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When you think of consulting, perhaps the image that comes to mind is of a sharp-dressed professional wielding spreadsheets and jargon, advising corporate clients on strategy and operational efficiency. But what if we told you that consulting skills are just as vital for arts and cultural entrepreneurs? Indeed, the world of arts and culture—while often perceived as purely creative—thrives when guided by the same communicative, perceptual, and sense-making skills that define successful consulting. For current and prospective students interested in navigating this field, acquiring these skills is not just useful—it’s transformative.

Why Consulting Skills Matter in the Arts and Culture

Arts and cultural entrepreneurship requires much more than an eye for creativity or artistic talent. While passion is often the heartbeat of any cultural venture, building a sustainable career or enterprise in this sector demands a broader skill set that may not be immediately obvious. You need to know how to sell your vision, align your goals with market realities, and create value not only for yourself but for others. This is where consulting skills come into play.

At the heart of consulting is the ability to credibly create value while continuously learning and adapting. This skill is especially crucial in fields as dynamic as the arts and culture, where success often depends on navigating ambiguous challenges and seizing fleeting opportunities. As discussed in Bourgoin and Harvey’s research, individuals adopting a consulting approach frequently face what’s called the "learning-credibility tension"—the need to signal expertise while also gathering and synthesising new knowledge from each new situation^[1]. Arts entrepreneurs, whether curating an exhibition or starting a creative enterprise, must similarly convey expertise and create value while remaining agile learners in managing the plethora of stakeholders and situations faced.

Communication: The Cornerstone of Cultural Consulting

One of the most critical skills in the consulting toolkit when deployed in the cultural sector is, unsurprisingly, effective communication. Successful individuals don’t merely share information; they need to signal appropriate expertise early on in order to build trust and develop a productive relationship with their clients and stakeholders over the longer haul. As Treem’s study points out, expertise is often enacted and recognised through communicative acts, where individuals demonstrate performatively not just what they know, but how well they can connect that knowledge with the implicit requirements and expectations of the situation^[2]. In cultural entrepreneurship, this can translate, for instance, into learning to ‘speak the language’ as it were of different stakeholders—whether they be artists, donors, audiences, or business partners, and speaking to the often unspoken norms, values, and assumptions that would undergird these stakeholders’ ways of thing.

To illustrate, suppose you’re pitching a community art project to a group of potential investors. Your ability to craft a persuasive narrative, connect your vision to their values, and communicate the project’s broader social impact is as important as the art itself. Like a consultant, you need to demonstrate that you understand your stakeholders’ world, even while operating in your own. Robert Cialdini’s seminal work on the principles of persuasion are instructive here as he outlines the factors that can help arts and cultural entrepreneurs think about how to communicate and present themselves in a way that gains trust and fosters collaboration^[3].

The Consulting Mindset: Sense-Making and Co-Creation in a Fluid Environment

Beyond communication, arts and cultural entrepreneurs must also master the perceptual and sense-making aspects of the consulting toolkit. This involves not only identifying patterns and trends in a potentially chaotic environment but also interpreting and responding to those signals in a way that adds value. The consulting approach isn’t about having all the answers upfront; it’s also about knowing how to ask the right questions and guide others toward meaningful solutions. Entrepreneurs adopting a consulting approach manage uncertainty by crafting relevance and resonance with their stakeholders—they ask effective questions, as well as draw on past experiences, given knowledge, perceived shared values, and the specific context of the client to co-create a coherent narrative that guides sense-making and decision-making^{[1, 4]}. In arts entrepreneurship, these are the micro behavioural skills that are involved in various endeavours, be it interpreting shifting cultural trends or adjusting a project’s scope to align with funding opportunities.

For instance, imagine you're launching a new digital arts platform. At first, your project may seem niche, but by strategically framing it within larger trends—such as the rise of NFTs or digital democratisation in the arts—and engaging with your stakeholders at a deeper level to understand their underlying concerns and aspirations, you can begin to create relevance and attract both interest and investment. As an entrepreneur using consulting skills, you strive to accurately pick up on and figure out the implicit needs of your audience and adapt your offering to meet those needs while seeking to stay true to your core vision.

A distinctive aspect of consulting in the arts also lies in the potential for co-creation. For various reasons, from resource scarcity to the very nature of the ecosystem itself, the arts and cultural scene tends to thrive on collaboration, where success frequently depends on networks and shared experiences. Whether developing a festival with local artists or working with a museum to curate an exhibition, arts entrepreneurs would need effective skills of sense-making and collaboration to bring together diverse stakeholders to co-create something greater than the sum of its parts.

Conclusion: Consulting as a Core Competence

For students and professionals alike, cultivating consulting skills is no longer an optional extra in the world of arts and cultural entrepreneurship—it is a core competence, a set of skills that encompasses the communicative, perceptual, and sense-making processes at the interpersonal level that drive value creation. From building credibility to fostering collaboration, from making sense of complex environments to persuading stakeholders, these skills will help you create value for yourself, your organisation and your community. With the right mix of creativity and consulting expertise, you can navigate the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

And just like any consultant worth their salt, cultural entrepreneurs are never done with learning. The journey is one of constant discovery, adaptation, and growth—a performance where everyone benefits from the spotlight.

Dr Alan Tea teaches Consulting as an Advanced Communication & Career Skill (ACE5413), a course in the Master of Arts in Arts & Cultural Entrepreneurship (MA ACE) programme. To learn more about the MA ACE programme, click here.