Art Business Planning for Creatives

Megan: 00:00

Hello and welcome to Cowgirl Artists of America’s podcast, a podcast dedicated to cowgirl artists. I’m CAA’s founder, and your host, Megan Wimberley. I am a working artist myself and I know personally the level of work and commitment that goes into this business. Today we will be talking about yearly business planning and I’ll walk you through my personal planning strategy for creatives.

This episode is set up in such a way that you go through it workshop style by pausing and completing the activities. If you want to go this route you will need to grab a pen and paper (or if you're like me, the journal you’re using to track your year). Planning can be a big task, so don’t be afraid to do this over several days. It is okay to take a break and make sure your brain is able to really engage with the tasks.

And now a quick note from our sponsor. Just kidding, our podcast is brand new, so our sponsor is us, but Cowgirl Artists of America is worth telling you about. CAA was founded on the belief that cowgirl artists deserve equal representation in the art world. We have heard time and again about the barriers for entry for cowgirl artist, and the numbers don’t lie, we are severely underrepresented. Cowgirl Artists of America is working hard to change that. We are cultivating community and providing resources and education to help cowgirl artists grow their business and improve their craft. If you aren’t already, make sure to follow us on instagram @cowgirlartistsofamerica and sign up for our mailing list at www.cowgirlartistsofamerica.org. We have a lot of exciting resources in the works and will be continually growing and expanding. We’d love for you to join us.

have a point. According to a: 2016

But the fact of the matter is that the beginning of the year feels like just that… a beginning. It’s a chance to start with a clean slate, no guilt or shame creating doubt. It just feels like a good time to set a resolution. At the beginning of the year business owners are also setting goals and building their business plan for the year. Sometimes working on these goals can feel like making resolutions, but the distinction is important. Resolutions are founded on that feeling of a new beginning. They are often not thought out and don’t have a plan. They are based more on the feeling of willpower in the moment, but most people don’t have a strategy to make them happen. Our business plan and goals are different, and we need to understand why and how they are different.

When you own your own business it can be easy to make excuses for not meeting deadlines and not accomplishing goals. There is no boss standing behind you making sure you are getting things done… you are your boss. Because of this it is important to do everything you can to set yourself up for success. When we make our plan at the beginning of the year we need to be realistic and strategic. We need to be ready to follow through and put our plan into action. Taking the time to build a solid plan can be the difference between success and failure, stagnance and growth.

—-if need to add some artist agains____

Today I’m going to walk you through my planning system. My approach is meant to tap into your intuition and creativity. I have found that when I can turn something into a creative endeavor I have much more fun and success with it. I think a lot of artists will find this strategy helpful because it does start with a more creative, introspective approach. Of course, that isn’t for everyone, so if this doesn’t work for you I encourage you to find what does.

So let’s jump in. The very first step is the opposite of what you might expect. It is an exercise in looking back at your last year. I don’t know about you, but I really have a problem with finishing one thing and jumping immediately into the next thing. I’m always trying to reach the next goal, always trying to accomplish the next thing. This can definitely lead to getting a lot done quickly, but in the long term it will leave you feeling like you are never good enough, and that you never really accomplish anything. Jumping from one task to the next without acknowledging your accomplishments will leave you run down and feeling burned out. I’m discovering that taking time to acknowledge my accomplishments is incredibly important to maintaining forward momentum and building more self-confidence.

So grab your journal and answer the following questions. How many pieces did you complete? How many pieces did you sell? What were things you improved on this year? (It might be that you posted more consistently on social, or that your painting style improved. Whatever it is big or small, list it.) What did you learn this year? What new skills did you gain? What are you proud of? How many galleries, shows, and residencies did you apply for? Even if you didn’t get in, just applying is an accomplishment. Did you display your work anywhere? And Did you make any important connections? If any other accomplishments come to mind feel free to write them down as well.

Did you do the exercise? If not, press pause and try it out. Now that you have completed this exercise how do you feel? Do you feel more confident, more self-assured, more accomplished? I hope so. If not, that is okay too. Whatever you are feeling, take those feelings right into the next activity.

this year you would write “: 2022

After this exercise, how do you feel? Do you think you are pushing something that's not there? Alternatively do you feel like you left something out because of fear or self-doubt? Add or take away anything that you need to.

