As a creative entrepreneur, you might find yourself in a constant struggle between following your artistic vision and running a successful business. After all, you want to create something unique, but at the same time, you need to make a living out of it.

I know this only too well, as when I first started my creative business, many around me queried whether I would manage to turn my passion into a viable offering. I was previously working in a corporate role and with a young family, it was important to be able to maintain the same level of income. I had to ensure I could generate a living from my business quickly, and at the same time, it was so important to me to LOVE what I was doing in a day to day role that incorporated my creativity.

Finding the right balance between creativity and business can be challenging, but it is CERTAINLY POSSIBLE. I would love to share some tips with you, that will help you achieve this BALANCE and THRIVE as a creative business owner.

set clear goals & priorities

To balance creativity and business, it's essential to set clear goals and priorities for your work.

I believe it’s so important that your goals must genuinely excite you, these are not labourous tasks, but a clear vision of something that will bring huge value and benefit into your life. Goals that you will continue to strive for, particularly when you hit obstacles and come up against challenges.

They also should be a mixture of big, audacious goals, ones that may well scare you a little (or a lot, but in a healthy, positive way!) and goals that you can see yourself achieving relatively quickly. The mixture between exciting and realistic goals will help you to keep focussed.

Within a Journal or Notepad, write your weekly, monthly and annual goals, both the realistic and your audacious ones, and make sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Alongside your goals, it’s essential to set financial targets. With a clear head, work out the exact income you need to generate from your business, to ensure you can have a balanced lifestyle, and include these figures alongside your goals.

When you have clear goals and financial targets written down, to refer back to, it becomes much easier to focus on what's important and help you to avoid getting sidetracked by distractions.

stay organised & efficient

Running a successful creative business requires high levels of organisation and efficiency. The wonderful balancer in life is time. We all have the exact same amount of time available, the same 24hours in each day. And it is up to each of us to decide how we will allocate our time.

You can use tools like project management software and time tracking apps, to streamline your work and stay on top of deadlines and to help you steadily work towards each of your goals. I have tried many different software platforms, but often find they are unnecessarily complicated, if you prefer minimalism like me, simply create a series of tables in a word document, one for each week, accounting for seven days and add your daily tasks. I then colour each box once a task is complete, which I find really satisfying!

Create a schedule for your workday, either using a dedicated platform or create your own, and prioritise your tasks based on their importance and urgency.

By staying organised and efficient, knowing at the start of each week and day exactly what you have to do, you'll be able to focus and start your projects quickly, without wasting time, and ultimately, you will be able to devout more time to the creative aspects of your business that you love.

collaborate with like-minded brands & individuals

Collaboration is a brilliant way to balance creativity and business, and grow your audience and brand. It’s essential to find like-minded individuals who share your creative vision and work ethic, and collaborate with them on projects that can benefit both of you.

Ideally you are looking for a brand outside of your own field, but with a similar style and ethos. It’s great to collaborate with a mixture of brands that are both smaller and bigger than you. Interestingly, I have found some of my most successful collaborations have been when I have partnered with much smaller businesses. These smaller businesses have a huge advantage as often they have very loyal and strong relationships with their customers, which is very powerful when it comes to collaborations.

Whether with big or small brands, the most successful collaborations are the ones when both parties are aligned in their vision and where they both benefit equally.

Collaborations can help you expand your creative ideas, learn new skills, and gain exposure to new audiences. Plus, they can be a great way to share the workload and reduce the stress of running a specific project.

KEEP LEARNING & GROWING

As a creative entrepreneur, it's so important to keep learning and growing. Almost everything in business moves at a fast pace, with trends, technology and your customers’ needs changing regularly. Throughout the last ten years we have continually evolved, and explored and embraced new concepts, offerings and systems, and I am certain this is one of the key reasons for our continued success.

There are so many free resources available online, including publications to read, videos to watch and podcasts to listen to. And for areas where you want to deep dive, there are incredible workshops, online courses, books, and networks with other creative professionals you can join, to stay up-to-date with the latest trends, techniques and systems in your field.

By continuously improving your skills and knowledge, you'll be able to create more innovative and unique work, which can help you stand out in a crowded market.

And, for me, this ongoing learning helps me to continually find new solutions and streamline my processes, so I can become more efficient as my business grows, and maintain an ongoing passion and excitement for all my projects. I’m sure the same will be for you too.

STAY TRUE TO YOUR ARTISTIC VISION

Finally, it's essential to stay true to your artistic vision. Don't compromise your creativity for the sake of making a quick profit or pleasing others. Instead, focus on creating work that speaks to your unique perspective and values.

Remember that your creativity is what sets you apart from others in your field, and it's what makes your work special and valuable.

I often talk about putting “blinkers on” to help you keep focussed on your own creativity, vision and goals. Yes, of course it is important to keep aware of what is happening in your industry, you can absolutely be inspired and learn from others, but it’s far more important to not worry too much what everyone else is up to, and instead to remain focussed on what’s most important to you, and what makes your brand and voice uniquely you.

Balancing creativity and business can be challenging, but it's not impossible. By setting clear goals, staying organised, collaborating with others, continuously learning, and staying true to your artistic vision, you can truly SUCCEED and THRIVE as a creative entrepreneur.

I hope these key strategies are of help, and as always, I would love to hear your thoughts. You can send me direct messages on Instagram @philippacraddock.

Warmest,
Philippa x