How To Merchandise Your Art or Photography

In this episode of 'Art Business Mornings,' hosts Patrick and Nick delve into the importance of merchandising your art and photography. They discuss why artists must avoid assumptions about their buyers' knowledge and highlight the necessity of showcasing various media types. The episode covers the top six must-have media types: photo paper, fine art paper, canvas, metal, acrylic, and wood. They emphasize that having samples of these media types is crucial for effectively presenting and selling art, whether in person, online, or through live shows. Patrick and Nick also share practical advice on how to use these samples for marketing and how automated fulfillment can save time and expand sales opportunities. The episode concludes with a reminder to prepare for the upcoming peak selling time in Q4 and special discounts available for Art Storefronts members.

The Simple Truths About Pricing

Patrick Shanahan: Everyone. All right, coming up on today's edition of the "Art Business Mornings," we are talking about how to merchandise your art or photography, how to do it, why you need to do it and why you need to get started right now. You have your cup? Oh, not leaving me hanging out after a long holiday weekend.

Nick Friend: Mm, ah! Coffee's good after a good holiday weekend, isn't it?

Patrick Shanahan: Oh, you better believe it. Gotta get back into the week. Gotta get back in, right?

Nick Friend: You do indeed. And welcome to another edition of "Art Business Mornings," the show that will put you on the path to a six figure a year plus art business.

Patrick Shanahan: We're solving the starving artist problem near box, one artist or photographer at a time. Now I wanna start off at the top. Of course, we're gonna get into merchandising, but I've got to start off the top with assumptions, okay? Assumptions and question for you, Nick. Have you ever heard the name, Jerry Delson?

Nick Friend: No.

Patrick Shanahan: Up until a little Google search this morning, neither did I. Okay. He was apparently an Emmy-award-winning writer, okay, that has the following pearl of wisdom attributed to him. Never assume, I should quote. And I quote, "Never assume because when you assume you make an ass of you and me," end quote.

Nick Friend: (laughter) I love that. I love that line, I love that line.

Patrick Shanahan: Why? Because we do this all too often, okay? We assume things are common knowledge in the art and photography world. And I found out, you found out, those assumptions are dangerous, okay? That line reminds me to stop assuming anything. Instead, my job, your job, our job is just to teach everything from soup to nuts, okay? We don't want to leave anybody behind, period. We never want to assume something's common knowledge. It's just not, but it goes deeper though. You ready for this? It goes deeper in such a status. The advice does not just apply to us, also applies to you, also applies to you. Yes, you, artist or photographer. Don't assume. See my previous quote about that one. Your buyers are not visual people, okay? Showing a flat two-D image is not enough, okay? So don't assume your buyer has any idea of the subtle differences between media types. Don't assume your buyer can just automatically visualize your art on their wall. And what's the analogy I love to use. I love to do the question and ask, Nick.

Nick Friend: If I just hired you to be a knife salesman, you're gonna go door to door selling knives. What would you bring with you to the door?

Patrick Shanahan: I might bring the knives. I might actually bring the knives.

Nick Friend: You would bring the knives. That's right. That's right. So why do so few artists do this with their same work? Okay, so what I wanted to do, okay. And again, I'm not going to assume anyone knows that you've dumped in the last 20 years of your life. So we're gonna need an introduction and why you might be someone worth listening to in this particular department. What I wanna do the top five media types you simply must have, okay, and I wanna do the basics, the just ship it version.

Patrick Shanahan: But first, what have you done for the last 20 years of your life?

Nick Friend: Me?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah.

Nick Friend: Oh, builds companies as an entrepreneur.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. Which one in general?

Nick Friend: Oh, Breathe in Color.

Patrick Shanahan: What do they do?

Nick Friend: Breath in Color manufactures fine art canvas, photography paper, art paper, metal, all for high-quality photo and art reproduction.

Patrick Shanahan: Thank you. Thank you. So you might have some knowledge and insight into the various different media types an artist or a photographer might want to have on hand at all times to probably be able to articulate the differences, to properly be able to sell their work, to show the finished product, to be going door to door and actually have the knives. Right? So I think what we do, we go through your list of five, the top five, right? Start at the top. Let me start grabbing them so we can talk about them. What's number one?

Nick Friend: So, okay, number one. We'll start like on low price point and go upward, right? A photo paper, right? And I call it a photo paper optional because it's the lowest priced one, all right? Photo paper can be defined as a glossy photo paper, a semigloss or a satin. It means the same thing. A matte, a metallic. It's up to you. Okay. But you pick one photo paper. You don't have two, you just have one, and it's optional, okay?

Patrick Shanahan: By the way, as I show this to you, which one's the watercolor and which one's the textured? Or I don't even know. I can't tell you.

