Show Notes:
Learn the magic of marketing with us here at BoldBrush!
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This episode is a compilation of 10 marketing tips we have discussed here on the podcast in past episodes with some of our amazing guests. These are by no means the only marketing tips we have discussed, but these are some of the most popular episodes we've had so far. All the artists mentioned on the episode are linked in our show notes as well as the episodes in which they were interviewed, that way if you want to hear the full episodes, they're all linked below. And now, without further ado, here are the top 10 marketing tips that you can follow to better sell your work!
Clint Watson, CEO:
episode 12
Jeanne Rosier Smith:
episode 13
www.jeannerosiersmith.com
Kathleen Dunphy:
episode 15
https://kathleendunphy.com/
Patricia Watwood:
episode 18
https://patriciawatwood.com/
Shana Levenson:
episode 23
https://www.shanalevenson.com/
Kelly Eden:
episode 24
https://www.kellyeden.com/
Susan Lyon
episode 40
https://www.susanlyon.com/
Tina Garrett
episode 42
https://www.artisttinagarrett.com/
Andrew Tischler
episode 45
https://tischler.nz/
Eric Armusik
episode 47
https://www.ericarmusik.com/
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Transcript:
Kelly Eden: 0:00
For me, it's telling stories, making an emotional impact with your art. You know, people seek out art because they want to be nourished in some way.
Tina Garrett: 0:11
But the fact of the matter is, is that every person who has, you know, financial responsibilities and not independently wealthy, they need to a specific wage in order to sustain the life that they have for themselves, or at least the life that they want for themselves.
Andrew Tischler: 0:27
What I would recommend doing honestly, if people are just wanting to go into it full time, is first start by just doing it as much as possible while you're working. If you have to cut back on some of those work hours to open up a bit more time, so be it. That's fine. Wake up earlier,
Eric Armusik: 0:44
the mildly talented person that can market really well so but what if you're very talented, and you market really well? Well, then bam, you've got two things going for you. Like it's really incumbent upon you to take the rest of that slack and push it.
Laura Arango Baier: 0:57
Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we're a podcast because there's art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. On this episode, we decided to create a compilation of 10 marketing tips that we have discussed here on the podcast in past episodes with some of our amazing guests. These are by no means the only marketing tips we have discussed. But these are some of the most popular episodes we've had. So far. All the artists mentioned on the episode are linked in our show notes, as well as the episodes in which they were interviewed. That way, if you want to hear the full episodes, they're all linked below. And now without further ado, here are the top 10 marketing tips that you can follow to better sell your work. To begin with. This is what our CEO Clint Watson said about what artists should do when they have a new painting.
Clint Watson: 1:58
I think probably the first thing that I'm guessing, but I think most people's first inclination posted on Instagram or posted on social media first, and I get it finished a piece you're excited. And that's super easy to do, right? I mean, it's now with phones, I mean, you as soon as you take the photo, you could do it. But I don't think that's the best way to go about it. I think the best way to go about it, take a photograph of the painting, figure out which of your past collectors or prospective collectors that you're close with is most likely to be interested, text them a photo or emailed in the photo and say, Hey, I just finished this, I think this is one you would be interested in are you interested in first dibs on it, I absolutely think that's the first thing to do. Because you want to make those people feel special. And that's the whole reason they want. I mean, that's not the whole reason. But it's a big reason why people want to connect with artists. And that's essentially what I was doing. I had these lists for different artists of people that were interested in their work. And I had basically previously told them, you know, yeah, the one you called about his soul, but when another one comes in, I'll you'll be the first person I call. And that's what that's what I was doing. I mean, that was in a way that was a big part of the value that I was trying to bring to these people was to, to sort of get them inside access, right to different artists and different pieces. So I think, again, if you refer to the circles of art, marketing and idea, basically my circles of art marketing ideas, there's three marketing circles, and then your hearts in the middle. The outside circle is the public awareness circle, the middle circle is people who have joined your audience, but may