At this point I hope that you feel like you are tapping into your intuition, and really getting a feel for where you want to go in the coming year. If you have a lot of thoughts swirling in your head you may want to do a freeform journaling exercise. I really recommend this, but I also understand that writing can be really challenging for some people. If you have dysgraphia or dyslexia, or struggle with written language maybe try using a voice recorder instead. You could also try to sketch or doodle your thoughts. I personally find writing my thoughts to be helpful, but do what works for you.

To start this exercise open to a new page in your journal; write the date at the top of the page, and the heading “Thoughts on the coming year/ where I want to be.” Use these pages to freeform write about how you want the year to go, and what you want to accomplish. Open yourself up to writing whatever comes to mind Even if you start this activity by writing, “I don’t really know what to write…” Sometimes all it takes is putting pen to paper and just going with whatever comes to you. As you do this you will begin to feel more open, and can direct your mind a little more. Be gentle with yourself and remember not to be judgemental. This is not your business plan, and you don’t have to have everything figured out. This activity is meant to help you tap into your feelings and personal wisdom, so just go with it. As you write you will probably find that you are gaining more clarity and focus, and your writing will become more refined. As you gain confidence, write in active and confident terms. For example, instead of writing, “I want to paint 2 paintings each month,” say, “I will paint two paintings each month.”

As you work on this exercise you may also want to take note of the past year. What you did well that you will continue and/or scale this year. What needs improvement? What areas do you need to pick up where you left off. For example, "I saw increased sales when I did fine art reproduction pre-releases on my mailing list. I will grow my mailing list to help increase those sales. I was not consistent with posting to my social media platforms so I need to work on a plan of action for more consistency."

This activity can be really powerful, so I really want to encourage you to try it out. I personally use freeform journaling in my own life. It has helped me gain clarity and resulted in some really profound insights. I have found it to be helpful when I am struggling with something I’ve written about in the past. I know I can go back and read that entry and have a lot more understanding about how to move forward. We often have great insight when we learn something new, but we can also forget what we learned as well. Having these journal entries is a way to make sure we don’t forget, we can re-read what we learned and then practice it some more. After you complete this activity I recommend taking a break. It’s good to take time to sit with our insights. So if you completed this exercise press pause and go do something else. Come back to this episode later today, or tomorrow and we will begin working on the next step. But don’t forget to come back, set a reminder if you need to.

Okay, now that you’ve finished phase one of this plan we will move on to our next phase, “Planning and Goal Setting.” This phase is a little more strategic, but hopefully the previous exercises will help you feel confident in where you want to go, and what goals you want to accomplish. The goals you come up with will be unique to you and your particular situation. If you are just getting started, working in your spare time after work, your goals will be different from someone who is in their 3rd year of being full time. Be mindful and realistic with where you are in your business and what resources you have.

The first step in this phase is to write down your big picture goals. These are the “big ticket items” of goals. They are not goals you can reach in one day or one month. These are goals that will will show that you are moving your career forward. An example of a big picture goal would be to build your mailing list to 500 subscribers. That is not something that is going to happen overnight. You will have to have a strategic plan to reach that goal. Another important goal is how much money you want to make this year. Again be realistic. You want to set goals that will challenge you, but you also don’t want to set goals that are unattainable. That would just be discouraging and you might end up training yourself to not meet your goals, which could influence the effort you put into reaching future goals.

It is also a good idea to write how you know when you have reached a goal. The two examples I gave a moment ago, have a marker built into the goal itself. If you get 500 newsletter subscribers you know you have met that goal. Some goals are a little less quantitative. For example, if you set a goal to become more confident talking to potential clients, how will you know when you reach that goal? Maybe it's that your heart doesn’t pound and your voice doesn’t shake when you talk to people at a show. Maybe it’s that you can easily maintain a 5 minute conversation about your art, in which the potential client seems genuinely interested. Determining markers for goals like this can require a little forethought, but it is worth it to be able to know when you’ve reached these goals too.

