The Basement Sale
In this episode of the Art Business Morning Show, Patrick delves into the essential reasons why many art businesses are set up for failure. He highlights the importance of mastering the basics, such as in-person sales, maintaining a functional website, and conducting live art shows. Patrick stresses the futility of relying solely on Facebook and Instagram ads, sharing his experiences and data to debunk the myth of quick success through paid traffic. He emphasizes consistent marketing and patience, illustrating that true success comes from long-term dedication and not shortcut solutions.
Podcast Transcribe
Patrick Shanahan: Coming up on today's edition of the Art Business Morning Show. We're talking about the basement sale and specifically attention, the basement sale concept, its stumbling blocks, and how to get started. All right, welcome to another edition of our business mornings. Now show that will put you on a path to a six-figure-a-year art business.
And I love the tagline. I really do love the tagline and yes, it has a lofty goal but it also defines where our focus should be. And as I continue to read that line, it has a forcing function for me. It's like is whatever I'm about to teach or rant on or podcast on or make a YouTube video is whatever I'm going to do in that capacity. Help you guys, my loyal listeners, on the path to a six-figure-a-year business. Yes or no, if no, or are you gonna wishing washing know then why are you doing it right? Why do I even put it out? Don't record it. So what is the biggest problem then that is preventing artists and photographers from getting on the path to a six-figure-a-year art business? What is it? Detention, detention there was like an economist slash scientist guy from the seventies.
His name was Herbert Simon. And he pointed out that when information becomes abundant, attention becomes the scarce resource, okay? Attention becomes a scarce resource and Oh boy was Mr. Simon way ahead of his time to come up with that in the seventies. And I think the easiest way to think about attention is to take it out of our world for a second.
And like, let's go back to the 1970s. There were three big networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. That was it. You went there to get your news. You went there to get your sports. You went there to get your television programs. Okay. Contemplate what that landscape looks like today. Not only do you have 10 times as many cable channels and TV channels free and paid and premium but then you've got a smart TV and how many apps on the smart TV and how many different venues can you look? How many different things are there going on
on YouTube, right? On TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, on the socials. I mean, it's like that statement is just so profound. When information becomes abundant, attention becomes the scarce resource. And it's so true. I mean, my goodness, like the sheer amount of options that we have, right? It's just, it's everywhere.
So information is abundant in our day and age. So it's truly the scarce resource, it's attention. And that's like a really important thing to continue to remind us. Like, it's not just a problem for you. Our districts are talking to we're trying to sell it is a problem for all of us to grow any business period, full stop.
And it's important to understand that it's important to know that. And so you realize that's the biggest problem. And again, this has been so pronounced to me on like, the recent art business workshops and then talking to customers too. It's like every single solitary person down to it everyone needs their art needs their photography in front of more eyeballs without it.
How are they ever going to sell? And I keep going through all the scenarios that exist in the pandemic world that we're living in. And it's like if you don't have the ability to do it digitally how do you even have an ability to do it at all, right? Like I was on the phone with this wonderful woman yesterday who will remain nameless.
She's a customer. And she's figuring out tech she struggles with tech, right? She's leveling up doesn't have a huge amount of tech acumen and I'm sitting there and I hear the struggle in her voice and I see the pain that she's going through. And she's a lot of people, right. in a perfect world, I'd say, look, I'm worried, right? I'm worried because what are you gonna do? There are no retail sources.
There are no offline sources. Here's in shows in galleries are not a viable source. So what option do you have left, right? What option do you have left? It's a little bit of a digression but let's say this attention problem that we all have was actually a weight loss problem, right? You were overweight and you wanted to fix it.
So how would you attack that problem, right? What would we do? We would start exercising. We would watch our diet, watch what we eat. We would attempt to get any, and all vices under control that are, that are causing us to gain weight. We would in short attack it from every single solitary angle imaginable, right.
We'd book a bunch of summer vacations to terrify ourselves, right? And I think tackling the weight loss problem with so many people had to do with their lives is no different than this problem. Like you need to attack it from every angle imaginable, right. Every angle imaginable. So I think we need to contemplate and we need to do the same thing.
