Live Art Shows, New Art Business CRM Feature, and More

In this episode, Nick covers insights from recent live art shows held by hundreds to thousands of Art Storefronts members. He emphasizes the success of these shows in generating significant sales and commissions, particularly highlighting a painter who sold three out of four original pieces within three days. Nick also introduces a new Art Business CRM feature specifically designed for artists and photographers, set to release next week. This tool aims to help manage and close warm opportunities effectively. Additionally, Nick discusses the importance of direct marketing, the upcoming fourth quarter, and provides an overview of the comprehensive support system that Art Storefronts offers its members, including marketing playbooks and live workshops.

Podcast Transcribe

Nick Friend: We're going to talk about a live, live art show, post mortem. Okay. From last week, we had hundreds, uh, of our art storefronts members running these, if not, if not thousands, um, according to our art marketing calendar. So we got some interesting information there. We've got a new feature that I'm teasing.

Okay. That's coming right around the pike and it is an art business CRM. All right. If you're not familiar with the CRM, it is a customer resource management. So like, for example, Salesforce, um, and, uh, there's a ton of different companies that have, uh, like HubSpot is another one, right. Uh, that make CRM software for you to manage the relationships.

Um, with your customers, right. Or with your leads more importantly. So when you have an opportunity that comes up, you can, you know, mark that in there, um, set a follow up date and things like that, which as you're running this business, this art business, we have found that this is, this is becoming very, very important.

So we're playbook around it right now, and we're going to be releasing it in a couple of days. Maybe, maybe, uh, uh, probably end of next week towards the end of next week. All right. So I'm going to go through that today too. So I hope everybody's doing well. Good morning to all of you. Have some coffee.

Let's get into it. All right. All right. So the live art shows. Okay. So these are just unbelievable. I mean, it's one of the most incredible things that just almost makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck every time I think about it, because it is truly the mechanism that is. Uh, that is going to allow artists and photographers to build truly significant art businesses.

And what I mean by that is a significant art business can be defined as Like, you know, having a ceiling of revenue that they can achieve of, you know, 100, 000 or more, right. And well above that. And so the live art shows essentially have been so successful that they are allowing artists and photographers to have all the benefits that a retail gallery normally had, you know, or has.

Um, however, that artist or photographer is doing it out of their home. So the most important point here is to just start out by saying, if you haven't, if you're not familiar with live art shows, live art shows work. Okay. Now we have an entire playbook for it and it's very important that you do it the right way.

There's a lot of what we call trade crafts, right? Um, and that's like, you know, doing it and executing it the proper way. There's marketing that you need to do beforehand. There's marketing that you need to do during there's marketing that you need to do after, um, in order to actually get the full effect of doing it.

And there's also several approaches, um, you know, there, uh, of what products you offer, what items you offer. Um, when you're doing a live art show in order to make it the most effective, but the most important thing is that they're working, the sales are happening in big numbers. And to give you an example, one of our painters, I can give you a lot of examples, but the one that I think is the most profound from this last week is that one of our painters, um, you know, created four originals.

In like the last 10 days before the show. So he painted four brand new pieces 10 days before the show. And he, uh, released those in his live art show. Okay. And he did his live art show was on Friday, last Friday at 5 PM. It was like a happy hour show. Super cool. And, um, by the end of. Sorry. So he did it on Friday, right?

And then by Monday, by Monday, he had already sold three of the four originals. Okay. Three of the four originals. And he also got two commissions. Okay. He got two commission sales from it. And all of that happened in, uh, in just a matter of, you know, three days after doing the art show and I guess a total of 10 days, but the part that is so profound about it, okay.

It's not just the fact that he made those sales. It's when you, when you take this out over the longterm, you guys, the implications are huge, they're massive. Um, this artist, right. And all of you will be able to do this as well, but this artist. You know, created brand new pieces, okay, executed on this playbook and sold three of the four and by, you know, it's already Thursday or Friday, I'm gonna have to check in with them.

Maybe all, maybe that last one is already sold, you know, but the fact that you can create your own pieces, have your own gallery opening, right? It's your own, you have your entire audience that can come and watch international and domestic doesn't matter, right? Because these sales are happening.

Internationally as well as domestically. It doesn't matter. Okay. And, um, and you can do that and you can actually sell your art on the spot. Okay. And so you're not sitting there creating pieces and then going and trying to find galleries to represent you. All right. You're literally selling them and offering them on the spot right after you create them and generating money, generating money right into your pocket from it.

