Stop Procrastinating. Stop BS-ing Yourself. Only the market can tell you.

In this episode of Art Business Mornings, hosts Patrick and Nick delve into the critical concept that only the market can validate your artistic work. They stress the importance of unclogging the 'drain' that stops artists from making progress, calling on artists to bring their products to market rather than getting trapped in endless preparation. They emphasize the psychological aspects that hinder success, explaining that many artists waste time on tasks that don't directly contribute to sales. The episode also details the importance of showcasing the final product and gathering real feedback from potential customers. Additionally, they announce upcoming free consulting workshops and an early bird sale for Art Storefronts memberships aimed at preparing artists for Q4, the biggest art-selling season of the year.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: All right, coming up on today's edition of the Art Business Mornings, we're talking about getting your work to market, okay? Getting your new ideas to market and this concept that only the market can tell you. (pours beverage) Yeah, percolating, it's percolating. So, okay, 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.

Happy to have you on this Tuesday morning. Hopefully, you have your favorite caffeinated beverage in your hand or you're already caffeinated. Right, today's one bit of a rant, another great example. And I suppose I can turn this off now, another great example, actually I need it, another great example of episodes that are utterly, totally, and completely driven based on the Zoom sessions.

The ones both with the customers, twice weekly and then the non-customers. And we've been shifting in and out who's manning which workshops between Nick and I where we used to do all of them together and I've been doing all of them for the last two weeks for various reasons and this just keeps coming up again and again and again and again and again.

I can't take it anymore. I need to deal with it. And I need to put it to bed. First and foremost, if you're watching this for the first time, quick shout out to the Art Business Workshops. Thrice weekly, thrice weekly free consulting with either myself or Nick or both of us or some other polished members of the Art Storefronts team.

And really we'll get to introduce some interesting discussions lately. Like some amazing - If you haven't gone, guys you gotta go. If you haven't gone, you gotta go. Get help for your art business, take your number one problem and bring it to the art business workshop.

Nick Friend: That's for sure. Link in the bio, link in the description, link anywhere where you find links.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. I wanna squash this thing, I need to squash this thing. It's not gonna happen in one episode. It's gonna take us time and time and time and time and time again to get there, but you'll get there, you start making some forward progress every day. So if you watched the intro to this show and it's okay if you didn't, I'm not gonna tell you I'd like for you to watch the intro but it's in here that we covered that underpinning this concept, this path of a six-figure a year art business,

is the five pillars. And the first pillar, is unclog the drain. There's this concept that there's just no way you're gonna be successful 'til you get the crap that is stuck in your drain out of there, then things will start flowing. And Nick, my God, is this, I shouldn't say that, my goodness, this is an apt analogy.

I'm speaking to artists and photographers who for years have made zero forward progress, in terms of sales anyway in their business, solely Nick, because of the crap that is stuck in their drain. And to be honest,

Nick Friend: Absolutely.

Patrick Shanahan: I don't care if you guys ever do business with us, period, it breaks my heart, it literally breaks my heart because it's nonsense, it is absolutely nonsense.

And number one, it's starting to infuriate me. Number two, I desperately want to stop and help these folks. Number three, I'm acutely aware that some clogs are a little bit tougher than others. Like sometimes as a plumber you gotta get the gloves on, the boots on, get the bigger snake out of the back of the truck and really hammer that thing, hammer that thing, try to get it through.

And then also, I am finding and I'm depressed to say this, certain drains just have no intention of ever cooperating.

Nick Friend: Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Shanahan: They're filled with concrete. So let me define it and then we can start ranting about the individual bullet points I got some notes and then you can just chime in on.

Nick Friend: Okay.

Patrick Shanahan: Only the market can tell you. What does that mean? Formerly defined, if you have a product you want to sell, the only way you will ever know if it's going to sell is if you go and try and sell it, to people not named mom, dad, best friends or family. That's the concept of taking it to market, getting the validation.

None of your friends can tell you, you can't compare yourself to others, only the market can tell you. The mechanism of capitalism in which money changes hands. Without that transaction, that celebrated transaction, that's it's oldest time, you are never gonna know if your product will ever sell.

