4.  Artists who are successful are hungry for it. They really want it. 

No one can care more than you about your enterprise.

If you do not care, no one else will.

If you are detached, others will detach.
 

5. “Giving up is the ultimate tragedy.”  – Robert Donovan

This is a statement that I know to be true.  Why? Because for over seven years I did not paint or draw one thing.  I completely gave up on pursuing my art. What followed was indeed tragedy. 

After I abandoned my creative self I became increasingly depressed, anxious, and sleepless.

Without an outlet my creative energy balled up inside me and stagnated. The real tragedy was that this suffering was my choice.

I believed that I should surrender my hopes of pursuing art full time because the economic odds where so very dismal.

I believed that I needed to develop conventional marketable skills and dwell within a corporate cubicle. I often felt like a caged animal resenting the corporate structure and culture. 

My art school did not prepare me for the grim economic reality of being an artist.  Although the time I spent in the cubicle did not prepare me to be an entrepreneur, I did learn transferable skills.

Alas, I was able to create a viable art business in my first year.  My success and business approach was such an anomaly that it earned me significant media attention, including a feature in Fortune magazine.

Because of this success and insight I feel a passionate responsibility to share what I have learned.  I just cannot abide the notion that artists must struggle.  I think that the starving artist myth is fundamentally destructive and disrespectful.

So don’t give up.  Where there is a will there is a way.

6. If you add up all of these success indicators you have confidence. 

There is nothing sexier and more effective in sales.

100% confidence?  No, that is not possible. But the ability to muster confidence is required to deal with inevitable and continuous rejections and failures. Expect them, learn from them, and keep it moving. As they say, “Fake it until you make it” or “act as if.”

 Bonus:

Artists must have SMART goals.  The SMART goals that I see failing are when the “A” for attainable or actionable is off. 

In other words, the artist’s SMART goal is too ambitious. 

These artists want to make $100K in their first year in business but they have no idea who their target market is, they have not defined their value proposition, or even outlined their pricing to prove the $100K sales projection. 

Their cart is before their horse.

Start with where you are today and then define your SMART goal.  Don’t copy another person’s goal.  Do you!