Introducing Art Business Mornings

In the inaugural episode of Art Business Mornings, Patrick and Nick introduce the show and define the term 'art business.' They discuss the five foundational pillars crucial for building a six-figure art business: unclogging self-limiting beliefs, understanding the direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model, mastering effective marketing, ensuring quality inputs, and having the right perspective on time. The hosts emphasize the importance of consistent marketing efforts and offer insights drawn from their extensive industry experience and data. The episode sets a high aspirational goal for artists and offers a comprehensive roadmap for achieving success in the art industry.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: (coffee tap running) Coming up on the introductory edition of Art Business Mornings, we're gonna define the term "art business." We're gonna introduce the show and your host, and we're gonna talk about the five pillars of a six-figure-a-year art business, and then we'll close with the mechanics of the show.

Nick Friend: So, how are you doing? Inaugural show, I'm excited.

Patrick Shanahan: Good morning.

Nick Friend: Should we get our coffee cup raised?

Patrick Shanahan: Do it.

Nick Friend: Raised?

Patrick Shanahan: Cheers.

Nick Friend: Cheers, cheers to the fancy intro.

Patrick Shanahan: Mmm, it's good. Top of the morning.

Nick Friend: Top of the morning. So, I wanted to start out by defining the art business. And this is sort of like a wifty statement. What's in it for me? Does it apply to me? And so, really, we think about the art business as sort of an umbrella. And there's a lot underneath. Stated another way, you might be in the art business if you're selling art or photography, offline and online. Could be any combination of originals, limited editions, open editions, commissions, Baelish prints, and endo-prints.

Patrick Shanahan: It can include selling digital courses on art or photography or crafts. It can include selling via art galleries, both retail and digital, digital being Saatchi Fine Art, Art.com... Those types. It can be selling art through fairs and shows, selling direct, selling art to commercial buyers and interior designers.

Nick Friend: Does that also apply to sculpture, crafts, jewelry, other art-related products? Yes, it does. But it also applies to hybrid-based businesses. And we see quite a few of those. Perhaps you're both selling fine art, and there's a service element to your business. And it can be service photography of any stripe, portrait photography, or wedding photography, you're doing sports photography, perhaps AYSL photos, or selling in-person workshops, or teaching offline or online.

Patrick Shanahan: Perhaps you teach art and create art. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you're a full-time artist or a side hustle. It's not why. Success. Success. We don't care where it comes from. And this is an important one because we get this question all the time, especially as it pertains to how we can help you potentially grow that art business. And it's like, "Aren't you guys the print guys?" You're the one that wants everyone to do prints? Absolutely not.

Nick Friend: Is that a part of our business? Yes, it is. But all we care about is success. Where it comes from, and in what format, and what percentages, it does not matter. A blend of any type of art sales, a blend of digital courses--

Patrick Shanahan: Any part-time fine art. Why does it not matter at all? Why? Because if you've been an entrepreneur or a business owner for any length of time, you know things, namely, how hard it is to get any single revenue source producing and doing well.

Nick Friend: I mean, right now--

Patrick Shanahan: And once you get one working, you've got to double down on it.

Nick Friend: You double down, triple down--

Patrick Shanahan: And you don't shift your focus onto something else.

Nick Friend: Exactly right. You have to appreciate how difficult it is out there. And then conversely, how much BS there is out there, telling you to switch, or you need to be in this niche or that niche when you have one that's producing.

Patrick Shanahan: Exactly. So, we're constantly reverse engineering success, finding out what it is, winding it, breaking it down into its pieces, and then reteaching it. And, I did a massive deep dive, which is, this is episode number one, it's introducing the show. Episode number two is gonna be a deep dive on the art business. But number three is success, and how important success is. So, we're about to have a huge one. Why would you wanna listen to us? To Nick and I? What the heck do we know? One, experienced entrepreneurs. We've both been at this our entire lives. Fun fact, we actually started our first business together.

