You all know how much I hate left-brained biz planning: Dense strategic plans. Bar charts. Power points. Spreadsheets. Gah!

Well, I’m not alone. Jennifer Lee just wrote a book that helps us creative types do business planning in a way that works for us by utilizing our right-brained creativity. And she gives us permission to use sparkles, pink markers, pictures of sunsets, and anything our hearts desire to make our business run.

To celebrate the launch of her new book The Right-Brain Business Plan: A Creative, Visual Map for Success, Jennifer Lee has gathered an amazing line-up of leading creative entrepreneurs like uber-coach Andrea J. Lee, philosopher diva Danielle LaPorte, travel-hacking world gadfly Chris Guillibeau, super connector and friend Pam Slim and my buddy the Goddess Leonie Allan (and me!!!) who will share their insider tips and tools for running a successful business with joy, ease, and creativity.

You can watch my video conversation with Jenn on Tuesday, March 1st at 10am PST. Sign up here.

To give you a little taste of what Jenn’s about, we did an interview the other day for my blog.

What do you mean when you say right-brain business plan?

Typically business plans are boring, lengthy, written documents and financial reports that get placed in a binder and never looked at again. A Right-Brain Business Plan, on the other hand, is a visual, creative and fun work of art that provides constant inspiration and guidance.

We start with the right-brain creativity first and then we bring in the left-brain afterward to help organize the action steps and make things real. The Right-Brain Business Plan has the same basic building blocks as a traditional plan, but because we approach the planning through pictures, colors, emotion, and intuition, it’s business planning for the rest of us. Some creative formats include a leather cuff bracelet, a paper plate mobile, and a plan in a paint bucket decorated with a feather boa.

How can we help to take away some of the intimidation about doing this kind of planning for people who think they can’t do it because they don’t know how to draw?

A lot of Right-Brain Business Plans are made using collage so you don’t have to draw at all. You can just cut and paste images from magazines to create a visual plan that inspires you. I’d also like to emphasize that you don’t need to know how to draw to make a visual plan. Stick figures and chicken scratch work just fine! The plan doesn’t need to be an artistic masterpiece. Instead focus on creating something that is meaningful to you.

When I do my planning I look holistically at everything my business needs as well as the stuff I need to do to feed my creative soul. So my mind maps include things like: Set aside time for playing with paints. Go ice skating. Spend time with my High Priestess.What are some of the things that you include in your planning that someone might not necessarily think to include in their plan?

Love the ones you listed. Mine are:

• Practice self-care Fridays.
• Participate in my bi-weekly Nurture Huddle calls.
• Make time for yoga and art.
• Enjoy time in nature.
• Hang out with my husband and our dog.

Some of those things I just mentioned that feed my creative juice are the hardest ones to do—to actually take the time to do them—because it feels like there’s so much that needs to get done in my business. Any tips for that?

Yes, it can be challenging to juggle it all. One of the best things to do is to publicly state your commitments. It helps those around you know how to support you and it helps give you accountability.

A lot of people are aware of my self-care Fridays because I talk and blog about it. They know that I don’t do scheduled meetings on Fridays and they respect that.

Having an accountability buddy is also a great idea. When my friend Kate Prentiss (who illustrated my book) used to live near me, we would go to yoga class together pretty regularly. It’s harder for me to go on my own now.

Having something regularly scheduled in your calendar is also helpful. So, I know every other Wednesday at 7pm I’m going to be on a call with my Nurture Huddle.

What are some of your favorite planning tools you like to use, you know like markers, stickies, etc?

Definitely colorful stickies and the shapes are great, too, I like the flowers. When I’m doing detailed planning and mind-maps, I like to use Staedtler triplus fineliners (the set in the portable carrying case/stand rocks). I love Levenger’s Oasis Concept Pad for mind-mapping in the center with either markers or on stickies that I can move around. I also like using my label maker (when I’m feeling anal) to organize tabs in my notebook and folders.

What are three essential things you can’t live without in your office?

My MacBook, my giant wall calendar with sticky notes, my Levenger Circa notebooks.

Do you use visual touchstones? What’s your current touchstone?

Yes, I have many visual touchstones. I have my current Right-Brain Business Plan hanging on a bulletin board in my office, I have an easel with my collaged values cards on my desk, and I have my Unfolding Your Life Vision book to remind me of my personal goals.

My latest touchstone is my free downloadable Right-Brain Badge of Honor poster that hangs above my computer and reminds me that me and my creative work matter.

Sharpies or Mr. Sketch?