So if you understand how profound this is for the future of this industry, you'll, you understand why I am so excited. So, you know, there was, so I mentioned that we had hundreds, if not thousands of art storefronts, artists running live art shows, um, you know, on last Friday or Saturday, some of them didn't get to it.

So they're running it this week, by the way, some of you art storefronts members that I see on this, on this right now, uh, either on Instagram or on Facebook. If you are not coming to our private workshops, And, you know, uh, every week or at least watching them, um, you're falling behind. All right. You're not getting the latest and greatest strategies.

We are running them two days a week, every Tuesday and Thursday at 1 p. m. Central. Okay. Every Tuesday and Thursday. So there's one today at, uh, at 1 p. m. Central. And what we're going to go over is exactly the marketing that you should be doing, um, to, to, uh, be on track and to get the highest return on your time and to generate, you know, leads and, uh, get your art in front of more people and all that stuff.

So last week, we were obviously going over the live art shows. Um, and the week prior to that and, uh, getting everybody prepared, you know, from a technological standpoint, strategy standpoint, going through the playbooks and that's what happened. So there was a lot more, a lot more success this time around.

Um, and, uh, that was really cool. So yeah, super excited about the live art shows. I think it's, you know, one of the most exciting things that's ever happened. For artists and photographers and the opportunity for you guys is just unbelievable. Okay, let's move on to the next topic, the art business CRM. So I'm teaching, I'm teasing this feature right now.

Okay. Um, we are releasing it, uh, next week. All right. Along with a playbook. All right. And, um, and what I'll explain what it is and I'll explain why we created it because I think it also informs many of you who, uh, don't understand the way that we work at art storefronts. Or it will reveal more about the way that we think and how we work at our storefronts and how we create new features.

You know, and, and, uh, and different playbooks and things like that. All right. Um, so, so the art business, CRM is essentially, uh, A-A-C-R-M is a customer resource management tool like Salesforce or HubSpot, right? Where you can manage leads and opportunities and things like that. All right? So, um, so our art business, CRM, is essentially a, you know, uh, a, it is specifically built.

For the artist and photographer with the specific features that you need to manage the opportunities that come up as you are running an art business. Okay. It's not bloated with all sorts of other features and buttons and functions that you don't need. It's, it's built, uh, you know, very simple so that everyone can use it and you can use it, uh, very quickly.

You know, and not waste a lot of time on it and doing a bunch of different things. It's exactly what you need to manage the opportunities. All right. Um, and so for example, uh, what do you typically do? You, if you get a warm opportunity, you know, you would set your lead status on that, on that specific contact as warm or maybe hot, and you'd have an opportunity amount that you would type in like.

1, 000 or 3, 000, you might have a follow up date that you have in there, right? So that you can make sure you're like, okay, this is a real opportunity here. I may want to follow up with this person in 30 days, right? So we're making that entire process really, really easy and quick for all of the Art Storefronts members.

All right. So this feature is coming out at the end of next week. It's included in everyone's plan. It's included in everyone's plan. Just another upgrade, another member benefit that gets passed along. All right. So now let me talk about how this feature came about and why we created it. So for those of you who don't know, um, the way that we work at our storefronts is we start with success and we, uh, like actual real success, um, with artisan photographers on our platform.

We help them achieve more success. Okay. And then we reverse engineer that. Completely. All right. The entire tactic and strategy and spreadsheets and, you know, software and everything that was needed to do that. And then, uh, we turn it into, you know, features either in the software, like for managing the art business, or maybe it might be a feature on the front end of the website to help, uh, create more conversions.

Um, uh, and we also turn it into playbooks that everybody can follow from a marketing standpoint so that they can go step by step and execute on exactly what is really working for artisan photographers that are running significant businesses. Okay, and so what we did was we were working with a specific photographer.

Who is one of our top sellers. His name is Jonah Allen, and we were helping him, um, with his entire lead funnel. Okay. So he has a lot of leads coming in. He's generating a lot of emails and he is doing hand to hand combat. Now I won't go into exactly what that is, but. He's basically like generating warm opportunities from it.

All right. So he has people that are caught, that are replying to his emails, or they might be direct messaging him on the social media platforms or anything. Right. He has some incoming warm opportunities where people are saying, um, you know, I, you know, I I'm interested in, uh, potentially getting this piece or I've been thinking about this.

You know, peace, or I'd love to, you know, or something as simple as I'd love to have one of your, you know, metal prints in my home and I'm just thinking about that, right? So whenever somebody like gives you an indication that they might be warm, they might be interested in, you know, in, in, uh, possibly getting something that's considered a warm opportunity.

