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The Design Trust’s favourite finance and money books for creatives

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Are you scared of money and finance, costing and pricing your work? Many creatives are! But the reality is that if you want to start and run a successful creative business then you need to face the money facts and somehow learn those financial skills.

I am often surprised how few creatives have ever read a book about finance or money.

While it’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways to boost your financial skills!

In 2019, The Design Trust organised a special month-long #FebFinance challenge around finance and money, which started with daring creatives to read at least one of our recommended finance and money books for creatives that month – and it was a huge success with 100’s of creatives joining in, commenting and getting excited about money and finance! Yes, reading a book can be very inspiring and life-changing even.  We continue to have finance as our February topic every year in our Business Club.

So, if you thought that there are very few finance and money books for creatives available, then check out our favourite ones here.

We would love to hear from you in the comments if we have inspired you to read one of them!

Women on Money by Julia Rothman - for Good Company Money Issue
‘Women on Money’ by Julia Rothman (c) – for Good Company Money Issue 3

Book 1: Overcoming Underearning – Barbara Stanny

This is one of my most recommended books for creatives, and many creatives have told me how life changing this book has been for them too. 

Barbara is an American journalist who was born into a rich family and then married. Unfortunately, her husband gambled all the inheritance away so she had to get herself a job (and a divorce!). She decided to interview professional American women who earn more than $100,000 to see what they do and how they think differently. This book is the result.

Overcoming Underearning is a great book if you are a chronic ‘under-earner’… somebody who finds it hard to stand up for themselves, who is very likely a people-pleaser, and finds it difficult to talk about money, let alone negotiate a better deal or ask for more.

By the way being an under-earner has got nothing to do with the amount you earn, but that you are earning less than you want or need to earn.

It’s a fairly quick read (less than 2 hours so no excuses there!) but it’s a very powerful book … asking poignant questions about your thoughts and behaviour around valuing yourself and your work. It will make you conscious of what’s going on, so be warned that this book can have a strong emotional impact.

But it could really resolve some of the major underlying issues you might have about undercharging for what you are worth.

It’s aimed at women in particular, but I think many creative male practitioners might find this challenging book useful too.

Book 2: Profit First – Mike Michalowicz

You probably know that sales – expenditure = profit.

But what happens if you turn that equation around? Sales – Profit = Expenditure.

In Profit First Mike Michalowicz explains that most people have this contradictory habit called Parkinson’s Law: “The demand for something expands to match its supply.” Or basically we spend what we get.

Do you spend in line with what you earn?

And when your sales go up … what happens then?

Do you spend more to invest or ‘because you are worth it’? And therefore never make a profit?

Indeed, that’s what many business owners do! When we get more sales then we also increase our spending!

And as we often pay ourselves from our profits, we often end up earning very little because we first spend on the business before rewarding ourselves ….

Sound familiar?

Michael argues in this book that we should first set a limit to what we spend on ourselves (e.g. our ‘drawings’) as part of our business expenses, by allocating a specific % of money to pay ourselves first! So, pay yourself first and then limit your other expenses. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Profit First is a very insightful book that will help you to minimise your expenditure and ‘tame your cash-eating monster’.

Mike shares some really great ideas of how to manage your money better, assessing the financial health of your business, minimising your expenses and debt and starting to pay yourself a higher salary.

You can read the book in about 4 hours, but the ideas and systems Mike shares can have a major impact if you decide to implement his suggested systems of different buckets. Even if you don’t follow all his rules to the letter, but simply allocate your income immediately into pots for salary, savings and expenses, this book will help you to mange your money better.

What they dont teach you about money Claer Barrett

BOOK 3: What they Don’t TEach you about money – Claer Barrett

This is a brilliant personal finance book written by the FT’s personal finance expert Claer Barrett. It is clearly written and easy to understand because it avoids confusing money jargon. What They Don’t Teach You About Money covers everything from our emotions around money to investing, pensions, mortgages, credit cards and student loans. It helps you understand how borrowing money works (and how expensive it really is), how to get into good money practices and how to think ahead – even just a little bit – to plan for the future.

A fantastic book to help get your own finances in order so that you are set up well for your business finances too!

Book 4: How to Become a Money Magnet – Marie-Claire Carlyle

Are you sabotaging your chances to attract more money?

This is a very thought-provoking and practical book, full of questions, quizzes and exercises to challenge your attitudes and thoughts around money, being worth it, and how to break the pattern to become ‘richer’ in your life and business.

How to Become a Money Magnet is a joyful and insightful read that you can dip in and out of regularly, with lots of checklists and case studies. You will get much more out of this book if you decide not just to read the book, but actually DO it.

Book 5: No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent: No Holds Barred, Take No Prisoners, Guide to Getting Really Rich – Dan S. Kennedy

I read this book a few years ago and I really had a love-hate relationship with it! (It doesn’t help that the author is close friends with and a big fan of Mr. Trump, and I don’t really believe books with titles that tell you that you will get really rich!). I have to say that I sometimes screamed at this book and squirmed too.

But, it’s actually really insightful, and if you want to sell to rich people then I do recommend this book to you.

Plus, I personally think it’s a good idea to sometimes read a book that you might not agree with. This book will definitely expand your mind and your approach to selling to ‘rich’ people.

The start of the No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent is really useful as he shares marketing data and insights of who rich people are (pointing out the huge differences between a self-made New Money man or someone who inherited money. Between somebody earning say $250K a year and someone earning $10million. Between an older business family man – often with two families (haha) – and a gay couple in Manhattan!), and how they spend their money, and how they want to be treated. Yes, most rich people are optimists, but don’t believe the myths that they are confident! 

The second part of the book is about what they spend their money on, which goes into great detail on what kind of products and services they are interested in, the importance of niches and being the best, and the motivations behind their purchases. And the last part of the book goes into how to market and sell to them, the customer service required, the networking and schmoozing.

This is a long, detailed, and very well researched book, with very specific marketing advice if you want to sell to rich people. It’s not a quick fix book to get rich. (Which is a good thing in my opinion.)

Book 6: Think & Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill

This is a finance success classic. It’s unbelievable but this book was first published in 1937.

And what is truly amazing is how relevant it still is today!

Napoleon Hill researched the habits and mindsets of hundreds of tycoons in the USA for over twenty years at the start of the previous century to write this classic on how to become financially successful.

You’ll realise that there have been recessions before and that people dealt with it.

That the struggles we have today around money and success are much more universal, and have very little to do with our current financial, political, economic or internet/technology age.

Think and Grow Rich is a classic self-help book on how to get rich and successful, beyond today’s financial struggles and the interference of social media and the internet (the telephone even barely existed when he wrote this book!).

Timeless lessons from the white men in charge from a century ago are still surprisingly relevant today.

Book 7: Motivations for Creative People – Mark McGuinness

Although this doesn’t sound like a finance and money book for creatives, it definitely is. Mark McGuinness is one of my favourite creative business coaches and when he launched Motivation for Creative People I was frankly a little surprised: “Surely creatives have no problems with motivation?”

But what’s really good about this book is that it covers all of our motivations as creatives, and how they often conflict with each other. Especially the ‘creative’ versus ‘money’ motivation! 

If you struggle in your head to make a living from what you love doing, and find it hard to charge properly for your work, then this is a great book to help you. Mark is a poet himself too, and he explains the external and internal motivations (‘the rewards and the joys of work’), how they work together but also conflict, and how you can create a business model that works for your creative business or career in line with your values and goals.

You can read an extensive book review of Mark’s book here. 

Book 8: Go Fund Yourself – Alice Tapper

This personal finance book is written by a fun loving, British, twenty-something economist, with a good social media profile, and it was recently recommended to me by a millennial (Thanks. You know who you are!).

This book covers the basics of how to manage your money better while dealing with the challenges, insecurities and opportunities of the 21st century. Stuff that we probably should have learnt at school, but we were never taught budgeting skills, mortgage rates or basic investment. Plus let’s be frank: nobody really likes to talk about money, and most of us don’t really know what to do. This book fills that gap.

It’s a really practical and honest book to help you get out of debt, spend smarter and more in line with your own values, get an emergency fund together, get your pension sorted, and even invest. Plus it has got a special chapter about money in business – although it’s a little basic, it gives an introduction to financial terminology, how to start doing your accounts and deal with tax.

But what I love about Go Fund Yourself is that it’s also about the bigger and more inspirational picture around money, and what your financial dreams, values and aspirations are. How to change your money mindset. How to make choices from all the different options. It has a healthy dose of scepticism when it comes to ‘wealth’ and will help you to make a more conscious effort to your financial realities (whatever your age!).

Finance for the People
‘Finance for the People’ by Paco de Leon

Book 9: FINANCE FOR THE PEOPLE – Paco de Leon

This is a wonderful, plain speaking, easy to understand personal finance book that delves into our emotions and habits around money and how we can change them.

Finance for the People asks the reader to look at their beliefs and experiences around money and then offers practical exercises to help shift the mindset with realistic mindfulness activities too.

The book has more than 50 fun illustrations and diagrams to make the concepts accessible. It’s the kind of book we should all read in our twenties to help us not be frightened of money, to help us learn about saving, investing and pensions and to bring in good finance ‘habits’ early.

A fantastic book for people who are not sure where to start when it comes to reading about money!

Book 10: Worth It  – Amanda Steinberg

This book is written by the American independent investment adviser Amanda Steinberg who ran the very successful DailyWorth website, and who was on a mission to get more women interested in money and investment. The first part of the book is all around what you are worth, what stories you have been telling yourself around money, and how to hit the reset button.

Worth It is an inspirational read about money and how you can create the life you want to live. Some of the advice is very much aimed at the American market, and might not be so useful for a British or European audience, but overall her approach travels well. From a British perspective it’s interesting to read her questions around investing in a property, as she personally has been bitten badly and lost her own house in the past and is therefore a strong advocate for renting.

Book 11: Stop Thinking Like A Freelancer – Liam Veitch

Freelancing is tough financially.

Liam used to be a struggling creative freelancer but created a very successful £1 million+ web business and in this fairly quick book (3 hour read) he explains how he did it. How he managed to attract enough of his dream clients, build exposure, and created more predictable income streams. Of course in the process he stopped being a solopreneur and became a ‘proper’ web agency with a team.  And that’s of course not what every freelancer is looking for.

But Liam has got some good points around the small-minded-thinking that many freelancers often have and that can stop them from being more successful.

  • That they don’t think of themselves as businesses.
  • That they need to start thinking bigger.
  • That they need to have clearer financial and business goals.
  • That they need to throw out the non-and-low-paying clients and aim for better and more reliable clients.
  • They they have to start differentiating themselves from the competition.

Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer is a great read for any creative freelancer who wants to up their game and become more professional.

This isn’t a pure finance and money book for creatives, but one that will expand your thinking, make you more strategic and give you loads of marketing and development tips.

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Did you find our recommended finance and money books for creatives inspiring? Did you purchase and read one of these books? We would love to hear from you in the comments. Share with us which finance and money book for creatives you selected and why. And let us know what you learnt, so that you can inspire other creatives to read these books too!

Please note that we have included some affiliate links to Amazon in the blog post above, as many of our readers like the convenience of this online retailer. However, we would love you to order any of these books from your own local book shop!

The best time management books for creatives

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99U time management book quote
From ‘Manage Your Day To Day’ by 99U

Are you struggling with time management? Would you like to be more productive, stop wasting your time so much on social media, and make more time for making and creating? Many creative professionals struggle with time management, so here is my personal selection of the best time management books for creatives who want to stop talking and start doing.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey

This is a time management classic for both individuals and organisations. I read The 7 Habits nearly twenty years ago for the very first time and it had a profound effect on me. And it still has!

Although the title is very business-like and corporate it actually goes really deep emotionally. It’s not a ‘quick fix’ book (I wouldn’t recommend you read it all in one go!) but it deals with our human struggle on how to spend our limited time in this world. I have re-read this book now several times, and each time I discover new ways to work on myself and refocus on what I really want from my life and business. It asks some really big questions but also offers practical solutions and activities.

The book centers around the 7 habits:

  1. Be proactive: Stop moaning and start taking charge of your life basically! It’s up to you how you choose to respond to challenges, where you are heading and how you’ll spend your time. What are your values? What do you want to focus on?
  2. Begin with the end in mind: Rather than focus on the here-and-now and immediate tasks (e.g. do you start your day with emails and social media?) start to create a value-driven principle-centered mission of what you want to get out of life. What life do you want to create? What do you want your legacy to be (literally)? Setting long term goals will give you clarity and purpose to help you make better decisions. Then work backwards to set smaller goals and deadlines of what you need to work towards.
  3. Put first things first: Are you making the time for these important aspects in your life? Is the balance in your life right between life and work, you and your family, your health and your money?
  4. Think win/win: You’ll need to negotiate and create relationships build on trust, values and long-term goals if you want to achieve your goals.
  5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood: When it comes to interpersonal relationships will you truly try to understand the other person’s perspective? Really useful chapter also about learning to negotiate – both in business terms and within your family and personal relationships.
  6. Synergise: Put it all together and you’ll get more than the sum of its parts. Through mutual trust and understanding conflicts are resolved and better solutions can be found than when working alone.
  7. Sharpen the saw: Are you looking after yourself (physically, mentally, socially, emotionally and spiritually) so that you can be more productive?

I recommend the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People especially if you need to look at the bigger picture and you want to find clarity and focus: What do you want from your life? What’s your purpose and values?

Give Me Time – The Mind Gym

This is both a strategic and practical book that goes straight to your own time management issue. At the start of Give Me Time you do a quiz and based on your answers you’ll get a personal recommendation of which chapters/exercises to read and focus on. Perfect if you haven’t got a lot of time and want a quick fix!

Although this time management book isn’t specifically focused on creatives, it’s very helpful if you don’t like planning, if you feel that you never have the time to do what you really want to do, if you are super busy but it doesn’t fulfill you and if there are too many distractions in your life.

Finish – Jon Acuff

Let’s be honest … do you find it hard to finish projects? To turn your ideas into real products and services that you can sell and launch? You start, work on lots of different projects and ideas …. But you rarely finish them?

This book (you can read it in less than 2 hours) is full of really great insights about why we don’t finish what we start. I really cringed a couple of times …

About the importance of the first day after you start when you are full of hope, when you often supersize the scope of your project, and then don’t follow through. And instead of getting yourself back on track gently, you quit.

