Artist Betsy Mae

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Gen Z artist Betsy Mueller, also known as Betsy Mae on Instagram. In this episode, we dive into her journey from a high school freshman painting for fun during COVID to building a thriving art business with impressive sales on Etsy and social media. Discover how she navigates the challenges of balancing college life with her passion for art, her unique marketing strategies, and her insights on connecting with a younger audience. Tune in to learn how Betsy is shaping her future as a full-time artist while still in school!

Podcast Transcribe

Betsy Mae:
I think it must be something with the algorithm or maybe this is just what people like, but the ones that were selling really well were like not ones that I expected to be selling really well. But a year before that I had tried to sell originals on Etsy and that was just going nowhere. But selling prints started to a $30, $20 rich print sells. And so it was more so just about finding more customers basically.

Patrick Shanahan:
All right, guys, Patrick at art storefronts back with you for another artist interview. And I've got Betsy Mueller today. And I'm gonna call her Betsy Mae because that is her Instagram handle. And it's totally like not right to ask women their age, whatever. So what generation are you from? Gen Z. Gen Z. I have the extremely talented Gen Z artist, Betsy May on today. So excited for an interview. So I want to start at the top, the origin story. And really, when did you get started on art? When did you start this thing in a business? Because, you know, secretly, I looked at all your orders and how many emails you brought in. Because I want to be able to have like a good constructive conversation. So you've managed to really hit the ground running immediately, both in terms of sales and in terms of the email list. I mean, you have 28,000 on Instagram already. So you're clearly already cooking with gas, which is not normally the case for artists that are your age. So I'm very curious. Give me the origin story. When did this all start? And when did you turn it into a business?

Betsy Mae:
So I started paint. I really never took like art classes. I mean, I took like the basic one everyone had to take, but I never took like any serious art classes. And then during COVID when I had nothing to do, I started painting just for fun. And I honestly would just look on Pinterest and like.

Patrick Shanahan:
What age of school were you in COVID?

Betsy Mae:
I was a freshman in high school. Oh, that's so lame.

Patrick Shanahan:
I hope you get along.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah. So I started kind of copying paintings I saw and then I ended up really liking it and it was just like a good way to pass time because I needed something to do. And then I really didn't tell anybody about it because I wanted to wait until I had something to show for it until like maybe two or three years later. And then people started to like the stuff I was making. So I made an Etsy maybe a year or two ago and I didn't really do much with it. I didn't promote it anywhere and I didn't make a ton of sales. And then this summer, I was working as a waitress, but I didn't have like a ton of other stuff going on. And I kind of woke up one morning and was like, I want to, like, I have time right now, I might as well, like, put it towards, like, I want to make the art a more serious thing that I'm doing. So I did a little research, I found art storefronts, and like, I just kind of started from there. I did a lot of like, thinking about, like, who my target audience was, and how I wanted to, you know, promote it and everything, and how I wanted to

Patrick Shanahan:
Find my people. Do you know how jealous people are going to be right now? I mean, you're not even, you're not even out of high school. Are you out of high school? Oh no. Yeah.

Betsy Mae:
I'm a sophomore in college. Okay.

Patrick Shanahan:
So you're a sophomore in college. You already sort of nailed your niche. I mean, I saw you've got like a healthy cliff of sales on Etsy. There's a lot of artists.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah. Now, now my Etsy has done really well cause I added it. I put the link in my Instagram. So, and some people I guess just like prefer to shop there.

Patrick Shanahan:
So yeah. Um, it's, it's really incredible. And, How would you, first of all, what would you even say your style is? And do you think you have a niche and why she's, why she's talking about it? I'm going to show her Instagram on screen.

Betsy Mae:
I don't really know what to say when people really ask me what my style is. Like I kind of give a different answer every time. Like sometimes I say, well, cause I don't even, yeah, I don't really know how to describe it. I just like to make like fun, silly, a lot of pink. I don't know. It's usually, it's different every time. Yeah, I think.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, I mean, and it's so new for you. You're still you're still kind of figuring it out. You know, it's crazy that you've already gotten to the level that you have on Instagram. And I, you know, I scrolled all the way back through all of your posts. Did you have this account active and doing something else? And then you just switched it to all our

Betsy Mae:
No, I, it's honestly kind of crazy the way it like blew up. I started it in I think May or June. And then I really, I had a TikTok account with like 6,000 followers. But and so I started kind of posting art there. And then Um, really what, what blew it up was like posting reels. I did, I started revealing my art every day, like once a day, just like all the backlog stuff I had. So it was like an easy thing to, I could like film them all at once. And then that just like, since they're short videos, like they just did really well.

