It's the Best Time in History to Start an Art Business

In this episode of Art Business Mornings, Patrick and Nick passionately discuss why August 2020 represents the best time in history to start an art business. They highlight key reasons such as minimal startup costs, the unprecedented opportunity due to the shift in art sales to online platforms, and the potential to scale from a side hustle to a full-time venture. They argue that technology now allows individual artists to run their own galleries, bypassing traditional middlemen. With the explosion of e-commerce, artists can exploit the demand previously catered to by art galleries and shows. This episode outlines actionable steps and business benefits, including low overhead costs, the possibility of international sales, the inherent advantage of price flexibility, and the longevity of an art career. They also emphasize the significant impact of direct-to-consumer sales channels and marketing, suggesting that now is the time for artists to seize this unprecedented opportunity.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: All right. Coming up on today's edition of the art business mornings. We're talking about why it's the best time in history to start an art business. Why that's true. What's changed and specifically what you need to do about it.

I'm excited. I'm excited. So I think, you know, as we kick this off and I can take my headphones off now, um, little sip, little cheers to the coffee. Yeah, of course. Always the coffee. Always the coffee. I think any discussion like this, it needs to be framed through two lenses, right? We've got two lenses to frame this through.

One is the nature of the art business in general, and sort of contrasting that against other business types that are out there. So I think that's the first lens. And then the second lens, why the conditions on the ground, the timing right now, August 2020, we're recording this, Is quite literally probably presenting that single solitary greatest set of circumstances and conditions to start in our business.

It's existed and I, and I so firmly believe that. I mean, it's, it's not hyperbole on my end. I really do believe same with me. Yeah, it's a single solitary greatest time. So, and

Nick Friend: I think an important, an important point there too, just to kind of set the stage is you hear a lot. If you google search this, you'll see a lot of articles.

You know, great time to start an art business or great time to start this business or that business. We, we would not have said this. We would not be running this episode like six months ago, right? Like we, we might've talked about what's great about running our business at that time, but we would have talked about a lot of the limitations that are still there, right?

And, uh, and, and what's so interesting is us having been in this industry as long as we have, you know, we are, we are like jumping up and down going, Oh my goodness, does everybody realize what has just happened because what has just happened, the magnitude of it, it's like, it just, the opportunity just got like five to 10 X, you know what I mean?

And that's where I'll set the stage, the opportunity. Of your art business. What I mean by that is the ceiling of what you would do. Not everybody else. Not every average business. Not every average art business. Whatever you would have done, you know, six months ago, a year ago, or two years ago, call it five grand a year or a hundred grand a year, probably just got multiplied by about five to 10 X in terms of the ceiling of your opportunity.

And that is an amazing situation.

Patrick Shanahan: No two ways about it. So, and I think, you know, despite the fact that title is, you know, kind of catchy towards starting, it doesn't matter whether you have started, you're about to start. Or you're five years in, right? Like all of the same arguments hold in our troops. So I think let's start, I just got a bunch of bullet points and I think we should just sort of riff and rant on each, but let's start with at the top with the startup costs.

Like the startup costs of this business, especially compared, contrasted to any other business out there. It's just supplies on the art side of things, right? Now, notwithstanding the talent and the time it took you to get good at your craft. We're not talking about that today. Everyone's gone through that.

The startup costs. If you're an artist, it's supplies. If you're a photographer, it's the camera and lenses and tripod. What about the overhead? No office to rent, no retail business, no, no office cable bill, water, power insurance. You don't need employees, employees. You don't need any of that. You can literally run it out of your house.

You should run it out of your house. Quite honest, it's COVID times. You're running out of your house anyway. Right? Um, you need a website, right? You need a website in a domain. Okay. Uh, you have the ability to write off a portion, uh, of your rent and or mortgage, because you're using it as a home office. You have the ability to declare multiple years of losses.

If needs be, if you want to invest in this business, right against your taxes, like, as you can trust this business towards just about any other, like there's no startup cost. There's none. Yeah. Like in the green scheme of things. And I think that needs to be said, it

Nick Friend: is so low. I mean, yeah. And you can, and when you're in, especially, you know, when you're starting a business.

Um, and, and like, you know, you're, you're taking on an entrepreneurial venture the early days. You have to find traction, you know, and then once you get traction, you have to build on that traction. Right. And, you know, while that is happening, it is, it is like, it is an absolute priority to keep your burn rate low.

The burn rate is all of these expenses that Patrick just listed out, right? You're overhead, essentially your monthly nut, as they call it, like, how much is that? How low can you keep that while you're building revenue, doing marketing, building leads and, and building a future, it takes time, you know? And so the advantage that you have, there's almost, I mean, there are very few businesses.

That meet that criteria. I think that's the big point, very, very few, you know, and, uh, and it's, and it's, you know, you can properly equip yourself. You can properly equip yourself for a very small amount of money, right. And give this business a real shot. You know what I mean? A real shot to do. To either turn it into decent side income, or if you can take it to a full time, amazing, right?

So, you know, it's, and, and, and why is it the best time now versus years ago is because of, you know, technology, right? Like the fact that you can run your own art gallery online with technology by having like a proper art gallery website with all the features and functionality. You don't have to hire developers to do that.

