If I’ve earned an honorary doctorate in any subject due to my deep and extensive experience, it’s budgeting with inconsistent income. I’ve owned my own business since 2007, and aside from a two-year stint producing a TV show, I’ve never had a consistent, reliable income that was the same from month to month. Yet, here I am, 15 years la...

When you’re starting your own creative business, one of the most important things you need to focus on is cash flow. Cash flow refers to the movement of money into and out of your business. Your inflows are your revenues, and your outflow is your expenses. Each month you want to have **positive** cash flow for your business. Operate to...

One of the downsides often cited about owning your own business is that you don’t get benefits like a 401k. It’s recommended by many financial advisors to max out as many retirement accounts as possible each year, and when you’re an employee you can often have the company match your contribution, sometimes doubling the contribution to ...

One main reason why creatives fail at becoming professionals – making a full-time living from their work – is because they are not financially literate. Financial literacy can be summed up like this: • know how much money you need, how much money you make, and how much money you spend. • understand how to make more or spend less and wh...

One of the downfalls of many creators who want to turn their craft into a business is investing in the wrong things. Assets are investments that generate more money for you, while a liabilitycosts you money. Your office is not an asset – you have to pay for it every month. Your computer, your equipment, anything you own outright that y...

Here’s the deal – you gotta pay taxes, and you gotta prepare for tax season so you’re not caught off guard. If you have set your business up as an LLC, you’ll want to pay quarterly estimated taxes. The IRS likes their money, and they like it early. Work with an accountant, even for just a single call, to ensure your business is set up ...

Take profit FIRST and then pay everything else, or else you won’t have any profit left. Profit is often defined as what’s left when you subtract your expenses from your revenue. Say you make $10,000 in a month, and then spend $9,000. You’d have $1,000 left, or a 10% profit margin. In theory that works great, but in practice, that profi...

Simple answer: charge enough to make enough to have the kind of life you want to have. Longer answer: there are a few ways to think about this – Hourly, Project Based, and Ownership. To work out an hourly rate, you can figure out what the industry rate is for your type of work in your area, and charge somewhere around there. You’ll lik...

If you don’t plan for profit at the start, it’s harder to try and create it later. Profit, as mentioned in an earlier essay, is what’s left between what you sell something for and what it costs to make it. If you sell a physical album recording for $15 and it cost you $5 to create the CD and the packaging, then your profit is $10. Howe...

The patterns & habits of your life determine your experience and results. Picture two different creators: One is pure artist - they create in bursts when the muse inspires them. Their passion attracts many people to follow them. They believe that money devalues art so they don’t charge for their work, ever. They have no regular income,...

How much should you pay yourself? How much should you set aside for taxes? How much does your business actually need to make to be profitable? A few years ago I read the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, and it outlines a great starting point for thinking about your business budget. Since most solo-creatives are making between $0-...

Years ago, I had a 110-ish old hand saw mounted above my office door with the word SIMPLIFY below it. It was a nice reminder every time I walked out to simplify as much as I could around everything I'm doing. Just this week that reminder struck me again as I was thinking about the flywheel concept recently popularized (coined?) by Jim ...