Communication Methods for Alchemists
Hello, Magical Alchemist! Connecting to the motivation behind your medium is going to help you feel more aligned in your business and as such, I wanted to start with helping you out with a few communication methods to take your relationship with your clients/customers to the next level. Communication with clients is necessary to setting appropriate expectations, making sure everyone is there for the right reason, and helping you mitigate an unhappy client.
Here are five ways creative alchemists can communicate more effectively with their clients, using creation, collaboration, and alchemy as the driving forces:
Visual Storytelling Sessions: Host interactive sessions, either in person or on zoom, where clients co-create a visual journey of their desired transformation. Use mind maps, mood boards, or creative sketches to visually communicate how transformation will unfold through their collaboration with you. Have your clients go through your past work and pick out 3-5 pieces they like and see if they can narrow in on why that is.
Creative Play Exercises: Encourage clients to engage in creative play as part of your communication. Use art, writing prompts, or music to express their ideas or emotions about the project, helping you both gain clarity while keeping communication fun and aligned with the creative alchemy process. Have your client create a playlist that fits the intention if you are an auditory processor or have your client select from an array of textiles. One of my favorite methods was asking my clients to “assign a color” to their mental illness for one of my projects and it got people thinking differently about their mental illness while also allowing me to create something in the physical world that represented it.
Collaborative Ideation Workshops: Schedule brainstorming or ideation workshops where you and the client come together to explore and generate new ideas. This allows them to feel involved in the creation process while you guide them through the alchemy of turning raw ideas into something transformative. One of my favorite processes is to use Instagram polls to help me create a photoshoot based on the majority of responses - it’s a fun way to bring people into your process, be part of it, and contribute to the alchemy.
Alchemy Progress Updates: Regularly send updates to clients that showcase their project’s transformation as part of a bigger creative journey. Use metaphors related to alchemy—such as phases of transformation (like turning lead into gold)—to explain the progress in a way that feels magical and inspiring. If your process takes longer than the time you are with the client, these little updates can quell that little voice in their head that needs to know what’s happening while also keeping the excitement going.
Customized Rituals for Insight: Create unique communication rituals for each client, tailored to their project or goals. These can be small, meaningful practices—like reflective journaling or vision boarding—that they do before your meetings. This allows them to engage with the process on a deeper, more intuitive level, enhancing collaboration. When I was photographed by Chris from An Ethereal Fire (the person whom I first used the phrase “Creative Alchemist” for) we had a phone call where he asked me a handful of questions and then he turned my answers into some incredible artwork.
