It's video, stupid

A play on James Carvilles famous quote, The best way to sell art or photography, and why you need to be prepared to leverage video this q4 and really all day, every day.

In this edition of 'Art Business Mornings,' Patrick emphasizes the critical role of video in selling art and photography, especially in the current climate. He draws a parallel to James Carville's quote to underline the urgent need to embrace video. By discussing the irrelevance of geographical barriers and the efficiency of video communication, Patrick considers the global increase in bandwidth and the impact of COVID-19 on technological adoption. He shares insights into running successful video sessions, the importance of having inventory ready, and the efficiency of video for both marketing and customer support. Patrick also debunks the myth about the effortless online art sales process and stresses the need for direct video interaction with potential buyers. He concludes by reinforcing the significance of video as a disruptive force in the art industry and art storefronts' strategic shift towards a virtual retail experience.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: All right, coming up on today's edition of the "Art Business Mornings," It's video, stupid. Play on James Carville's famous quotes, "the best way to sell art or photography and why you need to be prepared to leverage video this Q4 and really every single solitary day." Given all my accoutrement dialed in now, welcome to another edition of "Art Business Mornings." The show that'll put you on the path to a six figure a year plus, art business. And it's crazy election times as I record this. And so I figured I would pull out a famous old quote from the Ragin' Cajun himself, James Carville when he said, "it's the economy stupid." And I'm gonna put my spin on it.

As much as I hate using the word stupid in any title, he used it, James Carville on purpose when he said it, right? And the premise is if you ignore the economy, you are stupid. No one wants to be stupid, so give the economy a whole lot of attention. And that premise, it also works here. Video is just, it's a big deal. It is a huge deal. And if you're not leveraging it in your art sales process, well, you get the point, right? Nobody wants to be stupid. What is the best way to sell art? Total trick question. I say this all the time. It's in person face to face. No one's disputing that, problem though, you, me, we are geographically fixed on this earth.

You can't have 20 conversations at once, and you need to sleep. So you need a website, right? It can sell when you sleep, handles as many folks concurrently as possible, it's always up. It never takes breaks, right? So what's next? That's great. You know, that selling art, photography, disgusting person, you know, you need to have a website. You already have one, what's next? If on the left side, I gotta get this so it works on both videos. You know, you have in-person selling on the right-hand side. You have your website, video is the new thing in between. It is the new next best thing in selling art or photography, full stop. Is it new? No, it's not new.

No, it's not new. Video's been around for a long, long time. And like video on the web, it's been around for a long, long time. But you know, it's always how it goes with like a new emergent technology and not to say videos new, but things come out, It's talked about like the second coming of Christ, Jesus, early adopters jumped on, then it goes dark for a period of time. Then sometime later when you least expect it, it comes to full prominence. And there's a consulting firm, I think they're called Gartner or whatever that has this thing called the hype cycle. And you know, picture a graph on this side you have visibility, on this side, you have time, right? And the way that they explain it is you have the technology trigger at this point where this thing comes out.

And then they have, what's called the peak of inflated expectations where everyone thinks this thing is the second coming of Christ. Then it sort of loses its steam when it goes down to the trough of disillusion. Then then they call it the slope of enlightenment and then the plateau of productivity, right? And there's so many different technologies that follow this. It's really like an intelligent way to think about things. And it sort of feels like video. What it's capable of doing on the web, has finally reached its plateau of productivity. As long as it's been around, as long as it's been like a huge technology. It's sort of wild. It's like, you could even argue that video's gone through this particular hype cycle multiple times, but it's definitely on the plateau of productivity right now.

There's no question. Let's talk briefly about conditions on the ground. That you've sort of seen video usher in is such a massive change. Steadily increasing bandwidth for absolutely everybody out there on planet earth for the most part. And I really do mean everybody. I don't just mean, you know, domestically or in North America or in Western cultures. I mean just today, just yesterday, I should say it's still the morning and I haven't done it yet today, but I will be on a video call with members of my marketing team that are in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. I do that every single solitary day. We never have any problems. We communicate on video seamlessly, flawlessly.

