Indian Beads – a wonderful gift from Jana to Tammy just because!  Thanks, Jana! (They’re actually crinoids, a type of fossil – aren’t they just so cool?)  And how about that box!  Jana like boxes and she shared one with me.  Thanks again, Jana! Jana finds these in her area.

Have my kiln load in, finally!  Had to finish up the part-time job stuff, first.  Now I’m concentrating on the admin side of my work – my art.  Folks, it’s time to get serious.  I have avoided the paper work long enough.  Yes, I did start on my customer list, and I did find my file so I can work some more on it.  Baby steps.  I have decided to join at least the Solomons Business Association and possibly the Calvert County Chamber of Commerce as ways to network better.  This costs money.  But sometimes it costs money to make money (I won’t mention the hundreds of dollars of glaze and metallic paint and that warm glass class in December that I just signed up for.  I would have spent that money anyways).  This month the part-time job pays for itself.  It is a 3 pay-check month.  Ta-da.  That will cover the bulk of this (but not the 4 new shirts I ordered from magazines that were on sale…I think it has been said by Gertrude Stein:  you can either have art or clothes but not both). (She also said:  I do want to get rich but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.  Woman after my own heart.  I just wanna play in the clay all day… to paraphrase Paul Simon).

Anyways, I am going to write an honest to goodness Business Plan.  Now, I have played with this before here, and here, and here.  And I do mean played because, with my Business Admin undergrad degree, the one thing I do know the important of is a business plan.  So I’m going to do one – a real one.  With all the details, like lists of shops.  I am going to make a list of shops and keep up with the ones I’ve contacted instead of 50 million slips of paper and emails filed everywhere in my inbox.  And you can ride along with me.

Here’s the start:  Business Plans and Profiles of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburg.  And here are some of the sites it recommends (most of these plans look like the run about 30 pages long, so I will review them and tell you all the good pieces, or maybe put something together of my own with all the good pieces and share):

Interactive Business Planner:  3 year business plan template that lets you use the web to do your research

The Tactics of Creating a Business Plan  "We have included a number of possible responses for each section – responses similar to what a professional business plan writer might produce.  Also, we have included a number of links to online resources and collections of data to help you with the tactics of completing each section."  These folks note that only about 26% of entrepreneurs complete a full business plan.  And that such completion takes weeks.  Well, I’ve always likes being fringy….

Business Plan Template:  what it says – good few summary pages and then a walk through where you fill in the blanks

SCORE:  template gallery.  Also links to advice on line and free on-line training modules.

Mastercard Step by Step Plan for small businesses.

I’ve been feeling the need to write, anyways.  This will be a most excellent opportunity for me to do that.  Additionally, I can ask questions of Alyson Stanfield in my free monthly consultation (well, not free, benefit of being one of her Inner Circle folks, but that’s only $20 for the first two months – $10/month….and I am going to get my money’s worth!) and I’ll be ready to chat with Jana who came to me through OneCoach who came to me through John Assaraf’s (one of The Secret guys) blog – I get a free consultation with her next Tuesday:  1/2 hour. 

I’m hoping this isn’t just full moon energy that will fizzle out (we just had that discussion about my Aries nature:  Charge! but then I run off into the sunset after something else rather than finish what I start.  That was then.  This is now.).  And I know that I have a say in directing what energy I do have.  And I want this art business to be a business.  That isn’t to say I’m not happy with what I’ve already accomplished; I am happy.  And proud.  And now it’s time to move up a notch.  I’m already half-way there – that should be enough impetus all on its own!

If anyone else decides to play with this, let me know.  We’ll start a mutual encouragement and hold each other accountable society.

thought for the day:  The real value of doing a business plan is not having the finished product in hand; rather, the value lies in the process of research and thinking about your business in a systematic way. The act of planning helps you to think things through thoroughly, to study and research when you are not sure of the facts, and to look at your ideas critically. It takes time, but avoids costly, perhaps disastrous, mistakes later. The Tactics of Creating a Business Plan