1. Don’t be afraid of failure
For many freelancers and small business owners, failure at something is almost certain. Very few tattoo artists go their entire career without failing at some point, so learn to embrace it. The best way to look at it is: “If you learn from it, it’s not a failure”. Take a step back, look at the situation and try to figure out what you could have done differently. Then implement changes to stop it from happening again. Evaluation of poor marketing campaigns, business strategies, pricing, customer reviews – it’s all part of what helps a business to grow. No-one has ever gone their entire career without failing at some point, so don’t dwell on it!
2. Don’t try and do everything at once
Running a successful tattoo studio, or even just as a freelance artist, will require a certain amount of task delegation. The quicker you understand that you can’t be EVERYWHERE at once, the quicker your business will function properly. As a freelancer you won’t have a team to help you, or a marketing agency to complete the tasks you don’t have time for, so you need to learn what tasks to prioritise and focus what time you have on those. Prioritise by looking at what tasks are most likely to generate income initially, then once you have budget start to outsource those. You can also look at handy software and apps to help automate many of the tasks around the day to day running of the studio.
3. Be excited about your work
If you don’t love what you’re doing, you will never succeed in it. You need to be excited to go to work for the opportunities that each new day will bring you. Running a business can be incredibly stressful, it NEEDS to be fun. This will enable you to keep going even when you go through rough patches.
4. Get interested in other people
You don‘t have to be an extroverted “people person” in the traditional sense, and many great entrepreneurs aren’t. But a fact of business is that somehow, in some way, your work will involve other people, whether you’re managing an entire team, catering to a single customer, or nurturing a growing audience.
Working with other humans can be messy, frustrating, and confounding—but it’s also delightful, surprising, fulfilling, and often a lot of fun. Yes, there will be wounded feelings and fragile egos; misunderstandings and conflicts. The right mindset means embracing it all, because running a business means pitching ideas to others, winning over investors and new customers, making those first few sales, and convincing other talented people to join you!
5. Ask for help early and often
Small business owners tend to have a do-it-all, be-it-all approach. This works in the early stages of a business, when you’re often wearing many different hats at once. But there’s a dark side: this can-do attitude sometimes prevents business owners from asking for help when they need it most. They’ll take on bigger piles of work, slog through ever-longer hours, fall asleep at their desks and forget to show up at dinner. Or worse—they’ll run their health into the ground, mismanage business risks, or burn out completely.
To succeed in business, you have to be prepared to ask for help. As innovative a trailblazer you may be, chances are that those who have come before you could share a helpful tip or two. Invest time in relationships with mentors and other business owners, and be proactive in asking for—and offering—help, insights, and advice when needed.
6. Put as much time into Learning Business as Learning how to Tattoo
One of the main reasons start up businesses fail, is the owner leaping into the unknown without being fully prepared for everything that might be thrown at them. One of the best ways of thinking about it, is to put as much time, passion and energy into learning the in’s and out’s of business, as you do learning how to tattoo. Set aside the same amount of time in your daily planner for each.