The next step is to break your big goals up into important steps and milestones. When doing this it can be really helpful to break your year down into quarters. This helps you to divide up important tasks and milestones across the year. If you don’t break your year into quarters you might get overwhelmed trying to accomplish a whole lot on the front end, or you might not accomplish enough earlier in the year and leave too much for the last part of the year. Using the 4 quarters method allows you to think in 3 month increments. 3 months is enough time to accomplish quite a bit, but is also a more manageable amount of time to think about than 12 month.

Some goals might be easy to plan for. If your goal is to complete 24 paintings this year, you can break that down into 2 paintings per month. This is a reasonable breakdown and if something comes up unexpectedly you know how to adjust. Some goals are not as straightforward though. Let’s practice planning for something that is a little less predictable. If your goal is to get 500 newsletter subscribers by the end of the year. How will you actually reach that goal? Maybe you know that you will attend 4 art fairs this year and you think you can get 50 subscribers at each art fair. That means you still have 300 subscribers for the year. Evenly divided that means you have 75 subscribers per quarter or 25 subscribers per month. You decide that in month 1 you will add a newsletter popup to your website and do a special event with invites for newsletter subscribers only. In month 2 you will do a print pre-release in your newsletter. Then in month 3 you will team up with 2 other business owners on IG to do a giveaway that requires an email to sign up. For each of these you know that you will be promoting them on your social media sites. At the end of the first quarter, you can review what was most successful, and what might be worth replicating. After each quarter you should be getting valuable insight into what works the best and you may get some new ideas along the way. If you are tracking signups (which you should be) then you will also know if you are falling short on your goal. You can then roll out more campaigns or try something different. Knowing what your goal is brings intention to your actions. You’ll be surprised how much intention can influence reaching your goals. If you want to grow your mailing list, but you don’t set goals or make a plan you likely won’t be bringing much intention to accomplishing that. You might get a few new subscribers, but nothing like you would if you have a plan.

During this planning phase, you can try and plan out the whole year, but be aware that planning the entire year can get pretty overwhelming. It can also be challenging because you will most likely need to adjust some things here and there. My strategy is to plan out major goals for the entire year and major milestones for each quarter. Then plan the smaller details on a monthly basis. Again, do what works for you.

After you have your big picture goals and milestones planned out, make sure to write them down somewhere you will see them daily. This will keep your intention flowing for these goals. As business owners we have way too many tasks to keep track of in our head. There is no way for our brain to remember all of the things we need to do and when we need to do them. So keep those goals where you can see them so you can bring more intention to reaching them. It will also be inspiring when you are able to start marking them as completed.

The last planning step was something I just recently started doing and it has been a game-changer for me! In addition to running Cowgirl Artists of America, and my own art business, I am also the digital content manager for a non-profit. That means there are A LOT of moving parts to my schedule. This got really confusing and it became very challenging to stay consistent with all three. I found myself spending inordinate amounts of time working on my schedule. It was like a puzzle trying to figure out where to fit everything.

This year I realized I could create a recurring schedule for monthly and weekly items. I planned out the recurring items, put them in google calendar and scheduled them to recur at the appropriate interval. This helps me to know exactly what is coming up, and what I need to do on certain days. It also allowed me to free up some time because I worked hard to keep several days open each week. I also have more free time because I am not spending all that time planning my schedule out every week and month.

Things that you might want to schedule on a recurring basis are things like newsletters, blog posts, content planning, scheduling posts, meetings, things like that. One more tip if you want to try this out. Don’t schedule things to recur on a specific day, like “the 15th of every month.” The 15th might occur on your day off and that is not something you want. Instead try scheduling items for the day of the week and month. For example, I send out two of my newsletters on the first Monday of every month, and one of my newsletters on the second Thursday of every month. Again this has really been a game changer for me, and I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out.

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you so much for listening. I hope you found this episode helpful and inspiring. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope this new year is full of big wins and lots of success. If you have a topic you’d like to hear covered in future episodes let us know, and don’t forget to join us on instagram @cowgirlartistofamerica