It's that simple, it's utterly truthful, there's no emotion to it, it's just the market, it's just truth. Now, question for you Nick. You wanna hear about one of the most arrogant people I've ever met in my entire life?

Nick Friend: Who?

Patrick Shanahan: It's a good question, right? It's arrogance to the point of folly.

It's that guy or that girl, you might actually know him, you might actually know, you might actually know him a bit more intimately than you would even like. Personally I certainly do it's been me multiple times in my life. The arrogance comes succinctly from thinking you somehow have been bestowed upon this earth with the godlike power, that is the market.

Patrick speaks on high from the Almighty and dollars jump out of the wallets (laughs) and command any profit. It's just so terribly arrogant. Even if it's naively arrogant, stated in another way it's not premeditated, it's not like you realize what you're doing when you do this but nobody knows, nobody knows, only the market can tell you.

And I got a great game cooked up. Sadly, the sound effect is only gonna work, is only gonna work. And I can't remember how I'm doing this I think you're the host actually. We're gonna play Family Feud. The sound effects only are gonna work on Facebook it's not gonna work on his script but we're going to play Family Feud.

You're the host, you're the host or I'll be the host. Name for me Nick, buttons on the ATM machine.

Nick Friend: Oh you're asking me to play?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah.

Nick Friend: Oh, numbers.

Patrick Shanahan: Um yeah well not numbers, you're supposed to fit right in.

Nick Friend: Oh, you want me, oh likes, likes, page likes

Patrick Shanahan: Do likes, show up on the ATM machine.

(buzzer beeps) You can hear it? you have the volume on, I've got the prices right x on this code, it's hilarious. (laughs) People tell me my work is amazing, is that one? (buzzer beeps) I can hear the button going. No. Shoot, shoot. My work (buzzer beeps) has won multiple awards. I boosted a post on Facebook and I get all these amazing comments, likes and shares.

(buzzer beeps) And I just keep pressing the button. I hope that worked well on Facebook. My other favorite one that I just heard.

Nick Friend: Oh Jay it worked on YouTube too.

Patrick Shanahan: You will tell me I have a great photographic eye. (buzzer beeps) (laughs) It looks like we're out of the game. None of those work. None of those are going to support you.

Only the market can tell you. None of those things can tell you. I don't care about those things, Nick doesn't care about those things, you can't care about those things, they are vanity metrics. And I see so many people out there that are coming on these calls and they're saying, they're giving us these lines, people tell me my work is great, people tell me that I have a wonderful photographic eye, I'm getting so many likes and comments and shares, I won so many awards but there's no sales.

Why? They've never tried. What are you doing? What are you doing?

Nick Friend: Do you know what I'd tell you? You know what I'll tell you is this, after so many years, I know you are gonna agree with this, so many years of being an entrepreneur and being in business and then doing the consulting, the art business consulting that we've done for like 4,000 members, any time and I hope you guys will listen to this, anytime somebody comes to me or comes to us and starts rattling credentials, I'm immediately like, we got problems here, immediately, immediately. As soon as you feel the need to tell me your credentials, I'm a mid-career artist, I've been doing this for 15 years, I've been doing this offline, in galleries and da-da-da-da, I've won awards, I've been juried, like at a juried show, all this different stuff, you know what immediately pops into my head? You are likely going to be the least successful, instantly, that is my first thought, instantly.

Why? Why would I say that? But why would I say that? Instantly I know, it's gonna be harder for you, than every single other person I know. I know that there's gonna be new people, newbies, who just started their business, their art business, six months ago, who are gonna do better than you. I know that.

Why? Why do I know that? Here's why, because as soon as you, you're telling me, you are exposing what is in your mindset, what's in your psychology when you start talking that way. And it tells me that you believe it's gonna be easier for you or it should be or you're better than other people or you know more, you're experienced, you've been a marketer before, you this or that and the other.

And what I will tell you is I've got the data on it, I mean, we have the data on it at Art Storefronts, I can look at all the people who told us that

and I can tell you, they're in the bottom five percentile of sales. And every time you talk to 'em, first thing out of their mouth, I've been marketing for years, I worked at a marketing company, I was a marketer or I've been selling for 15 years.

