Ever think that you were to follow a specific path? You were just living your life and doing your thing. Then suddenly, another path presents itself. Do you travel that path or keep on doing what you know? Sometimes what you know is absolutely just fine. But for some of us, we have grander ideas of how we may want to travel. I decided to start my own business. Starting a business is like taking a course.
Have your seen others doing it?
It would be great to start an art business. I saw other art teachers on the web with blogs, YouTube videos, and selling lesson plans. Why couldn’t I do that? And so, I watched, read, and signed up for webinars. I paid some money to learn how to make a website, build a business, and develop an online course. After about 3 years now while losing money, I am realizing that I just need to do it. Or maybe better yet, listen a little closer to the faint voice that guides me each day.
What about you? Have you ever thought about starting your own business. If you have, then you know it is like a course of its own. There is learning, testing ideas, application of information, and execution.
Here is what I learned along the way.
Many of the following overlap and inner mix:
- Build relationships
- Network & Promote
- Grow an email list
- Give people a transformation
- Provide a tangible outcome
- Have fun doing it
- Set goals
- Be organized-it takes time
- Check out the competition
- Practice but be real
Key points overall in other career industries.
Most of those point are examples of what an art teacher must do.
And another thing…
One of the other things I have heard was that the audience does not care about me. They only care about their transformation. I do struggle with that comment. I have a feeling that if I am a business owner who builds relationships with the audience then eventually it is a reciprocating outcome.
Why am I sharing this?
Why am I sharing this? Because in the last two month’s I decided to devote a lot of time in making a product to validate it. I took an online course to help aspiring business people to validate a product. I followed the process, but I realized quickly that I do not have an audience yet. So not matter how much I listened to the owner of the course say that I could do this without an audience, I knew she was incorrect.
I made several videos that instruct the aspiring artist on how to draw my trees with fantasy flair. Worksheets were composed. Platform paid for. Then I promoted the workshop and it went nowhere.
The last reflection:
Now I could be super pouty and simply say I give up, but I knew there was a different way to move forward. There is no doubt that I am suppose to be on the path to developing my business. I just got off the chosen path and traveled a diverted route for a awhile.
As a result of my off-roading, I put several other projects on hold and I had less sleep. Now I am going in a different direction toward a different path. However, there could be several paths that lead to the same outcome. Sometimes we just need to take some steps to learn that we are on the wrong path. As the saying goes, we learn from our mistakes. It is great when others share what they have learned to help steer others from that same misled path.
So yes, trying to start a business has been like taking a course. We pay all this money to learn stuff. We try to apply it. But in the end we figure out how to do it little of the full instruction applied.