10 Steps To Start Your Creative Business (part 2)
I’m back to share the second half of 10 Steps to Start Your Creative Business with you. Let’s jump right in.
Step 6: Setting Up A Simple Website
Once you’ve decided on your ICA, you’ve figured out how to attract her with an opt-in, and you’re ready to create valuable content for her on a consistent basis, you’ll need a website to house your content and eventually offer programs and services to her.
There are really only five things that you must have on your website. In my experience, we all spend way too much time developing and tweaking our websites and obsessing about the logo and color palette and structure. Do your best to keep it simple. Your first version will not be your last so as I said last week, channeling my mentor, Ryan Levesque: “You don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to get it going.”
Let’s talk about the five critical things that you need to have on your website. I like to think of my website as one of the key ingredients of my marketing but not the ONLY ingredient.
Here are the five things you must have:
1. A short, easy to understand tag line or description of the essence of what you do that might not be clear from your name or your business name.
2. An obvious call to action – everyone who comes to your website must be able to easily find your opt-in
3. Stories of your ICA’s success if they use your products or service. When you are just starting out, you may need to think more broadly about success stories including sharing your own.
4. Your products and services broken down into bite-sized categories. These may start out as links to your Etsy shop or may contain just a small collection of products that you sell directly.
5. Your free content – I’m going to talk about this next!
Step 7: Valuable Content Delivered Consistency
One you have identified your ICA (Ideal Customer Avatar), you need to talk to her. And your website is the perfect place to showcase your content so it’s easy for her and other to find.
There are three key elements to this step:
· Subject Matter
· Content Type
· Frequency & Consistency
Let’s take these one by one and I’ll use myself as an example. My business is called Anne LaFollette Art and I deliver weekly content on art, inspiration and surface pattern design. Some of you may be familiar with my business model already but it’s worth diving into here.
Element one: Subject Matter
My content started out as a blog. Under the large umbrella of creativity, I share my thoughts on mindset issues we all struggle with as creatives. I’ll also switch things up from time to time and include tutorials on sketching or painting or other creative pursuits. I do my best to listen to my audience to understand what interests you the most. Take this eBook for example. I’ve been hearing so much lately about how you want to start a creative business so I’m writing this eBook to give you a roadmap.
What is your content going to be? What do you want to communicate and more importantly, what will your ICA find valuable and be interested in? It’s always a great idea to ASK! You may be surprised by the responses you get.
Element two: Content Type
The second element in this step is, after determining your content umbrella, is to decide if you want to write a blog, do a video show, or perhaps deliver your content through a podcast. This is totally up to you. I started with a written blog and then, after about a year, created my YouTube channel so I could communicate the same content in video form. The most important consideration is picking the vehicle that you will be able to do consistently. The vehicle itself is needs to be something you enjoy doing. Otherwise, you’ll really struggle with the consistency piece which is super important.
Element three: Frequency & Consistency
And that brings us to consistency. If you are serious about starting, building and growing a creative business, consistency is going to be critical. We’re in this for the long haul, remember?
Step 8: Community
Why is this on the list, you ask? Well, in today’s world where so much interaction happens online, it’s important to create and nurture a strong community. While Facebook has its challenges, I’ve found that it can be an amazing place for creatives from around the world to gather in a safe and private environment to share their work, their struggles and their dreams.
My free, private, community gathers inside Anne’s Art Club. You have to answer a few simple questions before I’ll let you in and there is a Welcome Video that explains the group’s rules after you join. Once inside, members discover the vast network of talent gathered there from across the globe. It’s an international, global community that showcases the best of what an online community can be.
If you have a thing against Facebook, there are other options such as Might Networks, that you can explore. What’s critically important is having a space where you can interact with your audience beyond email and your website.
We are all yearning for connection. It’s the big dichotomy or juxtaposition in today’s world. We are always connected with our phones, the internet and social media. But we are actually much LESS connected because we rarely meet in person anymore. The right online community creates connection, support, encouragement and a safe place to gather, share and make progress towards our goals.