Couple of weeks ago, I had a zoom call with folks from four places in North America, one in Russia, multiple in Europe, a few in the middle East including Ramallah Jordan in Bethlehem, several different places in Asia, as well as South America. And a couple of people in the Caribbean, including Haiti. On that call coincidentally, a few of the folks in Africa were having bandwidth issues, camera issues, and so I had to turn their camera off and the audio is fine. But you know what? I run 15 zoom calls a week and I have to do that, a lot of times for people domestically here in the US. And you turn their camera off in zoom, and the audio is just fine. The larger point is bandwidth has increased for everybody worldwide, everywhere. Anyone can get on video, anyone can get on a video chat.

So I think that's played a massive role in it, just the increase in bandwidth, obviously. Let's talk about COVID, forcing technological adoption, right? I run the art business workshops, right? Three times weekly, by the way, three times weekly, okay. You can get on it. You can register for a session anywhere that you see this video, there will be a link. If you're on Instagram, it's in the link tree. You can come on, talk with either me, the CEO, Nick, or our members of my marketing team about where you are in your career. Okay, not for that pitch, what's seriously registered and there can be a lot of them. But anyway, on those zoom calls, okay? Of which I've had hundreds now.

It's been a profound learning, right? And then, and then Jim comes in, right? Jim comes in, Jim's the snooty one. I don't know if you know Jim and he's like, well, Patrick, that's all well and good, but you know, my high net worth collectors and buyers, they don't use the video chat. And you know, I look at Jim and it's like yeah, okay, Jim, okay. Okay, Jim, Okay. I've had 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds, 50 year olds, 60 year olds, 70 year olds and yes, 80 year olds on these zoom calls, week-in and week-out, and you know what's crazy? They all seem to be able to join this session, what's more, they all seem to be able to figure out how to unmute themselves and ask questions, including the 80 year olds.

And are there issues? From time to time, you know, an audio issue or this or that? Yeah, but they're outside the norm. It's like 95 percentile, people come onto these zoom sessions from everywhere in every age group and are able to communicate, right? And, you know, I am a huge tech nerd, okay? And always have been, even just saying that, the gravity of saying that, okay? That all of those people, from all of those age groups with all those various different technical acumen are capable of getting on a video chat and it just works. Nothing just works. Nothing just works in a technological case, nothing, everything breaks all the time. And the older people get that are not native, digital natives that didn't have computers when they were kids. Nothing ever works. But this does, they just do. I mean, I've taken so many questions and had so few issues on these zoom calls, it's profound.

Now, you think about COVID forcing adoption, okay? Do you think there is any chance, okay? The majority of those folks, especially the older ones, would ever, have been taking all of these video calls and getting involved in these video calls and wanting to do these video calls without COVID forcing it? No chance, no chance, okay? Not everybody would have been a zoom native and unless COVID came to town and forced everybody to communicate this way, and go to weddings this way, and have birthdays this way, and see their grandkids and all the rest of it. So you can't underscore how big of an impact COVID has had just in that department alone, which is make everyone comfortable with this concept of video chatting. Not just video chatting, being on video, not caring if your hair is not perfect, not caring about the lighting or anything else, seeing big TV stars, go on and run the television broadcast with wired earpods or wired earbuds or some stupid cord that cost $10 at Radio Shack.

And they're doing live TV. So this is a massively disruptive, massively disruptive thing. And it's not going away. Everyone just understands it now and understands that this is the norm and this is how we're going for us, going forward, right? And while we're on the COVID subject, what else is this done? Yes, it's forced technological adoption. Which is not only good for video, but also for entire e-commerce adoption. Both of which are insanely good for our photography sales. But from this forced adoption that we've all had to go through, right? We're getting some forced learnings out of it. And a whole lot of companies in a whole lot of industries, including many of my close friends, who would have said pre-March 2020, that remote work is for the birds.

The employees will just faff off all day long, no one will get

anything done. It's gonna kill productivity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Most of those people, including some of my friends that have like huge companies with lots of employees, they're all singing a different tune now. As a result of COVID forcing remote work on all of these companies and forcing these companies to learn like, wait a minute, we barely lost any productivity. Oh my goodness, wait a minute. My employees are actually happier. They're actually happier working from home. They prefer not to come back into an office ever again, wait a minute. I don't have to pay top dollar rent or office size bills for cable, this, that, and the other. So that is a profound shift, right? And it's just massively, massively disruptive.

