Do your tax: advice from creatives to set you on your way

Image: Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

The month of June means crips winter mornings and cold nights. The idea of bunkering down with a glass of wine or hot chocolate and doing something homely in my spare time is oh so enticing and alluring. However June also means…. tax time is looming.

If you’re anything like me, tax is something that is subject to extreme procrastination because it’s not particularly fun, and I admit numbers send my eyes into a glaze. However, as a creative with a small business and several side hustles on the go its imperative that it’s done right.

So, with June 30 looming, I’ve dived into the trusty CWC blog archives to help whip myself into gear and found some gems from over the years. Here are some useful blog posts which will hopefully set me on the right track, and help you out too.

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Tax Basics for small creative businesses

by Jes Egan.

Just want to be creative and not think about your tax? So do most of us, however there are many administrative tasks to running a small business and sometimes they can get in the way of being creative and doing what you love. Unfortunately, most of these tasks are important and avoiding them can land you in trouble. Here are some tips to help you prepare for your tax. Read more here.

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Organise me - it’s tax time

by Andrea McArthur

Tax time. Time to get serious. The count down to June 30 is on and we only have 5 days left. Now is definitely the time to start thing about your Tax. Below are some ideas to get you thinking about your Tax this year. Read more here.

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My Advice: Staying on top of admin

By Lizzie Stafford

We asked three organised business owners how they stay on top of the books without going insane. In the wise words of potter Ilona Topolcsanyi: “Admin is like a leg wax: if you move quickly, the pain is minimal and the results are pretty damn sexy.” Read more here.

5 blog posts to get you started in 2020

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

2 min read

Now that it’s January, many of us may be reflecting on the year that’s just gone, or looking towards new horizons. There are all sorts of things you might be thinking about in your creative practice. Do you take the leap and start a brand new endeavour? What can you improve with what you are doing now? And how do you start the year in the most organised efficient way?

So, this month we are revisiting the blog archives with some valuable tips, tricks, and reflections to help you along in the new year.

For getting yourself organised…

Andres McArthur

For getting started in January…

Lizzie Stafford

For changing careers this year…

Bec Mackey

For making things happen…

Dannielle Cresp

For understanding why desire and motivation pull us in different directions…

by Emily Willis

Five lessons learnt from working from home with children

When I grew up, I wanted to be an artist, complete with the romantic notion of living in a loft full of canvases, drinking red wine with poets and writers. Alas, my foray into painting at university was less than satisfactory and my creativity took a different path when I discovered gold- and silver-smithing. Tools, gold, gemstones! After becoming a jeweller and working in the industry for several years, my journey took another turn when I decided to become a stay-at-home mum.

For three delightful years, I cooked, cleaned and cared for my son and husband, filling in my spare time with creative hobbies. I began playing with my tools again, and after much urging from family and friends, I started my own business. Over time, I taught myself everything I needed to know as I needed it. While I researched how to run a business, I learnt many lessons on how to run that business with a child, then two children, and now three children...

Five years, and many nappies and sales later, here are five of the lessons I have learnt.

1. Make time instead of finding time

This was a huge mindset shift for me. When I was trying to ‘find’ time, I could only find the odd block of free time. But somehow when I had an appointment booked, it was non-negotiable. When I changed my mindset from hobby to business, I realised I needed to ‘schedule’ in work. If I don’t schedule time to go to the gym, I don’t go. If I schedule in work time, I say no to playdates, ignore the laundry and get to work.

I was told early on that if you give your child ten focused minutes of your time, he or she will give you an hour to yourself. This depends a little on the age and temperament of the child, but I have found that even as toddlers, getting down to my children's level and joining in with them, or simply listening to them fills their cup and they are less likely to even notice that I am now doing my own thing.

Naptimes, nighttime, weekends are all great times to get to work. Depending on the type of work you do, you may be able to work at your laptop while your children play beside you. Think about when you work best. Are you a morning person or a night owl? I know I am fresher in the morning for tasks like writing, while I can do repetitive tasks at night. Schedule time for chores, too. Embrace the flexibility of working from home to create a routine that works for your whole family.

2. Enlist help

I am blessed to have a father-in-law who comes to our house and babysits one day a week. That is my bench day. I have tried working with my children in my workshop, and while it is sweet at first, it almost always ends in disaster. There was the time my toddler dropped a steel block on his toe, which resulted in a trip to emergency to stitch it back together. Or the time another of my little ones drew beautiful pictures all over my professionally printed postcards. Or the time my daughter was playing with my metal ring size gauge, which does make a lovely rattling sound, and which has never been seen again.