We talk it from all angles. And we work not just on getting more attention, right? Which is the easy one, which everyone talks about but we work on getting more out of the attention that we do have, right? And I think this is a profound thing. We work on getting more out of the attention that we do have. I mean, why did art storefronts as a business spend? I mean, you guys wouldn't know this or if you're not a customer maybe care, but just listen.
Those are the thought process. It was a tremendously difficult thing to do programmatically, to get our software to talk to our merged partner and to integrate. So all of these sales can happen without our customers having to carry any inventory. We spent a lot of time, energy, treasure, talent to get that done.
Why did we do that? Because merge opens up an entirely new opportunity to get more revenue out of the attention our customers do have, right? If they're just selling originals or they're just selling commissions or they're just selling prints or some combination thereof, that's essentially your store with three products in it.
Now with the merge, your store has 30 products in it. And it stands to reason that if the hardest thing to do is to get somebody to come into your store. It probably makes a ton of sense to be able to sell them more things to get more Out of the attention that you do have, right? And as usual I went on an analogy.
If you're watching this on Instagram, you're not seeing it. It's just on the podcast or not seeing it. But I have a giant on Facebook and on YouTube and Twitter and such, I have a giant pointy cactus behind me, right? And the reason is as I was thinking this through, it's like, okay, if attention is Water and you're a plant, right? You're a plant Back in the 1970s, you could be a wonderful flower.
You could be an Iceland poppy, and there was plenty of water and you could survive and thrive. Well, now with the way, attention is with information being as abundant as it is with attention being the scarce resource, you gotta evolve into a cactus, right? We all have to evolve into a cactus. And why a cactus, because a cactus is capable of getting more out of a much smaller volume of water than any other plant that exists pretty much, right? Like I remember like the planet earth like the ones that were in like
the Atacama desert in Chile, I think and it talks about how these things are so effective at harvesting the water that when it's foggy that then gets like watered enough to survive for like six months or something. But that's a great analogy. And it's a perfect way to think about it's gonna be really, really hard to get attention.
It is our biggest problem. You are like the cactus in the desert, okay? Water is going to be hard to come by. If that's the case, then you better get more efficient than we all better evolve what we're doing to get more efficient and to get more out of the water that does come like that cactus and the Atacama desert, who have said that, right? We're not hacking it.
You have to be able to just absorb it out of the air, right? Like it's just a great way to think. So staying on that analogy, I think a fantastic way that I'm sort of thinking and a large part of my job in our storefronts is to say Okay, all we care about is our Customers being successful. If that's the case, if that's my job I have to teach them to be cactuses.
What's a great place to start. Where is where you want me all focusing, okay? If you're a customer, you want me driving through the desert looking to find the biggest cactus I can like this one above my head. I'm not on Instagram and saying, okay Okay, what the heck is this thing? How is this doing this? How did this cactus get so big and attempting to extract the various different learnings and techniques and traffic sources and marketing situations that they're doing such we can systematize it
and template it and teach it, right? And so one such giant cactus I've seen lately he is this live art show concept generally, okay? And then the concept of the basement sale or garage sale specifically I'm calling this, the tallest cactus. One of anyway, right? I drove through the desert. I saw really tall cactus.
I talk about it. I talk about it often and I
know I need to continue doing so, okay? And this is often a fault of mine is I drive through the desert. I got to get out of the cactus thing but I discover something awesome. This cactus, I cover it. And I covered it for a couple of weeks. And then I think it's done and it's time to move on and try to go find another new one, right? But I need to remember it.
Persistence is essential because knowledge is rarely imparted in the first attempt. That's such a great quote. I don't know if it's stolen from but it's persistence is essential because knowledge is rarely imparted on the first attempt more over, the Tradecraft two. Yes the live art shows in general but also this whole basement sale garage sale is really just getting started.
There's no playbook for it, right? It is so brand new a technique and is so brand new, a tactic that there's just a ton of iteration to do on it even now in real-time to get better and better and better. And so better still, okay? I think there are a ton of you that are listening to this or watching this after the fact whatever where this tactic, this basement sale, this garage sale is absolutely a perfect match.
