The Art Selling Pyramid
In this episode of the Art Business Morning Show, Patrick and Nick discuss the importance of focusing on not getting things wrong to succeed in the art business. They highlight the critical role of maintaining a collector list, the benefits of marketing directly to collectors, and practical strategies on how to cultivate and utilize this list. The discussion includes analogies to financial investing and real-world case studies demonstrating the success of pre-show sales to collectors. Additionally, they emphasize the need for consistent marketing and treating collectors as VIPs for long-term business success.
Podcast Transcribe
Patrick Shanahan: All right, coming up on today's edition of the Art Business Morning Show, the title is going to be "You don't have to get a whole lot right in life, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong." Specifically, we're going to be talking about the financial maxim that applies to the art business, your collector list, and why it is a fundamental pillar if you want to be successful.
*(bubbling sound)*
Patrick Shanahan: Hearing something weird. Oh, there we go. Back in action. There we go, all right. Welcome to another edition of the Art Business Mornings, the show that will put you back on the path to a six-figure a year art business. Also very pleased to actually be back on Instagram.
We had our Instagram account that got banned for reasons that we have no idea. And then in two twists of awesome, it magically was returned to us. And so this is the first time I've been back on live on Instagram in, I don't even know, six months or so that the account has been down. So happy to have it back.
Nick Friend: Welcome back, buddy. So I'm going to go ahead and put a background actually on this 'cause I haven't done that in a while, good. So you want to be on the path to a six-figure a year art business. Okay, well guess what? You don't have to get a whole lot right in your art business, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong.
Patrick Shanahan: And I love this maxim. It's a financial maxim of sorts. The first time I heard it, I'm pretty sure it was in the financial context as well. My simple definition of this statement, "You don't have to get a whole lot right, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong," is to be a successful person. In terms of investing, you don't have to be a genius or a wizard of smart or lucky or have insider information or right place, right time, or be some kind of day trader.
No, you don't need to do any of that. You invest conservatively, you need to be patient, and you avoid the stupid mistakes that arise out of cupidity, greed, avarice. And stated succinctly, if you look at historical data and you just invested in the S&P 500, and you have the proper perspective, the proper timeframe of how long that's going to take, you'll be successful.
You'll grow wealthy. You invest more and more and more year over year over year. You leave it in the S&P 500. You don't day trade, you don't do stupid things. You don't get a whole lot right or a whole lot wrong, and it all just works out perfectly. You do that, and you're going to retire to live a life of comfort, which is what everyone's after, right? You don't have to get a whole lot right, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong.
Let's apply it to the art and photography business. Devote a large portion of your selling activities to a direct business model, what we talk about all the time, meaning you retain data on your customers that have purchased your art or photography, market consistently all year long to these folks. A year in, year out, constantly be growing that customer list.
When you do that, you find out that that customer list of yours, there's a group that emerges out of them that end up becoming your collector list. Folks that come back again and again and again, and buy more pieces to see yours go on and on and on as they become more successful. And you grow as an artist and you raise your prices as a photographer.
So out of your customer list will emerge a collector list. Now, when you do find that that situation happens, it is Shangri-La. As your business starts to grow and mature, you find you're constantly growing the percentage of your total sales that automatically go to your collector list. So let's just say for the sake of argument to keep the maths really simple, let's say you just released a new series.
It can be a photographer artist, doesn't matter what it is, you've just released a new series. And at first, because you're just getting started, you don't have the big, impressive collector list, so let's just say your series has 10 pieces. And you let your collector list know you have a small collector list, to collectivize one, one out of 10, 10% of this series of art you just released was bought by your collectors.
Okay, let's wait another year. You're going to do another one, another new series, but you've been marketing all year long. And so you've grown your collector list. Again, before the series hits the public, before you show everyone else, they get to see it. And you sold two out of the 10. So now you've gone from 10% to 20%.
So you've sold two, you have to go out and market like the other eight, and sell the other eight, like anyone else. But your collector list is growing. In a perfect world, we always want to be striving to get 100% of our sales to the collectors. And you don't have to do anything but create and let those folks know that you've released a new work.
And this concept of the collector list, it really crystallized in my mind that I've been showing this book a bunch on my art business mornings, but there I'll show it to you on Instagram. It's, "Don't Be A Starving Artist" by Wyland. There it is, Facebook, "Don't Be A Starving Artist" by Wyland.
Great book, super thin. Mega easy read. Every single solitary artist and photographer should buy this damn book. I mean, I'm just telling you that straight up. I know he gives away the proceeds to charity, I believe. And so the annoying part about it is that you can't get it on Amazon or something, you have to buy it directly from his website, but it's a great book.
