Seven Days, Seven Jobs

For me, one of the hardest things about running a creative business is finding the most productive way to manage my time.  I have a lot going on.  And there are only seven days in a week. 

I am realizing that lately I have let myself get confused about the difference between being productive and bringing in an income.  It's easy to look at these two things as one and the same, but in reality, when you're running a creative business, being productive may not necessarily mean bringing in immediate revenue.  A lot of the time, it actually means setting yourself up to bring in future revenue while you work diligently with no immediate payoff. 

Ideally, if I could spend my whole week making jewelry with occasional teaching thrown in, I would be a happy girl.  But right now, I have 7 jobs.  Yes, SEVEN.

1. Making my own artwork/portfolio/gallery pieces. 
2. CopperTide (production jewelry work)
3. CopperDog Studio (etched copper dog tags, ornaments, etc. with 10% of proceeds going to animal rescue groups.)
(And let's not forget the marketing of all of the above, but we'll just include that as part of each of those jobs.)
4. Teaching (regular weekly classes at Sawtooth School for Visual Art and occasional weekend workshops traveling elsewhere.)
5. NC Black Co. (tool fabrication and design, and sometimes I teach with them as well)
6. Apprenticeship/Assistant to Betty Helen Longhi
7. Helping unpack/organize art, ship orders, refurbish machines for Art-o-Mat

While the last four provide more predictable and immediate income, it's the first four that are the most important to me and make the me the happiest.  Not that I don't enjoy the others or appreciate the opportunities afforded from each one.  It's just too much.  On top of the new-old-house that we bought a couple of months ago, with all of its new-old-house issues that must be dealt with, mostly by me, plus home chores, cooking, etc.  I don't get a lot of studio time to work on those first three.  So I know I need to adjust and not overextend myself into these other jobs that aren't focusing on my work.  But can I afford to lose the immediate income?  Will it pay off in the end if I can focus my energies properly on my work and marketing it well?  I'd like to think so.  But right now, I have bills that don't really want to wait for future payoff. 

So what to do? 

Well, leave it to Megan Auman at 'Designing an MBA' to have the perfect post!  "Making Multiple Revenue Streams Work for Your Business."  She's a clever girl, that one. Her first piece of advice in this post is to think of yourself as one business with multiple components.  Even though you may have very different facets of your work, if you think of them all as one package, or your one brand, it becomes easier to work with the natural ebb and flow of the business(es) and focus on the aspect of the business that needs the most attention at the time rather than trying to fit it all in and do everything at once.  Seriously, go read her post if you can relate to anything I'm talking about here today.  It's amazing how much you can change just by changing the way you look at things.

So I'm going to try to consolidate the way I am thinking about my jobs to :

1. My work
2. Teaching
3. Working for other people

And maybe if it's a little easier to wrap my brain around it like this, it will be easier for me to make time to do what I need to do. 

Now... off to the studio!  (And I've got a pretty sweet new space!)

CopperDog Studio

Mark and I have been super busy trying to get everything ready to launch our new business, CopperDog Studio!

The idea for CopperDog came about when we finally realized we couldn't keep ALL the stray buddies we came across, but we still wanted to do something to help out local rescue organizations. As you know, we do have an adopted kitty, Gabardine, and our adopted pup, Buster.   We came across another stray dog a little while ago, and unfortunately we couldn't keep him.  But we met so many kind and helpful people and organizations in the search for a home for Fat Boi (not our name for him), that we were more inspired than ever to get this business going.

We make handmade etched copper dog tags and pet portraits. All of our products are custom made.  10% of proceeds are donated to local rescue organizations in the hopes that we can help more sweet pets find good loving homes!

We're really excited about this, and we're in the initial stages of launching the business.  I'm going to try to do this right, and I may be already jumping the gun.  (I probably am.)  We have business cards and postcards on the way from vistaprint.  Above is the postcard.  I posted our first products, handmade etched copper dog tags on our etsy page yesterday evening, and posted a few pics on the new facebook page!  Please click and "like" us!

I'm still working on my "Marketing for Makers" home study course, and I have already learned a lot.  I know I have a lot more to learn, and I will share things as I go.  But I was excited, and I had to go ahead and share CopperDog Studio with you!

More to come as we get rolling!  Stay tuned!

Reality Check

I never stop being busy.  With work stuff, with life stuff, with fun stuff, it's always something.  I did take a break last month for a week-long family vacation at Hilton Head Island, SC.  It was fabulous.  The beach is my favorite place ever, and this was a beautiful one.  We were there to watch Hurricane Irene pass by the SC coast before slamming into the Outer Banks of NC and going on to wreak havoc on the Northeast.

