Tag: monetize your work

5 Things to Avoid When Monetizing Your Artwork

Thinking about these 5 things early on in your artrepreneurial journey will help you avoid time-wasting mistakes.

1. Undervaluing Yourself

As you start to think about asking for money for your artwork, it can be hard to place a dollar amount on your value. But doing so is one of the first steps to monetizing your artwork. It’s important to strategically price your artwork–learn about how to do so here.

If you’ve never charged for your art before, it can be easy to undervalue yourself. You might sell your first oil painting for $300 and realize later that it was worth at least $1,000. A mentor once told me to start high to test the market; if people won’t buy my product because it’s too expensive, then lower my price. Do this until they finally purchase, and you’ve found your sweet spot. Unfortunately, lots of artrepreneurs (myself included) do the opposite. We price too low and gradually increase as we realize the value that we’re really providing. Save yourself some time and lost money, and make sure you are valuing yourself and your artwork fairly.

2. Undervaluing Others

Artrepreneurs are often “solo-preneurs”–people who are building a business on their own. As a solopreneur, its easy to undervalue the help and support of others. You might think that it’s easier to do things on your own, but have you tried working with someone else to accomplish the same goals? Of course, working with others isn’t always easy, but the power of teamwork makes the collaboration worth it. Instead of trying to do things all on your own, start off your artrepreneurial journey with others on your side.

3. Not Thinking About the Customer First

Being an artrepreneur is unique because artwork is often more important to artrepreneurs than other products like, let’s say, toilet paper or toothbrushes. Artrepreneurs are so connected to their artwork, that they often forgot to think about their customers first. Remember: As an artrepreneur, you are creating for other people, not for yourself. The customer must be the core of your creative business. Your art-based product or service is made for them.

4. Only Creating for Money

However, artists also need creative time that is not restricted by product limitations or the wants of the customer. As an artrepreneur, remember to take time to create for yourself, not only for your customers. Become dedicated to working on art for your business AND art for yourself. If you forget to create for the sake of creating, you risk losing the joy of creating artwork for others by burning yourself out.

5. Not Asking for Feedback

Depending on the creative product or service you offer, you may have a close interaction with your customers or you may not. Regardless, you must find a way to ask for their feedback. Understanding the experience of your customers will:

– Help you ensure that your product or service is of quality
– Help you improve the customer experience in the future
– Help you identify important changes that you might need to make to your business model
– Help you develop trust with your customers

Whether you create a standardized digital survey, informally ask your customers about their experience in person, or do something in between, getting feedback from your customers and your partners can mean the difference between building a sustainable creative business and not. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from others; its purpose is to make you more successful in the future.

Thinking about these 5 things early on in your artrepreneurial journey will help you avoid time-wasting mistakes. But also remember to revisit each of these points as you grow your creative business. All are important to your continued artrepreneurial success!

Peace, Kayla

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How to Strengthen Your Weaknesses to Become a More Successful Artrepreneur

The short answer? People!

The short answer? People! But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, you have to start by really understanding what your weaknesses actually are. For example, I have a weakness in operating technology. I can get by, but don’t excel in utilizing technology to it’s fullest potential. That’s why it’s so great to have a tech-savvy business partner! He teaches me new things and is responsible for the technological aspects of our work. We balance each other well in our strengths and weaknesses.

That’s what I mean by people. We can select creative partners in accordance to our relative strengths and weaknesses so that each person has a unique value to bring to the table. And it doesn’t have to be a permanent partner. Often artists must partner with others to get a project done, and once the project is over, each part of the team moves on. [Hollywood is notorious for utilizing this sort of collaboration. Ted Coiné and Mark Babbitt refer to this kind of business structure as “nano corporations” in their book A World Gone Social. ] Together, nano corps create something awesome by allowing each member to contribute their unique strength. Plus, when the next project comes along, you already know who to call when a specific skill is necessary!

Photo by LivDeco

Building a (permanent or temporary) team around your weaknesses is helpful for many reasons:

  • Two heads are greater than one: These team members can help you find easier and more efficient ways to do things in their field of expertise.
  • Working with others gives you the opportunity to work on more projects, or to add more of your own value to a single project.
  • They can bring creativity to the table, and so can you. Having multiple perspectives not only breeds relatability for multiple potential target markets, but can help the creative process expand further than you could have originally imagined.
  • More hands on deck means more work in the queue. Again, working as a team increases efficiency, giving you the opportunity to work on more projects at a single time.

Start by thinking about your own strengths and weaknesses, and find trustworthy individuals who complement you. Look around your existing network and within your local community. But first, make sure you truly understand the value you can bring to them, because the benefits you’ll give each other will help to build a creative team that is efficient and perfectly interdependent.

Network effects

Yes, bringing in more people will help you to work on more projects faster, but it will also help you to reach more people faster. Creative partners are often some of the biggest promoters and evangelists for your work, because it’s really our work. If you’re trying to build a brand, the more people sharing your work, the better.

Remember: It’s important to be genuine when building your creative team. You want your potential partners to know that you have their best interests in mind, and that you are capable of executing your own responsibilities. Make sure your creative partners recognize your integrity when they work with you, and you’ll be one step closer to becoming a successful artrepreneur.

Peace, Kayla

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