What does it mean to treat my art practice like a real business instead of a hobby?

Real businesses do forecasting and planning and work against a plan instead of hoping for the best. You spend too much time, energy, effort, finances, and soul on your creations to treat it like a hobby. This means setting concrete goals like a specific number of new customers per month, tracking your actual numbers from receipts and invoices, creating a product lineup that supports your goals, and having monthly targets you actively work to hit. It means saying ‘I need 6 new customers this month and I have 2 to go—what am I going to do to acquire them?’ instead of ‘I hope January goes well, maybe February will be better.’

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Asked by general audience · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2026-01-17