Nick Friend: We're on photo paper. Which one's the glossy, which one's the set? You can't tell. It's hard to tell. And the consumer doesn't care, you know what I mean? So like obviously the artist or photographer, you guys care. So pick the one that you like the best for your work. And that's the one that you offer. The photo paper will always have the lowest price point. So that's a way to have a lower price point item. If you don't wanna have that lower price point, you should stay away from the photo paper. And then you get to the fine art paper. So here I am showing this one off, nine and a half, nine and a half square. Doesn't need to be huge. Doesn't need to be huge, right? But I can show it. This is the framed version, obviously, ready to hang. Nice little stoppers, real nice on the wall there, simple black frame, right? They could show this. Or if you just want the flat paper print, you can have that too, right?

Patrick Shanahan: Exactly.

Nick Friend: Exactly, and you should, for your one photo paper you're offering, you should, 'cause if you have a luster photo paper, it has like a little pebble surface. It's very subtle, but that's different from a glossy photo paper, which is literally like glass smooth, right? And so it's worth it to have that so that you can articulate the specialty of that particular substrate, because you picked it. You felt that it lends itself well to your art or photography. And that's a way of selling that particular paper, okay? I should also mention that media type number two, since it's also a paper and you've got those framed there, would be a fine art paper, all right? This is one notch above the photo papers, okay? You're either going to have a watercolor paper or a smooth fine art paper, one or the other. You might have like a Varita paper, one of these specialties. I don't particularly recommend them. I think they're really overpriced. That's up to you though. It's your specific choice, but pick one, not a smooth any texture? Just have one or the other, one fine art paper. So, so far you're gonna have one photo paper, optionally, and then you're gonna have one fine art paper, mandatory. Every one of the rest of these that I'm going to mention are gonna be mandatory, okay? All right. So one photo paper, one fine art paper. Now we move on to canvas.

Patrick Shanahan: And collectively, that was number one. The just ship-it version is one. If you wanna have varieties of it, fine, but you can get away with one. All right.

Nick Friend: You're starting to get into it. Yeah, you're starting to get into confusion if you start offering more. So I'm recommending that you just stick with one. Done. Okay, canvas, here we go. Yeah, number three, actually canvas. So yeah, there you go. Gallery wrap, right? That's a gallery wrap. Ready to hang. You got the little, you know, rubber circles on the back. Look at it, like he's properly merchandising it right there. Okay? Now you have one, again, guys, you have one canvas. You don't have a glossy and a satin, you know, and a matte, just pick one that lends itself well, and you have one canvas.

Patrick Shanahan: This one is an eight by 12. Not huge, not huge, right? It looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Nick Friend: Looks great, ready to hang, perfect gifts. You know, I love it. So, okay. So I sorta just said paper number one. Canvas number two 'cause I have a top five list, but anyway, I'm a mess.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, so photo paper and fine art paper should be separated.

Nick Friend: Okay.

Patrick Shanahan: Because they are different. And for the reasons I mentioned, all right, now we're on to metal or aluminum, same thing. All right, so there you go. Metal can also come in a white gloss surface. That's the most popular right now. It comes in a semi-gloss. You can also get it in a matte or a brushed aluminum. A brushed aluminum is where the metal completely shows through. And again, I would just pick one. I would go with the white gloss for now. If you wanna go with the satin 'cause you think the white gloss is too glossy for you, then fine, go with that.

Nick Friend: Yep, Elusive Visions on Instagram. That was an eight by 12. Mary J. Welsh says quality of canvas prints. Doesn't really matter, does it? Pick one, right?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, I'm not sure what she's asking, Marilyn on that, but if you're asking like with Art Storefronts, like our automated fulfillment, we have every level. We have the Ferrari quality, a hundred plus years, you know, archival without yellowing or fading, highest levels of color gamut, D max, which is the black density and resolution all the way down to the decorative art option for people who are like, you know, doing like more poster type of art or want like a much lower cost high volume option. And then in this capacity, when you're selling live like I'm doing right now, merchandising I'm doing right now, very hard to tell the differences, extremely hard to tell the differences.

Nick Friend: It's impossible, yeah.

Patrick Shanahan: But the whole point with this just ship it thing, and I should say this because it's important is that if I literally did a poll, I had some sort of ability to do a poll right now, and I said, what percentage of our audience of artists and photographers right now, our customers included, have all the media types and can merchandise like I can right now? It is not a big number.

Nick Friend: Tiny.

Patrick Shanahan: If it's 10%, I would be blown away. It's likely 5%, and the only reason it's 5% is because a lot of photographers have a lot of their stuff hanging in their house and they could probably go through the whole thing and get enough of them off the wall. What's next?

