(Transcription)

Ann Rea (00:00):
Hey everyone. It’s Ann from the Making Art Making Money program. I’m an artist and a mentor to about 23 different types of emerging and established artists in 20 countries and counting. And I’m going to talk about a really critical, very, very critical understanding that too many artists are missing. And it’s really just the understanding of their niche. Now I’m going to get into what that specifically means in a minute. What I want to talk about first and foremost is what are the consequences of not knowing your niche? Well, number one, you’re typically artists who are really not a hundred percent, certain of their niche tend to not be a hundred percent confident in their pricing. And so when you’re not confident in your pricing, what typically happens is you cave in to requests for discounts. Now, when you do that, when you discount your art, you immediately devalue your art and you damage your reputation as an artist.

Ann Rea (01:06):
You’re also been very unfair to everyone else who you’ve asked you to pay you full price. So what winds up happening when you don’t know your niche as an artist is you can often, unfortunately not maintain your integrity around your pricing. So that’s number one, number two, when an artist doesn’t know their niche, they look for validation. So they enter these juried shows or art contests. They might even pay for vanity press, which is really not a good idea. And what that does is you’re like literally paying for rejection because chances are you’re going to lose the art contest. You’re gonna lose the juried shows. And if you knew your niche, you wouldn’t do any of that. Because when you’re entering these art contests and these juried shows, and you’re paying for it on top of doing all the work and paying for all the materials, and then you get rejected and you’re like literally paying for rejection which is pretty soul crushing, especially when you keep getting invited and encouraged to keep submitting, right?

Ann Rea (02:18):
You keep submitting looking for that validation. The validation comes from when people pay you for your art. Not when someone gives you a cheap ribbon for your entry, but that can happen. So that’s number two. When you don’t know your niche, you wind up looking for outside validation. That doesn’t matter because who cares what some self appointed critic thinks of your art, really? Who matters are your collectors. Yes, that’s very, that’s very eye-opening, isn’t it? So let’s talk about the third thing that happens when you don’t know your niche. You have really inconsistent sales. Now art sales are never a straight line they’re, you know, they move in a wave just like anything. Any business has a cycle, a sales cycle. But when you don’t know your niche, your sales are really inconsistent. Often just haphazard.

Ann Rea (03:17):
And that is a very unstable place to create from, because you wind up not being very sure of yourself, and very sure of the value of your art. It’s really probably not. If you’ve already sold some of your art, it’s probably not about the quality of your art. It’s probably not about you. It’s just that you just don’t know your niche. And when you do know your niche, your sales are much more consistent, and you can increase them. You can’t increase your art sales if you don’t know your niche. So that’s number three. Number four, if you don’t know your niche, you wind up wasting a lot of time talking to people who are never going to buy your art. They’re just not qualified. For many reasons, they may not be qualified. So you might have them at– you might meet them at an art reception or an art show, and you spend freaking forever in a day talking to these people and you get your hopes up and they don’t buy a thing, right?

Ann Rea (04:16):
I call them the cheese eaters. They come to drink your wine and eat your cheese. And that’s all they’re going to do. They’re never going to buy any art. They’re there for the entertainment, for the night out, right? Or they’re at the art show so they have something to do for the day. So those are people who are not your niche and you’ll waste time, not only in person, but a ton of time online. So I see artists, it’s painful to watch artists just posting their art and trying to engage an online audience. And they’re wasting a bunch of time because you are not talking to people or qualified or ever going to be interested. So that’s the fourth consequence of not knowing your niche. You waste a ton of time. Now, if you want to learn more about this, I want to invite you to a live class that I’m hosting this Saturday at 2:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time.

Ann Rea (05:11):
It’s a new brand new class. It’s called the Art and Money Master Class. And all you have to do is click on the link and apply. So let’s talk about the fifth– there’s so many consequences of not knowing your niche, but we only have so much time. So I’m just going to cover five. The fifth one is just needless rejection. Like you’re suffering rejection that you just don’t have to suffer. And you’re human. So anyone who suffers ongoing rejection is eventually going to get really really discouraged. But when you know your niche, it doesn’t matter if you get rejected. You’re like, “Okay, well. They don’t actually fit the profile. So it’s fine. So what? It doesn’t matter.” That’s a much more empowering place to from. It also gives you the space, and the confidence and the focus to create your best work.

