By Stephanie Fritz, Macon Arts Alliance

Amplify, a professional development program of Macon Arts Alliance, a Knight Arts grantee, held its first workshop at the Terminal Station on Tuesday, November 11. The mission of Amplify is to build and support a community of creative entrepreneurs in central Georgia with resources, experience, skills, collaboration, and connections.

“We wanted to incorporate different presenters and make it an all day workshop,” said Stephanie Fritz, special projects manager at Macon Arts Alliance. “This workshop was focused on amplifying your creative business.”

Josh Walton, area director at the Small Business Development Center, discussed the basics of starting a business and how to assess if entrepreneurship is the right path to take. The attending creatives were able to think about their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats when determining the steps they needed to start their own business.

Local artist Beth Smith, from The 567 Center for Renewal, spoke on improving productivity and time management. Her hands-on training gave artists the opportunity to evaluate themselves and visualize their goals. This presented the attendees with ideas of prioritizing goals to increase efficiency in their day-to-day lives.

Dr. Carol Sargent, Associate Professor of Accounting at Middle Georgia State College, discussed the basic principles of financial management and helped the attendees with their financial questions. She gave useful tips on how to take control of financial records and how to plan for profit.

Dr. Tom Moore, Associate Professor of Accounting and Business Law at Georgia College spoke on taxation. He explained how taxpayers could enhance their chances on deducting expenses that might be viewed as hobby-like activity. He gave recommendations on how to manage losses and delivered practical tax strategies.

“Overall, this was a very successful workshop,” said Fritz. “The presenters delivered information that was useful for both the creative entrepreneur, just beginning their venture, and the creative professional who has years of experience. This program is all about giving our local creatives the professional development workshops they want to have.”

Memberships and upcoming professional development workshop information is available online at www.maconartsalliance.org/amplify. Macon Arts Alliance is planning the start of the new year with some exciting workshops that will help the local creative community prosper.