5 Things Rock & Roar SHOULD Have Done Differently
Rock & Roar was created after 10 solid years of doing freelance graphic design without a real plan.
Here are 5 situations that I would not wish on any small business owner, and if I could go back in time, what I would have done instead.
To be clear, I am STILL making mistakes to this day, but want to share what I've f***ed up in the past so that emerging artists aren't blindsided by the realities of the industry.
See that toxic person?
We're walking the other way...
Know what you will and absolutely will not deal with in a professional setting. Of course things you have never encountered will come up, but know your boundaries. If even the slightest red flags pop up, be on alert.
If you are at the precipice of starting your own business, maybe part of that decision is because you don't want to work for anyone else besides yourself. Well...newsflash.... as an artist you still have to work with other people and they will, more often than not, majorly dictate the final product(s). What you DO have control over is who you agree to work with. Before I even started Rock & Roar, I knew I wanted to work with women-run and minority businesses because 1. those were the kinds of clients I had spent 10 years attracting and 2. Not to throw shade at anyone, typical white male energy in a business setting really used to threw me off. The amount of times I was spoken to like I didn't have any idea how to design anything would blow your mind. (this can trigger dormant anger as well as an already existing imposter syndrome....you do not need that in your life when you are trying to build something with your name on it.) The amount of times white males abruptly ended contracts because they received in invoice where I ....charged for....making design edits....would shock you. I also literally got told that I shouldn't be emailing at 8pm at night because I should be in the kitchen making dinner for my husband....my husband and I both agreed I should cut ties with that client immediately.
The take away: Not all white males, I know, I know. I still have male clients that I enjoy working with but I have an onboarding process for ALL clients now before I agree to anything long term because any client could seem great at first....That leads me to point #2.
Agree to Mini-Projects First, then Agree to Larger Contracts
Starting small allows you and your client to see if you all work well together. If not, get the one project done and say your adieus.
About 5 years into living in Philly and finally conceding that I needed a roommate to help share the bills, I was commissioned to hand-draw Illustrations of nature alongside poetry. I was stoked, we got a contract signed for 25 illustrations (SIDE NOTE- PLEASE NEVER DO WORK WITHOUT SOME SORT OF WRITTEN AGREEMENT) so I dove right in and start drawing birds on a wire and a spider sewing it's web. Things were going ok...the woman who commissioned me was the poet and had A LOT of opinions about my drawings. No biggie, I was used to being critiqued and it was her poetry in the end. The red flags started when she wanted me to NOT sign my original artwork because I would get credit on the cover of the book but "just go ahead and start scanning the drawings" and sending them to her. The problem? She didn't even have a publisher yet. She said she had a "bad experience" with a previous illustrator so she wanted all the illustrations unsigned. Would she give up all her poems without her name attached if I told her I had had a bad experience with a poet? Doubtful.
Because we had this massive contract for thousands of dollars, I was scared to back away...but I was even more scared that I was going to spend countless hours on 25 illustrations, NOT sign them, hand them over to her and not see a penny. Therefore, I broke the contract. I didn't see any money, and she didn't get any illustrations. I moved on to another project where the author respected my time and my talent. What I did with this new collab was work on ONE illustration first. We drafted a contract for the amount that this ONE illustration would need and by the end of that project, if we liked working together, we would draft and launch a new contract for the rest of the illustrations. It worked perfectly and I was not neck deep in a (probably) unpaid contract that would have sucked the life out of me.
The take away: Small Projects Mean Small Time Commitment. You can always start a larger project after the partnership has had time to develop.
Your Work Has Value.
Period. But what if small budget projects are all you can find?
I took on so many clients just for the money back when I was in living by myself in Philadelphia. I was drowning in big-city bills and my big-girl jobs weren't bringing in enough revenue.
Listen, when you have rent to pay, I understand dealing with absolute bullshit so that you can put a roof over your head and food in your fridge. I once illustrated an entire childrens book for $250. While that $250 was super necessary at the time, I shouldn't have done it. I spent hours on a little guaranteed money instead of looking for work with a larger budget. Of course, this advice is geared more towards artists that have the luxury of picking and choosing. I cannot in good conscious tell someone struggling to not take a crap job if it's going to keep them afloat. However, working your complete ass off for a staving wage isn't going to keep ANYONE afloat in the long run. if you start selling your work at a very undervalued price, it's going to be hard to ever raise those rates because people will expect cheap art from you....So if and when you can, start charging more for your beautiful, glorious, took-years-to-hone-and-establish-your-own-style art.