You don't have to open an art gallery, right? Like 30 years ago you had to open an art gallery. There was no internet. There was no e commerce. You couldn't do that. Right. 10 years ago. Yeah. 10, 15 years ago, you had to hire a custom developer, right? Well, let's talk about who did that. Art. com, right? Teams of developers, right?

Fine art America is like big, big, big companies, and nobody can afford to do that. No individual artist or photographer can afford to do that. So what ended up happening? Nobody was equipped, right? Only the rare, these very few online companies. Had, you know, live framing tools and wall preview tools and all these different things that are, you know, critical for the art selling process so that buyers have the proper experience, you know, but hold on that because I've got a, I've got a bullet point on that, that I want to deep dive into too.

Two more, two more. And then I want to talk about the drop ship business, and then I want to talk about disruption, and then I want to talk about work from anywhere, and then we'll get more into the website side of it, but side hustle or full time business lends itself incredible to side hustle. You can slow cook this thing for as long as you need to, right?

The, uh, the longevity potential. Okay. Not enough people mentioned this. You have the ability, the potential to be selling art and or photography online in off. In your 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 90s. Let me ask you this, Nick. If you're a mason, are you going to be doing masonry in your 70s and 80s? Your 90s? Not likely.

Not likely. What about your cleaning pools? What about if you're, you're a service based business, right? So I think like, as you contrast this business and the fact that you have, you have this IP, you have this asset, you have the ability to sell this IP after you've created it for years and years and years and years.

And I mean, you weren't on the workshop yesterday. There was a 70 ish year old woman. She looked 40, she looked 40, as far as I'm concerned, but 70 year old ish woman that said, you know, what's working best for her. Okay. Her quiz funnel, her quiz funnel, and it fell out of my chair, you know, 75 year old women talking about a quiz funnel.

I've never even run a quiz funnel. Like, you know, I'm constantly amazed by the fact that the longevity, she's in her 70s and she's talking about a quiz funnel, right? She's got another 10 years, at least at that clip, you know, God willing, health issues on the side, uh, to do, to still be working the business and she was talking about passing it to her kids.

And so I think you can't underestimate. That, that aspect of things. Okay. That aspect of things. Next, I want to talk about the fact of selling prints. Okay. That aspect of the business and how the drop ship nature of this business is quite possibly one of the most amazing things too. And when I say drop ship, this is an important term to define because when e commerce started, the entire world just lit up with drop ship businesses.

Okay. They've all pretty much been crushed since. For the most part, but the drop ship is, is that you would go and make a deal with the manufacturer, the manufacturer would have all of the products. Okay. That, that they sell, you would say I'm better at marketing. I want to private label these things. I want to sell them and I'll get the orders.

I'll send them to you. You'll ship them. I'll make money. You'll make money. Great business, right? Great business, no warehouse, no inventory, no stock, okay? No depreciation of goods sitting on your shelves. Phenomenal business. So early on in e commerce, I was there in the early days, all of these things sprung up in every niche imaginable.

Electronics, tires, car parts, handbags, shoes, swim fins, golf clubs, all of it. If you were an enterprising entrepreneur back then, that understood that the whole world was about to change towards e commerce, you could put up a site in a manufacturer that's just like, look, We're good at manufacturing. That's all we want to do.

And so you created all of these businesses sprung up and what's happened since is the margins have gotten worse and worse and worse, and they've got crushed, which is so disappointed because the best part of the dropship business is the fact that you don't keep any inventory. It just goes, okay, well, let's do art.

Print on demand, print on demand, no inventory costs, no additional costs if you get one order between 500 orders, right? The fact that you can just do that from anywhere and it's never going to go away, you own all the IP. You own all the IP. No one can middleman you. No one can say, I don't want to do business with you anymore.

You'll just go to another one. And that is like a profoundly beneficial aspect to this business that you don't have to keep inventory. You don't have to keep inventory.

Nick Friend: Like,

Patrick Shanahan: dude,

Nick Friend: Exactly. There's a lot of benefits of the dropshipping business, but the dropshipping business, the dropshipping business, the traditional ones that you were mentioning, they were all fatally flawed, terrible businesses.

Terrible business. Only, only if you get in at a very early, otherwise you're done. And you know why? Because you have nothing proprietary. You have nothing proprietary. You are selling a new other manufacturer's product that anybody else can sell. Unless you have some sort of an exclusive, right? Which is always like time based and based on how much you can sell, right?

That's like, that's a limited thing. But the big difference here that we're talking about is you as an artist or a photographer, You're the inventor and you're drop shipping, right? So you have no inventory, but you're the inventor. You're the inventor, right? And so, and that ties into the reason why you can continue to do this into your sixties, seventies, eighties, right?

It's because. Like you're the inventor, right? So you can keep taking pictures and as long as you can keep taking pictures and you want to or keep painting, you can keep inventing new stuff.

Patrick Shanahan: And let's, let's take an example that everyone would understand. And then like, let me give it like the business context, because this is the exact same situation that's going on right now in the art industry.