Step 9: Developing Multiple Income Streams
I’m a big believer in not putting all your eggs in one basket. What I mean is that when you are starting a creative business, you should think about all of the different ways that you will earn money from your work.
Think broadly and perhaps these categories will help give you some structure to your brainstorming.
· Direct selling
· Indirect selling
· Teaching
· A Membership
You may never have even considered some of these so let’s break them down a bit, shall we? Each of these has pros and cons and you’ll likely find yourself drawn to some more than others which is just fine.
Direct Selling: includes options such as selling your work as art prints and other products (journals, duvet covers, phone and laptop cases, etc.) on your website or through an Etsy shop. This is a great option because you can control and curate the entire customer experience from pricing all the way through to packaging. But you need to include these additional costs (inventory, shipping supplies and related costs) in your financial planning.
Indirect Selling: includes options such as uploading your artwork to print on demand (POD) sites, selecting the products the artwork looks best on, and gaining passive income. You’ll earn less but you aren’t involved in the shipping or returns aspects here. Generally, you’ll earn 10% of the sale price for each item sold but each POD site is different. While 10% may seem low, remember that you aren’t involved or paying for production, inventory, shipping or returns.
Teaching: don’t dismiss this option! The knowledge revolution is underway. I wrote a blog post on this topic called: Ready to Join The Self Education Revolution? You’re experiencing this every day by visiting YouTube and watching painting or bullet journal videos. I started teaching on Skillshare, a wonderful company where teachers “share” their “skills” through online classes on their areas of expertise. Watch my class called: What I Learned From My First Year Teaching On Skillshare. You can access it, and all of the other classes available on Skillshare for FREE for two months if you log in through my private teacher link.
A Membership: a paid membership can be a great place to start to attract the part of your audience that wants more. Think of all of the membership that you are a part of. I remember doing this exercise when I took Stu McLaren’s TRIBE course. He asked us to write down all of the subscriptions we pay for (e.g., electric bills, magazines, your phone subscription, Netflix, Cable TV, food delivery services, yoga classes…). You may not think of those as memberships but they are! The great thing about memberships is the recurring revenue you earn.
Step 10: Licensing
This topic requires deep dive study and research. If you’d like to create fabric collections with your designs on them, you’ll want to become a licensed designer for a large fabric company. If on the other hand, you absolutely love paper products, you’ll want to explore becoming a licensed designer in the stationary and paper products industry. Both require following a multi-step process starting with creating your portfolio, identifying the right companies to approach, scheduling meetings and finally negotiating the details of your contract.
To give you a sense of how this process works on the payment side, here are some rough guidelines. The overall process starting from signing your first contract to receiving your first payment takes over a year. Don’t get discouraged when you read that. It’s still very worth exploring opportunities here. You just have to think long term and keep moving forward step by step.
After you finalize a contract, the company will tell you when they need you to deliver your first collection for them. The process of delivering your collection, going through revisions, and finally going into production takes 6-8 months. Production to in-store when your designs arrive in stores where people can start buying them takes another 3 months. And you don’t get paid your licensing fee until the company gathers sales data and tracks back what sales are directly attributable to your designs. It’s at that point that they cut you a check!
Now that you have a good sense of the 10 steps involved in starting your creative business, I’d love to help you actually do it and make your dream a reality. So how will we do that, you ask?
I’ve created a coaching program, Jumpstart Your Creative Business, where I’ll guide you step by step through this entire process. Reach out to me HERE to apply.
As I wrap up this two part blog series on the 10 Steps To Start Your Creative Business, I’d like to leave you with a free gift. I’ve created an eBook for you with all of this information nicely organized, easy to access and with direct links to additional resources.
Let’s turn that dream into reality in 2020, shall we? I look forward to continuing the conversation and guiding you through this exciting journey.
Remember,
It’s Never Too Late to Create
If you enjoyed this blog please share it with your friends and family. Click your favorite social platform below. And join my email list for weekly creative inspiration and an invitation to our private Facebook group, Anne’s Art Club.
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.