About not being good enough. By having only the exceptional standard of ‘perfectionism’. And oh yes, the ugly head of perfectionism raises up regularly in disguise!

About how adding fun and joy to your goals and activities make it more likely you will do them. But how this bizarrely contradicts with out inherent belief that if we want to make something happen it needs to be hard, and can only be achieved by a lot of sweat and tears.

About the hiding places to avoid messing up. (Also called procrastination)

About the importance of tracking your progress.

And the final chapter really hits it home: About why we so often self-sabotage when we are very very close to reaching our goal. (This is so good!)

“What are you getting out of not finishing?

Because you’re getting something.

That’s the true reason why you don’t finish.”

Finish is a must-read for any chronic, super busy and super-excited starters who frankly rarely finish anything and want to really figure out why that is the case. Deep stuff. A book that will make you sit up straight.

Manage your Day to Day – a 99U book edited by Jocelyn K. Glei

This is a compilation of articles by creatives and entrepreneurs around time management including marketing guru Seth Godin, Behance Founder Scott Belsky, graphic designer and typographer Stefan Sagmeister, author and creative process expert Steven Pressfield, and creative coach and poet Mark McGuinness (see below).

Short, snappy articles and Q&A’s covering building a rock-solid routine, how to focus in a distracted world, tame your email and social media, and sharpen your creativity.

A beautifully designed books with great quotes such as:

“I don’t wait for moods.

You accomplish nothing if you do that.

Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”

– Pearl S. Buck

Manage Your Day To Day is a beautiful little book – perfect if you want to get a little boost and make the most of your time and creativity.

Check out the 99U website for useful time management articles for creatives too.

Productivity for Creative People – Mark McGuinness

If you are looking for a quick introductory read into time management, especially for creatives, then this is it. You can read this practical book in an hour or so, covering both the big challenges and practical solutions for creatives who struggle with having too much on, who don’t have time to create, who feel anxious and overwhelmed most of the time, and who get distracted easily.

Mark has brought together in this book many of the time management gurus, such as David Allen and Steven Pressfield, and translated them for creatives, with many practical stories and insights from his own practice as a writer and poet, and creative coach.

Especially the chapter on how to get creative work done is very useful, with tips including email management, how to stop last-minute panicking, how to design your ideal work week, create rituals and habits to get into your creative zone, how to stop procrastinating by incubating instead (this is truly a marvellous insight!) and even how to make the most of boredom!

At the end of each chapter Mark asks some really poignant questions to help you find your own answers. And throughout Productivity for Creative People Mark shares stories and insights from his own perspective as a writer and poet, as well as his creative coaching clients. If you are looking for a creative business mentor then you find Mark in our list of favourites here.  

Time Management for Creatives ebook (free!) – Mark McGuinness

I’ve recommended this 32-page Time Management for Creatives ebook for many years to creatives as Mark really covers all the aspects of improving your productivity and getting better organised. Although published in 2007 (and downloaded more than 100,000!) it is still very relevant. Highly recommended! And yes, this is a free download.

Organizing for Creative People – Sheila Chandra

Do you believe that creativity thrives in chaos? Then this book is not for you.

This is one of the very few books about organisations systems for creatives, written by a creative – the singer Sheila Chandra. It’s full of really practical advice on how to sort out your systems, paperwork, work and living space, routines, how to make better decisions, planning your work load, delegation and much more. She asks the really big questions for most creatives, but also gives really practical advice to help you get sorted. Organizing for Creative People is for creatives who need a helping hand to get sorted.

Create Space – Derek Draper

We are the first generation that don’t have enough time.

‘Rather than having the need to fill space, we have the need to create it.’

In Create Space psychiatrist Derek Draper argues that we, and especially leaders, deliberately need to make more time and space to think, more time and space to connect, more time and space to do, more time and space to be. And each of these 4 parts is broken up in 3 chapters to create space to reflect, learn, decide, check in, share, relate, plan, deliver, lead, dream, balance and grow.

Each chapter starts with a story explaining a specific case study from Derek’s executive coaching practice, and his psychological theories behind the behaviour and dominant thought processes and behaviours. At the end of each chapter he includes some ‘ask yourself’ questions, often very deep and thought-provoking, or suggest practical exercises to work on.

Derek makes the case for us to deliberately step back and regain some control. Unless we make space deliberately we won’t be performing and developing at our optimum. This is much more than just a question of how we fill our time and diaries, or even how we manage our energy, but it’s mostly a state of mind to create your own life and priorities.

This is an excellent read for anybody who is feeling overwhelmed, who makes rushed decisions, who wants to encourage their deep and creative thinking, who wants to make more time to reflect.

(In 2020 Derek caught Covid and spend nearly 12 months in hospital, he is one of the longest surviving Covid patients in the UK. He is still recovering.)

Personal Kanban – Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry

Kanban (Japanese 看板, signboard or billboard) = a Lean manufacturing method to manage and improve work by balancing demands with available capacity, and by improving the handling of system-level bottlenecks.

Based on Japanese manufacturing methods to minimise bottlenecks in the system this book shows how you can use these agile working principles in your own life. However machines need to be productive, but people need to be effective. It’s not about doing more and more and more, but about choosing the right work at the right time. Being aware of the impact on ourselves of the work we do, as well as on our colleagues, families, and the wider world.

In Personal Kaban there are only two simple rules: visualise your work and flow, and limit your work-in-progress.

  • Visualise your work flow through Post-It notes into specific columns, moving them from one step to the next will make your work priorities more actionable, and providing a context-sensitive flow.
  • Limiting your work-in-progress will help you to complete what you start and understand the value of our choices.

Combined, these two simple acts encourage us to improve the way we work and the way we make choices to balance our personal, professional, and social lives.

It’s a very simple system that will appeal to creatives who love PostIt note planning!

Growing Gills – Jessica Abel

The subtitle of this book is ‘How to find creative focus hen you’re drowning in your daily life’ and is one of my most recommended books for creatives.

This isn’t a ‘pure’ time management book, but rather a very practical book about the creative process and how to get your best work done.

Jessica is an award-winning graphic illustrator and Professor of Illustration and she created this book to accompany her popular online course The Creative Focus workshop. Although you can read this book in two hours you would totally miss the point. This is a book that you need to DO. Indeed, you’ll get a workbook and short online course for free with the purchase of this book.

As Jessica suggests herself: Read one chapter a week and then do the accompanying exercises in that week and see how it works for you. Indeed this book is more like a course to get focused, rather than a book about time management.

Each chapter deals with a specific challenge that many creatives will recognise:

  • What is really stopping you?
  • Why do we as creatives hold on to too many ideas and how that stops us from finishing any of them?
  • How to identify and gain control over the many commitments you’ve made to yourself and others?
  • How to prioritise
  • Dealing with the ‘Dark Forest’ or why and how we go through creative crisis in the midst of big projects. And how to escape.
  • How to get back on track when you’ve derailed.

Jessica has got a great knack to describe a situation in such a way that it really resonates, but more importantly she identifies what’s really going on and what you can do about it. The description of The Dark Forest especially really resonated with me. At the time I felt seriously lost in the middle of rewriting my own Dream Plan Do book.

Firstly, I was surprised that I wasn’t the only writer/creative dealing with this challenge (Oh yes! So obvious in hindsight, not at the time!) but also how she managed to describe my feelings, and then reframe it as an essential part of the creative process, rather than me beating myself up for being pretty lost and thinking I would never get to the finish line of writing Dream Plan Do. While of course continuing to procrastinate! Haha!

Her explanation of why it is crucial to go into these undiscovered territories, without a map, really helped helped and calmed me down. Yes, I realised – it’s the only way to create your best work!

Another wonderful creative exercise in the work book is the ‘should monster’ AKA the evil gremlin of self-doubt! What are all the ‘shoulds’ in your life that are driving you crazy? Instead of keeping it all to yourself .. get it all out! Draw your own ‘should’ monster with all your ‘shoulds’ and then share it on social media! Do check out #shouldmonster on social media. As soon as you start to see the funny side and that you aren’t the only one struggling with this you will feel so much better!

Growing Gills was written in particular for new creatives, and especially creatives who are not yet working full-time or are considering the move from hobby to professional. But I think most creatives can do with a boost of insights into how the creative process sometimes can be challenging and tricky, so that you are better prepared. Highly recommended. Especially if you DO the exercises, rather than just read it as a book.

When – Daniel Pink

The big but basic idea in this book is that our energy is at it’s best in the morning and earlier in the week (if you have weekends!). Throughout the day our energy levels go up and down, and if you work with these natural energy flows then you become a lot more productive. The subtitle of this book is: The scientific secrets of perfect timing.

So instead of wasting your time in the morning with more and more emails and social media, use this time for ‘deep work’ that needs your brain space. For example this is the perfect time for some serious thinking or creating that needs you to get into flow.

I was aware of this phenomenon (who isn’t?) but it really shows that by planning better WHEN you do certain activities will increase your productivity.

So now I often really plan blocks of time to work on writing up projects or creating online content, while I leave more repetitive jobs such as emails, social media or indeed folding up the washing and doing the supermarket shop for later in the day when my brain isn’t as sharp. And I am a lot kinder to myself (and more realistic!) of what I can achieve in a day too! Just by shifting jobs around during the day has helped me to get more done quicker.

When – The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing is full of practical examples of what can go wrong if activities aren’t done at the ‘right’ time (when people are tired or have lost most of their willpower) and also how to plan your days and hours better in line with your own energy. It also shows how important regular breaks throughout the day are – including a detailed description of the ‘perfect nap’!

THE DESIGN TRUST DIARY PLANNER – Patricia van den Akker

TDT 2024 The Design Trust diary open quarter 2 action plan with hands lifestyle square

Although this isn’t strictly a time management book for creatives many clients have told us how useful they have found our diaries and planners to help them turn their big goals and dreams into do-able actions by breaking them down into smaller chunks. Our specialist annual diary is giving many creatives the strategic and practical framework to reflect and plan ahead through setting long-term goals and turn them into goals for the next 12 months, making time for quarterly reviews and monthly planning, and tracking their goals and numbers for finance, marketing and social media.

When you work by yourself it’s often hard to get accountability and to stay on track. If you decide to do things tomorrow then nobody really notices. Unlike a regular team meeting on Monday morning with fellow colleagues, the solopreneur struggles. Many of our diary planner readers have told me how they use the planner to write down their goals and activities, but also to have regular meetings by themselves to help them actually do what they want and need to do.

The Design Trust diary planner also helps creatives to do the right things at the right time. Most creative businesses are seasonal with a most sales in the run up to Christmas. So it’s really important that you start ‘planning with the end in mind’ – if you know when your clients are most likely to purchase then work backwards to plan when you need to have your website ready, your images, when to design your collections. But also on a weekly or even daily scale can you get much more done by being aware of what to do when, and to stack your time with similar activities and doing ‘brain-intensive’ activities (like planning, creating) in the morning, and more repeat jobs (like emails) in the afternoon or evening.

The Design Trust diary planner has been self-published for the last 5 years. For more details about The Design Trust diary planner see here. It’s normally only available for pre-order in mid September, and then from early November – February. More than 7,000 creatives in many countries across the world have been using The Design Trust diary planners in the last 5 years to achieve more in their business and life and turn their goals into action.

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DISCLAIMER Please note that we have included affiliate links in this post, which means that The Design Trust will get a small commission if you order the recommended time management books for creatives above via Amazon. Of course it’s entirely up to you where you order your books from (we prefer small indie local book shops too to be honest!) but as many of our readers find Amazon very convenient and we offer lots of advice for free we do sometimes include links that earn us some additional pennies and pounds.

Have you got any recommendations for time management books for creatives? Or did you decide to purchase one of the books above and got lots out of it? We would love to hear your comments and time management suggestions below in the comments box.

The Design Trust’s favourite business planning books for creatives

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Do you believe that ‘business planning’ and ‘creatives’ are completely contradictory and can’t be put in one sentence together? I would disagree with you!

I strongly believe that business planning can be a very creative process … mapping out the journey ahead in a visual way … imagining what you want to do, prototyping your business even … and then checking on a regular basis if you are still on track.

Here is my collection of favourite business planning books for creatives. These are books that I own and have used over the years to help design and craft businesses in a creative way to develop and even stretch their big ideas, to set great goals through a variety of techniques, but most importantly to get them into action and turn their ideas into reality.

I have even added a business planning book for creatives that I have written myself … cheeky!

The selection of books covers everything from ‘the big picture’ thinking to ‘in detail’ planning.

All books are available through our affiliate relationship with Amazon, or you can purchase or order them of course from your local book shops, as they really will appreciate it!

‘Business Model Generation’ by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur

Business Model Generation cover by Alexander Osterwalder

Originally published in 2010 through a crowdfunding campaign, Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, has become a classic in the design-thinking community already.

It was one of the first books to really embrace creating a more visual and interconnected business plan. The big idea is around the Business Model Canvas concept, the interlinking parts of each business.

  • Who are your customers?
  • What are your key activities?
  • What value do you add?
  • What communication and sales channels do you use?
  • What relationship do you want with your customers?
  • What revenue streams are you creating?
  • What resources have you got?
  • What key partnerships have you got?
  • What do you spend your money on?

This book asks some very big questions, rather than just giving answers.

By defining each of these parts in detail it allows you to create a better business model. What makes you unique and stand out, and how will your business operate and make money?

The book offers various design thinking techniques and tools that can help to describe, discuss and design a better business of any type: customer insights, ideation, visual thinking, prototyping, storytelling and scenario building.

There is a brilliant in-depth chapter about SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats).  SWOT can be a great tool to evaluate your internal and external forces, but many books don’t go deep enough.  This book asks some important questions to help you get deeper into your SWOT.  Very useful indeed to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, the book goes through the process of evaluating existing and new techniques of different business models, and how the Business Model Canvas can be turned into a more formal business plan.

Business Model Generation has helped me:

  • To work with clients around how their business works, and what doesn’t work.  By looking at the 9 different parts you quickly get a sense of their strengths and weaknesses, and what needs to be developed or communicated better.
  • To review big ideas really quickly. The Canvas breaks the various parts of any business down so you can quickly sketch out opportunities and challenges. It’s really helpful for strategic thinking and to become more playful around strategic decisions, especially when you are developing a new business, product or service; or comparing various income-generation ideas.
  • To understand what business models actually are, and how the internet is changing the way we do business and how we make money.  The ideas in this book were the starting point for developing and testing the business model and income streams for The Design Trust when we first started out.