Mr. Sketch – they just smell so yummy! Well, Sharpies smell good, too, but they get me a little too high .

Julie, we saw the final cut of the video today and it is absolutely beautiful. We have a pretty large crew (for us) at the sr4 offices this week getting ready for the meetings next week, and people kept hearing about the video and coming into the conference room to see it. Each time we showed it for someone new, everyone who had already seen it watched it again. I’m thinking we’re going to want to do this again somewhere down the line, and I can’t imagine doing it without you. If you have already decided that you NEVER want to do that again, please let me know so I can let myself down easily.
–Bill Seyle, founding partner at sr4 Partners in Chicago

They love me in Chicago.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Chicago. In a chilly room. In an old brick building converted into a loft studio used for filming.

With me were 4-5 guys who were part of a film crew including Paul Kotkovich, cameraman and Bill Seyle, creative director.

We had come together to film a 7-minute video similar to the RSA Animate videos that are all the rage right now.

How it all started.

Back in November I was contacted about this project. It was for a client I had done some large-scale, live visual content capture for a month earlier.

Sometime in mid-December I received the script… well, parts 1 and 2 of a 3-part script. I spent a day concepting the illustrations that would best show the storyline and drawing them in sequence while taking photos of each segment so my client would have some idea of how the video would go.

Revisions were made to the script. Revisions were made to the drawings. The last part of the script arrived the week between Christmas and New Years. I charged “double holiday overtime” for having to work during that week.

Finally it seemed we were all happy. The producer/videographer and I had a very short time frame in January in which our schedules overlapped for the filming. Two days in fact.

Eleven snowplows for a whole city.

Then the snow/ice storm hit Atlanta. I knew I’d be grounded for a week and wouldn’t be able to make it to Chicago. We have 11 snow plows total here. The last time I was at O’Hare, I counted at least 30 standing by just to plow the runways. I had a fun time explaining to my Chicago crew that yes, indeed, five inches of snow can shut a Southern city down.

When I finally got to Chicago a week later, Patrick, the producer/videographer who I had been working with solely for three months, was in Buenos Aires where “the weather doesn’t suck. Nor the steak or the wine” working with another client.

He left me in good hands with his colleague Paul. Neither one of us had done this kind of work before so we would learn together.

We were going to do several takes, the whole way through all of the illustrations and accompanying text and take the best one.

I had thought that we would do several takes and they could splice a good part from Take 1 with a good part from Take 3 and another part from Take 2 like they do in the movies. But no, we had to do it clean all the way through from start to finish. Um, no pressure.

The best leaves ever.

We did a test run of a few of the initial images. The video started with an oak tree and two falling leaves.

Because they would be laying an audio over it later we were able to talk while I was doing my thing.

We figured out it was helpful for me to give cues about what I was going to do next so Paul would know where to focus and zoom and move the shot. I could also slow down when I needed to think about the next thing or when we had to move the camera because that could be edited out.

After a few minutes we had the process down and decided to go for the real thing.

The first time all the way through which we called our Take 2 was perfect. It took about 30 minutes as best I could tell.

Feeling like we had a good one in the bag, we stopped for lunch.

At the start of Take 3 I felt a little out of sorts. While drawing the leaves I said, I think I forgot how to draw leaves. Two of the crew responded right away, “Those are the best leaves I’ve ever seen. Those are Oak Park quality leaves.” Ah, managing the talent are we?

We got three quarters of the way through Take 3–including this incredibly long, excruciating-to-write segment of text that Bill reads to me while I write after which he exhales because he’s nervous for me–and realized we had skipped a sequence.

Crap. Can’t use Take 3.

Well at least we had Take 2. That is until Bill pointed out one word was wrong in the vision statement. I wrote “transform” instead of “improve.” A big difference to this client’s mission.

Realizing we didn’t have a single clean take, I push back my plane. Patrick texts from Buenos Aires: “How’d it go?”

We’re still here I text back. “You’re going to miss your plane,” he texts, managing the situation from South America.

One more take for all the marbles.

We took our time. Everyone was focused. We talked through each segment. Finally, I got to the logo at the end and left out the little sideways triangle that was supposed to fit between two words as part of the logo for this whole project. Not just any triangle. The logo triangle.

#$%@. I forgot the triangle. I can go back and squeeze it in, I tell them. And I did. It was a little smushed but it looked fine and we were all happy and relieved.

I had a large ginger mojito at O’Hare that evening before catching my flight home.