or may not have bought anything yet. And the inner circle is the people who are the people that for whatever reason, are really close to and most languages. And so I feel like artists sort of when they have a piece to market, start with the outside one, which is posting it on Instagram, and then email it to their newsletter list to your existing audience. And I don't know how many go to the inner circle idea, but that would probably come last. And I felt like you should work your way from the inside out. You have a new piece contact the people most most likely to buy directly give them a gift they pass then send it to your audience, which would be your email list people you can contact directly through not necessarily a one on one channel, but it's a direct channel. And then give them second dibs, I guess. And then if they pass then post it on social media to draw in new people. The great thing about social media, it's easy and you can reach a lot of people the bad thing is you're competing with everybody else in the world. So it's very hard to go from i just posted this to I draw them into your audience and then from your audience, draw them into your inner circle and then but the inner circle was where the magic happens. And something else I should probably say about that is even within that lit that inner circle list of clients that I maintained in any given year at person 10 of my sales generally came from about 20 people, not 20% or 20 people. So if you added up over the year, maybe I made, I don't know, I'm making this number. But so you made four or 500 phone calls, you know, two or probably more phone calls than that. But let's say you contacted 500 people and some bought in some didn't. But 70 to 80% of my total sales came from 20% of the people at the top of that list. And those 20 changed, like, from year to year, I guess it wasn't always the same. So my point is, this is why you have like, you have to be consistent, you don't always know who the 20 are. And you can, I mean, if if I sold, you know, $500,000 worth of art in a year, or let's say$300,000 worth of art. And one of those cells was to the guy who bought multiple paintings and was worth $100,000, like one cell could account for, you know, up to a third of your total sales for the year. What if I didn't make that phone call? And I know it sounds like a lot, but it's really not, it's really not a lot to just contact that inner circle missed. It's really pretty easy. You know, unless an artist has been around for 50 years and has 1000 people in their inner circle. How long does it take to personally email, text or call? My point is, if you know what your different people in your inner circle are interested in, how long does it really take to contact them and give them first dibs
Laura Arango Baier: 6:29
here is what Jeanne rose your Smith says about the importance of seeing yourself not just as an artist, but also as a business person.
Jeanne Rosier Smith: 6:36
That's another thing that I think was really important for me to realize is I have to learn to be a business person that was absolutely not something I was comfortable with. Not something I saw myself as but once I started to realize I have to think of myself as a professional. And as a business person, I had to learn how to do that I was an English professor, I was not comfortable with marketing, I didn't know anything about it. And as soon as I started to kind of accept, alright, I need to make a living. And I really it would it had to do with was I love to paint and I really want to keep doing this. But in order to do it, I have to find a way to make to sell this stuff. And but it was more about if I think of it as sharing it with the world as opposed to, oh, will somebody please buy this, you know what, so okay, just to if you think of it as finding a way to solve somebody else's problem. And when I when I started to work with galleries, and I realized, if you treat it like being a professional, if you walk into the gallery, and you realize you're a business person and their business person, and you're gonna be working together as professionals, then it's you're making their job easier. And that's really the only way that they're going to be much more apt to want to work with you. If you walk in as a professional and say, Hey, I've had X number of sales this year. So they understand, oh, you understand that this is a business. And here's how I can provide you with this. This is what I can deliver to you. You show them that you understand inventory and you understand organization. And this is how I can deliver this to you. They'll there you're going to make things easy for them. They're busy, they're there, they need you to be organized. And and they need you to understand that they say that they need you to they need to see that you understand that it's a business.
Laura Arango Baier: 8:26
Kathleen Dunphy tells us about the best approach she's taken to sell her work, while also inspiring us to follow what we love.