Patrick Shanahan:
Wow. And just took off crushing it. So this is very curious for my own edification. So you you had Tick Tock, and you had Instagram. Do you prefer one to the other? Because your generation is all Tick Tock.

Betsy Mae: And yeah, I mean, I feel like I spend more time on Tick Tock. I also assumed it was going to be a lot easier to grow on Tick Tock. But it was like, it's different. But it's like I gone at about the same speed.

Patrick Shanahan:
Which platform do you think is responsible for more of your sales?

Betsy Mae:
I think Instagram is responsible for more sales, but TikTok, I have like a bigger reach. So I look at my analytics and it looks like I get most of my, or not most, but the biggest chunk of views on my website from TikTok, but it also has the highest like bounce rate. So.

Patrick Shanahan:
Got it. Yeah, it's just generational. We'll have more money than younger people, younger people, you know, especially in today's day and age when homes are so damn expensive and mortgage, you know, you're not you're not ready to start contemplating art on your wall. And that's mostly the tick tock generation. So in the past, I've been critical of tiptock. And it's not because I don't think it's an incredible platform. What can I do? I want you guys fishing where the fish are. Yeah. And there's just more of them on Instagram. I'm curious, you know, the fact that you found us and signed up with us, and I'm curious kind of what your thought process was on all that. But when did you realize, like, I need to turn this into a business? Like, so you started selling on Etsy?

Betsy Mae:
Yeah, I was like, I, I feel like there are people who would want to buy my art. I just am not like I just don't think Etsy alone is the way to find them because it's such a big like marketplace. Yeah. I don't even really know. I think I was just like I want to I was I hated my job and I was like I really wish I was spending more time doing this. And then I start, oh, this is what I did. I started Googling, like, how to start, like, an art business. Like, I think I was honestly just Googling to, like, learn more about the next, what the next steps could be for me. Like, I didn't, I didn't love the quality of the prints I was, uh, with the place I was using before. I don't know. It was like a I just wanted to like think about what else I could be doing. And then I stumbled across art store fronts. Luckily.

Patrick Shanahan:
Amazing. Yeah. And then and then sign up, which I love it. And so how are you balancing? Where are you going? Where are you going to school? By the way, you Miami. Nice. And so how are you balancing creating art at the rate that you are with also being a student and you know, having a social life and yeah, you know, There's a time and a place for everything. It's called college. You need to be having the best fun in your life and get dedicated to your art biz. How are you balancing that whole thing?

Betsy Mae:
So I, I mean, this summer I really wanted to make sure I just did, got as much as I could done, like, so that I would be set up to not be as focused on it during the school year. So like, I definitely was like painting almost every day and posting almost every day. And I'm probably going to. Like, take it back a little bit for a little while. I mean, right now, like I'm still painting as much as I can, but yeah, I definitely need to just classes just started. So I just need to kind of like, wait until I get into my rhythm. And then I think I'll be, I don't know, but it's not, it's not too, too much right now, at least.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. One of the things that I found really, really interesting is, you know, you started on Etsy and you've made what, like we said, like 160 or 170 different sales on Etsy. It's crazy. What did that teach you about what items you should be selling and what price points? That's the first question. Let's just start with the first question. Then I'll get to the next one.

Betsy Mae:
I mean, yeah, I was, I, the, the, on Etsy, I think it must be something with like the algorithm, but it was really, or maybe this is just what people liked, but the ones that were selling really well were like, not ones that I expected to be selling really well. I was only doing actually, you know, a year before that I had tried to sell originals on Etsy and that was just kind of going nowhere. Yeah. But selling prints started to kind of like, I was realizing that like a $30, $20 rich print sells. And so it was more so just about like finding more customers, basically.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. So when you got on to art store fronts, what is your lineup look like? I'm the real what I'm trying to get to the bottom of is what items are you choosing to sell? And then what is your range of pricing? So start with the items and then walk me up like, here's what I have in the zero to 100 range. Yeah, 100 to 1000. Do you have over 1000?

