Okay, but honestly? Sometimes it feels like it is just one slow season after another.
And honestly… that might actually be true? STAY WITH ME HERE.
Tattooing is not a consistent income industry; we all know that. It’s just the reality of running a tattoo business. Unlike a traditional job where you know exactly what your paycheque is going to be every two weeks, month after month, tattoo artists are *lucky enough* to experience the ebbs and flows of a service-based business. Some months are incredible. Some months are quieter. Some weeks your inbox is overflowing and you are wondering where in the world you are going to find an assistant by Wednesday… aaand other weeks you are staring at your calendar thinking, “Is there something going on this Tuesday that I didn’t get the memo about? Because I have tried to fill this spot for weeks and somehow it is still wide open.”
But the important thing to understand is that a slower season does not automatically mean something is wrong with your career, your business or your art. Sometimes it simply means people have other priorities at that moment. Summer travel plans. Christmas vacations. Kids being home from school. Weddings. Home renovations. Unexpected expenses. Life. You know, all those things.
Tattooing is a luxury purchase. It is not milk and eggs. It is not something people need to buy every week to keep their household running. It is something people choose when they have the extra time, money, and emotional space to invest in themselves. Understanding that is actually a really important part of understanding your clients and your business.
Every industry has seasons. Restaurants have slower months. Photographers have wedding seasons. Landscapers have winter. Retail has holiday rushes. Tattooing is no different. There are going to be busy seasons where your inbox is overflowing and you are thinking, “HOT DANG, I am doing AWESOME.” And then there are going to be slower seasons where your inbox is crickets and you start questioning everything. *chirp chirp*
The thing is, most artists experience this.
Established artists experience this.
Artists who have been tattooing for decades experience this.
I am nearly nineteen years in, and I experience this.
And even if an artist does not have a true slow season, they may still see changes in the types of tattoos they are booking throughout the year. Maybe summer brings more smaller pieces because people are travelling, camping, and spending money on other things. Whereas winter brings more large-scale projects because people have more time to commit to longer sessions and the healing time they require.
A slow calendar does not mean that you suddenly are not good anymore. It does not mean nobody wants tattoos, and it certainly does not mean that you need to completely reinvent yourself, change your style, lower your prices, or throw away everything you have built.
The goal is not to eliminate slow seasons. The goal is to build a business that can handle them.
Now About Your Nervous System…
This is where things get tricky, because when your calendar gets quiet, your nervous system starts looking for danger. Suddenly your brain wants to find the problem and fix it immediately (THERE IS A BEAR IN THE ROOM).
You start to tell yourself, “Everyone else is busier than me.” “Everyone else is better than me.” “Maybe I should not have posted that tattoo.” “Maybe my style isn’t working anymore.” “Maybe I need to lower my prices.” “Maybe I need to completely change my business model.”
Maybe it’s July and it’s finally stopped raining, and now people want to go outside. Did you think of that little inside voice?!
The problem is that panic wants immediate relief. It does not always want long-term solutions. As tattoo artists, this can be especially difficult because our work is so tied to our personal identity — who we are as people. We are not selling a random product that we had built overseas, we are creating something that comes directly from our heart, from our developed skill, our creativity and years of practice and love for the craft.
So when someone does not book, it can feel personal. But a client not booking today does not mean they do not value your work. Sometimes people are just not ready to spend money on a tattoo because they have other priorities.
The Comparison Game is a Trap
One thing that consistently makes slow season feel that much more unbearable is comparison. Social media has created this weird reality where it feels like every other tattoo artist is constantly booked out, while you are sitting there wondering if you somehow missed the memo.
That being said, you are rarely getting the full picture. You might see an artist share, “I am booked out for six months! Yay!” Okay, but if that artist tattoos one day a week and only takes four appointments a month, of course they are going to look booked out. If you are tattooing five days a week and taking twenty appointments a month, your calendar is obviously going to look different.
Don’t Make Panic-Based Decisions
One of the biggest mistakes artists make during slow seasons is making emotional decisions. A quiet month can make you want to completely change everything from needing to drop your prices, offer discounts on short-notice bookings, take every tattoo that comes through the door, or start doing work that you normally would not accept just to fill your calendar.
I fully get this, and to be totally honest, I still feel this in my nervous system when I’m seeing empty days in my calendar. An empty appointment spot is uncomfortable. The problem is that when you start making decisions from panic, you are usually trying to fix the feeling instead of solving the actual problem.
For example, dropping your prices might fill a few spots temporarily, but it also teaches your clients that your pricing is flexible. It tells people that if they wait long enough, maybe they will get a better deal.
If you are really set on incentivizing clients to book right away, instead of discounting yourself, think about how you can create value. Create a flash collection. Create something limited. Create something exciting. Give people a reason to book because they want that specific experience, not because your price suddenly changed.
What To Actually Do in Slow Season
1. Get more clear on your marketing plan. Don’t have a marketing plan? Even better, get a marketing plan.
A lot of artists make the mistake of only marketing when they need clients. Then they get busy, they stop posting, they stop sharing, and then when things slow down they panic and decide marketing is not working. Unfortunately, marketing does not work like an emergency button. A potential client might see your work today and book three months from now, or a client might follow you for six months before they decide they trust you enough to get a large piece. Or six years.
Slow seasons are actually the perfect time to strengthen your marketing because you finally have the space to do it intentionally. Use this time to build a plan that respects your capacity while still creating consistency. You do not need to completely reinvent your marketing every time things slow down. You do not need to panic-post or chase every new trend, the artists who stay visible are not always the ones doing the most; they are the ones who keep showing up.
2. Take a look at your client journey; basically, the path someone takes from the moment they first find you to the moment they are actually booked in.
Did someone inquire a few weeks ago and you forgot to follow up? Did someone ask about a piece and then disappear? Are you clearly showing people what you tattoo, who you are, and why they should choose you? Is there a breakdown somewhere in your process where potential clients are getting missed or forgotten about?
People do not just book tattoos: they book artists, and even more importantly, they become returning clients because of who you are as an artist and as a person. They want to know your personality, your process, your style, and what makes the experience of getting tattooed by you different. Your work gets someone’s attention, but the experience is what makes them come back.
3. Slow season is also the perfect time to work on the parts of your business you never have time for when you are fully booked —I like to call these business development tasks.
These are the things that make your business better over time: updating your website, improving your booking process, creating better client templates, organizing your systems, photographing healed work, planning content, creating new flash, and fixing all of the annoying little things that have been bothering you for months but you never have time to touch because your schedule was packed.
Busy seasons are for tattooing. Slow seasons are for building.
Plan For The Slow Seasons
Now let me tell you, it took me a lot of years to figure this one out. Of course I still have slow seasons, but now I plan for them.
Look at your numbers and track your income month over month, even week after week if you’re feeling keen. Pay attention to when things slow down and by how much. Then save during your busier seasons so those slower periods do not feel like an emergency. If every summer tends to be slower, or every holiday season gets quieter, that is not a surprise anymore. That is a pattern — plan for it.
Another thing I do is intentionally schedule bigger business expenses during times when I know cash flow is stronger. I schedule my time off around slower seasons and I save more when things are busy. That way, when slow season comes, it does not hit my nervous system in the same way.
The reality is, if you are going to build a long-term career in tattooing, you have to learn how to ride the waves. There will be months where you are walking people out the door (this still physically pains me to do), and there will be months where you have more time than you know what to do with.
Both are normal, my friend. You’re doing great.
With love,
Erin