Kathleen Dunphy: 8:33
Well, not to sound too philosophical, but I would say exactly what we've been talking about, to really as hard as I can stay focused on the things that I love. And you know, it does get hard. I mean, I believe me, I have been through this career, and I'm still in this career. And there are a lot of our external forces that are going to want to push you in certain directions, for wonderful reasons, not not for negative reasons. You know, a gallery is going to say, Wow, you did great with your birds, let's say. So let's let's do 50 bird paintings. And you go, Oh, what a great opportunity. And then you get into and you're like, Oh my God, if I have to look at another bird, I'm going to screen and you're painting show that or my paintings show that I guess I shouldn't speak for everyone. Or, you know, you just get the forces of sales are seductive. And so when something sells in our in our How can I say this in our society, or maybe in the world, in human society, things of value value and putting it in the air quotes value comes from monetary gain. And so when you sell something, it has value, and so when you get that value, you want to do it again so that you have more value. But the thing in art is that it doesn't work. It's not as linear as that. The good things that come in art don't necessarily come from getting money from them. So you have to Find a way to paint what you love. And then find the people who are also going to love it, as opposed to finding people who want something and trying to fill their need. And that's my philosophy. Now, I know that there are many, many successful artists who have done much better than than I have who who are who do Commission's and who find a niche and do that I'm speaking for for myself, you know, I don't want to generalize too much. But I do think that when you can find the thing that you really love, and you can do that with a whole lot of passion and as much skill as you can possibly attain as you go along. In there, it's a big world, and there are going to be people who want that. And you have to have the faith that that's going to happen. And it can get hard, it can get demoralizing, and it can get really lonely. You can I mean, it can get you know, you kind of feel like you're shouting down a well sometimes. But if you just stick with it, and you're persistent with doing what you love, and constantly trying to improve, I do think that good things come from that. And to get to answer your question a little more directly, you know, what has worked for sales. Aside from that, I do think it's important to always consider this your profession, and to be as professional as you possibly can, as you go along. You know, Fortune favors the prepared, and you have to have good photographs of your work, you have to have your work out there for people to see it. You have to be ready to jump when an opportunity comes along. And you have to be the one who's more prepared than the next guy who's got great work but can't get his stuff together. And you can and that's just that's the dogfight we're all in. You know, I mean, that's how it goes. So I've and I'm saying this not because I'm talking to you, but fatto has been incredible for me, because it's a website that right this very second, I could get on there and change everything if I wanted to. And I'm not a computer person, I hate the computer. And I don't know anything about it. But it's it's simple enough that I can do that. And the email newsletter has just been a huge thing. For me. That's been the way that I connect directly to people who have taken the time to say yes, I like your work here, send me something. And that way, I don't feel like I'm pestering somebody who's not interested. They've already by default by signing up, told me they're interested. So if I send them something, I feel like you asked for it. Your it is you know, and I think those I think keeping in touch with email newsletters is really important and making sure that your website is up to date with prices on it, because there's nothing more frustrating than liking a painting and not knowing how much it costs and having to play the silly game of Oh, will you tell me? Or do I have to ask or, you know, I just ran into that this morning, I saw a painting I really liked. And I went to the artists website, they didn't have prices, I went to their gallery, their gallery didn't have prices, I'm like done, I'll find another one I like I it's not worth it's not worth the phone call. Because I don't also want to get the answer that it's you know, $43,000 and I can't afford it, you know, I don't want to take them down that road and then have to worry that the gallery is going to keep contacting me afterwards. So I think it's really important to have your prices on your website, have things up to date, and to stay in touch with your your interested collectors as much as possible.
Laura Arango Baier: 13:19
Here's the advice that Patricia watt would would give to young artists when it comes to marketing and selling their work. So you
Patricia Watwood: 13:25
have to be patient. And it takes time. So I've been working on my own, you know, as a professional artist, I've been doing it for 20 years, I've had a website for almost that, you know, so you have to have a website, you want to be you have to communicate about what you're doing. And you have to communicate more than you think you should and more than maybe you want to, you have to tell people and then you have to repeat it and then just tell them again. And that doesn't come naturally. I think for a lot of artists who are more introverted, and it's it's much easier to talk about somebody else's work and to talk about your own work. So over time, I've just gotten better through frankly, practice and just will at being trying to communicate well and often about my work, whether it's and I do have a email listserv. So that's part of my website, and you go to my website, sign up for my email list. And I do rely on social media like Instagram, definitely Facebook. But all of those you know, you're not in control of your own business there because it's controlled by the algorithm. Since I do figurative work, I've had my pages shut down. I had my facebook page shut down like the week of a big solo show, because I do figurative work. And the algorithm can't tell the difference between a photo of a naked person and a painting and it happens all the time. And a lot of figurative artists really struggle with that. So it's even more important to be You're in control of your own communications and business separate from that. So that's not, you're not the only thing you're relying on. So I send out emails using an email listserv. I also tried to, especially when I have a show coming up, I try to communicate directly with my collectors, or even like send them a hand like a post court card with a small note. So I'm not going to do that to 1000s of people. But honestly, the people who are collectors, it's not that not for me, it's not 1000s. It's like, you know, it's dozens and so over, try to stay in good communication with the people who who support you who follow you. They like to hear from you. And so that's always been part of my strategy of me helping you know, making sure people know about my shows or follow me.