Betsy Mae:
Like what do I I still am only doing prints, like, and like the merchandise and whatever. But Yeah, so it's really just based off of like the qualities of paper and size and everything. But I assume the there are prints for starting at like $20, I believe.

Patrick Shanahan:
So you start really, really low. And what's what's your decision for not selling the originals?

Betsy Mae:
Um, well, part of it is I wanted to focus on getting like a more automated thing up and running before I like dedicated a lot of time to selling originals. And also just because I spend the year in Miami, I all my originals are at home in New Jersey. So I don't, it's like a little bit more complicated to

Patrick Shanahan:
Oh, my gosh. So do you paint a cache of paintings and then load the car up and go home?

Betsy Mae:
You know, like, well, so I mean, because a lot of my most of my paintings I made at home. Last year when I was here, I didn't paint as much because I was in like a tiny dorm room.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, that just had me laughing. Because yeah, I always envisioned myself going home to my parents house and by bringing all my laundry with me. And there you were bringing both your laundry, your paintings drop off. Yeah. So it's a really, it's a really interesting approach. So you're literally just selling the reproductions and the originals are all just parked at home. And what's interesting about that is the more prints you sell, the more value you're going to drive for the originals.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah, that was kind of part of the thought process. I was like, maybe if I wait a little bit longer, though, I can sell them for more. Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, that's really, really interesting. Just out of curiosity, so how many originals would you say you have there?

Betsy Mae:
Hundreds? Yeah, a lot. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. My whole room at home is just canvases everywhere.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. You know, earlier, you guys right when Betsy came on, I was like, Do you have any idea how excited I am? And she's like, Why? And it's like, when you are able to build the right practices into an art business when you're her age, by the time she's 30 or 40 or 50, she is going to have a massive, massive business on her hands. And I just love I just love that you got a bunch of people asking what your college major is out of curiosity.

Betsy Mae:
Oh, it's actually finance, but I it's my majors finance and my minors PR. But this summer, I decided to add entrepreneurship as a PR as a as a PR as a minor. I figured it would be helpful for this.

Patrick Shanahan:
Amazing. I definitely want to help you adjust your pricing, because I do think it's very important to have a range. You've got to have things in the 0 to 100 bucket. You've got to have things in the 100 to 1,000 bucket. And then your original should be up over 1,000. And I do think that you should get a couple of them in there, even in the meantime, even if you don't have any intentions of selling them. Because what happens is that human beings are wired to make purchasing decisions on the basis of comparison. Right? So like when you go into a car dealership, and inside the glass box with the annoying, annoying salespeople is like, you know, that Mercedes SLG 550, that's a million dollars. psychologically, that makes you feel better about buying, you know, the M class Mercedes outsize for like $1,000. So you having those higher priced originals in the store will even allow you to like raise your print prices a little bit. I want to dig in more to your marketing, because I'm so curious, how often are you emailing your list? And what size is your list up to now?

Betsy Mae:
I think it's like around 200 people, but I don't I, it's way more than that, because I look at it.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah.

Betsy Mae:
Oh, I then I'm not I, I honestly, because I focus more on the social media, because I'm not as like, well versed with MailChimp, I need to kind of get more into that. Because now that I do have a pretty big list. Yeah. I don't I don't use it a ton. I did do a sale about a month ago. And I used it for that. And that's pretty much it. And then I have like the automated emails.

Patrick Shanahan:
Got it. You got the audience going to Yeah, you need to start communicating with the list more. What I what I love about this is like her generation is just past email. They're over it.

Betsy Mae: Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
The only the only back and forth that's going on is like the tick tock and the Instagram direct messages, right? Is that does that end up being a big sales channel for you? Do you feel like a lot of people are like, Hey, can I get one? Hey, can I get one?

Betsy Mae:
And then you're just Yeah, I definitely I got a lot of DMS about like customs and originals. I mean, not a ton. I haven't made a ton of sales like that way yet. But I there's definitely interest.