And all that. I'll explain that in a second, where I wanna get go to next though, is who does this apply to and what are going to be the stumbling blocks to running these live archers to running these basement garage sales. And I would say it's perfect for any artist or photographer, okay. That has a garage full or a basement full or a shed full or an office full of old art or photography or crafts or whatever, okay? I know this applies to a whole audio, right? A whole audio while it's great that you have a nice little museum of your artistic journey.
That work that is sitting around is not doing anything for your business sitting in storage, gathering dust, right? It's not helping you get more attention. It's not helping you get more out of the attention you do have. So we got to fix that. That's why I love this thing. So the basement sale or garage sale art show concept, where we want to call it's simple and it's effective.
And it works on a number of different levels. So let me sort of define it first, okay. You go through your existing inventory you pick some small section of it. You fire sale it via live art show on the socials. You follow that up with some email marketing and some social posting. That's essentially it.
I'll get more into the tactical in a second. Why it works on so many different levels, okay? Yes, you need to clear out that old inventory, okay? Your spouse has been yelling at you for years to get rid of that stuff, right? Your mom is calling you and telling you to come pick it up out of the garage of the rest of your high school stuff that you've had there forever.
You've got to get rid of this stuff, right? You got to move it, the concept, okay. Of a basement sale or a garage sale or Rouses and human beings. Part, treasure hunt part D Do have a lifetime part, the unknown, what you might discover. It turns humans into the guy at the beach with a metal detector after a big day at the beach, what is he going to find? Was he going to find, so it really has some powerful psychological triggers embedded in it when you title this thing, the basement.
So when you title this thing, the garage sale I will title it and inventory clear out sale, right? So I think that's a big thing. Yes, it gives you the ability to offer price points on older items that you would never offer on your newest work. That's a good thing. I like price point diversity. It's very important to have that many, many many if you do not.
You have originals that started 500 or 750 a thousand. You have nothing lower than that. Well, here's your chance, right? Here's your chance. It's it gives you the ability, okay? To validate your art. And let me tell you, if you can't sell it in a garage sale or you can't sell it in a basement sale, a blowout, Houston, we have a problem.
We'll get back into that in a second but we have a problem. So it gives you this opportunity to validate your art which many of you need to do. I talked to people a weekend. We got the new develop, their art, right? So this is a big one. Yes, it is a way to creatively market your art, right? There's not a lot of people that are doing this.
There's not a lot of people that are talking about it. So there is an arbitrage. If you can get in and start doing it now, yes, it leverages the technology. Does your, okay. The latest and greatest way to sell art. So it will force you to get more comfortable on camera. It will force you to learn to talk about your work and to sell your work.
Many of which you're not comfortable with it will force you to merchandise, artists so there's just so many reasons why this is good. This is just like a great, great thing I could go on and on. But especially as I sort of alluded to earlier like the fact that we're still in these pandemic times the fact that these pandemic times do not look to be debating anytime soon.
What other options do you have? What are those do you have, right? It's like that wonderful lady that was on the phone with like I feel for her and I bummed that she needs to learn some technology. And I know it's going to be here pulling and I know it's going to be frustrating but what is the alternative? The only alternative is to wait until the shows in theaters come back or to wait until hopefully these galleries don't back up and who knows when that's gonna happen, right.
Like you got announced defeat. So I think it's very very important on a whole bunch of different levels. So I think all of those reasons It does it really, really exciting, but there are Some stumbling blocks that people run into. Anytime that I suggest this, or anytime that I teach these. And there's two that I wanna address head on as you're nodding your head.
Yeah Oh, this is a great idea. I'm gonna do this. And then you start going down the line and you hit the first stumbling block? Yeah, I'm cool actually I'm cool. There's a great book. You ever heard about it? I don't know if you have already have, it's called 'the life-changing magic of tidying up' by Marie Kondo, okay? And I think it's a book.
It's a website. It's a TV show. I mean, this lady has got an empire at this juncture but she is a Japanese lady that has figured out essentially the best system on how to declutter your life declutter your house, clean up your stuff, right? And when I accept why do I bring this out, right? When I bring this up and by the way, it's like a seminal work by this woman.
