When you're just starting out, it's best to take things slowly. You should consider a temporary set-up to test the waters. Your first and perhaps greatest challenge will be just getting a space in the mall. You might think that if the mall has an empty store and you want to lease it, the mall should lease it to you. Not so quick!

True, most malls have empty stores from time to time, but they actively search for long term, permanent tenants, preferably national chain-type stores and corporate franchises. Sometimes, however, they may put a temporary tenant into an empty space until a long-term, permanent tenant can be lined up.

When it comes to location in a mall, most of the time you will not have much choice.

Most stores available for lease will not be smack in the middle of the mall. If given a choice, being near a food court, a game room or arcade, or younger-clientele-type stores would be best.

Spots at the ends of main corridors in the front of the larger department stores can be good too. Don't even consider stores along dead-end hallways.

Keep your store simple. In most cases, $5,000 to $8,000 should cover your setup costs, including your initial stock. You must remember that you are in a temporary lease arrangement with the mall and that you could be kicked out with little or no notice. It's not wise to spend too much on the store because of the fleeting nature of the lease.

On the average, most temporary monthly lease rents should be from $1,000 to $2,000 per month. This figure is slightly higher on the east and west coasts.Most malls will charge an "overage" percentage of around 10% to 15%. Overage charges are payments that you make to the mall if you go over a predetermined monthly gross sales figure. (The mall gets a cut of your good fortune!)

When deciding what types of merchandise to stock, again, keep it simple. Of course, you'll want to stock plenty of white t-shirts and sweatshirts, as well as other colors such as light blue, pink, and yellow. Keep in mind that sales of white t-shirts will account for about 60% of your overall sales, so stock them in quantities to reflect this fact. Other novelty items to consider carrying might include pillowcases, hand towels, can wraps, ball caps, license plates, and book bags. Customers will sometimes bring in their own items for you to paint. Just charge them $2 extra to paint anything that they don't buy from your shop and then paint whatever they want. That's the same profit you would earn selling the item or garment from your stock.

As for the design and layout of a typical in-line shop, the photos in this article show a variety of low-cost temporary setups along with a few permanent ones. There are some noticeable differences, but they look much the same. That is because we try to tie our store designs together with a few simple ideas:

The design and look of your shop is important, but it's also important to keep in mind the business aspects of your airbrushing. Bills must be paid first; whatever's left over is your profit.

This might sound obvious, but you can't believe how many small business owners do things the other way around and get into trouble.

Make sure you pay your taxes! If you find that you can't pay your taxes, you're not a good money manager and shouldn't be self employed.

It's wise to have an accountant figure your sales tax and any employee taxes that you will have to deal with in your payroll.

Another good piece of advice: Don't work yourself to death! Mall stores are required to be open in most cases 10 to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Try to find another airbrush artist to work a day or two each week, and take time off to relax with family and friends. Your overall quality of life has to be factored into the business success equation. You might be cranking out shirts all week long and making lots of money, but if you can't take the time to enjoy life, is your business venture really a success?

Be sure to set aside some of the money that you make and put it into a savings account so that if you have a slow month or two in business, you will be able to weather the storm. Many small businesses don't have any reserve funds, and at the first slow period, they go belly up in debt.

As long as you can avoid all these caveats, making money by airbrushing is really pretty simple. Make sure you have your shop designed right, with all the proper displays, fixtures, and work areas. Then make sure you offer your customers designs and merchandise that they want to buy. The designs that sell best are the ones that are priced fairly (in most cases, this means inexpensive), subject-oriented, colorful and large. Designs such as origninal cartoons, name designs, sport designs, boyfriend-girlfriend designs, and lettering phrases priced under $12 will typically account for about half of the overall sales of an airbrush shop in most malls. The other half of your sales will break down like this:

Knowing which designs sell best and what price people are willing to pay is perhaps the most important part of your business plan.

When setting up your display, keep in mind the percentages of sales that different types of designs will generate. Then, when allotting space in your shop, make the ratio of designs in a particular category correspond to how well they sell. For example, if portraits account for only 5% to 10% of your sales, don't devote 30% of your shop displays to portraits.

Having one's own shop is the dream of many airbrush artists. Other artists are perfectly content to work with a busines partner or shop owner who deals with such non-creative but necessary tasks as inventory, bills, rent, payroll, and so on. It ultimately is up to you to decide what career path to take. But whatever your goals are, don't ever give up your dreams. WCA