Extraordinary Events, Extraordinary Outcomes

In this episode of the Art Business Morning Show, host Patrick discusses how extraordinary events like the COVID-19 pandemic are causing significant disruptions in the art and photography business. Patrick uses the metaphor of Daniel Day-Lewis's character in 'There Will Be Blood' to illustrate how artists need to leave old models behind and adapt to new, more profitable methods of selling their work directly to consumers online. He highlights the dramatic shift in consumer habits towards e-commerce, supported by data from Walmart's earnings and Art Storefronts' own metrics. Patrick stresses the importance of marketing, owning consumer data, and leveraging digital platforms to build a sustainable and lucrative art business in the new reality.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: And I promised. Okay. Coming up, on today's edition of the Art Business Morning Show we're talking about extraordinary events, extraordinary outcomes. And specifically, living through great disruption, okay? How it's changing habits, how its artists and photographers need to see the silver lining and embrace the coming changes.

(milkshake pouring) Hi Ben, we're excited to have you. All right, my intro music is kicking. Let me make sure I'm online everywhere. Welcome you guys to another edition of the Art Business Morning Show, the show that will put you on the path to a six figure a year art business, okay? We all wanna be, I gotta stop saying okay by the way, didn't notice to stop doing that.

Hold on, I gotta get my sound effects in place. Okay, question. You ever see "Last Of The Mohicans"? You ever see that movie? Great movie. Great soundtrack too. I realized I need to read the book. You ever see "Gangs In New York"? Another great movie. Another phenomenal movie actually. Lastly, you ever see "There Will Be Blood"? Yup. Also great movie.

What all three of them have in common. One of the greatest actors of all time. For reference, this guy.

Daniel Day-Lewis: Drainage. Drainage Eli you boy.

You boy, I drink your milkshake. The actor in question is Daniel Day-Lewis. So good, guy's just so talented, it's incredible. A side note, he's a method actor, which means that once he starts a film, he gets into character and he assumes that character the entire time.

I.e, when the director says cut, he's still in character. Like, if you're filming for three months, he stays in character for three months. The fact that that guy was in the, "There Will Be Blood" movie was Daniel Plainview. Okay, in that character, for however long it took to film that thing is incredible.

I don't even understand how his significant other whoever that might be, survived with that guy's attitude. He's just crazy in that movie, crazy. Evil business man, with a psychotic streak right? I couldn't imagine going and getting a beer with him when he was in that character would have killed me, I would have loved it.

So, in the film, Daniel is an oil prospector if you haven't seen it. And hold on I'm gonna switch one thing I know this is off. So he's an oil prospector in the film, right? And going back to my notes here, hold on bear with me. And early on in the film, okay? He shows up in this town and he wants to take the oil well, the lease that this town has.

And all of the town residents are sort of debating with each other. Like what operators should we choose? How much money should we get for the lease? Should we go with this guy? Should we go with someone else? The way to think of it, it's like sort of like our modern political debate, right? Like everyone's squabbling everyone with a different position nothing really gets done.

You know, we want this price, we want that price, we want this split, no, this number. And Daniel, Daniel Plainview in the movie, he sort of sees the writing on the wall and he says no, thank you. And he's walking out of like the little town meeting and one of the residents realizes that this was the guy for the job and he comes running out and he's like, Daniel, Daniel, don't we, we need you.

And Daniel kindly lets them know, which is not as nature, no, I don't want this one. I wouldn't take it, even if you paid me for it. And he instead, heads out West right? And he finds an oil field, which can, he can easily purchase the land without any politics, without any BS and he starts drilling and he makes a tremendous fortune in the process.

Haven't seen the movie, you got to see it it's phenomenal, phenomenal film. And I'm not sure why I thought about that, but I was thinking about it on my way to coffee this morning. And I realized sort of how perfectly, metaphorically speaking, that it represents exactly what we're going through right now.

