The Design Trust Guide to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business

I wrote this guide to help creative people get clarity and direction in how to start and run their own small craft business.  It gives lots of practical advice and information, but also looks at the big picture.

Setting up as a freelancer or sole trader can be really daunting.  There are so many things that you need to know about, so many business skills to learn.  And as a creative you prefer to spend as much time as possible on making and creating.  You don’t have the time, money or inclination to read through boring business books. So, this guide gives you lots of practical info and tips about all aspects of starting and running your own small craft business.

The Design Trust Guide

to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business : £6.50.

One of my biggest frustrations as a creative business adviser was that I gave lots of info and support to my clients, but then actually nothing changed in their business.  That’s when I decided to train as a coach as well, so that I can help people implementing change, getting them into action, and overcoming obstacles.

This guide combines my skills as an adviser and coach, so that you will get the advice and tips you need, but also the support to make it happen.  If you enjoy The Design Trust blog posts, you will probably love this guide!

This e-guide doesn’t just give you the answers – it also asks YOU lots of questions.  So that by answering questions about what you want you will create your own business: goal-by-goal, step-by-step.

There are lots of worksheets that you can fill in.  There are lots of creative exercises and practical tasks that you can do to get you into action to create your business, to do your market research, to develop your ideas.

This isn’t a boring business book or a book that you read in an afternoon (although you could!).  This is a book that gets you thinking, creating, planning and doing business!

There is more colour than your average business book – without patronising you.  It is an e-book, so you can reprint pages again and again, and keep filling in the answers till you get it right for YOU.

There are lots of links to external resources, and even a couple of links to videos.

I want you to print it out and start using it, scribble all over it.  And when you are finished, you can start all over again as business is always evolving!

I hope you use this e-book in the first couple of years of your business as a guide, critical friend, yellow pages, as a record of all that you have achieved and to get you into action on your future dreams – today!

What’s the content of The Design Trust Guide to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business?

The Design Trust Guide to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business covers very specific topics that are essential for professional designer makers.

The Guide is an e-book that can be downloaded.  It is in PDF format, with 62 pages of A4 that can be printed out or viewed on screen (to access external links).  We have included lots of worksheets and practical information.  It is not in Kindle format as we have included lots of colours and graphics, and you wouldn’t be able to print it off to write down your thoughts and sketch out your business ideas in the way you can do with this PDF.

You can find THE DESIGN TRUST Guide to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business – content page here with all the details.

You can download THE DESIGN TRUST Guide to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business – example pages here to give you a good idea of the style and content of the guide.

What others say about this e-guide

“Patricia is an authority on setting up and masterfully running craft based businesses. In this easy to read guide book she passes on clever, time saving, easy to apply tips to make your startup successful. Apply these lessons and I have no doubt you’ll start seeing positive, measurable change in no time.”

Medeia Coahn-Petroline, Creative Director of the School for Creative Startups

 

“This guide is written in a professional but conversational tone, with lots of questions, easy language and no jargon.  It is written with a real understanding of and commitment to craftspeople.”  “One of the beauties of this book is that it manages to be very easy to understand but is never condescending.  It just puts everything into straightforward terms and uses some great ‘real life’ examples to explain business concepts.  The Finance section, the one most of us skip or read with the greatest reluctance, gives some of the most straightforward and practical explanations I have seen in any business book about setting budgets, cash flow, calculating prices, etc.”

Deborah Henry-Pollard, creative business coach Catching Fireworks

About the author

Patricia van den Akker, the Director of The Design Trust, has provided business advice and training to 100s of small creative and social entrepreneurs for nearly 15 years. She has worked with many design companies in the UK and Europe, and advised them on business development, business planning and marketing.

She studied Graphic Design in Belgium and Arts Management in the Netherlands.  In the last 15 years she has worked in London at the Crafts Council, New Designers in Business/ Design Nation, product design company Studio Levien, CIDA (Cultural Industries Development Agency) and high growth business consultancy Pembridge & Partners.

She has been an independent business adviser and accredited coach (CPCC) since 2008, before taking over The Design Trust in 2011.

The Design Trust Guide

to Start & Run a Successful Craft Business : £6.50.

If you are a specialist business adviser, business support organisation or creative university that would like to use the guide and would like more copies, would like me to run accompanying craft business workshops, or you want to become an affiliate partner then please contact me on: patricia@thedesigntrust.co.uk