Nick Friend: Acrylic. Yeah, love the acrylic, personal favorite. Yeah, it just pops. It's beautiful. You can see it right there. Comes in multiple thicknesses, right? So that's like a one 8th inch, I think. And then you can get it in like a one 16th. You can get it in a quarter inch. So yeah, there's multiple different options. But again, I mean on that one, you should just pick one. If you want to have two, because of the thickness, that's totally fine. But you need offer acrylic, have to. All of these are mandatory. They are not optional, you guys. They're not optional. I'm gonna get into why as soon as we're done.

Patrick Shanahan: Okay. Beautiful though.

Nick Friend: Yup, high price point. So as we're getting from metal to acrylic to wood, now wood is next, right? So look how beautiful this is. You're getting into higher price points. So reason why these things are mandatory, you guys, is that if you get somebody who might've thought they wanted a canvas print to actually buy a metal or an acrylic of the same image, you literally just upsold that person without doing anything. Same with wood, same with wood. 'Cause wood isn't cheap either, right? It's beautiful. Wood is amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: If you're listening to this podcast, instead of watching it, you should probably come back and watch the video, just because you can see something. I want to put something with that. Do I need, Nick, a fancy camera to merchandise, and what about zooming in? Oh my gosh, look at how difficult this is. That's for Instagram. This is for all the rest. Look at how beautiful. Look at the detail when you get close. See if my camera will focus on it.

Nick Friend: Yeah, do the sides too, so you could see like, yeah. Like you could see like the thickness of that wood. It's beautiful. You get a real good idea of the color. That's beautiful on Instagram. Yeah, exactly.

Patrick Shanahan: So there it is, wood.

Nick Friend: So yeah, no, you do not need a camera. You don't need anything. You just use your phone, that's it. Or your desktop or your laptop computer camera, perfectly fine. You don't need anything.

Patrick Shanahan: Unless you've got some more asides, I've got the always difficult questions that already arise that I know that we can just start marching through. Or did you have some more commentary?

Nick Friend: Yeah, let me just say the overall point here, right? Is that I mentioned earlier, like these are mandatory, right? Because there's a lot of people out there who, you know, are experienced painters and photographers who were like, maybe they have their own printer. Maybe they use their own local printer or something like that. And all they offer is like one photo paper, or maybe they only offer fine art paper and canvas. And they're missing the metal, the acrylic and the wood. Okay? For all of you out there that are in that position, do you know how many people I have proven wrong on that? And like we're talking dozens, if not hundreds, of artists and photographers who were like, no, I don't think my stuff really looks good on that or whatever perfectionism thing they have in their head. Or they just didn't realize that if you don't offer all of these media types, you're taking your potential market opportunity and you're shrinking it down to this. And let me tell you why, because there are interior designers all over the country, all over the world, there are offices and things like that that have a certain design style. Like it's very modern, okay? Like like a friend's house of mine is all metal. Another house, all acrylic, a doctor's office, all wood, a hotel, all wood, right, the whole thing. If an interior designer sees your work and is like, this would be great in this hotel. And it doesn't go with the design because everything needs to be on wood, you just lost the sale. Okay, you just lost the sale. And so you've gotta make sure that you're offering what the most popular media types are in terms of design, okay, for outfitting homes, businesses, hotels, okay? All over the country and all over the world, so that you don't pigeonhole yourself. Very easy. You have to do that, okay? Now, this is part of the reason why I totally believe in automated fulfillment, for anyone that's like making their own prints and doing that, I'm just like.

Patrick Shanahan: Define what that is. Let's not assume. And by the way, you just said also dovetails with the assume, right? Do not assume that you know what your buyer wants, do not assume that your buyer knows the differences. You need to explain it and you let them decide if you're gonna offer metal, you're going to offer wood. It's like them decide. You're not smarter than the market.

Nick Friend: Exactly. And then, and so, to define it, there's people who own their own printer and they make their own prints at home. But you're only limited to doing paper and canvas. You can't do metal, you can't do acrylic, and you can't do wood, right? They're different types of substrates that don't run through a typical EGF printer, right? That's a whole different process. Like with metal, it's dye sublimation, right? Wood dye sublimation. And sometimes there's direct UV printing, but those are like multiple hundred thousand dollar printers. So you're pigeonholed to only those few things. They happen to be the lowest price point items, canvas and paper, the highest is metal acrylic, you know, wood, and so you're missing out on all of that, but we've also like we've had Art Storefronts members who are just like, oh my goodness, am I really gonna offer metal? Like, you know, and we're like, yes, you are. Yes, you are. They're like, but I've never sold any metal before. They literally launched their site, and their first sales, like first couple of sales are all metal. And they're like, Oh my goodness. I can't believe what I've been missing. Had I sold those on canvas, I would have got like 30, 40% less revenue and less profit from those individual orders, right? But then they're also mind blown, just going, what am I doing? What island am I on? Where am I getting this information in my head that I shouldn't have been offering these things, right? Just bad, bad, bad information. And so you're just pigeonholing yourself, losing out on all the market when you think like you're benefiting yourself because you've got your printer at home and you're making these canvas prints or your paper prints. It's totally nonsense. And you're doing your own shipping and you can't compete with the a hundred million dollar companies that have the best shipping rates with FedEx and UPS and USPS globally and domestically, right? And their packaging costs. And so if you're doing it on your own, like you're just missing out on all of that. And you're wasting your time. It's a low ROI activity.