In 2014 Osterwalder published a more detailed book around the area of clients, marketing and how to create value, called Value Proposition Design. This is a great marketing book if you want to dig deeper into the mindset of your ideal clients, their worries and challenges and how you can create better and more innovative products and services as a result of that knowledge.

‘Design a Better Business’ by Patricia van der Pijl, Justin Lokitz & Lisa Kay Solomon

Design A Better Business is another favourite design-thinking business book of mine, which was strongly influenced by the Business Model Generation. This book really brings together my own experience of how creativity and business thinking can work together through creative tools such as brainstorming, storytelling, and prototyping businesses.

Why don’t more business advisers work together with design companies to create better businesses, and to communicate what they do better? This was a question I had been struggling with for twenty years, and only in the last decade or so have we seen this practice of bringing creatives together with business experts and psychologists through design-thinking.

The book is mainly aimed at business advisers and consultants working with creative businesses, but it could also be really useful for design companies who want to work on a deeper level on understanding their client’s positioning in the market. It’s also a practical starting point for creatives who want to learn more about design thinking techniques and tools.

‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen R. Covey

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a classic in the world of professional self-development.

To be fair this isn’t a business planning book for creatives at all. But it uses some great tools to look at your ‘Big Picture’,  to identify your life’s vision or purpose. And especially as so many design and craft businesses are one-person businesses (where you literally are your business) this self-development book can be helpful in planning your future life and business.

I did find the title of the book a bit off-putting, to be honest, and it didn’t sound that relevant to me when I read the book for the first time nearly 20 years ago. However, it really touched me on a deep level when questioning what my purpose and values were in my life and work, what I was really passionate about, and what I really wanted to do with my career and work.  I have re-read and re-used parts of the book again over the years, just as a reminder, both for myself but also for my creative business clients.

I recommend The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People strongly if you:

  • Are looking for the ‘Big Picture’
  • Want to get more focused and add meaning to your life and business
  • Need help with (structural) time management or goal setting
  • Want to identify what makes you really tick, or if you are stuck or feel lost in a job or career that you don’t enjoy.

This book will challenge you to think BIG and long-term: What legacy do you want to leave behind?

The 7 Habits to create a more purposeful and meaningful life (and business) are:

  1. Be proactive.  Take the initiative and make decisions based on your values and principles. Are you taking responsibility for your behaviour rather than your mood or circumstances?
  2. Begin with “the end in mind”. Create a clear purpose or mission statement based on the life you want to live, to guide you on a day-to-day basis. This has become one of my favourite time management tools.
  3. Put first things first. Focus on things that matter most, regardless of them being urgent or not. One of the big mistakes most people make is to focus on what others tell you what to do so you get driven by deadlines and chaos.
  4. Think “win-win”. This habit is about seeking mutual benefit for all parties, encouraging conflict resolution, and thinking in terms of abundance in opportunities, wealth and resources.
  5. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. When others feel listened to, valued and affirmed, then true communication and relationship building can take place.
  6. Synergise. This is about creating something bigger than 1 + 1.
  7. Sharpen the saw. This habit is about taking the time to renew all aspects of ourselves: physical, social/emotional, mental and spiritual to avoid burnout.

I have used this book many times with my business clients, especially when working on:

  • Developing a long-term vision or mission statement through the 80th birthday exercise.
  • Time management. Anything in your inbox or on your to-do list is either urgent or non-urgent, important or non-important.  So you get 4 possibilities: urgent & non-important, urgent & important, non-urgent & important, non-urgent & non-important.  Covey’s idea is to set time aside to work on the non-urgent & important quadrant (often things to do with systems or the foundations of your business or life), because if you work on this more ‘strategic to do list’ regularly many things on it will become less urgent.
  • Sharpen the saw. Look at all aspects of your life and spend time on activities that give you energy, with people that support you.  Many high achieving creatives or entrepreneurs can feel lonely and stressed.  Spending some time to rejuvenate are essential to continue to be creative and fulfilled.

Want to learn more about the Important versus Urgent matrix? It’s one of the most useful and practical time management tools I use on a regular basis. Watch my 25min Facebook video on the Important vs Urgent exercise here.

‘The Creative Entrepreneur’ by Lisa Sonora Beam

The Creative Entrepreneur by Lisa Sonora Beam

The Creative Entrepreneur is one of the most beautiful business planning books for creatives I have ever seen!

If you are a creative sole trader or freelancer who wants to be guided through the business planning process in a really high quality, visual and unique way, then this is the right business planning book for you!

This book is published to such high standards that it feels at times more like a museum catalogue than a business book is also great if you are struggling with the idea that you actually can make money from something that you are passionate about and really good at. Or if you know what you want to do, but are self-sabotaging your route to success.

Lisa is a visual artist, as well as a business and marketing strategist, and this book is full of very creative examples of all the different planning tools she uses in her training workshops.  Nearly every page has examples with full colour images. Some really stunning visual and imaginary plans and images in here!

The Creative Entrepreneur is a great starting point if the ‘traditional formal written plan’ doesn’t work for you.  The exercises and plans created in this book can’t really be shared with the average bank to get you a loan, but they will really help you to identify what you want to do and how to make it happen.

Lisa works a lot with visual journaling whereby you gather ideas and concepts through doodling or images or just a couple of words.

I like her idea of ‘business planning as a journey’, being able to see your progress over time, getting more and more clear about what you really are about and want to do.  This kind of circular movement (with getting more and more clarity and focus) reflects much more how business planning really is in practice than this idea that you would flash a good business plan out in a week.  Indeed in my experience, it’s more likely that it might take you a while before you really know what your business idea and plan really is.

The Creative Entrepreneur’s main concept is focused around the idea of a mandala and 4 pathways that need to be balanced:

  • Heart & Meaning looks at your passions and dreams, creating a purposeful business
  • Gifts & Flow looks at your unique talents that contribute to ‘flow’
  • Value & Profitability looks at creating a customer-centric business, and how to create and deliver value that people will pay for
  • Tools & Skills looks at developing your business and leadership capabilities to achieve the results you want in the first three pathways.

The Creative Entrepreneur also shows the strategic tools of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and setting SMART objectives – but does this in a uniquely visual and creative way.  Really great to be able to see other creatives’ visual examples too.

I hope this book doesn’t bamboozle you with lovely inspiring images of other people’s careers and businesses or makes you think that your visuals wouldn’t be up to scratch to the standards in this book.  It should give you the courage to turn your vague business ideas into images and then into a highly visual plan, which can be highly productive and insightful.

‘The Right-Brain Business Plan’ by Jennifer Lee

The Right Brain Business Plan cover

This book is ideal if you want a step-by-step guide to creating a formal business plan, but want to start from a more visionary and imaginary way (e.g. use your right brain! The Right Brain Business Plan book goes in-depth into each aspect of running a business, and each aspect of a formal business plan.

It includes the different ‘formal’ business plan elements (executive summary, vision and values, competitor analysis, finance, marketing, management and personnel, operations and action plan) and works with a variety of creative exercises to turn your ideas into a formal business plan.

What is useful about The Right-Brain Business Plan is that after doing the creative exercises and tools, it is only a very small step to actually creating the business plan that your bank manager would be happy to consider.

This business book for creatives shows a wide variety of creative exercises (incl. visual interviews, storytelling, collage) and examples, with great success stories that seem very achievable for most freelancers or sole traders.  At the end of each chapter, there is a very useful recap of activities and a checklist covering what you just learnt.

There is a great chapter about growing your creative business and creating a support network so that you don’t have to do it alone.  This chapter covers a wide range of solutions: creating your ‘helping-hands-wish-list’, creating your job role and job description, who to hire and what to outsource, getting a mentor or coach, forming strategic alliances and partnerships, assembling a board of advisers, finding an accountability buddy.

The last chapter of the book gives practical tips and tools to turn your goals into reality, how to keep the momentum going, and how to keep your business plan alive on a daily basis.

Some of the wording in the book (‘managing the moola’ instead of money) and the style of the hand-made illustrations might put some people off.

‘THE Diary planner’ and Business handbook by Patricia van den Akker of The Design Trust

2024 The Design Trust diary and planner stack of 4

Am I allowed to include our own diary planner in this list too? I think I am!

Every autumn since 2016, I have published a planner journal or diary planner, especially for creative product businesses to help them turn their big ideas into smaller, do-able activities. In the last 5 years we have sold more than 6,000 Dream Plan Do books and diary planners to over 34 countries across the world!

I created these specialist creative diary planners based on my experience of 25 years as a creative business adviser, trainer and coach. In one place you find all the tools that I use with my clients to help them turn their big ideas into do-able actions. Starting with the ‘big picture’ thinking around your long-term goals and your purpose and values, to setting annual goals for your finances, marketing and production. Each quarter you will review what is working and what needs work in your business through creative visual exercises as the Wheel of Life and Wheel of Business and thought-provoking questions. Each quarter you have the opportunity to set a new specific 90-day goal and create an action plan to ensure that you will focus on that project and the actions that quarter. Then each month you will have a monthly overview with your goals and actions, and my recommended actions for that specific months too, making the most of your quiet and busy times in your creative business. And each week I give you an action question too.

At the start of the diary planner you will get my time management tips, and a whole range of creative exercises to work on your business and yourself, your marketing and your finances. With specific tips and exercises to plan ahead and turn your business ideas into reality.

Oh, and the best bit? This beautiful 250+ page dairy planner for creatives comes with a 6 hour online training (for free!) with really useful training to plan your big ideas and projects, your finances and marketing.

Check out our diary planners on our website here. They are normally available for pre-launch in mid September and then again from early November – February.

What are your favourite business planning books for creatives?  Have you read or used any of the books above? We would love to hear your comments and suggestions below in the comments box.

Don’t know what to write about? 24 ideas for your next creative business newsletter, blog or social media

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Do you find it difficult to come up with ideas on what to write about in your newsletter, blog or social media? Are you worried about boring your readers?

Staying in touch regularly with your potential clients is crucial if you want to get more sales – especially online. Your regular useful emails will build up trust and your profile.

Emails are a particularly useful marketing tool to drive more traffic to your website, to build your relationship with potential and existing clients, and to build your credibility and profile with them. Blog posts on the other hand, are great to publish more relevant content on your website and make it more specialist – a good starting point to increase your ranking with the search engines.

Here are 24 creative and useful ideas for you to write about that your audience will love to read about:

1. Why did you start your creative business?

Was there a special reason you became your own boss? Who or what inspired you? Is there a bigger purpose behind your creative business? Your audience will love to read more about your personal motivations and life, and writing about the origin of your creative business is a great starting point.

This would make an interesting introductory read in a automated follow up email (or auto responder) when people sign up for your mailing list.

2. What’s your creative business name?

Why did you give your business this name? What’s the story behind the name you have chosen?

Naming your business is a bit like naming your baby, and readers love to hear more!

Again this can be a great ‘general’ topic or when people have recently signed up to your email list.

3. Where do you live and work?

Are you in the middle of Hackney or Shoreditch, or in the middle of nowhere in Wales? How does your studio or location influence your creative work? People find it fascinating to see how your studio looks like, and to see pictures of you at work, or from your surroundings. I have worked with many Scottish creatives and it’s wonderful to see how the Highlands or islands influence their use of colour, texture and materials.

Write an email or extended blog post about where you live and work, and how that specifically impacts on your work and business.

People love to see the provenance of your work and where you create. They are often jealous of the life style of the creative! (oh, if only they would know!)

Let’s face it … who doesn’t love to have a little peek into other people’s lives!

These behind-the-scenes images and films are very popular on Instagram too. And you can add this to your website’s ‘About Me’ page too. We love it how glass artists Stephen Gillies and Kate Jones of Gillies Jones share pictures and details of their workshop and surroundings in the North York Moors National Park, and how their environment influences them daily.

4. Who are your role models or heroes?

Who truly inspires you? Are they other creatives in your field, or are they long gone poets, bio-scientists or world peace campaigners? Or was it your grandma who taught you how to knit or who stood up for herself and said it as it was?

Do a blog post or email with your selection of five role models. What is it about them that you particularly admire? How do they compare with each other? And what are the lessons you learnt from each of them?

Or maybe you could do a Q&A or short interview with your role models and publish that on your blog?

Writing about your inspirations makes for great content for your readers, and can give a great insight into your inspirations and values too. And you can spice up your About Me page too with details of your inspirations. We love it how pet artist Jo Scott has created a really memorable ‘About Me’ page that way. 

5. Review an exhibition, event or book.

Do you want to share your inspirations, passions and values a bit more? Want to add a bit more creative content to your blog or emails?

  • Write a book review of a book and share that with your readers. Will it be a technical, creative, historical or business book? How can you share your own inspiration, values and knowledge with your readers?
  • Or create a purely photo-based blog post about an exhibition that you found inspiring. Or share pictures of city visit or quiet walk. Especially useful if you don’t like writing!
  • Or if you have exhibited at a craft fair or trade show then writing a blog post about the event can be a great follow up email after the show.

These type of review blogs can be great if you want to become an expert in your field, or if you want to start curating or writing more too.

We regularly review books on The Design Trust blog that are relevant. You can find our favourite creative business planning books here and our selected time management books here. 

6. Share your creative process.

Do you find it difficult to write anything at all? Then do think about using video, images or podcasts even.

Short videos of you at work are extremely popular on Instagram and Facebook.

Keep it short – up to 3 minutes is perfect.

And no, you don’t have to show everything and give all your technical secrets away! But it is surprising that many potential clients might not realise what is actually involved in creating your lovely handmade products.

If they don’t understand the knowledge and skills required to create beautiful, high-end craft products then how can they value what you do?

7. Show designs and products in process.

Share with your potential clients how you get inspired. How you sketch out your ideas. How you create prototype‘s or select the right materials. Or get your colours or glazes ‘just’ right.

When you are getting ready for a launch of a new collection then create a series of emails or blog posts that *slowly* reveals your next collection step-by-step – from sharing your initial ideas 6 weeks before the launch, to revealing some prototypes and the collection name a month in advance, to the final result and launching your collection.

8. Share your passions, quirks and geekiness.

People buy from people … especially when it comes to creative products and services.

