The Artist Business Loop

Today I am excited to introduce the Artist Business Loop to you. If you are an artist it will improve your ability to think business. The knowledge gained from the Artist Business Loop is fundamental if you want to be (more) successful.

The Artist Business Loop will help you to focus your resources and to make the right decisions. This gives you confidence to follow your path and to share your inspiration with the world. And yes, it’s easy to understand and to apply.

The basics

Figure 1 shows the basic Artist Business Loop. I quickly guide you through:

• Let’s say your ‘ability to sell art’ goes up. As a consequence, and indicated by the blue arrow with the S (for same direction), you will earn more ‘money’
• If you have more money, the ‘necessity of non-art jobs’ (for example working in a café) goes down. This is shown by the red arrow with the O (for opposite direction). At the same time, your ‘time and energy left for art’ will go up
• As a result your ‘production of art’ will increase. That means you create more paintings, songs, poems etc. or at least pieces of higher quality. And finally, if you have more or better products to offer your ‘ability to sell art’ will increase even more so and the Loop starts over again
• Consider that this Loop could also turn out to work against your goal of becoming (more) successful. Imagine for example that your ‘ability to sell art’ decreases, or ‘your production’ of art goes down. If you go through the Loop again you will discover that the Loop has become a nasty vicious circle, the Artist Vicious Circle

Revenue, costs and profit

We detail the Loop now step by step. First, we replace ‘money’ with ‘revenue’ and ‘profit’.

‘Revenue’ is the income you earn over a period of time. And ‘profit’ is the surplus left from revenue after paying all your costs. The difference between revenue and profit is costs.

Figure 3 shows how ‘costs’ effect your artist business.

‘Costs’ stem from the ‘production of art’ (and other sources, not shown here) and they reduce ‘profit’. The Loop shows, that as your ‘production of art’ increases, so do your ‘costs’. If your ‘costs’ go up your ‘profit’ however, goes down.

Here are the relevant equations if you want to do some calculations:
COSTS = REVENUE – PROFIT
PROFIT = REVENUE – COSTS

‘Revenue’ is typically calculated as follows:
REVENUE = PRICE x QUANTITY

Tax

Don’t forget tax. If your ‘taxes’ increase, your ‘profit’ decreases. If your ‘taxes’ go down, your ‘profit’ goes up. This is shown by the red ‘O’ connector (O for Opposite). Our ‘profit’ is a profit after tax. (Figure 4)

How to trigger the Artist Business Loop to your success

As shown in Figure 4, the Artist Business Loop consists of 6 elements in the inner circle: 1. ‘ability to sell art’, 2. ‘revenue’, 3. ‘profit’, 4. ‘necessity of non-art jobs’, 5. ‘time and energy left for art’, and 6. ‘production of art’.

Moreover, there are 2 external triggers shown: ‘tax’, and ‘costs’ which put pressure on the Loop.

Applying the Artist Business Loop

When you think about your creative business, you should think of positive triggers. Triggers that bring your Artist Business Loop into a positive twist. I give you some simple examples:

• Creativity
  Creativity would be a positive input into ‘production of art’. If you increase creativity, your production is very likely to improve
• Time Management
  Better time management skills would put a positive effect on ‘time and energy left for art’. So would Healthy Food, if you focus on energy enhancement
• Marketing
  Increased marketing activities would help to spread your message. This will increase your ‘ability to sell art’, too

If you integrate these measures into the Artist Business Loop, it looks as follows (Figure 5).

Now do apply the Artist Business Loop for yourself. Draw it on a sheet of paper and find some more triggers. Analyse how they effect the elements of the Loop. Then decide what triggers or actions you want to focus on.

If you have questions or comments, do post them now below. I will be happy to answer them to help you.

The Artist Business Loop within the Spread Your Talent Framework

The Artist Business Loop is part of the framework I use when working with clients: The Spread Your Talent Framework. It’s the most comprehensive solution I know of. And it will grow you into a (more) successful artist!

The Spread Your Talent Framework consists of 5 pillars:

1. UNDERSTAND

2. BUILD

3. SPREAD

4. RELATE

5. GIVE

I don’t go into details regarding the pillars now. But I want to show you where they are located in the Artist Business Loop.

You can find pillar 2 to 5 as triggers in the Artist Business Loop v1.1 (Figure 6). BUILD effects ‘production of art’ and SPREAD , RELATE and GIVE pay into your ‘ability to sell art’. UNDERSTAND is not shown as the Artist Business Loop itself is part of the UNDERSTAND pillar.

Congratulations! You have worked yourself through the full article. Now you have a better foundation for success than 95% of all artists and creative people out there!

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