Season 4 – epiBLOG 24:
The holidays are upon us. It’s the “season of giving,” as they say. Delicious foods. Visiting family and friends. Holiday décor. The whole nine yards.
No matter what you celebrate this time of year, please be sure to continue to take the time to “give” to your business and to your clients. Your artistic business must continue to thrive – even during the holidays. So, how do you balance it all when you’re feeling pulled in different directions?
Today’s topic is on how to effectively work through the holidays as an entrepreneurial artist.
Depending on the industry that you work within, some of you may find that business is slower this time of year because clients and other businesses that you depend on are in the middle of determining budgets for the upcoming year. For others of you, business may have just picked up the day after Thanksgiving. Regardless of which category you fall within, your business has to continue to survive, and more desirably, thrive during these joyous times.
Continue to celebrate whatever traditions you celebrate, but be sure to fit actions in your schedule that move your career forward no matter what.
ACTIONS TO TAKE EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE BUSY WITH THE HOLIDAYS:
- Set time aside each week to create and/or work on a personal project as an artist. For example, if you’re a writer, maybe you write 3-4 pages on your book or your script. If you’re chef, create a new recipe. If you’re a musician, write/compose a new song. If you’re a painter, paint for an hour a week. If you’re a graphic designer, draw sketches or whatever excites you. This will keep your creative juices flowing and will be a physical and mental reminder of why you became an artist in the first place. Being excited and joyful is crucial to your career just as much as ambition is.
- Follow up with clients to see if there is anything that you can do to help them with a need that you both might have overlooked in the past. Always think: “How can I help?” Following up with people not only lets them know that you care about them, but that you are actively taking steps to help them to move forward. Follow ups can be done via email, a phone call, or even a text, depending on the nature of your business relationship with a client. This is where many artists fail. They don’t follow up with people at all, not just around the holidays, but throughout the year in general. In doing so, they become the clichéd “starving artist.” Trust me… money is in your follow up with people. You don’t go after people for money, but the money follows AFTER you take action to sincerely help others with the service and/or product that you provide as an entrepreneurial artist. Be authentic.
- Attend networking events when and where possible. Christmas is a great time to easily connect with others. People tend to be in a great mood. You may not immediately get business from these networking events, but these events can foster a strong beginning to a business relationship that can evolve over a lifetime.
- Be sure to take great care of the projects that you are currently working on for clients. This will take balancing a work and a personal schedule that you create and are responsible for following through on. Meet your deadlines, and if and when possible, submit your work before the deadline. Your client will always remember you for this because you made what was important to them, important to you.
Today’s LESSON is to balance your work schedule no matter what circumstances are taking place in your life.
FUN ASSIGNMENT: Set a fun “mini” goal directly related to your artistic career that you can realistically accomplish over the course of the remaining three weeks of 2017. What have you been pushing aside that you can easily get done if you set a goal and create the actions to materialize that goal?
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