Share with your audience what you are really passionate about. Show your personality. Dare to be a little different and stand out!

What excites you about your specific craft, your themes, your materials or techniques?

Did you choose your craft? Or did your craft choose you?

What is it about ceramics that you really love? Is it the combination of science and art? The possibilities of glazes? The unpredictability of the process – every single time you open that kiln door you aren’t sure which ones have survived? Or that human beings have been making pots for over 10,000 years?

Do you spend hours making your work? Relentlessly? Bickering away?

What is your work really about? What stories do you want to tell? What’s the bigger purpose of the creative work you do? What do you want to change in the world through your work and your way of seeing?

People love to buy from passionate people. Share your passion widely and passionately. Show that you care. Create an impact. We need more enthusiastic creatives like that in the world!

9. Share in-depth case studies of your commissions

This is one of my favourites! And it’s one of the most effective marketing tools you can use. Especially if you write up detailed case studies, and then promote them regularly via social media and your email marketing too.

Really tell the story of how you work with your commissioners – from start to finish. Set the scene and talk about a specific person, couple of business that commissioned you. What was the design brief? Then talk your reader through all the different stages. Your meetings or phone calls. The changes you made as you went along. Some of the challenging parts even. And finish with showing the end result and some quotes from your commissioners. Not just about the final piece, but about the process and what they liked about working with you. 

Add images of some of your sketches or prototypes.

A detailed case study can give great insight into HOW you work. What’s actually involved. How friendly or accommodating you are. Your specialist expertise. Your creative process.

Plus it’s a great way to share quotes and testimonials from happy clients. So much easier to get other people to blog your trumpet, then doing this yourself!

Writing up detailed case studies is great for commissions, but also for workshops or if you provide design services to interior designers or other business clients.

A good case study can give a unique insight into HOW you work, is more memorable as a story, and builds trust along the way.

10. Introduce your stockists and retailers

Are you promoting your wholesalers? Adding a simple stockist list to your website is a good start, but you can take this even further by introducing some of your favourite stockists or retailers in an extended blog post or email. Add several images with the display of your products. Talk about the gallery or shop owners, and why you are proud to be working with them.

No. you don’t have to be a slime ball to pull this one off … but let’s face it – small independent retailers are finding it really tough right now, so a bit of extra TLC from their suppliers (i.e. you!) will be much appreciated! PLUS some of your clients might not want to wait till your next event or shop online because they want to see your work in the flash.

And if you are working with great shops and galleries then this is a great booster for your credibility and profile too!

Check out here our blog post with our 20 favourite creative lifestyle bricks and mortar shops across the UK.

11. What is special or different about you?

Let’s face it … it’s a pretty competitive market out there! So sometimes you need to spell it out a bit clearer to your potential clients: What makes you different or special? Because niche is good!

So, what is special about you, your team, your business, or your products?

Do you use only ethical materials or are you an extremely good thrower?

One of my clients used an oak tree that was 200 years old recently. And he forgot to mention that in any of his communications! That’s such a shame because ‘little’ details like that make a huge difference to the perception of what you do, the care for your materials, the longevity and inherent history you create, and how people will remember you.

12. Ask your client’s questions

Get your clients more involved with your business by asking them questions. It’s an excellent way to really get to know who your email subscribers are! 

Although I personally think you have to be careful with asking a broad group for feedback, it can be interesting and very useful if you do this in a more targeted way, aimed at your ideal clients rather than your best friends. The Design Trust regularly does surveys for example around specific challenges that our creative business clients face. Their answers often gives us ideas for new online courses, workshops, blog posts or interviews for our Business Club.

So instead of asking your audience to vote on the possible new colourways or your new logo I would instead get them involved at an earlier stage. For example ask them about some of the challenges or issues for your kind of products or services, ask them which craft events or trade shows they attend or which specific blogs or magazines they read. Or what their specific questions or worries are about purchasing your work or commissioning you. This works especially well if your products are rare or expensive purchases as potential clients will have more questions and need more reassurance.

What is stopping your ideal clients to buy from you? If you can find the answer to that then it’s much more likely you are going to get sales.

You can ask them by email and respond directly to you, or via comments on social media or in blog posts. Or you can include a short survey that you create in Google Drive to guarantee confidentiality.

13. Answer your client’s questions

This is one of the most useful and successful ways to generate ideas for what to write about for blog posts and emails!

Why? If you write a blog post with their question and your answer then you might increase your SEO. Use your client’s question as the title of your blog post, use the key words in the URL at the top, and repeat it a few times in your post. As other potential clients might have the same question and put it in their search engine the chances of them reaching your website will increased.

Plus if you are helpful towards your future clients and answer their questions then that makes you a much more trusted creative business.

One of the biggest reasons why The Design Trust website gets more than 50,000 visitors each month is because we answer many questions for our creative business clients through this Q&A format. Many other creatives had similar questions and found us that way on Google. Once your blog becomes more established around certain consistent key terms then the traffic to your site will increase exponentially. 

14. What’s important to you?

Share your values and bigger vision and purpose with your audience.

Why? It’s very likely that your ideal clients are interested in the same values as you are. For example if you are interested in eco-friendly fashion then it’s likely that your clients are too.

Write about your favourite topics from different angles as this will increase the likelihood that you will reach the right people. For example think about including last minute gift ideas for eco-friendly mums for Mother’s Day, and insight into your supply chain and manufacturing partners, or recommend other eco-friendly small businesses that are related to what you do for example shoe companies or eco-friendly jewellers.

By writing about your key values in different ways you will get spotted easier, and your SEO for that key word will go up too.

A great example of how important values can be for a creative business is furniture designer Sebastian Cox, whose blog posts are very related to his opinions around sustainability.

15. Share useful tips and recommendations

How can you become less boring and salesy and more useful for your readers? Share some practical tips or resources that you know of that might be super useful to them! It will increase their trust in you, plus it makes you more knowledgeable too.

For example:

  • If you design and sell contemporary engagement and wedding rings then you might like to recommend other small independent creative businesses for contemporary brides, such as letterpress designers, make up artist, local photographers, wedding dress designers, and florists.
  • Does your silver jewellery need a bit of after care to avoid getting black? Then send a follow up email after their purchase on how to look after their purchase.
  • Do you own a small independent shop or gallery? Then share top tips on your blogs on where to find nice local restaurants or boutique hotels. They might even return the favour!

The Design Trust blogs and emails are full of recommendations! You can check out our 43 favourite online places to sell your crafts & design here. 

16. Give styling tips on how to wear your work

People find it often difficult to imagine how your jewellery would look on them, or if your prints would look good on their wall. So … show them!

Especially Pinterest is full of styling tips and advice on how to wear statement jewellery or a scarf, how to hang pictures on a wall, or create beautiful ceramic collection displays. Also think here about broader challenges that are indirectly related to what you do e.g. about how to dress a Christmas tree or table, or how to wrap a present beautifully.

American jeweller Megan Auman has various styling boards on her very popular Pinterest site. Very cleverly showing her pieces off and how they can be worn in different situations.

This is another great image-based solution if you don’t like writing! A great opportunity to add some different images on to your Instagram or Pinterest account.

17. Make the most of events

One of the most common mistakes I see is that creatives only send out one email to promote an event.

And often they will send it too late.

Creative selling events are one of the best opportunities to sell your gorgeous creative products, but also a great opportunity to promote yourself and your brand – even to people who might never be able to visit!

While preparing for a craft fair or tradeshow it’s crucial that you share not just one email or a few social media posts at the last moment. Events are one of the best opportunities to stay in touch with your audience in a friendly, non salesy way. Not just for the people who might be able to attend, but also to raise your profile and credibility to all your contacts.

I advise my clients to create a series of emails in the run-up to a show, from:

  • announcing that you are doing a particular show (6 weeks before)
  • to talking about your new collection that you will be launching at the show (4 weeks before)
  • to why you created this collection and its name (3 weeks before)
  • to asking if anybody needs a VIP  or special discount ticket (2 weeks before)
  • to getting ready for the show with packing up and boxes sticking out of your van (2 days before)
  • to the chaos of setting up your stand (1 day before)
  • and the final result: the launch of your new collection and your stand display. (on launch day)

Also don’t forget to email or share on social media after the show with a follow-up of what your bestseller were, and enable them to download a price list or wholesale catalogue. Just in case they missed you. This isn’t spam, this is being friendly and useful to busy people.

The reality is that if you only send one email that it’s very likely that your clients will miss it. Because the reality is that the vast majority of your clients won’t open their email. By telling a story it’s more likely that they will open your email, but also by telling a story they will become much more engaged and involved in your business journey. 

18. Make it more personal for trade buyers

If you want to increase your wholesale orders then individual and personalised emails work best. Don’t send a generic email that you also send to consumers.

Handpick the stockists and retailers you want to work with and research them instead.

Make sure that there is a good fit, rather than sending generic emails to ‘everybody’. It’s annoying and really doesn’t show that you have taken care of understanding them.

And if you want social media to work for trade clients then it’s best that you don’t copy them in all the time.

And don’t just hope that they will follow you in return if you follow them! Sorry, you need to do a bit more work then that. Stop broadcasting so much, and instead spend much more time on your trade client’s social media timelines and engage with them there. Ask questions. Give detailed comments and compliments. Yes: Make it social media!

19. Highlight a ‘Product of the Week’

Shine a light on a specific product or service that week or month.

Why did you design that product?

What was the inspiration behind it?

What name did you give it?

What’s special about it?

Make this post ideally relevant to the time of year for example a nice cosy woollen blanket post in October. Or gift ideas for teachers in July.

Include a gorgeous image at the top of your email to attract attention straight away.

And maybe you can do something special e.g. offer free postage and packaging on that product that week or combine it with another producct to create a special Set of the Month.

This is a simple but effective marketing approach to promote a product that you have got quiet a bit of stock of, without putting it too bluntly in the sale!

20. Do a timely post or email

Make your emails and blog posts more relevant and newsworthy!

Become more aware of WHEN your readers are most likely to buy. What are their reasons to buy from you?

Of course this is useful around Christmas and share some last minute gift ideas for busy mums or bicycle lovers.

But time to get a bit more creative too!

What are the key gift giving moments for your clients? Think about different religions.

What about ‘Back To School’ or ‘Hurray Spring is Here’.

Or join in with popular TV shows, music or the news.

What about ‘Love a Tree Day’ (16 May), National Stationery Week (starts Tuesday after Easter) or World Chocolate Day (yummm 7 July). We don’t know either who makes these days up … but you can find some of them on The Design Trust annual wall planner! 

Think about how your clients might feel right now. For example in January people want to start new habits or courses, and this might be a great time to launch planners or workshops. In March people might like to do a little spring clean and get some new cushions or prints on the wall. When it gets colder they will be looking for scarfs, cosy blankets, or candles. Add a little happiness in their timeline or inbox that connects to how they want to feel. 

Make sure that your subject line is catchy, interesting or useful to your potential clients.

Don’t call your newsletter a newsletter … as let’s face it … nobody wants to read that!

21. Be useful

Who wants to receive emails that are boring, spammy and overly salesy? Nobody!

Who wants to read boring blog posts? Nobody!

So, simple: start to write blog posts and emails that are useful to your ideal clients!

Give them practical advice and last-minute Christmas wrapping ideas or gift suggestions for difficult people.

Talk about the Pantone Colour of the Year and share trend advice about the latest fashion or interior colours for the next season.

Promote other creative businesses, resources or books you like. About half of our social media posts are about promoting other organisations, opportunities, events that are relevant to our clients. Less than 10% of our social media posts are about selling our online courses, workshops or books. And if you want to sell then keep it simple and include a link directly to the relevant page. Yes, social media is a great tool to drive traffic to your site!

22. Invite others to write for you!

Don’t like writing? A really good way around this is to ask guest contributors for your blog posts.

Or you can interview others you find interesting and that you know your readers would love to hear about!

Or create a so called ‘wrap up blog post’ where you ask 3 – 5 contributors to respond to the same question or challenge. These blog post can be very popular and easy to create. Check out this blog post where three creatives shared how they use email marketing in their creative businesses as an example.

Be clear in what you want the focus to be of these guest blog posts, and avoid overly spammy and salesy posts. Also ensure that the content is original, as most search engines will punish you into lower rankings if your content has been duplicated.

And if your guest writer is well connected or known and promotes their blog post to their audience then you will get more and better traffic too!

Who would you approach to write for you? And how can you convince them that that’s a good idea for them too?

23. Take part in a social media challenge

Do you need even more ideas on what to write about in your emails, blog posts or on social media? Then take in any of the popular social media challenges that are doing the rounds regularly.

One of the most popular ones is Joanne Hawker’s #marchmeetthemaker which takes place in March. Most of these challenges last a week or a month, and each day there is another topic for you to share.

Be careful that they won’t take up hours to construct. And some of these social media challenges attract mostly other creatives, and therefore might not do anything for your sales. But they can be a great opportunity to meet other creatives and become part of a bigger creative network!

24. Less writing. More images.

Don’t like writing? Still don’t know what to write about?

Let’s be honest … you are probably more a visual artists than a writer.

Make it more visual. Focus on great images in your emails. A great image says it often far better than a long email.

Keep it simple.

Because people don’t read that much any more these days.

Did you like our 24 creative ideas on what to write about for your next email newsletter, blog post or on social media? Did we give you any ideas? Or have we missed a topic that worked really well for you? We would love to hear from you in the comments box below.  And if you found this blog post useful then do share it with others on social media too. It’s really easy to copy and spread the love. Thanks.

Want even more email newsletter ideas? Here are our own favourite creative newsletters to inspire you!

The Design Trust 2024 softback diary, incl. 8 hours online business training

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The Design Trust 2024 diary planner + 8 hours online business training

WE ONLY HAVE 18 DIARIES LEFT … SO BUY NOW!

Our popular ring-bound, colourful diary planner is back for 2024! Especially created for creative professionals.

This beautifully designed 2024 diary for creatives has 264+ pages.

  • It is the dated diary with 52 double weekly pages for all your meetings and appointments (between 8am – 8pm), a weekly action question and daily ‘3-actions-to-get-done’ productivity tool.
  • It is ring bound so it will sit perfectly flat on your table. It comes with a flexible bookmark.
  • It has 50+ pages of ‘Business Handbook’ full of creative business advice on your future vision & setting goals, tips & tools to manage your finances & marketing.
  • It has annual, quarterly & monthly planners, incl. The Wheel of Life & Business exercises, your 90-day action plan, your 90-day juicy goal & plan, and quarterly content planners (with our suggestions!), and an End-of-Year-Review-and-Plan.

