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Health & Fitness

What To Do With That Extra Daylight Savings Hour ..... 21/60 Minute Improvements For Your Business

A list of 21/60 minute things you can do with your daylight savings hour you are gaining that will help your business.

TIME..... It’s probably the one thing everyone can agree on. There is simply never enough time.

No matter what you do, there is still stuff you’d like to do, if you could only get around to it. The problem with this is if you are trying to make your art your business, and you aren’t focusing on your business AT ALL, then you aren’t making any money. Plus there is all that inventory for stuff to be made that you hope to someday get around to using, and more than likely you are continuing to buy, and then there is the stuff already made, taking up space in your studio/home...because you are after all, in business...more or less.Sitting with a bunch of photo artists the other night, the topic of not having time came up. Working sixty hour weeks, whittling a few hours in for family, figuring in sleep, it seems there is no time left to do anything towards the business….Ummm, this is just a reminder, but last time I checked, being in business was about making money....!!Something tells me there is a part of you that finds time to do something frivolous at least for an hour a week…like watching football, or picking your fantasy team, or having a few beers with friends, or getting lost on facebook. You have ALLOWED yourself time to do those things for you, but somehow, doing something for your business is too much like....work…!When you are pressed for time, given the rest of what LIFE is throwing at you, if you are trying to make your craft a real business then you need to treat it as such, and you need to FEED THE BEAST, otherwise your dream of making it a business dies a slow painful death…and you will join the ranks of unsuccessful artists that complain, make excuses, and blame the economy on why they can’t sell anything.I've got news for you, There ARE People Selling!!!…if you aren’t, then you can blame yourself.TO FEED THE BEAST, let’s start with finding one hour to devote to your business…you can do that! An hour is just a spit in time. Anyone with kids knows that one hour is the equivalent of a Sesame Street, or two Mr. Rogers, and being a parent we know that is not long. You might think that an hour is hardly worth the investment…or is it?Here's a short list of just a few ideas of what you can do in an hour that will increase the success of your business without really working. If every day for the next month you did one of these things for one hour I can guarentee you will see an improvement in your business.Of course there are more things you CAN do, but this short list of 21/60 minutes will keep you busy for now.Now, go find an hour to kill. You’ve got “work” to do!

21/60 Minute Improvements For Business Practices

1) Create a blank letter of introduction – this would be used to explain who and what you are, and why what you do is different from everyone else who does the same thing. It would be used for galleries, and shows you are trying to enter, and perhaps businesses you are trying to get an in with to sell them stuff.

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2) Update your resume – believe it or not, a lot of places that take you on as an artist want an actual resume from you. Somehow it makes you more credible. They aren’t really looking for your entire work experience and don’t care if you worked at Chuck E Cheese, they want to see that you were part of the human race and not cloistered in a studio being a manic Vincent. Galleries like to know up front before they handle you if you are a manic Vincent. Think of it as a head’s up.

3) Work on your Business Plan –people get stuck on this idea of a Business Plan. It isn’t that difficult. The entire basis of your BP is the one question, "Where do you want to be with your business five years from now?" (Some people who are REALLY serious do a ten year plan) Do you want to be in an esteemed show, or perhaps doing wholesale, or hanging your work in a gallery in Manhattan? Write it down. These are your long term goals. So then, what do you need to do four years from now to get you to accomplish this quest in five years? Write it down. What do you need to do in three years to get you there? Two? One? Six months? Three months? Next month? Tomorrow? A Business Plan is something that changes and needs tweaking EVERY MONTH to be sure you are on goal. Believe me; you can kill an hour on this easy.

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4) Get your Tax ID number, FINALLY, so you can buy your materials wholesale, thus cutting your costs in half so your work will actually sell. It’s a brilliant conception. Costs no money.

5) Take an accounting of what you have in inventory – Whoa baby! You better be prepared for the sticker shock on this! Once you actually figure out what you have amassed in stuff, and then how much that stuff costs in materials, you may need a beverage. The purpose of this is: A) You need a financial starting point. Translate that to you need to know how much your business needs to pay your personal self back. B) You stop making works in a particular genre until you sell the ones you have.And after figuring out your costs, go ahead and figure out the total of what you think you are selling the stuff for. And NO, despite how many zeros there are after that number, you don’t own a million dollars worth of art. I LOVE those artists that say that.Your stuff is only worth a million dollars IF YOU SELL IT, not if you STORE IT!Until such time that your work actually sells, unless you own museum insurance, which I know you don’t, because it covers the “value” of the artwork and you can't afford it, as far as your insurance company is concerned, the "value" is replacement value only. That means the cost of the paint and the canvas. Deal with it.

