Creative Business

Many creative business owners find the business side of art dull, tedious, and maybe even a little scary, but managing your company's money doesn't have to turn into a chore. Here, we've shared tips from the experts on handling the business side of art, from accounting basics to financial software solutions, without losing your mind.

Alexis Planner

Achieving Planner Peace with Alexis Giostra

There’s a new trend that combines the visual impact of cute wall calendars with the precision of an executive Day-Timer and it’s simply referred to as “planners”. The word may be simple, but the concept is not and that can lead to rabid planner passion which rarely leads to planner peace. How does one achieve To Do list nirvana? We invited productivity expert Alexis Giostra over to chat about that very thing. Read carefully and heed her advice and soon, you too will become one with your daily schedule.
Packaging tape

Holiday Helper: Hiring Help

Your holiday To Do list is longer than Santa’s “nice” list but you’ve convinced yourself that with the right amount of organization and only 5 hours sleep a night, you can get it all done before December 25th. That may be so, but the holidays only roll around once a year; don’t you want to enjoy them? When you try to do it all, you miss out on the best moments. You body might make it to your child’s holiday recital but your brain will be at the grocery store gathering ingredients for homemade cookies. And when you bake the cookies with your kids, your brain will be in the garage packing orders. That’s no way to celebrate the season. The solution? Hire some help.
Woman with leaves falling on her

Stalled? It Might Be Time for a Radical Change

How's business? If your answer was anything but, "fantastic", then it might be time for a radical change. Did you just get a shiver down your spine? That's not the Halloween spirit, that's your natural inclination to avoid change - especially "radical" change. But if you've poured everything you have into your online business; the best products, marketing, branding and it's still not paying off the way you hoped, then it's time for something completely different. What? To figure that out, we're going to take a tip from TV's Marcus Lemonis and look at People, Process and Product.
Shoeboxed Screenshot

Easier Expense Tracking with Shoeboxed

It’s great that we can deduct expenses for our small businesses, but it’s a lot of work to track them all on your own. The old way to do this with filing reciepts and keeping a spreadsheet was never really OK at all, was it? There are far less labor intensive options out there. One option I want to show you today is Shoeboxed.com. Watch the video to find out more about how you can automate your expense tracking. Enjoy :)

Going Back to School...Online!

For today’s video blog I wanted to talk about the insanely good value of online learning and all of the opportunities for you to go back to school on the cheap.

I'll be introducing you to Creative Bug, CreativeLive, and Skillshare. If you haven’t been introduced to these platforms yet, you should really keep listening because I think these learning platforms are extremely valuable and relevant to anyone with a creative business.

I really hope you check them out and enjoy :)

Chili pepper bouquet

Spice Up Your Store for Summer

The year is half over. You've been living with your online, IndieMade store for awhile now and it's time for a little change. Not just any change. We say it's time to spice things up! By just making a few changes here and there, you should be on your way to creating some fun new products and getting your customers to take a fresh look at your store!
Girl in cowboy boots

What Emotion Are You Selling?

Think about the last thing you bought that you didn’t absolutely need. Why did you buy that one instead of the one next to it or the one from a different shop? You bought the one you bought because it triggered the right emotional response. We buy a lot of thing because they make us feel happy but we also buy things that make us feel powerful or more spiritual. We even buy things that make us sad. I know that sounds ridiculous but look at the concept of "nostalgia". When we feel nostalgic part of us is happy but part of us feels sad over the loss of that era, so we buy the item to recapture the feel of those days. What emotion are you selling?

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