|
By J.J. Long  (Image credit: Pexels.com) As creative entrepreneurs we’ve all been there. Business is going great, sales are steady, freelance work is consistent, and then all of a sudden we hit a bump in the road where sales might drop off the deep end, customers/gigs stop knocking on our doors, and we lose the momentum we once had. It hurts, it’s depressing, and some of us might even consider throwing in the towel because we can’t deal with the ups and downs of an inconsistent paycheck. Being an entrepreneur is definitely a roller coaster ride for a multitude of reasons, but when the money stops coming in, we tend to get worried and can start making drastic choices that could cripple our already fragile businesses. Today I’d like to give you 3 Tips on how to “weather the storm” so to speak when you hit these slow months and how to keep a positive outlook on things when so many of us might fall into depression or want to call it quits. 1. Prepare For The Slow Months Anticipating that you’re ultimately going to have slow months as an entrepreneur is the first step towards solving this issue. When we first decide that we’re going to become self-employed or start up a company, the energy is usually electric. Working for yourself is something new and exciting and we can feel unstoppable in the beginning. I do believe in optimism and wishful thinking, but the reality is that more than likely you’re going to have some slow months in your business, and you want to be prepared for when this happens. Even Apple and Disney have slow days, so try to be humble and understand this is just part of the process of being a business owner. If you know when your slow months are approaching, like maybe your company is a bit slower in the summer season, etc., than that’s even better! By having this knowledge ahead of time, you can adequately prepare for this and you can still survive and get by during these slow times. A lot of entrepreneurs, when they have a great month of sales, instead of anticipating slow months ahead and putting money aside in an emergency fund, they tend to overspend and celebrate with their spoils, most likely because they’ve been deprived of income for so long and they feel like they deserve a little splurge (believe me, I’m guilty of this as well). Immediate gratification feels great, but when you do this, you’re ultimately hurting yourself down the road. If you can slowly build up a little bit of a cushion during the peak months, then you can survive off of that cushion during the slow months. I know this might be a difficult habit to develop at first, but start off with something small, like put aside 5% of your sales and watch that grow over time. Sometimes just having that extra $200 in the bank account can go far during a slow month, especially if it’s the difference between paying rent or not.  (Image credit: Pexels.com) 2. Learn How To Be Frugal
Contrary to popular belief, being frugal doesn’t mean being cheap. Cheap people focus on spending less money and tend to sacrifice quality when it comes to their purchases. Frugal people prioritize their spending in alignment with their dreams/goals and put value and quality over price. Frugal people are also very resourceful when it comes to their spending. An example of a cheap person would be someone that spends copious amounts of time cutting coupons out of the grocery store flyer because they are more concerned about saving a few dollars, even if it’s on items that they don’t necessarily need at that moment. The bottom line for them is saving money. A frugal person also likes to save money, but when they go to the grocery store, they still buy the products they want. A frugal person tends to spend less money on the things that they don’t care too much about, but is willing to spend more money on the things they value the most. For example, a frugal person might buy the store brand aluminum foil because it’s the cheapest and they can’t justify spending more money on an item that seems to function the same across different brands, but when it comes to their favorite brand of coffee, they will always go for the Folgers because it tastes the best to them and it’s an important part of their morning wake up routine. The reason I bring up frugality when it comes to your creative business is because this is a great skill to apply when you’re in a slump or going through a slow month of income. Maybe instead of buying a bulk order of paints or canvases for your painting business that would normally save you money over the long term, you might buy just what you need to get through the month and you might be able to shave off say $50 off of your typical monthly expenses. Maybe instead of doing $40 worth of paid Facebook ads for your business that month, you can drop the price down to $20 a month. And even in your personal life, maybe instead of hitting up Starbucks every day, you can make your coffee at home and bring a travel mug. Or now would be a great time to finally get rid of that gym membership that you’re not using so you can save another $65 per month, and just decide to workout in your living room or start to pick up jogging outside. There are many ways to be resourceful and frugal, you just need to think outside the box a bit. 3. Focus on Sales