Patrick Shanahan: Low ROI activity.

Nick Friend: Yeah, low return on investment on your time, total waste. You should be doing what we're talking about more. More, more marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. It's the only place you're going to get an ROI on your time. Anything that is not marketing, you should consider like outsourcing or figuring out another way to get it done. Because when you're on that computer, you know, monkeying with all this stuff, or you're driving around town and you're shipping prints and doing boxes and packaging, I want you to realize your business is not growing.

Patrick Shanahan: And so there's a number of questions that arise, but we are on, this is number 12, I think of the "Art Business Mornings" show. We're rolling, and I loved that we covered a bunch of themes early on. There's two tangents I want to go into before the question. One, what are we always attempting to do with our online art sales? We're attempting to take them and make them as close to the retail person to person art gallery selling environment ever. What, if you're walking down Main Street, does an art gallery have in the window? It's got art. It's got the finished product. What about a clothing store? Okay. It's got clothes on mannequins. Okay. What about any other knickknacks store? What are the window displays? The actual products that you can see them, you can come in and touch them, taste them. Okay. You know, if you're looking at couches or blinds or maybe you're gonna remodel the bathroom. What do they have? They have swatched looks, right? They're gonna show you the fabrics and the swatch books. They're gonna open up a swatch book at the tiles and let you look at the titles and see them and touch 'em. So why would it be any different when you're attempting to do this? Number one question that comes up. You're gonna order. You've bought in. You're agreeing with us and God bless you for doing that. You're smart, I knew I liked you. You need to get these top five, call it six media types, right? The two different types of paper, the canvas, the metal, the acrylic, the wood, right? The first thing that always comes up, first question, what sizes should I get? Okay, now this is an important one. When I show these sizes off, notice how I'm doing this in a live video display capacity. And it's pretty easy. It's pretty easy because they're small. When you are selling in a live photo video type of environment, this is pretty doggone easy, right? Guess what? I can put all these in the car pretty easy, okay?

Nick Friend: Great point.

Patrick Shanahan: I can lean them all up on the side of the car, okay? So do not feel like you need to go big. You don't need to go big, okay? You do not need to go big. This is the just ship it version. That being said, that being said, we should tease what the prestige looks like, right? When you do step it up, you don't need to step it up to start, but we might as well do it, might as well do it. You're gonna have to narrate 'cause I'm not going to have the audio on this.

Nick Friend: Are you grabbing the big acrylic?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah.

Nick Friend: Awesome. So this is a huge acrylic print. Well, it looks like it's I'd probably say a 24 by 36, that looks to me. I'm eying it. But yeah, look at that baby. The light's just kicking off of it. It's just beautiful.

Patrick Shanahan: Look at how hard this is to do on live video. It's nice to have them.

Nick Friend: Yeah, it is nice. Yeah. You show the sides. You show the back. If somebody is looking for like that type of a size and they're looking to buy it, I mean, come up close on like a corner if you can. Oh yeah. That's amazing. You get to see all the detail in there. It's really good.

Patrick Shanahan: This is really impractical for the live video.

Nick Friend: I also really like the idea. I think that you've gotta be mobile compatible, right? (laughs) Mobile compatible. Everybody's gonna think I'm talking about a phone. I'm talking about the car. I think like, okay, we have proven, we've proven at Art Storefronts, many, many, many, a-times. And guys, here's a great tip. If you haven't heard this before, we've proven as many a-times that if you hand deliver a piece of art, like you make a sale locally, like on an original or something like that, and you're gonna take it over to your client's house or place of business, there are major upsell opportunities. We had a painter who did this, sold an original, went and delivered it and brought like four more with her. And she sold all of them. She sold all of them. She turned one original into five sales on the spot just by bringing them in the car with her, okay? So if you're selling a print, you know, or if you're selling anything, and you're gonna go deliver something, you should come armed to the teeth, okay? Because these people will never have seen acrylic, metal, canvas and all these different things. I guarantee it. Okay, I guarantee it. They may have seen a canvas before, most people have, right? They may not recognize the term gallery wrap. But when they see when they're like, "Oh yeah, I've seen those around in restaurants and things like that." But when you show them the metal and the acrylic and all the different stuff and you put the product in their hands, let them feel the canvas, let them feel the paper that's not framed and talk about it. I mean, you have an ability there to upsell on the spot. And even if you don't upsell, even if you don't okay, your goal is to turn a buyer into a collector. They now know exactly what you're offering. They tried on the clothes, so to speak, they know what fits, they know what they want next. All they need is an image, right? All they need is an image. They're like, "Oh my goodness, I loved that metal. That's gonna be my next piece." You know, "I just need an image," right? And so you should come with a printed catalog as well. You should come with a printed catalog as well that you can just flip through because you might be taking orders on the spot.

