My Business Plan Presentation

Business plan 2 from Kirstin816

Last Stretch!

We are handing in all our work for this module on Wednesday! Just handed in the Practical Contemporary Creative Practice module today - one down, one to go!

I have spent this evening trying to get a decent chunk of what I have left to do because I am planning on moving more of my stuff into my new studio tomorrow - bad time to move studios, I know... But all I have left to finish now is my business plan, my 2, 5 and 10 year plan, bibliography, then I just need to bind my proposal and plan and go through everything to make sure it's all there. I think I'm doing okay for time - I will spend a good portion of the day working on the module to relieve some of the pressure for Wednesday.

Presentation Feedback

I have just presented my business plan to the tutors and a few class-mates, and the feedback that I got was that my giclee prints and greeting cards are priced too cheap. I am selling my 20x16" giclee prints for £45, and my 16x12" giclee prints for £25, greeting cards £2.50 each or 3 for £6. It was suggested that I put my price for 16x12" prints up to £30 or maybe even £35, put my prices for 20x16" up to £50 or £55, and cards could be sold for £4.50.

Here is how I have worked out the costs for the products...

I have been told that for the time, I should be paying myself at least minimum wage, which my tutors told me is about £7.80 an hour. But, for my age group 21-24 it's £6.95, however is £7.20 for 25+ (National minimum wage and national living wage rates, 2016). So maybe I should put the time up by £0.20 to meet that wage. 

For the time-being, I am quite happy to keep my prices as they are. However, I will increase the prices in the next couple of months.

Giclee Prints 16x12" will be increased from £25 to £30

Giclee Prints 20x16" will be increased from £45 to £50

Greeting Cards will be increased from £2.50 or 3 for £6 to £3 or 3 for £8

New Studio!

On Sunday, I got my key for my new studio in the Foxlowe Creative Hub in Leek. Before I started to strip any of the wallpaper, I filmed a brief overview of the "before" stage. I am hoping to start to decorate this week and move in within the next two weeks.

Updated Events Page

I have updated my Events Page on my website as it was a bit out of date. I have added the Totally Locally Leek Market and the Pop Up Shops at Stoke Station for December - I will be doing a Pop Up Shop on Platform 1 of Stoke Station every Friday of December leading up to Christmas. I have also added a Christmassy banner at the top of each event to make them more season-appropriate.

YouTube

I have been doing my competitor analysis' and 3 of the artists who I am looking at for my analysis have YouTube channels and it seems to be a bit of a catalyst in selling their work (I could be wrong as I think they started out on other social media), but it is at least a really great way of communicating with their audience and reaching possibly a broader audience as that's where I discovered all three of them. It is also a really personal way of communicating with your audience because the audience develop a relationship with them in their mind as they feel like they become friends with the video creator. So I am thinking about doing some YouTube videos, starting out by doing a time-lapse video of me painting something and go from there.

Etsy Photos

I have just found a really good website which allows you to put your paintings/artwork on a wall in a living space. It's called ohmyprints.com

I have used one of these photos as my primary photo for this painting and I think it looks really effective. It will be a great tool to use to get my photos looking consistent.

Competitor Analysis

Today I started looking into my competitors more deeply, however, for some reason I've been having trouble writing and forming sentences, so for now, I will leave you with links to my competitors' social media accounts.

Katie Jobling

Website http://www.katiejobling.com
Youtube https://www.youtube.com/Katie%20Jobling
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/katiejoblingart/
Twitter https://twitter.com/katiejoblingart
Pinterest https://uk.pinterest.com/katieljobling/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KatieLJobling/?fref=ts
Etsy https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KatieJobling?ref=condensed_trust_header_icon_items

Paige Poppe

Website http://www.paigepoppe.com

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJmbr8VabFm1298H7YDJig

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/paigepoppe/

Twitter https://twitter.com/PaigePoppe

Pinterest https://uk.pinterest.com/paigepoppe/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/paigepoppeart/?fref=ts