And I, there are so many marketers that I respect that actually applied her tidying up mentality her system to how they look at various aspects of the digital marketing. So it applies like way further than anything else. Anyway, digress, why am I bringing this up? I'm bringing this up, okay? Because the minute that we talk about the basement sale, all right this is the first obstacle I encounter.
Especially when I'm recommending, Hey you've got to get rid of this stuff by herself prices, okay? So when we talk about Marie Kondo in some of these television clips that I see she's essentially where he knocks on your door, okay? And she's like, all right we're gonna start tightening your house up room by room.
We're gonna start in the closet. And it's her and this other person in the closet. And a bunch of things have come out of the closet and they're sitting on the bed like a huge pile on the bed, right? And Marie is like, okay which ones are we donating to charity? Which ones no longer bring you joy.
And it's like, world war three. And they're like, this person is so latched onto these garments, which they haven't worn in years, right? They're like crying because they have such emotional relationships with them. And Ray's like, no, no, no, no, no. That one's gone. That one's gone.
That one's gone. They keep going into the donation pile like that one's gone. And these people are literally big. Some of them were crying. They're crying because they're having to give up these garments. I know a great many of you will feel that way about this art, about your creations about your little babies.
So if you're in that camp, don't worry. I've got you covered. Go to Amazon, buy this latest book. You'll love it. It's fantastic. It'll help that stumbling block. Number one, stumbling block. Number two, I've got a quote Picasso, I've been hot on that one. And he was rendering some advice to a fellow artist that had some drawings and was asking, what, how should I go about selling them? And Picasso said, don't price them inaccurate.
Don't price them too high. What matters is that you sell a large number of them. Your drawings must go out into the world. That's profound. Your drawings must go out into the world. He has like a follow-up quote that I couldn't find. I can't run them so directly. But
early on, I did not command high prices but all of my work sold, all of my work sold, right.
And I look at that quote and it's like, that's just genius level. It's just genius level. Because what he's essentially saying is if it's not selling, you have a problem, okay? The work has to sell. If it's not selling now it's not gonna sell 15 years from now. There's zero reason to keep it in your basement, right? Potentially could but the takeaway, the takeaway is you've got to sell it.
You've got to sell it. You've got to get these drawings out into the world. You've got to get this work out into the world. So step one is you have to try this, right? You have to try it. Step two, if it does not sell you have to sort what the real problem is. And it could be, excuse me, you price it you price it low.
You're willing to let it go. And you sell it. If not, you price it lower. I am not saying, give it away for free. And this would be step one. But I am saying, if you're giving it away at the cost of the canvas, okay, then give it away at the cost of the canvas, right? You have to sell it. The work has to move.
If it doesn't, then we know you either have one or two problems, problem number a, . Number one is you did not have enough attention to even get the work in front of you to be able to sell anything. And that one's easy rinse and repeat, do it again. Do it often, keep building more attention, right? Like, this is not a one and done scenario.
You can run as many of these and you could run one a day the next 10 years. And I'm not suggesting that obviously but the larger point is that, it's not a one and done you can do this as many times as you like it's a rechargeable battery, right? But if you do do that a couple of times and you do get enough attention in the work does not sell, okay then you likely have a product.
And let me say in the work does not sell for fire sale prices for the cost of the canvas. In some cases then you do not have a product the market wants, okay? I'm not saying you're a crappy artist. Not saying you're a crappy photographer. The market is telling you that you have a product that they do not want to buy.
That they are not willing to exchange dollars for. In which case that's really valid feedback, fantastic. You could start another three years trying to work on marketing that work and not realizing that. So it's great in that capacity, you need to start pivoting. So the quick start guide, okay? Just select the inventory you want to move, right? Do not overthink it.
Start with 15 pieces tops. It can be as few as five, right? Start with whatever platform that you have the most attention on. It could be. You have more attention on Facebook or you have more attention on Instagram or you have neither, you have a small email list, okay? Well, you can use Zoom, right? You announced the fact that you're having a sale call it a basement sale or a garage sale or an inventory clear out sale.