If you don’t have the convenience of grandparents, enlist friends for babysitting swaps: you take her child one day, she takes yours the next. The kids get two playdates and you get a whole day of work. Think creatively about other blocks of time you could use to work. My gym offers two-hour crèche sessions, which means I can work out and then write on my laptop in the coffee room before collecting my treasures.

Free up your time in other ways by enlisting help. You may not be ready to hand the reins over to an employee, but perhaps you could hire an intern, get a cleaner, hire a courier to pick up your parcels rather than going to the post office, have your stationary orders delivered instead of picking them up at the store and indulging your paper addiction… Think about your rate of pay as a business owner. Is it worth driving half an hour to pick up that item yourself, or would you be better off paying a ten-dollar delivery fee? Can you hire a bookkeeper, invest in a product photographer or ask for guest articles for your blog to free up your time to do the things that only you can do?

3. Batch your days

When I was working full-time (before there were small humans dependent on me), I answered emails, ordered supplies, posted to social media, did paperwork, did bench work and went to the post office each day. Now, I have themes for each day. It stops me from multitasking and is the best use for my time.

One day might be for emails and ordering, another day is my bench day, another is for scheduling social media and another day for packaging and posting orders. Even if I am interrupted a million times, I know exactly what I am up to that day and there is no time wasted getting out the packing supplies five times a week, or making five trips to the post office.

4. Set boundaries

This applies to both yourself and others. It’s easy to get lost in your workday and forget to make time for your children, too. When your scheduled work time is up, resist the temptation to do just a little bit more and focus on your children instead. Go to the park, take a walk, paint a picture, read them a book, bake with them or do your chores with them. These are the things they will remember. These opportunities are the reason you are working from home.

At first, I felt ‘mama guilt’ whenever I was working, feeling like I should be with my children instead, while with my children I felt guilty that I should be attending to my business. I couldn’t win! Over time, I have realised I need to be where I am in the moment. By scheduling my time I can be present with my children while I am with them and forget about work, and while I am working, I need not feel guilty about expressing my creativity and contributing to our finances.

Setting boundaries for others can be more difficult. I am a people pleaser and try to oblige whatever is requested of me. Oh, you need that tomorrow? Sure, not a problem! Argh! It is your business. You make the rules. Learn to say no. Ask for what you need: the time you need, the money you need, even the help you need from your partner.

 5. Take Sundays off

Your business won’t love you back, but your children will. Early on, I treated my business like a newborn, attending to its every need immediately. Now I realise it is more like a tween. It needs my help, but can exist independently for longer periods of time without my undivided attention. The separation between home life and work life are blurred when you work from home. There is always so much to do on both fronts that it is easy to become overwhelmed.

Several cycles of overachieving followed by burnout have taught me that much of the pressure is of my own design. Everything doesn’t need to be done at once. Give yourself at least one day off a week when you don’t think about work and focus on your family and yourself instead. Reconnect, do self-care, ignore your emails, work on projects for fun with no pressure or financial goals attached to them.

It's not always easy, and I am often asked how I do it all. I think all business owners have a streak of crazy! But the satisfaction of having my children home with me and being able to build a business and watch it grow as they grow has been the best decision I have ever made.

Christina Lowry is a designer and jeweller who creates fine jewellery for creatives. Her work is featured in several Australian galleries, as well as in her online store. Christina fell in love with jewellery making while studying a Bachelor of Fine Art/Visual Art. Each piece is lovingly made by hand in her Brisbane workshop, incorporating precious metals and gemstones and using traditional metalworking techniques. To see more of her work, visit her website, Facebook page, and follow her on Instagram (@christinalowrydesigns).

Photos by Trudi Le Brese Photography

Organise me: 7 fun ways to get organised for 2018

Can you believe it’s already February? If you’re in planning mode for the new(ish) year, you’re not alone. Here are my fun ways for getting organised to make 2018 your best year yet:

1. Write down the crazy big goals you’d like to achieve in 2018. 
They can be business or personal. Use coloured pens and make it look fun to look at. You could draw little pictures next to them, too.

2. Buy a big desk calendar and add monthly goals that will get you closer to your big goals. Make deadlines for the big goals you identified. 
Having goals on a calendar helps make you accountable and can keep you on track. You could colour code your goals and deadlines for personal, business, skills or travel. Pick colours that make you happy to look at.

3. Sketch up how you would like your workspace to look and think about what you could add (or remove) to make it flow better and help you be more efficient. 
Whether it’s a whole room or just your desk, it is so much nicer when everything has a place and you don’t constantly feel buried under mess or can’t find anything.

