Where to start to sell more art?

(Transcription)

Ann Rea: (00:01)
Hello everyone! Welcome to the last day of the Making Art Making Money™ five-day workshop. Please find the chat. Introduce yourself. Tell us if you have any questions. Did you learn something? Did you have a breakthrough? Has your confidence increased? Did you learn something maybe you never even heard or considered before? What say you? 

Ann Rea: (00:27)
So I’m just actually syncing up this broadcast to Facebook, to our private Facebook group. If you haven’t joined the private Facebook group, it’s not too late. You are welcome to apply and there you can receive some feedback around your homework and potentially actually win a private coaching session, which is pretty exciting.

Ann Rea: (00:52)
So, let’s see. Alright. All right. Travis is in the house and so is Jina and I’m just promoting them now. Hey Travis, where’d you go? Hey Jina! 

Jina Kim: (01:24)
Hi!

Ann Rea: (01:25)
I’m waiting for Travis to accept my invitation. There he is. There he is. There he is. Alright, we’re all here. So curious if you guys have been poking around the Facebook group and seen anything you think is worthy of remarking on. What have you seen, Jina? What have you seen, Travis? 

Jina Kim: (01:54)
What– the number one kind of question that I received was that I’m having a hard time defining my niche. I mean– 

Ann Rea: (02:06)
Yes, of course you are. 

Jina Kim: (02:09)
That question comes up all the time because now you feel like, “I have to have a niche. I have to have a niche.” So you, you have this response like reaction of like, “Maybe I should have one. Maybe I should have one.” So I understand that question. And also the other one is maybe, what, what was it? “I think my mission is not clear.”

Ann Rea: (02:29)
Of course, it’s not because you don’t understand mission as we define it, which is very different. So it requires a 28-day process at minimum for my students to arrive at the mission. So yes, of course you don’t know your niche because that’s– that’s why you’re here. Knowing your niche is a process. Just like developing your art is a process. My students take at least a year to determine their niche. And the way they determine it is they start to understand why they sold their art and why they didn’t. And that’s how you define your niche. They basically sell their homework. You don’t have to know your niche. Now the point is you will eventually need to know it or you’ll be going out of business, right? But the way that I teach it, my students actually determine their niche by selling their homework. 

Ann Rea: (03:24)
So all yesterday was about, as I mentioned several times, but people ignored me anyway. It’s only to teach you the four-part code, only to teach you the process itself and for you most importantly to understand what a niche is and what a niche isn’t. And that there is indeed a process at arriving at it for fine artists, which is incredibly different from conventional businesses. I’m glad you brought that up. So the other topic was mission. Yes, you’re not going to know that. Alright. And you don’t need to know these things in order to get started in the program. If that’s what you want to do, that’s actually not a requirement. Travis, what do you have to say on this whole matter? You deal with this.

Travis Krause: (04:12)
Of seeing what’s in the face group?

Ann Rea: (04:16)
Yes. Like what have you been noticing and as common questions, concerns, stumbling blocks. Like what is it? 

Travis Krause: (04:24)
Well, I think a general trend I would say that I see is that the people that are engaged are going to do well. That people that are disengaged and they’re not contributing or they’re not asking questions or they’re not doing the homework, they’re not going to do well. So–

Ann Rea: (04:39)
Right.

Travis Krause: (04:39)
It’s just like everything you get out of something, what you put into it. So that was my first impression, just looking at stuff. 

Ann Rea: (04:46)
Yes. Right. Yes. So if you want results, you have to take action. And the great thing about the homework is it doesn’t demand a lot of time and mental emotional effort. It’s pretty. It’s designed to be very digestible within a week. But if you don’t care enough to do it, then we can’t really help you anyway. I mean, but if you care enough to do it, to absolutely tag Jina and or Travis or me, and we will absolutely help you. Right? But we can’t care any more than you do. So if you really care about this and you really consider yourself a serious and dedicated fine artists, this is a golden opportunity. You’re not going to find anywhere else. And you really want to take full advantage of it because it’s just a narrow window of time and then this is gone. Or you can buy it for a thousand bucks, but we won’t be around to support you when you do that. So–

Jina Kim: (05:38)
And another thing that I actually received was– two questions that came up actually this morning was, “Jina, what was your number one strategy to sell your art for $12,000?” And the other one was, “I’m having a hard time to create a persona on my social media. How do you sell on social media?” That was–those two questions actually grabbed my attention this morning.

