Starting a Tattoo Business

Series Summary

Tattoos used to be looked upon as strange. People with body art were stereotyped as mean and unsavory. In today's society, tattoos are very common. Tattoo shops are all over the place. But that doesn't mean it's easy to become a tattoo artist. Professional artist have a long road of apprenticeships and client building ahead of them. Becoming a tattoo artist takes patience and persistence. In this free video series on tattooing, an experienced tattoo artist explains how to open a tattoo business and how to learn the art of tattooing, including shading techniques. Get tips on how and where to buy tattoo equipment and how to put together a tattoo machine. Interested in getting a tattoo? Find out how much an average tattoo costs and what to tip a tattoo artist from these free videos.

Video Transcript

"So when you're starting up a tattoo business, the first consideration should be licensing. Most cities have a nominal fee for the licensing. Usually it's not more than thirty or forty dollars. Zoning is also a consideration. Sometimes when you're selecting a location for your tattoo shop, even though the city grants you a business license, the spot that you're using, if it's close to a school or a church, sometimes the city might have a problem with it. So, you're not always safe just because they grant you a business license. So, going before planning and zoning sometimes needs to happen. The next consideration is the financial part of it. Most shops operate under a sole proprietorship with all of the people working there working as independent contractors, so, most of the artists basically operate as independent business entities. They have their own bookkeeping. They pay their own taxes, so they're not actually employees. And a lot of tattoo artists do guest spots at different shops all over the country, so they're not necessarily exclusive to that shop. So, when finding...finding artists for your tattoo shop, you want to make sure that all the people that are involved in your business are going to be doing things right, because, ultimately, as the business owner, you will be held accountable for the actions of your employees. Also, maintaining your own bookkeeping. Just because you have independent contractors working for you doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have to keep...keep books for sales and the like. Jewelry sales and t-shirt sales, and all that stuff. That's all taxable, and the city and the state and the federal government are all going to want their...want their share of that money. So, if you want to make sure...Quick Books is a good program. That's the program that I use to keep track of all that. The other consideration, when getting started in the...in the business part of it, marketing, advertising, previous to your opening is important. Priming your market, and making sure that the place that you're going to be operating in is going to be able to support your business. So, if you're going to open a regular production-style shop where you have things on the wall that people are going to be choosing from and, basically, tattooing people that you might see once or never again, you need to set that business up, marketing wise, differently than you would a custom shop. A custom shop is more of a destination, whereas a production shop is more of people just passing by, getting tattooed kind of on a whim. This is a consent form. Basically any customer that comes into the shop is going to need to fill out some sort of consent form that says, in writing, that they're allowing you to perform the tattoo on them. It also has little sections for medical information that the tattoo artist might need to know. Also, a part that says that they're going to be given after care instructions, and the like. And a little section on the back to Xerox their ID so that they're....you can basically document everybody that you tattooed. Also your consent form can also be a good marketing tool, a place where they can fill out their name and address and phone number so that you can contact them in the future for further work or for promotions. If you're going to be tattooing a minor, this is a parental consent form. In the state of Arizona, the parent has to be present during the entirety of the procedure, so, they not only need to fill out, or have the information for the person that you're tattooing, but also their parents...the parent's information. The state law here is fourteen. You can get a tattoo with parental consent. But, our house rule, and in the....in the professional world of tattooing, it's kind of an artist's discretion thing. Our house policy is sixteen, so, it...it'll vary from shop to shop how old you can be to get tattooed or pierced, but, anyway, the...the after care and all that part of it is all the same on here, but the medical part also has to be filled out by the parent as opposed to the child, 'cause most of the time they're not going to know all of their medical information."