Patrick Shanahan: Then also, you know, I always think there's this game with two wine corks where you put them like this and you like twirl them out. And it's kinda a little parlor game. The secret to the game is my starting your hand position and how you want to finish, okay? And that's a really, really powerful reminder. How do you want to finish as a photographer and artist? On the wall. That's where you want to be on the wall, right? So when you go to someone's house to deliver the work, and they've never seen what acrylic would even look like in their surroundings and you go tell you what, no problem, got my gloves. Let me just get this thing down. We'll set this guy aside and you can put the acrylic up and see what it looks like, right? You're planting the seeds for what's possible. And you do not have this ability, okay, if you do not have the media types. That's question number one that arises. Question number two that arises all the time, should all of the images be the same image, right? Or use different ones. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You get a sample order in, use the smattering of your images, use all the same. It doesn't matter to me, okay. Next question, should you always keep them on hand? Yes, don't sell them. You need them. If you're selling knives, this is your sample kit. You need to have them, okay? So don't sell them unless you can get another one original immediately, right? What if you create originals? Okay, well it turns out you already have them. Start merchandising. You got no excuses, period, right? What if you really don't like a particular media type? Get that question all the time too, does not matter. Do not be think you not think that you're smarter than the market. Questions on about quality. The quality doesn't matter. You have to have these things. This is what you sell, period. Full stop, don't overthink it. You need to do the just ship it version. We need to explain them how we can help them, customers versus non-customers. And again, on the sizes, I just recommend like getting them, right? If you don't have them, you are not in the game. Full stop. That's why this is called the just ship it version. You can level up after the fact with adding additional media types, adding additional sizes and doing whatever you like there. But if you do not have them, you're not in the game. And let me tell you, it works everywhere, okay? What do I mean? Selling one-on-one on a video chat. Perhaps you're doing a Zoom. Perhaps you're doing a FaceTime. Perhaps you're doing a Messenger chat with a perspective buyer. One-on-one works fantastically. Selling live to a group, selling live to a group video, you're covered. And oh, by the way, everyone that's like stressing. I don't know what to do in my live videos. I'm not comfortable. I can't talk. I just gave you permission to talk about media types. Educate yourself. Talk about them. Get the terminology. There you go. You've got content for weeks. Selling in person, you're covered. You're covered. Oh, you're a photographer. Can't believe that, Nick. You just hired him to shoot your entire family. Where is the table set up with all the various different media types?

Nick Friend: It's never there.

Patrick Shanahan: It's never there.

Nick Friend: It's never there.

Patrick Shanahan: It's never there. Never once has a photographer that I've hired, and I've hired a plenty to take pictures of my kids.

Nick Friend: I got three little girls, you know, Christmas photos and things like that.

Patrick Shanahan: All the time, all the time.

Nick Friend: Never once, have they ever come with samples, and I would have bought them on the spot, on the spot.

Patrick Shanahan: On the spot.

Nick Friend: Yeah.

Patrick Shanahan: Look, you don't have a table. You got a trunk, you got a trunk to the car.

Nick Friend: Don't even make that table excuse for me, you know?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. You gotta have that whole thing figured out. Yeah. And so, let's rewind a little bit, and let's go back to a question you asked earlier, which is why has nobody been doing this? You know, and I think that this is a real big one here, guys.

