259: Why Most Creative Businesses Fail: You Stop Before People Find You

Welcome back to the Messy Success Podcast. In this solo episode, Elizabeth shares why creative businesses fail and why she believes it has far less to do with a bad product or bad marketing than most owners think. She walks through her own failed ideas, from digital scans on Etsy to stock photography to planners, to show what actually happened each time.   If you are a creative business owner who has been thinking about throwing in the towel, or you've had businesses in the past that didn't work, this one is for you. Giving up on your business too soon is far more common than having a bad idea, and the things we're not doing are often surprisingly simple.   Elizabeth talks about why repetition builds trust, why creative people are especially vulnerable to newness, and how to think in questions instead of statements when a post flops or nobody buys. She also gets into what consistency in business really means (it isn't posting every single day) and why your audience should never be responsible for your motivation.