Laura Arango Baier: 15:54
This is what Shana Levinson recommends to someone who's starting out and trying to sell their work,
Shana Levenson: 16:00
I say, first is consistency of the quality of the work in whatever style that you're doing, you know, is having that consistent voice, and not being afraid to reach out to people, I think I sell a majority of my work through social media, I would say 95% of my paintings I sell purely through Instagram. And I think it's all through reaching out to people making sure that if someone's reached out to you about a painting that you are constantly like, hey, just seeing if you're still interested in this piece or, you know, read if someone's a collector already, typically a collector will become a repeat collector. With my repeat collectors, I always give a special discount too, because, you know, we've created a relationship. But not being afraid to announce that your work is for sale not posting. I know I have a lot of mentees, students that I've mentored. And they've been so fearful of sharing their work on social media that the only way for people to see it is by posting it. Also being active on social media meaning, don't just be a passive social media person by only posting your own stuff going on, looking up art, commenting on people's art, going to Gallery Instagram pages, commenting on their Instagram pages, being seen is important. As an artist, it is not a passive career. Being an artist, we can't just sit back and wait for people to come and buy our work. We can't wait for a gallery to sell our work. We are our own gallery, whether we're represented by another gallery or not, or several galleries, we still are the first place that the art is made. So we're the ones that need to go out and reach out to those people. Every couple of months, I reach out to all of my collectors with the work that I've just created. And I say hey, I have these new pieces, let me know if you're interested. I also take payment plans from collectors, I want to make my work collectible. But I also want I also know that my work is going up in value, which is exciting. And it starts small. I remember, in 2014, I sold a painting that was a 60 by 40 for $3,000. And now I sell painting that size for $40,000. So knowing constantly putting the hours in knowing that the more hours you put in, the better you'll get, the more value your work will create and believing in your work. I don't know I just I never sit back and wait. I'm always the person that's very proactive. Because this is what are my survival is being an artist. So, you know, it didn't start off that way. It started off teaching mostly like teaching in my other studio. And I was teaching little kids classes. I was just trying to make little money here and there. And then and it's been, you know, a journey for sure. And it's always I think that little bit of fear too of thinking, oh my god, what if I don't make money next month, makes me work that much harder makes me hustle that much more makes me reach out to people that much more. You know, you're just constantly thinking of ways to create interest in what you're creating.
Laura Arango Baier: 19:04
At BoldBrush We inspire artists to inspire the world because creating art creates magic, and the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles and a free monthly art contest open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush. And if you believe that to sign up completely free at BoldBrush show.com. That's B O LD BRUSH show.com. The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by FASO. Now more than ever, it's crucial to have a website when you're an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special link faso.com forward slash podcast you can make that come true and also get over 50% off your first year on your artists website. You Yes, that's basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly e commerce print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won't get with our competitor. The art marketing calendar gives you day by day, step by step guides on what you should be doing today, right now, in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes, so that you can make more sales this year. So if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year, then start now by going to our special link faso.com forward slash podcast, that's s a s o.com. Forward slash podcast, Kelly Eden told us about her best approach for selling her work as well as the marketing techniques that she uses.
Kelly Eden: 20:50
For me, it's telling stories, making an emotional impact with your art, you know, people seek out art because they want to be nourished in some way. If I fill a canvas with something that has a sincere emotional impact for myself, I trust that somebody out there will respond to that, you know, somebody somewhere, will feel some connection to it. And for me, that's the whole point. Build relationships, show people you care, in any relationship you make on your career path, show people that they're special art collectors, fellow artists, art galleries, etc. If you start showing in galleries, you know, you can always be honest about your work and experience and invite feedback. So if you're not sure, you know what price point your work would sell for, you can always ask the curator their opinion, you know, assure them you won't be offended, and you're just looking for feedback. And also, this is a tough one, but get comfortable with rejection, it happens a lot for artists, rejection. Rejection for artists is a spicy type of ego death that can be very, very debilitating. So you cannot let it wound you, you have to put a bandaid on it and just keep going. Being an artist is one of the most complicated careers there is because there's so much personal passion behind our work, you know, we are sensitive by nature. And that can make it really, really hard to not take it personally when our work is shut down. So on the flip side of that artists can also be a little egotistical. So I would say, don't ever think that you're too good to learn more, you should be getting better every year, and you should be learning from all of your peers. One way or another.