Things I learned:

• This is a long process start to finish. At least the video I was involved with.
• This is an expensive process. Again, at least the one I was involved with (think mid-five figures).
• Like some of my colleagues who have been sharing their first time experiences of doing this kind of work—it’s tedious and not nearly as fun for me as working live.
• When I told Bill how I usually work—live and in real-time—he said, “That must be so hard.” No, it’s way easier than this.
• I’m tempermentally unsuited for the kind of work that requires lots of revisions. This would include acting, screenwriting, illustrating. I’m more of a one-take kind of girl.
• I would do it again with the right people and for the right price. The right price is probably not less than $5000.

I’m on the wall.

One of my clients, the brilliant Julie Wilson who works at Harvard and found me through the HBR article I was mentioned in, wants to change the education system in the US. She came to me with her ideas and mission. Signed up for the year-long viz biz plan because this, clearly, is a huge undertaking. Not something that can be turned around in 90 minutes. So we came up with a plan. Things for her to think about. Things to research. Ways to connect with people to find cohorts for her mission.

Now she’s excited and driven, and has steps to work on until we put our heads (and my markers) together again. As Julie said:

Who knew business plan generation could be so fun?

Here’s Julie’s visual map on the wall of her office. Very few things make me as happy as seeing a picture like this.

She’s @juliemargretta on Twitter if you want to connect.

I’m an Everlasting Gobstopper?!?

Okay, I used to love those as a kid and Kelly Parkinson at Copylicious called me one in her post where she makes the case for people who are capable of multiple flavors, which I love.

You are not a generalist. You’re an intelligent thinker who sees that these things fit together. The solution you present is so amazing it prevents the problem from happening in the first place.

And then in a wonderful list of other Gobstoppers like my friends Pam, Havi and Sparky, she refers to me as a visual facilitator with mad business skills and connections. Perfecto!!

One more place I discovered Making Ideas Visible.

Dan Nolan is building a gigantic tower of business cards. And by the way, he needs many more cards so drop yours in the mail okay?

Guess who’s bright orange biz card is in this photo? Because standing out from the crowd isn’t just my mission, it’s my way of being.

The other week I did a couple of interviews. One was with the fabulous branding therapy coach David Cohen who did that fabulous doodle bomb of me. My first ever! Mwah.

Harvard Business Review. Seriously?

The other was with the Harvard Business Review, ahem, for an article coming out in the fall that may include me, my work and my client’s experience of graphic facilitation. I’ll let you know about the article when it comes out. In the meantime, say prayers and make offerings to the journalism god that I’ll be included.

Back to the interview I did with David (yes he got to me first before HBR)….the interview and subsequent lunch was illuminating. This guy knows his stuff.

Finetuning my Sweetspot

I’ll write more later about the insights he gave me over lunch. He had me do a focusing exercise about my business which involved doodling a bar graph on the paper tablecloth of a Cuban restaurant. The exercise confirmed where the Sweetspot of my business is and kind of painfully highlighted where I don’t have nearly as much enthusiasm. So I’m doing some internal processing about that.

David gave me some great ideas about how I can realign some of my current projects, like producing a business mindmapping product, into a way that can deliver value for my clients who are in my Sweetspot. For that valuable insight and others I picked up the check.

Me and Gary Vee!

I met David, initially over the internet and then in person, after he talked about me in the same sentence as Gary Vee as someone who has turned their unique skills into a powerful brand story. David explored more of this idea in the interview he did with me. I talked about how I got into this work. Getting really clear about how I talk about the work I do because it’s not something that’s easily explained. And the worst thing that’s ever happened to me at a gig. Enjoy!

OMG, I color-coded my business and I am so happy. Oh the happy! Everything makes sense to me now. Allow me to explain.

I’ve been doing some coaching with the lovely and brilliant Cairene, a systems and time management savant, of ThirdHandWorks. She totally gets us creative entrepreneurs and how we think, organize and process.

Let me just say that when she dropped into our conversation this line, “….remember in design class when they talked about the color wheel?” I swooned and leaned in closer (on the phone) to hear what she was saying.

Bookkeeping has a color? A mood? Seriously? Seriously!

Like beautifully dyed Easter eggs

It does. Mine is blue. So does networking (yellow). Whimsy (pink). Creating, yes different from whimsy, I’ll explain later (orange). Blogging (green). Learning (purple). And marketing (maroon).

Not only a color but a mood, personality and unique qualities. Also yet to be discovered: a time of day, frequency and sequencing. Like on the color wheel.

