Illustration by Thomas James
Whether things are going really well for your illustration business, or really wrong, it’s always a good time to take a look at what you might need to change.
Finding the Weakest Links in Your Business
First I’d like to suggest zooming in a little closer on just the “problems”. Try and figure out what might be standing between you and the success you envision for yourself.
What might you be doing wrong?
What isn’t producing the desired results?
Is anything draining your time and money without offering something in return?
What is stunting your growth as a professional artist?
Once you discover the things that are dragging you down, you can choose to either remove them or make plans fix them, as needed. This may mean anything from making changes to your schedule, revising your promotional strategy, or upgrading your portfolio. Whatever the issue, it can be very useful to single it out, separate it from the pack, and make some strategic decisions about how to make a change for the better.
Identifying “problem areas” of your business can help you to make immediate improvements and potentially free up some valuable resources, which can then be devoted to something more productive elsewhere in your business.
Repairing Your Business
The most important step in this process is to actually do something about the broken parts of your business that are holding you back. This means setting aside time specifically for the purpose of fixing all those things that you promised you’d get to at some later date.
This is one of those aspects of being a freelancer that seems the least rewarding on the surface. It’s not often desirable to think about the negative things, but it’s easier than it sounds, and if you take action now you’ll feel instantly better about where your business is today, and where it’s going. You’ll have less problems affecting your business, and less undesirable tasks filling up your to-do list.
Once you focus on the broken pieces, you’ll be able to turn your attention to the things that are working well, and maybe even make them better with any resources you might have liberated from the wreckage of past mistakes.