Nick Friend: How did that one go? Huge failure. Huge failure. But we learned a ton. Sold over, I think, $600,000 in stuff. In clothing, actually, in our teens and early twenties. So, from there, it's just gone on and on. I started businesses that did many millions in sales. You've started businesses, very low millions in sales, but still millions in sales.

Patrick Shanahan: And, we've been at this for a number of years. And it's not just the art business, it's business and entrepreneurs in general, which is just... It's such a missing component in this business. I mean, time in and time out, it's not just about marketing advice. Like, what would you say? It's almost like 80/20. Twenty percent of the coaching that we're doing is just business-related and business acumen, right?

Nick Friend: That's right. If you try to do it all on your own, you will soon learn that you're gonna be in trouble. You cannot build a business on your own, on an island by yourself. You need to have people who have done it before, in your business, in your industry who can help you. There's just, there's no way around it.

Patrick Shanahan: You're going to hit those walls. And a lot of people, they're stuck simply because of that. They're stuck on simple problems that have been easily solved by others. And they could get over those if they surrounded themselves with some other people who are more experienced.

Nick Friend: Exactly right. Exactly right. And it's not just business experience either. The majority of my career has been in the art industry. I started one of the biggest manufacturers of media and breathing color in the industry. You've been in it for a good 10 years now. So, it's not just the nuances of entrepreneurism and being in business.

Patrick Shanahan: It's also focused on the art industry. You pile that on with data. Data a couple of different ways. One. Live sessions with both our customers and non-customers, of which we've had hundreds at this point. And it turns out, that he who is closest to his or her customer, or potential customers, wins always.

Nick Friend: Pattern recognition is a real thing. When you couple the live sessions we've had with the over probably a hundred thousand phone calls that our staff's had with artists and photographers out there, pattern recognition becomes a real thing. We know the ins and outs quite a bit about this particular business.

Patrick Shanahan: It goes even further than that though. I mean, I think we're probably right about 4,000 customers now and counting over seven years. And so, we're swimming in data on what works and what doesn't. Not hyperbole, not something you heard from somebody, or somebody wrote an article about something.

Nick Friend: Hardcore data that we see directly that's leading to sales and success. To sales and success. So, that's why you might wanna listen to us.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. And I would also add to that, just the fact that, one of the most historical biggest problems in the art business for individual photographers and artists is just going down the wrong path.

Nick Friend: Like you mentioned it in the context of the five pillars. And if people correct their path, they instantly are going to be dramatically better than they were before. And I think one of the biggest things that we can correct on this show is correcting the path upfront. Because if you go down the wrong path from the start, you have the wrong business model, you've got bad inputs coming at you, all of those different things, you're already like dead on arrival.

Patrick Shanahan: You think you're going somewhere, but you're actually not. And this is why I always say that the starving artist problem, it's a millennia-year-old problem. It's a millennia-old problem. How many problems are out there that are thousand years old, that are problems that still exist? I mean, isn't that just profound to talk about? This is serious.

Nick Friend: This is a serious problem. That's what the conclusion of that is. This is still a serious problem. And it needs to get solved. And in this industry, in particular, in this industry in particular, there is a lot of BS, a lot of bad information, a lot of people that are going down the wrong path, following the wrong advice and all of that.

Patrick Shanahan: And I think that we can correct the vast majority of it, and that's obviously one of our biggest goals. Our mission, overall at Art Storefronts, is to solve the starving artist problem. How do you do that? You create a lot more successful artists. You might say right now that, out of everybody who attempts to create a successful art business or who has, over the last a hundred years, thousand years, maybe that percentage is really small.

Nick Friend: Let me just say like 0.01% or something like that, were trying to take that to 10% or 20%. Does that completely solve the problem? No. But if we can get way more successful artists out there, as individual solo entrepreneurs doing it on their own, that's a very big deal for this industry. It's a monumental shift.