The Design Trust diary planner is created by Patricia van den Akker, award-winning creative business adviser, trainer & coach and the Director of The Design Trust, based on her 25 years of experience, and it is designed by Laura Danby in Brighton.

This year we are offering one multi-coloured cover for our 2024 diary. It has a soft back, ring-bound cover, and is printed on 120gsm matt recycled paper.

this 2024 diary is so much more than ‘just’ a diary …

It’s a complete planning system for creatives created by Patricia to turn your vague business ideas into annual goals, and then into quarterly projects with monthly & weekly actions.

PLUS it comes with 6 hours of online creative business planning training, including time management, goal setting, financial and marketing planning. And you can join our private Facebook group in 2024 to ask any business or planning questions.

We are currently shipping within 3-4 working days.

the key facts:

  • 264+ pages, beautifully designed and printed in UK with flexible bookmark
  • Size: 17.5 x 21.5cm Printed on 120gsm matt recycled paper
  • Includes 6 hours online training incl. business planning, goal setting, finance + marketing planning in January 2024
  • 50+ pages ‘Business Handbook’ with specific business planning, finance + marketing advice for creatives professionals
  • Week-to-view diary for appointments, meetings etc (8am – 8pm) and double page month-to-view calendar
  • Annual, quarterly + monthly finance + marketing planners + trackers
  • Quarterly reviews + visual planning tools to reflect and plan ahead each quarter + month
  • Quarterly content plan for your email marketing + social media. With our timely content suggestions!
  • Monthly planner + timely to do’s each month + weekly action tips

I’ve found the planner to be life changing, following the guidance and advice I’ve managed to double my income within the first six months, I am absolutely over the moon.

Julia Crossland

A great planner for blocking out time to properly get things done with helpful hints and tips and questions to keep you thinking critically about your business. (And yes, that’s me using the diary planner!)

Jessica Newby

The diary planner has become my best friend because once I have scheduled something, either client design work or time for the development of my business, that means it will happen and I don’t have to do lists cluttering my brain. I am able to organise myself, my workload and my business planning all in one place. As a digital interior stylist I really love having some thing physical to write in, pencil only (!) probably because I’m of the Filofax generation!

Sarah Burghard
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The Design Trust 2024 ring-bound, softback diary has a multi-coloured front cover, and different back cover.

the design trust ring-bound 2024 diary planner includes …

  • A dated diary for 2024, with two-pages per week (Mon – Sun), with space for all your appointments, meetings etc (8am – 8pm), a different, timely action question each week, and space for your notes. Each page has clever time management & productivity tools too.
  • A complete planning system, especially created for creative professionals – to focus, get clarity and turn big ideas into action – all together in one place. Turn your 2024 annual goals & financial forecasts into quarterly 90-day juicy project plans. Reflect on and plan your quarter and months to stay on track of your goals. And plan your weeks and days to create the life and business you want.
  • 50+ pages of ‘The Business Handbook’: Packed with visual exercises and thought-provoking questions to work on your business growth, with Patricia’s expert tips and tools to work on You, Your Marketing & Your Finance.
  • Space to review each quarter and plan the next 90 days with two visual Wheel exercises, the 90-day Juicy Goal and action plan, and quarterly content plans for your social media & marketing – with our timely topic suggestions!
  • Monthly and timely task tips on what to work on that month in your business, and a two-page-to-view-calendar to give you an overview of your key events and your monthly goals and actions.
  • TRAINING BONUS: The Design Trust 2024 diary comes with 6 hours of expert online business planning, goal setting & time management training: 2 hours of pre-recorded time management & goal setting sessions will be available in mid/end November 2023, and 2 live online workshops of 2 hours each on business, marketing & financial planning will be delivered by Patricia van den Akker in January 2024. You will get an exclusive invite for these live online workshops.
  • A lively, friendly & private Facebook community throughout 2024. A place to ask any business & planning questions, share your wins, and get accountability by answering the weekly question.
  • The prices includes 20% VAT (not payable for clients outside of EU and UK) and first class Royal Mail P&P in the UK.
Whats New for 2024 mint Sales Page
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what is the difference between the 2024 diary & the journal planner?

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The 2024 diary and 2024 journal planner both have: The 50+ pages Business Handbook + the Quarterly Review and Planning tools + End of Year Review.

What’s different is …

  • This diary is a dated diary! It has 52 double pages for all the weeks of the year (see image below), with space for your appointments & meetings every day and hour (8am – 8pm). It also has a weekly action question, and ‘3-things-to-get-done-today- tool and a daily focus. You can see how to use the diary in the image below.
  • The journal planner is for creatives who don’t need or want a paper diary, but want to plan regularly and get specialist business advice. The journal planner has everything that the diary has got (see above) except for the 52 weekly/daily diary pages. It only has one double-page per month for the key activities that week.

Therefore the hardback journal planner has only 182 pages, and the ring-bound diary planner has 264 pages.

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THE DESIGN trust diary & planner is much more than ‘just a diary’ …

The Design Trust diary & planner is the must-have creative business planner, goal setting, productivity and time management tool for creative professionals (designers, makers, visual artists, Etsy shop owners) and freelancers who want to make time to reflect, plan more strategically and … to take action.

This is the 9th consecutive year that The Design Trust has self-published this diary and the journal planner. We have sold over 8,000 copies to more than 37 countries.

The diary planner is a proven visual planning tool for creatives based on Patricia’s 20+ years experience as an award-winning creative business adviser. It will help you to visualise your business ideas and to make you accountable to take action.

Patricia created The Design Trust diary planner specifically for creative professionals to reflect, to plan the entire year, and most importantly … to take action! The planner’s structure will step-by-step help you to turn your big ideas and goals into 90-day juicy action plans (especially for projects that you want to work on but never have time for!).

A big part of the concept behind the diary is focusing on quarterly planning and the seasonality of many creative product-based businesses. How to make the most of the feast-and-famine cycle and get ready in the quiet times for the busy times.

Are you doing the right things at the right time? Are you feeling ‘behind’ or overwhelmed with what to do? The diary, along with the online workshops, will show you what to focus on and when, so you make the best use of your time and energy.

You can then turn those quarterly goals into monthly plans with more detailed goals and actions, and ultimately making time in your diary each week or day to work on those goals.

The diary has financial and marketing trackers to keep a close eye on your results, monthly planners and overviews for what’s going on, suggestions for monthly actions to work on in your creative business, and week-to-view for all your meetings, tasks, and appointments. The daily ‘get done’ focus is one of my favourite (and very old!) time management tools.

Throughout the diary and the training we use scientifically-proven time management and productivity techniques, based on Patricia’s vast experience of working with 1,000s of creatives.

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What’s in The Design Trust 2024 diary? Starting with 50+ pages of the ‘Business Handbook’, Quarterly Reviews + Plans, and each of the weeks, and End of Year Review
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Get your finances sorted in 2024! With creative expert tips to make your business profitable, set financial goals for 2024 + create a 5-year forecast
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What business do you want to create? Create a financial forecast to make your business profitable!
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It’s much more than a diary! Each quarter make time to review + plan ahead with our special 90-day planners + visual tools to take stock + plan ahead.
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One of my favourite exercises: The Wheel of Life & Wheel of Business … to quickly see what’s working in your business + life, and what needs work.
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Create a quarterly action plan … to work on ALL parts of your business (finance, marketing, products + yourself!)

HOW DOES THE DESIGN TRUST DIARY PLANNER ‘WORK’?

  • The Design Trust dated diary planner is based on Patricia’s 20+ years of experience working as an award-winning creative business adviser, trainer and coach, working with 1,000s of creatives throughout the UK. It’s based on her extensive research and real-life experience of scientifically-proven time management and productivity tools. Not to get you to do ‘more stuff’, but to give you the strategy, structure and accountability that really works to create the best life and business for you. Helping you make the right decisions for you and your business, every single day.
  • This diary & planner starts with a ‘Creative Business Handbook’: 50+ pages full of creative and strategic exercises and thought-provoking questions to create the life & business you want. You can do these exercises at the start of the year, or whenever you need to get more focus, productivity or accountability. From focusing on your business dream to your values and talents, to getting to know your ideal clients and competitors. With an example/template for a financial forecast and 3-steps-marketing plan to get more sales.
  • Every quarter is printed in a different colour (see the side views) when we invite you to make deliberate time to review how your creative business is doing. Set your own 90-day juicy goal and create your own quarterly action plan to move your creative business forward. Do the Wheel of Life and the Wheel of Business exercises to see what needs work in your life and business, and identify specific action steps. Stop talking and procrastinating. Start doing.
  • We love quarterly goals & plans! To work on bigger strategic projects and because the seasons work well with the natural flow of most creative businesses too.
  • 90 day strategic projects are perfect … as it’s long enough to make a strategic difference, and short enough to keep momentum and focus.
  • Every month you can then plan to stay on track of your bigger quarterly & monthly goals: With suggested actions for that specific month (in finance, money, creation, organisation) and a month-to-view calendar page for your key dates, and to identify your own monthly business & personal goals and actions.
  • With the diary planner you can plan & review your progress every week: choose what to focus on each week and even at the start or end of each day. Each week there is a different but often timely thought-provoking question to get you into action. Plus each day you will focus on getting just 3 things done – using one of the oldest but best time management tricks in the world!
  • BONUS: If you purchase The Design Trust diary planner 2024 then you also get access to 6 hours of online business planning training, and access to our exclusive Facebook group all year round – managed by The Design Trust team.

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Quick monthly overview with all the dates of the month at the start of each month … for all your most important events, meetings + deadlines.
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Are you doing the right thing at the right time? Each month we will give you our tips on what to focus on that month in ALL parts of your business. Become more strategic.
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Make your creative business profitable! Create a financial forecast for the next few years, and build a business that works for you!

what will you achieve in 2024?

The last few years have been tough for many small business owners. And the future is uncertain … with increased costs, ongoing high inflation, and the impact changes in our environment will have on our lives, businesses and the wider world.

Many people are at a crossroads, re-evaluating their lives, values, purpose and their talents.

It’s much harder to get sales now so you’ll need to be more creative and strategic about choosing the right income streams, marketing channels, and a business model that will work for you and your business.

Let The Design Trust 2024 diary planner be your guide to create a more sustainable, creative business throughout 2024, and beyond!

Not to get more done, but to focus on what’s really important to you and your business, to make the most of your unique talents and creativity based on your purpose and values, to get clear on what needs work in your creative business, to focus on creating the best life and business for you and your family, and to attract and work with your dream clients.

The 2024 diary planner is packed full with practical business and marketing tips to start and grow your creative business, goal setting and visual planning exercises, quarterly juicy goal action plans and monthly planners, quarterly social media plans with timely content suggestions, weekly thought-provoking questions and what-to-focus-on-actionable-ideas.

Created by the award-winning creative business adviser Patricia van den Akker, the Director of The Design Trust, with over 25 years’ experience as a creative business adviser, trainer and mentor for 1,000s of creatives. Based on the success of the Dream Plan Do planners, she created this dated diary to help you turn your ideas into actions every day, to help you to prioritise and focus on what’s really important, and to move you and your business forward throughout 2024.

Join over 3,000 creatives in more than 32 countries who have used The Design Trust diary planner in the last 3 years (when we started publishing the diaries) to turn their ideas into reality.

get more organised & focused in 2024 …

Your questions answered …

  • When will I get my diary planner?

    We aime to send your order within 3 – 4 working days.

     

  • Is the diary dated? Has it got dates in it?

    Yes, The Design Trust 2024 diary planner is dated for each day with a two-pages-per-week-view so you can include your own daily and hourly appointments and meetings (from 8am – 8pm), and also have a good overview to plan your week ahead. Each weekly overview starts on a Monday.

    It also has month-to-view plan at the start of each month with the most important holiday days.

    NOTE The journal planner is not a diary, so make sure you order the right one!

  • What’s the 2024 Quarterly Dream Plan Do Club? Do I need that if this planner comes with 6 hours training anyway?

    Do you want extra support & accountability throughout the year to turn your plans into reality? Would you love to get some extra inspiration from Patricia and other ambitious creatives?

    Are you feeling stuck or do you need to work more strategically?

    Do you want to make REGULAR +  deliberate time to dream & reflect, to plan properly, and to DO?!

    We are introducing the 2024 Quarterly Dream Plan Do Club for creatives like you!

    The 4 Quarterly Dream Plan Do half day sessions are facilitated sessions by Patricia, so there is very little ‘teaching’ (which will happen in the free business & marketing planning sessions) as the focus is on you doing the work – to reflect, to plan, to do the exercises, discuss the questions with others, write down your own answers & actions.

    NOTE: the 4 Quarterly Dream Plan Do sessions will take place on Fridays 19 January, 22 March, 28 June and 27 September 2024 from 10am – 1pm (UK time).

    We want you to commit to working on your business regularly, and due to the very practical nature of these guided sessions we have decided NOT TO OFFER RECORDINGS of these sessions, so you will need to attend them live.

    Note that the diary planner + our popular A2 wall planner (worth £10,-) are included in the price of the 2024 Dream Plan Do Club!

  • Is The Design Trust 2024 diary available as a download?

    The simple answer is: No.

    Of course we did consider this option, but … we strongly (!) believe that it would really change the experience of using The Design Trust creative business diary planner. 

    Firstly, printing off 264 pages is no mean feat (!) and quite costly too.

    Secondly, I don’t think you will then actually use it how we intended it. We created this beautifully designed planner as the perfect planning tool to scribble notes & sketches in, and as a deep-but-practical reflective experience – especially for creatives – to create the much-needed time and space for you to work ON your business. Away from a computer!

    Deliberately non-digital and ‘old-fashioned’! A beautiful diary that becomes truly yours over time, and that you treasure to use.

    A diary full with your hand-writing. That you’ll pick up again in years from now, to see your progress, challenges, and successes again.

    Where you can write your dreams and ideas, to sketch and doodle in (all impossible with an online diary!)

    Creating a reflection and planning habit to get out at the start or end of each quarter, month, week and even daily to plan ahead. That helps you to get organised and make better decisions. Especially if you create some distance and take it away from your workspace to work on.