Laura Arango Baier: 22:49
Susan Lyon reminds artists that it's always better to sell than to not sell at all, and to be reasonable when it comes to pricing their work. Um,
Susan Lyon: 22:57
there's a lot of artists that I know that maybe went to universities, and went and there was like a, I never did. So like, I don't even have that in the back of my head of like that their goal is to be in museums, or their goal is to have museum shows, and not even deal with galleries, um, you know, or they or they get grants, or they do things like that. And so that is just so not in my realm that I'm just fascinated by that. I'm like, Oh, hey, so I look at someone give me a grant Wow, okay, or now, but it's just, I feel like maybe I'm more of a working class artists like you just figure it out. Like, sometimes I meet younger artists, too, who are very influenced by people who are very successful. And so they see those people's prices. And those are usually very skewed. It's very, very out of the norm, right. And it's like, it is like winning the lottery, you're a little bit or like an actor who gets a roll on friends. I mean, how many people are going to be able to do that. So you might not be on friends, but you might be on another show. And those people are not going to make a million dollars. So I whenever I see somebody and they're like, I see their prices, I go I just Oh geez, like, I don't want to tell you, I don't want to be this like but that's not where your price should be. You should not be your own biggest collector, like you should set price to sell. Then when you have multiple people who want to buy this, that's when you know your prices should go up. If you do not have multiple people wanting to buy this image, then you you know, it's then your prices are probably too high. And it's all about supply and demand. I mean, we're not there's not a guarantee that you will ever sell another painting ever.
Laura Arango Baier: 24:52
Tina Garrett tells us her amazing trick to make a living from your work by using a simple grid system.
Tina Garrett: 24:59
I think what It's really common is that artists don't have any logical and consistent process for pricing that that I could say is true, it's hard for me to tell, since I'm not really following what other artists are doing on a larger scale, in terms of whether or not they're over pricing or under pricing their stuff. But what I have noticed, at least with the people that I've worked with, is that there's zero, consistent, like purposeful intended process for pricing. And instead, it is essentially based on something really simple, like just their height, the width of the painting at $1 rate, which is wildly wrong. If you are painting both tiny, tiny pieces and really large pieces in your essential range of products, you can essentially underpay yourself in a small painting and then overpay yourself in large painting, which then may not ever sell. And so when this client of mine offered, to kind of help me figure out what I needed to make in a year and figure out what my prices would then cost, it's that it's sat so well with me, and I think it worked so beautifully. Because it wasn't based on the paintings themselves. It was based on what my income needs were, which is something I hadn't really ever considered before, you know, all the other jobs I've ever had in my life that the the entity that I was working for set what the value was, and I could say, Yes, I'll take that job. Or I could say, No, it's not enough money for the work that I want, I want more money, or something like that. But I had never really actually asked myself, what what was the dollar amount that I would need in order to make a living? So that question alone was just essentially just changed the whole look of it, it wouldn't really matter what the income was coming from, essentially, the answer to the question lied with what it is that you actually need in order to survive. And so that kind of took me to a whole nother perspective of how to think about what I should make, and really thinking that, that that's what any person who makes a normal income would need to make when that client said to me, what do you need to make in a year, I was kind of almost embarrassed to come up with a number that was just sort of in denial of like, gosh, and he's like, you know, just say it, you know, how much you need to make, you know, what your husband makes you know, how much you used to make you know, it, it's okay to say it out loud. But I didn't want to dare to think that I would actually be able to make that kind of money as an artist. Like, it's some sort of weird, like deserving thing like you think to yourself, I love doing this so much. And I need it so much, how can I possibly deserve to get paid what you know, any other profession makes, it's weird, there's a lot of dynamics to it, that that kind of pull away that like the, the, the fabric of, of being rational, and kind of leave all the holes where we put in our emotions, but the fact of the matter is, is that every person who has you know, financial responsibilities and not independently wealthy, they need to have a specific wage in order to sustain the life that they have for themselves, or at least the life that they want for themselves. So a mom of an 11 year old and almost 12 year old, whose husband had to start working a second and eventually a third job to help sustain the work. You know, the money I had been making in the past, I needed to make somewhere around$80,000 a year to kind of begin to get close to what I was because at the time that I stopped working in the graphic design and the the publishing house that I worked freelance for I was making about 115,000 a year. And this was in like 2010 2011. So to make it so it wouldn't hit us really hard. I needed to make about 80,000 a year. So once I got the courage to tell him that. And he said, What What if we pretended that$80,000 grid is actually 100,000 Because now you got to cover your own taxes. And we basically took all of the things that you can do for money and divided them up inside this grid. So essentially, let's just say one cube of the grid would be teaching a class and another cube of the grid would be to painting a medium sized painting. And maybe you could take up two cubes as a grid by painting, a really large expensive painting, and maybe you could fill up four grids by painting eight little paintings. And he said, Just think about it like that. How could you fill all those holes to make it to the $80,000 point, and I tried it and I did it the first year. I made 83,000 the first year that I tried to do it.