Ann Rea: (06:08)
Alright. So what do you have to say about both of those questions? 

Jina Kim: (06:11)
Number one is I actually already answered this question to that person, but my number one strategy was just, I just don’t know how else I could say it. I literally followed the instructions in the program. Like– and I to this day, even though I graduated, I used that as my methodology, my business. That’s how I run my business. Like the one that I learned from making or making money. I just keep, keep doing that.

Ann Rea: (06:38)
Yes. So there’s that. And then, all right, so on persona– So, someone got a hold of somebody who thought that traditional marketing would help. And so you got the cart before the horse. You don’t know your avatar, also known as your customer persona, until you actually know your niche. You can’t build a persona out of thin air. It has to be based on real data. So if you’re spending time doing that, you’re wasting your time. 

Ann Rea: (07:15)
Also, I mentioned on day one all the things that you can do to alienate your audience and waste your time and money and social media blasts is one of them. You have to understand that the affluent really protect their social networks online and offline. So if you start barraging them with irrelevant posts and blasts and emails, you’re going to lose them. So you don’t want to do that. It’s a big, big mistake. You don’t want to alienate people who could eventually help you. There’s a process that we teach, which is so much more deliberate. So this is– but this is common. Artists have the cart before the horse and then they wonder why their cart’s broken. But I get it. That’s why I’m here. I did the same damn thing. It drives me nuts to see artists suffering unnecessarily. So please just note everything that we’re teaching you in the five-day program here is very deliberately laid out to benefit you. And we’re going to teach you today where you need to start to sell more art. It’s a very important formula, or actually something that I learned from Bob Proctor himself, and it really has stuck with me and I teach it to my students. So I’m going to teach it to you today. And this– this is all about goals, having goals. Jina and Travis, what are your thoughts about having goals? And did you have goals before you joined the program when it came to art sales? 

Travis Krause: (08:57)
For art sales, I did not apply my knowledge of targeted goals the way I did in other areas of my life. And you don’t have a really specific goal, then you don’t even know what you’re aiming at. So to have to hit the target, you have to know exactly exactly what the target is. 

Ann Rea: (09:16)
Yes.

Travis Krause: (09:17)
And if you’re not specific about it, forget about it. 

Ann Rea: (09:20)
Yes. And we’re going to teach you how to construct that targeted goal today. And just, if you just do the exercise we give you today, you’re 42% more likely to hit the goal if you did nothing else but the homework I’m going to give you today. So where did you have targeted goals in other areas of your life, Travis? And then you just kind of blanked out with art sales. Tell us more about that. 

Travis Krause: (09:17)
Oh, specifically in the gym, like, I would go to the gym and I had very specific goals and timelines and plans to actually execute them. And I would know where I was on my progress very easily. But I didn’t translate that over to art sales for some reason, because I don’t, I don’t know why. 

Ann Rea: (10:03)
I can tell you why. I can tell you exactly why. Okay. So when you went to the gym, you performed certain reps, like right? Certain reps.

Travis Krause: (10:11)
Yes. 