Patrick Shanahan:
How How have you approached the commission so far? Like when people ask you to paint something? Is that something that you do? Or you're like, yeah, I

Betsy Mae:
I have done it for a few people that I know so far, just because of like, that way I could just give it to them instead of dealing with shipping. But yeah, I kind of, I need to get an idea of how I'm going to price price, like customs or missions. I'm not, I haven't thought about it too, too much yet.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. Everyone is like, Oh my gosh, this B, how is she this successful already? She's breaking all of the rules. You know, you're in rarefied atmosphere. I also am curious, like how are you approaching your social media marketing in terms of frequency? Number one, like how often are you on there posting? And then two, is it stories every day? Reels every day? The post every day? Are you doing all of the above all the time? Are you responding to comments on Instagram?

Betsy Mae:
So the, when I started, I was doing, cause I did that series where I like did a reveal every day. So I was posting one every day for a while. And then I was also posting like sometimes two a day, just cause on top of that, cause I was just really had a ton of free time this summer. Um, I can't really keep that up anymore. I also kind of have realized that it doesn't matter as much if you post like a ton of reels as long as, cause if they're not, if no one's going to watch them, then there's kind of no point. They're not, They're not getting any views or followers from that. But when I don't have any like good ideas for reels that I think would do well, I, I post a lot. I do, I'll post like carousels. I have like a ton of drafts saved just in case there's ever like a long period of time where I have like no ideas for what I want to post. But I do post on my story a lot and I use it almost like a fence, you know, like a fence stuff that like kids in high school have, like they're like with just their friends. I'll almost use it like that and just like kind of post silly stuff or like what I'm thinking about. Yeah. Kind of like build a connection. with my followers. And I feel like people like that a lot.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, that's amazing. And how do you how do you approach comments? Are you trying to respond?

Betsy Mae:
Oh, yeah. I try to respond to them. Sometimes it's hard when they're just like, I love this. And it's like, I kind of feel weird writing like, thank you over and over and over every single comment. Yeah, but I try to like, when I can, definitely helps a lot.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, when you can. And it's crazy to think you still have two years of school left.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah. Yeah. Like three basic because I just started so Oh, got it.

Patrick Shanahan:
Okay. Yeah. So even three left. I mean, I'm sort of just perplexed. I like I don't even understand what questions to ask you because the fact that you've got this level of success so early out of the gates it you know, it's it's incredible. I think there are some some things that we need to be working on. I do need emailing that list a little bit more. Have you ever so you have a big audience on Instagram? Have you ever gone live on Instagram?

Betsy Mae:
Yeah, I, I've like experimented with it. Same with TikTok. Oh, like sometimes if I'm just painting, I'll go live. Because it's like an easy, like, people kind of like it. I'll like play music. And it's just doesn't take a lot of extra effort out of my painting. Yeah, yeah, not a ton. But every once in a while I do.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, we need to we need to get you doing more of that. More live. Yeah. I mean, is the goal and I'm curious, like, is the goal to have a job just waiting for you as a full time artist the minute you get out of college?

Betsy Mae:
I mean, honestly, when I started, I was like, I just kind of want to see where it goes. I didn't have like a set plan. But then yeah, once stuff kind of started to do well, now I'm like, maybe I won't need to work in finance. I don't know. Maybe I won't need to use my

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, your degree, which is which is an amazing thing to contemplate. I mean, you know, the goal for most people is to go full time, right?

Betsy Mae:
Yeah, I would, it would be like, amazing if I could.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, like right out of college, you finish and boom, you're right into it. That's amazing. Now we do it, we do it to work on some things. In the meantime, we're gonna have to get those pricing up. And I do think like, you got to start letting some of the originals go. You got to see what won't bake and sell and what they'll sell for. Do you have any sense, in terms of your buyers, and near as I can tell between all the merch items and the prints, I mean, you've made hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sales already. Who is your demo? I'm assuming it's mostly women, just based on the fact that there's a heck of a lot of pink, right? How old are they? Are they your age?

Betsy Mae:
A lot of them I found are younger, teenage girls. Um, cause I definitely get emails that are like, my daughter showed me this and like, I bought it for her room, but yeah, that, that's part of why I feel like the pricing I've kept it like kind of low is cause it's, it's a lot of like younger girls. I mean, I, not to say that there's not also, there's also a lot of people my age, I would say, and like a little older, but it's a big chunk of it is like tween girls.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, which is, have they taught you in finance class what that particular demographic means?

Betsy Mae:
Actually, no.