I don't need to listen to this or do that, okay, says the people who sell the least. And you look them up, you look them up and what they're doing and they're selling the least, they are legitimately selling the least, because it becomes another clog in their drain, it becomes another clog in their drain.

And it's oftentimes this is where it falls into those people where you're like, I don't know if I could ever fix this. I don't know. Because all I can do is try to pop that bubble and get them to realize that they're completely wrong in the way that they're thinking and correct their mindset and be more humble and have a beginner's mindset and take it that way otherwise, they're in deep trouble.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, you either go through your life and you learn this the hard way or someone really teaches you and you get it. But like going back to the analogy, I'd say certain drains just won't cooperate. Stated another way, your cup is already full, stated yet another way, you're not willing to listen to differing opinions, you are a know-it-all, stated yet another way, you have a hardened concrete in your drain.

And variations of this abound. There's the, I know what I'm talking about I've been at this a long time, I'm not willing to listen to anyone else. And then the other version of it. And by the way, I've been both of these in my own life, multiple times, so, I'm not calling the kettle black here, I'm the blackest kettle around.

There's number one, I know it all I'm not willing to change and then number two there's, yeah, I know, it's like, yes I know that this alcohol is destroying my family life and yes I know this while I'm having 12 liters a day, like you know but you're just not willing to fix it. And I think, this keeps happening again and again and again.

It happened yesterday with a person who'll remain nameless and I'm dispensing with the advice and I'm just getting this insane resistance, I'm getting this insane resistance because this person knew, this person knew dead the rights. And it's like, I'm not some Oracle or Swami that knows every damn thing.

I've been doing business for a long time but I knew in this case enough to be able to pin this person down and it's like, here's the deal, ask yourself over the last couple of years, has your business, your art or photography business, gone to the level that you dreamed of, that you hoped of, that you desired? If the answer to that question is no, maybe you don't know every damn thing.

Maybe it might be time to try something new, to try and get out of your comfort zone and actually take the thing to market. Like, you know the good news here is what we're talking about, letting the market decide and we'll have to get into succinct examples 'cause I wanna give it some teeth but it is once you realize, it is the most freeing, it's liberating, it completely takes the emotion out of things.

Like Nick tells me he's been an artist for a long time, how much has he sold? He's sold a lot because he's just getting started. But he's been an artist for a long time and he knows and do you know what he knows? If he can't get the color of the prints that he's putting out absolutely perfect, if it's not perfect exactly metallic the way that he wants with permanence, his stuff will never sell and it's not gonna work.

He's got now and he knows. I tell him he's out to launch. He doesn't know what he's talking about. You don't know what you're talking about, Nick, you gotta figure it out but you know what? It's not about me. It's not about you. There's only one person that can tell us, it's not a person, it's an entity, it's the market.

Instead of arguing about it, instead of spending hours and weeks and months trying to get the print color all correct and the correct medium, we go down and get a booth at the farmer's market, we hit the thing on the Facebook live, we turn it on, we try to sell this work and it either sells or doesn't.

If it does sell and no one mentions anything about the print, permanence or the color, well, guess what I won and Nick's wrong. But guess what? I might lose too. You don't know. You don't know until you know. Like no one might buy anything and then I might say, you know what Nick, you were right. But at least now we know, okay.

And we're not working on nonsense and not going to market and the days are not, or the hours are not becoming days, are not becoming months are not becoming years and there's no forward progress. You have to take your work down to the market and attempt to validate whether or not it's gonna sell.

And by the way, by the way, it's got nothing to do whether it's your first time or if it's your brand new idea for your brand new style, we still have to validate, we still have to take it to the market.

Nick Friend: Yeah, exactly. And this applies to many, many different facets. It applies not just whether it's prints.

It's like whether my work will sell on metal or not. Like, well I don't think it looks good on metal. How many times have we heard that? I don't like the way it works. And then we convince these people to offer metal, like just toggle on that media type and see what happens. And then what happens, like three out of their next three sales are metal, at twice the average order value and they're like, I guess I really didn't understand the market.

