I had a specific mission on my mind when I first came to New York City to pursue my passion for writing and performance. I wanted to ultimately work with the best of the best, hone my craft, develop my own persona and technique and honor the gifts I was given that gave me the ability to thrive in the arts. I also wanted to live happily, in the style I could call my own, supported with a beautiful place to call home, a healthy lifestyle and all the necessities I needed to look, feel and perform at my best, at all times. And then, ultimately, I wanted to give back, as much as I possibly could.
Does this sound familiar to you? Did you have similar desires for your own life, and felt it was not too much expect?
Your WHY is the key to finding success in your business with your art. Let’s dive into how and why in the episode right now.
I was recently talking with Kris, an artist in the Artists In Business Insider Group, my private membership group for artists who are actively working on taking their businesses with their art to the next level of revenue growth, who was telling me about some reservations she is having about creating her first online course.
We talked about how her idea is solid, and how qualified she is to teach the material but she’s not yet completely certain about who she will be teaching it to, and what details she has yet to figure out based on what those students need and want.
Plus, she’s never created an online course before and the thought of it felt a bit daunting, which is completely understandable.
So she thought she might need to wait before creating the course until she gathered more information.
This is the opposite of what a business owner in this position should do for one simple reason:
If you wait, you keep others from experiencing what you have to offer and giving you feedback on how to improve it tweak it and take it to the next level.
There is SO MUCH that goes into creating a strong online course, and the transformation you can enable people to experience has very little to do with the look and feel or design of the course.
It has everything to do with the quality of training you offer. Let’s dive into that now in this episode.
Did you know that 90% of small businesses fail every year in the U.S. in large part because they don’t have a financial plan in place for their businesses that is designed to create predictable, consistent revenue?
You may have known that from being a member of the Artists In Business community because this is something I talk about all the time.
However, if you’re a member of the Artists In Business Insider group or the 14-Day Art Biz Challenge group, you also know that one of the largest factors that contributes to ensuring your financial plan for your business actually brings you results is knowing, without question, who your true ideal clients are.
And, if you’ve listened to my episodes 115 and 116 of this week, you know how truly difficult it can be to uncover who your true ideal clients are- and that those 90% of businesses that fail have owners who have not truly uncovered their true ideal clients.
So I want to put a stop to that once and for all for all artists who are serious about growing a business with and for your art. Because if you don’t have this dialed in, you are likely missing the mark BIG TIME on WHO truly resonates with your offers, and furthermore how and where to find them.
Let’s dive into that in today’s episode.
ASK, by Ryan Levesque
Download ASK for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial:
One thing I learned very fast when I started my first business was the importance of having a mentor.
When I launched my first company, called Love and Water Designs, I had no idea why my marketing plan didn’t take off, or why my offers weren’t converting into sales. I had a t-shirt company that so many people were excited about and seemed enthused by, but my sales were too low to carry on past the first year.
I had consulted business owners about my business plan, all of whom thought everything “looked good!” But I knew I was missing the mark, big time, and didn’t know what to do about it.
If you know me, or know my story, you may know that I then met a man named Roger Webster who was responsible for bringing me on as his online marketing director for his PR company, after telling me he believed in me and looking carefully at my marketing plan for my first company to see where I had gone wrong.
Roger saw something that no one else saw upon first glance- that my marketing plan did not have a financial plan attached to it to support its goals. This was the sole problem I was having in my business that caused it to shut down.
He then guided me on how to put together the kind of plan that would bring inevitable results if all the pieces were working together properly. And he sent me on my way to implement that plan for his largest client- The American Cancer Society.
“I believe in you!” he said, right before he boarded a flight to Paris, leaving me alone to execute this plan with the vice president of the ACS.
This lead me to understand the importance and skill set I needed to choose the right mentor to grow my business with my art, and help other artists do the same, which is what I’d like to share with you today.
