Christmas

Could you have special Christmas promotions?Christmas only comes once a year, but it comes every year.Particularly frustrating when you know a great deal of money is spent then.Your artwork could easily be just the right gift for someone.For many artists their too-hard basket has selling at Christmas time.Because the rest of business is pulling out all stops!You are against full-on marketing thrust of the whole retail sector for the $$!The one thing people do not have at Christmas is time.So Christmas is actually a tough time to sell anything that takes time to buy.That's usually us!So what should you do at Christmas?Possibly keep the $$ ticking over with an easy to do promotion.But when you happen to read this it might already be too late to implement.A prominent department store starts planning for Christmas in October.BUT it's October 14 months before the Christmas that's subject to planning.A reason for early planning is so immediate Christmas activity is monitored.So one of the main ways to stay ahead of the game is to plan very early.This is as important for you (and me) as for major big city department stores.So here's an idea for next Christmas, or maybe the one after that?As a professional artist, money is part and parcel of your life.It's nothing to be frightened of, inherently bad, just a tool for doing business.It's a way to measure success and make your dreams (many) possible.So have a prosperous Christmas as well as a happy one.For business people like us, prosperity is largely of our own making.We decide what we sell, how we will do that and where we will do business.Every career decision we make influences our prosperity or lack of it.Some of this will be short term and at other times the effect will be long term.Often, short term gain leads to long term pain.So it's not necessarily easy getting the right balance for prosperity!You can make a wrong decision without knowing you've made a decision.Not doing anything has an effect on what happens.That's because our careers do not operate in a vacuum.Competitors, clients, governments and other factors affect our prosperity.They are making decisions even if we are not!Sometimes this effect is direct and at other times more subtle.Sometimes an effect is intended, but others accidental, or even incidental.Quite a deal of this activity is out of our control.Take these factors into account; as best we can, to make career decisions.Prosperity doesn't come easy these days, so good wishes can only help.Good planning will help more though.There is a time of the year when many artists have a 'quieter' period.Usually it's when we make New Year resolutions about things we'd like to do.In business terminology we set goals both short and long-term.In business there should be long-term strategic plans, as well as short-terms.I have read that some Japanese businesses have 500-year plans.That is certainly long-term thinking, but it is of somewhat dubious usefulness.A five to ten year time scale is enough for most businesses, including yours.Time to achieve something major which isn't daunting in the short term.Short term planning should deal with achievable objectives.They carry you to longer-term ambitions like signposts on a road to success.Goals only stay as resolutions if we do not also plan how they're achieved.Tick them off as you make progress for eventually the destination is closer.It follows short-term objectives should be more precise than longer term.