Patrick Shanahan: Like literally right now with what's happened with COVID and the situation on the ground. And what's happening right now, the old oil, well that Daniel was looking at and the squabbling townsfolk, okay? That represents for me metaphorically, the old way in which art and photography have traditionally been sold.

The, in my view, exploitative scenario between galleries and artists, they keep 50%, they keep all your customer data. You don't get a market to them, or perhaps the low ROI activity of going and doing the show in their circuit paying for the booth, being on your feed for eight hours, not sure that you're going to be profitable or not taking all that time.

The ridiculous online galleries where you upload your images and perhaps one out of a hundred artists actually make any real incomes, you don't keep your customer data. That for me represents, metaphorically speaking, that old town with the well and the squabbling town's people. Daniel Plainview in that movie he's the intelligent artist or photographer, okay? Minus the psychosis.

He sees the writing on the wall, he can hang around in the old ways, playing the old game, or you can head out West to the newly emergent land of milk and honey right? Manifest Destiny. He sees the change coming and he moves with it. There's a new way to do things, there's a new place to go, he doesn't need to deal with that nonsense.

He gets there first and it becomes fantastically wealthy as a result of it. And you know, I'm presented weekly with sort of a myriad of stories about the old ways right? And I run these art business workshops if you're unfamiliar, they're three times thrice weekly Monday, Wednesday, Friday Zoom sessions with me or my team.

You can join for free, get some free consulting you should totally come, they've been a blast, a lot of fun. There'll be a link in the bio or in the show notes or wherever you're listening to this and you can join, if you like. But I just constantly am greeted with stories from artists and photographers spread out throughout the United States and even internationally Canada, especially.

And it's one story after the other about the old days. Patrick, my gallery is angry with me for selling online. I say, oh, is that right? They're angry with you. How much are they selling for you right now? Well, I'm down about 80% year over year, or Patrick, I've been patient hoping the show circuit was going to come back but it's just not happening.

COVID continues to kill this most important part of my offline business. And I'm worried my health is not what it is and it looks like COVID is coming back. Or Patrick, I've tried uploading my images to Etsy and it was working okay for a few years and now I can't seem to find a sale with my life depended on it right? The stories of the old way abound and just very, very few of them are positive at all.

So, I wanna talk about the new way, the new way that's emerged to sell art and photography, the new way that I believe is going to be the standard and to do that, I need to sort of make a pit stop at habits. And buying habits right now are forever changing. And habits are not easy to change. You ever tried to stop drinking? Stop smoking? Stop overeating? Start exercising regularly? That's not so easy, is it? And let me tell you a quick story.

A hobby of mine is riding motorcycles. And recently a buddy of mine went on this like guided motorcycle trip. Was totally awesome through Southern Utah. We started in Saint George, Utah we rode through Zion, went Zion to Bryce. Anyway, the deal with this ride part of the ethos of the people that put the ride on is they want you to go through this digital detox.

And so, we met in this warehouse in Saint George Utah and one of the staff opens up this pelican case and the photographers will know what I'm talking about and it's lined with felt and a bunch of these little slots. And we were to take our phone out, put it into the case, they closed the case up and that was it for four days.

Four days, absolutely no phone whatsoever. And it was the first time in my life. Pretty much since getting a cell phone, I would say, that I've been without it. And I thought that was gonna be really hard and guess what? It wasn't, it was easy. It was really, really easy to do. I hardly missed it in fact.

And I thought about that and I hardly missed it because my entire world had been turned upside down. Like, I guess I ride motorcycles but I hadn't been on a trip like this in years. And it was four days riding through territory I didn't know, with my buddy aside, a group of guys I didn't know, not showering, sleeping in a tent being outdoors in the sleeping bag, the whole thing.

So, I had my entire world turned upside down. Contextually, that was not a normal life for me. And so as such, it was very easy for me to not have the phone. Contextually, everything had changed. So, fast forward a few weeks, this is like

two weekends ago and I was on another motorcycle trip. Yes, my wife is gonna kill me, I love her, thank you sweetie.