Okay. And then, and then we'll, we'll, we'll use that to tee ourselves up into disruption. Let's talk about Disney. Okay, back in the day. Okay, that's not so long ago early on when Netflix launched Okay Netflix built all the streaming infrastructure Okay All the hardware all the servers all the IT to be able to stream things to the internet life You had the content owner ie Disney.

Okay that owned all the IP Looked at, looked at the situation with Netflix and was like, this is the future. This is amazing. We've got to be on Netflix. So what did they do? They went and signed a short deal, a multi year deal, but a short deal. They essentially leased their IP to Netflix, okay? And Netflix screened it, and as many of you remember early on, Netflix Licensing, licensing, yes.

Licensing. Netflix had everything to start, right? But Disney's no dummy, okay? Especially the studios. They know that content is king, right? Like, it's the hardest thing to create. So what did they do? They're like, okay, we're going to license it to them for now, and we're going to go build our own infrastructure.

And what did they do? They built their own infrastructure. And then what did they do? They snatched all that IP right back, okay, because they own it. What do they have now? They have one of the biggest streaming services in the entire world, okay? It was like the fastest streaming service to like 100x, 100, 100 million plus in recurring revenue, like, overnight.

Because every parent that has kids was like, this is Shangri La, let's get it. So is that parallel? So different than the art industry, all the artists, you couldn't build those websites. You couldn't build the Saatchi website, the art. com website, the fine art America website. You could not do that. Okay. So what did you need to do?

You needed to license that art to them. But guess what? The time's come to snatch it back. Right? The time has come to snatch it back. You don't need them anymore. You can sell it direct. You can distribute it direct. Right? Now, obviously, we're talking on a much smaller scale. But doesn't that parallel line up so well?

I mean, it makes so much sense in my eyes. Like, ooh, it's done. And then, and then it goes one step further. Why the IP, why the art that you've created, the photography you've created is so important. What does Netflix transition to now? No one's given him content. So what do they have to do? They have to create their own movie studio.

They have to create their own television studio. They have to create their own content. So I think that, that level of disruption, right? Also speaks to why now is the greatest time ever. Obliteration of the middleman. Direct to consumer being more possible than ever. The galleries gotta be smoked, pretty much toast.

Uh, uh, uh, the advent of the internet and streaming and live video, plus some help from COVID, plus live, live art shows, just like, The middlemen are gone. There is absolutely no reason not to own your entire data stack, own your entire platform.

Nick Friend: And let me ask you this question. Okay, everyone, let me ask you this question, but I'll ask it to Pat directly.

When, if the middlemen are gone, if all the demand for, from all these art galleries, right? And even art shows is gone. Where, who is, who is going to capture that demand now? Who's going to capture it?

Patrick Shanahan: Yep. The enterprising artist that starts marketing.

Nick Friend: The artists and the photographers that like, that's where you guys.

The five X growth is not happening that I was referring to. It's not happening because like all of a sudden everybody in the world's buying five X more art. That's not happening. That's not how this is working. What's happening is that whole market, that all the demand that was retail, right. In all of these galleries, you know, peppered all over the United States, Canada, or anywhere in the world, right.

Is has moved online and it's going to be captured. By the enterprising artists and photographers who are skilled enough to capture it. Okay. And, um, and so with all that demand moving somewhere where you actually can capture it. Like for the first time you actually can capture it. Right. That makes it the, that, that makes it, you know, the best time in history to start an art business because you've never had this opportunity.

You had to have distribution in galleries, right? Which was near impossible. There was, there's no like distribution network in galleries. You know what I mean? Like there's no way that you could just be an up and coming artist. And then all of a sudden you've got distribution in all 50 States or like 15 States.

Nobody had that. You might've had a gallery or two locally. Or five or something like that. If you were way better than anybody else, that's it though. That's it. After that, you have these jumps to like world famous artists like Weiland and whoever who end up by the way, just owning their own gallery, their own galleries.

They own their own galleries and their own distribution. They don't mess with anything else. Right. At that point. And so, you know, that world is, is, Is over and you don't need to do that anymore and you shouldn't be doing that anymore. You shouldn't even be thinking about it, right? No that's a man that used to have to go through those gatekeepers is now up for grabs up for grabs.

It's amazing. You know what I mean? And I, and I think like, I, I don't, I don't know what the best analogy is for this, but I feel like it's like the gold rush going West. Like everybody's like, you know, on the trail trying to go West to be the first ones out there, you know, to start mining. But like, but look, the artists and the photographers who build their skillset in direct to consumer marketing, building a direct business, right.

Um, owning all of their stuff. Like the more, The ones who learned that are like the people who got out to California first. Right. Who got out to Oregon first, you know what I mean? And built the infrastructure and made all the mistakes and learned all the wrong things. And then by the time things started really humming, they were three years into it.

They were five years into it. And then all the people that were, you know, the late ones to the party were the ones that were driving out there late. Once they heard about all of this and everybody was already successful, yet they're coming out, starting as beginners. Right. And that's what's going to happen.

That's what's going to happen. Everyone listening to this, you are being forewarned, you are learning, you are knowing, right? That this is exactly where the opportunity is. It's like the beginning of this unreal opportunity. Unreal.