    Use it on your sofa or in your favourite café to reflect and work ON your creative business. Or on journeys or holidays.

    To use as a record of what’s going on in your life and business.

    Yes, I love paper and stationery! I studied Graphic Design and married a graphic-designer-turned-Head-of-Art. We both love the smell of freshly printed books. The tactility of holding a good book in your hands. We love good typography and #printisnotdead and good magazines.

    We love a good planner. I am proud to be a bit of a stationery geek.

    And I just know that printing out copies isn’t the same experience. I hope you understand. If you ‘get it’ then you will love The Design Trust diary’s quality. And the true soul of it too.

  • I haven’t started my creative business yet. Is The Design Trust diary for me?

    Yes!

    The Design Trust diary planner will help you to look at ALL aspects of your fledgling business, in a more strategic way … not just the making part that you love already!

    The Design Trust diary planner will help you to get your new business (idea) off the ground quicker and to build the best business foundations for now and the future.

    The diary starts with “The Business Handbook”: 50+ pages of creative business planning tools, financial forecasts and marketing exercises that Patricia has developed in the last 25 years as a creative business adviser, trainer and coach with 1,000s of creatives.

    It’s a bit like having her as your personal business coach (at a much better price!)

    You’ll set goals for the year, create a (simple) financial forecast and marketing plan, and use the planner’s practical business tips and monthly recommendations as guidelines for what to focus on that month.

    Your goals will not just be about making (a common new creative mistake!) but also include your finances, marketing, social media and learning.

    And they will be based on your values, your strengths and talents.

    The diary planner is so much more than ‘just a diary’ … it will help you to break down big goals into smaller, do-able steps, with quarterly projects to work on, and monthly goals and activities. Each month you get practical tips on what to work on right now, and topical business tips to boost your creative business and marketing knowledge.

    The Design Trust 2024 diary planner also comes with 6 hours of online business planning training, including 2 live workshops in January.

    The Design Trust diary can save you a lot of money, energy and time.

    Because it asks you the big business questions you need to work on and start finding your own answers.

    Because it breaks big jobs into smaller actions, so you move forward rather than worry or procrastinate about what steps to take next.

    Less (over) thinking, more doing!

    And … why not upgrade and join our 2024 Quarterly Dream Plan Do Club too for extra support + accountability throughout the year?(Recommended for businesses that have been selling for 2 years or more!)

  • I have been a creative business for a long time. Is The Design Trust diary planner just for new creative businesses?

    No!!

    Our diary planner is for ANY ambitious creative professional – from recent graduates or part-time creatives, to established designer makers and businesses selling at trade shows and internationally.

    Many very established professional creatives have purchased and used the diary to work on their business in the last few years! (Big names that you will know from shows and TV!)

    Patricia created The Design Trust diary planner especially for creative professionals who create and sell products and services, who want to get better organised and more focused – from handmade items on Etsy to multiples sold through stockists, from giftable items sold at craft fairs to exclusive high end one-off luxury items sold in exclusive galleries in New York or Dubai, from craft workshops to popup organisers, gallery owners, event organisers and creative bloggers and foodies.

    It’s a lot more than ‘just a diary’ … it is a complete business planning system and time management / productivity tool. So, especially if you are stuck, got loads of different jobs and responsibilities to juggle, are starting again after a break, or need a boost to stop procrastinating and wasting your time, then this diary for creative professionals is for you. It’s a must-have time management tool to make the most of your limited time, money and energy!

    Using The Design Trust diary planner regularly enables you to make the time and space to reflect and plan ahead.

    And especially if you have been going for a while it might be really healthy to take some distance and wonder if you are still doing the right thing? Especially after the last 3 years with so many changes to our lives and businesses!

    You are also very welcome to join our 2024 Quarterly Dream Plan Do Club! To get more support and accountability, and to make sure that you deliberately make the time and space for yourself to dream & reflect, to plan ahead, and to commit to doing!

    I have worked as a creative business adviser, trainer and coach for more than 25 years. This diary planner combines many of the coaching questions, practical planning tools and marketing/social media planners that I have developed over all these years.

    What’s great about The Design Trust diary planner is that this is a very personal journey and reflection.  The diary will guide you through questions and creative exercises for you to create a more purpose-driven business and life.

    Creating a business you will be proud of – in every sense of the word!

  • I am not based in the UK. Can I still buy your diary planner? Will it be relevant to me?

    We love connecting with creatives all over the world.  In the last 4 years our diary & planners sold over 3,500 copies to 35 countries, so yes we would love to send you our diary or planner too!

    The UK is a booming market for creative products and design, and Patricia is one of the leading UK experts in providing specialist creative business advice & training for over 25 years.  Many of our strategic planning and time management tools, practical finance and marketing advice is relevant to creative businesses around the world.

    There might be some slight differences in terms of legal issues or finances, but these are often minor and we always advise that you check in with local experts in these areas.

    Of course there are differences in the way creative products and services are sold and purchased in different countries, but many of our marketing and social media tips will be relevant to your circumstances too, especially if you are selling online in a global market!

    As part of your diary planner purchase you will automatically get access to 6 hours of online training, and all year round access to our lively and friendly Facebook group. Easily accessible wherever you are in the world as you can access both from your own computer. The online training will be recorded and you will be able to access that throughout 2024.

    If you are outside the UK and the EU then you will get the diary planner a little cheaper … as you will not have to pay 20% UK VAT. You will be charged a discounted rate for international post, depending on where you live. Your diary planner order will be sent ‘signed for and tracked’ (wherever possible!) by British Royal Mail. You will receive an email with your tracking number when your order is processed. Please keep an eye out for our confirmation email with this number. Normally it takes around 5 days within Europe, and up to 14 days in the rest of the world to receive your order. This might be slightly longer at the end of November or December due to the Christmas busy-ness.

    We had some issues with some EU countries last year (especially Belgium, Portugal and Ireland) and please get in touch with us directly to find out how we can send the planner diary to you without too many issues around post-Brexit paperwork and duties. IMPORTANT: Please enquire within 14 days of receiving our confirmation email if you have not received your international order so that we can investigate. Do not wait for more than 30 days as it’s likely that the order will then have been returned to us, and you will be required to pay for additional international postage.

    Note that post-Brexit you as the purchaser are responsible to pay any duties or additional taxes charged by your national tax office or postal service.

    We will refund you any double-paid VAT asap.

The Design Trust 2024 diary + planner FREE business planning course

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Dear , A big welcome to The Design Trust 2024 diary + planner free course

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The 2024 hardback journal planners and the 2024 ring-bound diaries

are you ready to make the most of your 2024 diary & journal planner?

Welcome to your FREE 6-hour online business, finance & marketing planning course with The Design Trust, which is part of your purchase of the 2024 diary planner or journal planner.

I hope that you are really looking forward to 2024 and to make your creative business even better. With the help of our diary & journal planner and this free course!

You can find the recordings of all the pre-recorded and the two live workshops in January here below. Simply scroll down to access all the recordings and presentations as well.

You will have access to this course page till the end of 2024, and you can return to this page as often as you like.

We recommend that you make a note of the URL at the top, or bookmark this page to make it really easy to return later.

We hope you will get so much from these training session that will boost your business, planning, finance & marketing skills, knowledge & confidence!

Patricia van den Akker & Anne-Marie Shepherd – The Design Trust – the online business school for designers, makers & other creative professionals

video training: one-page-one-year-business plan (1h38″)

You can watch the recording of this session by clicking on the triangular button. If you want it full screen then press the four-arrow button on the recording. To return to small screen press the Esc button on your keypad.

This recording has English subtitles, that you can switch on/off by clicking on the cc icon in the bottom right of the recording.

This recording is annotated which means that it’s divided into ‘chapters’. Hover your mouse over the bottom of the recording on the broken links to see the chapter titles. This makes it easier to stop/start the recording whenever you like.

You can download the presentation of this recording here below. Please note that this is for your own personal use only and should not be shared with others who have not purchased the 2024 The Design Trust diary or journal planner.

Download “The Design Trust One Page One Year Business Plan workshop – 2024”

This training recording will help you to create a business plan for 2024, and uses The Design Trust 2024 A2 wall planner. If you pre-ordered our 2024 diary or journal planner then you will have received this as a free gift, and many of you have purchased this too. Alternatively use a large piece of paper to create your own one-year-one-page business plan for 2024.

In this session Patricia will share:

  • Some very useful goal setting, creative business planning and time management techniques to help you set better goals for yourself and your business.
  • The 9 steps that you need to go through to create an annual business plan.

We recommend that you spend 2-4 hours on creating your own business plan for 2024. You can stop/start the session whenever you like

video training: end of year review (38″)

You can watch the recording of this session by clicking on the triangular button. If you want it full screen then press the four-arrow button in the bottom right corner. If you want to return to the regular screen then press the Esc button on your key board.

This session has been annotated (see the interrupted link at the bottom of the recording). Hover of this with your mouse to make the various chapters visible. This will make it easier for you to start/stop this session or to watch a specific part again.

This session has English subtitles that you can switch on/off by clicking the cc button on in the bottom right of the recording.

You can download the presentation of this session here below: We recommend that you change the printing settings so that you get 4 slides on one page. Please note that this is for your own personal use only, and should not be shared with others who didn’t purchase a 2024 diary or journal planner. Thank you.

Download “TDT 2024 diary or journal planner / End of Year Review 2023”

This is part of our tradition at the end of the year … The End of Year Review. In this reflective session Patricia asks 7 big questions to reflect, review and celebrate 2023! Each have several layers. Some questions will be easy to answer, some might need some more work or research into your numbers. Some are thought-provoking others are inspiring. Do all of them or choose the questions that work for you!

Patricia also asks questions that might help you to get ready for 2024!

To do the full End of Year Review we recommend around 2-4 hours. But of course you can decide to only focus on 1 or 2 questions, and still get a lot out of working on those! The big advantage of learning online is … that you can stop / start this session whenever you like so that you can write down your answers in your own time.

You can use the End of Year Review pages at the end of your 2024 diary or journal planner with this training, or you can use a notebook. We recommend that you might want to do this review away from your usual workspace … and it’s perfect for that quiet period between Christmas and mid January.

video training: Quarterly planning & reviews (1h38″)

You can watch the recording of this session by clicking on the triangular button. Press the four-arrow button on the bottom right of the recording to make it full screen. Use the Esc button on your keypad to return to regular screen.

This recording is annotated which means it’s easy to stop/start the recording or to watch a specific session again. Hover your mouse over the broken line at the bottom of the recording to see the different chapters/exercises.

This recording has English subtitles which you can switch on/off by clicking on the c/c button in the recording.

You can download the presentation of this session here below. We recommend that you change the printing settings so that you get 4 slides on one page. Please note that this is for your own personal use only, and should not be shared with others who didn’t purchase a 2024 diary or journal planner. Thank you.

Download “TDT 2024 diary journal Quarterly Reviews & Planning – free course”

This video training explains in detail how to do the full Quarterly Review and Planning, with every exercises in the recurring quarterly planning explained in more detail. Patricia gives more detail about each of the different exercises and shares examples too of full plans, specific activities that you can do to improve your marketing or finance or other aspects of your business. She finishes this session by explaining the Quarterly Content Calendar with top tips on social media & email marketing too.

We highly recommend that you watch this session to give your planning, finance & marketing a boost and to get more examples.

video training: live workshop business planning (2h28″)

You can watch the recording of this live session by clicking on the triangular button. If you want it full screen then press the four-arrow button. To return to a regular screen press the Esc button on your key board.

This session is annotated (see the unbroken line at the bottom of the recording) to make it easier to stop/start watching this session. Hover your mouse over the line and you will see the different chapters.

This session has English subtitles that you can switch on/off by clicking on the cc button.

You can print off the presentation of this session below. I recommend that you change the printer settings so that you can print more slides on one page. Please note that this is for your own personal use only, and should not be shared with others who have not paid for the diary or planner as it’s our copyrighted materials.

Download “TDT 2024 diary planner free business planning workshop Jan 2024”

In this first free live workshop session for 2024 diary & journal planner buyers we will look at creative business planning:

  • How to access the course hub.
  • A quick intro to how the planning system works that Patricia has created. How often and when & what to plan? From big goals to annual goals, quarterly projects to monthly plans, to weekly & daily actions. Turn big ideas into do-able activities to make them possible!
  • The foundation:
  • 1) What’s your business dream? (p. 11) Your bigger purpose and longer term.
  • 2) Why do you do what you do? (p. 14)= your motivation = where do you come from?
  • 3) What are your values? p. 15 – 19) = What’s important to you? The glass jar exercise (p. 17)
  • The core 4 business areas to create a sustainable creative business – you, finance, marketing & creative production
  • What are your business goals for 2024? p. 12-13
  • What do you want or need to work on … for your mental & physical health? Your finances? Marketing? Creative production? Set goals and SMART activities. How to spend your time?
  • The big challenges …
  • 1) How to stop procrastinating? The 6 reasons why we procrastinate and what to do about them?
  • 2) How to stay on track?
  • 3) How to plan for unpredictability?
  • Want more support? Join our 2024 Quarterly Dream Plan Do Club!

video training: live workshop finance & marketing planning (2h29″)

You can watch the recording of this live workshop by clicking on the triangular button. If you want it full screen then press the four-arrow button. If you want it regular screen again then press the Esc button on your keyboard.

This session has been annotated (see the broken line at the bottom of the recording) to make it easier to stop/start the session or to find a specific chapter to watch that again. Hover your mouse over the broken link to see the chapter names.

This session has English subtitles that you can switch on/off by clicking on the CC logo on the recording.

You can download here below the presentation of this session, as well as the Excel template to create your own financial forecast. Please note that these are for your own personal use only, and should not be shared with others who have not paid for the diary or journal.

Download “The Design Trust 2024 diary planner Finance & Marketing Planning workshop – Jan 2024”

Download “TDT Financial forecast in 3 steps”

In this 2nd and final free online workshop Patricia shared:

  • How to get back in charge of your finances …
  • Is your creative business viable? The very useful and strategic 3 Question exercise (see p. 28-29) And what to do if your numbers don’t stack up? (p. 29)
  • Have you set a financial goal yet? (p. 24-25) Why this is so important (especially if your turnover is low).
  • Creating your financial forecast (p. 26-27)

Real client questions around finance (from the registration form):

  • “How do I do a realistic budget in these unpredictable times? Or if I have never done one before?”
  • “My costs are going through the roof! What do I do?”
  • “How to price my time when a product takes a long time to make?”
  • “Is there a formula on how to spend my expenses?”
  • “How do you balance pricing your work when most galleries take a 50% cut?” We highly recommend you to read this blog post on our website.