ASK, by Ryan Levesque
Download ASK for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial:
Are you wondering how to begin to determine who your ideal client is before you’ve had a chance to sell many (or any) of your offerings? Do you feel like you’re in a catch-22 because you don’t have your business up and running yet, so you’re not sure whom to focus on as you venture out to make your first offer? Or maybe you are selling your offers already, or getting hired to work as an artist, but know you could narrow down your ideal client profile even more to create a deeper, more fulfilling and prosperous pathway for yourself and your business?
If you’re feeling any of the above, there is good news, and then there is better news, about how you can begin to pinpoint who your ideal clients are now, regardless of where you are on your journey of building your business as an artist. There is a simple equation you can follow time and again, no matter where you are on your journey of creating the work that shapes your life's mission.
The good news is that whether you have started to make offers for your work or not, you can begin to uncover who your ideal client is based on information you have right now. This is the creative side of the ideal client equation.
The better news is that once you have uncovered the fans of your work, you can then understand exactly what each of those people need from you and why they need what you have to offer. This is the business side of the equation.
In this episode I cover the top six questions you need to ask that will uncover your most ideal client in your business with your art.
ASK, by Ryan Levesque
Download ASK for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial:
Shauna is a self-taught artist, writer, and speaker with a special focus on self-care and living an unapologetically creative life. Because she knows how challenging the path of the creative can be, she has become dedicated to supporting other creatives with the tools and resources they need to constructively face resistance from their environment and – more commonly – from within themselves. She does this and creates art under her public artist persona Cat De Pillar.
In our discussion, Shauna reveals how she discovered her true ideal client- and how the process toward making sales consistently is connected to your willingness to deepen your relationship with those few who resonate the most with your work. If you’re an artist who worries you won’t be able to find enough clients to keep your revenue consistent and predictable, this episode is for you.
Shauna’s Book Recommendation:
I recently posted a Daily Art Bite on my Facebook page with this quote from Georgia O’Keefe:
“To create one’s own world, in any of the arts, takes courage.”
So many of you responded to it so favorably that it reminded me how important the Blue Ocean Strategy can be for every artist and every business owner, so much so that I wanted to share it with you today as a follow up to Georgia O’Keefe’s words that resonated with you so deeply.
The Blue Ocean Strategy is a practice developed by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim about how to make competition irrelevant by creating your own, uncontested market space with your business. It is truly the single most compelling perspective I have ever taken in my life as an artist and business owner, so much so that I attribute the entire life force of my business to it.
Get the Blue Ocean Strategy free on Audible by clicking here!
Rebecca Schweiger is the owner The Art Studio NY, New York City’s #1 art school for all ages and levels, offering nearly 100 art classes weekly that offer the joy of authentic self-expression, creativity and stress-relief. The studio inspires students to release their creativity while creating a more fulfilling life making art they love. In her more than 15 years of teaching art to people from all walks of life, Rebecca has honed her ability to bring out the creative spirit in anyone. She KNOWS that everyone is truly creative.
Rebecca's new book, Release Your Creativity from Sixth and Spring Publishing, teaches everyone how to create meaningful works of art with 15 step-by-step painting and mixed-media projects designed to get their creative juices flowing—no previous art experience required. These hands-on projects, coupled with inspiration and encouragement, help beginners explore and develop their individual expression. With her warm approach and nurturing sensibility, Rebecca shares the thrill of putting paint on canvas and the freedom of releasing your distinctive vision in your daily life.
If you’re an artist at heart who is ready to tap back into your creative flow, or a working artist who simply needs a new direction for your creative juices, this episode is for you.
Get Rebecca’s Book, Release Your Creativity, on Amazon by clicking here!
Are you overwhelmed when you think about how to market your work as an artist? Have you looked into marketing courses and found an endless abyss of information that seems to go on for days about how to include your website, every social media platform, Google ad words, lead magnets, content, video series and something called a marketing funnel, which requires a six-week course alone to learn how to set up?
