Saturday, October 31, 2009

Green Bandana Group



Green Bandana Group is a creative management company that I started with Kevin Spurgin in September 2009.

When we started, there was this basic idea that most creative people are not called to be business people - they are called to be creative people.

Yet many of the most successful creative people we knew, found more and more of their life being taken over by business activities, leaving less and less time to create.

So, what Kevin and I wanted to do was to help creative people on the business side and free up more of their time to create.


What has been interesting for me is balancing this need that we saw in the broader creative community with what Kevin and I are both naturally good at.

For myself - it is about connecting people.

I am a creative person - who has been able to create at a professional level in two different art forms (painting and poetry).

I also am a business person - who has always nurtured relationships, made new ones, solved problems quickly, and listened attentively. I am a financial planner, manage millions of dollars of other people's money, and it is serious business.

The ability to navigate between these sometimes very different worlds is always my continual challenge. However, the edge I often have is being able to understand and speak the language of both worlds.

Far too often I see creative and business people desperately trying to reach each other - and ultimately not being able to connect because of an inability to communicate, empathize, and perhaps even respect each others values.

When we started Green Bandana Group we were focused on individual client development and running other people's companies for them.

However, I am also seeing great opportunities in connecting existing creative companies in innovative ways and generating additional sales for them by being affiliated with the Green Bandana Group.

I think that this will help our company travel the other side of the street, in helping business people connect with the right types of creative people.

So, overall I think you develop this great system of relationships, between creative people and business people, that is facilitated by Green Bandana Group - that has Kevin and I not just translating but also contributing ideas on both the creative and the business side.

And I think that creating this system, along with our start of helping run and manage individual arts companies, holds the most promising future for Green Bandana Group.

Would love to hear your thoughts :)

1 comment:

  1. blah blah blah Darryl! No one is still reading after paragraph 2! OK, it's late and I'm being rude. Your post is well written. Here's the synopsis of Green Bandana Group:

    Freeing creative individuals and businesses to create, by providing business and personal services that enable clients to excel in business, art, and life.

    Managing Director Managing Director
    Darryl Ratcliff Kevin Spurgin
    daratcliff@gmail.com spurdaddy6@yahoo.com

    Green Bandana is a management firm focusing on creative businesses and entrepreneurs. We work with creative entrepreneurs and help them move from having great ideas and talent to having great businesses. We improve our clients’ bottom line and help our clients achieve their dreams both personally and professionally.
    We free our clients to focus on doing what they do best: being creative.
    We take care of the rest.

    That's pretty much all you need to know . . .

    ReplyDelete