Laura Arango Baier: 29:52
Andrew Tischler tells us the safe and steady approach to start living from your work, as well as the wonderful opportunities that the internet affords. Artists,
Andrew Tischler: 30:00
what you're really doing in today's language is you're creating this side hustle with your art. So if you work at a job, and you want to go full time into art, you have to get that side hustle up and running. It's gonna take everything you got in the initial period, to build that body of work to learn the craft, and to start making those approaches. Now, whether that's a gallery model or marketing yourself, or having a social media are finding ways that you can leverage your product with other content that you create, are you the guest on somebody's podcast? Are you creating a YouTube channel, you know, there are so many avenues that we have now to be able to market our work, that what I would recommend doing honestly, if people are just wanting to go into it full time, is first start by just doing it as much as possible. While you're working. If you have to cut back on some of those work hours to open up a bit more time, so be it, that's fine. Wake up earlier, you know, it may be if you have to go to bed, if you're a night person go to bed later, instead of turning on the TV and zoning out if you're tired, great, I hear you you're tired, do it anyway, you know, you've got another gear to to, you know, hit another level you're capable of so much more than you realize. And so and I don't want to be insensitive to people situations, you know, maybe people have got, I've got a really good friend who's got chronic fatigue, go try and tell him that. But so I get it, I get the people have challenges, but it's based on where you're at. Can you honestly say you're giving everything that you've got, and I had a friend a few years ago, he was a builder, he would start building at 7am. But he wanted to paint for two hours a day. So here he's waking up at half, four, so we can be in the studio and work from five to seven. And then he goes he gets his lunchbox and he goes to the site. This guy's paint, he's getting in, you know, 10 hours a week painting it, which is not a bad little chunk of time. So he's able to build up some work, sell a few paintings on the side start to then he was able to go, you know, I've actually got something here. And when I heard that I was like I could I could wake up earlier. I could fit some more time. And I could do that. So that's one thing that I'd really recommend is that is that keep both going cover your bases. The other thing that you're gonna want to have plugged in is you're gonna want to have a target monthly income. What is what does that dollar amount? Just talking brass tacks here? I mean, what does that dollar amount look like? What is your mortgage repayment? What is your rent? What's your food? What are your bills? What amount Are you going to have to have for a little bit of entertainment just because maybe you want to go out on a Friday night and have pizza? Okay, maybe you want to have a beer or have a coffee or whatever, we got to live our life. Okay. So so what does that look like? For you come up with a target monthly amount, you know, are you making that with your job currently cool, you probably are. So if you are right, that is what you're going to have to make with your art. And then what I would do if it was me personally, if I had to go back and do it again, I would go full tilt towards that, achieve that target monthly income and exceed it past what I was working for my job. And then I'd say to the boss, say up, see you later. I'm an artist now. And and I would also have something behind me. And again, I was talking to a friend about this years and years ago, you've got to have some savings. If you're not saving some money, and it's difficult for people to save, I get that. But if you're not saving money, try and just start saving 5% 10% to start putting some money into account and then grow that account. So you've got six months worth of expenses, that is not there for you to spend. That's your parachute. So have that month, those six months of money just sitting there. What would that do to you psychologically? Right? Now suddenly, you can create not from the point where I gotta I need this. I need this external, external, external. You've got that time cushion there. So you can go I've got some space right now I could just breathe. And then in that moment, you can just go, alright, alright, I can just breathe. I could just chill in this space. What I really love to paint right now. We have right now at our fingertips. So many different platforms, so many different avenues that we can reach people. Now you might be thinking, well the market saturated no one's gonna buy my art no one's gonna find me or whatever rubbish they will. You also have to be willing to play the game. A lot of people will make a post on Instagram, make a post on Facebook, put up a YouTube video. And they'll they'll put up this piece of content, which they think is great, and they'll be like, Why aren't I viral yet? Why isn't this got 1000 likes yet? You know, I see Mark majority got 5000 likes on his post How can I didn't get that? How much time did you put in. And the other thing is well is recognize that the people that are doing it really well. And I'm not saying this is me like with Instagram and other social media and even YouTube, I'm not saying this is me. But recognize that every single platform is an ecosystem. And it has a particular set of parameters or rules that work within that ecosystem. What you do