Patrick Shanahan: No question about it. And you know, we talk about the data, we talk about the live sessions, we talk about looking at our customer data, and where we sort of emerged that, is this concept of the five pillars. The five pillars that will essentially put you on a path, the tagline of the show, "Puts you on a Path to a Six Figure a Year Plus Art Business."

Nick Friend: And, I think we need to address the number up front, and why six figures a year. One, we think it's a target. And whether side hustle or not, it's a milestone that I think many want to hit. Yes, it's a big number. Yes, it's aspirational. Yes, it might sound really, really far away from where you are currently if you're just getting started, but goals need to be aspirational.

Patrick Shanahan: And what's your line, Nick? You aim for the what, you land in the what?

Nick Friend: You aim for the stars you land in the clouds.

Patrick Shanahan: Exactly. Right. So, that's what our goal is, and that's sort of where we are. And we think a large portion of the market is currently aspirationally at that. And so we think it's a good achievable goal.

Nick Friend: The tagline for the show.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. We can't set it at 10,000, we've got to set it at a hundred thousand. Even for those who still only wanna sell 10,000 or 20,000 a year, we have to set it at 100,000 because we have to eliminate the entire path from zero to 100,000 plus. That's our goal.

Nick Friend: That's right.

Patrick Shanahan: And you know, better still, it's totally achievable. And never in the history of selling art has there been a better time to achieve this. The conditions are just better than they ever have been before. Why? Technology adoption being accelerated by the pandemic. The art industry, while perhaps a bit late in comparison to its peers; music, video delivery, taxis, et cetera, is on the fast track right now to disruption.

Nick Friend: What would have taken seven or eight years is now been condensed, and as a result of the pandemic, into this tiny little path. And so, we think it's a better time to get there than ever before. You have more power, fewer gatekeepers, and there is a path. And if you're already at six figures a year, guess what? The plan doesn't change a whole lot.

Patrick Shanahan: It turns out when things start getting a bit easier. Absolutely. But you still need to work on your marketing. You still need to constantly be building your lead list, and all of the things that we're gonna cover in the show. So, that gets me right into the five pillars. Number one. The most important one, comes to find out, we've got to unclog the drain.

Nick Friend: That's going to be a huge portion of the show. In the morning. Let me tell you. What does unclog the drain mean? And as the analogy goes, before we can even talk about the other four pillars, we have to understand the drain, and what's stuck in your drain. What is it that we as plumbers are gonna get out of your drain? It's all the self-limiting beliefs that both have presented and continue to prevent artists and photographers from taking the next step in their careers.

Patrick Shanahan: I talk about data on how many customers that we've talked to. This is part of the pattern recognition. And when you see it a thousand times, you realize how significant of a problem it is. And they come in many different shapes and sizes. But they all have the same collective effect. Either the artist does not even start on the work they need to do, or they focus on complete nonsense, and get nowhere.

Nick Friend: Hours turn into days, days to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years, you look back, and oftentimes, zero constructive forward progress in the business.

Patrick Shanahan: Huge problem. Huge problem.

Nick Friend: Huge problem. Any of these sound familiar? "I would be doing great, but my media types are just unique," or, "my pieces are too big," or, "I'm not narrowed down to a specific niche," or, "I can get started when I finish my website."

Patrick Shanahan: How long have you been working on that website, by the way? Or, "I don't know what my niche is, and until I do, I can't launch."

Nick Friend: Or, "My friends have been telling me my art or photography is good for years, but I've never tried to sell it."

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. "But I've never tried to sell it." Or, "I'll start doing great if I can just find that list of high-net-worth individuals."

Nick Friend: Do you guys have it? You have that list? Nick, do you have that list? I don't have that list.

Patrick Shanahan: Oh my goodness.

Nick Friend: Forget the list. Forget the list.