And unless you're in the commercial real estate business which some of my buddies are, you're loving it, right? Your people can work from home and be happy, healthy productive, no commute, spend more time with their family. It's also a phenomenal aspect of disruption and all of this. And, you know, a huge takeaway is what is one of the primary layers that is underpinning that productivity from home, right? Live video, the ability to get on video chats with your team, with your boss, with your employees, talk through the various different issues, articulate things, right? And so it's yet another lever that's pulling on video. And I have a friendly, established premise on this. And it's the following, video is the, and I should do air quotes. Video is the most efficient communication medium, we at art storefronts have.

No matter the issue, new customer acquisition, teaching customers, resolving tech issues, resolving marketing issues, nothing is more effective nor more efficient than video. This applies equally one-to-one but ideally one to many. That is a premise that I am operating under, right? Now, ideally of course in-person face-to-face is better, but I have customers spread all over the world. So for me in art storefronts, we contemplate video, it is the single solitary most efficient and effective way to get things done. And I talk about the layers of video and the disruption. I mean, this one is just, it's massive. It is massive for us. And let me give you two examples of how it's making a huge impact in our business.

And then, I wanna laser in New York. So, let's say I run the marketing department. What am I responsible for? What is every marketer responsible for? Leads? Leads, leads, leads, leads, leads. So let's talk about what it was pre-COVID pre-heavy video days. Maybe I would get you with a Facebook ad and you'd come to the website and then you'd leave. And then maybe I'd get you with an Instagram ad and you come back and you give me your email address. Then I'm emailing you all the time. And I'm emailing you week after week after week. And maybe I get you to read some blog posts. Maybe I'd get you to listen to a podcast. And maybe you watch an old video on YouTube, and then you come back to the site again.

Okay, that's all well and good. But finally you put in a demo request and you're like, this is awesome. And then you become a customer. How long did that take? Was that three months, six months, nine months? Maybe it was a year. I'm gonna get people all the time. I'm telling you on the calls. I've been following you guys for years. So okay, that's what it was before. My premise is video is more efficient and effective at everything. Contrast that to now, that same Facebook ad or Instagram ad get you, you get onto an email list, immediately, I email you and I tell you, oh, by the way our business workshops, three times a week, come and join us, talk to me live.

Me, the guy talking to you right now, that used to be doing the podcast and used to lecture you and rod requests and everything. Come talk to me live. Tell me about your business. We will have the face to face communication today, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, by the way, it's very easy to join. So, what used to take three months, six months, nine months. I'm now truncating down into sometimes days, sometimes hours, and then yes, sometimes weeks, but it is so much more efficient in contrast to what we once did. It is ridiculous, it is a massive amount of gasoline. So that's one example. What about tech support? People have tech support issues with our service all the time, right? Like any web service has, what would you do before? Maybe you do a little web chat.

If you get on a phone call and go through that entire queue, contemplate throwing everybody, that's all going through the same stuff at the same time in a zoom call and teaching one to many, okay? Tech issues ended up getting resolved near instantaneously, you're seeing the entire thing on video, you're getting to learn in a one to many situation meaning, you're just getting started with the software, you have this tech issue but probably in like another month you're gonna have this tech issue. You're seeing that solved on the call. So there's all these various different layers where it's just a huge, huge deal. It is more efficient and it is more effective, I would say 10 times so in some cases that's a big deal. That is a huge deal, and it can be a big deal for you too. So let's talk about what most people think, totally incorrect premise.

How photography and art sells online, right? People get it in their heads, they need a piece of art that day. They go searching, they go online without talking to anybody and just seeing the piece one time they pull out their credit card and they buy it, right? That's what artists and photographers think. That like, there's this massive people out there that are like, hmm, I need a new piece of art. There's that blank space on my wall, I'm just gonna go search around Google, find something and buy it instantaneously. Like the fringe cases is that, like that never happens. That's just not the way it works, right? I mean, time to time, sure.

But it's just not the norm. Artists and photographers get in their head, that is how it works, though. You're just gonna put things up online and magically in the middle of the night, somebody is gonna come and buy from you without requesting anything else without having any conversation with you, without having any email dialogue or a phone call or anything else. And that's essentially the premise that underpins uploading your stuff to one of the online art galleries, right? That you're just gonna magically upload things. And then your work is done, it's over. You're just gonna sit back and get paid, go right back into your studio or outside shooting.