Patrick Shanahan:
So like, the consensus is the tween girls. has the largest amount of, it's not them, it's their parents, but has the largest amount of disposable income to spend of just about any age demographic because the moms will just do anything. Have you, so you're starting to make noise and it becoming more and more popular, you're growing. Have you had any commercial outfits or licensing deals or anything like that reach out to you yet?

Betsy Mae:
No, I would like to like look into that though. I think that would be like really cool. I haven't yet though.

Patrick Shanahan:
I think a to-do list, and we can help you with this, is one of the things that I always advise our customers is whether you want to do commissions or not, put a commissions tab on your website. And the reason is, it's somebody saying to you, I like what you do, but I don't want to give you money for that. Here's my money, make this. And so what that does is it gives you ideas. I think, you know, kind of like putting out the tip jar and putting a couple of dollars in before anyone shows up, lets people know like, hey, you can tip, you know, there's money in here, like do it. Yeah, put up like a licensing page. Because that particular demographic, those girls and the fact that like your art is not really branded with anything as whimsical and kind of fun, cheeky little, you know, girl stuff. Like, I imagine the purse companies and the makeup companies and every other product that's targeted to that age demographic, which I'm sort of naive about. So boys, I don't know girls. But I think we should start, you know, building that up and getting that going. Because the licensing deals for you all they care about is that you're selling well, and you're tapped into this demographic already, and they'll be like, okay, let's go. Let's put this on whatever, girls' toys or handbags or wallpaper, shower curtain, it could be any of those things. which is an amazing, amazing thing to think about. What do your parents say about all this?

Betsy Mae:
My parents are so happy. They love this. They always wanted me to take art classes when I started painting, and I spitefully would be like, this is nothing. It's not serious like that. So now they're happy that I'm accepting that it's serious.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, that's amazing. Were either of the two of them artists?

Betsy Mae:
Well, actually, my mom does pottery. So she she used to do pottery in high school, and then didn't for she was a teacher. But now she's like, doing pottery all the time. So it's like nice that we both are a little creative. But their their taste in art is definitely what like, influenced me. Got it. Because they like fun, like they like like Ashley Longshore, like funny, joking stuff.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that and that's clear across your social profile that you know, you like having fun and being light and whimsical and funny, which I think is great. What would you say is the biggest struggle? So you found us you signed up, you got a lot of this stuff automated, the orders go out, you don't have to touch anything, you have Etsy doing the same thing. Just out of curiosity, when you moved on to our platform, do you feel like the Etsy, the Etsy sales slowed down? Or do they just stay the same?

Betsy Mae:
Honestly, um, they didn't, they, they picked up because I added it. I hadn't, I hadn't been promoting it anywhere. So I just added it to my Instagram and I, cause at first I didn't want to cause I wanted all the traffic to go to my website, but honestly, like they don't. Maybe they take away from each other a little bit, but I find that they both still make sales.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, which is great. I mean, I constantly lecture or have a statement like, I've never met a revenue source in this business I don't like as long as it's legal. Cultivating multiple is a great way to go about it. Having Etsy alone when you don't have the home base is a terrible strategy because there's no guarantees on Etsy. You can be hot, they can be showing you to people, and then they could bury you and you have no sales all of a sudden. So having the home base where you're building your own contacts, your own email list, people you know who they are so, so important. So I love that. So what would you say your biggest struggle for you? Is it just bandwidth? Or is it the technical aspect?

Betsy Mae:
I don't even know right now. Yeah, it's always just like, kind of like, what's the next step? Like, Or I think I get caught up in like checking to see if like my Instagram is growing every day and like I'm making sales every day, but like it can't, I think I need to stop looking at the like day to day changes to so much and look at like bigger picture stuff and look at, and I need to, I think I do struggle with making like bigger picture plans where I'm thinking of like, what am I going to post today? What am I going to make today? Yeah. Not like, what am I going to focus on for the next little while?

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, I mean, it's sort of wild that you have like an automated business already. And you're in college, you know, it's a crazy thing to think about, right? You've got this stuff on the website, and whether it's your art storefront site doing their Etsy, like, orders come in, they get shipped, all the emails go out, you don't touch anything. Yeah, anywhere, right? You could be at a football game, or you could be at a sorority party or whatever it is down there. Down there in Miami. Yeah, that's amazing. I think you need to be emailing that list more and regularly being in contact with them. Given the size that it is already, I think asking for feedback on that list is important. I almost feel like you should hire one of your besties that is really, really good at social media to start taking over from below to social posting. You know, you could do some replying there. I think I want to look at your lineup and see, you probably want to expand as many different merch items as you possibly can given the demographic. Like what would you say is the best selling merch for you so far? Whether it's on Etsy or our site. The iPhone cases?