Driven Behavior If you find yourself in an unexpected slump, the number one thing that you should be trying to do is generate sales and find resourceful ways on how to make money as fast as possible. When I say sales driven behavior, I don’t mean spending time to polish the website, work on a training manual for your employees, or plan the company picnic. If you’re in a slow month and it looks like no sales are in sight, you need to do everything possible to generate money NOW! Some quick ideas to generate immediate cash might be to launch an impromptu sale on one of your products or services. Maybe you can finally offer that loyal customer discount you’ve been thinking of doing and that might spike some sales. Or maybe start up a referral program which could help generate some more leads and sales. Another idea is to start massively doing outreach to new customers with an aggressive email campaign. They key here is to not increase expenses at all, crossing your fingers hoping that just investing a little bit more money will increase your chances of making more money. That is a gamble and not something you should really depend on. When sales are non- existent, you need to focus on getting into the positive, not more into the negative. Stick to the tactics that have worked for you in the past and those that you can rely on. To Wrap Up Slow months are inevitable as creative entrepreneurs. It’s better to be prepared for the storm that we can’t see yet rather than to be swept away by the chaos when it arrives. Being frugal is not the same as being cheap, and it pays to be resourceful during difficult times. Lastly, if you find yourself unexpectedly caught in a slow month, throw out the fluff tasks and really buckle down and focus on sales driven behavior that will bring in money immediately. What are some strategies that you all have used to get through the slow months? We’ve all been there and I’d love to hear your ideas. To leave a comment, click on the blue “comments” link underneath the facebook and twitter buttons where you can leave a reply. Thanks for tuning in friends! Cheers, -J.J.
14 Comments
By J.J. Long  (Image credit: Pexels.com) Every Entrepreneur's Dilemma Every entrepreneur at some point in time has probably had issues with work-life balance. You know how it goes, you get super involved in a project in the studio or at the office, lose track of time, and then before you know it it’s past dinner time and you decide to order a pizza to keep you fueled up so you can work into the wee hours of the night burning the midnight oil. You might even sacrifice family time, because you really think the project you are working on is that important and you can justify it in some way. A lot of the times we might do this because we are trying to reach a certain deadline. Other times we do this because we’re in a really good creative flow state, and other times we do this because it’s just in our DNA and we haven’t learned to shut off the workaholic gene yet (I totally get this from my dad). For the past 3+ years or so, I’ve spent a lot of time studying life style design, which means structuring my life the way I want, scripting out my days, removing bad habits, adopting healthier ones, and doing my best to maintain a balanced lifestyle in alignment with my dreams. There are a ton of tips I could list here (I’ll probably do another post about this topic at some point), but here are my top 5 tips that I live by and I think will help you out on your own work-life balance journeys. 1. Stick To A Schedule This might be common sense for some people, but if you don’t already stick to a schedule this will totally be a game changer for you. I remember when I first became a self employed artist I was super excited because I could create my own hours, come and go as I pleased, and didn’t have to answer to a boss. This was all fine and dandy, but in the beginning I never had a schedule in place and as a result my days were always uneven and I’d wake up overwhelmed and anxious because I felt like I had to “do it all” in one day. Not having a game plan is basically planning to fail. When you script out your days you eliminate a lot of anxiety because you know exactly at what time you should be doing what activity. You should not only be scheduling obvious things like appointments, meetings, and taking little Johnny to soccer practice, but you should be listing out other important self nourishing things like meals, showers, reading, exercise, meditation, journaling, etc. When you plan out your day, it’s not just the workday, but it’s your ENTIRE day (this is where the balance comes in). Plan out from what time you plan on waking up in the morning to what time you’re closing your eyes at night. Work time, family time, and personal time. Script out everything. An amazing planner that I’ve been using for years is called Passion Planner. My sister, brother in law, and I rave about this planner. It features month at a glance views, 7 day at a glance views with time slots ranging from 6am – 10:30pm, plenty of lined paper and room for notes, as well as motivational quotes every week to keep you inspired. Definitely check them out when you get a chance, they make a great quality planner. 