Patrick Shanahan: It's like, exactly, you don't understand that. They don't understand it. Exactly, you literally are clueless about it and you're refusing advice from people who have the information who might be able to help you. But it goes across the whole thing. So, it could be a new niche, like you just mentioned, you got a new image.

Hey and try to ask someone like, hey well do you think they will sell? Just go to market. Or like, there's so many aspects to it. You just gotta go to the market, that's all you gotta do. You got to get to market, stop procrastinating, stop bsing and let the market tell you. Otherwise all you're doing is clogging your own drain.

And like one of the things that's really interesting about the drain clogging and the procrastinating and the bsing, Pat, like that's in the way, the most interesting part about it is this, the problem that you think you have, is actually not the problem that you have and you just don't realize it.

Patrick Shanahan: That's exactly what we realized.

Nick Friend: No one can tell you that either.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. And the problem, like the real problem that all of you have, that everybody has, individually, everybody's problems are different but I will tell you this, your number one problem right now has nothing to do with a marketing tactic, nothing, zero, it has nothing to do with whether you executed your last email the right way or your last sale or your last this or whether your website is set up perfectly or not, that's not your problem.

Your problem is above that, it's higher level. It has to do with psychology, it always does. It's a way that you're viewing, the way that you run your business or solve your problem or what you believe your next steps are and why you think that. And if you can get to that, that's the baseline reality of you and your future.

And we're trying to access baseline reality, it's very hard. But you know what I mean? When we come to the workshops, when we're working with even our own customers, in our private member workshops, I hear a question but I'm trying to get to baseline reality. Like for example, when I hear a question like, I don't wanna discount, what do I do? It's like this isn't about like giving a solution for the non-discount, it's about peeling the layer back and understanding why this person believes

that they shouldn't be offering a strategic incentive. Whether it's an actual discount or an extra little throw in. Like there's bigger problems there because it's like, do you realize that literally a hundred percent of the people that I know, that sell 50,000 or a hundred thousand a plus, every single one of them, offers strategic incentives and discounts? Like did you know that? I just wanna, like let's just set the foundation first.

Nick Friend: You name for me another company, aside -

Patrick Shanahan: You're another artist.

Nick Friend: from the one Louis Vuitton, from one LV, from one Louis Vuitton, that doesn't discount?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, exactly, no, you can't, you can't, you can't. And so it's always, it's like the problem you think you have is never your real problem it's something else.

Nick Friend: And if you can tap into that you guys, you're gonna be in a way, way better spot 'cause that's essentially what we're talking about here. Your problem is not the thing that's in your drain, it's actually your mindset that is causing you to procrastinate and bs yourself and all of this different stuff.

Like for example, if you think that, you're wondering like, the reason you're not starting is because you got three different niches and you're not sure what to do with it or you don't know, you're not positive how to price your artwork, your problem is that you think you need to solve that problem perfectly and find the person who's going to tell you before you go to market.

Patrick Shanahan: And that's the problem, that is your problem. You need to reverse that

completely and understand that you need to get to market and try things. Try different pricing, test it, take the best advice that you can and launch.

It's that simple, it's that simple.

Nick Friend: That simple. It is so utterly, totally and completely free.

Patrick Shanahan: If I would've had more time I could have given probably like 25 more examples and maybe I'll continue to hop on it in the future. But it's one of the primary things that people never realize the success that they have ambition towards. And a perfect example, another sort of abstraction of this just keeps coming up and coming up and coming up.

Question for you Nick, if your job, if I said, I need you to start selling knives, door to door for me and we need to make a bunch of money on these knives, what would you take with you at each house?

Nick Friend: Every single knife.

Patrick Shanahan: Every single sort of knife. Now do it for me this way. Show me photographers that have their work printed on every different media type or show me artists that are selling something other than originals, that have their work printed on every single solitary different media type, I'll wait, just show me some.

Nick Friend: Exactly, none.

Patrick Shanahan: None of them, none of them.

Nick Friend: Except the very few that we've advised.

Patrick Shanahan: Even then you are selling like so, -

Nick Friend: You're selling a product and you don't even show your product you don't even know what your product is. You're not showing your customers what your product is.