All of this can become absolutely maddening, especially when each course promises to bring you the best results and grow your business in a record amount of time, and every coach promises to help you stay “motivated” enough to keep on going! Before you know it, you’ve invested a TON of your hard-earned money into courses, programs and coaching only to find you’re armed with knowledge you don’t know what to do with, and feel more confused than you did when you started.
The truth is none of what you learn in those courses matters if you don’t have the one core element in place that makes any marketing plan result in profits.
I learned this lesson the hard way, and I share with you here how I turned that around and began making six figures.
Do you ever wonder how you will be able to create a sustainable income with your art without sacrificing an incredible amount of time doing something that does not seem to coincide with the work you know you’re meant to create as an artist? Or do you wonder how to save enough when you make a large amount of income at one time and don’t know when the next opportunity will arise?
Many artists I know are faced with a daily struggle of trying to figure out how to create consistency in their lives financially. This becomes especially true when working various survival jobs. They can seemingly lead nowhere, in either the short or long term. And worrying about it so much becomes an incredible drag, especially when you can’t get it off your mind, day in and day out.
In my last live online training, we discussed three powerful action steps to take to create a solid financial foundation for your business with your art, your way. These steps are based on the three fundamental steps any successful business owner takes in order to establish where they are financially. They look at how much they have when they start their business, how much they need to bring in to meet their basic needs and what they need to sell in order to get those needs met.
When I was running two businesses I learned very quickly that I needed a better system in order to get things accomplished. I originally thought I needed to better manage my time- but quickly learned you can’t actually manage time; it was managing my projects that I needed to tend to.
Managing your projects is the only way you can learn to shave off the time you spend in your business and more time on your art.
I have a special guide to walk you through to help you better manage your projects and save a ton of time in that process.
Download The Artist’s Guide To Saving Time And Being More Productive
Nicole Antoinette is the host of Real Talk Radio, the podcast that's filled with refreshingly honest conversations about the wonderful mess of being human.
Nicole believes that in a world that's hell-bent on selling us things to "fix" ourselves, we needed a show that represents those who just want to talk about things that matter to them. So during each eight-episode season, she sits down with a wide range of beautifully imperfect people - athletes, writers, entrepreneurs, parents, coaches, activists, adventurers, artists, and more - to dive into the truth of what’s really going on in their lives.
I had the privilege of talking with Nicole about her journey in building the show, and what she did to strip away absolutely everything that didn’t matter to her in order to create a business she absolutely loves in every way. If you’re wondering about how you can get more to the heart of what drives your work as an artist and build your business in tandem with that, this episode is for you!
Nicole’s Book Recommendation:
Download for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial: www.audibletrial.com/artistsinbusiness
Christy M. Johnson is an artist, encourager, and whimsical caretaker of dreams. She helps people explore their personal stories through imagery. Her background in art therapy informs her mission to change the world through creativity. She believes while anything is possible in life, EVERYTHING is possible in art.
In our talk, Christy shares some incredibly moving stories about how your own art can help uncover your deepest purpose in life, at every stage, regardless of your circumstances. If you need a reminder as to where to look to find the intrinsic value in your own work, this episode is for you.
Christy’s Book Recommendation:
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Download for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial: www.audibletrial.com/artistsinbusiness
One of the main issues most artists have in growing their businesses with their art has to do with their confidence in creating a strong stream of revenue for a particular offer.
Regardless of the reason, your confidence around what you need to do to create a consistent, predictable stream of revenue (and then multiply that) depends on three factors:
Your Why Story is the story that motivates you to get up every morning and create the art you create. Where does that motivation come from? Once you can put that into words you now have a clear understanding of exactly what those who resonate with your work are resonating with. It’s actually not the work itself they’re resonating with, but the energy behind it, that motivates people to buy your work or hire you as an artist. So the clearer you are about your Why, the clearer you will be about why people resonate with it, and the value of your work will become apparent.
