Organise Your Art Business

Organise An Art Business

For every minute spent organising, an hour is earned!

If you run an art business, then it’s more than your just finances or your art work that you need to organise.

Organising an artist business is all about being methodical in almost every aspect of your business, so that you can immediately take advantage of opportunities when they arise.

Essential Artist Organisation Tips

Make no mistake: Organising an artist business takes time AND commitment! But once you know what the essential elements of your art business are, you can start to relax as you have a strong artist management process in place.

The essential things that you should implement include:

Organising your accomplishments: Luckily, you don’t have to go it alone. In today’s digital age, there’s plenty of help that you can draw upon. One of the best things that you can do is to invest in art inventory software or platforms, or other similar tools, to help you stay organised.

Look for a program that will help you stay on top of your accomplishments, and build a full history of your work. Most art inventory tools offer more than just inventories.

You have a record of all of your artwork in one place;
You’ll know exactly where any of your works are with location records;
They’ll even have dates and locations where each piece was exhibited

Artwork Sales tracking: Another key element of organising an artist business is staying on top of your sales. Most art inventory software also:

Provide you with a complete database of all your clients
Allows you to organise art presentation ideas in a central location
Keep track of prospective clients and exhibitors
Track upcoming exhibitions so you can get organised for them

Updated Artists Statements: A core component of organising an artist business is always having an updated Artists Statement - ready to use in an instant! Most mainstream artist management tools enable you to produce your Artists Statement on the fly - because you’re automatically updating it using the tool when something new happens:

Adding new pieces to the inventory
Participating in exhibitions
Selling a piece
Displaying an item at a gallery or store

There are a lot of good art inventory software programs available out there, such as: Artworks Archives, GYST-Ink, Artsala, Masterpiece manager, eArtist etc. They vary in price and platform (Operating system, hardware supported etc.). Check them out first, to ensure they offer what you are looking for. Many of these art inventory tools also offer free trial versions, which you should download and use before you buy the one you like.

Organise your online presences: From your company website, to your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts – make sure your online messaging is well organised:

Keep all of your accounts updated
Synchronise them all frequently
Ensure all of them reflect a common brand and messaging
Organise your pricing: The single most challenging aspect of organising an artist business is settling on the price. Your pricing should never vary much – except upwards!
Update your prices frequently
Keep pricing consistent across all sale channels – online, exhibits, store displays
If possible, increase your pricing over time

If clients and prospective clients see different prices in various places and at different times, you will not only damage your image, but clients will lose credibility in your business.

Organising for Success

Organising an artist business is the first step to business success. Luckily, there are a number of steps you can take to get yourself on the right track. From art inventory tools, to updated CV’s and Artists Statements, every little step takes you further along the path to good organisation.

From art inventory tools, to updated CV’s and Artists Statements, every little step takes you further along the path to good organisation.

Disarray Equals Missed Opportunities

Back in the early days of my career, when art inventory software and other online tools weren’t yet common, I learned a very important lesson about being organised.

A gallery owner saw my work displayed at a gallery in Brisbane, and I was offered a solo exhibition. Sadly, and to my great embarrassment, I had to decline. I wasn’t organised enough to lunge at the opportunity, talk about regret! That incident taught me the importance of artist management for my business, and here are some best practices on the subject that I’d like to share with you.

Organising an artist business is the first step to business success. Luckily, there are a number of steps you can take to get yourself on the right track. From art inventory tools, to updated CV’s and Artists Statements, every little step takes you further along the path to good organisation.

Here a list of art inventory software programs. I DO NOT endorse any of them, a part from GYST which I have purchased in the past and found it thorough and packed with goodies.

All other suggestions are only listed to show what is available so that you don't have go on an elaborate search. But it is up to you to further investigate which program is the most suitable for you.