And it's your job to take that warm opportunity and try to nurture it. To a close. Okay. Otherwise it will cool off and you will lose it. All right. So, so we were helping Jonah with this process of fielding these warm opportunities, managing them, um, having the right language. Uh, you know, he was already, um, getting them onto zoom calls and things like that and having success with that.

And, uh, and so from all of this, uh, you know, he was generating quite a bit of sales from all of these warm opportunities, right? Like significant numbers here, you know, like some clients would be buying 5, 000 or even 10, 000. At the end of the day. So it's super important that you are staying on top of your warm opportunities.

So first things first, you need to do marketing and have the right strategies to build your audience. Cause if you don't have an audience, you don't have an email list or any of those things. You're not going to have warm opportunities. So you've got to start at the very top of the funnel, right? And, you know, put people into the top of the funnel.

And then your hope is to generate warm opportunities. And then once you start generating more opportunities, you need a, uh, a way of Managing all of that and staying sane, right? Um, otherwise you're, you're tracking spreadsheets and you've got sticky notes and you don't know who you've talked to or who you sent an email to, or who you've been on a zoom call with, or who you might've been on a phone call with, you know, all that type of stuff.

And so the art business CRM feature is specifically designed to make that process that we know works. For, you know, our artists and photographers to, to generate warm opportunities and to bring them to a close. That's what this feature is designed to do. It's designed to make that entire process as simple as possible for everyone.

So that's the way that we work, right? So this actually came about, I think this is absolutely amazing. This whole discovery, um, of, of this warm opportunity, uh, process and how successful it was, has come about in the last three to four weeks. And once we heard about it, we thought it was so significant that we immediately assigned a developer on it, one of our developers on it.

Um, and so that he would knock it out as quickly as possible. Um, and so here we are, the feature is done. It's in testing right now and it will be released next week. Okay. So like in a matter of 30 days, we hear about something that we think is Absolutely significant in terms of creating success for our artists and photographers, for our members, um, because it was, it was happening.

Okay. It was already happening. And, um, and then we helped push it even further. Once we figured out exactly how the process should be, we immediately created the software and we are in the process of finishing the playbook on exactly step by step how to execute. This strategy of generating and nurturing and closing warm opportunities.

All right, so I am super excited about this. I can't wait to release this feature. And also I'm thinking about the fourth quarter. That's why we expedited this. I'm my first thought in my mind was, Oh, my goodness, people are gonna be fielding. You know, our members are gonna be fielding so many warm opportunities.

Once the fourth quarter comes around because the fourth quarter is the biggest art selling time of the year You should be selling 40 or so percent maybe 50 percent of your sales during the fourth quarter So if you're already not capitalizing on that you're already making the biggest mistake you can in the art industry, right?

Don't not be like actively like participating when the buyers are out and pulling their wallets out The fourth quarter. So the smartest thing you can do is be, you know, up and ready to go and have a significant marketing strategy ready to go for the fourth quarter. Okay. So when all this marketing and all these buyers are coming around, there is going to be a substantial number of, of warm opportunities coming into all of you guys, to all of our members.

Right. And you gotta be, you gotta have a way of managing that and fielding that so that you can maximize your sales. So we are, uh, Transcribed I'm super excited. You know, I know our whole team is really excited to, to get this feature out and get you guys using it, um, so that you get comfortable with it.

So when the fourth quarter comes around, you're literally maximizing every single opportunity. There's nothing that bothers me more when I, when I see, you know, artisan photographers who actually have warm opportunities, like sitting on their lap and they're blowing it. They're like, not even responding, or they don't even know it's a warm opportunity.

They can't smell that it's a warm opportunity there. They don't understand that if you don't act on these things and actually, you know, bring that customer to a close, they will cool off. And then a month or two later, that person will end up buying something else from somebody else who actually like, you know, met their needs.

That's the way things work psychologically. You, when you get, you get an opportunity, you got to jump on it. Um, so, uh, yeah, so it's, that, that is really exciting. So art business, CRM, not just a CRM in art, a CRM that's specifically. Tailored for artists and photographers running their own businesses and doing it simply and with the right flow.

Okay. So next, um, uh, okay. I've, I'm going to, I'm going to deal with some questions here, guys. I see some questions coming in on Instagram and. YouTube, um, does the platform have a data share feature? I don't know what that means. Data share, which what data are you referring to? Um, if you're referring to like, you know, sharing data with Google Analytics or something like that.