Which colors (activities) clash or make mud when combined? Which are synchronous and harmonic?

Systems rock

This my friends is a system I can get behind. A system that excites me. A system I want to explore.

Just wait until you see my project timelines…..

Want to mindmap your business on your own? You can.

Which reminds me…..back in January I taught a teleclass with Cairene on how to mindmap your business/life. There were lots of cool things in the class like a guided meditation to see where your business wants to go and what it needs, investigating the iconography or images that animate your business, and constructing a mindmap of where your business is headed.

The mindmapping teleclass is available here in case you missed it.

So next Thursday I’m doing this thing, a teleclass, with my buddy Cairene MacDonald of ThirdHandWorks. I absolutely love Cairene and have participated in many of her Bite the Candy sessions where you carve out several hours to tackle a few of those things that have piled up—things that you don’t want to do–in a really gentle way. When Cairene asked me to be her January Guest Guide I jumped at the chance.

I’m really excited about it but also kind of nervous because it’s my first teleclass.
And it being my first teleclass, I totally don’t have the I should promote this thing shouldn’t I if I want people to come figured out. So this is me promoting it. Or really just telling you a little about it to see if it sounds like something that might be helpful for you.

Business planning for creative people

Since its January, we’re going to focus on business planning. But not the sucky, scary kind that makes creative people like you break out in hives.

What we’re going to do will be way cooler. We’re going to envision where we want our businesses to go and then create a visual business plan to get there.

As Cairene says: I love mind-mapping. I encourage my students to use mind-mapping. I think it’s a really useful tool to have in one’s tool box. It’s a technique that is organic and visual and intuitive and relational—and can help you discover and organize ideas in ways that list-making just can’t.

Exactly!

How it will work

Before we get to the mindmapping though, I’m going to help you tap into your intuition and take a visual journey through the landscape of your business. Maybe a visual touchstone or totem will emerge for you, like mine did recently when I got a vision of my people as sailboats bobbing gently in the Caribbean Sea.

We’ll imagine what you want to do in the coming year (or if you prefer, in the more immediate next three months.)

Then we’ll brainstorm ideas about your direction and organize them into a visual framework with clear action steps.

You’ll get to play with markers, colored sticky notes and big paper. And any other kind of fun stuff you can think of that your visual plan might need.

You’ll come away with a customized-for-you visual business plan. One that inspires and delights you. One you’ll want to use it every day like I do mine.

But I can’t draw!

If you’re intimidated about not having the art gene (relax, there isn’t an art gene), no worries. We’ll be using colored post-it notes and basic shapes to compose our ideas. And you’ll receive a file beforehand with some simple icon drawings from me that you can easily copy.

Interested? Head over here to sign up. And find that pack of colored markers you have tucked away because we’re going to give them a work out! See you on the call next Thursday.

Oh, and the call will be recorded if you can’t make it.

It always tickles me when I walk into the office of a client I’ve done work with and see a mural that I did for them hanging in their office. Like at the CDC.

Or better yet, to see that one of my murals has been scanned, re-sized and printed (with my copyright permission) multiple times into posters and hung all over the building, which is what the CDC did with the 20-year history map I created for them last year. (You can see the full original on my Portfolio page.)

The CDC has also, via email and copiers, circulated the infamous (in a good way) Alice Waters mural that I did in 2007 during a talk she gave at the CDC. This is the mural that put me on the map, so to speak, at the CDC because everyone has seen it. And Alice loved it so much she signed it.

I love to see this happening because it shows that my clients have turned the meeting artifact—the murals—into a living document, something that they continue to refer to for inspiration and to chart their progress.

A practical example of my own

I have done this myself with my three-month business plan map. I’ve had it on my wall since October. Periodically I’ve been updating it, checking my progress, crossing off things I’ve accomplished or adding additional ideas.

After an illuminating conversation with the brilliant Can-do-ologist Marissa Bracke in which she asked me what would my ideal day look like if I felt perfectly supported, I took an orange marker and put a dotted line around all the to-do items that were delegate-able. Oh boy, was I amazed! Then I started delegating.

A War Room of murals

(The political operative in me loves the word War Room.) One of my corporate clients was in a process of reimagining a product line. If you’ve seen recent commercials with Julia Louis-Dreyfus then you know which brand.

I spent a day with their marketing team capturing consumer research and percolating ideas in six separate murals. At the end of the meeting, they declared they were going to set up a War Room with the murals so they would have a physical place to be with the ideas as they continued to have discussions and make decisions. Very cool idea.