Nick Friend: Deadly assumption. Deadly assumption.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. This goes back to all of the wrong things and the wrong way of thinking that artists and photographers have had for decades, if not thousands of years, right? 'Cause we're trying to solve the starving artists problem. This is a thousand-year-old problem. There aren't many left. There aren't many left. There aren't many thousand year old problems left in this world, guys. This is one of them. And that's the mission of Art Storefronts, you know, but when I unpack this and I know that this will resonate with you because we have to deal with so much BS in this industry to like layers of BS that we're peeling off of artists and photographers. So they actually stop doing the wrong things, right? And it comes from this premise of just like, everybody's just sheep. Like I'm just gonna upload my images to Fine Art America and Saatchi Art, and how are you like Saatchi Art and Fine Art America and Redbubble and any site that's ever existed in the history of the world. And I'm just gonna follow these sheep off the cliff 'cause I guess that's what I'm supposed to do. And then I launch a generic website, right? That's used to sell like on Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, any of these things that are basically used to sell swim fins, golf clubs, toilet paper, you know, hand sanitizer, right? Generic products that you don't need to be merchandising. Like if you're selling toilet paper, you don't need to be doing what Patrick and I are talking about, although it would probably help you, but you really don't need to, you know? You don't need to be showing the front of the roll, the side of the roll and all that stuff, right? But art is completely different. Art is a high friction item, high friction. That means that when somebody is thinking about buying a piece, you know, or is potentially in the market, there's a lot of questions that come up, a lot of hurdles that you have to get over. Is it the size I need? Is it the media type I need? Will the colors mesh well with my wall? You know, will this look good in the room I plan to hang it in? All of these things make the art sale way more difficult online. It's one of the hardest products to sell online, period. It is, you know? And so when it comes to doing this, you can see why it's so important that you actually have your product and you show it to people for real, you know, so that they understand exactly what they're going to buy. It's common sense, but for whatever reason, you know, whatever reason, what's typically happened in this industry is everyone just follows these like generic e-commerce model where it's like, Oh yeah, I just supposed to throw my images on my website and then like, just wait for buyers to come or throw them up on a website and wait for buyers to come.

Nick Friend: Might be miserable if I go to your Instagram profile and it's just two-D image after two-D image, after two-D image, after two-D image.

Patrick Shanahan: Exactly. You are breaking this rule. You're totally blowing it, right? So having said that, your Instagram profile, Facebook and things like that should have pictures of you holding all of these media types. Not only doing video, but like, you need to have pictures of each one in there. You know what I mean? So people can like, as I scroll down, I'm like, Oh wow. There's like a lot of different types of products here that this person is offering, right? It's not just two-dimensional, just image, image, image, image. Like you think that that's the whole game. That's not, guys. That's not. You gotta to show your product. You're leaving so much on the table otherwise.

Nick Friend: Are you kidding me? I mean, I'm married, right? It's my wife always has a purse. If I was in the just getting started genre, okay, trying to figure it out and do a little fake it til you make it, I would probably have a couple of these things in my wife's giant handbag in a nice hotel, go pull something off the wall, put yours up, take a shot next to it. Thanks, Four Seasons. Right, you know? You're at a buddy's house or somewhere cool, kinda take that thing off the wall real quick. You know, rich friend's house if they have really nice furniture hanging or something. Another satisfied customer, right? God, there's just so many ways you can spin it, but you're not in the game if you don't have the damn samples, period. Full stop, that's it.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. Yup, don't ask like, what's the next like marketing tactic I need or how should I run my Facebook ads when you literally don't have your own product to show people like, think about that. Let's go back to the knife salesman. You're the knife salesman that going door to door that doesn't have a knife sample kit. He's going, and he's going, and he's like, I think I need a marketing consultant to help me, like what I think about doing Facebook ads to grow my sales because I'm not making enough sales going door to door. And it's like, well, hold on a second. Like show me how you're going door to door. And he's got no knives. He's got no knives, but he's looking at every other thing he could do as the actual problem of his business, not realizing, the most fundamental thing, the product, is the one thing you need to be showing, and that's the thing that's gonna change your whole situation, you know?

Nick Friend: You get this thing done. It's like why we needed to do this. And by the way, all your customers on that are on now that are gonna be on office hours in a couple of hours. You're gonna get another indoctrination of it because we can't stop until this is sorted. Like there's not a single solitary situation where you're not covered if you've taken care of this. You know, you're going to their house. They're coming to your house. You're having friends over. You're having a party. People realize you have these things. You can do these things. I mean, it's every capacity imaginable. And look, I talked to a hundred of you guys a week. I'm thinking about getting started. I want to take the next step. You know, everyone tells me my photography, my art is awesome, but I just haven't tried to sell it yet. If you've not done this, you are not serious. You need to get serious. Surely, you can't be serious. Yes I am, and don't call me Shirley, all of the above, right? Like you need to have this sorted. You need to have this sorted. So all the rest of the day today, I'm gonna go through this entire thing again with the customers, I'm gonna harass, I'm gonna harangue. I'm gonna poke with a stick because everyone's gotta do it. It's the game changer. Once you do, it's a game changer once you do. You're in the game when you do this. So I would say we have an ability for people that are not customers to put in an order to get this done. The sizes can be tiny. What is that site? What is the site where they can order prints? It's asfprints.com, like Art Storefronts prints dot com. asfprints.com. If you're not a customer, you're like, I don't know what printer to use. You usually have to have a printer. I prefer you use this. You want to know why? Because you're gonna upload it. You're not going to do anything. It's gonna show up at your doorstep. Not gonna waste any time driving around to the shop, contemplating getting a sales pitch and the guy at the print shop. You don't need any of it. You know what the six types are. I'm gonna change this to top six media types. Get one of each, and you're in the game, okay. You're in the game. You got to get in the game. You have to at least do that for customers. We'll be talking about it on the office hours. You all got to get in the game, and oh, by the way, what's coming. What's right around the corner? The opportune time to have samples that you can sell, perhaps the biggest art selling time with the entire year. It's not optional.