Betsy Mae: Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
Amazing. Amazing. And mostly the iPhone cases?

Betsy Mae:
Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, which is like a dirty little secret, by the way, because if you have an iPhone, you have money.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
Just truth. Apple is like the high, high level product. The beautiful thing that you've locked in on, though, is if you can build a bond with these little girls that are going to grow up just like you and have them on your list and feel like they're bonded to you and everything that you've created, you're going to be able to sell to them for the rest of your art selling life. Yeah. Staggering thing.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah, honestly, like one of the things I like was thinking about when I started this is like how many influencers just like can start brands and people just like buy their stuff because they're like, I feel connected to this person and like anything like I like, I like, I trust them. So like, that was kind of a big part was I wanted like it to be my personality too, so that I could kind of like, yeah, like connect with like younger girls. especially because like I remember like being their age because it was like not that long ago. Yeah, I can like it's easy for me to get into their shoes get into their.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, because I looked at that and it's like you're you're you're obviously gifted with a good business sense right out of the gates because you're figuring these things all out on your own just intuitively. But the way that I like to rationalize it is art sales are 5050. Meaning, it's 50% what is the art, and it's 50% the artist. It's gutsy. What is she into? What does she like to do? What are her favorite shows? What does she do on weekends? Oh, I have that in common with her. Oh, I think that's really funny, right? Like, oh, we're laughing at the same shows. And so, you know, I almost even want to see more of that. Yeah, in your actual feed. Imagine if I went through your stories is probably where you you spend a bunch of time like here's, you know, here's here's my college apartment. Like, yeah, do you find that you do that? Because one of the one of the things that I like routinely see millennials and down do you guys were trained? It's not even trained. It's like the old people. This is this is how it went. Okay. And to a larger point, all the young cool kids are on Facebook, then all the old people started joining Facebook. And then the kids are like, get us the hell out of here. You know, our parents are on this thing now. Then the kids went to Instagram. And then Instagram started, everyone was just posting in their feed. And then Snapchat came along and Snapchat was a little bit cooler. And then enough of the celebrities got on Instagram that everyone kind of moved back to Instagram. But the stories is where you guys do all your storytelling. And it kills me. Okay. Instagram is is three social networks. All right. And We have this photographer, Jonah, who he's a little bit older than you. He's from Florida, too, actually. He's 30. Oh, he just turned 30. And I'm like, you damn millennials in your storytelling. You're doing such cool content in there that disappears in 24 hours. What if I discover you six months down the line? I'm not going to be able to learn any of that about you. And you're doing that, too. So I want some of the personal stuff in the grid. Yeah. Because if I just discovered you after watching this interview, I've now followed you. All I see on your profile is just your art, and not enough of your personality. Yeah. Like I scroll through here. And that's because you think this social network is the one that doesn't matter, right? Because Instagram is three in one. It's the regular posts. It's reels. You could say it's live broadcast, too. And it's stories. But all three of those are like three rooms in a house. Okay. And you never know what room a particular buyer is going to go into. There's some people that use Instagram like you do, which is like, I just go to the stories, I don't even look at anything else. There's some just watch reels. And there's some that like going up and down a feed, right? But like, aside from this photo, and like one other one, I can find one in the regular grid. So I want you thinking about how some of your story content can live in the grid. Because, you know, there's there's more personality to it. And that's just a general rule. Because You obviously have your demo nailed. You know how to reach those little gals. And by all means, that's a secret sauce. Keep going. But you know where the huge buyers are? They're in here. They're in here. And a way to think about it is, if I, and I hope your generation does this, when I contemplate buying something, what do I do? I immediately go to Amazon and I read reviews, right? If it's easy, I buy it on Amazon. But I read the reviews to figure out with like, hey, is this something that I should buy and that I should do? Right? For artists, you know, that credit check, the review system is Instagram, right? So what will happen is, is that some of these little girls who are following you, their mom is gonna see that and they're gonna be like, Oh, she's this is great. She's amazing. They're gonna go to your profile, but they don't get the story thing. Yeah, all they get is the main feed. So I want you to interject, you know, no, your buyers are yes, these little girls, but make no mistake about who's writing the check. It's the moms. Yeah, right. So you got to market to both of them. And I can get you doing more of that in the feed. And I'm literally going to set myself a reminder to come back and harass you in a month. I don't see a bus. Okay. You doing you like you being fun in college, you you? Are you into dogs? Are you into cats? Do you drink? Do you not drink? Like whatever fun stuff you do, that's your personality that these girls are seeing in the stories. Get it in the feed. Yeah, feed. I can't I constantly go through and like, you know, on on Jonah's all the time. And I'm like, Jonah, this is so cool that you're doing this is like building your brand for lifetime. And it's disappearing in 24 hours. Um, you know, which is just, just killing me, killing me, killing me. Um, someone was asking about Tik TOK. What is your, what do you, what is your handle on Tik TOK?