Patrick Shanahan: And the art gallery, the art gallery is still the best way to frame it. The art galleries aren't done, they've just morphed.

You own the art gallery. You are the art gallery. There is no retail space to get. You can use live video to behave so close to an art gallery. It doesn't matter whether you have a private showing one on one video, or you're doing live shows to several. You are running the gallery out of your house with no expense.

No expense. I mean, it's, it's, it's sort of just insane. You own it all. And you know, Here's the thing. Attention is the currency, right? Attention is the currency. When you build it up, yes, it's hard to do. Yes, it's going to take you years. But, but, but, once you have it, it can't be taken away from you. Okay? The, uh, building owner can't yank your lease where you were on the hot corner.

You own the attention. As hard as the attention is to build up, it's also really hard to lose it. It takes a long time to lose it, right? So it's like once you go through the work of doing that and understanding it, to your point, learning how to do DTC marketing, it builds, it builds, it builds, you own it all, which is just insanity.

It's insanity. Greatest opportunity.

Nick Friend: And, and what's interesting is that like the way I look at it is the world is changing from, you know, these few galleries that had a retail presence, right. That represented a lot of artists. And now what's happening is there's just going to be thousands more galleries.

They just happen to be individual artists and photographer galleries. That they run themselves and they do it right from their house. But essentially the principles of that business are the same, right? You got to build, you got to build a following. You got to build an audience. You got to do marketing.

You got to sell direct. Right. And, uh, as a result though, you're going to, you're going to earn, you know, uh, you're going to earn all of them. You're going to make the most money from your art. You're going to earn all the money from your sales. Right. So that's the huge, that's the huge benefit. But I also think that, you know, um, One of the big disruptions that's happening right now that we're not talking enough about is the fact that the experience, the consumer experience of buying directly from an artist is, is 50 to a hundred X better than buying from a gallery.

Straight up. It is, you could call it 10 X, whatever you want to do. But I, but I believe it is such a massive improvement to be able to converse directly and have a relationship with the artist and buy and support them directly and know that. A hundred percent of that sale is going to them. This is such a big upgrade to be a part of their world, right?

To be a part of their world, to be able to see how they go about creating and to be an insider on their, on their list and get to see pieces as they come out and have a chance to buy those. I, that is a phenomenal experience, you know, just to feel. It's a phenomenal experience and that's where I think it's another element that, um, with this whole habit change situation, right?

Habits of change and habits of change because of this, because of the lockdowns and the pandemic. And it's one of those things where you're like, I'm not dying to go back to buy from a gallery. Like I, I am enjoying buying directly from these artists, you know what I mean? And learning from them. Yeah, and, and watching and participating in and watching them in their process, right?

As they publish stuff on social media. So it's just amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. I would, I would also say, um, you know, framing it against other businesses, work from anywhere, never been more possible than now. Yes. This is like the, you know, the, the topic that you were, okay, you can work from anywhere. Rent prices have dropped in San Francisco for the first time ever, but it is especially true for our, especially true by which I mean anywhere you can sell directly into the markets that matter.

I mean, I remember two weeks ago on one of the art business workshops, she was South African living in Thailand, creating all the work in Thailand, had a, had a, had a distribution facility or, you know, a print partner or whatever in South Africa, but it's on your home country. Was selling directly into Europe with another one.

And wants to join up with us so that she can handle the U. S. and Canadian markets. And she's living in Thailand. I love Thai food. I love it. I love it. Right? And I just saw a comment from Jance. Uh, it's not easy, Jance. Nothing's easy. Nothing good is easy ever in any niche, any business. It's under any circumstances.

It's not about it being easy or not easy. It's about the opportunity being bigger than it's ever been. That's really what it comes down to...

Nick Friend: Yeah. If you listen to us, if you listen to us long enough, you will know that we are the like the last person to say it's easy. Everybody wants to say that it's easy starting with Shopify Squarespace and every website company that sits there.

Your dream. It's only a website away. You're, you know what I mean? Get that dropshipping business going. The only problem is 99 percent of all Shopify stores fail. Google it. Every, every one of these website companies, right?

Patrick Shanahan: Oh, oh, did you call back on? My back? Yeah, you're back. Got it. Okay. She said, she says she understands.

Yeah. You're, you trust me. Um, Janet, if this is your first time listening, like, We're not inflating luft balloons over here. There's no two ways about that. Like nothing good comes easy. It's a grind. It's very much a grind. Anyway, next point. And, you know, I have been just slapped across the face with this one recently, which is worldwide distribution of this product is totally a reality.

It is absolutely a reality. And it's like the more connected our world becomes, the bigger reality this is. It's happening more and more and more daily. And. You know, I mentioned him all the time, but, you know, long customer and art store friends turned into a great buddy now because we've run so many initiatives.

Laka, on his last live art show, I went back and I looked at it because I was, I was studying the technique, figuring out how to get better 15 people from different countries on that live, you know, because we kind of did one of those things like, Hey, chime in, where are you from? Right? 15 people, different countries all over the world.

