Every creative investing in their art at university should minor in business, economics, or marketing. You want to truly make a living off of your art, and then you need to go beyond the sheer act of creation and branch those skills with business skills. This way you can become a success. You may not make it as an artist yourself, but if you can make a career working next to, near, or with the art you love, you will automatically love what you do.
Creatives need to be prepared to wear multiple hats. You cannot rely on the traditional methods alone. Writers cannot rely solely on publishing companies, painters cannot rely solely on galleries, and actors cannot rely on agents. While these are the traditional avenues, the market is rife with talent, and not enough reach. If you can represent yourself and produce art, you are automatically at a better stage in your life.
Every creative needs to have a background in business, or at least a highly relevant field. While outsourcing is great, managing, running, and growing a business is best done by you, so use this guide to help you build your business skillset:
How to Build Your Business Skills
One of the best ways to branch over your creative skills with business skills is with the help of a business degree. Nowadays, you can often complete that business degree online, giving creatives greater opportunity to develop their business sense at various levels.
Bachelor’s in Business Administration
For creatives that want a primer in business administration, a bachelor’s is often a great place to start. If you already have a bachelor’s degree, then chances are you can use at least a few credits from your bachelor’s towards your new degree. Having a BBA can really help give you a solid understanding of business management and how you can transform your art into a thriving business model.
Master’s in Business Administration
If your goal is to work as an executive in a very prominent creative company, then you will want to go one step further. MBAs are very prestigious and can help give you the insight and skillset necessary to manage large companies, particularly if they operate across international lines.
Doctorate in Business Administration
A DBA is the highest level of achievement you can earn and is ideal for creative executives who want to truly lead the entire industry rather than just a company. DBAs are taught to design and deliver impactful research and are also given the opportunity to develop an in-depth analysis of a particular topic in their research project. If you want to take your knowledge to the next step, above and beyond, this could be the right and most effective option for you and for developing your business skills.
Single Business Credits
Of course, you can always take single credits, or business courses, as you go. This way, you can learn what interests you the most and work to slowly fill in the gaps in your knowledge so that you can take the creative world by storm.
How to Build Your Artist Career
You are not alone. There are many creatives out there that are desperate to expand their art into the business world. After all, there are so many opportunities for the creative community.
The creative industries bring in a massive amount of money. In the USA, they value of arts and culture in 2019 alone was 919.7 billion USD. There is money in the arts, but there is also a lot of competition. Therefore, creatives must band together to teach one another essential business skills and to also come together.
Where One Fails, a Group May Succeed
If you find that you aren’t finding work, make opportunities. Connecting with the creative community means finding those with similar interests and values as you. With even a minor background in business, you can leverage this talent and create a new opportunity for many.
You can easily host pop-up galleries for a series of painters, especially if doors were previously shut. This is the best way to bring forth a wide variety of painters from all walks of life. It is also how you can connect visual art with the greater public.
Business know-how and marketing know-how can go far in event planning, business management, and more because when opportunities don’t land in your lap, you always have the opportunity to make your own.
Try, and Fail
Not every business idea you try out will work. So long as you try out your idea with a firm understanding of business principles, you can only improve. If one version of your idea doesn’t work, then try another. Failing is just as important in the art world because culture is a trial and error product. You may fail, but you will create something that works one day, even if it isn’t in the format you initially expected.
Use Your Experience to Grow
Even if you failed in your efforts to start your own gallery, that does not mean you cannot successfully manage a gallery of your own. As time goes on, soon you will be able to use your individual experience to get hired at established businesses. Instead of working independently, you can work within the business, at which point that Master of Business Administration, or that Doctorate in Business Administration, starts to become increasingly important.
There are some very, very large, and very old arts institutions in the world. There are also arts departments within governments and cities themselves. With a very established background in business and marketing, you can branch the arts and cultures for many artists to the wider public.
Conclusion
Art is not meant to exist within a vacuum. It lives with the public. It is at its best when it is engaged with and appreciated. If you cannot use your business skills to become a successful independent artist, try to collaborate. Then try to manage. There are so many important roles in the business world, and every single one of them will benefit from a background in business.