Etsy https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/PaigePoppe?ref=search_shop_redirect

Lena Danya

Website http://lenadanya.com

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/LenaDanya

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/LenaDanya/

Twitter https://twitter.com/LenaDanya

Tumblr http://lenadanya.tumblr.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LenaDanyaPage/

Rob Wilson

Website http://www.robwilsonart.co.uk

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Robwilsonart/

Twitter https://twitter.com/robwilsonart

Clare Allan

Website http://www.clareallanart.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Clare-Allan-Art-592545420772012/?fref=ts

Starting Business Plan...

Today we started our Business Plans - we have been working out all our costings which has been quite stressful because I thought that I wasn't charging enough for my smaller paintings because I was factoring in all these things like the paper, paint, market costs, Etsy fees, and time, and I forgot that the money for the time is what I get paid - I was worried that I wasn't going to be making any money. But after realising that the time is what I get paid, I was much more optimistic about it working out.

Slight Change of Plan...

Instead of spending the £250 budget on painting phone cases, printing artwork onto phone cases etc., I am going to be spending it on creating a set of new paintings from which I will create giclee prints, greeting cards and postcards from. The ideas for the paintings remain the same - mainly watercolour, small, local landscapes.

Presentation Feedback

Business presentation from Kirstin816

People thought that I was undervaluing and underpricing my work - my hand-painted phone cases that I wanted to charge £15 for, people thought were WAY too cheap and someone mentioned her friend that waited for 4 weeks and spent £100 on a phone case, and referred me to hand-painted phone cases on zazzle. So I need to think about charging much more for my hand-painted phone cases.

Also, people helped me come to the conclusion that markets are a waste of time and money because people just DON'T want to spend more than £10/£15 and they just go for a browse. People suggested approaching local shops and cafe's, local attraction information centres for selling my paintings, prints and greeting cards.

I need to clean up my website and Etsy and try to improve my branding and photographs because it is too "busy".

Also, thinking about it... I think I would like to keep the focus on my artwork like my paintings, giclee prints and cards for now, maybe put my paintings on postcards...

Searching For Where to Print my Products...

Printed phone cases - the cheapest I have found is from Vistaprint... The cost of the product "on offer" is £8.74, shipping is £2.99, and if I were to sell them for £9.99 each, I would have to buy about 5 at a time to get profit out of them...

Mugs - I have found mrnutcase.com to print my mugs; it has no/little white border, dishwasher safe, and costs £4.95 to print! Delivery is £3.95 so all together it costs £8.45, and if I order more than one, it would be better, but I will order one for now to test it... I will be selling my mugs for £9.99 each.

Week 3

Unfortunately, I missed last week's session because I went to an induction at the University so I felt a bit lost this week with what to do. I had started the Business Proposal and SWOT Analysis that was shared on the group Facebook page for those of us who weren't in the session to complete. I started trying to fill it in but I got a little bit stuck on it... I'll figure it out.

I had a one-on-one with the tutor this afternoon, I showed her what I already have - a website, an Etsy shop, logo, etc. We decided that I could do an Open Studio event at my shared studio space, the shoestring budget of £250 could go towards that - advertising, making products to sell, etc.

I need to update the About page on my website, I need to take some better photos on Etsy and get some consistency on there with the photos and branding.

We also discussed my idea of phone cases which she thinks is a good idea - if I were to hand-paint them, I could use second hand phone cases and upcycle those, and the designs of them could come from sections of my paintings to be more abstract, for example a section of my Twisted Tree painting below.

She suggested the idea of scarves and I really like the idea of printing my paintings, oil and watercolour, on scarves.

I think mugs might be a good idea, I have had one mug printed but there was a white border round the top and bottom so I'd like to find somewhere who can print it where there is no white border.

I also had some other ideas:

For now, I will explore the phone cases, small paintings, prints, cards, scarves, and mugs...