Patrick Shanahan: I'm not buying an image, buying an image and it was going to live on my computer, is a screensaver, then could show me a digital image, otherwise, if it's gonna hang on my wall, you better show what the final product is, what the finished product. You're not serious, you're not taking your work seriously.

Nick Friend: Exactly and the same thing goes for originals, the same thing goes for originals. I have four originals literally one, two, three, four, right in front of me right now, waiting to get hung up, four. And I will tell you that when you actually see these things and you see the paper these are all watercolors when you see the paper that they're printed on, I'm sorry that they were painted on and the deckled edges on it

and the signature is in a gold pen, I have never seen this particular artist actually merchandise that. I was blown away when I actually got these in person. Most people don't even do it, they don't even properly show and merchandise their originals on their own website, what do they do Pat? They throw one image out, here's my original, which is the flat image not showing that's not the product.

The final product is the whole thing. Like including the experience. I always say like your product is the finished good plus the experience but the finished good, you have to at least show your customer the finished good. You know what I mean? And explain it in every way, front, back, sides, close-ups, thickness of the paint, anything that makes that thing, you need to show it as if they were in person.

And how many people are doing that? It's like you've got a false feed. Like literally we're like, it's common sense stuff, show your products. You wanna sell a product? Show your products. No, no, no, I'm gonna hide it from you. Pat I've got these amazing coffee mugs, you're not even going to believe it but I got to take a sip from it real quick, it's gonna have to be off-camera, that's it, that's the product.

I'm sorry, do you wanna buy it? Like just think about it. You're never gonna sell the products. It's like you gotta show it, you gotta show the close-up, the sides, the back, the bottom, how it works, it's amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: This is a perfect example of the, what do they say about assumptions? That they make something out of you and me.

Like it goes two ways. We can't assume that most photographers and artists know this. They keep coming on the calls and they keep saying, how can I get started? I'm just getting started or I'm finally ready to take this next step. I can't assume they realize you need to have the final product that you're ready to sell and you need to take it to market and go try and sell it.

That a huge, huge learning. If you do that, if you do that and hold on let me finish my rant.

Nick Friend: I'm jumping out my shoes, no just go ahead.

Patrick Shanahan: Another perfect example is and this comes up so much, I'm not picking on anyone again, I've done this with my own life. I've worked years on a product, before I knew whether or not anyone wanted it and I launched with it and it was crickets, crickets.

You know how much time and energy and effort I wasted doing this? Building the website, signing up the email domains, getting all the social sites started, putting it in an autoresponder, working on the design, the branding, registering everything, never tried to sell it, launched crickets, nothing. You know how much time I wasted? A girl gets on the other day and she's asking me about masks.

And she said, do you guys integrate with anyone that sells masks? I said no, no we don't, no we don't, maybe we will in the future but no, we don't. I said, well let me ask you something.

Nick Friend: What a distraction.

Patrick Shanahan: How many masks have you sold? She goes, well none. And I go, what do you mean well none? She goes, well I've got to find the suppliers and I was like, okay well, how many hours have you spent attempting to find the suppliers? She was like, probably 20, a bunch of phone calls.

All of that time and she has no idea she'll ever even sell a mask.

Nick Friend: Oh dear. All you need to do, my son says that all the time, oh dear, all you need to do is put the mask on your website and get an order and then call that person up and say, there's a slight delay in the mask manufacturing, if you're upset about it, I'll refund your money, otherwise, hang on the phone, then you go and you find the supplier.

Patrick Shanahan: Like you don't learn that lesson, until you've been through the whole thing. Stated another way and then this will tee you up, it allows you to flip the script on everything that you're doing in your career, as an artist or photographer trying to get better and make more sales, will whatever you're working on, help you get to market and find the validation that you need? If you can't answer that yes, you are working on the wrong thing.

You are working on something that is going to again, take the minutes into hours and into days and into months and into years you look back, no forward progress. You're over there working on starting the bank account and learning the tax laws for your state and figuring out what the legal documents are when you haven't sold a single solitary thing, will this, that I'm working on get me to market immediately? If you can't answer yes, you're working on the wrong thing.

Hard thing, hard thing, hard thing to do, not easy for most people.