Yes, we already have that integrations with Google Analytics. Um, we also have our own analytics, uh, that we prefer that you look at, um, it's a lot easier and simpler. Okay. Um, other question here, um, can you explain more about what you guys do? Yes, of course. So here's what we provide for artists and photographers.

Our, our storefronts is an all in one solution to help artists and photographers build their own bout, uh, build their own. Uh, valuable art business. Okay. And so we give you everything you need to do that. It's like a business in a box. It primarily consists of two things. Okay. Number one is a proper art gallery website with thousands of features that are designed to remove the friction inherent in buying art online.

Okay. The questions and issues that come up when buyers are looking to buy, like how big of a piece should I get? Like, will it fit in my room? Will it match the wall color? Okay. Um, can I try it actually on the wall in my house to see how it will look in the room, right? All of those things, uh, stop people in their tracks from completing a sale, you know?

And a website should be, a proper art gallery website should be like a robot that's working for you 24 hours a day to try to bring people through the process so that the maximum number of visitors Turn into buyers. Okay. So you don't lose any buyers, right? Because when you actually start doing marketing and driving them to a website that's generic, that won't convert, you're going to start having problems.

Traffic is precious. As you guys know, you want to convert as much of it as possible. So the first thing that we do is we provide a proper art gallery website, all right, we believe it is the Ferrari for selling art online, okay, but if a Ferrari is only a glorified lawn ornament, if you don't have gas in the tank, right, it's just sitting there in your driveway.

Can't do anything. Doesn't help you at all. The gas is the marketing. All right. That's the second thing we do. We provide ongoing marketing and business consulting. Okay. That consists of a lot, but just to summarize, it's a 365 day, a year art marketing calendar. Telling you step by step everything that you need to do to grow your audience, get more emails, more followers, and to turn them into sales.

Okay. And the second thing that we do is we provide, uh, workshops, live zoom calls with our members where we're talking to everybody, you know, face to face. Um, and answering questions and consulting. We do that two days a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. And it's with our, uh, our marketing team and our leadership team.

And I am on them, um, frequently as well. Um, and so, uh, yeah, so what we're going over in the, in the consulting workshops is, uh, is, uh, is, is essentially the art marketing calendar because that's what everybody's following. So we're showing everybody have exactly what they need to do. We're answering questions.

We're helping people get over hurdles and roadblocks, um, and so forth. So that's the second thing we do. The art business, the ongoing art business and marketing consulting together. We believe it is an all in one solution for artists to build a valuable art business where they are making the most money from their work, where they own everything, right?

That's what we want for you guys. That is the way that you end up with consistent income. Okay. You have to do direct marketing. You have to own your leads, own your emails, own, you know, your customer list. And you need to make the most money from your art. That's how you're going to build a valuable business.

And that is all we are about. Okay. I hope that answers your question. Um, I should mention that, uh, that, uh, um, if you're interested in learning more about art storefronts, Uh, there's a demo request link, uh, if you're on Facebook or YouTube, it's in the description of this post. Um, so if you want to learn more, click that and request a demo.

It takes like 30 seconds to fill it out on Instagram. It's the links in our bio. Um, you can just click it right there, request a demo and, uh, and then one of our team members will reach out to you, um, and take a look at your art. Learn about your goals and what you're trying to do. And then they can see if you're a good fit for our storefronts.

They can also do, they'll do a demo one on one with you and show you all the features that we have. Cause there's just way too many. And, um, and then they can also like go through all of the pricing and options for you. Um, and, uh, and do that at your pace. Okay. Um, in addition to that, for those of you who have been following us for a while or interested in joining our storefronts, We have a summer special that is actually ending tomorrow.

Um, is the last day of July. It's it's been running this whole July ends tomorrow. So if you want to get a significant discount and take advantage of that for joining our storefronts right now is a really good time. So do not wait, get that demo request in today, like ASAP. Because, uh, the team is really busy trying to get, sign up everybody.

Who's trying to join right now before the end of the month. So please get that in as soon as possible. If you're thinking about joining. All right. Um, other than that, uh, that's pretty much all I got. If there's any other questions, let me see here. Uh, it looks like we're good. Um, so art storefronts members.

I will see you in the private member workshop at 1, 1 PM central. That's in an hour, uh, to do our thing. Let's keep moving the ball forward. Let's keep growing these businesses. All right. Looking forward to that. Everybody else have a great day and talk to you soon.