This was taken at about 11:30am, about 30 seconds before the torrential downpour.  Gorgeous to be able to watch it come in like that.

This was about 8:00pm when the rain finally let up.  Love it.

Ahhh, the beach.  Ever-inspiring.  For more photos, visit my photostream.

When we got back, we had no cable or internet for a week.  Thanks, Irene.  But we got it easy... poor Vermont.  Even though it did put me waaaaaaay behind, work-wise.  So I have been playing catch-up ever since.  So busy.

So Mark and I are busy launching a new business - you know, one's not enough... - CopperDog Studio.  It gets its own post soon, I promise.  But I figured I better step up my marketing efforts for both businesses.  We have high hopes for CopperDog, so I gotta get on it.  I have posted a few teasers and sneak peeks on my facebook page, but that's about it for public interaction.  My goal is to get it ready for orders this week.  Whew!

Back to the marketing efforts:  I signed up for an e-course called "Marketing for Makers" by Megan Auman, author of Crafting an MBA.  I highly recommend her blog, and I have a feeling I will highly recommend this e-course, too, when I'm done with it.  I just started with Lesson One this morning, and already it's forced me to really look at my current business statistics and to make goals for six months to a year from now.  (Also, Google Analytics is a must-have if you have any sort of online business.  If you don't have it already, go get it, it's free.)  I have a bad habit of just taking in the sales when they come - I keep a record for taxes, etc, but usually the money goes right back into the business.  So I haven't really taken an in-depth look at statistics and averages, etc, until now.  It's very interesting, but a little depressing to be quite honest, when I compare it to how much I would have been making at my old job - which wasn't that great either, but I could live on it comfortably and even build up a little savings.  Which is a goal I have for my craft business, but I do realize that starting any business you usually don't make any money for the first three years or so.  So this course guides you through setting goals for the immediate future as well as the a little further on down the road.  Plus it's not just about setting goals for sales, it's about setting goals for your marketing efforts.  I'm really excited to get this going, and I'll report more as I learn more. 

Now, I'm off to the Visual Arts Center of Richmond to make some enamel samples for some of the workshops I'll be teaching this fall!  They start this coming weekend, Sept. 17-18, so if you know of anyone who would be interested in Micro Raising or Enameling in the Richmond VA, Winston-Salem NC, or Ridgefield CT areas, have them look us up!  They're all going to be super-fun!  Ok, shameless plug, but seriously it would be a great time, and I need more people to sign up so that all the workshops will make, especially these first few! 

Check back soon for more info and to hear about CopperDog Studio for all you puppy-lovers out there!

Thanks for reading!

SNAG Conference - Seattle, WA (Part 2)

At the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) Conference this year, I attended a professional development seminar that focused on the topics of Niche Marketing and Photographing Your Work.  Just thought I would share a couple of highlights from the seminar here.

Niche Marketing was the part that I was really looking forward to, but while they had good speakers who talked about the niches that they were able to break into, there was not a whole lot of information about how to go about establishing yourself in your niche or really much on marketing at all.

The first presenter was Hilary Pfeifer with her alter ego Bunny with a Toolbelt. 

I got this image off her etsy page.  Super cute custom cake toppers.  (Plus it made me think more about persuing the wedding niche with my copper cone boutonnieres.)

Then there was Emiko Oye who makes jewelry out of legos!  Also delightful.

She had some good information to share:

- You want good professional quality photos.

- Balance your exhibition work with your production work.  People will see your big exhibition work and maybe can't afford it, but might be inspired to buy something from your production line.  (I thought this was great advice and definitely something to try to remember, because I know I can get so caught up with one or the other depending on my current situation that I will forget entirely about the other for a while.)

- Be accessible.  Be online, but also in galleries - you will get a lot of exposure online, but people also like to touch the work, try it on, and see the craftsmanship with their own eyes - things that you lose on the web.

- Get involved in your community.  You'll make great connections for future opportunities.

Then there was Deb Stoner who found her niche in eyewear.

Her advice was this:

- Teach what you know.  Become the expert in your niche.  (Hers is a great niche because there are only about two other people known for making custom art eyewear, period.)

- Curate a show. (Now this is not really realistic for emerging artists like myself, I think you have to be rather established in your field to even consider this as a possibility, but I could be mistaken.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here, and I'll get in on that!!!)

- In addition to doing work for jobs (for money), make time to do what you love.  It will keep you interested and it will keep your work and your teaching fresh. 

So definitely some good advice from some very interesting and talented artists, but not a whole lot of info on making your work fit into a niche.  So I found this blog posting  4 Ways to Make Your Products More Niche, and I think there's some good information in there as well. 

So check all that out, and I'll be back later on to share some info about photographing your work.  Until then, thanks for reading!