This time, it was like with 13 of my close buddies. Thursday to Sunday trip and on Friday I lost my phone just straight lost it in the desert, in the sand. And this time, it was really hard. It was really, really hard to have lost the phone. Like all of my buddies, are sitting around the campfire at the end of the day, everyone's dusted from riding their motorcycle all day and instead of just enjoying the great outdoors and each other's company like the first trip, this trip, what was everyone doing?

They were on their phones, sitting around, scrolling, everyone looking at this, looking at that, calling their spouses, doing this. And I found that I was missing my phone this time. I was tapping my pocket right? Like the nervous ticks, like where is it? I was pining for my phone. Like, where is that thing? I was asking my friends, can I borrow your phone, so I could jack myself into the matrix? What's happening in the election, who won the Chelsea games, Pulisic still injured? Very important questions, et cetera.

And it was profound really, to have those two things to contrast. If my context did not change okay? I.e. I was with my friends doing normal things. I could not break the habit of checking my phone all the time. When the context did change though that first trip, I didn't miss it at all. It was an easy habit to break.

It was an easy habit to break and that was really, really profound. I woke up this morning and I read some headlines and it was a release from Walmart and they just released their Q3 earnings report or whatever, or I guess it's expectations. And it says, let me just quote the headline it's from CNBC.

And it says "Walmart's earnings top expectations as customers new shopping habits send e-commerce sales soaring 79%". And here's the three key points. Walmart's US e-commerce sales, e-commerce on the website soared 79% in the third quarter, as customers continued to shop online during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Instead of browsing store aisles, more customers are shipping purchases to their homes, (phone vibrating) sorry, my phone rang. More customers are shipping purchases to their homes, okay? Getting groceries dropped off at their doors, or picking up online purchases by Curbside. And it quotes the Walmart CEO who is, I can't remember what his name is do I have it here, David something or rather anyway, hold on, I gotta get to my notes.

We think these new customer behaviors will largely persist and we're well positioned to service customers with the value dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. The point is, habits are changing. They're changing significantly. People are buying online, they're doing it more often they're going to the stores less.

They're doing Curbside pickup delivered to the home right? All of us are doing that. You know COVID came and we all got locked down and we all dealt with it right? We did our American version of keep calm and carry on. We wore our masks we stayed in lockdown, we did that. Habits were changing, during that course of time right? Everyone was ordering more e-commerce stuff, they were going into stores less.

And then summer came and COVID sort of let up a little bit right? There were still lingering fears, things didn't completely go back to normal but things sort of normalized for most of us. And I think just like any habit, as hard as they are to break and get on the right path they're just as easy to slip right back into the old ways of doing things, isn't it? It's so easy to and this is gonna be my year, I'm going to start exercising, I'm going to do a great job, and then winter comes along that alarm clock dings at 6:00 AM and you're like ah, ah, a little cold outside, you hit the snooze bar right? It's very easy to slip back into the old habit. It's really easy to slip back into the old habit. So we have that going on. And I think if COVID stayed the way that it was I think it would have diminished the chances to forever change how art and photography to forever change this massive shift towards e-commerce adoption.

It would have been easier just to slide right back into where we were, right? Well COVID is back and it looks like we're headed for 2.0. Already happening in Europe, talk about across the US. And so I think it's gonna be yet another season sadly, this winter season, where these newly formed habits that might've slipped back to the old way are going to continue to be cemented.

The longer we stay in this mode where we're ordering live e-commerce where we're getting things shipped to our house, we're buying things online. The longer these habits are gonna stay stuck. If we go through an entire another winter COVID season at this, with lockdowns and God knows what else is gonna happen to us.