4. Make a mood board or a Pinterest board for your workspace or desk and treat yourself to something that will help make it a happier place. 
This might mean adding artwork or new in-trays, or hoisting up a peg board or some shelves so you have somewhere to hang all your equipment and can leave your desk top free.

5. Read a book on a topic that interests you. 
This might not seem like an organisational tool, but it might just uncover another goal for the year, or help you learn something that relates to one of your goals. If your goal is to hike in South America, then a book on how to prepare for hiking in those climates could be perfect!

6. Get outdoors and have some fun. 
What does this have to do with getting organised? It helps you to relax and have time to think about what you do and don’t want for the year ahead. It’s hard to get organised and be excited when you’re feeling frazzled, so allow yourself some downtime before you jump deeper into the new year.

7. If you’re feeling particularly crafty, make a vision board with images that represent your goals for 2018 and put it up somewhere to remind you what you’re working toward. 
Grab some cardboard and some old magazines and have fun organising and gluing your vision for the year.

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to work out what we’d like our future to look like and to take baby steps that will set us on the right path. Some goals will be longer term, but it can be fun to think of the things we can start now to get us there.

Have a wonderful 2018!

This post was originally written by Dannielle Cresp in 2014. 

Photo by Kaboompics.com

How to make the most of the holiday season

I’ll let you in on a secret. Every December, I write a business preparation checklist on an A4 piece of paper and stick it into my brand new diary. I tape it in around the October section so I can remember the lessons I learnt this season to be as prepared as possible for the next holiday season. Future Christina is always thankful that I take the time to do this. As a jeweller, the last three months of the year are my busiest, and account for the largest percentage of my earnings. Most small businesses see a rise in sales in the lead-up to Christmas. Being disorganised at this time of year leads to missed opportunities, negative word of mouth and worst still, loss of sales. Managing your time, cash flow, stock and production for the holiday season really begins in January. But fear not! Here's what you can do right now to make the most of the holiday season and be better prepared for next year. Your future self will thank you!

Holiday season business prep checklist

Stocktake consumables: Make a list of the items and packaging you will need between now and the new year. Include everything, then overestimate how much you will need of each item and start stocking up as cash flow allows. For my business, this includes mailers, packaging, business cards, stickers, ribbon, metal, drills, emery, flux and wrapping paper. Most supply businesses shut down before Christmas and open again mid-January. Rushing to order branded gift boxes or ribbon at the last minute is not only stressful, but is time better spent working on revenue earning tasks. Buying in bulk will also save you money with lower prices and postage costs.

Restock your shop: Stock up on all the product offerings you will continue to sell in the new year. For me, this means ordering metal, gemstones and castings, then turning these into products to fill my safe. It can be hard to know which products will be the best sellers during the holidays, but keep in mind that price points between twenty and ninety dollars do well. In my business, earrings sell well as they don’t require resizing like rings do. Review your best sellers for the year and make predictions based on these numbers. Stock up on any items you will be promoting.

Organise a photo shoot: While you are stocking up on products and consumables, stock up on images as well. If you are producing high-quality items, you need high-quality visuals to represent your brand. Consumers are bombarded by images and have higher expectations than they used to. Take the time to plan a Christmas-themed photo shoot with images that will stop your clients mid-scroll. What will your theme be? What will be the focus of your Christmas marketing promotion? Create a Pinterest board of inspiration, gather your props, secure a model or friend, get out your camera or hire a photographer and set aside a few hours to style and shoot your products. If you can aim for thirty images, you will have a library to use across all your platforms in the lead up to Christmas. Use free online editing software like Canva to create Facebook, blog, newsletter and shop headers and save them to a file for Christmas branding. Then these will all be ready to go on December 1st, or whenever you choose to start your Christmas promotions.

Organise a holiday-themed photo shoot for your products

Schedule social media: Once you have the images ready, draft blog posts and newsletters and use scheduling apps to plan your social media. When things get busy, social media is often the first thing we stop paying attention to, but is a huge revenue earner at this time of year. I use Dropbox and Mosaico for this. I can then upload every edited image from the shoot, write a caption, create a list of tags and post to a twice-daily schedule on Instagram.

Review your online presence: Check that your product descriptions are up to date, re-read your policies, check for continuity in your branding. Are you using the same profile image across all social media? Send a dummy email from your contact page to confirm there are no broken links. You don’t want to miss customer inquiries, or confuse customers across platforms with mixed branding.

