10 Steps To Start Your Creative Business (part 1)
I’ve been asking a lot of questions recently in my creative community and it’s been fascinating to see your responses.
Here’s what you’re telling me:
· You’re interested in starting a creative business, and
· You’ve always dreamed of turning your designs into fabric
Those are the two most common themes that show up over and over again whenever I ask. So today, the most valuable thing I can do for you is to share the 10 steps required to get started down either of those paths.
How does that sound? And of course, to save you time, I’m creating a downloadable cheat sheet for you called: 10 Steps To Start Your Creative Business.
These are detailed steps so I’m breaking the content into two blog posts. I’ll cover the first 5 steps today and the next 5 steps next week. Don’t miss next week’s installment because the link to the downloadable “cheat sheet” will be in it!
10 Steps to Start Your Creative Business (part 1)
Step 1: The Big Picture
It’s always important at the beginning to zoom out and think strategically about what type of creative business you want to create. You can’t get started on all the tactical pieces until you have a clear picture of what you want to create in the first place.
Here are some key questions to ask yourself:
· What is the goal of your creative business?
o I’ve always dreamed of putting my designs on fabric
o I want to turn my doodles into dollars
o I want to grow my existing creative business
You don’t have to have everything figured out perfectly at this stage but it’s important to have a starting point. In most cases, you’ll know where you want to start and the great thing is, your business will evolve and change! As one of my mentors, Ryan Levesque, always says: “You don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to get it started.”
Step 2: Setting Up Your Business Structure
If you’re serious about starting a creative business, you’ll need to set up a business structure. I’m not a lawyer so I cannot give you legal advice but I can outline for you the 5 typical business structures that you’ll need to consider. They are:
· A sole proprietorship
· A partnership
· A limited liability company (LLC)
· A corporation
· A cooperative
Here is a link to a great resource from the Small Business Administration where you can read about these structures and start to ask yourself which one might be best for you. For my part, I’ve created an LLC structure primarily because I want to ensure that my creative business is totally separate from my family assets.
There are pros and cons to each structure so it’s wise to talk things over with your family and also, before making your final decision, I always advise my students to consult with a lawyer and a CPA.
The Small Business Administration website has an 8 step “to do” list for launching your business with lots of additional resources that you can explore.
Step 3: Identifying Your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA)
This is another critical strategic question that you have to ask yourself and spend quality time thinking about before you do other tactical work like building a website. That can come later.
Who do you want to attract and who do you ultimately want to sell to? Let me give you three very different examples to consider.
Example one: You want to sell your designs to fabric companies.
If you have always dreamed of putting your designs on fabric, your ICA might ultimately be fabric companies. To attract them, you’ll need to create a professional portfolio of your best designs that showcase your skills and talents.
Then it’s a good idea to attend industry trade shows to research companies that might be a good fit for you. After that, you’ll need to reach out to Art Directors to get your portfolio into their hands and hopefully get an appointment to meet with them.
But the most important thing for you to decide right now is: Is this my Ideal Customer?
Example two: You want to turn your doodles into dollars
There are lots of ways to do this and the best place to start is to sign up for my free LIVE workshop: How To Turn Your Doodles Into Dollars. It starts on January 9th. In this workshop, you’ll discover exactly how to turn your doodles into repeating patterns using Adobe Illustrator. Once you’ve created your first design successfully, the sky’s the limit!
Enrollment is open so grab your seat today.
Once you’ve created a bunch of designs, your ICA is the person who you want to have buy your products. Those products might be anything from notebooks to apparel and anything in between. The best way to get a handle on what’s possible is to explore print on demand sites. There are many, many options here but let’s start with Society6 which is one of the best and it also available internationally.
Check out my Society6 shop to see the wide range of products available for you to put your designs on. And it’s an ever-growing list because Society6, and other print on demand companies, keep adding new products like yoga mats and backpacks and more.
Example three: You want to expand your existing creative business
What might this look like? Meet Heather Lowery, an accomplished woodblock printer. Her business is called inkwoodpress.com and her work is absolutely gorgeous. She is expanding her business by turning her woodblock print designs into repeating patterns (aka surface pattern designs). She had to learn the process and took my 8-week signature course, The Pattern Design Academy, to accomplish her goal.
Adding these skills to her business has been transformational and here is how she describes it:
“Learning surface pattern design through Anne has shown me that I’m not alone in my journey and being a full-time successful artist is possible. My business has two sides to it now: woodblock printing which I’ve been doing for 3+ years and surface pattern design that I’m still very new at. I was looking for other products to sell in my Etsy shop and decided to test print some patterns on cork coasters. I was soooooooo excited with how they turned out. This gave me more ideas for a future collection. My biggest win is to keep pushing myself, experiment and try new things.”
I did an entire blog post about Heather if you’d like to learn more about her and her creative business.
Step 4: Building Your Email List
Why is having an email list important? Whether you plan to sell products directly to the general public or you want to become a licensed fabric designer, you need to put your artwork out into the world and let people know what you do and how to find you.
Even though we all complain that our email boxes are full and overwhelming, email is still the very best way to communicate with your audience. We’ll touch on this in more of the 10 steps but as you get started in business, you need to communicate and share what you are doing. Your ICA wants to know all about you and what you offer both free and paid as part of your business.
I started two years ago with 25 people on my email list. And 3 of those people were ME because I had 3 emails addresses. LOL. We all start essentially with zero people on our list. But I discovered Amy Porterfield who is the guru in this space. I took her free Masterclass called: How to Start and Grow an Email List (Without the Stress, Tech Confusion, or Crazy Overwhelm). It’s fantastic and I purchased her List Builders Society course right away to ensure I got her complete roadmap. I was a very diligent student and followed her step by step process to the letter. Today I have over 10,000 people on my email list and I keep working hard to grow it every day.
It’s important to note that the NUMBER of people on your email list is not anywhere near as important as the QUALITY of the people on your list. Large numbers can be what I like to call “vanity metrics” and they’re meaningless if no one reads your content or eventually buys something from you.
Step 5: Opt-in and Lead Magnets
What are these, you ask? Good question! I’d never heard of this concept before I started to build out my own business but now I love them. Essentially, an opt-in is a free resource or gift (e.g., downloadable checklist, free video series, % off coupon for your products) that you provide to people who agree to join your email list by giving you their email address.
You all found me, most likely, either by seeing my Facebook ad (this is a whole wonderful topic in and of itself!), or by coming across me on social media (Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube). At some point, you decided to join my creative community by downloading a free guide that I created on surface pattern design or by signing up for my free 3-part video series on how to create your first repeating pattern using Adobe Illustrator.
I’m growing my audience all the time by providing valuable free resources that are intended to help you make progress towards starting that creative business, making your dream come true of putting your designs on fabric and/or expanding your existing creative business with surface pattern design.
It’s all very meta right now because next week, when I write about the next 5 steps in the process, I’ll include a free downloadable guide for you that contains all of this very valuable information about the 10 Steps To Start Your Creative Business.
I can’t wait to continue the conversation with you next week.
Remember,
It’s Never Too Late to Create
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