Betsy Mae:
It's princess Betsy May.

Patrick Shanahan:
It's princess. You can find her on Tik TOK that way. And for anyone that's seen this later or listening to the podcast later, don't worry, all this stuff's going to go in the, in the, in the, you know, um, in the show notes. But yeah, I, I really want you thinking about that because. almost no one on our platform I've seen has made this connection with like the 20 year olds. And I'm like mega fascinated by this. I'm telling you within that army of girls are moms that are handling advertising for magazines that are doing big brands, and some of them are buyers at target. And you want to you want to leave your job and not have to go into finance. That is that is the gig that we need to get in the next two years. So challenge throw down for sure. Okay, on posting and posting in the feed. I want some originals on the site with with the higher prices. Okay, just have the range. And they can come in and do the Goldilocks thing like that one's two third now. Bless you. This is just right. Right. But I love that you're acquiring all these customers. And again, I'm just like thinking in my head, like if you make an awesome bond, these girls are gonna be with you for life.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
They're always going to be like 10 years older than and just keep creating. And then they're going to end up buying their first home and they're going to be like, of course I'm coming to her. Right. I love this art forever. I ask everybody the ambush question. What's one thing if we could make better at art store fronts, would you appreciate the most right now? Um, and it can only be one.

Betsy Mae:
Hmm.

Betsy Mae:
One thing that I was, that I don't know if this is specifically would be art store funds or like the fulfillment companies, but like different types of merch items, like a lot of people, I mean, I guess this isn't, I'm maybe one of the only ones who's getting this request on art store funds, but like a lot of people have requested like baby tees or like little tank tops.

Patrick Shanahan:
I don't know, just different options. Yeah. I'm making a note on that. And you know, we're, this is another thing that I need you to like think about. So And again, I have to give you the history because I don't want to think about how old I am in comparison to you. It's like you young you damn kids get off my lawn. But pod in terms of merch, you don't understand what a breakthrough this is. Like when I was your age, You wanted to do a calendar, you wanted to do a t-shirt, you had to order minimum, like $1,500, $2,000. You had to warehouse it yourself, right? And you had to ship it yourself. And like getting someone to do a one-off order, like absolutely not, like under no circumstances. So why do I bring that up? One, we have to be thankful that this one off printing all these crazy things exists. But two, you also have to be okay with some of those vendors in terms of the quality and everything else, because it's amazing. They can just do one, right? Because that's a really low margin thing for them. Yeah, you given your demo, I feel like you're always going to be a few steps ahead of what POD can deliver, because POD is usually not the highest quality stuff, right? Yeah. So I think, again, this is gonna be so hard for you to do in college, but I do feel like you need to start figuring out what your number one best-selling item would be, and see if there's an even better vendor that's like an individual vendor that comes up with a higher quality product that you can actually look like. Because again, for your demo, they're probably even more likely to buy the merch than they are the other stuff. So we can talk about that. And I do think you've got to keep going on it. But you've only been, when did you sign up? A couple months ago? Yeah, May. Yeah, May. Yeah. So wow, it's barely even been any time at all. Yeah. Well, I'm amazed. I'm amazed. I feel like I'm gonna have to check back in with you. Like once a year. Have you come back on? Get the progress report? See where we're at? Is she making it? Is she getting her schoolwork done? Is she still painting? Is it growing? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any other burning marketing questions?