2. Understand That Everything is Equally Important All areas of our lives are equally important, although many of us put work ahead of our family and ourselves sometimes (I am guilty of this as well). Since we are entrepreneurs, we are always chasing after our next freelance gig or trying to find innovative ways to make our next paycheck, so it’s easy for us to push things like our social life or fitness out the door. When we’re desperate for money, other areas of our life suffer and we end up in this endless OCD loop where we are starving ourselves of balance because we are so focused on making that next paycheck. It’s so easy to do, but once we realize that everything is equally important in our lives, it sort of puts things in perspective. If you say to yourself, “Going to the gym is equally as important as family time”, or “Working on this project is equally as important as going to the movies with my friends tonight”, then you cut out favorites and you begin to live life a bit more balanced. Not only that, but you begin to really cherish the present moment when you’re now engaging in that activity.  (Image credit: Pexels.com) 3. Be Conscious of Bleed Time
Bleed time is when you go over on time for a certain task. So for example, say you’re giving yourself 1 hour to work on your social media posts for your business and then after that you plan on exercising for a half an hour. If you take 1hr and 15mins to post on social media, your bleed time is 15mins into your exercising time. And guess what happens then. You say to yourself, “Well now I’m only going to have 15mins to workout, so maybe I’ll just go to the gym tomorrow instead”. This happens over and over again for most of us, every day on different tasks. But…if you understand that everything is equally important, then you begin to respect the boundaries of your time. Once you commit to this belief, another conversation with yourself might be, “Ok so I know I have at least 15 more minutes of social media posting BUT the gym is equally important to me and I don’t want to miss it, so I’ll either finish this last post later on or it can wait until tomorrow, I really want to stay healthy and look my best”. Be weary of bleed time, it can be a silent killer. 4. Learn How To Prioritize I know it’s hard to stay on point every day and stay on task in the allotted times for everything you have to do, especially if these are new habits you are trying to adjust to. You’ll experience bleed time here and there and you’ll still favor some tasks over others. Not only that, but you’ll probably get the unexpected interruption, email, or phone call that throws your day off course. This is to be expected and something you need to strive towards. But regardless of all of this, you should still have your daily priorities identified. Your daily priorities are the one or two things on your to do list, that are musts for you that day! This is whether it’s finishing a big project that you are working on for your business like launching a new website or running off to little Johnny’s soccer game that you can’t miss. If you identify what are musts for you that day, than you eliminate bleed time for that specific task and it sort of frames up your entire day. If you know you have to leave the studio or office by 2pm to get to Johnny’s soccer game by 3pm, then you know you only have “X” amount of hours to dedicate to other tasks. Learning how to properly prioritize the big things helps you frame up your day so you know how much time you can delegate to other important areas of your life. 5. Be Present All The Time If you’re new belief is that everything is equally important, than it makes it more fun to be present with whatever task you are working on because you shouldn’t be worried about losing out on other things. If you’re exercising, instead of letting your mind wander because you’d rather be working on a creative project instead of exercising (I’m guilty of this), try to be more present while you exercise and give your body the love and attention it deserves. Or, if you’re playing with your children after work, really try to cherish those moments rather than worrying about the invoices you still have to send out to customers. Having work-life balance means staying present in all areas of your life. At least that’s my definition. To Wrap Up So I hope these 5 tips will help you manage your work-life balance in some way. Being entrepreneurs we have a lot to worry about and it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. But by sticking to a schedule, understanding that everything is equally important, being conscious of bleed time, learning how to prioritize, and being present all the time, this will help us achieve more balance between our careers and our personal lives. What are some other tips that have worked for you as an entrepreneur? What are some specific issues in your life that are preventing you from balance? To leave a comment, click on the blue “comments” link underneath the facebook and twitter buttons where you can leave a reply. Thanks for tuning in friends! Cheers, -J.J. By J.J. Long  An Interesting Observation I was at the dentist’s office getting a root canal the other day (oh joy!), and I couldn’t help but notice how organized and efficient my dentist was. As I sat in the chair for an