Artists Transformation School

They key for artists struggling to make money is to have a clear focus.   There is a single minded focus for artists who make money from their art and their creativity.   In this module we help you to understand the difference between the kind of focus you have used in your art making and the kind of focus that leads to prosperity over the long haul.

For many artists focus can drift and we find ourselves spreading our focus over a variety of projects or activities that we think will do will to create our livelihood.  Understanding how creative people develop focus and battle the 6 habits and beliefs that sabotage focus helps to insure that we have what it takes to make it and get ahead.

Every artist is an entrepreneur no matter what art form you work in you make it happen.   When it comes to making your art, you have the determination, the tenacity and the resolution to make it happen.  And you do.  Once you begin to see yourself as the capable entrepreneur you are you can learn to leverage these intuitive, creative abilities to work for you in your professional business.

Focusing on your customers is another ability that artists who make money have developed.   It is essential to learn how to understand your creative output in terms of providing products and services to customers.   The secrete of a successful arts business is having customers . . .lots of customers.   Understanding your customer mix is essential to finding more.

Finally it is really helpful to figure out which things to focus on if you what to make art and make money.  We’ve developed an algorithm that helps artists sort through the myriad projects and find the ones that will be rewarding and also profitable.
This module concludes with helping you to identify some short and long term goals to help steer your focus toward the fame and fortune you deserve.

When you have the opportunity to perform or exhibit or share your work you are also building your brand. Your brand is composed of two ingredients: Your likeability and your enthusiasm. As Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” We are in the emotion business. The reason curators, producers and publishers run competitions and put out a call for artists is to offer our emotional catalyst to their customers.

There is a bigger picture to you as an artist. You make art because that is who you are. Deep in your soul you are a creator. We encourage every artist to create their career from their art. For you to flourish and get ahead and develop a lasting enterprise that can become your livelihood for a good long time, your arts business and your values need to align. This module helps you identify the values that drive you and fuel the love you have for your art.

The goal of this module is to give you the tools to understand yourself and your art from your customer’s perspective. Standing in their shoes, it is vital to learn why they love you and want more of you and your art. You can develop the savvy that branding experts use to align your art, your values and your customer’s needs. You can have both fame and fortune once you learn to crack the code of: “Selling my art” And your customers buy your art because they love it and you. They respond to your likeability and your enthusiasm.

One of the real benefits of this module is building your self-confidence and gaining the assurance that your creative venture is hitting the mark with your customers. . . and most importantly, knowing what that mark is.

For many artists an artist grant is a great way to create work and gather the money you need to create a project. Sadly, many of these artist grants aren’t leveraged to the full potential because the artist doesn’t have the right business structure. (And some grants are not available to independent artists only to organizations.) Artist grants are a great way to capitalize your venture, but you need a business structure that will work for getting that grant and also a team that can leverage the project beyond the initial grant.

Most artists didn’t set out to be in business. The business just happened because the art was good. Many of us cobbled a business structure together in complete ignorance of our options. This module helps you to think about who your business serves. We also have you consider the longevity of the business. It is important to consider the question, “Is the art you create something that could live beyond you?” . . . “Is it possible that some of your revenue streams could be sold to someone else to deliver?” If you consider the longer term, you might realize that being a that being a sole proprietorship or sole trader is not the most desirable structure. For many artists setting out as a partnership or a co-op or even incorporating as a not-for-profit entity with a board of directors is ultimately a structure that better suits the art. There are options for your business structure and it is important to get this right before things really take off and you start making more money or taking on staff.

The number one mistake artists make is doing it alone. Learning how to build, maintain and cultivate a team are essential skills for the artist entrepreneur. Quite often an artist pulls together an ad hoc team for the purpose of getting an artist grant or a project grant. If people are going to join forces with you it is important to be clear with them about the terms of the relationship. This module teaches you the skills of team building, negotiation, and gives you templates and examples of contracts and agreements.

Many artists have experienced a grant writing workshop. When you write a grant application you are forced to think about goals and planning. You set some short term goals and you develop a short term plan. The thinking that goes into writing for a grant is what an artist in business needs to do way beyond the one grant idea. This module helps you understand the power of goals and planning for your arts business.

Goals for your art, your life and your arts business are vital for your focus and your sanity. We don’t mind working hard but it is important to make sure that the hard work is heading toward the right goal. This module teaches you to clarify your goals into objectives, goals and results. Each one has a different energy and helps you stay on track in a different way. As artists we need to be emotionally connected to our goals otherwise we will move our energy somewhere else.
Once you have clear objectives, goals and can see and feel the result you will have, the next step is to plan. We witness too much artist burn-out. The biggest reason that an artist hits burn out is that there was no plan. This module lays out a planning process that takes you beyond the planning you may have done for the short term aims of an artist grant and helps you build a plan for your entire arts business. We have developed a process of three sessions that guarantees that you have a robust plan for the long haul. By the end of this module you will have a plan with a clear vision and mission, an honest evaluation of your business, and a practical action plan.

