3 Things Artists Must Know About Selling Their Art Today

(Transcript)

This lesson is really really important lesson and it’s one that I had to learn during the 2008-2009 recession.

It was a deep recession here in the United States and over half of the art galleries in the United States closed their doors permanently.

However, I was a student of a luxury market and what I learned is that economic disruption can create opportunity for those who are ready.

And that’s exactly what happened for me so I want to teach you this lesson because I think it’s really key to understand.

When there’s economic disruption like we’re having during this global pandemic, it’s going to give you, everyone actually, three choices.

And those three choices are going to result in a lot of fallout, right?

A lot of disappointments or opportunity and I want to poise you for the opportunity.

So the first thing I’d love for you to do is to draw a horizontal line that ends in an arrow.

I’d like you to draw a vertical line that’s about 3/4 of the way in close to the arrow.

So horizontal line that ends in an arrow and then a vertical line. Now let me explain what that represents.

First of all, this point opposite of the arrow on the horizontal line where the line starts, that represents today, okay?

The arrow represents time. It’s going to continue.

Now this line, the vertical line, that represents when things are going to settle down. Okay, so you’ve got that picture drawn? A

ll right, so let’s talk about the three choices.

If you draw a diagonal line from that point over here where time begins that goes this way, right?

And intersects over this vertical line.

What does that represent?

Well, that represents artists who are going to do nothing.

They’re going to sit on their hands because their art galleries are closed, their art shows have been cancelled and they’re just not sure what to do.

So because they’re not sure what to do, they’re going to do nothing.

And what that’s going to guarantee is when this line, when things settle down, it’s going to guarantee failure.

And I know that’s harsh but that’s reality. That’s what happened in 2008-2009, when over half of the art galleries in the United States closed their doors permanently.

And a lot of artists never recovered from that. H

ere’s another option.

So if we go back to the beginning of the line representing time, some artists are going to do something.

So it’s kind of like you just draw a squiggly line that goes like this, you want to do some things and not do some things, some things- basically they’re going to be very inconsistent in their efforts to sell and market their art because they don’t have a plan.

They don’t have a process.

Now what’s going to happen for those artists? Well, unfortunately most of those artists are also going to fail.

They’re just going to fail more slowly. But here’s the third option.

The third option is if we start today, and we draw a diagonal line going up.

By the time that things settle down, you’re going to be ahead of the pack because these artists who decided to do nothing and these artists who decided to only do a few things, they’re not doing very well.

You, if you do the right things, are actually going to be ahead of the game and that’s what I did during the recession.

Just think about this, if you think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, if you’ve got a bunch of stuff, right? You don’t need any more stuff.

When you get to that top of that pyramid and you become affluent, typically what you’re looking for is actually meaning.

And there’s a lot of misconceptions about wealthy people.

What you may not know is that most wealthy people, it’s like 90 I think it’s like 92-94%, actually grew up middle class or working class.

So they have worked for their accomplishments.

What does that mean? It means you have more in common with them than you might think.

I mean, they’re really just not a Paris Hilton and the Kim Kardashians.

They’re really people who have a lot of similar backgrounds and experiences to most artists.

My question for you, and I really want you to sit and think about this don’t answer it quickly, is which of those three choices are you making right now?

Are you sitting and doing nothing?

Are you doing some things?

Or have you decided to do the right things?

What are you doing now?

So now you know the consequences of these three choices, what are you going to choose now?

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