Ann Rea (06:05):
So I would say this, although this is more than five, I would say another huge consequence is when you don’t know your niche, you have a representative, right? You work with art galleries and representatives because you have no idea of who are your niche. Now, the big, big, big problem with that is they’re going to take 50% of your money. And that’s actually not the worst of it. Or they might take 60, because they often customarily well discount your art. We already talked about the consequences of that, another 10% so you can wind up with like 40% of your money. But that’s not the worst of it. When you work with a representative, what typically happens is they are not going to give you your own collector’s contact information, even though that is illegal in many states. Now, the problem with that is if you don’t have your collectors contact information, you can’t have a relationship with them.

Ann Rea (06:59):
Can you imagine any business that didn’t have their collector, their customer list? I mean, they would just go out of business. So it’s actually the most critical asset for any business is their customer list. But guess what? If you work with a representative, they’re not going to let you have it. They won’t allow you to have it, which is bullshit. And why is it bullshit? I’ll tell you why, because if you have that relationship with your customers, it’s an opportunity for you to cultivate about 80% more sales on average where you could have kept 100% of the money. Just do the math, right? I’m going to do an illustration on Saturday at 2 o’clock. If you join the Art and Money Master Class that shows you the exponential power of referral sales over the course of less than a year versus you working with a representative and it is pretty freaking eye-opening.

Ann Rea (07:59):
And it’s a real example. So I encourage you to apply to the Master Class. Now let’s talk about what is a niche. Now, a lot of artists are not really clear on what a niche is. So a niche has got nothing to do with you. It’s got nothing to do with your. It’s not about your art. It’s not about your style. It’s not about your genre. It’s not about your creative medium. It’s not about any of that. Your niche — knowing your niche means you know three things. Number one, you know who wants to buy your art like exactly the type of person who wants to buy your art. Number two, you know why they want to buy it, okay? And number three, you know where to go find more people just like them to where to go find more collectors. If you can’t check all those three boxes, what’s going to happen is your art is in a very dangerous place where you could basically be running a really expensive hobby.

Ann Rea (08:56):
And if your art is categorized by, at least let’s say the IRS, as a hobby then you can’t deduct any of your costs and expenses. Which means that you’re essentially out of business. So check with your tax advisor. Every tax jurisdiction is different. They have different rules and different criteria. But I mean generally like, you know, they’re not going to give you. They’re not gonna give you those deductions. If they like that, this is a hobby, right? You have to make money, or it’s going to be classified as a hobby, which is why my program is called Making Art Making Money because artists can’t sustain themselves or their art, or their contribution in culture and society unless they’re making money. So it’s really, really important. And it’s my mission to help artists like you take your power back from the scarcity and permission-based art  establishments. So again, I want to invite you to join us this Saturday at 2:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time for the brand new Art and Money Master Class, which is live.

Ann Rea (10:00):
I’m going to be teaching a whole new set of material. Also, some of my students are going to be there so you can talk to some of them if you like. They’re going to be in a chat answering questions. They’re volunteering because they love what’s happened for them. They are either already know their niche or they’re working on identifying their niche. And it is a process, but man, is it game changing? It’s the difference between potentially a hobby as an artist versus a business where you make money and you make art that matters that you can be proud of. And not only are you going to be proud of it when you’re at that thing, in that place, if you’re not already there, you know, your friends and your family are proud of you. All of a sudden, they start bragging about you instead of questioning your motives to want to be an artist. I know this from personal experience. Everyone thought I was nuts being, you know, moving to San Francisco to be a full-time artist. And then all of a sudden, you know, I’m making money and I’m featured in the press and now they’re part. Now they, you know, became proud of me. So it’s interesting how many shapes our opinions. Anyway, I’d love for you to learn more. So go ahead and apply. There’s a link and join us. You don’t want to miss this.