We’ve been discussing the underlying problems that an artist encounters with many marketing gurus, coaches, courses and other resources you can find online. And we talked about what we call “Marketing Guru Myths.”
But, in our past articles, we left out one of the biggest Myths or problems with the entire space of these types of educational services and products.
You see, these products are quite often sold to you from a very disempowering viewpoint, and, when you see this enough, you may start to buy into these disempowering ideas.
Courses, coaches, gurus and the like, when they approach what they do as the “right” way to marketing, or the “right path to success,” are selling you, subtly on the idea that you would achieve your goals and dreams, if only you had access to what they are selling, when, in fact, there is no one right way.
Here is the implied message:
They are experts. You are just a beginner.
They are the masters. You are just a student.
After you’ve seen this pattern enough, you realize that the whole industry is training you to undervalue yourself.
They clearly proclaim “you must be the student, and learn from the master.”
And, after a while, if you allow yourself to believe this, you will lose confidence in yourself and you may start to believe this propaganda. And you will come to depend upon these people. Which is the idea.
“Join a mastermind!” “Pay to access your next level!” “Everyone needs a coach!”
If you allow yourself to believe that you continually need lessons from these other people (whose job it is to sell lessons) to succeed, you will enter a self-fulfilling prophecy of being a perpetual beginner.
A person I know, who runs a company that hosts a lot of conferences about success, once told me that they had tons of regular customers who attended every single conference. And after every one, this cohort of customers would always tell him how much they loved the conferences. But here’s the important part: none of them were making progress toward “success.” They had become professional conference goers. But they were not doers. Be a doer instead.
Let me tell you something important: You learn more by doing than by reading about doing.
That reminds me of a quote I read recently:
“Knowledge is a cop out. It is a token demonstration of passing interest. It is a clever little game. For while it may fill the head, it leaves the heart empty. The one and only thing that a thirsty man seeks is to quench his thirst. Unless his thirst is quenched, it is all useless small talk. Is it not?” - Kapil Gupta
What thirst are you seeking to quench?
Find that thirst, and you will automatically seek the water you truly need to become what you must become:
You must become a doer.
It’s OK, and perhaps even important to learn from coaches and mentors. But, ultimately it’s for you to educate yourself. Seek out what you need, when you need it. Find people that will support what you are doing, but are open to different methods and viewpoints. You are smart. You are a human being. You can figure out the gist of what you need to do next. Seek out that knowledge, perhaps from multiple sources, and then proceed in the way that feels most right to you. But running on a never-ending treadmill as a perpetual “student”, as the conference goer story above illustrates, can keep you stuck.
Don’t depend on a coach to tell you you are worth something. You are a child of the Source, the Tao, a little piece of “God” - you are already worth an infinite amount. So act like it.
So, back to the topic at hand, for, in this space, we talk about art marketing and sales.
If you want to sell art here’s the number one rule: You must be the driver.
Nobody, including FASO or BoldBrush, is going to completely take over your marketing and sales. Nor will we pretend like we can do such a thing for you. Some will pretend that they can teach you a magic system, or that their platform will magically start selling your art. While that would be lovely, if it were true, it is not. And we won’t insult a child of the universe such as yourself with such lies.
That said, we do have many ideas, tools and channels that can help you promote and sell your art. And we encourage our customers to pick and choose the ones that will work for your own unique path. And we do provide a complete art marketing method and system, and we admit up front that it is one way to sell art, but that it is not the only way. But no “way” will work if you don’t commit to doing the driving.
You must be the driver.
So, please, get behind the wheel and join us.
And if The Way of the Bold Brush, which we will show you appeals to you, we will guide you. We are not your coach, we are not your guru - we will serve as your guide, and will treat you with the respect that each human being deserves, for a teacher simply imparts knowledge, but a guide ignites curiosity. We will be your friend and your guide, and, hopefully we will ignite your curiosity and assist you in finding your way.
For that is The Way of the Bold Brush.
Creatively,
Clintavo
PS - Hat Tip to Jim Clair who partially inspired this article with the following Tweet:
Thanks I needed that. I’m old school and learned early if you don’t do you don’t earn. However in making a living as a craftsman my work did the talking and in turn all the marketing I needed.
Not the case in the art world where I now know that if you don’t learn you won’t earn. I believe that I found the right place to do so. Thanks again
Regarding the driving analogy, a driving instructor on TV yesterday was commenting on learners not being able to afford regular lessons and said: "Learning to drive is muscle memory. If you don't do it frequently, your skills don't stick." Similarly, learning to be creative isn't working that creative muscle.