Your relationship to money dictates the entire financial side of your business. Sure, you do need to understand how to construct a financial plan that suits your personal and business needs and enables you to generate revenue that supports both, but you will never be able to get there until you uncover your relationship to money. This is the single factor that we underestimate the most and is one of the largest contributing factors that causes almost 90% of small businesses to fail each year in the U.S.
Your awareness of your true ideal client has to do with how in touch you are with your Why, and with your relationship to your money, because those who resonate with your work and want to pay you for it are those who have a need or “pain” in their lives that they believe your offer can alleviate. And when they come into contact with that, they are willing to pay what you ask for your offer- price does not matter. Value, reciprocity and trust do.
If you want to dive deeper into these three areas of business growth, then sign up now at alexisfedor.com to take the Art Biz Quiz, and receive curated content on how to put these three factors to work for you to help you create the kind of consistent, predictable revenue streams you need to build your business with your art, your way.
Russell Lundstrom considers himself a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years and 21+ businesses behind under his belt. He is a dedicated father and husband, and is passionate about how direct marketing affects people on a one-to-one basis.
In our discussion we talk about how to stay motivated and inspired to build your business with your art by connecting to your clients and impacting their lives with the value your art has to offer them.
Russell’s Book Recommendations:
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
80/20 Sales And Marketing by Perry Marshall
Download these books for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial:
Katya Sarmiento is the co-founder of Bots For Business and an expert in technology, systems, and operations. She helps Entrepreneurs implement effective Lead Generation by systemizing their ability to automatically bring in new customers. Who wouldn’t want that?
Specifically talking BOTS, Katya helps build systematic experiences that allow you to qualify, engage, and interact with your leads in a 1-to-many way, that feels like a 1-to-1 experience.
Combined with Scott Oldford’s marketing and sales genius, this allows you to grow your business in a sustainable and scalable way, giving you a new found power of adding revenue and profit to your bottom-line. She’s really the tech genius behind it all.
In our discussion, Katya gives some concrete examples of how artists can begin to use bots in your marketing to bring you closer, faster, and in the way you most desire with your true ideal clients. I promise you won’t want to miss this!
LINKS:
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/botsforbusiness
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/botsforbusinesscommunity
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/botsforbusiness
Periscope: https://www.periscope.tv/botsforbusiness
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/botsforbusiness
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH7099JYhGULFwEAv5X80bg
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/botsforbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bots-for-business
Special Gift (A collection of all current Bots for Business resources):
Katya’s Book Recommendation:
Loyalty To Your Soul by H. Ronald Hulnick, Ph.D. and Mary R. Hulnick, Ph.D.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Download Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial: www.audibletrial.com/artistsinbusiness
When I was little, I drew a picture of our house and the yard. My father looked at it and told me the only thing wrong with it was that tree trunks aren’t brown.
And that began a life-long lesson in perspective for me as an artist that has guided me in going against the grain and making decisions that have helped me to follow fulfilling my vision as an artist despite any odds I’ve been up against.
Jenny Blake is an author, career and business strategist and international speaker who helps people organize their brain, move beyond burnout, and build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. She is the author of PIVOT: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One (Portfolio/Penguin Random House, September 2016), and Life After College (Running Press, 2011).
In our talk, Jenny addresses some of the most transformative “pivot” steps you as an artist can take to become more productive and save more time while growing stronger revenue streams in your business with your art.
LINKS:
Jenny’s Site: http://www.pivotmethod.com/
Jenny’s Book Recommendations:
PIVOT: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One by Jenny Blake
Life After College by Jenny Blake
Download these books for free with the Artists In Business free audible.com trial: www.audibletrial.com/artistsinbusiness
When my father passed away, I was flooded with the most beautiful, touching condolence letters from artists in my community, many of which shared some deep issues they were having with their businesses based on the vision they have for the work they create in their hearts.
This led me to revamp the premise of the Artists In Business Podcast to address these particular issues more carefully, and brought up some interesting insight into the artistic business process for everyone.
Join me today as I share these insights, as well as open the door for you to share your Vision and your greatest challenge in your business so we can address that on that show.