Nick Friend: It's not optional. Level that playing time.

Patrick Shanahan: It's mandatory because you're going to get people who are going to ask, what is the metal like? I'm not sure. And you need to get on a call with them, a Zoom call or whatever it is to get that sale over the line and be like, hey, here's the metal, here's the wood, right, which one do you want, you know? And, by the way, Art Storefronts members, we have a special discount code for you to get a big discount for the samples specifically for the sample order, all right? We will tell you what that is today on the workshop. We mentioned it a few weeks ago, but we will mention it again today. So all Art Storefronts members, don't go to asfprints.com and buy it. We have a special discount code for you before you do that.

Patrick Shanahan: We discount, you discount. You know what's even more interesting, and I'll ambush you for a second. So you just purchased some art, longtime customer and friend. You seen that art a thousand different ways to Sunday, two-D, on a website, two-D here, two-D there. What was your experience when they actually arrived, if you saw it, you picked it up, you looked at the detail, you touch those originals? How big of a difference was it?

Nick Friend: It was such a big difference. And I immediately ping the artist that I bought it from. And I said, man, here's three things that you didn't talk about on your originals when you showed it live and you were merchandising it. And these are the things that just blew my mind when I actually got the originals. You know, for example, I'm looking at them right now, right? So his signature on it is a gold pen. Just a beautiful gold pen signature. Never, ever talked about that. He never talked about that. You think that everybody knows.

Patrick Shanahan: Don't assume.

Nick Friend: Don't ever assume. You think the way that he was selling the originals was like, you assume like he would go like, this is an original, this is an original, you know, and that's all he would really say. It's this and you expect that everybody who is on there knows what that actually means, right? No, no, no, no, no, guys. Every time you're like, this is an original. There's only one of these ever. There will only be one and I've signed it with my own hands, you know, And here's what's special about these originals. The paper is deckled on the edges, you know? You have to explain why the original is better than a print, you know? And it is, it is, okay. It always is. It's so special, you know? So I immediately pinged him and told him, like, dude, you gotta show these things. You gotta talk about these things. Like you're totally missing out on that. He's still selling them, which is great because he's actually merchandising. But you could really take it over the top. The better you get at it too, the better you get at it, you know where this goes, right? The higher the prices you could charge.

Patrick Shanahan: Oh, you better believe it. The more confident you're gonna be, the more oohs and ahs, your head will get full.

Nick Friend: He shoulda had closeups of that signature. Okay, 'cause when you buy a print, you're not getting it signed 'cause he doesn't have limited editions. He's only got open additions and originals, right? And then, and then the other part too, here's, this is classic. You're going to love this, right? He's got a framer. He's got a certain way that he recommends that these things get framed, right? What is he not showing on his video?

Patrick Shanahan: The frame.

Nick Friend: Yes. And why, and why he does it that way, and it's unbelievable. It's floating in a matte. Okay, it's floating in a matte with a black matte and a black frame. And so right after you buy it, he's like, "Hey, here's exactly the way I recommend framing it if you want my opinion. And he's got it like right there, like on a sheet, you know? And I'm like, again, another thing that he didn't show. But if you show the whole thing, you're going, "Whoa, that thing looks so good."

Patrick Shanahan: It sounds simple, and it is. You could get this entire sample order for like, what, a hundred and 50 bucks, a hundred bucks?

Nick Friend: Yeah. Probably a hundred to a hundred and 50 bucks. Right? And that's it. And you've got like your whole sample order. And if you want to spend less, you can. Get eight by 10s instead of eight by 12s or whatever. Like pare it down. Like there's an easy way that you could probably get them all for 75 bucks, right, and you've got everything now.

Patrick Shanahan: It's a simple, if this, then that chart. Do you have samples of your work on the various different media types, yes or no? The answer is no, you know what to do, right? If the answer is no, you know what to do. You don't waste time on a Facebook ads course, okay? You don't start doing SEO, okay? You don't work on your website, stop all of it, stop it. Get this sorted. Have the ability to sell, have the ability to merchandise, needs to happen. We are not gonna stop until a hundred percent of our customers and all your loyal fans that follow that aren't, get this done. It is the easiest thing to do. You're a knife salesman. You need to have knives.

