5 Lessons From Business School Every Poet Needs
Author Maria Giesbrecht shares five lessons learned from business school that could benefit every poet creatively and productively.
If you give a poet an accounting job, they’ll inevitably quit—but they won’t leave empty-handed.
When I walked out of my corporate accounting office for the last time, I thought I was saying goodbye to Excel pivot tables, balance sheets, and budgets for good. It was a windy Tuesday afternoon. My shoulders were relaxed for the first time in seven years. I was leaving an analytical, corporate world for the wild, unpredictable terrain of full-time writing.
I expected the creative risks: the rejection letters, the dry spells, and the (terrifying) beauty of a blank page. Those I found almost immediately. Next came the challenges of forging a world with words that was actually habitable. What I truly didn’t expect was how often my business degree would be the very thing that rescued my writing life.
To my surprise, the spreadsheets I thought I’d left behind became the scaffolding I needed to sustain life as a poet through maintaining consistency, figuring out marketing, creating a writing routine, and making an income. Here are five business-school lessons that I believe can help any poet build a resilient creative practice.
Consistency Outperforms Inspiration
Business school taught me that showing up need not be spiritual. Writers often treat the Muse as a fickle deity. In the corporate world, you don't wait for fiscal inspiration to close the books; you do it because it’s Tuesday. A moderate, daily word count beats a 3,000-word inspired binge followed by two weeks of burnout. I also discovered that writing first thing in the morning was my sweet spot, before an email or task on my to-do list had time to spoil my creativity.
Find your “sweet spot” and, at a minimum, at least sit down in your writing chair every day. The tension between discipline and inspiration begins to melt away when we extend our hand first. The more surface area we give inspiration, the more likely it is to hit us.
Systems Protect Creative Energy
In business, we use Systems and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to reduce decision fatigue. When I first started freelancing, I would sit down at my computer and spend a lot of time deciding what I was going to work on for the day. Would I edit yesterday’s work? Work on a client’s edits? Respond to emails? Submit to publications?
After a few weeks of wasting entire mornings twiddling my thumbs, it clicked: I could create Creative SOPs. I pre-set times for emails, created a weekly submission schedule, and incorporated a dedicated ritual for entering deep work. By automating the business of my life, I protect my brain’s highest-functioning energy for the page.
Build a Portfolio, Not Just a Project
We love the story of the overnight published author discovered by a high-profile agent, but business teaches us about the long game. Chasing a one-off lucky spin is a volatile strategy. Instead, I focus on building a diversified portfolio of projects that ensures one rejection doesn't bankrupt my morale (or my checking account!). In plain terms, I call this piecemealing.
It’s the single best lesson I’ve learned when it comes to making an income as a writer. I teach workshops, take on editing clients, submit to provincial and federal writing grants, and write essays. I’m trying to maximize the number of funnels at the top. That way, when one starts to dry up, I’m not left empty.
It can be hard to operate from a mindset of scarcity. This is a hedge against that. It can also help protect our creative energy. If I’m losing steam on a personal project, I can pivot to a client’s. I take away the power of a single revenue stream to tell me “no” on my dream.
Community Is the Heart of Marketing
When I first started sharing my work on Instagram, there were two distinct categories of poets: Instapoets who shared their work (often short and sweet) on social media, and traditional poets who submitted to literary magazines, saving all their poems for editors and publishers. My business background suggested a middle path: Why not both?
I began "double-dipping": submitting to journals and then, once rights reverted to me, sharing those poems with my community online, where many reached hundreds of thousands of people. The marketing of my poetry became an extension of the creative work rather than a “selling” strategy. What social media provides that a literary magazine can’t is a conversation with a reader in real-time.
As I’m sharing my poetry book, A Little Feral, on my social accounts, it’s these early readers who have been with me since the beginning that are still in conversation with me, sending me screenshots of their preorders. This can be the encouragement we need as writers to keep going. Building a direct relationship with your audience through an email list or platform, rather than relying on a single vendor such as a literary magazine, can be a smarter, more fulfilling distribution strategy.
Send the Email, Always
In business school, we were taught to never be the one to tell ourselves no. Let it be someone else. As a writer, this lesson has given me book blurbs from national bestselling authors, guest appearances at workshops from Pulitzer Prize-winning writers, and so much more. We often talk ourselves out of the big ask because we fear the silence or the no. But you never know who is on the other side of that "send" button. Send the email, always. Don't let your own doubt be the ceiling on your career.
Check out Maria Giesbrecht's A Little Feral here:
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