Ann Rea: (10:12)
And then– but you didn’t have reps. You didn’t have a rhythm or reps when it came to selling your art. You were kind of stabbing in the dark. Can you imagine going to the gym. No, I’m going to put it down. Okay, I’m going to go over here and I’m going to do the barbell. Okay, I’m going to put it down. Alright, I’m going to do some leg lifts. I’m going to do some leg lifts now. Oh no! That’s not working.” Okay. That’s what it’s like. Alright. Because you don’t have a roadmap. But the reps are something that we give in the program. We give you the reps and then, you know, you just have to– the more you repeat, you know, the stronger your muscle will get. Or the more you run, the less you’re going to weigh. You know, of course the less food you eat, the less you know. It’s just, it’s really that. I use gym analogies all the time because of this very reason you don’t know what the reps are. I’m giving you the reps, some of them this week. So you can start, I’m going to give you the most important reptoday, which is how to define an achievable goal. And that’s a rep. It’s not a set it and forget it. 

Jina Kim: (11:04)
I actually remembered this just now. We actually had someone who attended a five-day workshop and set the goal with you during the five-day workshop previously, and she hit the goal. So she made enough money and then she joined the Making Art Making Money with that money actually.

Ann Rea: (11:32)
Because she had a goal. Exactly. And so if, you know, if you don’t have a goal, that is your goal, but it is important to– I mean, setting goals, there’s actually a process. What happens is people set goals, they don’t actually have a process to do it. So they fail and they’re like, “I’m not going to set any more goals because I don’t want to fail again.” But if you don’t set any goals, you’re guaranteed to fail. So there’s the irony of it. But what I’m going to teach you is really simple. Every single person here can do it. And here’s the great thing, if you do it like we sure hope you do, and you post it in the Facebook group today, we’re going to tell you if you’ve defined your goal correctly or not, so that you’ll know you have, you’ll have a lot more faith and confidence when you set a goal that you can attain. We’re not in a magical thinking here, all right? It’s just that not a good idea. Here’s what happens, and I’ll just give you this overarching piece of advice. Most fine artists tend to overestimate what they can accomplish within one year. They tend to underestimate what they can accomplish within five years. Let me ask Jina and Travis if they found this to be true. What do you guys think? Do you think that people overestimate the first year and then underestimate after that? 

Travis Krause: (12:58)
Yes. And I know that from firsthand experience and by watching other people. If you look at a year, you think you can accomplish all kinds of things and you just pack it all in there. But if you look back after five years and you’ve had a goal that whole time, you, you’ve covered a lot of ground.

Ann Rea: (13:15)
Right? Yeah. So that’s where sticking to it is important and trying to stick to it with your own self-discipline and will is next to impossible. We all need help. We all need to have a support, a constructive support system. And particularly if you’re surrounded by people who are negative or who are very skeptical about your desire to be an artist, it’s even more reason why you need to have a productive and constructive support network because it’s really just too hard. But what do you guys think about that? Having a support network in the program? How did did that help you? Or am I just making all this up? What do you guys think?

Jina Kim: (13:57)
I think that that helped. And also same time that because a lot of artists, I call it late, like “artists laziness,” It’s not a bad thing. Like a lot of us, like even I had it as an artist, like if we feel sometimes we are, we get to, we become kind of lazy in a lot of ways because we just want to focus on painting and nothing else. So having a support really got me out of it because there are people who are also achieving while I’m just like, “Oh, I just want to lay here, being said than paint.” But there are people in the community that I see them achieving and I’m like, okay, they’re doing it, so I should get, get in there and join that. So that really motivated me.

Ann Rea: (14:33)
Yes. So it’s unlike the art, you know, a lot of artists, communities, let’s just keep it real. There’s a lot of scarcity and that scarcity breeds jealousy and that breeds competition and that breeds snobbery. Snobbery is just a coverup for your deep, deep insecurity in the program. if one artist succeeds, it’s like, “Oh, well if Jina can do it, I can. If Travis can do it, I can.” So it’s a very different dynamic, a very different environment.And that’s the only environment that you’re going to thrive in. If you’re around people who are jealous or who are competitive competing with you, or who aren’t thrilled when you actually sell your art and raise your prices, you got to get the hell out. Get the hell away from them. Even if you’re friends, that’s not going to be a relationship that’s going to help you thrive and be happy in the long run. So be careful about who you’re surrounding yourself with and whether or not they deserve your company. And of course, you want to be the person that you want others to be for you, right? So be supportive and be positive and be helpful. Alright, everyone.