Patrick Shanahan: If any of those sound familiar, trust me, we're hearing these all the time. And these are things that are stuck in your drain, that are preventing you from taking your next step. So, we're going to unclog that drain. I've got the snake, I've got the big truck out there. Don't worry. We know how to get these things out of the drain. Pillar number one. Pillar number two. Understanding the business model. Stated another way. DTC or die. What does DTC mean? What does DTC mean?

Nick Friend: Direct to Consumer.

Patrick Shanahan: Direct to Consumer. And for far too long, there have been too many middlemen involved in the art sales process. It doesn't matter where you rank in that art business. Galleries, online galleries. You're not getting your customer information. You're not selling direct. You're selling indirect.

Nick Friend: There's all these additional costs built in that are absolutely killing your business, contributing to the starving artist problem, and they need to be obliterated. It's quite literally DTC or die. So, we're gonna go into massive, deep dives on this one, but the business model, if we've learned anything, you've been an entrepreneur for any length of time, you would have thought like, "This is common knowledge, everybody knows this."

Patrick Shanahan: But we've come to find out you don't. There's just these normal paradigms of the art business. You're gonna give up 50% of your sales and not keep your customer lists to art galleries 'cause that's the way it goes, and that's where the prestige is. And it's just--

Nick Friend: Listen to this, guys. DTC or die. The whole reason that this one's number two on the pillar list. You get this one wrong, you get this one wrong, you are pretty much sure to have a starving artist business. I can tell you that. And the other thing too, is that it's not just the galleries that are the indirect versus the direct.

Patrick Shanahan: The art have proven to be, to have their own indirect component that get pulled out from underneath you as well. How many art shows are going on right now, Pat?

Nick Friend: Yep. Not a whole lot.

Patrick Shanahan: None. How many are coming back? We don't know. How many people are going to go to them? So, anything that relies on a third party is indirect, and that is a very big risk.

Nick Friend: It always gets pulled out from underneath you at some point. And that's why Direct To Consumer, DTC, where you market direct, you own your customer list, you own everything, you make the most money from your work, is an absolute must. And it's the only way that you get consistent income. You wanna know why most artists have not had consistent income? Or why if you've been at it for five or 10 years, you haven't either? It's because you've never focused on building a DTC business, a direct business.

Patrick Shanahan: We talk about the path to a 100k a year business. What are the odds of an artist making it? Period. Okay. Get in there. Not great. Not great to begin with. It's the nature of this business. What are the odds when you are not a DTC business, you might as well go play the lotto, because that's how low it is.

Nick Friend: That's how hard it is. So, that's understanding the business model. We're gonna go into that in insane detail. Number three, my wheelhouse, my favorite, the secret to effective marketing. It's taken me my entire career to figure this out. I mean, many of you heard me rant on this before. I can't believe I'm gonna tell you this secret.

Patrick Shanahan: They told me not to tell you the secret. I'm telling you the secret. There is no damn secret. There's never been a secret. It's two things. One. Focusing your limited time and energy, that we all have, on the high ROI. Return on Investment of your time, your treasure, marketing activities. Again, we have a ton of data.

Nick Friend: We know what these are. We know what are driving sales and creating success in artist's businesses. We're gonna be talking about those. Once you figure that out, once you focus on those, it's just a game of consistency. That's it. That's it. And it's the two biggest problems as we talk about marketing.

Patrick Shanahan: One, artists chase the shiny objects, they don't do the high ROI stuff, then they quit after a little while because it turns out the shiny objects never work. Focus on the high ROI, do it consistently. That's the secret you win. There is no secret.

Nick Friend: And you know what else? The other thing is that is so important to emphasize there, when we're talking about marketing is, if you don't solve the marketing problem, you don't have a business.

Patrick Shanahan: Just because you have a website, and you throw your images up there, doesn't mean you have a business. The number one problem that every artist and photographer has to solve is marketing. That's the real problem behind the problem. A website is not enough. A website is something that you should launch, and put your images up from time to time as you create new ones.