Oh, literally, I think you had just about every continent covered aside from, you know, Arkansas. So you look at that, and then you contrast the fact that I asked him, he's shipped to over 18 countries, and that's both his originals and his prints. It's like, you have access to the world markets. If you're good enough at what you do, at your craft, and you get going on your marketing, and obviously he's been at it for a few years, you have the potential to sell worldwide.

That's just phenomenal. Any business that can do that's phenomenal. That's not easy. We don't even really have it, right? Like we're not selling to 27 different companies. Not easy. No, we don't. There are a whole bunch of circumstances that make that extremely difficult. And a lot of other businesses out there, so you kind of have to, you know, You kind of have to, you know, uh, take that under advisement.

Like it's just, it's big, crazy, crazy thing.

Nick Friend: That, that just means like the opportunity is like even bigger, right? Like you're just adding to that opportunity size. You may not be able to focus on the international markets yet all that much. You might just be like getting the gravy from it, but knowing that you can expand there legitimately is incredible.

Patrick Shanahan: Yes. Yeah. I mean, and I guess, especially contrasted towards like, you know, let's just compare it to our business for a second. We can't support people all over the world in the crazy. We cannot, we don't, we don't have people around the clock. We would have to like double our investment as a business in our support structure to be able to handle all of those off our crazy times.

And guess what? There's no support for art. It's purchased. It's shipped. It ends up on your wall. Everybody's happy. So, I think that's an amazing one. This next one you're gonna love. I got some notes on this. And it was just like, as I was writing it down, it was like, wow. Let's talk about pricing. Let's talk about pricing.

It's a good one, right? There is literally no price competition in art. It's so subjective. You can set it, raise it, lower it, do whatever you want with it at any point in time. It's, it's very difficult to compare apples to apples, right? You're never going to get price shop like that. You're just not. Yes.

Someone could say like, I, an interior decorator could say like, I need a 24 by 36 for this space and I'm just going to shop on price. But in the grand scheme of things, it's very, very difficult to compare. Okay. So you can't do that. It's completely arbitrary how you set it. Okay. Okay. The ability to add scarcity into your pricing, i.

e. original, one off, right, i. e. limited editions, right, i. e. open editions, how you can control all those levers, and how easy it is to create scarcity, okay? Uh, the fact that appreciation is possible. Amazing, right? That doesn't happen in that many markets. So I think, like, frame through the big one, that's a, that's a, that's a huge thing.

And, you know, you contrast. How difficult in other businesses it is to have price point variability, okay? A really high price for some stuff and a really low price for some stuff. Like we can't do that. We can't do that. An artist can set the price on an original to 20, 000 apiece. They could do limited editions to 10, 000 apiece.

They could do prints, uh, you know, embellished prints at 5, 000 apiece and prints at 1, 000 apiece right out of the gates. That's insane. Have a business, you know, with no additional manufacturing issues, right? No additional, uh, uh, uh, inventory needs, or software to build out, or, you know, widgets, this, that, and the other to build.

Like, that's not normal to have a business that you can just do that. I mean, you and I had a clothing company back in the day. How the hell are we going to get any price point variability like that? There's no chance. There's no chance. And guess what? You find out when you have some really expensive pieces in your store, even if no one buys them, all it does is it makes the perception of the lower price pieces, which they are going to buy it better.

It's called price anchoring. So it's like, that's just, that's an amazing, that's an amazing thing. You know, you have the ability to raise or lower your prices at any point in time without any, without any columns whatsoever. Like that's a phenomenal aspect of this business. Right. I wouldn't have good points.

I like thought about that as I kind of guess like that's actually amazing. Like you want to create limited editions, go create limited editions. You want to create open editions, go do that. What else? Sign prints. And none of that requires any additional manufacturing equipment. None of that requires any additional work really in the grand scheme of things, notwithstanding, you know, creating the originals.

But it's just, that's an incredible, incredible asset to have. And so it's, you know. The pricing for me massively underscores why it's not hyperbole. This really is a fantastic business to start right now. And there's never been a better time to do it. I mean, I really believe that.

Nick Friend: Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of the fundamentals that you've been discussing about the business that make it great.

Right. Which, which ties into why it's a good time to start one. Right. And, and then there's like the, the timing component in and of itself, right. Which I'm, I'm really big on. Because I think that, I think that, um, like I imagine the, like, when you, like when you have an opportunity like this, right, where everything just changed and you know, where the market is and it's going to be online, right.

And all the habits have changed and all that demand has gone online. Um, you know, from the art galleries and, uh, and, and it's, and it's significantly increased the overall opportunity for artists and photographers. I think the timing right now, literally right now is the best time in history today. Like you could have called it like the beginning of the year, right?

Or you could even say that people who started marketing three years ago or five years ago were way better off. Yeah. But, but right now, now those people got lucky, got luckier because they started earlier on something that was like, you know, an investment towards the future. Right. And they knew that. But right now, after what's happened.

We know that right now is like ground zero. It's ground zero, right? And a year from now, it's going to be way worse to start the business than now because the artists and the photographers, think about it. Thousands of artists and photographers who are executing on this right now, right? Starting this direct business got wiped out from the galleries, got wiped out from art shows, or they're just getting started, right?

