Art Business Plan
How Your Art or Craft Business Benefits from Good Planning

Developing an art business plan is usually not the first priority for most creative people. Typically our brains like big picture creative work, like creating our art or craft. So working on determining a customer profile, securing insurance and forecasting cash flow and inventory needs either don?t hold our interest, or don?t come easily. I'm convinced that no matter how painful it may be, writing an art or craft business plan is important to the success of an art based business.

Often people feel that the main reason for writing a business plan is to secure financing, so by extension, they feel that if they are financing their business with their own money, they don?t need a plan. Others feel that writing the plan takes too much time away from their "real" business activities and is not worth the investment of time.

Writing a good art business plan helps you get to know your own business on a deep and meaningful level. It carries benefits far beyond securing financing, and while it does take time to write a good plan, it's well worth the effort.

Following are several benefits of having a good business plan:

You'll determine if your ideas will work
Writing a business plan forces you to work out all of the details of each aspect of your business. You'll develop a detailed plan for exactly how you will make your business profitable, as opposed to just carrying a vague idea in your mind. You'll get a sense of the resources you'll need, your costs and whether the business has the potential to become profitable.

You'll set and commit to goals
You will think through monthly, quarterly and annual goals. Committing your thoughts to paper will help to keep you on track when there's no one but you directing the work that needs to be done. It will also help you to periodically review and assess your targets, whether you?ve met them, why or why not and how you will adjust your approach for the future.

You'll investigate the market
The research required to complete an art business plan helps you to get to know your competition and how you compare with them. You'll assess your competitors' strengths and weaknesses and determine how you will outshine your competition and do a better job of meeting your specific customers' needs. An art business plan also helps you to estimate typical profits of businesses like your own in your own geographic area, so you can set some realistic sales goals for your own business.

You'll anticipate possible problems
Thinking through your business systematically and writing it all down often uncovers potential issues that you may not otherwise consider until it's too late. In writing my own business plan, I realized that due to the timing of the launch of my business, I would have to wait several months before entering any juried art and craft shows. This realization helped me to focus on developing other sales venues and let me take advantage of the significant lead time before entering juried shows so I could be very well prepared for my first shows. When you are aware that certain problems may arise before they happen, you will be better prepared to avoid them, deal with them or even turn them into advantages.

You'll develop a marketing strategy
You'll determine your target market, assess the percentage of the market you are likely to reach and plan ways to reach them based on their own unique characteristics. Of course you'll make adjustments along the way, but starting with a well thought out plan in mind is far more effective than random, unplanned marketing.

You'll assess your financial needs
It's amazing how quickly business expenses add up. There's business insurance, travel costs, bookkeeping and accounting, wholesalers' minimum purchase requirements, bank fees, membership fees, industry publications and a long list of other expenses you may not consider unless you carefully think through all of your expenses. The only way to get a good sense of your expenses and cash flow needs is to forecast and write them down.

You'll be positioned to attract investors and/or secure loans
Many artists and crafters typically start with a home based business, and invest their own personal money in the business. However, if you do hope to attract investors, or secure a business loan, an art business plan is absolutely required.

If you are convinced that you need an art business plan, then probably the next thing you'll be looking for is information on exactly how to write one. You'll find plenty of information and resources for writing your business plan in the Craft Business Plan section.