By Grace Davidson-Lynch Here’s a question that most frustrated artists have asked themselves - When is the best time to start my creative freelancing journey? It was 2019, and I’d been working in...
Business Basics
Package Pricing Pointers
By Monica Davidson Creative businesses are often very resistant to setting a fixed price for their services. Goods and products? Sure. It would be weird to put your jewellery or garments on Etsy...
Negotiation for Beginners
By Grace Davidson-Lynch When I was first starting out as a freelance creative practitioner, I was prone to indulging in feelings of doubt. The questions in the back of my mind got louder the longer...
The Art of No
By Lillie Brown Does saying “yes” rule your life? If it does, you’re not alone—social psychologist Dr. Vanessa K. Bohns wrote in a 2016 research piece “many people agree to things—even things they...
Unicorns vs Workhorses
By Monica Davidson I invented the ‘Unicorns and Workhorses’ analogy many years ago now, as shorthand for one of my clients who was struggling with trying to work out the balance between her creative...
Monday Morning Meeting
By Monica Davidson I first started having the Monday Morning Meeting (MMM) when I was still at university, and discussing the idea of setting up a film business with two friends. Every Monday the...
10 Tips to Prepare for a Kickass Market Stall
By Carmen Hawker (she/her) Who doesn’t love a market? So much to see, sift through and score. Thankfully, after a few years on the backburner, markets are back as eager crowds once again spill into...
Goals by the Dozen
By Monica Davidson I’m writing this at the start of a new year, a time when we traditionally look towards the future and speculate about what might be coming, and what we could manifest with hard...
Creating Client Characters
By Monica Davidson Back in the days when I was still running my production company TwoShotMedia, I had a client called Margaret. She was in her mid-fifties, female, and a middle-manager in her...
Getting Organised for Disorganised People
By Lillie Brown Work. Family. Friends. Partners. Pets. Creative expression. Home maintenance. Eating well. Moving your body. Hobbies. Yikes… It’s a lot. As a clever, creative person, you...
The Fear of Advice
By Monica Davidson I started freelancing over thirty years ago, and never considered that one day I would be a ‘proper’ business, until I opened my first production company in the early 1990s. At...
Plan A vs Plan B
By Monica Davidson So many young creatives embarking on their professional career are urged to have a Plan B. Once it becomes clear that their youthful enthusiasm for dancing or drawing or words is...
All Part of the Plan
By Monica Davidson When I started my first film production company about twenty-five years ago, I wrote a business plan for my fledgling company to try and encourage a loans officer from a big bank...
Crisis Marketing
It may seem counter-intuitive, but maintaining your marketing activities as a creative practitioner is more important than ever during our current crisis. We’ve been helping our clients navigate...
I Will Survive!
This article is based on our recent free webinar I Will Survive, which is still available as a recording. You can access the webinar, as well as more resources and links, any time you like until...
Leap Into Freelancing
So many of my employed friends daydream about freelancing, especially as a creative professional. From the outside it must seems like the ideal life, to work in a field that you love, in your own...
How to Make a Map
I love travelling. I love everything about it, but a particularly delicious part is that magical moment when I decide where I want to go. As soon as the destination presents itself, whether for work...
The Value of Creative Industries
In August 2019 Monica appeared in the Arts Northern Rivers SOAPBOX newsletter, ranting about being creative, being valued, and our contribution to the economy - particularly in the regions. We...
Finish Your F*!&CKING Business Plan!
The business plan is dead. Long live the business plan! A few years ago I wrote an article about the death of the business plan – the traditional business plan, that is. That long, weighty document...
How To Sack a Client
I spend a great deal of time with creative people, helping them to build their businesses and overcome the challenges of combining creativity and commerce. I truly do love what I do, but I do not...
F*ck Luck
My daughter is a talented writer. She’s been writing obsessively since she was small, and at the age of 14 some of her satirical writing was published by the State Library of Victoria. She was so...
Creative Innovation in the Regions
In September, Irene Lemon presented her monograph, Innovation Has A Creative Mother, at the Australian Regional Development Conference, with thanks to Regional Arts NSW and a QUICKS grant....
Woman of Influence: Geoffrey Jaeger in Conversation with Monica Davidson
In 2013, Geoffrey Jaeger enrolled in a three-day course at AFTRS* designed and facilitated by Monica Davidson: Running Your Own Creative Business. Since then, his life has never been quite...
How NOT to S.W.O.T
We highly recommend conducting the S.W.O.T analysis around here, as considering your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats is a great planning tool. We also like the imaginative...