Am I A Terrible Business Person?

Yesterday, I was reminded of a couple of things… 1. Artists can often be terrible business people, and 2. My “job” is so much more than just something I do to earn money….

As I sat at my bench, working on one of my latest commissions, I made the decision to re-melt part of it and add a bit more gold from my own small stash of scrap (for free), as I just wasn’t happy with the size and weight one of the pieces had ended up. It’s was only a tiny bit, but it’s made such a difference. It now feels and looks right, and that’s so much more important than profit.

I thought I’d worked it all out right when I did the original quote, and that there was enough gold to work with, but hey…firstly I’m just a human, and secondly, all gold is an alloy (mixture of different metals) and when you’re working with old gold, some alloys just seem to be a bit more stretchy than others. This is the first time I’ve ever needed to do this so I’m definitely not going to beat myself up over it. I just make the piece “right”, and learn for next time.

It’s really reminded me though, that there’s just so much more to this job (well there is for me anyway) than just paying the bills. Having added that extra gram of gold meant that I finished work for the day feeling happy with how the piece is progressing, rather than waking up in the night worrying if it was going to turn out ok!

So, maybe there’s a bigger picture…maybe I am actually good at business. I could have charged my client more money, which they may have been happy to pay, but nobody really likes something costing them more than they expected. I would have felt bad about charging them, so that would have left two people with negative (even if they only lasted a few minutes) feelings.

Part of being a B Corp is the fact that I’m using “business as a force for good”. I know this is only a teeny tiny bit of “good” in the grand scheme of things, and in this case it’s perhaps just about my own mental health, but taking the time to make something (or someone) better, even if it forsakes a few pounds of profit is just the right thing to do.

My “business” and “me” aren’t really separate things. When I make something, a bit…actually no…a lot of “me” goes into it, so allowing something to leave my bench, knowing I could have done better (even if the client doesn’t notice) would just make me feel rubbish!