Promote yourself: Start planning and promoting. How will you reach out to prior customers? How will you engage with new customers? What offers will you use to entice customers to purchase now, rather than putting it off? For my business, I print postcards using an image from my Christmas shoot, hand-write a thank-you note and send it on the 1st of December to every customer I had that year, offering them a ten percent discount online. This is the only discounting I do, as I feel discounting is the death of small business, and value adding (for example, offering a free polishing cloth with an order) is a more sustainable practice. I also create limited numbers of lower-price pieces that include postage and offer them exclusively for sale on Instagram. The limited number, price point and time sensitivity mean they sell quickly. I also offer free upgrades to express shipping as my mailing cut-off approaches.

Set cut-offs: I like to sell up to the last possible moment, but knowing when your cut-off dates are is crucial to ensure you can deliver on your promises. Look at your calendar and write down the last possible dates you can mail products to clients overseas, interstate and with Express Post (keeping in mind that even next-day delivery takes two days in many places in Australia). If you sell your goods wholesale, you will also need to advise your retailers of your wholesale order cut-off date. If they place an order mid-December, will you realistically be able to fill it and keep up with your online sales? I tend to make my wholesale cut-off mid-November, but stay as flexible as I can to serve my retailers right up until Christmas. If you create custom work, you will need another cut-off date. In my industry, client work can involve several different processes, from casting to engraving, handmaking to gem setting, and each of these suppliers are likely stretched to capacity. Jobs that can usually be done in one day take a week at this time of year. Start educating your clients about these cut-offs so you get a manageable flow of orders rather than a flood at the last minute. Keep reminding customers of your cut off dates: include them in your newsletters, on your website and again on social media.

Relax: Schedule time for family, friends and social activities this holiday season. By following the checklist above, you will have more time to spend enjoying the season, not just working through it.

Christina Lowry is a designer and jeweller who creates fine jewellery for creatives. Her work is featured in several Australian galleries, as well as in her online store. Christina fell in love with jewellery making while studying a Bachelor of Fine Art/Visual Art. Each piece is lovingly made by hand in her Brisbane workshop, incorporating precious metals and gemstones and using traditional metalworking techniques. To see more of her work, visit her website, Facebook page, and follow her on Instagram (@christinalowrydesigns).

Photography by Trudi Le Brese Photography for Christina Lowry Designs           

Career change 101: Personal development

Are you thinking about changing careers? Perhaps you’ve been wanting to take up your creative pursuit full time and quit your day job, or maybe you’re taking the leap to start your own business, or doing further study to advance your career in a new direction. Whatever your situation, career change can be a minefield. Once you’ve made the decision to move onto something new, it can be difficult to know to where to start. Should you enrol in a course? Create a website? Ask around for advice and find a mentor? Or should you be networking like crazy to get your foot in the door?

All of these options are important when starting afresh in a new industry, job, or business, and it’s easy to concentrate on the practicalities and neglect to pause and look inward first. But career change, like any major life change, requires cultivating skills that we don’t always think of as relevant to our working lives. So take a look at the steps below before you touch that LinkedIn profile, CV, or website theme.

Reflect on your long-term goals (and not just the career ones)

When at a career crossroads, it can be useful to pause and reflect on the bigger picture of your life. This is your chance to plan your career and work around the life you want to create for yourself. What sort of hours do you hope to work? In what sort of environment would you like to spend your time? How much money do you want/need to earn to keep up your security and lifestyle? How much time would you like to dedicate to your family, social life, and volunteer or “passion projects” outside of work? In other words, it’s a good time to think about what sort of life you want, not just what sort of job/business you want. What is your ideal life, and what sort of working life will help you fulfil this in years to come?

Learn to back yourself

Let’s face it, it can be hard to tune out the voices of criticism when you’ve decided to go against the herd and start something new. There will be plenty of people who try to tell you that you can’t—or shouldn’t—do it. The quicker you learn to shut out those voices, the better. One of the biggest mistakes we all make when initiating a big change is to seek out advice…from anyone who will listen. This invariably leads to a melting pot of opinions that can be confusing at best and discouraging at worst. People project their own fears onto you if they feel threatened by your bravery (because you are taking a brave new step!).

Instead of asking anyone and everyone whether they think you should take the leap and how you should go about it, seek out people you know will champion you. They are the ones you want to hear from; simply tune out the rest. And then concentrate on building your confidence and reminding yourself of your strengths and how they can be applied to your new role.

