Hand-made tiles on recycled furniture by Tammy Vitale of Tams Originals
Do you need help figuring out where you are, where you’re going and how to get there with your business? How would you like to add a whole research division to your planning at no cost?! Turns out there’s a great, FREE, resource out there. As promised, here’s a report on my meeting with my local SBDC (Small Business Development Corp). Obviously this is just the beginning of a business relationship…and I left with "homework" to do.
This was an intake interview and together the SBDC representative and I compiled questions to submit to their research team in Texas.
Here are the questions we submitted (from my notes – she made her submission much prettier):
- Do my blog and my website reach and encourage the right people for my artwork
- How do I reach my demographic (which I have defined as 35+, independent women with their own discretionary income) given the current economic situation (ie, gas prices goes up, discretionary income goes down) without gallery representation
- What are the basic steps of and trends for viral networking
- What are my "competitors" [not a word I like, but ok for research I guess] doing both in bricks and mortar (meaning regular stores) and on line
- What are the best practices for teaming with interior designers and commercial establishments (like restaurant and hotel designers) for selling art
- How do you differentiate yourself in the web
- What is a good database for tracking what art is where, that is also searchable and manipulatable (is that a word?)
- Can you find someone to help me understand using trackbacks on blogs
How’s that for a comprehensive list of information for the cost of 1 hour? If you want to take advantage of this powerhouse of research and help, contact your local Economic Development Department and ask them who and where in your area.
My homework? A marketing plan based on a very simple outline and not on MBA 101 logic. I am clear that whatever I do from here on out will be based on intuitive information as much as logical steps and that I want to emphasize cooperation not competition. I plan to run my business the way I run my life (since the two seem to be inseparable at the moment anyway) which is to say: I believe that there is enough for each of us if each of us takes what we need and shares the rest. I have no intention, and indeed no need, to climb over others to "get to the top." I’ve never been sure the top of what except maybe a bunch of enemies. What kind of life is that? Better to keep it all on the same level, in a circle of common bonding.
And, just in case you’re holding your breath about whether or not everything I "pushed" came out of the kiln ok: I only lost one word tile. And it really isn’t a loss. I’ll make that into a totem like those under "sculpture" on my website.
Thought for the day:
"What can we learn from images that transcend centuries and continue to portray women as earth mothers? What is their relevance for modern women, possessors of the microwave, the television, and the computer, compared with their relevance for women in subsistence economies who walk in the mud to plant rice, corn, or wheat? In the United States, does the goddess have particular relevance for women of color?…
"[In Borneo, India and Mexico] The goddess, synonymous with Gaia, the earth, is considered a sacred living presence requiring individual and communal rites of respect to assure the continuity of all life forms…
"Women’s activities related to these goddesses have been a continuous source of feminine empowerment, but in this century their rituals have often been dismissed by art critics and historians as ‘childish or superstitious.’ They are disturbed by the idea that ‘art could actually possess other levels or dimensions that include magical energies or powers contained in the imagery, in the materials used, in the site of the work or invoked by the actions and process of making art.’" Betty LaDuke, Women Artists: Multi-Cultural Visions