And nothing could be further from the truth. It is just not how art is sold. That can be a subject for a standalone episode of this, let's get back to video. Anyway, not how it's sold. Moreover, the higher price point, okay? And I see this across the board and I have more data than you so I know what I'm talking about. The higher the price point goes, the more there is a need, the more the buyer wants communication, email communication, phone calls. They wanna interact, they wanna ask some questions. They're not going to part with, you know, 1,500 2,000, 2,500, $10,000, without some correspondence to know that what they're getting and they're excited about it.

So, if the video premise works, okay, if the video premise works, that I've expressed what do you think is the most efficient and effective way for you to sell art and or photography? In those scenarios, you better believe it's video. You'd better believe it's getting your prospective buyer on video. Moreover, last I checked, you guys need to be generating leads too. And video clearly helps there. It's just as effective as outbound marketing as it is for customer service issues as it is for getting deals over the line. You wanna try to make that process more efficient, more effective. You got it, right? It's video.

And I have said, okay, I will say, I will continue selling saying that video selling, either one-to-one you know, you and one other person or one to many, you in a digital room full of people, is going to be the single solitary biggest disruption to the art and photography sales process in the last 25 to 50 years.

That's not very profound. There's a whole bunch of people that have said this before me that it's gonna forever change the way e-commerce takes place. It goes down, right? Let's talk about why, the reasons why? For art and photography, why it is going to be the biggest change, the biggest disruptor, in how art and photography is sold in the last 50 years. Number one, my favorite, it forces the artist or photographer, which let's just be honest for many of you will be the first time you've ever taken your merchandising seriously. If you're gonna be selling directly on video, you better have some inventory. You better have some inventory, the finished product on hand, and you'd better be able to articulate it.

What are the differences of it? What makes it interesting? What are the differences between the media types, right? And you know just getting you guys to do that alone is a huge win. So few artists and photographers have the various different media types of which they're trying to sell their work. You guys are constantly trying to sell your stuff as 2d images on Instagram or Facebook, no one's buying 2d images.

No one's buying that. They're buying the finished product that goes on the wall. So you need to have the finished product that goes on the wall. So that's a huge part of video selling. Two, it forces you to work on

talking about your art, talking about your process, talking about what went into it. And then yes, selling all of you guys need practice on that. Every single solitary artist and photographer, I know that a customer needs practice on that and you get better with practice. You can do it without leaving your home or studio. You can run multiple video chats. One-to-one, one to many a day, okay? If it's as efficient as I've articulated, and it is, that it's going to speed up everything you do, your marketing, your selling.

If we at art storefronts are seeing a 10 X improvement in efficiency via using video, you will see the same thing. It's got nothing to do with us. It has to do with the video. So it will, it will completely speed up. Both your marketing and you're selling. Video deepens the bond, okay. Massively, so, okay. Folks, we'll get to know and like and trust you 10 times faster than they did before. They want to know you, okay? They wanna say they have a relationship with the artist. The know like, and trust thing is so important and the fact of how long it takes to do though. I'm just gonna follow their Instagram posts and who they're kind of quirky.

And, oh, look, this is a funny video doing whatever, oh look, there's their dog and their cat or boom, you're in a chat. And you're talking to the artist. Are you kidding me? Like it's 10 X, the sooner they know, like and trust you, the sooner your work is gonna end up on their wall. That is just full stop, okay. The technological barrier. Another point to getting started is nothing. What do you need to get started? You already have it. It's just your phone. It's just your phone. You don't need anything else. Just your phone, on speaker phone. You don't even need any stupid ear pods or a plugged-in headset.

Although all of you guys have that too. That's the barrier to entry. It costs zero, nothing. The MVA, the acronym stands for Minimum Viable Audience. To find the number of people that you need to have on a video chat to make it worth your time to provide an ROI is one qualified buyer. Just one, just one. Yes, one to many is better, but one-to-one, if they're qualified and they're gonna buy getting on a video chat is a positive ROI activity for you.

I already know this. So, you know, another point, the ability to run full-on flash sales and live art shows is incredible. That was just not possible before. You know you, I contemplate all the customers that we have and all the people that I've talked to that have spent the last umpteen years of their life, doing the fair and show circuit.