The take away: It's not easy - I know. Many artist friends of mine completely gave up their craft because they hated the hustling and the begging for people to buy their work at a living wage. We wouldn't ask a plumber to fix our overflowing toilet for only $5. AND a plumber would laugh in your face if that's what you offered. But artists, it is up to US to stand together and not accept scraps. WE ARE THE ONES DRIVING DOWN OUR PRICES. WE ARE THE ONES TELLING THE REST OF THE WORLD WE CAN STARVE YET SURVIVE. Did it take you 5 hours to make? Can we all agree that $20/hr is the lowest we'll go? Charge $100 for that thing that you took 5 hours, not $5! 1/hr?!?! You shouldn't be charging $1/hr for something that took you years upon years to perfect! You need to pay bills just like everyone else!
YOU have to become the most organized person you know, like, yesterday.
How do you get thoughts and ideas and plans out of your head so that you know what needs to happen when?
I started tracking my hours in 2014, 6 years later than I SHOULD have, having finally moved out of my parents' house in 2008. I literally have no idea how much money I made or spent before 2014. Therefore, how the heck do I know how and where I need to improve? By 2022, my tracking has gotten a hell of a lot more sophisticated because there are always new metrics you want to keep an eye on.
Be it a notebook where you handwrite everything, or a spreadsheet, or a whiteboard with post-its, or a calendar, GET YOUR THOUGHTS AND TASKS OUT OF YOUR HEAD. Otherwise, they will get utterly lost bouncing around your brain and then completely forgotten when other ideas and tasks pop up.
I track everything that makes sense for me: my time, finances, tasks per client, internal business tasks, potential clients, and I assign (most) things a time and date. If I don't assign everything a date and time, it's just an ambiguous to-do that will float into the ether.
What I use internally to stay on top of it all. ALL of these have a way of integrating into calendar forms. That is how MY brain works - a calendar format where I can only focus on a few things a day in order to actually get stuff done.
Notion - for all the step by step to do lists per day of the week, to delegate workflow and house branding kits for my employees
Mailchimp - email communications to mailing lists
Later - social media scheduling
Google Calendar - to block out time for each client and keep ALL THE ZOOMS organized
Google Sheets - for finances and time tracking. I used to use the Time app, but I would forget to push the start and end buttons, plus they started charging to export spreadsheets, so I just cut out the middle man and type in the time I start working on something and the time when I stop. A lot of cells in my spreadsheets automatically tally money and hours.
The take away: There are plenty of apps and platforms that claim to automate and streamline all kinds of things but I have settled into what works for me. Explore what you want, try it all out, but have a SYSTEM that ensures nothing falls through the cracks. There is a misconception that creative minds can't organize but that is a myth. You just have to understand how your brain works and lean into it.
Friend, you can do anything...but you cannot do EVERYTHING.
Say No. Ask for Help. Do LESS.
We all just need to focus. At one point in my life, I was making myself available for ALL KINDS of freelance work. Design. Illustration. Transcribing. Web Design, Social Media Manager. Scenic Painter. Muralist. Art Teacher. Arts Administration Teacher. Arts Advocacy Director. Speaker, Curator.
Moving abroad basically did the favor for me - half of these were no longer feasible because of the distance. But, even if moving abroad is not in your future, pick 2 or 3 TOPS and focus your energies there. I was doing too much, asking too much of myself and NOT asking enough of others. I wanted to be able to help whoever came to me with a paid opportunity. I had not learned how to say no because I was in a city, an environment that required as much money as I could scrape together.
The take away: Again, it is not my place to tell somebody to stop doing what is paying their bills at any given time, but if I could go back, I would have told my younger self to only say yes to my 2 core skills: design and illustration. That way, I would improve upon those two skills daily and attract more work in the field I was actually passionate about. I also could have helped outsource some of those paid gigs to folks who were BETTER at it and needed the income worse than I did.
But because I am an overachiever, I am adding Author to the list this year :-)