Fundamental marketing:

  • What do you want to be known for? (p.33) and identify your brand values (p. 33)
  • Our marketing mantra: “People only buy from people they know, like & trust” (p. 34) How to build your profile, credibility & trust.
  • Who are your ideal clients? (p. 38-39) How to identify them & get to know them.

Real client questions around marketing (from the registration form)

  • “How do you make time for marketing? I am so busy already?”
  • “How do I find my ideal clients for my jewellery workshops?”
  • “I am not very good at writing. What’s the best way to do email marketing?”
  • “How do I encourage my clients to stay with me, even though I have increased my prices?”
  • Create a marketing plan in 3 steps: Set a financial goal, what are the marketing projects, what to do … if you want more online sales, trade orders, get higher end commissions, more from event sales, local sales and workshops.
  • How to keep your finances & marketing on track?
  • Patricia answered even more finance & marketing questions at the end of this session.

*BONUS’ video training: live workshop ‘planning with adhd’ with amanda perry (1h17″)

You can watch the recording of this session by clicking on the triangular button. To get it full screen press the four-arrow icon in the bottom right of the recording. To get it full screen again press the Esc button on your keyboard.

This recording has English subtitles that you can switch on/off by clicking on the CC logo in the bottom right of the recording.

We have annotated this recording – hover your mouse over the broken link at the bottom of this recording to see the titles of the different chapters. This makes it easier to stop/start watching specific parts of the video.

We invited ADHD expert Amanda Perry to talk to our Business Club members, but as we thought that our 2024 diary & journal users would find this session useful too we extended the invite, so this is a BONUS session for you! And I think a very useful one indeed. In this session Patricia interviews Amanda, and they discuss the following:

  • What are the specific planning challenges for creative business owners with ADHD (traits)? From time blindness and seeing time in a differnt way to executive decision making to impulse and perfectionism.
  • What are some of the bigger and practical solutions to manage your ADHD. (And yes it’s very personal for each person!)
  • Is being employed or self-employed better suited to people with ADHD? The structure versus the flexibility …
  • How to manage finance & marketing (two specifically challenging areas for business owners with ADHD)
  • Dealing with the extremes of ADHD – the hyperfocus vs procrastination and burnout, and the very low self esteem and even self-loating versus very high expectations (God mode as Amanda calls it).
  • What are the positives & strengths of ADHD?
  • Questions from the audience around managing ADHD.

Find out more about Amanda Perry and how she works with founders and business owners on her website. Her Instagram account is very useful too.

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Real Life: 3 Creatives share how they manage their email marketing

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In these times of social media uncertainly – the hacked accounts, the bots, the lack of visibility and engagement and the persistent changes in how we are supposed to be using each platform – there’s something reassuring about having an email list and using it.

Not only that, research shows that email marketing is super effective when it comes to sales! There are 4 billion daily email users (Statista 2021) and 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once per month (Salescycle 2022). Furthermore, a recent study by McKinsey & Co found that email marketing acquired 40 times more customers than Facebook and Twitter combined and generated 174% more total conversions than social media.

We talk about the importance of email marketing all the time in The Design Trust – we know it works! So we asked three creative business owners to share how they use email marketing in their businesses – from how they build their email lists to how often they send emails and the email content that they create.

Muswell Hill Creatives – North London

Muswell Hill Creatives (MHC) was founded in 2014 in Muswell Hill, North London by local freelancer Rachael Booth-Clibborn. The organisation brings together local artists and makers united by a desire to create original, high-quality products through skilled workmanship. The collective offers mutual support and provides a forum for growing each members’ creative business. Muswell Hill Creatives’ Maker Fairs, Pop Ups and Events are popular fixtures and showcase the area’s thriving creative community.

Muswell Hill Market
Muswell Hill Creatives North London Market

Here, Rachael shares the importance of email marketing and how MHC uses it:

“We have an MHC website and active social media accounts, but email marketing is an essential part of the mix. Our newsletters connect us directly with supporters who have signed up at events or online and feel an affinity with what we do.

Patricia at The Design Trust once said at a workshop I attended, “social media is like going out on the pull and getting an email address is like having pulled!”

This is so true.  Social media is not fail safe, so whilst having lots of followers is great, it comes with a risk if that’s all you rely on; ever-changing algorithms and the risk of losing your account or it being blocked, are ever present. Email addresses have more ‘currency’ and connect you directly with people you know are engaged with what you do, and you can build a relationship with them.

I use Mailchimp to send MHC newsletters every month. Sometimes more often if there is an event coming up. They feature events, workshops and news from our members. It’s a place to celebrate our members’ successes and milestones, to share great new products with photography and links to member websites to encourage sales.

We grow our mailing lists by using paper sign-up sheets (or iPad) at events, sign-up links on Instagram bios, subscription links in email signatures and on our website. We will occasionally prompt our social media followers to sign up or we’ll flag that a newsletter is coming out soon and encourage them to subscribe. Our makers use sign-up pop ups on their websites – some with a discount for a customer’s first purchase. They will also invite customers to sign up when they make a purchase at a fair or market.

Muswell Hill Creatives The Idle Bindery Notebooks Amy K 1
The Idle Bindery Notebooks

We know email marketing works. Customers often tell us at our events that they came along because they’d read about it in a newsletter. 

MHC founding member, Michele at Wyckoff Smith Jewellery, has this down to a fine art.  She’ll often send a newsletter out a day or two ahead of an event and will include a couple of products with links. We often get a notification on our group chat that there’s been a resulting sale!

We had a lovely response to a recent newsletter from a local maker who sometimes sells with us as a guest. Becca said “What a lovely newsletter! Full of interesting events and things, it’s great to see how everyone is flourishing. Testament to you at MHC.”

Karin Celestine (And the hare) – Textile Artist & Author

Karin Celestine lives in a small house in Monmouth, Wales. In their garden there is a shed and in that shed is another world. The world of Celestine and the Hare.

It is a place where kindness, mischief and beauty help people find the magic in the ordinary. Karin is an artist and author, who creates needle felted animals of charm and character, including the stars of their own delightful stop-motion animations and their series of story books for adults and children published with Graffeg.  Their joy in the world of nature is also reflected in their sculptural copper pieces which complement their felt-work.

Karin Celestine
Karin Celestine

Karin told us:

“To encourage people to sign up to my email newsletter, I have a sign up form on my website that pops up after a set time, and a form on my contact page with tick boxes for areas of interest.  My social media has a Linktree and ‘subscribe to my mailing list’ is one of the top links.  I have a tick box on my check out page that is auto ticked to ‘subscribe to my list’ for people who buy things. 

Every so often I’ll do a post on social media saying if you don’t always see my posts, make sure you subscribe to be the first to hear of new work etc.  

As my work sells quite quickly, I tell people to subscribe to my email list so they can be the first to hear of details and previews of when new work will be up for sale. I also tend to reply to enquiries with something about ‘subscribe to my email so you’ll be first to hear’. 

I usually email about once or twice a month, not more than 3 times as I tend to worry I am annoying people otherwise.

Sometimes they are just updates of collection releases or new book news. Sometimes I tell people what I’ve been up to, pictures of my walks in nature, what I’m reading, interesting podcasts, pictures of my work, a bit of chat about what I’ve been thinking about, behind the scenes type things. I talk about the seasons and what is happening in nature, what you can eat or forage or do in the garden, or some folklore of the season. These are a bit more work so I don’t do them too often. I used to do them every month but it became a stress so I just do them when I am inspired to now. 

Karin Celestine Work
Coracle Mouse by Karin Celestine – image: Yeshen Venema

I don’t offer discounts on my work but I would do a sale just for subscribers. Or I do an email that says ‘this mouse is hiding on the website for sale, can you find him’ sort of thing so readers have to search pages on my website, and maybe they come across new things they don’t normally look at. 

I have a button on my Mailchimp emails that says ‘don’t click’. It links to a page on my website and I change the message on the page each time, so people will often open the email to read it so they can click the button they are not allowed to click just for fun. It is silly but it works! I get a lot of traffic to the website from people clicking that button that they shouldn’t click! 

I find if I put a social media post saying ‘link in my bio’, people who click through will often subscribe to my emails from Linktree. 

The reminders to subscribe and the checkout tick are my main ways to get new email subscribers, though the checkout does result in a few unsubscribes!” 

Cynthia Kurth – Jeweller

Cynthia Kurth was born in Berlin in 1968 and now has a goldsmith workshop in the basement of a small terraced house in Bremen (D). During her training at the vocational college at the goldsmith school in Pforzheim and her studies at the University in Wismar, it was confirmed that her passion lies in designing unique pieces of jewellery in metal.

Without the need for sketches, Cynthia implements her ideas and designs directly in a creative process that is similar to drawing with silver and gold. She is particularly captivated by ornamentation, structures, patterns and surfaces. Nature, campfires and the dream of a simple life are also reflected in Cynthia’s fondness for medieval and fantasy stories.

Cynthia Kurth Rugen Meer
Cynthia Kurth

Cynthia told us how she uses email marketing in her jewellery business:

“For quite a while I thought that customers would be annoyed by receiving too many newsletters. So, I only sent out one per month, and sometimes I didn’t send one at all because I thought I have nothing to tell. Nowadays, I see newsletters not as advertising. I use them as the name implies: to spread my news.

That’s why I am now planning to increase the amount of newsletters to four a month. I choose working names for the four emails a month: Like helpful links, news about my life as a jewellery designer, favourite pieces of the month, what’s new or a monthly review. These names are just for me and my inspiration. This helps me to stick to my plan and to find content.

And I include one call-to -action in my newsletter:  mostly to generate traffic to my website.
I think it’s important to keep a newsletter short. No long essays. Those texts belong more on the website or a blog page. Email are more like entertaining ‘greeting cards’ rather than long, handwritten letters.

Cynthia Kurth Ring
Cynthia Kurth Ring

The first thing I created for my new website was a footer with a form to sign up to my newsletter. I love to see this as a friendly invitation to stay in touch at the end of every page on my website.

I also set up a landing page where I lead all interested people to: from social media platforms, with a QR code and or any other occasion. It´s easy to share that page and the subscribers are doing the double opt in on their own.
I also put the link to the landing page in the signature of my emails.

Another good idea is to have the sign up form in Linktree.

Every time I write a newsletter, I make one or two social media posts out of it. I either use a screenshot, a picture of me sitting at the computer with the newsletter on the screen or share a little bit about the topic.

For years I tried to get new customers using social media, and I had a considerable number of customers, to whom I mainly sent my good wishes at Christmas. But now I have the details of people who already love my jewellery.  I see my email list now more as my tribe, my supporters, and maybe like gallery visitors, which makes it easier for me to write to them regularly”.

We’d love to hear in the comments how you use email marketing in your creative business. What do you write about in your emails? How do you get more people to join your email list? We love to hear from you.

Real life: illustrator & artist jo scott shares how she promotes, manages & prices her art commissions

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We love art commissions at The Design Trust! They can be a really great & reliable income stream and often really pushes you creatively too!

We wanted to share some real life stories about how artists work on commissions, so we asked our lovely Business Club member Jo Scott who is an award-winning dog artist, illustrator and designer. She works to commission, designs for Thortful, Moonpig and Cardly, and has her own line of greeting cards and gifts on sale to both independent trade shops and the general public from her online shop.

illustrator & artist Jo Scott at work

When did you start DOING art commissions?

“I started doing commissions by accident in 2013. I was planning my greeting card business launch and I was working in my old job in a software company. We needed a present for my mother-in-law’s birthday and with money a bit tight at the time I had an idea I could maybe paint her dog and find a nice frame. I surprised myself with the painting, I loved it, it gave me all the good vibe tingles and it did for others too, everyone loved it.

For the rest of that year, all friends and family got a dog portrait for their birthday or Christmas present!

It was when friends of friends, friends of family members and work colleagues started asking if I could paint their dog/cat that got me thinking that I could add commissions to my business. Throughout 2014 I had a steady flow of business for art commission work.

It wasn’t what I thought I’d be doing but commissioning has been a great addition to my business. It’s what people wanted from me and I think it’s something I’ll always offer“.

how Do you market & manage your art commissions?

“I have a specific website page, dedicated to my art commissions. I try to answer all the frequently asked questions, have referrals from customers and lots of examples of my work on this page, along with clear pricing for my standard options and clear instructions of what to do if they want more than my standard offering.

I put my pricing info part way down the page so you have to scroll past some of my favourite reviews first.

I mention regularly to my email newsletter and social media following, showing examples of my recent art commissions I’ve worked on, whether or not I have free spaces and I share my work old and new and any customer photos, reviews etc.

Later this year I’m planning on adding some video to explain my FAQ’s in person and I think a personal interview of how I work on art commissions will be a great way for people to get to know me better.

I do one main event a year, CRUFTS, which is brilliant for commissions. I always run a competition to win a dog portrait. Anyone who enters and doesn’t win gets an email afterwards with a small discount if they’d like to pay for a commission instead.

The most useful thing I’ve put in place recently is a time frame for my commissions. Because we changed our lifestyle and we now travel a lot of the time, I’ve learned it’s difficult to paint art commissions whilst travelling, never mind shipping them post-Brexit when we’re abroad! I made a decision this year to only do commissions when I am in the UK. I should be here 3-4 months minimum every year and I have access to a studio space. I created a waiting list people could sign up for, anyone who enquires during the months I’m closed, is directed to my waiting list and all my marketing pushes people to my waiting list.

This year I immediately had 30 sign-ups, which is my average for the entire year anyway! It’s also a great way for me to work. It might not work for everyone, but 8-12 weeks of concentrated commission work really focuses me and I love the rhythm of it, then I can take a long break, forget about them to a certain extent and have a waiting list fill up for the next batch.

This has provided a bit of excitement and scarcity around my work and sales appear to be up as a result 😊“.

How do you protect yourself & your commissioning client?

“The first thing I do when I ‘book’ in a commission is email my client (I have a template for this) with a summary of what we’ve agreed I’ll do and the price they will pay and then how the process will work. That serves me well and is something I can refer back to if there are any queries later (I’ve never had any), the contents of this email, date, price, any notes are also in my spreadsheet for my reference.