Cultivate self-discipline

Particularly if you’re looking to leave the world of nine-to-five and pursue your own freelance career or business, you’ll need to recalibrate your working style to ensure you can self-motivate when external deadlines are not present. Even if you’re just looking to move from one industry to another, you’ll need self-discipline to get yourself up to speed on developments in that area, market yourself properly, and get out and meet people who can help you succeed in your new field. Develop a singular focus (eyes on the prize!) and remember why you set out to do this when there are a million other tasks and fun plans vying for your attention.

Get used to being uncomfortable

You probably already know that this career change business is uncomfortable. From the very beginning, even before you’ve made the change, planning to take this sort of leap requires stepping out of your comfort zone. You’ll have to learn new things, develop networks, and put yourself out there in a way you may not have had to do for years (if ever). The good news is that being uncomfortable equals growth, which is exactly what you want: to grow into your new career. Not to mention the fact that once you get comfortable with being uncomfortable, you will find this serves you for years to come as you continue to learn and grow and take on challenges in your new role. Discomfort may not be our preference, but when it comes to creating the career you want, it will be worth it.

Bec Mackey is a writer, teacher, and producer of screen-related things. She uses a decade of experience in the business sides of media and arts to help creative people fund and promote their work in ways that work for them. Bec writes about funding, promotion, creative careers, and life on her website, Brightside Creatives.

How to future-proof your business

Anticipating what will happen in the future is difficult, however, it is something you may want to consider doing to protect and grow your creative business. By considering what future possibilities lie ahead, you might be able to minimise the effects. It may seem like an overwhelming thing to tackle when you’re in the throes of running a creative business, but a little thought and planning can go a long way toward keeping your business running and possibly helping it grow.

Plan Having a business plan is a great place to start, but it isn’t something to “set and forget.” Your plan may need to change as your business grows, markets move, and audience evolve. In your business plan, set goals and don’t forget to track your progress.

Review Don’t get complacent; always keep an eye on what you are offering. Can it be improved upon? What is the market doing? Where are trends going? What and where are opportunities for improvement? You may be onto a good thing now—and hopefully still will be in the future—but markets, trends, and audiences can change, so make sure what you are offering remains relevant and meets the demands of your customers and the market.

Ask your customers regularly what they think. You may think what you are offering is great, but does your audience still think so? Listen to them and watch their behaviour. Is there anything you can do better? Is there something they’d like that you are not currently offering? Ask them face to face, put a survey on your website, do follow-up calls, and so on, to get this information. You’ll gain great insights and can then apply those learnings to your business.

There may be situations when your customers cannot tell you what they want, especially if you are in the innovation space. Think about the iPhone. We didn’t know we needed a device we could use to make a phone call, take photos, play games, and do our banking, but now we need to do all of these things on our phone. Innovating a product that your customers don’t yet know they need is a great way to grow your business and open new market spaces. As Henry Ford famously said, “If I asked people what they wanted, they’d tell me a faster horse.”

Rethink your acquisition strategy regularly. Ways in which you’ve gained new customers in the past may not work for you in the future. Review this often so you can keep adapting.

Watch Observe competitors and your marketplace, watching what is happening around you. Do this by following competitors’ social media feeds (both locally and internationally), reading blogs and industry publications, setting up Google alerts, and so on. If you already have your eye on your own competitive space, start looking at other industries, too, as learning from one industry can be adapted to another. Having an understanding of what is happening around you will keep you and your business on its toes.

Depending on what business you are in (but especially for creative industries), following trends can also be important—even more so if you are riding on them. Watch trend forecasts, keep in touch, and, if needed, adapt your offerings to keep riding that wave.

Experience What can you do when others are offering something similar? How do you stand out from the crowd? Don’t just sell a product or service, make sure to give your audience an experience to remember. It doesn’t have to be elaborate; perhaps it’s the packaging for your product, or how you call the client after delivery to see if everything was okay. Customers are more likely come back if they had a good experience, and repeat business is always good.

Diversify Don’t depend on one section of your business to account for all of your revenue and growth. Find ways to diversify your product folio. If you manage to diversify your offerings, the additional revenue streams can help support your business.

Consider risks Identify and manage risks, both for now and in the future. You can’t predict all future problems, but consider potential risks and map a way to manage them if they do happen. Not sure how? Start with a simple “SWOT” analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) and go from there.

Your day-to-day creative business may keep you incredibly busy, but take some time to think about the future so you’re equally busy—if not more so—down the track.

Jes Egan is a “practical creative” and very busy lady, doing the business in a digital agency, being an artist and a university lecturer. Follow Jes on Instagram (@paper_chap).