Nick Friend: It's not because you like, look, I mean, we both had to be burned by that, ourselves to be able to speak about this topic with authority to help everyone, like exactly. We've all done that. I have wasted unbelievable amounts of time, in various different ways, not just launching products that weren't validated, think like also like what about like website redesigns that you were just so sure the website was so much better.

I mean I think you were involved in one of these, I think you were involved in one of these, like probably 12 or 15 years ago. We did like a backup breathing color, did like a website redesign, it was way more beautiful and all that stuff. and we launched it and the conversion rates dropped by 50%, the sales went down by 50% within minutes.

And we were just like, no way, there's no way. You get sold emotionally on this beautiful website. Oh my gosh it's so beautiful, it's so beautiful. Like we went through the design phase, we approved, we moved things around, you know what I mean? Oh it's so aesthetically great. And then from a usability standpoint or whatever, it just didn't work and what did we do? Literally like seven days later, we finally, finally had to like pull our skin off, it hurts so bad and just say, should we go back?

Should we just literally revert back to the other site? And we did and we did. And guess what happened? The sales went right back up, within like minutes, within minutes and we were just like, oh my goodness. And I sat there and I went, did I just spend like 50,000 dollars on this redesign, that we're just gonna throw away.

And right there that day I said, yes I am, yes I did and yes I am, goodbye. And my team was asking me, oh hey wait maybe we should iterate on that design, like it's probably this or that or whatever, I said, nope it's done, throw it away. Nobody here knows what they're doing, nobody here knows what they're doing and we're not going to iterate our way because we're emotionally attached to this new design, like we already have a design that works.

Nobody's complaining about it except all of us internally, right? Nobody. And it's getting great results and we're taking it, we're putting it back to market and we're gonna go focus on a bigger problem, on a real problem. And here's the other thing, going back to like the merchandising thing, could you imagine walking into a retail store, could you imagine and

then you walk in and you're like, they've got like a list of products there and you're like, oh hey, can I see this?

They're like, oh no I don't have it here. And you're like, wait, what? You don't have there, you don't even have the product. It's like, that's what you guys are doing when you don't have these products. And then the bigger takeaway from this, is where I say the problem behind the problem, is that somebody comes to us in our workshops or maybe it's a customer or whatever and they say, I can't figure out why people aren't opening my emails, my email open rates on my last email dropped.

And you sit there and you go, it's like you think that's your problem, you think that's your problem, you're not even showing your product to people, to human beings. You're literally operating an empty retail store. Imagine, think about this you guys, imagine walking into that retail store that I just described, that has none of the products there and you walk in and they're like, you're a consultant, a business consultant and they're like, I can't figure out why enough people

aren't opening my emails and it's like, well show me some of your products, they're like, oh, we don't have a mirror, we can't even show 'em to you. But why aren't people opening my emails? The problem is never what you think it is. There's always a problem behind the problem.

Patrick Shanahan: And it always comes down to your psychology, your mindset and how you were thinking about your decision making, how you're thinking about your business, where you're getting your information from, to make these decisions. Audit that first, audit that first.

Nick Friend: There's so many layers to it. It's crazy.

Patrick Shanahan: We'll never stop talking about it. And guess what? Like it applies to us. You always are trying to look for in your business, one of these questions that can instantaneously tell you whether or not you're working on the right thing, whether or not you're working on the right thing. We are having these discussions ourselves weekly.

Nick Friend: We all do it every day, every day. You and I every day, I'm going to say I think you and I, 'cause we talk every day, one-on-one, I think every day we are constantly challenging each other on what is the number one thing to prioritize, that's actually worth working on. And like you'll challenge me or I'll challenge you on it and it really helps. It's extremely productive.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah. So if you're out there and you're like, what can I do? What are the next steps? I wanna get my business off the ground. I wanna get going, almost to a person it is fundamentally, are you taking that product to market? Do you have the ability to actually show what that product looks like? Are you getting the feedback that's necessary that you need to validate whether or not you're on the right track? Whether it's, you've never sold anything before,

whether you're on a new direction, a new marketing technique, a new tactic, whatever you're doing, like we constantly need the feedback that only the market can give us. We wanna put you on the path. This is the path, it's the path for every business out there like you need to constantly be going to the market and figuring it out.

