In creative industries, the quality of your work is the very leg you stand on. That’s why staying inspired and motivated is supercritical to success. And as the owner of a creative business, your job is to keep the excitement and the passion burning for what you do, and to allow that enthusiasm to rub onto and inspire the people around you. Like glitter.

There’s all of that, but people will still expect you to be as financially sharp and business-savvy as possible.

Trying to grow your business as a serious entrepreneur? Then you have to be prepared to wear many hats. Some of those hats won’t be handmade beanies – they’ll be uncomfortable and scratchy and not at all glam.

So how do you grow a creative business successfully without losing what makes you amazing? Here are the three ways to do so.

Wallow In Creativity – Wade Through CEO

Bulk the work so you have ‘creative day’ and then ‘CEO day’.  Don’t try to do both roles all in the same day. Creative work and CEO-type work require very different areas of your personality and of your brain. Switching from one mode to the other within a short amount of time is not only inefficient, it can be downright damaging to overall productivity and quality. Batch-processing and grouping similar tasks is a wise use of your time and allow you to work as a creative with less distraction, and work as a CEO with better focus.

Get Your Timing Spot On

Work when you are most CEO-like – whether that time is in the morning or afternoon. Find out what time of the day you are most comfortable to wear your CEO hat. The time when your creative side wants to take a back seat. And when you’re there, it’s the best time to make business decisions and to check the numbers. You may be working in a creative field but that is no excuse to not keep an eye on your financials. Make sure that your cash flow is always healthy so that your business is able to keep functioning. This is a responsible practice to make sure that you can pay people and suppliers on time.

Get Smart

Outsource the stuff you never do.

There’s no need to feel guilty about not being in your genius zone. The most successful business owners know they need to outsource or delegate certain tasks to freelance contractors who specialize in providing valuable time-saving services. Usual jobs that you should consider outsourcing include:

Accounting and Taxes

No successful business owner should ever have to do his or her own taxes. Keep in mind, it just gets more and more complicated and time-consuming to do your own bookkeeping and tax accounting the bigger your business becomes.

Administrative Assistance

If you absolutely dread sifting through your email inbox and going through hundreds of clerical tasks every day, then a virtual administrative assistant or VA may be just what you need to do away with those frustrating processes.

Lead Generation and Web Research

Keeping up with every latest development in your industry is simply daunting. A web researcher can help gather and organise available information and statistics for an upcoming presentation or to research and compile names of companies and contacts for a leads list.

Get creative about your creativity and you’ll get to really slip and slide around in it on your creative days – without having to worry about that slightly odd fitting CEO hat.