hour and a half, all I could hear (other than the drilling and sucking noises), was my dentist telling his assistant what tools he needed next in order to get the job done. He’d rattle off the different names and sizes of the drills and tools that he needed and because the assistant already had these items laid out in front of her, she was ready in a moments notice to hand that specific instrument to my dentist. They both were a well oiled machine and every second was used in optimum fashion. In that hour and a half, there was practically no down time and my dentist probably made roughly about $1,400. He was super swift and calculated and I’m sure his philosophy was “The sooner I can wrap up this patient, the sooner I can work on the next patient and make even more money”. Common Issues So why bring up the dentist? I think as artists, many of us lack the organizational component to how we run our businesses. Being organized as an artist can free up a lot of physical and mental clutter in our brains that will eventually lead to more money down the road. As a result we’ll have more time to work on our businesses and concentrate on generating revenue rather than scrambling to figure things out because we don’t have our systems in place. I think many of us love the creation process and tend to lose ourselves in the moment with our art, but when it comes to having a clean studio or being able to “balance the books”, a lot of us lack that necessary habit. How many artists have you met where their studios look like a bomb went off and they can never find that color red that they’re always looking for? Or those artists that are super talented, but don’t have a website yet to showcase their work or if they do have a website, it looks like it’s riddled with cobwebs and hasn’t been updated since the 1980’s (insert Bon Jovi ballad song). Being disorganized costs us time, and although it might only be minutes here or there, it compounds over time and can eat into our potential profits if we don’t have the right habits in place. 5 Tips on How to Get Organized 1. Book shelves, containers, and hooks: This probably sounds self explanatory, but no matter what your craft is if you’re a painter, a musician, a writer, etc., having bookshelves is a great way to organize your supplies and inventory. If you’re a painter, just having containers that separate your brushes, your paints, and your palette knives are a huge help. If you’re a musician, having your microphone or XLR cables cleanly wrapped up and hung on a wall hook can be freeing. If you’re a writer, obviously having all of your books and journals cleanly displayed on a bookcase can be beneficial. Having things neatly organized by size, style, and type can make things more reachable and easier to find.  (My shelving unit in my studio space) 2. Accounting Systems:
Having solid accounting systems in place is huge when it comes to bookkeeping. For business receipts, keep all of your receipts in an accordion style envelope organized by months. If that’s too much organization for you, then at least place your receipts in a singular place like a box and organize them at a later date. This is important if for some reason you get audited by the IRS down the road and need to furnish proof of your expenses. Keep track of your income and expenses using online accounting software. For many years I used Excel spreadsheets to keep track of my income and expenses. If Excel works for you, then that’s great, keep up the great work and do what works best for you. Even if writing on napkins works for you and you commit to making it a habit, at least you have a system in place and this is great for starters. If you want an upgrade and want something that is a bit more easier to navigate and can generate a variety of reports, I highly recommend WAVE accounting software which is what I use for JJArtworks. With WAVE you can do things like create invoices, accept credit card payments from customers, connect your bank account to the software so you have seamless integration, etc. And did I mention that WAVE is completely free! Keep track of your mileage. As a business owner you can claim your business miles traveled on your taxes. No matter if you run to Staples to get ink for your printer and the drive is only 2 miles from your house or if you perform a service at a clients house and they live 200 miles away in another state, it’s important to record all of your mileage. Remember to record both directions and remember to record even the low miles. All those miles will eventually add up and make sure to make it a daily or weekly habit. I currently use Excel to track all of my mileage, but they also make apps for your phone like MileIQ, Everlance, and Autotrip in the UK that you can purchase for a small fee. Having good budgeting software is key as well. I use a company called YNAB (stands for You Need A Budget), to budget for both my business and personal expenses and it’s a great way to keep track of your cash flow. I plan on doing a whole Blog post or at least some tutorial videos about YNAB because honestly, it’s truly revolutionized the way I operate my business. It’s a software system that I use daily and it really gives me peace of mind in so many different ways. 3. Online Portfolio: Not