Or any of that stuff. Those are the people who are going to be super skilled. It at, at playing in this market, competing in this market, right? For this demand, um, over the next couple of years. And so, you know, that that's what makes it, uh, like extremely important to, to take advantage of this, ASAP. So anyone out there that's on the fence.

Or you haven't like taken it seriously. You haven't taken the online marketing part seriously. Like you've got to, you got to wake up, you've got to wake up because this it's opened right up for you. And if you're even listening to us right now, there's probably a reason for that. You're going to hear me say this a lot, you know, over the coming weeks and months and everything like that, because like we've been entrepreneurs for 20 years.

Right. You started lots of different companies and all that stuff. And when I look at this opportunity right now, I just can't believe it. You know, and I'm not just saying that I just, I think for an individual creator, I think if you have a full time job or you have a part time job or whatever, and you can start building this as a side business with the hope of going full time, with the hope of making it significant, that is the best way to go.

That's the best way to go. You know what I mean? If you're a, if you're a. Um, event photographer, portrait photographer, or anything like that, and wedding photographer, you know, and your whole world has been shut down because of this, you know, you've every, everyone in that position always has, you know, uh, fine art that they want to sell, right?

They've always been taking pictures of that. That's what they do. They take pictures, right? Now is the time to launch that and get that done. Because you can't do those events forever. And you know that we're living in a weird world these days where there might be a second pandemic. There might be a third.

You never know. You never know. Like it's the last thing you want to do. And look, I'll tell you Pat, like here's an inside information conversation that Pat and I have, and we've had for a couple of years. It's like talking about eventually down the road. Creating a lot of features for like event photographers, let's say, right.

Wedding photographers and helping them with their marketing at art storefronts. Right. Have this discussion many times. It's like a potential future growth area for art storefronts down the road. And I, and I said to Pat recently, like in the last month, I said, you know what? I don't know that I want to do that.

Like, I, I, I mean, I don't know that I want to invest in that world. Um, because look, like pandemic has wiped that business out. You know, another one could happen in three years. Another one can happen in five years or 10 years. And so you're, you're building it with that risk. It's like, you're, it's like you're building a, you're going to make a big investment in a hurricane zone.

You know, like you better know what you're doing. You better really know what you're doing. I'd rather not do that in a hurricane zone, you know? So anyways, for those of you who, you know, are in that spot, you can actually, you can actually diversify out of the hurricane zone. You're in IE, all you were doing was art shows or selling through art galleries or weddings, you know, uh, Uh, portraits, baby pictures, like any of that stuff that's been wiped out.

You now know like, wait a minute, I should have diversified years ago, but now I can do it right now. Like now's my time. You know, and I just think that that's an amazing situation and the market is wide open for, for anyone who has thought about that and is ready to take that forward. It's like, it's the perfect time.

Like, you know, the market is talking to you. The world is speaking to you like, Hey, you know what? You knew you should have done this. You knew you should have done this already. You'd be way further down the road. Had you done it, but do it now, do it now. It's the same way that we have said to, you know, artists and photographers who were selling in galleries or at art shows and got the rug completely pulled out from underneath them.

You should have diversified. You should have been doing this. And then they all say, I knew it. I knew I should have taken online more seriously. I just didn't have time. I couldn't do it. Right. Well, you know, event photographers, service photographers, like. You know, it's they're in the same boat. What are you going to do?

Right? Sort of terrifying

Patrick Shanahan: for them, to be honest with you. It is, but you gotta I think event based is just like Oh, man.

Nick Friend: I mean, you just got to move. You can't be a long time. You've got to move, you know, you can't like, it's one of the lessons you always learn as a business owner. You don't go back to the old, the world never goes back to where it was.

Okay. For 2008, there were people who succeeded as artists or photographers and there's people who failed. The ones who succeeded moved forward to where the market was. To where it went to, right? The ones who failed were the ones who were just clinging on to that old world. Do not clinging on, do not clinging on right to anything that was old, because none of it is guaranteed anymore, and the whole thing is gonna change.

There's going to be less of that business.

Patrick Shanahan: There's going, I had to take a, um, an Uber yesterday to, to go get the car, you know, because the car's getting worked on. This guy had the radio on and they're talking about this guy that. Owned a restaurant in New York. Okay. And I didn't know this when I've been out there and I know it's a whole thing, but evidently there's like restaurants that make their entire nut in New York based on Broadway, like Broadway season opens, you know?

And the whole thing is like, go get, go get dinner and a show, you know, like date night, like, you know, awesome nights. And so evidently when that happens, this is so lucrative to the restaurant because what's normal dinner out there, like, you know, seven, eight, nine, whatever, whatever time people eat. All of these people are showing up to the restaurant at like 5.

00 because they gotta catch the show, you know? And so they're getting to the restaurant early, and so they're getting this early pop wave, and it's not even affecting their normal business because all these people are in and out, they gotta go to their show, right? And so they've got their tables out, you know, outside now.

But this is New York. Winter's coming. Broadway's not coming back. Probably two years. Like, I don't know if that business is ever gonna be viable. What are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to do for your restaurant tour? You can't just take two years off. You have a lease. You have a lease. You have people.

