We started COMRADITY Creative Professional Alliance & Studio because we understand the risks of the creative services marketplace.
This is a hidden economy and professionals are anonymous. It is easy to be burned in that environment. It is easy for someone with no experience to claim they have it.
Neither the professionals nor businesses benefit.
A true creative professional can grow the business, profitably, under certain conditions:
- The client puts their paying customers first. When the communication objective is to serve any other purpose, you will not get a creative professional’s best work. Read an annual report which communicates why the company has improved shareholder value. Then read one which credits the customers who have improved share holder value. You can guess which one is a story about a growing company and is the most compelling to investors.
- The creative professional has the freedom to put the client’s business first. When the creative professional charges too little for their work, they are spending more time on the phone with their accountant, landlord, and partners than they are spending thinking about their clients’ business.
- The creative professional knows what they can’t do. When the creative professional collaborates with others who complement their expertise, you know you are working with a professional. A detail such as using a proofreader may seem frivolous. But no one can proof their own work. Anyone who leaves this off of an estimate on a project is an amateur or hasn’t been in business for themselves very long.
The COMRADITY conditions for membership improve relationships between creative professionals and their clients in three ways:
- VISIBILITY by only accepting qualified professionals for membership. There is no credentialling system in this business, especially across diverse expertise. So everyone benefits from professional distinction.
- TRUST by requiring members who buy creative services (both creative to creative and creative to clients) to accept conditions related to clear financial terms and ownership of intellectual property.
- TRANSPARENCY by doing what we say professionals and their clients should do – variable pricing or pay for what you use.
We applaud the many platforms making it easier for creative professionals and aspiring creative professionals to publish their work. Our intent is to be the place that makes a distinction based on membership conditions. We believe this community will contribute to a better marketplace, raise the bar, and help those who aspire to be creative professionals to know what that looks like.
