scratch with each new client or project, even with things you do over and over again (creating proposals, onboarding processes, or project workflows), you’ve got systems issues, project management issues, and client experience issues.
  
  
• Hot and cold client feedback. Some clients rave about you while others are disappointed. One project goes great and the next feels off. This inconsistency points to communication issues and client experience issues that need attention.

All of these come down to your systems (the what and how you do things) and the rhythms you’re running in your business (the frequency that keeps it all in motion). And all of them need to work like a well-oiled machine, or they will break down. Over time, the wear and tear will add up. It will burn you out, it will break, and it will not be sustainable going forward.

You wouldn’t expect someone you’re paying to figure all of that out for themselves on a daily basis and then deal with the consequences. So why should you?

Creating a Business Culture That Feeds (Not Drains) Your Creativity

Your creativity is your special spark. It’s what makes you you and sets you apart from others. And in today’s world, it’s what sets you apart from the AI tools competing for your clients’ attention.

That one-of-a-kind creativity needs to be supported and nurtured.

If things are constantly getting in the way of your creativity or draining your excitement, curiosity, and creative spirit, figuring out why needs to rise to the top of your list. Because left unchecked, it will burn you out. You’ll fall behind, stop landing the clients and projects that excite you, feel uninspired, and grow resentful of the business you built.

Here’s how to build a culture that feeds your creativity:

• Have a creative rhythm in place and be intentional about it. This is dedicated time for your creative work that’s protected and prioritized.
  
  
• Have a CEO time rhythm too. This is separate time set aside to look at things in your business objectively (apart from creative time) so the two aren’t constantly competing and leaving you with feelings of guilt and being behind. Think of this as working ON your business instead of just IN your business. 
  
  
• Honor your capacity. If you’re taking on too much, it’s hard to give everything the necessary time and attention. Creativity is a practice. It’s often more about the journey than the destination. If you’re rushing through, the end product won’t be as good.
  
  
• Work with an ICA (Ideal Client Avatar) that excites you. These are people you respect and admire, people you like working for and collaborating with. It’s amazing how many people work for ICAs they don’t actually like. One of the best ways to achieve a sustainable business is to genuinely enjoy the people whose problems you’re solving through your products or services.
  
  
• Take on projects that push and inspire you. Aim to work on things that push you creatively, allow you to continue to grow, and let you stay curious and experiment. The formulaic thing eventually gets unexciting to the creative brain and over time that will begin to show.

The Creative Entrepreneur Work-Life Balance Audit

Are you feeling off-balance? Is there constantly a low hum of guilt—or even a booming guilt—following you around, playing in the background?

Being your own boss and a creative entrepreneur can make it really hard to balance the demands of life and business on a daily basis. When we work doing something we love, it’s so easy for that piece to become part of our personal life—and for work to slowly take over.

Creative entrepreneur work-life balance needs to be intentional. Here are the areas that will tell you how you’re doing with it:

• Boundaries. Do you have clear boundaries? Do you know what they are? Are you enforcing them regularly? Do they protect your mental health, your personal time, your business, and your most important relationships?
  
  
• Time audit. Where is your time and attention really going? It’s never where you think. Almost every time my clients do this exercise (snag it here, it’s free), they’re surprised by the imbalance. Your time goes where your priorities go.
  
  
• What’s working and what’s not? Simply ask yourself this question. Actually sitting with it can be very insightful.
  
  
• Your mental health. If stress or your work environment are taking a toll on your mental health, work-life balance is often a big piece of the puzzle.
  
  
• Your family and relationships. How they feel about you, your work, and the way you’re showing up is incredibly telling.
  
  
• Times when you’re distracted, stressed, or not present. Whether with family, friends, or in client meetings, noticing these moments reveals a lot about your current balance (or lack thereof).

Building a Business You Actually Want to Run Long-Term

This is the dream, right? You’re not putting all this work in to build a business you hate showing up to day after day, working with people you dread, on projects that drain you.

You deserve to have passion, respect, and drive for what you do. And for that to be true now and in the future, you need to know how to build a business you actually want to run.

Ask yourself these questions to gauge how your business rates now, and might fare in the future:

• Are you excited to show up every day (or realistically, most days)? There’s always a day or two here or there when we just aren’t feeling it. But if those days are outweighing the exciting days, there are probably a few things you should change.
  
  
• Are you working towards a mission that aligns with your values? Do you have a mission for why you’re building this creative business? Are your personal and professional values accounted for in that mission?
  
  
• Does your business support the vision you have for your life? Work-life balance, revenue, projects… Do all of these pieces fulfill your personal definition of success?
  
  
• Are you working with people you respect and admire? The people around you (clients, partners, team members, and collaborators) will either lift you up or pull you down. If you’re not excited to work with them, it will only get heavier over time.
  
  
• Does your work have impact? Impact is personal in how you define it. It might be as simple as helping one person or as robust as serving a million. Ultimately, you will feel more fulfilled when you’re confident that your work is making a positive impact.
  
  
• Are you able to grow creatively, professionally, and personally in your work? The right business will support you and allow you to continue growing. We as creatives (and as human beings) are always happier when we continue to learn, stretch, and evolve.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, you want to build a business and a culture that supports you, your dreams, your life, and your creativity.

Be intentional about it. 

Pause and take notice now (and every now and then going forward). Make changes to better align.

If you need some distance to do this, think about it as that job description for a company you don’t own. 

Take inventory of it all:

• the time you’re working each week, 
• what you’re getting paid, 
• the projects you’re working on, 
• the responsibilities you have.

If you saw this objectively written out, would you take that job?

Because if the answer is no—if you’re not excited by it, if it would drain you, if you would dread showing up every day—you need to make changes. 

Keep adjusting until the answer is yes. Until you’d be thrilled and excited to show up every day.

And one more thing: if you do have a team, or you’re growing one now or in the future, the culture you build for yourself should extend to your people. They should feel as excited and supported as you do showing up day-to-day in your business.

That starts with how you treat yourself. Ready to build a business culture that actually supports you? Business Building for Creatives walks you through the systems and rhythms you need to create a business you’d be thrilled to work for.