only do you need to be organized in the studio or office, but you need to be organized online as well. If you don’t already have an online portfolio, you really need to join the 21st century and get on the internet train! Having your own website and displaying your own products and services to the world is paramount for success. In addition to your own business website, you also need to be present on social media and interact with your customers and audience on an almost daily basis. If you’re new to social media, start with the major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Once you get organized with your online branding, then the next phase of organization is streamlining your posted content, but we’ll save marketing and content creation for another post. I just want to give you guys the basics for this post. 4. Calendar Systems: Having both an online calendar system and a physical wall calendar system is important as well. If you’re an artist and you book a lot of art festivals per say, then having a calendar system is crucial so you don’t double book events and you can easily tell customers when you’re available for commissions and other art related projects. For an online calendar system, Gmail offers a free calendar system which is great. You can share internal calendars with other people in your organization and you can all edit and view these calendars. JJArtworks uses a company called Zoho for our calendar and emailing system. Use whatever company works best for you, there are a lot of free ones out there. Also, having a traditional wall calendar is great as well. I’ve been using yearly “At-A-Glance” wet erase calendars for JJArtworks for at least 4 years now, and it’s honestly great being able to look at all 12 months at once. Being able to look at the year in this way makes it easier for me to set quarterly goals and stay on point with my numbers. 5. Accountability Partners: After you’ve made the decision to get more organized, it really helps to have an accountability partner, or someone that can help you stay on track with your goal setting. Even just having a friend or family member give you a call once a week saying, “So how’s organizing the studio going?” or “Have you found a new calendar system for your business yet?” can really go a long way. Let your friend or family member know what your goals are to get more organized and give them a personal deadline to when you would ultimately like to be more organized by. To Wrap Up Organization is a beneficial ingredient in an artist’s tool kit. By organizing your work space, having your systems in place, and cleaning out the physical and mental clutter in your life, you’ll be saving lots of time down the road which will ultimately lead to more financial success in your business. By saving time, you’ll have more free time to create without unnecessary obstacles and focus your energy more on generating profit than searching for that darn red paint or lost microphone cable. I know I left out plenty of other ways to get organized as an artist and I’d love to hear your ideas and personal experiences. To leave a comment, click on the blue "comments" link underneath the facebook and twitter buttons where you can leave a reply. Thanks for tuning in friends! Cheers, -J.J. By J.J. Long Why Write A Blog? It wasn’t until about 2 years that I discovered that I love to read and write. At the time, I was looking for interesting activities to include in my morning routine as I felt like I needed an energy boost and my work days were starting to plateau a bit. Being a new CEO of my art and entertainment company JJArtworks, I knew I needed a lot of energy to carry me through the day to consistently answer customer requests, manage my artists, perform daily admin responsibilities, expand the company, keep up with social media marketing, perfect my systems, etc. Each day I would struggle to find my own creative time as well, whether that be painting, singing, or acting. I felt like the days would always slip by me and I would never get the chance to pick up a paint brush or sing a single note because I was too burnt out by the end of the day and lacked the energy to do so. So I knew the energy part of the equation was something that I needed to tackle head on. As I researched Youtube for help on “CEO mindset” or “Morning Rituals”, almost every video I watched kept chanting the same information over and over again which was for the most part that I should be reading, journaling, meditating, exercising, and just eating healthy in general every day. Exercising and eating healthy have always been difficult habits for me to adopt into my life, so I figured I’d try out the easier activities for starters such as reading, journaling, and meditation. I had already discovered the benefits of meditation a few years prior, but I didn’t commit to making it a habit every day. Reading was honestly something I hadn’t done since I graduated from college in 2003, and the last book I read was probably a boring text book that put me to sleep in class lol. Writing was something I actively did everyday, but it mainly involved typing emails at the computer and it didn’t involve me putting pen to paper or a way to express myself creatively. As I began experimenting with these different activities in the morning, I quickly realized the benefits of each and started seeing results in my energy levels. I just felt more balanced every day, less stressed, and more complete. Every day in the morning I would meditate for 10 minutes, write 10 things I was grateful for in my gratitude journal, and then read a few pages of a book.  