While you may have been successful with short term goals and small plans for an arts grant, you need to become a master of these things for your arts business.

How you spend your time has a direct correlation to how artists make money. Throughout the Artists Transformation School course you’ve developed abilities, competencies and the business know-how to do well as an artist in business. The crunch comes as you begin to grow your creative enterprise and you find yourself working harder and harder. This module is all about ways to work smarter not harder. We offer you a tested and proven range of productivity and time management techniques that work for artists.

Increasing your productivity means doing more with the energy, time and resources you have at hand. Learning how to set priorities is essential if you want to make it. We teach you a dynamic way to manage to-do lists so that you manage the important things along with the urgent things. There are also some fundamental truths about running a business that artists never get told. Understanding these business principals and starting to use these strategies means that your art and your business can be kept in balance.

The second part of this module focus on Time Management. Learning how to manage you day, your week, your month and your year means that you can achieve much more than you ever thought possible. Learning how to avoid the typical time wasters and the time black holes is critical.

You are the artist, the CEO, the finance manager, the VP of marketing plus all the rest. There are only so many hours in the day. The pressure can easily become overwhelming. We’ve gathered the best of the best time management techniques. This module presents a suite of things you can learn to do that will create new habits of productivity. The self-discipline and determination to developed the best habits of productivity and time management is the answer to the question, “How do artists make money?”

As artists we look for opportunities to show ourselves and our work. In the Artist Transformation School we teach you how to create opportunities as well. When you put yourself and your work out there as a response to calls for artists you need to get the maximum return on your investment of time and energy. Every call for artists is the chance for you to increase your brand awareness (see module 2). Remember that your brand really comes down to your likability and your enthusiasm. Understanding how you like to work, what causes you stress, how you react to stress and how others perceive your personality is key to making the most of any opportunity to present yourself and your work.

We are in the business of emotion. I know we think it’s art but really the art is only a vehicle to create an emotional experience. Because we spend so much of our creative lives in a world full of emotion it is important to learn how our mind / heart connection works. This module helps you wear several of the hats you have to wear to make it as an arts business; the CEO, the artist, the HR manager. The artist is the most valuable employee of your business and the CEO needs to know what makes them tick. You need to learn as much as you can about your operating psychology.

In this module you engage with a process that helps you learn about your preferred personality style. You discover you innate strengths as a leader and also helps you become aware of your blind spots.

You will also get the chance to complete a skills diagnostic to see if you have the 92 skills it takes to run a successful arts business.
When you are totally aware of your psychology and your innate preferences you can bring the best, most enthusiastic and likeable self to every opportunity.

We live in an amazing time of disruption in the arts. Opportunities come directly to us via the internet in the form of a call to artist listing looking for artists who can deliver to a particular brief. The people who gather all the submissions will research the artists they want to work with. It is also true that new customers also do research about us before they invest their time and money on us and our art. This process of research is called the customer journey. Our customers take this journey on line. It is critical to develop the skills, smarts and competences to provide exactly the right information to satisfy our customer’s research. You need to know how to position yourself and your art efficiently and effectively.

When we seize an opportunity like a call for artists we have the potential to create a customer for life and build a relationship with someone who can and will market us to others. This module teaches you how savvy artists use e-marketing to achieve lasting success by building relationships. For the first time ever, we can reach our market directly. We can actually build long lasting relationships with them on-line. We can have a dialogue with our customers and fans. In this module we teach you a new marketing method that touches your customers 3 times to increase the impact of their experience of you and your art. You will learn to create an anticipation campaign, an expectations campaign and a relationship campaign.

Every artist needs to learn better marketing communication skills. This module will teach you when to communicate; how to communicate and what to say in your communications to drive impact and insure that the awesome emotional experience they had with your art is tied to you as the creator of the experience / the creator of the art.

Every artist needs to figure out how to make money as an artist. Social Media is key to making money as an artist. For the first time in the world, artists can create fans, followers and customers easily and cheaply. We no longer need to get access to our customers from some industry gatekeeper. We can go direct. It is up to us to learn how to find people who get us and appreciate our work. The more important skill is learning to build relationships with these customers and potential customers.

Social Media is the best tool for sharing our passion. We can create posts and videos that share why we do what we do and how we do it. It is also an amazing and easy way to hear from our fans and followers. For the first time in generations, our customers can communicate directly with us. As artists, we need to learn how to use the platforms effectively and efficiently. This module shares a range of best practice tips and techniques for using Social Media to help us build lasting relationships.

Video is the greatest tool for sharing our world, our vision, our goals and our art . . . If you use it correctly. Many artists use it poorly and waste resources putting out video that no one sees. Learning to make smart effective videos is essential if we want to make money as an artist.

Being findable on social media means that we can grow our customer base. Providing valuable contact on a regular basis insures that people who get us and what we do will develop deeper appreciation and knowledge about us. Making our posts sharable means that our fans will share and like and re-tweet and re post our work. More fans becoming customers means we make more money as an artist.