The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
348 - 5-Minute Mentoring: 5 Tips for Conquering the Business Side of Art
Profit and loss statements. Shipping and insurance. Website updates. Taxes. Marketing strategies. 😳
The never-ending to-do list of business is enough to make you want to tear your hair out (or lock yourself in your studio and never come out!)
The truth is, building a business is a whole new set of skills that a lot of us haven’t mastered yet!
But if you really want to take your art from a hobby to a full-fledged business, you’ve got to figure this stuff out!
That’s why on this episode of 5-Minute Mentoring, I’m sharing my 5 tips for conquering the business side of art…
…so you can create, grow, and share your gift while also experiencing God’s provision in your life!
And when you’re ready to build a business that helps you thrive spiritually, artistically, and financially? Here are 4 ways I can help:
1️⃣ Get my FREE Guide, “5 Biggest Mistakes Artists Make When Pricing Their Art” Struggling to price your art in a way that feels authentic to you and your faith - but still makes you money? Make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes! Download here
➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/5-biggest-mistakes-when-pricing-art
2️⃣ Read the Book: Check out my book “How to Price Your Art: Pricing with Confidence for Sales & Profit” on Amazon ➡️ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XBP733
3️⃣ Create Art and Profit: Discover how to create the art you love while still providing for yourself financially in my “How to Price Your Art” workshop.
Get more details here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/how-to-price-your-art-evergreen
4️⃣ Ready to truly thrive? Join the Created to Thrive Artist Mentoring Program to discover how to build your art business and live the abundant life Jesus promised you as an artist in His Kingdom! Click here for details and to enroll! ➡️ https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/artmentor.html
Connect with me online: https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/stay-connected
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If you're like most artists, the business side of things can be a big frustration. I'm going to give you five tips today for conquering the business side of your art business today here on 5-Minute Mentoring.
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SPEAKER_00:God created you to be. Well, hey, my friend, I'm so glad that you're with me today here again on 5-Minute Mentoring. You know, if I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times from artists all over the world. Matt, I love to make art, but the business side of things is driving me crazy. What does that mean? Building your website, doing taxes and bookkeeping and keeping up with all the expenses and all the things that it just takes to run a business. You know, if you listen to this podcast at all, or if you've been a part of our mentoring program or read any of my books, you know that my belief is that As an artist, you are equally an entrepreneur and an artist. Otherwise, you have a hobby and that's wonderful, but you can't have business dreams with hobby habits. And so being an artist in the marketplace means that you've got to be an entrepreneur at the same time. And part of that is learning to do all the business-y things that it takes to run your business. I want to give you five tips today that I've found over the years really have helped me to kind of contextualize what it means to to really conquer the business side of things. And the first one is kick fear to the curb. You know, the enemy is always trying to come at us and stand in our way and create this sort of mirage of destruction, you know, and sort of this, you know, mirage of inadequacy, this mirage of non-qualifiedness, you know, that somehow your lack of knowledge is going to, everybody's going to find out about it and you're going to fail and you're going to be horrible and oh, The IRS is going to carry you off because you did one form wrong and all the stuff that he comes at us with. That's why the only way to kick fear to the curb is through the renewing of your mind. Romans 12 says, don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I love teaching artists how to renew their mind over the years. God gave me a simple way to do that. And when you see artists starting to renew their mind, of According to the word of God, not according to their feelings, not according to their experiences, not according to what the world tells them or what their friends have told them or what they see. But by faith, all of a sudden, life begins to change and you can change the movie. the inner narrative, the picture that's going on inside of you. And you can absolutely kick fear to the curb. That is the number one thing you have to do in order to start conquering the business side of art. Because otherwise, trust me, the enemy will keep you in absolutely freak out mode all the time, thinking that you're the only person that's struggling with this. And trust me, you are not the only one. In fact, I can think of so many stories of artists who've come through the mentoring program who, when they start getting a hold of, renewing their mind and then start getting the confidence to start building their business. They go out and they get their business license or they set up their corporate entity or they set up their business bank account. And it's like, I just want to kick myself, they say, over the years because all the years they stayed in fear. and being freaked out about doing it wrong or not knowing what to do. And it was simple, but they had to kick fear to the curb. All right. Number two, I would say is then gain knowledge, because the thing the enemy is beating you up about is really a knowledge issue. You don't know how to do this. You don't know how to do that. You don't have the experience in this. So guess what? Go gain the knowledge. The Bible says that my people perish for what? Lack of knowledge. Well, knowledge is something that you can get. Listen, you can get knowledge anywhere you want to. You can read books. You can go to classes. You can go to YouTube. You can accelerate the process by being in a program like Created to Thrive where we lay everything out for you all in one place. But listen, gain the knowledge that you need, all right? Be intentional about that. That is huge because you've got to learn the practical things. Again, you don't have the luxury of just thinking that, all of this is just going to magically appear. You're an artist and an entrepreneur. All right. So kick fear to the curb, gain the knowledge that you need. Number three, be intentional about the business side of things. What does that mean? That means give yourself the time and the space to be able to do that just like you give yourself time and space in your studio habit. If you are 50% an artist and 50% an entrepreneur, then you're going to have to give time and space and resource to what? Building your website and marketing and posting on social media and going to shows and maybe going to networking events in your area and learning about online advertising. You're going to have to learn those things to gain the knowledge. So be intentional. Set aside the time. on your schedule to do that every week, every month, all right? Number four, then, once you have kicked fear to the curb, once you're starting to gain knowledge, once you're being intentional, number four is take action. I read a book years, years ago called Eat That Frog, and I think it was by Brian Tracy. It's just an old classic self-help motivation book. And the whole premise of that book was, hey, listen, whatever you're procrastinating about, do that first during the day so that you get it out of the way. Eat the frog first. And I was like, that's such a great analogy. And I want to encourage you to do the same thing. Whatever it is, whether it's filing your taxes, paying your sales tax, whether it's updating your website or whatever, don't keep pushing that to the back of your schedule. Do it right up front. Get up first thing in the morning, eight o'clock in the morning, fresh start. Get that thing done. Check it off your list and then be like, yes, now I can go create art and do the things that I love to do. Don't let fear and procrastination hang over your head all day long for weeks at a time because you're afraid of doing something or doing something wrong. And then lastly, I would say find a mentor. When you can actually work with somebody who's done the things that you want to do, who's laid out the process for you already, who's already stepped in the potholes, and you can just ask them how to begin to walk in this way and follow their lead. Listen, it accelerates your journey in a huge way. We have so many artists in our mentoring program over the years who said, Matt, I've been to art school. I've owned my own business. There's a woman several years ago, she said, Matt, I have my doctorate degree in a You know, masters of divinity and a doctorate, been in ministry all these years. She said, I've learned more from you about the kingdom of God than I did in all of that combined. I have people all the time that say, man, we come into the mentoring program. I've learned more about running an art business than I ever learned in art school. Why? Because they found a mentor. who's actually doing what they want to do, who's done it, who's laid out the process for them in the pathway and it accelerates their journey so that instead of having to take years and years and years to see success, they can start seeing that faithful income stream and that momentum begin to build in their life very, very quickly. Listen, my friend, if you'll kick fear to the curb, if you'll gain the knowledge you need, be intentional about it, take action on a daily basis, do the hard things first and then find a mentor whether it's me or somebody else to help you along the way. I promise you that you can begin to conquer the business side of things and get on to doing the thing that God created you to do as an artist. I love you, my friend. Remember, until next time, you were created to thrive. All right, bye.