He or she who's closest to their potential customer wins. There's no closer way to get and the biblical way of the transaction, like finding out that they bought this and that this is something that you want.

Nick Friend: The answers are, you want the answers, your customers have the answers, the market has the answers.

Patrick Shanahan: Just go and just get your stuff to market. Stop procrastinating, stop procrastinating. If you're looking to get your business off the ground or you haven't sold online before, you just gotta go, you just gotta go. If you know you're gonna do it, if you know you're going to do it, if you have that bug and you know you're gonna do it, you just have to do it.

Nick Friend: We'll talk about starting in our career, in a photography career and the talks go on for years, Nick on launching mine right now. I want to pause you a ton of last summer. I thought I got a really good photo turns out everyone in the entire world has taken this damn photo but I've got this amazing photo.

It's on metal, which I think is one of the most incredible mediums ever, it's ready to hang. I made 20 of these as an initial run. If you're interested, the colors are amazing. You can see the church there, it's beautiful, the hillside. By the way fun fact Nick, do you know that the individual town council here in Positano controls what every single saltier and house's color looks like.

There are no way ever gonna allow the charming nature of this hillside in Italy, with the incredible even cello to ever go away. So I've got 20 of these you guys and they would normally sell it in store for a thousand dollars a piece, what I'm gonna do is go ahead and let them go right now for 250 dollars each.

There's a kicker though, the deal's only good until this live broadcast ends.

Nick Friend: Uuh.

Patrick Shanahan: I just launched my art career Nick.

Nick Friend: And you know what?

Patrick Shanahan: There we go

Nick Friend: I'm hopefully gonna get some validation.

Patrick Shanahan: Yep and you got product in hands.

Nick Friend: In this utter, total and complete pedestrian tourist take an image of Pose you don't know come see me.

Patrick Shanahan: It's actually right above a really nice hotel called Listserv News, 'cause I've been there and I could see it pretty close to it. It's that simple. I took it to market. I potentially gotten it in place where I can get some feedback. I'm not talking about it, it's not academic, I'm not scratching my head trying to figure out whether or not I can make it, I'm giving it a shot so give it a shot.

Nick Friend: What you just did is what millions of people have not done.

Patrick Shanahan: Have not done.

Nick Friend: Yeah, have not done. They're there talking about it. they're asking questions and all sorts of stuff but they just haven't done that. Here's my product, here's what it's about, here's what it looks like, man that looks amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: I just got to tell you, it's like you pull that metal print up and like you show it and you showcase it close up and you move it around, you show the back, I mean, it's amazing. You could see why somebody would wanna buy one on the spot. That's it.

Nick Friend: I got 15 different niches, Oh, do you? Do you? Well I wonder which one will sell.

Patrick Shanahan: Turns out I can't tell you, Nick can't tell you, only the market can. So do what I just did, 15 days in a row and see which one gets the most action.

Nick Friend: Exactly. There you go. Done, problem solved.

Patrick Shanahan: And don't get wrapped up in the technology piece of it. Yeah okay we're doing it live on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and everything else 'cause it's what we're doing.

All you need is the piece and another human being you could show it off to. I don't care how you do it. Like I keep driving down to my local coffee shop and this artist just has this garage open every day and his talent has benefited that he's got a house on a major thoroughfare in my town and I love that word, thoroughfare by the way, I stole it.

You know where they say it all the time, isn't that Deadwood, I love that Deadwood, anyway Nick he just takes his easels out under the driveway, he's got a flight driveway and it looks like his garage just belched art everywhere. It's like easel, easel, easel inside the back like that and he's just opening the door every day.

Nick Friend: You know what he's got figured out? That to get that to market baby, better get to market and find out, he's finding out every day. So the technology is irrelevant. You have to sell it, the attempting to sell it is the thing. And I wanna solve this so bad for everybody. Years of people's lives,

Patrick Shanahan: I know.

Nick Friend: Going by without doing what I just did right there, years. You don't need to wait, you don't even need to wait a day. You could get these things made. What is our print website? Because people have an ordering on it and actually telling us, you can go today.