Nick Friend: How many blog posts you've taken, how much you've worried about how you're pricing your artwork and what niche you should be in, and you know, all this different stuff like or what technology you should be using or what CRM. Like, should I boost my Facebook posts? Never do that. Should I be doing SEO? Should I be doing dah, dah, dah? And it's like the fundamental thing of actually having all of your products there that you sell ready to go so that you can show people, you know, is completely being missed. Unbelievable. If that's you guys, if that's you, if you've totally whiffed on that for the last year or two or three years, like you gotta really understand. You have to really understand, you're not on a great path. I'm just telling you that. The information, wherever you're getting your advice and information from, watch out, because you've been missing one of the most fundamental things in the world. If all you did was launch a website and just throw your images up there and you never had your actual products, like in your hands, you're expecting people to buy products that you haven't even seen yourself probably. You know what I mean? More often than not. You've got these media types on offer, you know, and you've never even seen them. You've never even shown them to people. You've probably never showed them to another human being, right, in person. And you don't have samples ready to go. You got big problems with the way that you're thinking about your business and where you're getting your information from. And I think that that's the problem behind the problem. There's always a problem behind the problem, right? And I'm always looking at that way or I'm going, if you're the knife salesman going door to door and you've been operating your business, you know, without the knives like, "Hey, I want you to buy this set. And the people are like, "Can you just show me the knives?" "Nope, I got them in this catalog." Here, I'm flipping through it. What do you think? Go to my website.

Patrick Shanahan: You know how hard that would be to do?

Nick Friend: Exactly. Like if you're that guy, what are you doing? What are you doing?

Patrick Shanahan: Oh, you're running uphill, I would just quit the game. I mean, quit the game. Look, it's been an assumption for far too long. We are peeling these layers of the onion back one artist and photographer question at a time, and it's becoming blatantly clear. Step one, decide you're an artist or a photographer. Step two, if you are, get samples full stop, nothing else. Don't start a social site. Don't do anything. Get the samples. And you know what best part is, the low hanging fruit that's waiting for you when you start doing this, the reactions that you'll get, especially in person, when you can show off with people can hold them and they can touch them, all the rest of it, let alone the content touches it gives you. Your live art shows will improve. Your flash sales or improve. Your in-person sales will improve. Your confidence will go through the roof, like trying to buy something off of the two-D image. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So that's what I got. You have any announcements?

Nick Friend: Yeah. Oh, we should mention, I mean, we're back after a holiday weekend, but we should remind everybody if you're new to Art Storefronts or you want to learn more, your next step is to request a demo, okay? And we extended the summer special to join Art Storefronts before the biggest art selling time of the year, which is right around the corner Q4, right. October, November, December, and the marketing begins in what, we're looking at like 22 dates is when you need to start your marketing in order to get, you know, to really squeeze the orange of the Q4. And so the timing is great. And so yeah, if you're interested in, you know, saving money on an Art Storefronts membership and upping your game, your next step is to request a demo, okay? Click the link in the description on this post. Or if you're on Instagram, the link is in the bio, click it, fill out the form takes like 20 seconds. One of our team members will reach out to you and learn more about you and check out your art, see what your goals are and see if you're a fit. And then they could show you everything that we do in terms of the proper art gallery website we provide you with, as well as the ongoing art business consulting for members only.

Patrick Shanahan: Slash buyer merchandise, start merchandising.

Nick Friend: Yes and then what do we have tomorrow? What do we have tomorrow?

Patrick Shanahan: We have the art business workshop for non-customers, your chance to come in, get your drain unclogged. Get on the path.

Nick Friend: It's free. For those of you who want a free art business consulting, we have a session tomorrow, okay? It's gonna be at 11 a.m. Pacific, one central, two Eastern. Okay. Get on our email list. Like our Facebook page if you wanna get notified. You gotta be on our email list to get on the Zoom call. So make sure you go to artstorefronts.com, get on our email list. And we will email you a Zoom link tomorrow morning. And then you can get on a session with a bunch of other people. And we ask you, bring the number one problem. The number one question you have, the thing that you think is holding you back, and come tell us what that is. And we'll help you get your drain unclogged, all right? These sessions are awesome. How many people do we get? We get like, what, 80 to a hundred people a session, artists and photographers, yeah.

Patrick Shanahan: It goes up.

Nick Friend: And people are staying for hours at a time. They're coming, you know, four, five, six, seven times. Because every artist, the questions are amazing, and you learn so much from all the different problems that everyone's going through. So yes, you know, the free art business consulting session is tomorrow, 11 a.m. Pacific, one central, two Eastern.

Patrick Shanahan: Okay, on that note, I want to thank everybody for listening. Please get your samples.

Nick Friend: Get you samples. Show your product.

Patrick Shanahan: Start merchandising. Q4 is coming. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.

Nick Friend: Thank you, guys.