I have a single point of reference for all my commissions, I am forever checking this spreadsheet, it is so useful to have. I also keep a running total of the price quoted so it’s nice to see what potential revenue is coming in.

It’s interesting that I rarely speak to any of my clients in person, I offer everyone a phone call but have only had one in the last year, all my communication is done via email, FB messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram DMs. I also pop in a column in my spreadsheet for which method of comms we’re using. Again this is seriously useful and time saving to refer back to weeks later when you’re wondering was our conversation on email, DM’s, WA or messenger?!

I make sure I read customer’s emails at least twice. There’s often a lot of hidden information in there and they may emphasise something that’s important to them. One recently made a point of telling me that their dog’s beard was shorter than it appeared in the photo and the dogs head was small and square. I was able to include this in the painting whereas if I’d just copied the photograph this may have been missed. The dog was sadly no longer with us so details like this take on an extra relevance and I like to get things right first time.

Working in watercolour I often make mistakes that are not easy to repair and I have to start the painting again from scratch. Over the years this happens less often, but I always factor it in, so if the client doesn’t like the end product, I will paint it again (once). I made a decision early on that I never wanted a painting to go out that I wasn’t, or more importantly my customer wasn’t 100% happy with.

My work is fairly quick, it doesn’t take me days or weeks to finish so I can accommodate this is my timescales.

If the painting gives me that happy tingly feeling I feel quite confident my customer will love it too. Occasionally I’m asked for the odd tweak or change, it’s never a problem, I actively encourage feedback and tell clients not to be shy if there’s anything that’s niggling them to tell me, I won’t be offended and will be happy to change it.

If they cried, laughed or did a happy dance then I know I’ve nailed it, my commission work is intensely personal to my clients and really quite emotional at times.

Any commissioning mistakes you could share with us?

I can only think of three times when it’s gone wrong …

The first was a rookie mistake and in my first year. I shipped the painting before the client paid me. She really wanted it in time for a birthday and in theory the money should have arrived the day after I’d posted it… it didn’t and she disappeared. I have shipped before payment since but only to close friends and family and regular customers and I think then only once or twice. Definitely take payment before shipping!

Secondly … I work from photographs. I painted a dog from a photograph, the client loved the painting but said the dog was the wrong colour… turned out that the photo they’d asked me to use had a filter applied and so the dog appeared black instead of brown. I put this down to a lesson learned. The client was actually very apologetic, and once they realized what had happened they offered to pay and take the original painting, but I said no. I repainted it as brown, the customer was delighted and recommended me to lots of people, a few who then ordered themselves and I was able to sell the original ‘black’ dog in one of my original sales online at a later date.

And, I’ve found that clients who approach me from Instagram via DMs are different to my other clients who have come from Facebook or via email and my website. One time I agreed a price with a client and painted their dog. It was one I especially loved and felt I had ‘nailed’. It sparked so much joy in myself, I almost cried, never mind the customer! They came back with the comment that they just didn’t think it looked like their dog. This customer I walked away from immediately, I felt they were spoiling for a bit of an online spat, something had changed and their tone was defensive and a little ominous. I was very polite and said goodbye.

Again, the original sold nearly immediately in my online shop so no loss to me.

I think with Instagram a lot of people see my work and often ask for freebies. I get a lot of ‘can you draw my dog’ requests. My best and easiest clients are always the ones that have come via my website and had a good read of my information page. I’m trying to increase awareness of my prices and how I work on Instagram (progress videos on reels anyone?) I think this will help.

I am an empathetic person, I can read people well even via email, at the first ‘hint’ of any issues I like to tackle it head on with communication and double checking with my clients.

I don’t have any formal agreements or forms for them to complete or sign. I have a plan B for all of my commission work (I can usually sell the original or I can use the image in a card design or an illustration project), so should things go south on any particular project, I can safely walk away.”

Jo Scott atwork1

How do you price your art commissions?

“This really is very difficult!

If I were starting commissions now with 10 years of greeting card design behind me, I’d be much happier starting out at the prices I charge now.

However, when I started, I was starting everything from scratch and I needed to grow into it, for me it’s connected to how I feel and I think I hit on my comfortable amount in 2020.

I track all my orders in a simple spreadsheet, one worksheet for each year, I started doing this from 2016 so I have figures dating back to then.

I think I started charging friends of friends £50 back in 2014. This was before I found The Design Trust and got professional advice, or really looked at my pricing properly so I was looking online at other artists like me. There were amazing artists on Etsy selling their work for £30 (even I raised my eyebrows at that at the time!) and amazing artists selling their work via their own websites for £700+ and when you first start out it’s difficult, you feel you can’t go in and charge £500+ without some proof or external validation that you’re good enough to do so.

I did keep my prices low to start with. I focused on getting good referrals from previous customers and photographs of my work with my customers and their dogs in their own homes and made a dedicated commission page on my website. I entered loads of art competitions and won a couple of awards, which again helped me ‘feel’ like I could raise my prices.

In 2017 I upped my prices and again in 2018 ,2019, 2020 and I plan to raise them again in April 2023 when I open for my next batch of commission work. Now I charge 2 standard prices; £225 for a single dog and £395 for a large single dog or 2 dogs in a single painting, these are set prices and there’s clarity about what’s included and what’s not (I.e. 3 dogs)

The majority of my work now comes from people who want something with 3 dogs, 4 dogs or I’ve had one for 8 dogs – you can see where this is going – they like my work and if they’re going to spend some money then they want ALL their dogs. I have one customer with a payment plan, I’m painting all 5 of their dogs past and present over 2 years. When I quote £700 for 4 dogs or over £1,000 for 7, customers have said they’d roughly worked out what it ‘might’ be from my standard pricing.

I’d also say don’t be afraid of what your existing customers might think if you raise your prices (I think that’s called people pleasing and is a different conversation, but it was something I worried about in the early days). I’ve recently had a return customer who first commissioned me 7 years ago, the price difference was huge, but they willingly paid the new price (OK I did give them a small discount), but they loved my work, wanted a painting of their new dog to go with the one of their older dog and they were overjoyed with the result and happy to pay the extra.

The best question I’ve asked myself is what would I be happy to pay for one of my own commissions if I wanted it to give it as a present to myself or a loved one? I’m also quite a good match to my ideal customer so if I ‘feel’ OK with it then I think my ideal customer will too.

If you are someone who is caught up in their feelings around pricing, then another good way to judge if your pricing is right for you is if you start feeling resentful when people are buying from you then your prices are too low. I haven’t come across my feeling for when my prices are too high, but if I feel it in the future I’ll come back and share it 😊”

Thank you so much Jo for all your Real Life advice! If you got anything out of this interview then share with us below in the comments.

Want to learn how to price, manage & promote your own creative commissions? Check out our Creative Commissions online course here.

How to find and select the right craft fair for you?

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Craft and design fairs come in many different shapes and sizes – from local craft markets to cultural festivals to major international gift or furniture fairs with thousands of trade visitors. But, how do you find and select the right craft fair or design event for you and your products?

In this blog post, you will find the answers to how and where to find the right craft fair, and then how to select the right selling event for your creative products – with 21 helpful questions to think about when choosing.

Crafty Fox Market at The Crossing Image by Yeshen Venema
Crafty Fox Market at The Crossing – photo (c) by Yeshen Venema

How and where do you find the right craft fair or design show?

In the last few years it has become much easier to find out about craft fairs and selling events. The most popular options are:

  • Do a Google search under ‘craft fairs UK’, ‘craft markets for new makers’, ‘design events’, or more specifically ‘ceramic shows’, ‘interior design shows’ etc. There are plenty of specialist websites to find craft fairs, trade shows, markets, such as UK Craft Fairs, Stall Finder, and Trade Fair Dates. For popup spaces Appear Here is a really good resource.
  • Check out specialist craft or design trade magazines, blogs and forums for exhibitions reviews, advertisements, leaflets or ‘call for exhibition’ classifieds.
  • Check for related hashtags on Instagram or other social media such as #craftfairs #craftshow #designfair #madeinwales or just follow other designers and makers and check them out when they are talking about the craft fairs and design shows they are doing.
  • Sign up for newsletters or follow social media platforms of creative business support organisations that share opportunities, such as The Design Trust Facebook, the Crafts Council and Craft Scotland. 
  • Specialist Facebook groups are a good place to find out about craft shows for new exhibitors too
  • Ask your peers! If you sell on Etsy then ask in your Etsy team. Check out the online CV’s of your role models to see where they have shown their work in the past.
  • Check out event listings websites such as Eventbrite or your local council or tourism support organisations.
  • And our The Design Trust A2 Wall Planner also shows the most popular craft and design fairs in the UK and abroad!

21 Questions to help you select the right craft fair

There are so many craft and design shows around at the moment that it can be hard to find the right one for you! And it is a very personal choice of course.

A show might be really great for one maker and not at all for another.

An event might be brilliant one year and less so the next.

Choosing a show is very personal and outside influences such as the weather or the state of the economy can play a major role too in the success of a show.

Firstly create a list of potential fairs and then start researching a bit deeper. We identified 21 questions or criteria to help you find the right one(s) for you:

1. Who or what sells at this event? What’s the purpose of the event? Is it a creative event or does it attract a wider audience? What kind of creative products and services are for sale at this event? Do other creatives sell there too and are your peers there? What’s the price level of the products for sale? Is there loads of food or activities for children too?

2. Who else exhibits there? Are they high profile people in your sector, professionals or amateurs? Are you happy to have a stand next to them? Is the show very competitive for what you do or would you offer a gap in the market? Is it a selected show or can anybody exhibit? What is the top and bottom price level of products?

3. Who are the main visitors? Who attends this event? Is it a trade or consumer show, or both? Are your ideal clients visiting? Is it a local, national or international show? Why are visitors coming to this show – is it a key event to place orders, to buy Christmas gifts, to browse, or to be entertained with the children during the holidays? Does the show attract high level buying clients or are there many tourists coming? Has the event got the right profile for you?

4. How many visitors will attend? Are visitor numbers in the 100’s or 1,000’s? Bigger isn’t always better. Think about what you would feel comfortable with!

5. When is the fair? Many fairs take place at conflicting times of the year such as end of January or September, and many Christmas craft fairs happen in November or early December. Think about when your ideal clients are most likely to buy so that sales or orders are more likely.

6. Does the timing affect what you can sell? It is really important for you to know what buyers will be buying and when: trade fairs in January are aimed at Mother’s Day and wedding gifts, trade fairs in September are often aimed at Christmas. For fashion it is even more stringent.

7. Is this event indoors or outdoors? Is it in a special venue and location or in a specially created venue? How would the weather potentially impact on the success of the event?

8. Can you sell at the show or only take orders? At most trade shows you can only take orders to be delivered later. At most consumer shows you sell on the spot, so you need to ensure that you have got enough stock and can wrap your products safely but nicely.

9. Where is the fair? Is it easy for you to get to, or do you need to find accommodation? Is there convenient public transport, or plenty of parking (for you and visitors)? London trade buyers are often reluctant to leave the capital, so make sure that the people you want to visit actually will come.

10. How many stands are there? What are the types and sizes of the stands? How big is the show – from a couple of tables to 23 halls at the Milan Furniture Fair!

11. What is the profile of the fair in your sector? How long has the fair been going? Does it attract good press coverage and key players in your field? Who sponsors the event? What are the ticket prices? Has the show grown or got smaller over the years?

12. What are the costs? How much does a stand cost (don’t forget to add the VAT!)? Do you need to pay an additional commission to the organisers on any sales (fairly common with craft fairs)? What is included in the fee? How much would electricity and lighting cost (often added separately and can be very expensive depending on the show)? Can you bring your own furniture or do you have to pay? Would you need to pay for accommodation and travel costs and potential help at the show? What would your transport cost be to get your products to and from the show?

13. What type of stand would you get? Do you need wall space or a corner space? Would you be at the front or back of a show (the latter is often far quieter)? What presentation material can you bring (many shows can supply jewellery display cabinets)?

14. How long is the show on for? Some fairs have very long and late hours and go on for a long time (The Milan Furniture Fair is on for 8 days!). Make sure that you know in advance, and potentially get help to enable you to do a show without a complete breakdown.

15. What promotion do the fair organisers do? Have they got a good reputation with buyers and press? Where do they publicise and promote the event? Do they attract the right audience for you?

16. Have they got special deals for first time exhibitors? Check this out as often there are special packages, group stands or special areas dedicated to new designers or crafts people. You often will get more training or support through workshops.

17. What additional exhibition support will they offer you? What will they do to promote you to potential buyers and press? Will they offer training or PR for new exhibitors?

18. Is this a juried event or ‘first come first serve’? The best craft fairs have an application process with a deadline as they are often very popular. Juried events are better quality but often more expensive too.

19. What are your chances of being selected? Some shows get far more applications than they have stands. Make sure that you know in advance what your chances are.

20. What’s the ticket price for visitors? Some events are free, while others in London charge more than £20. The cheaper shows often attract a wide range of visitors, who love to browse but they might not necessarily be serious buyers or collectors.

21. How will loading in and out work? This is often one of the main frustrations (at a time when you are either stressed or knackered)! Check if you get a time or parking space allocated, and how much time you will get unload and pack up.

How to get the answers to find the right craft fair

The more information you can gather, the easier it will be to make your decision.

1. Do your research! You can find a lot of information on the craft fair’s website about the type of event and exhibitors, the amount of visitors and who exhibits. You can read between the lines what the purpose and overall feel and quality is of the event. And the images will say a lot too! Don’t hesitate to phone or email the organisers if you can’t find the information you are looking for. You can tell a lot from how they answer!

2. I strongly recommend that you visit a show prior to exhibiting, so that you can make a personal choice if the show is right for you. Talk to stand holders about their experience, most of them are quite happy to give honest feedback to you (when they are not busy selling!). Check out if the show is full of people looking, or if people are actually buying.

3. Talk to exhibitors. You can see who showed before on the exhibitor list or talk to them when you visit the show. You can also do some quick research on social media to see if there are any negative or positive comments (although don’t believe everything you read online!) or how the event is rated on Trust Pilot or Trip Advisor.

Did you find this post about how to find and select the right craft fairs and design shows for you helpful? Have you got any additional criteria for selecting the right show? Do let us know in the comments box below.

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