Patrick Shanahan: asfprints.com, asf, art storefronts prints dot com.

Nick Friend: So letter a letter s letter f prints.com. You can go there right now, upload whatever your art is, get some small metal pieces, acrylic, canvas, whatever it is, I don't even care if you just order two of them, try to sell them. That's it, right? That's it, it's that simple. Like you don't know, give it a shot.

Patrick Shanahan: Stop talking about it, stop talking about it. Stop filling your hard drive with a thousand more photos, go sell some, unless you're working, (inaudible) in which case I get that.

Nick Friend: You have announcements?

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, well I was gonna say too, if you think you've got, first of all, this should have helped most of you to stop procrastinating just get going, get some market. If your drain is still clogged and you take some time to think about it but if it's still clogged you can come tomorrow, we will have a non-customer workshop for free to get free art business consulting. It's called the Art Business Workshops, that's what we're doing. Art Business Mornings, you come to the Art Business Workshop and it'll be tomorrow Wednesday at, what is the time again? It's 11:00 am Pacific, 1:00 pm Central, 2 Eastern, right?

Nick Friend: Correct.

Patrick Shanahan: That's the time, yeah. So copy that.

Nick Friend: Thrice weekly.

Patrick Shanahan: Yup, don't wait any longer. Get your problem solved, that's what those are for, art business workshops. So tell a friend, come to that thing, we will help you get your drain unclogged, all right? Secondly, we have a Q4, the fourth quarter early bird sale, that's actually ending at the end of August, which is only what? Five, six days away.

We've got limited spots left. You can join Art Storefronts and get a big discount to do that before the Q4 happens, the Q4 rush. What is the Q4 rush? Q4 is the fourth quarter of the year, October, November and December. It is the biggest art selling time of the year, biggest by far. So it so happens to be the biggest time that artists and photographers are rushing to get their websites live and get started and get their marketing going at Art Storefronts.

It's like literally like two times the number of people are trying to do that in October and November, so we're trying to incentivize people to do it now and get in earlier. And we're also trying to tell everybody, you're way better off, like literally you're like 20 times better off the sooner you get started.

Because the marketing begins it for the fourth quarter in 35 days at the beginning of October, yeah beginning of October. And so if you wanna have a good Q4, at the biggest art selling time of the year, you gotta get your website live and you gotta start on your marketing right away. It's not something, it's not a light switch that you just flick on.

So there's never been a better time, the time and the clock's running on this sale. So, get your demo requests and if you're interested in joining Art Storefronts or if you're just at the point where you wanna learn more, get more details about what we do, see a demo of our product, the consulting, how we're gonna get you more traffic, more eyeballs on your art, all those types of things, see all the features on the website, to help you sell more art, you'll wanna request a demo, that's your next step, to request a demo.

There's a link in the post. Link in our bio on Instagram, if you're on Instagram right now, it's everywhere, yeah it's everywhere. You can always go to the website. You'll always see a big button in the upper right-hand corner that says, request a demo. Do that and one of our team members will reach out to you, take a look at your art, talk to you about your goals, see if you're a good fit and then they'll run through everything, show you all the pricing, the details so that you can figure out if it's a good fit for you

to take your business to the next level.

Patrick Shanahan: So on that note, I can't tell you, they can't tell you, your friends can't tell you, the likes can't tell you, only the market can tell you. Figure it out, what it is you want to sell, get that thing to market, that's it.

Nick Friend: And quite frankly, I've got a few things that need to get some market today and I know that you do too.

Patrick Shanahan: So, we gotta go. Let's get those things to the market, let's get them in the water as we say, get it in the water.

Nick Friend: Yeah. You guys thanks for listening to another edition of Art Business Mornings, the show that puts you on the path to a hundred K a year, plus art business. Yes the goal is aspirational but what are we aiming for Nick?

Patrick Shanahan: We aim for the stars.

Nick Friend: And where do we land?

Patrick Shanahan: In the clouds.

Nick Friend: In the clouds. Gotta ask for 10x to get the 1x, right?

Patrick Shanahan: That's right, exactly. All right guys, thanks.

Nick Friend: Bye. Oh yeah, I've got to turn off this one.