Learning

Looking for business advice for your next creative venture? Creative industry business consultant Alison Branagan's 'The Essential Guide to Business for Artists & Designers' contains simple but extensive advice on how to get started. This article picks out her top-tips on taxation and networking.

Dotted with quotes from prolific names like Sir James Dyson, Hans Abbing and Ivan C. Karp, 'The Essential Guide to Business for Artists and Designers' helps readers set realistic goals for commercial success.

The book profiles seven artists and designers, from a surface designer to photographer, sculptor to web designer. They all give simple, concise instructions and easily understandable advice. The profiles intermit chapters on creative pay, self-employment, taxation, funding and innovation.

The chapter on Records, Tax and Basic Book-keeping is written to make manageable the monetary side of business. Doing taxes might not be the most inspiring task but it is obviously key to running a successful business.

Tips from the Records, Tax and Basic Book-keeping chapter:

• A pro-forma invoice is used for getting part-payment up front from a client, keeping in mind that an invoice is a bill.
• Income tax equals your income minus business expenses and personal tax allowance. This chapter's co-author Dean Shepherd’s Tax by Design is a specialist  creative industry accountant.
• Businesses can only charge value-added-tax if they are VAT-registered, and will need to complete a VAT return every three months. The guide suggests that voluntary VAT registration for freelancers that work for lots of VAT-registered businesses can be financially beneficial.
• Business bank accounts are not legally required for the self-employed but they are for registered companies.
• Keep accurate records: book-keeping, money-management and tax liability are all separate calculations.

Tim Bradford © 2010

'The Essential Guide to Business for Artists and Designers' also covers the vital role that networking has to play in creative business start-ups.

Here's a few of the ideas on networking that are covered in the book:

• Build networks both virtually and physically: venture out of your own community and into bigger cities with potentially greater opportunities.
• Work stealthily through the crowd at events and introduce yourself to as many people as possible.
• Follow up on networking connections using suitable email language and follow-up by phone (but not on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon). 
• Joining a professional organisation such as D&AD who provide links to potential contacts, portfolio pages and workshop opportunities
• Have a professional web presence and carry samples with you at all times in case an unexpected conversation ends in pitching ideas.
• Call before sending out a pitch via e-mail. This will ensure that the recipient is expecting to hear from you and is more likely to respond.

Alison Branagan has also written a handy pocket guide version of the book, entitled A Pocket Business Guide for Artists and Designers.

Available in print and on e-book for Kobo.