Painted Snow by Jim Livingston
Photographer Jim Livingston On How He Found Success in 2018
Jim Livingston shares the key factor that helped his photography business make progress throughout the year.
When reflecting on the year as a whole in terms of your art/photography business, a few questions should come to mind:
- Am I in a better place now than I was this time last year?
- Did I come away with key learnings that I can use to my advantage in the new year?
- Did I get better at marketing my work?
In other words, it all boils down to this:
Am I making progress? 
Progress is the number one thing we encourage our customers to seek and celebrate.
We call it "Small Wins" - the little stuff like picking up some new Instagram followers, or getting featured on a blog, or figuring out a new tactic, or bringing more traffic to your site than last month.
These Small Wins are easy enough to earn one at a time, but their impact is profound. Enough of them stacked together become a Big Win - and those are what successful art businesses are made of.
We care about this idea so much that we named our private artist community on Facebook "#SmallWins". There, our customers ask for advice, talk shop with their peers, and chat with our marketing experts.
While the activity in the group is typically private, photographer Jim Livingston recently shared some thoughts in #SmallWins that we felt were just too powerful not to share with everybody that follows the Art Storefronts Blog.
You may remember Jim from a recent success story here on the blog in which he used Live Preview with Augmented Reality to close the sale of two 12' murals.
Since then, Jim has been through a few ups and downs and has come to some conclusions about what has driven his success as a photographer and art seller in 2018. Read it in his own words below:
I really want to encourage anyone struggling. For 5 years I have made it a daily goal (without too many days failing) that I would do at least one thing to push my art.
This last year that has been hard because of health issues but I still try. The thing is there reaches a point when all the small things you do add up and suddenly your career has a bit of momentum and will start to carry some on its own weight. This year is my lowest shutter count and publication of the last 5. Even so, I have pulled off 5 or 6 solo gallery shows. All but one I was invited to without any initial contact by me.
By using Art Storefronts not just to sell art but to give commercial examples, I have had my largest number of commercial installations to date.
The Amarillo Globe news with a circulation of 30,000 will feature me on their cover Christmas morning in a full-page photo Christmas Card and article about me inside.
Here is the thing. I look at other artists on here and I am no better as an artist.
If I have success it is because of one thing more than artistic talent. I am persistent. I practice my art daily for the purpose of getting better at it. And I practice marketing daily to get out in front of people.
In 5 years I have taken 3.5 million photos and hard edited tens of thousands. I have no life other than art really. It is my passion and obsession. The reality of the saying, the master has failed more times than the novice has tried is becoming true in my life.
Babe Ruth not only was the home run king, but he was also famous for having more strikeouts than anyone in the league at the time. Swing hard, swing as often as you get a chance and don't let the strikeouts get you down.
Eventually, the law of averages takes over and the number of home runs becomes significant.
The trick is to keep batting. Don't let the strikeouts matter at all. I have not been as good at following the marketing plan as I need to be mostly because of health and being overwhelmed with the art projects on my plate...but I have seen a lot of success because of Art Storefronts.
If a fat, thick-headed broke-down, beat-up, worn-out social worker can do it, you can too.
I am counting 2018 for the win and Art Storefronts has been a bit part of that. Thank you for all the encouragement. Merry Christmas and may 2019 be the year we all knock it out of the park with our art!
–Jim Livingston
Persistence. Patience. Progress.
If you're unsure how to actually go about making 2019 a better year for your art/photography business than 2018 was, we can help. 👇
Seen enough and just want to get started? Awesome, Request a Demo today - let's start stacking your Small Wins.
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