When the team, and other folks who weren’t at the initial meeting with us, met again later to review the research findings and work on branding and advertising, they simply had to look at the murals to get the essence of the ideas that were generated that day.

Here’s why they needed me

If I hadn’t been there, they would have had to dig through an enormous, day-long PowerPoint deck to refresh their memory. Gah! I can’t imagine anything more tedious and inefficient.

It was a long day and there was a ton of great ideas and information flowing which can be hard to retain in its entirety. But all they had to do was to go to the War Room or flip through the digital versions of the murals I provided for them on their computer.

Why murals live on and flip chart notes do not

I think it’s the scale of these things–these murals I create with my clients–that lends them to living on past the meeting.

I mean, they are Panoramic. Typically about 4×8 feet, though the CDC mural was even bigger. The murals can certainly enliven an office space and keep your big ideas handy.

A mural can be used for fundraising

I visually facilitated a three-year strategic planning retreat for the Conservation Voters of South Carolina (folks who are fighting the good fight politically for the environmental community of SC) at a 170-year old house that had an original copy of South Carolina’s Succession, but that’s another story.

The final mural I did at the planning retreat was a synthesis of their action steps into a visual image that clearly showed all the areas of their work. I can’t show it to you because their plans to turn the state green are proprietary. Rock on.

They were already intending to hang all the murals in their office, like a War Room. I suggested that they also use their strategic plan mural to:

• Revisit and chart their progress at board meetings
• Use as a recruiting tool for prospective board members because in a quick glance someone can see exactly where the organization is headed
• Use with major donor fundraising for the same reason as above

How would you use one of my murals?

I love to hear stories about how my clients use their murals, so if you’ve got one, please send it along. Or share ideas about how you can see these murals helping with clarity and direction long after the actual meeting.

Do you have a three month business plan? Are you using it? Does it make you happy? Make you smile? Does it express the excitement you have for your business?

Yesterday I created my three-month business plan and just looking at it makes me hysterically happy. My plan has pictures! Hearts! Hot pink dots! Kangaroos! And confetti! How could I not love it? How could I not be wildly inspired by it? How could I not use it every day?

Big picture systems thinking.

Most importantly, I can see The Big Picture. In large-scale (4×6 feet) panoramic full color. It’s a huge monument to where I want to go. A Roadmap of Inspiration.

Having all your ideas in one place.

Getting it out on paper allowed me to have a huge brain dump of all those ideas, visions and details that had been bouncing around in my head.

When you carry stuff around for a while in your mind you just keep cycling through the same ideas and thoughts. There is less room for new thoughts and ideas to come in. So getting those thoughts down on paper where I can see them frees up some cache in my mind for new ideas, dreams and possibilities.

Clarity for your team.

Having all my ideas, projects and plans in one place makes it easy to show other people where I’m going, like the new assistant I’m hiring this week! (Part of my biggification process.)

By looking at the whole mural, she will get a strong, clear understanding of what my business is about and where we’re headed in the next three months. There’s a whole section of the mural that has the projects I want her to start working on.

And she’ll get this in about five minutes. Five minutes! I won’t have to take an hour or two to explain all the pieces and parts of my business because it’s all right there in panoramic living color.

Refer to your plan every day.

I’ll give her a digital version and print one on legal-size paper so that we can keep it handy and refer to it every day for guidance. Like a color-chromatic GPS system!

Another real life example.

I did a similar personal mapping session for Kelly Parkinson of Copylicious. She came to me with a ton of ideas swimming around in her head because she’s super creative and an idea-generating machine. As she said about the experience:

I saw one of the maps Julie had created for another client and thought that this was exactly the thing I needed. I needed to get out of my own brain. Even though I’m a copywriter so I should be able to write my way out of any problem, sometimes writing out my thoughts on my own business just gets me lost in the maze again. I needed something visual and something fun and an outside perspective.

We spent about two hours on the phone. I listened and asked questions while writing and drawing her ideas on a 4×8 foot piece of paper.

This is what Kelly had to say afterward:

I don’t know why all these things in my head are so overwhelming but when I see them like this it makes perfect sense.

You made it into a system that makes sense and I can see how it all fits together. This was so amazing. I’m so glad I did this.

Not only do I have clarity on this situation, but I also have a new vision for what my business could really become. I know EXACTLY what I need to be doing now–next steps and things to move toward in the future.

Need a three month business plan that you’ll actually love and want to use?

Send an email to schedule your session to: Julie at Making Ideas Visible dot com or read more about the process here.