Blog

I recently took part in an Instagram hashtag called #myshoplife2018 which was an absolute blast.  We had to write something each day on a variety of topics some serious and some a little more light-hearted.  If you fancy taking a look then our Instagram page is “mulberrytreegallery” and we’d love to see you over on there as well! One of the topics we were asked to write about was our online shop and it was fascinating reading what other galleries do in regard to selling online. We’ve had a web shop for over 10 years now and about a quarter...

Well where has the time gone and where can I ask is Spring!  It’s certainly not arrived properly in Dorset yet, what with snow, wind, torrential rain it seems like Spring isn’t sure whether to turn up yet or not.   The gallery has been pootling along and we’ve been preparing for the new tourist season here in Swanage, Dorset which started last weekend with the Easter break.   As most of you know that follow our blog posts we try to give you a flavour of what it’s like to not only own an art gallery and framing business but what...

One of the many attributes and skills a small business owner needs to have is good financial management.  It’s one of the areas that can give small business owners the most amount of sleepless nights as you lie there thinking how are you going to pay your suppliers, staff, HMRC etc. You can have the most amazing ideas, shop, staff and artists but unless you can manage your businesses finances you’re likely to get into hot water pretty quickly! As you can imagine we’ve learnt an awful lot about managing finances since we’ve owed the gallery and we thought we’d...

Recruiting and retaining good staff can be really hard for a small business.  The way your staff are with your customers can make or break your business and often the characteristics you’re looking for aren’t the ones that are listed in someone’s CV. So what do we look for when we’re hiring?   First Class Communication Skills Working with the general public can be tricky as those of us that work in this sector know only too well, so having someone who has excellent communications skills is absolutely vital to the role.  They need to be able to relate to...

The gallery / artist relationship is a precious one that needs careful nurturing by both parties. It should be based on openness, honesty and integrity so that it can flourish and grow. So we thought we'd share with you a few of the areas of responsibility that we think a gallery has towards its artists and artists to its galleries. Pay your artist the monies due to them.  You wouldn't believe the number of artists who we've spoken to over the years who have struggled to get galleries to pay them the money owed to them. It's astonishing how many...

I have a love / hate relationship with Christmas - there I've said it!   On a personal level I love waiting until December before I start buying gifts and deciding what we are actually going to do over the festive season……it feels more wintery and shopping to Christmas music gets me in the spirit of the season. As small business owners we can bemoan the fact that retailers like John Lewis started their campaign in September. We can think no-one’s really going to be buying gifts now and people are already fed up of being bombarded with things they...