Nick Friend: But other than that, 99% of your admin or business time should be spent on marketing. You have to solve the marketing problem. Otherwise, you will never have eyeballs on your art, you won't have traffic coming to your site, and you won't have people on your email list, and you will not grow your sales.

Patrick Shanahan: You have to solve the marketing problem. It is the number one problem.

Nick Friend: That's right. So, we're gonna be deep diving on that obviously a ton. We've come to be known for our marketing acumen, if you will. So, there's going to be a tremendous amount of content about marketing on the show. Clearly. Number four, are what we'd like to call the inputs.

Patrick Shanahan: And I saw someone who left a comment on the live stream already about this one. And why don't you start with our favorite quote? And then I'll talk about the nonsense.

Nick Friend: Yeah. "You're the average of the five closest people you surround yourself with." And I like to apply that not only in your personal life, but in your business life.

Patrick Shanahan: And your business life as well. Yeah, if you're not around people, and this also goes like, when we say the inputs. It's a combination of that quote. And a lot of people are intimidated by that. Well, "I live in middle America and there's not good ..." You don't need to be physically next to these people.

Nick Friend: It's where you're getting your information from really at the end of the day. And on the inputs, time and time again, we get these questions from artists, from photographers. And it's nonsensical statements and they're convinced of them. And we always ask them, "Who in the world told you that?"

Patrick Shanahan: Who told you?

Nick Friend: Where did you get this information? Because I already know it's from someone that's never sold anything in their entire lives. And yet it's somehow gospel in your mind. I don't even know how it happens, but it's infuriating. It's infuriating. So, you need to mind your inputs. You need to have some good ones. You could say, like the tagline for this show, is to put you on the path to a 100k a year art business. It's also to give you an input you can trust.

Patrick Shanahan: It's to give you an input that is actually going to feed you with narratives that have success underlying them. And without it, the negativity gets in there, call them the haters, call it misery loves company, call it whatever you want. It's misinformation, fake news. It's all one in the same.

Nick Friend: If you don't have inputs from people that are actually selling and being successful in the art business, it's bringing you down. And we've got to get rid of those. We've got to get rid of them.

Patrick Shanahan: And here's the perfect one. So, bringing up that comment, you mentioned, David said, "What do you do if the ones in your business sort of hate on what you are doing?" "The only mentors I really have is you guys."

Nick Friend: Well, that's a perfect example. How many of you are out there and you've got inputs coming at you that are negative, that are wrong information? Audit all negative inputs, and you need to separate yourself from those in some way or another. In some way or another. And you need to surround yourself with higher quality people.

Patrick Shanahan: So, you need to find other artists and photographers who are well above your level, that have the sales to prove it right. And create a little group of mentorship that you can lean on to help you make better decisions every day in what you're doing.

Nick Friend: Yep. Make better decisions, encourage you, and most importantly, to ensure that it's not nonsense because we're just seeing entirely too much of that.

Patrick Shanahan: Yep. You gotta know your inputs.

Nick Friend: We'll get some no-nonsense bumper stickers to go with the coffee mugs. You'll get a no-nonsense on the cup maybe. That's pillar number four. And again, we are gonna be doing deep dives with the show on all of the pillars. And we'll constantly be referencing back to them. They really are fundamental. And number five is, equally important as all the rest, perspective. Perspective on how long it takes. If our aspirational goal is a six-figure-plus-a-year art business, that is not going to happen overnight. It's not gonna happen in three months. You can't do six hours of marketing and say I didn't sell anything, this is a joke.

Patrick Shanahan: It takes time. It takes time. I always give the analogy, when you're driving, when you have a destination in mind, it doesn't matter if that drive is two hours, 10 hours, 30 hours. Towards the tail end of it. You start getting antsy. You start getting anxious. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And if in your mind, you're going for a two-hour drive, instead of a three-year drive, you're gonna lose.