Doing the fair and show circuit, right. From the time, okay. That it takes you, to get that booth down from the attic, get your samples ready, load up the car, load up your inventory. Drive to the show, set up, sit on your feet for eight hours a day, stay at the hotel, eat a crappy meal. Maybe you have a cold beer, break it all down, drive home, unload the car, et cetera.

You could do 20 live art shows from the comfort of your home or studio and have way more energy and timelines after the fact and no booth fees, right? So you talk about the efficiency of just that scenario. Running live art shows, you know, again, you have to have some of your own attention to be able to do that.

But running the live art shows versus doing that show circuit and how much time, energy, and effort it takes to get out there. Now, I'm not saying I'm against the live Archer arena, the in-person shows when they're available. I still think there's fantastic things about them, but just the contrast in the two and not leaving your house.

I mean, I could go on and on and on about this. I will go on and on and on about this, but better still, right? And here's some quick takeaways. Let's hope that you just watched this whole thing. Step one, are three steps, three steps, three steps. Step one, Ideally, you've been listening to this and you've been nodding your head.

That's my head, nod my head. Okay, good. You're onboard. You agree? The video's there. You're on board. How do I get involved? Step two. Get your inventory in order. You need samples. If you do originals, you're set. You're all good. You're done. Otherwise you'd better have your work, printed on the top six media types, in small sizes, small sizes is the best thing about it.

Your best stuff in the top six different media types, you need to have a fine art paper, you need to have the photo paper. You need to have canvas. You need to have metal. You need to have acrylic. You need to have wood. Six media types, okay? They're really small sizes. We're talking about an order that's somewhere from 100, in between a 100 and $200.

You have the samples, at your house, they're small. You can show them on video. That's number two. You have to get in the game. By the way, if you have a local printer, good, go use a local printer. If you don't have a local printer, asfprints.com upload your images right now today, the order will come to you.

You'll have it. You'll be in the game. Step three, okay, step three. Let people know, you are available via video to discuss your work, explain the differences between media types, talk about how to hang the work, talk about your process, have a virtual happy hour, I don't care what it is. Let people know you are available all Q4 to talk about your work, if they're interested in purchasing a piece to see your inventory, to understand the media times, to talk about your process, are you gonna sign it or not sign it?

Let people know, everywhere in your emails, in your social posts, in your live broadcast. Get one of those little name tags that says hello, my name is, and I'm ready to chat on video anytime you are. The technology is irrelevant. I don't care which one you use. Okay, you can use FaceTime or you can use whatever the Apple thing is.

I don't even know what all the names are. Zoom, Hangouts, Meet. It does not matter, whatever the person wants to use, use. Okay, it's that simple? What if you're a gallery, Mr. Ballou, three, one, three on Instagram saying. If you're a gallery, the exact same lesson applies. It applies even more so.

You haven't even better situation to be able to do this because all you gotta do. Oh, look, you know normally I would say come down to the gallery but in these COVID times, nobody wants to do that. So here's what, you can do. I'll fire up the video call and walk through the gallery. Honestly, if you have a gallery, you are in the best position period.

Because you already have, effectively these single solitary greatest place to sell is inside of a gallery, it's sexy. It's got white walls, beautiful floors, the decor, all the rest of it. Walk around with it, phone in your hand, talk to the potential buyers like easiest thing to do ever. So that's my rant on video.

Not gonna stop banging the drum on video. And I would say as a final, and I say this all the time. I'm not a guru, okay? I'm not a guru. I didn't pick this up because I thought someone's class I'm living it and doing it. I do not operate under the do, as I say, not as I do. It's the other way around do, as I do I will tell you the abstraction of this entire conversation I'm having on video right now.

Art storefronts as a business is rapidly marching towards a retail store. What do I mean by that? We are opening up art storefronts, the retail store. It will be open from nine to five, five days a week, maybe even six days a week. The difference is it doesn't have the physical location it's on instead of main street of your town.

It's on main street of the inner webs and it's open nine to five. Meaning anyone, our customers can come into the store from nine to five and have a video chat with somebody, contemplate that. We're already almost there by the way, I think we are doing as it stands right now, 35, 30, maybe 30 hours of video sessions a week for our customers already.

You throw in these live video broadcasts that we're doing and maybe it goes up from there. So my kids are about to break my room down. On that note, thanks for listening. And as always, have a great day.