financial sustainability Archives - Solopreneur Profit Coach |

Artists Define Their Own Business Success

Have you ever noticed that a lot of business advice focuses on how to get wealthy, fast? It’s as if many people view business as a pathway to the motherlode, and little else. But not everyone wants to be the CEO of the next Fortune 500 company. And that’s ok! It just means we need to turn somewhere else for our business advice.

The conversation I had with Megan Auman a few weeks ago was all about another kind of business mindset – seeing your business as a way to sustain your artistic pursuits. Instead of the end goal being amassing the world’s wealth in your bank account, Megan talked about small business as a strategy for fueling an artist’s livelihood. Here are a couple of my favorite points she raised during our chat.

Find Advice that Speaks to Your Vision

So much business advice speaks to people who want to run a million dollar company. Megan indicated that the prevalence of this point of view in business circles could often be hurting artists or driving them away from business altogether. For this reason, it is so important that we start talking about different goals and models for business.

In my last post, I mentioned that artists often want to spend more time doing their creative work, and the best path towards making that time is to make more money! Even if artists don’t want to be a CEO at a computer all day, there is still an incentive to run a profitable business. The key is finding voices who understand and respect what artists need.

The Profit First model and Megan’s courses are two great resources for an alternative view of business. Rather than seeing business as a race to amass capital, both sources look at business as a way of meeting the owner’s needs and sustaining the work they enjoy doing.

Business Automation

While we were talking, Megan brought up the 4-Hour Work Week, the hugely popular book by Tim Ferriss. She mentioned how the book highly encourages business automation, so that business owners can spend more time lounging on the beach. Business automation can also be a great tool for artists and makers, according to Megan. However, instead of beach bumming, artists can use the time freed up by automation to spend more time working in the studio, doing the things they really love.

Overall, Megan stressed the importance of understanding what you really want from your business and your life, and structuring it to include more of what you want. Whether this is more time in the studio, more time with your family, or less time spent on certain tasks, automation helps creatives focus on the work they really want to be doing. I have written a little bit about how automation can also be great for your finances, have a look if you like!

I hope you enjoyed these nuggets of wisdom from our conversation. If you haven’t already, definitely check out the full interview posted on Facebook. Megan is a wonderful person with lots of good insights into creative business, which you can look into here. And of course, please don’t hesitate to schedule a call with me if you’d like to talk more about Profit First and setting up your business to meet your needs and desires.

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Angela

Image Source: Joshua Coleman

How to Financially Survive Holiday Inventory Prep

The holiday season is fast approaching, with Halloween on the way this week. With this season comes the time forstocking up your inventory. You want to make sure you have plenty of product available for when shopping season begins! The challenge of this time of year is that you want to build up your inventory while still having cashflow. That is, manage your financial responsibilities while increasing your spending on supplies. This can be a difficult balancing act for solopreneurs, so I’ve made a quick list of tips to get you through your holiday prep safe and financially sound!

Holiday Inventory Prep Tips

If you’re taking orders, consider securing a deposit from your customer so you can pay for the supplies before production.

Buy wholesale! Make sure you’re not paying sales tax for materials your plan to resell. This will likely require that you obtain a resellers permit for your state, so be sure to check. Negotiate the best terms with your suppliers. Can you get a discount for buying in bulk? Will they give you net 30 or even net 60 payment terms, meaning you can receive the items now but not have to pay for them until later? If you find yourself feeling nervous about asking these things of your suppliers, please check out my article on rejection therapy for a little inspiration, then pick up the phone and stick up for your business!

Increase the dollar amount of each sale. For example, when I ran my jewelry business, I was able to do this by selling sets of jewelry. I would sell a pendant combined with a pair of earrings, making it easier for customers to make the decision to spend more money at my business. Even though I gave a small discount, I still increased my sales, and my profit!

If you’re doing holiday shows, make sure everyone on your mailing list knows where you’ll be. It’s much easier to sell more to a current customer than to develop a new customer. Check out my post on how to get the most out of holiday shows, here.

Do you know your best-selling item? Make sure you have plenty on hand for the holidays! This will increase profits come shopping time.

When it’s all over, use a portion of your profit account to celebrate. You’ve worked hard during the holiday season. Make sure you reward yourself. To learn more about a profit account, I recommend downloading the first 5 chapters of the Profit First book on my website.

If you have more questions about balancing inventory and cashflow, don’t hesitate to schedule a discovery call with me!

If you want to read more about the issues of inventory vs. cash flow, I recommend checking out my articles “Why Selling More Doesn’t Mean Making More” and “The Stages of Financially Growing a Business.”

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Angela

Image Sources: Drew Beamer , Annie Spratt