In February, we did a call for the Artists Marketing & Business Academy called, “Create Systems – Work Smarter, Not Harder” to begin to address one of the key mistakes artists make in their business. The essence of this mistake is to think of yourself in terms of a self-employed freelancer, going from gig to gig or commission to commission. This places you in an endless cycle of recreating the wheel. You spend all of your time looking for the next job, because if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Does this sound familiar?
The solution is to stop thinking of yourself as a freelancer and start thinking of your art as your business. You are a small business owner. Successful small business owners work on developing their business as well as working in their business. It’s a significant change of perspective. Think of your art as a product and think of your business as a series of systems that need to be honed to run smoothly without wasting resources. Create a plan to set your business up so you could actually take a few weeks off and your business continues to run and you continue to make money. Yes, I’m talking about a paid vacation!
If you dream of quitting your day job, if you dream of making a prosperous living doing what you love, you must learn to think of yourself as a business owner and run your business accordingly.