The e-commerce buying i.e. the subtlety, the way art and photography is sold these habits these buying habits, they are not going to change. They are going to be cemented. What do they say? It's like 21 days to like firmly cement the habit or whatever, okay. Try two seasons of COVID. It is going to stick okay? It's going to stick and I think to my cell phone situation, this is trip number two.

Trip number one, it's not trip number two. Trip number one, my entire context changed. It was easy for me not to be missing the phone. Trip number one, the context didn't change, I was missing it. And so COVID is this contextual change. And I think the context is gonna remain this way. It's gonna make it much, much easier for the habits to stick.

People are gonna be buying more and more online, the gallery model is the old habit. The show circuit is the old habit. How art was sold, the old ways is gonna have to fight harder and harder okay? With each new case of COVID and each new lockdown. On each thanksgiving which you can only have one family group.

You're gonna have to wear a mask, ask me how I feel about that one. So, I think these habits are here to stay and I think COVID this extraordinary event for most of us the most significant of our lives is going to obliterate the old habits. COVID this extraordinary event has revealed the land of milk and honey that Daniel Plainview found earlier.

I look at that Walmart headline and I'm blown away. The biggest retailer in the world, US for sure anyway, reporting those types of numbers, okay? Guess what though? I have some of my own and they're showing the same thing. For the last two weeks and trending in an even bigger direction this week what we call GMV at Art Storefronts, gross merchandise value okay? It's the sum total of art and photography that is sold online directly from our customers' websites to their end consumers, to their buyers is upped on average 300% year over year. 300% year over year, that number is staggering. Staggering. That number represents a massive change in habits taking place right before our very eyes. That number speaks to the old ways being completely obliterated certainly for the time being. That number speaks to the fact that galleries are either out of business, temporary, closed, or selling very little.

That number speaks to the fact that the show circuit is not moving any large volume of art or photography anymore. That number speaks to just a massive level of disruption, a massive obliteration of buying habits, a new way as emerging. And let me just tell you, it is the single solitary best thing that's ever happened to an artist or a photographer, trying to make a living from their craft.

There is a silver lining all of this. It doesn't mean it's easier okay? It was never easy. Then, the old way or now the new way. What it does mean though, is when you do the hard work now the rewards are just significantly higher than they were before. There's no 50-50 split. There's no leaving your house for a show.

You keep all the customer data the ability to sell worldwide. This disruption, this extraordinary event is just absolutely tremendous. And you know, of course, I would be remiss not to offer the disclaimer, yes, I am 100% advocating what you need, this new way of doing it is the product we sell, okay? Now I have no intentions of apologizing for the fact that we have the right product at the right time.

We're proud of that. And it's something we're not ever gonna apologize for, we're fired up about it. But let me address just for a second, the cynical side, okay? Art Storefronts, well-positioned to thrive in this new reality, by no way means that we somehow own it. Quite to the contrary okay? You do.

You, the artist, you the photographer, completely own this. You need to have your own website set up to sell art with photography. You need to be marketing regularly, growing your email list, growing your social following. You need to work at it consistently. You do that, no matter whether you get your website from us or anywhere else, no matter who you choose to level you up on your marketing, you will win.

You will win, full stop. If this is the show that will put you on the path to a six figure a year art business, well I'm telling you, this is the path and I have quite a bit of data, whether it's from Walmart or us, that this is the path. It's clear as day, the writing is on the wall. There is a new way, the artist or a photographer owning everything is the future.

You own the website, you own the attention, you sell directly to your customers. You cultivate collectors that will buy many pieces from you over the years. YOU HOLD ALL THE CARDS. All caps on that one. You'll hold all the cards, okay? No one is in control of your destiny, no pandemic will deprive you of your ability to make a living from your craft.

It's a big, big deal. And it's literally happening right now. And I'll say as a final one, COVID is finally behind us for good, what will be left of the squabbling townspeople? The old way of doing things will only be smaller and less effective than it was before you need to head for the promised land.

Ready. Set. Go. On that note. Thanks for listening. And as always, have a great day.