Most artists are scared of a business plan, but they really shouldn't be. I'd argue that having a plan is the missing link to having an art practice that will create an income on a regular and consistent basis.
A business plan isn’t just a document reserved for corporations and large businesses. It's incredibly simple to create your business plan whether you're an artist or the head of a corporation.
Why Is An Artist’s Business Plan Important?
An artist’s business plan allows you to move toward earning a consistent income. It saves you stress from working and paying bills month-to-month. It also makes you think about your goals and what’s possible. For example, do you want to teach art, solely make art, participate in community events and studio tours, exhibits, market, or find and network with your art collectors?
Having a plan helps you prioritize your why - like why am I choosing to do certain activities, especially if they don’t pay well. You get to see if you’re doing stuff as a passion project or if it’ll create income for you. It also helps you to identify what you need to do most to create an income.
All of a sudden things melt away from your to-do list when you have an artist’s business plan for your practice.
What Are Business Plan Components?
A business plan aligns with the number of hours you have to dedicate to your art practice with the income you’ll make. This is so you never overbook yourself or commit yourself to working more hours than you have.
If you’ve ever felt exhausted and frustrated because you’ve spent a lot of time doing something and it didn’t pay off, this is one area of your art practice that a business plan can help you be aware of so you can learn from the experience, pivot, and avoid burnout.
The business plan I create with my clients is different from a traditional plan because it’s a tool that you use every month. It’s not that generic plan you printed and filled out a couple of years ago that you have no-idea where it is anymore.
The business plan I recommend allows you to see your income add up, and start to feel what’s truly possible. Suddenly, you can see months in advance how your actions directly impact your income so you can reach your goals. You’ll evaluate what you’re selling, your range of income potential, and what you need to do to make it happen. You’ll also keep track of where your buyers come from so you can find more, and the hours you spend making art and marketing everything you sell.
As an artist, there’s a lot of seasonality to your business and if you can track the data, you can plan for different actions to create, market, and sell your art according to the time you have available during that season.
Part of the business plan is to test your processes for selling and see what works. For example, you’ll ask yourself things like, “Was I able to sell the piece I promoted directly through my newsletter?” and “How many emails did I send and what kind of sales emails were they?” Once you test the plan and tweak it to succeed, you can repeat it to get your business on a steady income.
What Do You Do With Your Business Plan When It’s Done?
You can Google PDFs of sample business plans until the cows come home, but you do yourself a disservice if you write down a plan and never return to it. A business plan is not static. It's a living document. When you touch your plan more frequently, your business does better. This is because you begin to see opportunities for improving your income and what's working or not. You’ll also see the very real numbers that can be very different from how you think or feel about your work.
You could be running yourself ragged doing exciting things that take up a lot of time in your art practice, but if they aren't income-generating activities, it's easy to get discouraged. For example, you might be buying time to have a booth at a festival or holiday fair, or pop-up. Those events all cost money and they take a significant amount of time to participate in. If you're not selling enough during those events, then it's not worth doing. Or you need to figure out a way to change your approach so they become worth doing so you sell more to cover your costs and make a profit.
With a business plan, you can see how the time you're spending and your actions impact or create money in your bank account. You can also evaluate the quality of your activities and if, as in the example, you’re at profitable events where your art buyers are hanging out.
What Habits Do You Have As An Artist?
An artist’s business plan encapsulates everything you need for the business aspect of an art practice. Other than creating and selling art, there are also many habits of artists that become a big factor in their work. Learn more about the impacts of these habits here.