on Facebook is not going to work for tick tock or Instagram, what you do on YouTube is not going to work for Facebook, you know, you've got to learn each of these things as a professional artist and work out how to best reach those people on that platform, and then be prepared to put out content to crickets. Guess how many subscribers I had when I first started my YouTube channel? None zero, zilch, nada. Not no one was there. Good. That's the way it shouldn't be. But then as you start to do this thing, and as you put in yours, as you show up. Now, granted, I haven't been the most consistent. But just because I haven't uploaded a YouTube video in a few weeks doesn't mean that I stopped working. People don't know what we're about to drop on him. You know, we're building up backlogs of videos, we're working on really huge projects. I'll upload a video when I'm ready. But doesn't mean I stop. But how do we get from zero subscribers to over half a million. Now granted, you know, Stan Prokopenko has got me whipped and a lot of other people on YouTube. They're amazing artists out there that are just running phenomenal businesses that have got so many subscribers, so I'm not getting a twisted about that being the most there is. But for me, I never would have thought that I would ever reach that level on YouTube. But what did it take? It took showing up consistently as consistent as I could for years.
Laura Arango Baier: 36:51
And finally, Eric, our music tells us his most lucrative approach to selling artwork as well as why talent alone won't sell your work.
Eric Armusik: 36:58
But if you create some kind of, you know, uniqueness around what you're doing, and put it out there consistently, you will become something that has a lot more of a spotlight on it. And you need to find something that you believe in something that's very close to your soul or something you that individually you resonate with completely, that you're willing to stand up for and fight. Like we're not supposed to be people like the see some of these infomercials like, hey, you know, become a real estate guy or something or, you know, sell something that's not you, you know how quickly people give up on that stuff. If you're not, if you're not finding who you are as an artist and creating something that you truly enjoy, that you're willing to fight for every day, you really need to make that your habit, you're gonna go nowhere. So, you know, you got to really start thinking about that thing and stop overthinking the fact that you need to be original or unique or anything like that. Unique is a word I'm using for something else. But you know that you got to do something so different that everybody's gonna go, wow, the most original person I've ever seen, we're gonna give you everything, all the attention and all the money and everything else, it's just not going to happen. You need to just think of yourself as you're creating a brand every day, just like Coca Cola, just like anybody else. You're carving a niche into the market by doing what you do best. And I think the sooner you realize that, that's about lucrative. That's that's the longevity of being lucrative. Don't think about, you know, a couple years ago with a banana with duct tape on the wall, all of a sudden, everybody's painting versions of that doing artwork about that. It's funny, but it's a one liner, it's a joke, it's a one line kind of thing. Or when a movie comes out and everybody starts painting or drawing that particular character. It's great. I mean, I'm not saying that's not something that's, you know, fun, and I hope you sell that work. And so that's great, but it's a one liner, you need to think about longevity, and you need to think about building something bigger and being consistent. So that's that's where the word lucrative I think is applied best is when you start thinking long term, the mildly talented person that can market really well sells but what if you're very talented, and you market really well? Well, then bam, you've got two things going for you. So all my talented friends like that they're at the point where they're feeling like they're giving up and everything else, like it's really incumbent upon you to take the rest of that slack and push it you know, because you know, I believe that that's that's really the approach in the end like is it take take full responsibility of everything you do every single day? I'm responsible for not for failing, I'm responsible for succeeding I take that on so that I don't blame any kind of external factors even though they might be out there sometimes economically or whatever else it is, but there's always people out there that are looking to buy there's always people you know, that will appreciate what you're doing. And even if it's, you know, you don't succeed today You won't be on the road to it tomorrow.
Laura Arango Baier: 40:02
We here at BoldBrush want to give a huge thank you to all our fantastic guests and for the wonderful advice they have shared with us. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, it would help us a lot if you could leave us a review on a podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And also remember to follow our Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel where we have begun posting the video episodes of the podcast. If you want to see the video episodes before everyone else and also get the best marketing advice out there. Simply go to BoldBrush show.com. That's B O LDBRUSH show.com. And of course you can find all the links in the description
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