Travis Krause: (15:44)
Real quick.

Ann Rea: (15:45)
Go ahead.

Travis Krause: (15:46)
 I just read this idea that some people think they’re depressed or they’re, they have ADHD or they have esteem issues and all these things when they really probably should look at their network and see if it’s those people bringing them down and keeping ’em there, rather than them finding the positive group of people that actually is where they function at. Because people tend to lower themselves to the lowest common denominator in their social groups. 

Ann Rea: (16:16)
True, Yeah, it’s true. Okay, so thank you both for your input. I really always love when Travis and Jina come on and just share a different perspective on their experience as fine artists and their growth. And hopefully it provides some evidence to you guys that, hey, it’s possible. It’s, if you know what you’re doing, it’s possible. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to– it’s not going to be, it’s not going to be pretty. Alright. So today let’s dive into the number one lesson. Thank you again, you guys. I’m going to share my screen. Hold on a second. What is going on here? I don’t know how to get rid of you, Travis. 

Travis Krause: (17:06)
I’m going to leave and see if that helps.

Ann Rea: (17:07)
No, hold on. Oh no, we figured it out. Okay. And then Joie, I got to put you in place. So Joie, go ahead and accept my– Joie, Joie, Joie. There she is. Alright. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to share my screen. Excited to the last day. everybody. Congratulations to each and every one of you who hung in there and did the work or at least showed up. You can always watch the replays. You have this until this weekend and then we’re going to take them down. So let’s get going. Alright, because we don’t have a lot of time. Alrighty. Share my screen.

Ann Rea: (18:06)
Okay. So welcome back to the Making Art Making Money School of Business Five-Day workshop. We’re on day five. We talked about the 50 common mistakes that most fine artists don’t know they’re even making that is wasting a ton of money, ton of time, energy, and crushing their confidence and sucking their soul and preventing them forever. Making a respectable living as a fine artist. So I’ve already hopefully saved you a ton of time and a ton of money. And guess what? You didn’t pay me a dime. I just hope that you take these 50 common mistakes and sidestep them. If you want a PDF of all of the 50 common mistakes, go into the Facebook group and message Jina or Travis and they will get you a complete list of the 50 common mistakes. 

Ann Rea: (19:02)
We also talked about, you know, as a result of this, you know, I don’t know about you guys, but I sure had a lot of self-limiting beliefs. And so on day two, we covered the four steps that you can take to eliminate these limiting beliefs. I hope you do this exercise, it’s really powerful. Day three, you learned about how real relationships equal revenue. You learned about the exponential power of referral sales, where people are 82% more likely to buy your art and spend more money then that you can start selling, excuse me, 80% more art and keeping a 100% of your money. My students, however far exceed 80% increase in sales using this one single strategy that we teach. But you can at least you see it, right?

Ann Rea: (19:50)
And then we learned yesterday about determining a niche. Are you going to determine your niche in a five-day workshop? Once again, no. Are you going to determine your purpose and mission as we define it in a five-day workshop? No. But what you are going to– what you did learn yesterday was that the way that fine artists, famous artists living and dead determine their niche follows a very specific, repeatable, proven formula. So that was the point of yesterday. So let’s get started today, which is where you start to sell more art, right? So be sure to complete today’s homework. Really, really important. Probably more important than any other homework assignment because if you get this right, you increase your chances 42% just by doing this exercise right now today. That’s pretty damn good, right? So you want to complete all your homework because you could win a private coaching session. And I want to remind you, this phone is the devil or whatever is smashing your focus because it takes the average human 23 minutes to regain their full attention. Once you’re interrupted, don’t allow yourself to be interrupted. It’s too important. 

Ann Rea: (21:05)
What are we requiring of you today? Same as before. I’m offering this live workshop at no cost. It’s part of a goodwill marketing effort. This class recordings will be available after the live broadcast for $1,000 next week.