The first book I read was “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss. I was blown away by the concept of working only 4 hours a week and immediately I was hooked on the self-development industry. It was the perfect starter book for me to digest and it got my imagination running wild. Now, all of the material I currently read is grounded in the self-development genre, and my brain is now a sponge that loves to devour these inspiring and wisdom packed books. They say readers are leaders, and I’m constantly trying to abide by this philosophy and read as much as possible every day. So back to the question, why write a blog? The main reason is because I really want to add value to other artists and entrepreneurs creating their own businesses through the 13+ years of knowledge that I have from being a self employed artist myself. After getting back into reading and writing, I see the level of value that the self development industry has had on myself and other entrepreneurs and I want to give back in this way as well. At some point I’d love to get into coaching, leading seminars, and eventually launch an online academy, but we’ll save that blog post for a rainy day. I don’t claim to be an expert or a guru in my industry, but I’ve experienced a lot through being a struggling oil painter, to a professional musician, an aspiring actor and voice over artist, and now running a paint party business and CEO of a brand that plans on expanding into music, film, publishing, and beyond. I’ve had a very versatile art career and I’d love to share what wisdom I have to any creative individual that would like to listen. I promise not to lead you astray :) Type of Content The content I plan on creating for this blog stems around artists and their journeys, whatever their disciplines may be. My belief is that art fuels art, and there is a lot of crossover between artists and their mediums. So a writer might also be an actor, a painter might also be a musician, a musician might also be a dancer, etc. So my goal is to really offer engaging and valuable content that can be applied across all art industries, although some posts might be more catered toward a specific art form than the other. Some topics off the cuff that I definitely want to cover so you get an idea of what I’m talking about are:
Reader Expectations My initial goal is to publish a blog post once per a week. I’m not sure if the day is going to be the same every week yet, but I’m aiming for most likely a Wednesday or Thursday every week. If I get into a good rhythm with this blogging stuff, I might post more frequently, but for the time being I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew and over-commit. Also, just as a disclaimer, at some point I might offer my own products, services, and affiliate links, but the primary focus of this blog will always be to add immense value to artists and other creative entrepreneurs. I like to be as transparent as possible with my audience, but for example, if I come out with a new killer CD, of course I want you all to know about it and would love for you to pick up a copy :) Engagement with a Creative Community Another main reason for me wanting to write a blog is because I want to learn. I want to learn from all of you and hear what your opinions are and what you all have to say. At this point in my life I really like hearing other people’s perspectives on different topics because it challenges my thinking and sometimes can create a paradigm shift in the way I forever see things. So I definitely welcome comments and questions and would love to engage with you all on this platform. All I ask is that you just be PG 13 friendly as children may stumble upon these posts as well and I want to add value to all entrepreneurs, no matter what the age. Moving Forward So now that I’ve given you the super long intro (not all of my blogs will be this long by the way lol), what sort of topics would you like me to cover? What are some pressing concerns that you creative entrepreneurs are dealing with? If I’m not well versed on a specific subject I’m not afraid to do the research and get digging for you. Leave your ideas in the comments below and I look forward to chatting with you all soon. Thanks for reading peeps. Much love and respect! Cheers, -J.J. |
AuthorJ.J. Long is the founder and CEO of JJArtworks. J.J. has been professionally painting, singing, acting, writing, teaching, and doing voiceovers for over 13 years. The purpose of our blog is to help artists thrive in their own businesses by sharing valuable and sincere content. Archives
March 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Find Events | Paint Parties | Licensee Program | Fine Art | Publishing | Music | Youtube | Blog | Podcast | About J.J. | Store | Press | Contact
© 2023 JJARTWORKS, LLC All Rights Reserved | 599 Canal St., 2 West #3, Lawrence, MA 01840
Subscribe To The JJArtworks Mailing List!