Nick Friend: You're not gonna market consistently. You're not gonna work on the business consistently. So, you need to have the perspective of how long it's going to take to build that successful art business. And it does not happen overnight. I mean, one of the things that we say, or that we steal, and I cannot... I know I heard him say it, but I can never find the doggone quote on the internet, but it's Steve Jobs' line, and he says, "It takes three to five years to build anything of value." That's just to build something of value, not even grow the crap out of the business. Just build a thing of value.

Patrick Shanahan: But it's like years three to five, and year seven to nine is when things really start moving, yet no one starts with that length of time in their mind. In terms of perspective. So, really, really important one too. Another one to cover a ton. A ton.

Nick Friend: And these things right here, like you get that one wrong, you get pillar number four wrong, you get any of these wrong, you're pretty much done already. I mean, you might have the greatest art in the world. You might actually have early success happening, but because your expectations are wrong, you're all bent out of shape about it, you think you're doing bad, and then you get demotivated and you quit, and you're not. And you actually had a business going on the right track, all because you had the wrong perspective, from the wrong information.

Patrick Shanahan: Yep. And we see it all the time.

Nick Friend: We see it all the time. All the time. So, those are the five pillars. We're gonna be covering them a ton. The show topics are literally gonna range all over the place. And I made a list because I wanted... This was kind of what we have as an initial list, just to get it started. But we're gonna be talking about just ship it. We're gonna be talking about eating your own dog food. What that looks like. We're gonna be talking about merchandising Carnegie, fired up on the merchandise--

Patrick Shanahan: I'm a merchandiser.

Nick Friend: Good job on it. We're gonna be talking about success, and what going all in on it looks like. We're gonna be talking about shiny objects syndrome. Like the movie "Up Squirrel," The Doc... High ROI marketing activities. We're gonna define those, break those down. Art business longevity. And I don't mean about print longevity. I mean, you could be selling in your forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and then potentially pass a business on if you finally wanna retire in your nineties.

Patrick Shanahan: It's a totally unique business in this nature, that you can just keep building, and building, and building. We're gonna be talking about being close to your customer. Hand-to-hand combat. How important that is, how we define it. Virtual art shows from the local shows and fairs. This is a hilarious con, we'll get into that one.

Nick Friend: We're going to be talking about video chatting. The acceleration of tech adoption. And I have some insane quotes on that one. We're talking about small wins. How you stack those to big ones. Defining your niche. Yes, we know that's a hot button. Validating your art. Like does the market want it? So important.

Patrick Shanahan: When to pivot if the market doesn't. Live art shows, of course, that's our bread and butter. Never comparing your beginning to others, middle, or end. And only the market can tell you. We've got so many topics about to come up. It's literally going to be out of control.

Nick Friend: We're gonna do it all over our favorite morning beverage.

Patrick Shanahan: Ooh, ooh! Surprise, grab yours.

Nick Friend: Let's go for a sip.

Patrick Shanahan: It's a good segue to the show mechanics. Currently, we plan on streaming the show live twice weekly. We're still working that out. Tuesdays and Thursday mornings, 9:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Central, 12:00 PM EST. It can't be morning for every time zone, we did our best.

Nick Friend: How can you make sure you never miss an episode, you ask? Well first, thanks for asking that. I appreciate it. Second. You can get all of the episodes via email. So, a great way to do that is gonna be, get onto the email list. There'll always be links in the description, wherever you see it. If you're an Art Storefronts customer already, you'll obviously get bombarded with them regardless.

Patrick Shanahan: You don't need to worry about it. You can watch it live on the socials. We're streaming on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. If you subscribe to the podcast, the Art Marketing Podcast, you can search that anywhere you find podcasts. We're gonna be dropping them on that feed as well. And as always, we're gonna be answering questions live as we go.

Nick Friend: And that's the show intro, and I'm really fired up about it.

Patrick Shanahan: Me too. I can't wait. This is going to be so much fun.

Nick Friend: So, I gotta play the outro music, still working on the mechanics. But on that note, guys, thanks for listening. Thanks for having some coffee with us, hope to see you soon. Have a great day.