All pieces must go. This is the quick start guide. So it's just nice and easy. You line up the pieces behind you. You go live, you don't worry about what equipment you have or program, it doesn't matter if it's a cell phone. It doesn't matter. It's a computer. It doesn't matter. If you're doing a DIA Zoom session, you just ship it.
You do the show, right? You price the work to move. You let folks know no reasonable offer will be refused. I'm gonna repeat that one. No reasonable offer will be refused. You let people know they can pay you the PayPal the Venmo check, you remove any and all friction from the entire process as you can, okay? You promote the different pieces from the show.
After the fact still available, posted on the socials let them know one at a time. Keep the show relevant, right? When a piece does sell, you let people know that this piece just sold congrats to its new owner. Such-and-such just to let you know there's some that are still available, right? You make that entire effort And that's it.
That's it, ready, set, go. But Patrick, wait, I still have a question about this or that or the other thing, what do I do here? What about this? I have your questions. Okay, I get it. I get it. It'd be helpful then for me to post a complete Live Art Show and basement sale show from start to finish. Fantastic, wherever you're watching this YouTube in the description, Facebook in the, post podcast in the show notes, Instagram, your host you can post links there.
So just search YouTube for the basement sale. You'll get to see a basement sale that went from start to finish and you can attempt to review and reverse engineer the trade craft. You can see how informal it was. You can see how the, the old work right. And what it was. So I would say that a tall cactus, right? A tall cactus.
The good thing about the tall cactie is there are not a lot of them, right? At least in my analogy. There's not a lot of them in this particular case, the one I'm referencing the one that I'm discussing, the one I'm telling you about. It was two shows over 15 days and he sold over 60 pieces of art over 15,000, not 15,000.
It was over $32,000 Canadian. And I've referenced it in the past and I'm gonna keep referencing it, right? Because my job is like how many tall cactuses are there out there in your world or of the artists and the photographers you're following. Do you hear a bunch of others that are banking winds like that? I don't, I don't, right? There's few and far between.
So again, my job was to go and find them and say something major happened here. Something major happens here during the pandemic, right? So go get it, systematize it, template it repeated and get other people doing it, right? Okay, someone's asking doesn't that devalue your art when you're offering it at the cost of the canvas? No, it does not devalue the art.
Like you're having a basement sale. You're clearing old inventory. You let people know you're clearing out old inventory. You make a differentiation between the old inventory, the new inventory and you've got to move it. you've got to solve the pieces that they're not moving. They're not gonna move at any other time taking a shot at moving them.
That's how I feel about it. So again, if the attention is water we all need to learn to be like the cat die, right? To be able to get as much out of the limited water that is available. And that's never gonna stop, that's not going to stop until we get out of this age of abundant information, abundant different media sources.
So step one, we come to cacti, step two ideally become a tall one. You could, you could take your time becoming the tall one. We all will, right? So on that note, thanks for listening. And as always have a great day. All right, you too. Thanks for watching my video on the basement sale on the tallest cactus, right? What do you think? Do you like the idea? Do you like the concept? I'm dying to know.
I want you to leave me a question in the comments below. I read every one and I'll respond also. Do you think it cheapens your work? Do you think it'll cheat on your work and lower the perceived value of your work? That was the number one comment that I got in terms of pushback after just finishing that.
So let me know what you think on that. I'm not saying I have all the answers. I'm just saying that this thing is a really tall cactus. I also encourage you guys to really subscribe. There'll be some motion graphics down here that explain how you can do that on you subscribe you won't miss the live broadcast.
You'll always know when there's a new one that you can decide whether or not you wanna watch it. You can come on and leave comments live for everything that we do live. And then lastly, if you're not a customer and you're out there and you wanna ask me questions live you can do that myself and the marketing team run three art business workshops on a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
And you can certainly opt into one of those. Come on a Zoom session. It's free. Come get your questions asked, come yell at me that a basement show is a good and or not good idea. And I highly encourage you to check the show out. That'll be in the show notes below and thanks again for watching then have a great day.
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