- Artists fail to thrive when they do not approach selling their art as a business.
As soon as you slap a price tag on your art, you are in business. Period.
And if you want to succeed in selling your art you will need a current business plan.
Why?
Because a business without a business plan is a plan to do no business.
- Artists secretly desire that someone will discover them and save them from all of the business mumbo jumbo.
But. We all know that’s not going to happen.
- Artists think that it’s all about them.
Some Artists have no idea what their mission is, or their unique value proposition, and which target market they serve.
Worse is that they don’t know what all that means or how they can go about figuring it out.
- Artists think that their artist’s statement is their marketing.
They also mistakenly believe that collectors understand, or even care, what their artist statement means.
I have yet to read an artist’s statement that doesn’t make me cringe. But if you have one that you think I would really enjoy reading. PLEASE. Send it to me. Prove me wrong!
- Artists believe that it’s not really possible to earn a decent living so they never fully commit to it.
So, they fail before they really try. I’m the first to admit. I am guilty of this.
- Artists lack focus.
“Should I be making art?”
“Should I be starting a blog?”
“Should I be launching a new website?
Yikes!
Artists usually start with the cart before the horse.
They begin by creating a website and a business card before they have written a business plan.
So it’s no surprise that their marketing efforts collapse on themselves and that they are confused about where to focus.
- Artists believe that if they just improve their craft they will eventually be rewarded.
By who? They don’t know.
By when? They hope someday soon.
But hope is not a plan.
Creative talent is the minimum price of admission.
The next vital skill set that Artists must master is sales and marketing.
But they don’t teach sales and marketing in art, nor business school.
Of course you can study marketing in business school and learn theory.
But learning marketing in a classroom is like trying to learn how to ride a bike in a seminar.
- Artists are not accessing the expertise they need to build their enterprise.
Artists may consult with other artists about how to sell their art. But this is often a case of the blind leading the blind.
Even though artists will pay top dollar for art supplies and equipment and go into enormous amounts of student loan debt, they won’t spend a dime on business education and or consulting.
How are you getting in your own way of selling your art?
What obstacles have you overcome?
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Excellent! Congratulations!
I have overcome showing up consistently… I have found that consistency does not mean rigidity which is what I was afraid of. It means regularly and for me there is flexibility in that idea.
A business plan is not a road map it is a compass and you need to refer to it to get to your specific destination.
Thank you for spreading the word Catherine!
Congratulations on hiring a personal assistant!
Please resubscribe and carefully follow each step.
I’ll put it to you simply. What’s in it for me? Why should I care? What problem are you going to solve? What pain of mine are you promising to alleviate?
And make sure that you have someone hold you accountable to completing this task.
Great! Establish a date when you will complete your first full draft of your “Making Money Plan.” 😉
Great! A business plan is not a road map it is a compass. You need to refer to it frequently as you move towards your specific destination.
Because they are generally very self involved and they do not communicate the unique value proposition to the target market.
There is no indication of the problem solved or the pain alleviated.
It’s just me, me, me with a bunch of jargon that that collectors do not understand.
Thank you Catherine. I appreciate your spreading the word.
What a fantastically concise answer to such a frequently posed problem. I will send the link into all the young artists that approach me for the answers (and ignore my advice)
To my end, I hired a PA two years ago to manage everything I’m poor at (that would be basically everything except painting) and haven’t looked back.
I tried to download the free ebook on this page, but there is no pdf attached.
Hi Ann, here’s my current artist statement. Let me have it!
Hi, I am an American Impressionist Oil Painter residing in New Taipei City, Taiwan. My mission is to paint zen-inspired impressionist paintings that are mystified in light. Come join me on my painting adventures on location.
I think this is a very good article. I am now at the point where I need a business plan. Over the last year I have started to do juried shows, begun an Etsy site, begun the job of learning social media, and now I am immersed in a wholesale project all of which is goo. But I am also aware that I am still sort of “wide-eyed” about selling and I am probably selling myself short.
you’re so right about all of this…altho I took both on-line and classroom business courses about 4 years ago (quite a few in fact), but my business plan is tucked away in some drawer. You’ve inspired me to pull it out, revise it then post it!
you say that artist statements make you cringe . could you elaborate why?