And he talks about the collectors in there and it like really sort of crystallized in my head after I read him and talked about it. And he talks about the importance of a collector list. He talks about, I don't want to spoil his thoughts on the matter, but how important a collector list is, how important it is to treat these folks like VIPs, go above and beyond for them, cultivate them, get to know them, comment on their social media posts and such.
But that's what your collectors are, they're your VIPs. And you have to treat them like they're VIPs. And early on I learned this lesson, and it's, again people were asking me the title of the book, it's "Don't Be A Starving Artist" by Wyland. The whale guy. And evidently by the way, he's the best-selling artist in the United States, which lends some credence, whether that's true or not, I don't even know how someone would track that, but it lends some credence to how big of a deal he is.
A phenomenal book. But anyway, so the VIP thing, like I learned very, very early in my career, how to take care of VIPs. One of my first jobs when I was in high school was valet parking, awesome job. Why you would give that job to a 16-year-old? I have no idea. But I ended up getting it, which was rad. And I worked at this restaurant, this seafood restaurant, it's called McCormick, actually, I don't think it's a business anymore, but it was awesome in its day.
And we would have regulars that would come to the restaurant on a regular basis, like three or four, sometimes some of them like 10 times a month. It had like a little microbrewery below it, which was kind of like not the norm for that time back then, wasn't in the craft beer days. Anyway, I learned very early to take care of my VIPs.
Like the car would pull up. "How you doing, Mr. Stevens?" I took the time to learn his name. "Hey Patrick, good to see you." "You're going to give me a ticket?" "No, not for you, Mr. Stevens. I'll take care of it. Don't need a ticket for you." Back his car into the number one spot. I learned to give a couple of bucks to the wait staff so they would let me know when my whales were coming out, my VIPs were coming out, so I would have the car running, ready to go.
Always get the car for the spouse of the day first, greet her. If they had jackets on that they didn't want to wear into the restaurant, I'd hang them in my little like valet stall or whatever. So I learned early on, you do that, and it turns out the tips get to be pretty significant. You get especially hooked up.
And it was just a great job for a 16-year-old. I remember I used to make like 150, 160, $170 a night. And this was 25 years ago. So phenomenal job. Sorry to the one guy with the Porsche 911 Turbo, that I took for a little bit of a joy ride in the parking garage, but that car was awesome. Great job though. Anyway, I would go out of my way with the VIPs.
And the tips were awesome. The same lesson applies to you guys with your collector list. And ever since I read the Wyland thing, and ever since I've been thinking about how important it is, I've started putting it into practice in the case studies that I do get to run with customers. And so, we have a situation where I ran it twice.
Once I ran it, this was before the pandemic, it was one of the great friends of the pod, Matthew Laca, I've done a bunch of stuff with this guy over the years, he's been a customer for a long time,
really good friend. He had the full dog and pony show. This was just like right before COVID. In a gallery, with a huge guest list, snazzy gallery in Toronto, open bar, he had performance art, he was gonna be there.
It was a huge deal, it was a huge deal. And the show is on Wednesday or whatever it was. And before that, guess what happened? And I can give away the tactical here because no one ever follows me in the tactical. I had them build a webpage that was hidden from the search engines. You couldn't find it unless you had the link.
That had all of the works from the show. No one had seen any of the works in the show. They were supposed to be unveiled the night of the gallery. And they were all up on a webpage, the titles, the prices. And then I had him make a whole bunch of other webpages that were absolutely specific to his collector list names.
And then I had him go and make a whole bunch of personalized videos. Every single solitary one was personalized to the collector. This is something you can steal and run with right now. By the way, it's genius. And you get an email from Matthew. "Hey so-and-so, I just want to let you know that my show is coming up, and I have something special for you.
It's a link to the webpage. On the webpage is 'Hi so-and-so,' and then the video." The video is Matthew talking specifically to the collector saying, "I just love you. Thank you so much for supporting me over the years. That trip you just took on Instagram looked unbelievable. You guys looked like you had so much fun, hoped everything is well.
Just wanted to let you know, I'm having this big show, as you probably heard, I've been promoting it like crazy. And because you're a collector, because I value how much you supported me in my career, I of course want to give you the opportunity to see the show before anyone else. And so I've included on this webpage all of the works that are in the show.
Yes, the prices are on there. Of course, if you want one, you can acquire one before anyone else, but don't feel pressured. I just wanted to show it to you, as this way of saying thanks for supporting me throughout all the years. And how incredible that's meant to me." Something along those lines. And what ended up happening in his instance, was I think 35, 36% of the show got bought right out of the gates.
