Building a Business as An Artist

Alan is at PopUpBTX teaching how to build a business if you are a creative. Jumping between workshop and talking to you, Alan gives you his top three tips to starting out as an artist. 1000 True Fans – http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-f…

 

Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present. 

 

An artist could mean an artist that makes jewellery, it could mean an artist that actually sketches like Julia, it could mean a painter, whatever your type of art is, is, it’s about creating a business as an artist. Three tips to build a business as an artist, the number one, you must read the article by Kevin Kelly, that is 1000 true fans, the basis of you for building a business as an artist is to find the 1000. People that love what you do, read the article, and start to build the list of 1000 true fans that will buy your art and your work and everything you do. Finding 1000 true fans is a key step to getting your artist business going, what does an artist want to spend most of their time doing

selling and they want to do the art, they want to do the painting, they want to do the cartooning they

want to build the jewellery, an artist wants to spend most of their time doing the art, what does an artist not want to do? They don’t want to sell, they don’t do that. Number two, do a pop up event. Part of what you’ve got to do as an artist is get your work in front of the right audience. So if you can do a pop up event at a shopping centre, where people are walking past and would see your art at a cafe where your customers go at a restaurant at a hotel, he knows where it is. But if you can find an environment where there are lots of customers that will be interested in your art, and do a pop up events, so you can put your art in front of those customers that can generate huge sales. Just one tip with that, when you’re getting your product in front of those people, make sure you capture their email addresses and details to build the list of 1000 true fans from point one, if you don’t sell stuff, you don’t make any money. And there’s a reason why artists don’t make a lot of money at times. And that’s because they shy away from doing the marketing, the self publicity and the sales that actually helps them turn what they’re doing into a business. So what we’ve got to look at is, it’s great that you’re a great artist and a great cartoonist, it’s greatly you’re a great jewellery maker, that doesn’t matter if you can’t sell it. If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t turn into a business. Number three is productizing your art. So commissioning an artist, buying art is sometimes really challenging to do. So what you need to do as an artist is make it easy for people to buy what you do often. So if you’re an artist and you can create a particular package, or someone’s asked you to do something before, and you turn it into a package that you can sell, I asked a particular artist to create a cartoon for our first wedding anniversary. And then he has then taken that and gone I can do this for other people who’ve asked another artist to do hand painted different items for us. She’s then turn that into a product that she can sell that to other people. So what we’re gonna look at is how can you sell it and how can you promote it? And those are the two most important parts, the sales and the promotion of what you’re doing. Is that enough of intro for you Jack called How to build a business. Welcome