They'll leave. That ain't coming back likely ever. A whole lot of them are not. And how long is it going to take is like how long it's going to take. So you know, you to, to circle back to your like event side of the business, oh man, oh man, not good. Not good. Not good for now. But also. We've got the long lens on this, you know, and we'll build those features seven years from now, right?

If you get started into your active marketing, if you believe that the opportunity is as big as that, we believe there's just no time to waste. There's no time to waste. There's no shortcut. It's not easy, but the opportunity for you to grow a sizable, small business, if you stay committed and focus on all the things that we advocate, you're going to get there, which is, you know, that we advocate something.

We invented them. It's like growing the business, right? Um,

Nick Friend: One of the, I want to say one other thing and then let's get into some announcements, some cool announcements. All right. So the one last thing I want to say, and this is to all of you, this is a personal, this is kind of a personal, uh, um, like little, little discussion that I want to make sure that I have, cause I think it's going on with a lot of you out there, I think that this episode of us talking about it's the best time in history to start in our business.

I have family members who are artists. Okay. And like in the past years, some of them have been looked down upon by other family members as like, what are they going to get a real job? What are they going to get a real job? They're messing around with it, this business, what are they doing? When are they going to get a real job?

Right. And I want you guys to know who are listening to this. That, and, and if you want to show this video to anyone, your spouse or any other family member that you're making a good decision, you're making a good decision, that this is thought through, that there's a lot of great points going on about why an art business right now is the, it's the best time ever to do one and why it's, it's more lucrative than ever.

Why your success potential is higher than ever, right? Your probability of being successful is way higher than ever. Right. Why? Because of all those fundamentals that Patrick talked about, you know what I mean? Yeah. Low cost of running it, low investment to be fully equipped, all these different, you can, you can run it like while you have a side job, if you need to, you know, and build it, which is always a good idea.

Always a good idea. You know, never quit your job and start a business. You guys never, never. Is that a good idea? I've never done that. I've never ever done that. Okay. Like always have something and then build that thing on the side. See if you can get it going. See if you can get it going. Like, see if it's for you, see if it's something that you think you can do not for everybody, you know, but, but I think for many of you out there that, you know, might have some haters around you or in your family, they're usually in your family or maybe close friends.

Transcribed I want you to have the confidence to know that we've thought this through, okay? And many people have thought this through and the circumstances are better than ever. And you actually have a very legitimate business. Because what I would say to somebody else is like, okay, as a, give me a sole entrepreneur business that you think is better.

Let's debate it. I'd love to do that. You think a plumbing business is better? You think a pool business is better? You think this business is better? Let's, let's debate all of these. Let's look at all the pros and cons. From the investment, the upside, you know, the travel benefit, like, you know, all the different things.

Um, and, uh, and I, we just laid out

Patrick Shanahan: that we just laid out. It's there, there is an extremely good argument. Okay. Not withstanding the opportunity piece, not withstanding the fact that it's urban just on the nuts and bolts of the business. Okay. The line items of the finances and everything else, like credible business.

Incredible business. Not easy. You still have to do it, but incredible business on papers, incredible business.

Nick Friend: And I, and I think where this is going, where this is going is like to bring this to a crescendo is like in a lot of families. The artist or the photographer is going to become the breadwinner.

Okay. Now that happens in some families right now, but I think the artist or photographer could like will legitimately be breadwinners in their own family. Right. Making a hundred, 200, 000 a year, making more than their spouse, you know what I mean? And legitimately doing so. And then, and then potentially getting their spouse to start helping them on the business.

Right. Because, because it's like, wait a minute. This is something that we've gotten into a hundred or 200, 000 a year. We could take this to 500, 000 or maybe a million. And you are not wrong. You are not wrong to think that, you know, if you've got that business at 70, a hundred thousand dollars. You definitely can get it to 200, 300 and above.

Patrick Shanahan: And again, like we're talking about a seven to 10 year run to even quite a few numbers for most people, but guess what? Visit the earlier point in your forties, your fifties, your sixties, your seventies, even in your eighties, like, you know, you're going to go, you're going to go into business and be an accountant, right?

Like you're not going to be an accountant in your eighties and nineties, probably not your seventies either. You're going to want to retire. You're over it, but, but creation. The act of creating of being artistic, like that just doesn't go away. That just, you can't shut that off. You're either born with that or you're not.

Nick Friend: I'm not worth it to put in the work for seven to 10 years to get that privilege. Are you kidding me? How many years has everybody worked? That's listening to this full time, right? I mean, just start running those numbers, you know, just start running those numbers. Like putting 10 years into something that has that type of upside.

Incredible opportunity. Incredible.

Patrick Shanahan: All right. Announcements. What do we have

Nick Friend: Tomorrow?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. Let's talk about your

Nick Friend: art business workshops.

Patrick Shanahan: Yep. Art business workshops. You've got questions. You want to learn more about what we do? Pricing questions, marketing questions, more than likely you have what's stuck in your brain questions.

Bring them to an art business workshop. It's in the description. Thrice weekly, three times weekly, Zoom sessions for artists, photographers, crafters, sculptors. Come on and learn about what we do. You can ask questions and really get some free consulting, free marketing advice out of it. Ask me about anything.