They snapped it up. And this wasn't a cheap show, I mean, his pieces started at I wanna say like 3,500, and went up to like 25,000, 28,000, something like that. And his collectors instantaneously bought up that many pieces. One collector didn't like the show, but he's like, he felt moved or whatever by getting this video, and he commissioned him another work right there.
So it was tremendously successful for him. Showing that to his collectors right before he actually had the show. And then the actual show goes down, and the first people in the gates are like, "What the heck is going on here? Why are there these little dots next to all of these works that say sold? And I'm the first one in here."
Like, "Oh my gosh, this artist must be on the up and up. This must be a serious deal." It creates a little FOMO, a little fear of missing out there. So tremendous, tremendous. And I was like, "Man, I've gotta do that again. That was just a genius way of doing this. So let's do it again." So recently, another friend of the pod, Meg, she was moving out of one studio, into another studio.
We encouraged her to run the basement sale concept. If you have no idea what the basement sale concept is, just hit YouTube, go back a couple of episodes, or you can just Google, actually. If you Google Art Business Mornings, I've got a webpage that has all the episodes on there. You can just find them the quickest that way.
Or if you subscribe to the podcast, scroll down in the feed, listen to the basement sale episode. It's tremendous. The results that we're seeing with that thing is insane. So in Meg's case, same story, a little bit of a different show. 75 pieces in the basement sale. Show got announced on Monday.
Show is running on Wednesday. Late on Monday, collectors got the email. And in her case, I believe it was 35 out of the 75 pieces sold to collectors before the live art show ever ran. So her collectors in this particular instance, bought 46% of the work right out of the gates. And I think that number even went higher based on the ones that actually did catch the live art show.
So, I say all this to say, that your collector list is fundamentally one of the most important aspects of your business. It is beyond one of the most important aspects of your business, it is foundationally how you build a long-term business. It is no different than you don't have to get a whole lot right, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong.
If you get this right, and you just market, and continue putting out the incredible work that you're creating and get better at your craft, this score is going to take care of itself. The collectors are going to buy more and more and more and more. So you don't have to get a whole lot right, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong.
You're keeping a customer list. You keeping one of those lists? Are you constantly capturing email addresses, so you can potentially turn those emails into potential collectors? You doing that? Are you regularly romancing these collectors and treating them like VIPs? You're doing all that, right? Because if not, you're getting this one wrong.
You are getting this one wrong. And what do I do, week in, week out, talking to people on the art business workshops, they've got this one wrong and it's devastating, to be honest. It's I am genuinely conflicted when I hear these stories. And it's a couple of week. There they are across the little Zoom session from me, we both have our cameras on, I'm staring at an extremely accomplished artist or photographer.
They have been at their business for 20 plus years, but guess what? They sold the galleries or they did the show and fair circuit, and they weren't keeping that list, and they weren't marketing consistently. And guess what? They don't have a collector list. And guess what? They don't have the ability to market to these folks going forward.
And guess what? The pandemic hit and all of those sources of revenue that were tried and true throughout the years, just poof, went away. And it's terrifying, it's terrifying. I mean, what is the primary function of an art gallery in the first place? To bring collector's eyeballs and wallets into contact with your art.
You want to talk about who knows the value of keeping a collector list? The gallery, that's essentially the gallery's only asset. When you could say a gallery's asset is where they are in town, like if there's a ton of foot traffic or something along those lines. But they know fundamentally, the gallery, if that was a business to being sold, you're not buying the fancy statues or the walls or anything that's in it.
And maybe that's okay. But that's not the star of the show. The star of the show is the database of collectors that that gallery owns. That is just how big of a deal it is. Now, they know that they need to keep those collectors at all costs. So why do you think that they would tell every single solitary artist you can't sell direct on your website, are you crazy? You can't even, you shouldn't even have your art on a website period.
No, no, don't do any of that, we're gonna do that. Because they don't want to lose the collector. Because the minute that you get the collector, the collector buys the art directly from you, instead of the gallery. Back to my Zoom call anyway. I'm staring at these faces and they're looking for answers.
They were in a great place in the past. They had a business model that was working. They made art, and perhaps they sold it through galleries, or perhaps they did the show and festival circuit. In either case, they didn't do a good job looking for that customer list. And they're wondering like, "Patrick, what do I do now?" Like they're genuinely seeking advice.
And this is where it just busted me up. Have you heard of this meme on the internet? It's called the learn to code meme. Now this is a disclaimer. This is totally a politically charged deal, but it's politically charged on both sides. So I feel like I can still remain Swiss neutral by talking about it, because this is what I feel like.