Betsy Mae:
Um, not right now. I don't think Yeah, I definitely want to get better at using MailChimp and yeah, emailing people. But yeah, I think not right now that I can think of.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. And I'm like, let me just go back to that for a second. So when these little gals orders come in, it's obviously not their email address, their credit card.

Betsy Mae:
So it's the moms. Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
So the majority of the time you're emailing the moms, huh?

Betsy Mae:
Yeah. I mean, there are, there are some people, Yeah. Cause some, some based on like when people will respond to the automated emails and like, um, and talk about themselves a little bit, I feel like it's about like half and half like moms versus like teenage girls.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. I think there's, there's such a robust, group of mommy bloggers out there. And I mean, my wife literally like will show me this one gal that like just complains about her kids nonstop. She doesn't really really funny way and she has like 15 million. Ah, If you contacted any of those mommy vloggers, DM on Instagram, and just said, I love what you're doing. And you have to do this. You have to do this. Put your finance hat on, because you've got great instincts. Find a mom that has all the moms. And that's what the mommy vloggers are. And there's the health and wellness ones. There's the makeup mommy vloggers. There's a million different varieties, right? But find one of those moms. and start doing some print giveaways to their audience. Oh, my gosh. That's a good idea. I'm realizing, yes, you need to get the little girls interested in what you do, because they're ultimately the ones that tell their moms. But you're selling to their moms.

Betsy Mae:
Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
Like, I think you should start aligning yourself with some of these funny mommy bloggers. I really do.

Betsy Mae:
That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
I mean, because you could also, you know, be an inspiration for how you started the art business and how if their daughters are creative, they should be doing it too. Like, you got you got a lot, you got to start thinking huge on this, because I literally want to hear a story of maybe I even your parents would kill me for saying this. Maybe you left college early, because you had this big business, right? Yeah. Don't ever leave college early, by the way. You only get one shot at it. It should be some of the most fun, lifelong friendships. Get the degree, make your parents happy. But yeah, well, we got a ton of stuff to talk about there. I am super appreciative for the time.

Betsy Mae:
Of course. Yeah, I'm happy to do this. I was excited when I heard that.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah, I want to see more. Let's see, in the grid. OK, so start forcing yourself to do that right away. Yes. You definitely need to get a couple of originals in the shop. And there's a there's a chance you should be on copilot to get it to send the emails for you. Yeah, we might talk about that and see what that looks like. But okay. Other than that, incredible. I'm going to start checking in with you on a regular basis. Do you use anything inside our storefronts at all, by the way? It's like, do you go to any of the office hours or anything?

Betsy Mae:
I like, I'm honestly just bad about it. I've been wanting to since I started, but I just forget every day. Like, but I really do have class and everything else, which, you know, yeah. So like, but I don't think, I mean, I think I need to look at my schedule actually to see if it, conflicts with like office hours, but yeah, I do want to start using it more.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yeah. Part of me wants you to. And part of me is like, you know what? Just don't just keep doing what you're doing because you're plugged in. You're plugged into your demo and you've naturally found it, which is, which is just amazing, but really inspirational, really inspirational for the next young generation. Um, I'm going to put links to your website on Instagram and Tik TOK. What else should I link to? Where do you want people to find you and track?

Betsy Mae:
Um, yeah, that's, I mean, Instagram, Tik TOK.

Betsy Mae:
Maybe I have a Pinterest, but I don't know if that you need to do. I don't know. Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan:
I'm going to, I'm going to throw our website in the show notes, Instagram. You guys should follow her. Very inspirational. A college age kid getting it done, um, with a really, really interesting bio. So can't, can't wait to see where you go with your career. I will check in often and make sure you're following all the rules in the meantime. Like it's just, you know, in addition to everything that you told me, If you can graduate college, doing everything you need to do, but having a huge email list and having a huge Instagram following, then you can hit it hard and you're going to be great.

Betsy Mae:
Thank you so much. A lot of good advice.

Patrick Shanahan:
Yep. Oh, don't worry. I got plenty of that. I'm generally just don't shut up. So now you're not you're not all over my radar, you're gonna end up regretting it. You guys, thanks for listening. Make sure to give Betsy a follow and we'll see where she goes. And what does it go hurricanes? Yeah, go canes go hurricanes or what you have to do like the you or something down there, right? Yeah. All right. Thanks, everybody.