Um, sessions have been really, really fun. They've been a blast. How can you, how can you register for one? Learn We have links if you're listening to this in the podcast, there's links in the show notes. If you're watching on Facebook, there's a link in the post. YouTube, link in the post. Twitter, they don't allow it.

We don't really have anyone watching on Twitter anymore. We're still working on the audience piece of Twitter. It's okay, we're still streaming there. Uh, if you're on Instagram, uh, we're not on Instagram right now because we had some technical difficulties. The links in the link tree, you can click that thing, uh, you can Zoom will notify you and say when it is and all that jazz, it's actually pretty slick.

So, those have been really, really fun. Um, that's what I got, what do you got?

Nick Friend: Yeah, so the other thing is the fourth quarter's coming. Right. Got to talk about that. We can't stop talking about that biggest art selling time of the year for artists and photographers. The biggest. Okay. If you are not taking advantage of that, you are literally just blowing it completely.

I don't, as I say, I don't even know where to start a conversation about your art business. If that's, you know, it's something that you're not taking advantage of every year, right? The fourth quarter, October, November, and December, the holidays. Biggest art selling time of year. So it's coming, it's right around the corner.

And the marketing begins. You're supposed to start your holiday marketing. At least that's what we're doing at Art Storefronts. With all of our customers. Right now. What's that right now, basically right now, but it really starts taking action in about 40 days. That's it. That's all it is. So, you know, it's time to get started, get your, get your website up, get properly equipped, get on your marketing so that you're ready to go at that time.

So in lieu of that, we are running a big special at our storefronts right now to save money to join. Okay. And it's our, we call it the Q4, the fourth quarter early bird special. And part of the reason we do this is because, uh, it becomes a mad rush at, you know, in October and November for people trying to get their websites live last minute, all the procrastinators right, right before black Friday, who are always disappointed with their sales when they wait that long.

Right. Because they didn't do any marketing beforehand. They launched five days before black Friday, and then they have a, they have a bad black Friday or an underwhelming, and it's like, well, what'd you expect to happen? You didn't listen today. You didn't listen when we were telling you two months ago, three months ago, right?

So, best time is now. And so we've got this great special. Take advantage of it. If you want to, uh, if you want to learn more about ArcStorefronts and potentially take advantage of that special, your next step is just to request a demo, right? You can do that on this post. You can do it on our website. Um, there's always a big button in the upper right hand corner that says request a demo.

You fill out the form, it takes 20 seconds. One of the members of our team, of our outreach team, will reach out to you and have a quick call, um, check out your art, make sure that you're a good fit, learn about your goals, and then they can run a demo with you and show you everything that we do, every single detail, you know, um, on a screen share, which is awesome.

And then you can go at your own pace. So if you're ready to learn more, no commitment, then your next step is to request a demo. Um, that's pretty much it though.

Patrick Shanahan: Yep. That's what I got to, um, subscribe to the show twice weekly art business. Yeah.

Nick Friend: Yeah. Art business mornings, you know, grab your coffee, join us every Tuesday and Thursday.

Same time, nine Pacific, 11 AM central 12 Eastern. We're going to be doing and talking shop every time. So the other thing you can do is if you like binging these episodes, subscribe to our podcast. Um, and you can just get them all in one shot while you're exercising or in your car, whatever it is that you like to do.

You also can whack them on YouTube, go all the way through them. I personally love YouTube. We're getting everything up there and building that whole channel, you know, so you can go through a ton of stuff. There's a, there's a ton of these on there already and, uh, always, always good to go through those and update your thinking.

You know, um, and, and get those ideas to run your business better.

Patrick Shanahan: Yep. And we talk, we talk a lot about like, you know, monitoring your inputs and we don't have it all figured out. You guys. Okay. We're not, we're not, we're not self proclaimed gurus, but what we do have is a long experience of entrepreneurism and marketing, a large data set, a 4, 000 artisan photographers selling things online.

And we're hardcore tactical digital marketing every day, every single solitary day, put all that into combination. And what you'll find on the show is a good source of the latest and greatest information on art, photography, sales, and marketing, where the market's heading, emerging trends, what to pay attention to highlighting success, tackling some of the biggest issues.

So love to have you subscribe. You can like the Facebook page, follow us on Instagram. Uh, subscribe on YouTube, smash that like, smash that bell for notifications. So that's what they always say on YouTube, smash that bill. Can't stand that, but that's how you can find out. We don't want you to miss them. Um, we're, I think six episodes in or seven episodes in and.

Yeah, I'm enjoying it. We got a lot more to flesh out.

Nick Friend: It's so great. And you know, like, as you were saying, like we talk to so many customers and that every two days, I mean, how much new information do you and I have in 48 hours? It's like unbelievable, right? Unbelievable amount of new information, like real information.

This isn't just like you and I are coming up with topics out of thin air, real information from the trenches, from the ground floor of P of artisans, photographers, really selling art, you know, making successes happen. And, uh, and, and like, you know, we've got that in front of every couple of days, like all that information is being updated and there's new things to talk about.

Patrick Shanahan: Correct.