But anyway, back when Obama was president, he like and you could say like, I guess the environmentalist movement, for lack of a better term, really wanted to shut down all the coal mines. I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just telling the story. So he wanted to shut down all the coal mines. And the pushback was like, well what are all these lifetime coal workers gonna do? And somebody came up with this line.
Well, they should learn to code. Meaning that job you had is a thing of the past now, it's time to get ready for the jobs that are coming down the pike. A great one is to learn to code. And this sorta got picked up by the journalist, and the journalist started saying it a bunch of times, like learn to code, learn to code, learn to code.
So it sort of morphed into a thing. Then a bit later down the line, I remember, because I'm a huge tech nerd, I sort of follow
these things, that Buzzfeed and Huffington Post had like a big round of layoffs. Like meeting 10:00 AM. And they call you all into a conference room. Meanwhile, security guards come into the entire office floor, and they're sitting at your desk waiting for you to come back because you just got fired.
They watch you clean it out, you're escorted out the building. So a bunch of these journalists are like on Twitter after the fact. And like they're busted up, they lost their job, they're super bummed. And they're like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do now? What am I going to do with my life? And where did the retort come in? Learn to code.
Oh, sorry buddy, learn to code. So it became a big thing. Now, anytime that anybody gets sacked for anything, if they're complaining about it on the socials, this meme comes up, learn to code. Well, back to the artists and photographers on my Zoom. They're coming for answers on what to do. What to do is we're either in full pandemic mode, if it was in the months previous, or slowly getting our way out of it.
And it's a time when the world has just changed. The world has changed in a great many in this industry, it's changed significantly. The revenue sources that they counted on, potentially that you guys counted on, are just gone. They are just gone. And it does not look like a whole lot of them are coming back.
And if they are, it's going to be awhile, it might be years until they come back. And they're asking for me, advice in this situation. And I really do feel like the answer I'm giving them is learn to code. I mean, that's what I feel like I'm saying. And mind you, I'm not taking a jab at them, like I'm devastated about this situation that they're in.
The furthest thing from it. But I'm sitting here and I realize that the world has changed. And I realize that these people that are at the top of their game, like they're at the top of their craft, 20 plus years in the business. And I mean, that's not when you'd need to learn something new, and go get down into the trenches, and learn digital marketing.
And if you've never done this before, learn social posting and how to send emails, and how to run a sale, and all the rest of this. It's like, it sounds like I'm telling them to code. It really does. But I guess what? I don't know what the doggone alternative is. What's the alternative? You're just gonna sit on the sidelines and wait this out without any revenue coming into your business? You're gonna go get some sort of a side job, in the hopes that these revenue models come back?
So how else are you going to sell your creations? Honestly, you have to market. You have to market in today's world, that's digital marketing and all that entails. It's that or just wait. Or just wait without any revenue coming in, in the hopes that things are going to improve, and get back to where you were before.
I mean, it's crazy to me. And it's heartbreaking. And I don't want anyone that's listening to this to ever go back to that situation again. Don't ever, ever, ever be in a situation in which you do not retain your customer information. Because if you are, you are not building a collector list, without a collector list, your business doesn't have a pension.
It's like a pension, it really is. It's like a 401k that's just going to pay you year in, year out, for the rest of your life that you are creating this art. If you cultivate it and if you cultivate it now, and it's built the same as every other list, it's built the same as our Instagram followers, and our Facebook followers, and our email list.
How is that? Built one follower at a time, one friend at a time, one email address at a time. Putting in the work day in, day out. So step one is just making yourself aware of it. But step two, it's not like, oh yeah, you've gotta be marketing regularly. Oh yeah, you need to be present on the socials 'cause that's where all the attention is.
Oh yeah, you gotta contemplate Facebook and Instagram ads or running the fishbowl. Like all of that is important. All of that is insanely important. But the biggest takeaway in all of it, is the collector list, is the doggone retirement fund of your art photography business. If you are not building it, if you're sitting there in a position saying I am not building this list, I'm not cultivating this list, I am not taking care of this list.
I don't know how your business is going to be successful in the long term. I really don't. It is going to be significantly harder. Unless some magical site pops up that sells all your art for you, where you don't have to do any marketing, and makes everybody famous. There is actually that website right now, it's called a lotto ticket at 7/11, you should go down and get one if that's where you're at.
No, you have to be building this list. So you don't have to get a whole lot right, as long as you don't get a whole lot wrong. If you're not building a list of your customers, determining the collectors that are in that list and treating them like VIPs, you're getting something wrong. You need to fix that.
I don't play my intro music. So on that note, thanks for listening. And as always, have a great day. And there's the book one more time by the way. Great book, fantastic book. All right, thanks guys.
*(mid-tempo music)*