I’m still perplexed by the premise that business is all about Return on Investment (ROI). The question is: can Return on Outcome (ROO) - a qualifiable, subjective measure of an investment based on the outcome realised - and ROI co-exist in commercial thinking? 

I approached someone who, by chosen professions, needs to balance both.

Robin Dickinson is a Business Development Specialist and an artist. His day job is as lead facilitator in a business development advisory firm with a hardcore commercial focus. His evenings and weekends are spent creating contemporary paintings and drawings in his studio.

By his own admission, he confesses to having a kind of “split personality”. On the one side, purely commercial and on the other, creatively focused. He admits to using this duality to great advantage when it comes to commercialising his art. Here is Robin’s perspective:

As a businessman, my focus is on maximising ROI. It’s all about increasing revenue and minimising expense. Unlike most artists, I include the actual labour costs by measuring how long it takes to create a work and then charging a commercial rate for this creative time. 

I also amortise time taken for promotion, fulfilment, and delivery of works. This gives a true sense of real ROI and helps me to get product range selection and pricing right. I’m constantly looking for ways to leverage my commercial experience to maximise ROI. For example, securing commercial sponsorships for my art exhibitions. This helped my first art sales event to be profitable before a single painting was sold.

As an artist, ROO is more relevant. Creatively, the outcomes I’m focused on achieving are:

• Purpose: to have an impact on the viewer emotionally and aesthetically. To stir a response.
• Truth: to be true to the inner creative force that is striving to be expressed, rather than be opportunistic around a popular or trending genre or style.
• Uniqueness: to further my mission to create original, ‘unseen’ works
• Fulfilment: to feel the immense sense of joy and satisfaction that comes from creating works that matter to me personally

Before an artwork is ‘released’ for sale to the commercial guy (my alter ego), it’s essential that these outcomes are achieved. Yes, they are highly subjective, and I have yet to develop any kind of quantitative measure to ‘quality assure’ the works. 

That said, as an artist, I intuitively know if the ROO is achieved. I just feel the inner buzz every time I look at the picture.

For now, that’s good enough.

In Robin’s experience, both ROI and ROO work together. If the ROO is achieved, then he knows that the ROI will follow. It makes sense that the higher the ROO, the higher the sales price. The more passion and purpose that an artwork engenders in him, the easier it is to sell.

Robin’s artwork is available for viewing at www.artbyrad.art and you can connect with Robin on LinkedIn.