This morning, Aycee asked me, “How can I juggle 2 creative businesses?”
It’s a question I get asked a lot. We’re people of varied interests, with a slew of talents. We don’t want to get pinned down to any particular thang.
So instead of specializing, we branch out. Every new idea has a new name, a new domain, a new blog, and a new Twitter handle. And somewhere along the line, we get dazed and confused. And despite having the much-coveted “multiple streams of income,” we have no money.
My title is misleading. I’m not going to explain how to manage multiple businesses. I’m going to show you how your business is all one.
Bold statement: Your business, no matter how diverse, if run [almost] entirely by you, is one business. Not many. Solopreneurs have solo businesses.
“Now, hold on there one crazy minute,” you might say. “Tara, it sure looks like you have multiple businesses.”
Let the showing commence.
I have multiple products. I have ebooks, teaching programs, a digital zine called Scoutie Girl, a business forum in partnership with Megan Auman, and coaching services. I talk about everything from productivity to better blogging to designing a website to email marketing to being a mom to being a breadwinner.
But when it comes down to it, I sell artist-entrepreneur support programs.
I have one business, around one central character (me!), and one grounding mission:
I work with big thinking artists-of-all-sorts who struggle with how to earn a good living from their art. I riff, strategize, and conceive of fresh ways of doing business that leave my clients feeling rejuvenated, their businesses revolutionized. I arm artists with confidence & freedom while removing their fears & stagnation.
You might have a blog here, an Etsy shop there, and a service business around the corner but they are all products of your central mission. Think of them that way and your job as entrepreneur suddenly becomes clear.
And those things that just don’t fit? No matter how hard you cram them into your mission box? Maybe it’s time to reevaluate.
If you have multiple businesses, your task for today isn’t to figure out a new way to market one of them or to write a new blog post for the other, it’s to discover, deep down, what it is that ties these “businesses” together as “products.” What is your overall message & mission that allows your products to function independently?
Need a hand? Book a session with me or try Dyana Valentine’s Pitch Perfect program.
