As a creative business owner for the past 3 years and a CPA by experience, it’s been my goal to create a series of helpful articles and resources that simply and breakdown the concepts behind efficiently and effectively running your creative business. Thus, my “Crafting a Business 101” series was born.
In each Crafting a Business article, we delve into the planning, organization, and operating of a creative small business. As artists, many of us are more right brain than left brain, but that doesn’t mean we should neglect the business-side of our creative ventures! Analytics, finances, bookkeeping, pricing strategies, marketing tools…these are all concepts that are not only important for us to learn about and grasp to be successful, but they can actually be a tiny bit fun too! I promise.
Total Side Note – We’ve turned our most popular series on crafting your creative business plan into a downloadable e-course and workbook! Check it out here.
If you’re just getting started browsing this blog, here are some of our most popular Crafting a Business posts. Lots of these posts include free downloadable printables to help you get started!
Crafting your business plan:
- Business Plan intro
- Why do I want to sell my product?
- Where can people find my product?
- What am I selling?
- Who will buy my product?
- When do people use my product?
- Why should someone use my product?
- How do I distinguish my products from the competition?
- How do I successfully reach my target customer?
Goal-setting & Planning (see posts for free planning printables!):
- Your ideal workday
- A year in reflection: what have you accomplished?
- Setting business goals for 2013
- Reviewing Your Success in 2013
- Planning for Positivity in 2014
Creative Accounting: Financial Basics for Creative Business Owners & Etsy Entrepreneurs
- Keeping records and bookkeeping
- Keeping track of expenses
- What is overhead and why is it important to creative business owners?
- A Brief Intro to Taxes for Your Creative Business
Marketing Magic: Marketing Tips for Creative Business Owners on a Budget
- Introduction
- Using and Understanding Google Analytics
- A Step-by-Step Guide to Downloading and Analyzing your Etsy Shop Sales Spreadsheet
- Interpreting & Utilizing your Etsy Shop Stats