Unfortunately I’ve met a lot of talented artists, musicians , singers and other forms of creatives not getting paid what they’re worth , or having a hard time getting clients/paid for their work.
What common mistakes do you see artists make with their businesses?
What advice would you give creatives so they can break the stereotype of the “starving artist?”
I think this has to do with the starving artist concept many of us internalize. I’m working on overcoming this myself and being pragmatic and allowing myself to be paid for my work. It’s a combo of so many things, such as not believing in our value if it comes easy to us and/or if we love it, not thinking we deserve it, not asking for what we are worth, believing that artists have to struggle in order for their art to be valuable & so on. There’s an old school book called The Artist’s Way that helps address some of this. A lot of this also seems to come down to believing we are worth the $ & not worrying about the wax/wane part of the creative business.
I also have a side business where I have ppl try to bargain me down on my prices. I had to get to the point where I was so tired of giving ppl breaks on the price, only to have them pull up in a fully loaded high end car, etc. I have to value my time to make the prices high enough that I can make money from the business. I found making lists of responses to ppl who ask for lower prices helps, as well as talking about it with other business owners.