Occasionally in 2016 I’ll be sharing some of my go-to resources for making a living in the arts in a series called The Business of Music.

The first link is here, a business planning website called Small Business Building, and especially the online course it offers. This is an excellent resource delivering the curriculum for a Certificate III in Micro Business Operations freely online. Students can take any or all of the modules in any order, and can submit their work for a formal qualification if they desire.

I began my arts business on the run – applying for an ABN (Australian Business Number) and handwriting the invoice for my first music copying job, with no exposure to business concepts in my music education, nor any idea what the future held.  After some years of regular work, when I needed to start making some plans and goals, Small Business Building was quite a useful resource, introducing some of the ideas and issues I might need to consider. Highly recommended for anyone in the general community thinking about starting or growing a tiny business, and in particular for artists/musicians as a complement to their creative education, as most of us do some kind of freelancing/contract work at as part of our career.

Have you ever used an online resource to help structure some business planning? Comment if you’d like to share. I’m especially interested to hear from international readers, as my contributions here are necessarily Australian.

Catch up with the whole series:

• The Business of Music 1: Small Business Building website
• The Business of Music 2: Mindspot, a mental health resource