6) Organize your receipts – You will thank yourself come April. Make a list of all the stuff you buy and divide it into hard products and soft products, and no, I am not talking about the actual texture. You need to know what stuff you have spent money on in different categories, and some of the stuff goes bad, thus SOFT product…just like fruits and veggies. Figure out for your business what those categories are and then assign a SIMPLE abbreviation…like Black Paint/BP is a soft product. It eventually renders itself useless if it isn’t used and needs to be thrown away. Photo paper/PP, on the other hand, is a HARD product. The shelf life is longer if it is kept dark and dry. At the end of the year you can tally your hard and soft products so as to get a handle on your expenses.

7) Work on revamping your business card – Did you get a new website? Are you on LinkedIn? Facebook? Do you have a business blog? Are they actually listed on the business card? Duh.

8) Make a composite of what you need to create for the year – Are there shows you want to participate in? Are there particular items you want to have at your ready for the holidays? Waiting until the due date, or a week before something is due is not the way to do business. PREPARE YOURSELF. Figure out what you need to have prepared for the holidays and break it out into the ENTIRE year….so each month you know what you are creating towards the season. You won’t be pulling your hair out, or running out of prints and paper if you plan ahead.

9) Do you send email? If so, do you have a signature set up that has your contact information on it? Including your phone number? Website? Facebook Page? LinkedIn? A descriptor of what it is you do? Another duh.

10) Promote yourself on your Facebook – Champion yourself. Do it every two weeks. Show off some of your latest stuff. People love pictures. How else are people going to know what you do unless you tell them?? And people you are linked to already KNOW you, and LIKE what you do....

11) Q&A your computer files – PURGE the trash. Sort stuff, put things in files. While it may not be a physical desk, if you cannot easily find what it is you are looking for on your computer, then you are wasting precious time, and you are a busy person…you could be watching football. Make is simple. Letters, Contracts, Invoices and dump what belongs there to its rightful place. Also, straighten out your Address Book. Delete old, invalid addresses, and fill out the entire form so you actually know who an email address belongs to.

12) Back up your files – Buy a zip drive and do the back up. Send important documents to your email. Buy a portable hard drive. You lose that stuff in a power surge you will be cursing yourself for years. Buy and USE the zip drive. It isn’t good enough to carry it around in your pocket.

13) Buy a carry case for your zip/portable drives – DO NOT keep this with your computer. TAKE IT WHERE YOU GO. Walk with me for a minute….imagine a house fire while you are out, and your computer…nice and crispy…along with your back up. See where I am going? Keep the key separate from the lock. Do the back ups weekly and daily. That little carry case goes wherever it is you go. It is after all, your life’s work we are talking about…treat it with respect.

14) Photograph your work – I am assuming that this is really something that is done when the work is completed, right? So now, you are labeling them properly for purpose of entering them in a show. Last name, first initial, title, medium, size, year. Put them all in one file titled “For Submissions”, so you can find them.

15) Update your Artist Statement – This is the why you do what you do statement that explains your motivations in one short page. Operative word being SHORT. Include a photo of you to personalize the statement so people reading it and buying your work can now look at the work and think of you as a real, live person. Personalizing your art sells. Trust me on this.

16) Create your BIO – This is a little more involved than the artist statement. It explains how you got to the point you are at professionally. List shows, awards, school, and only the GINORMOUS sales, like: Sold 2011, “By the Water’s Edge”, acrylic 36”x48” canvas, to the personal collection of Donald Trump.

17) Google artist shows and print out show entries you would like to consider being part of.

18) Fill out show entries you printed out last week.

19) Go to an art show, or lecture, or museum, or library – Actually going to a place to increase the weight of your left side of your brain so as to balance it with your creative side is important. Too many artists forget that the brain has two purposes; Learning and Creating, and you need to do both in life.

20) Peruse the internet for sales of new display pieces – Displaying your work, whether that is in a booth format, or a portfolio, or a stand, requires thought so that the work shows the right way. Coordinate the colors. Consider lighting and a chair for yourself. Think about checking out your customer and what it is you will need to get yourself set up properly, and everything you need to make the sale in one place – a bin, a table. When they make their purchase they carry with them something of you. Are they carrying it in a bag with your name on it? Is there a business card in the bag? <sigh> it ain’t over until you say it is…

21) Finish the product and the sale – If you are selling a print and you are putting it in a cellophane bag, make sure the print has your business card attached on the back. Anything that leaves the studio should have your contact information on it. You can also have your artist statement, and a care tag attached. But also put a second business card in the bag itself. If the item is a gift, your business card that is attached is going with the gift. What if the customer wants to get something else from you at a later date? THINK AHEAD. They already LIKE your stuff. They might BUY MORE! Market yourself as L-O-N-G as possible to the person who liked and bought your stuff.

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