THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: Hey. Yeah, there are fewer galleries than ever, but collectors aren’t disappearing. So today we’re going to talk about how to find art collectors. So stay tuned.
Speaker 2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to The Inspiration Place podcast, an Art World Insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Hey there, I’m Miriam Schulman, author of Artpreneur, your curator and host of The Inspiration Place podcast. I coach artists on how to make thriving incomes from their art. Today, I want to talk to you about the decentralization of luxury and why this shift is the biggest opportunity artists have seen in decades. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. So I want you to set the stage for you. A few weeks ago, I was at brunch with my friends, and one of them is a bankruptcy lawyer, and he said something that really caught my attention. He said he was working on the bankruptcy of Saks, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf. I forget who’s the parent company. I think it’s Saks. And so they went out of business. And that might make you think, oh, are people not spending as much money? Oh, is luxury not doing well? But he actually had the behind the scenes numbers about why this business model failed. And it’s not because people aren’t buying luxury retail has restructured. That was his face not collapsing, not dying, restructuring. So what he was sharing with us is that it used to be the model. You had to go into a department store, you had to go into Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s if you wanted to get cosmetics. I remember that I had to wait until, you know, Lancome was having their free gift with purchase at Bloomingdales, and then I’d go to Bloomingdales or they were doing it at Saks and then I’d go to sex.
Miriam Schulman: I don’t have to do that anymore. When I want cosmetics, I go to Sephora, or maybe I go to Chanel, or maybe I go to rare beauty.com or a number of other outlets. Because people who want luxury, they no longer need to go to department stores. It used to be if you wanted Chanel, you had to go to Bergdorf’s, you had to go to Saks, you had to go to Neiman’s. Chanel has its own boutique. It has its own website. It has its own storefront in multiple locations. So what does this have to do with the art world? Well, the same thing is happening in the art world because Saks, Bergdorf, Neiman. They were the gatekeepers, just like galleries. They weren’t just stores, they were tastemakers. They aggregated trust. You didn’t need to know every brand. You trusted the building. So here’s the shift. Luxury brands don’t need those buildings anymore. They have their own boutiques, their own websites, their own CRMs, their own client lists. Oh, and their own storytelling, which makes it easier for them to sell because they each have their own brand story. So like I said, I don’t need to go to the department store for cosmetics. And also I don’t depend on the department stores to tell me what is good. Now I have influencer content like this new one I’ve been following. Selena, you really need to check out her content.
Miriam Schulman: It’s hilarious. So the authority has moved. The other thing that is happening is I recently learned that Bobbi Brown sold her original cosmetics lines years ago. And when I understood that Bobby Brown was now a corporation and the person Bobby Brown owns, Jones Road, my loyalty shift, I didn’t want the corporate version. I wanted the founder version. I wanted the living author of the brand. Now, that instinct, that craving for direct authorship, is not just about cosmetics. That is about luxury. That’s what art also does. Because artists right now are looking at galleries closing and thinking, oh no, is the art market shrinking? But that’s not the right question to ask. The question is, where is luxury flowing now? Yes, some brick and mortar galleries are closing, but a lot of former gallerists aren’t disappearing. They’re becoming private advisors. They’re becoming art consultants. Art placement specialists. They’re working directly with collectors, developers and designers. The gallery building is optional. The relationship isn’t. Collectors are still buying art. Corporations are still commissioning. Designers are still sourcing. Homes are still being built and walls are still being painted. And the need for art did not vanish. The distribution channels, though, have shifted. Just like what happened in the luxury fashion and cosmetic channels. Just like department stores. Just like the cosmetic counters. Just like the department stores. Oh, just like publishing. Centralized authority is giving way to decentralized relationships. And if you’re still waiting for a centralized gatekeeper to validate you, to pick you, you’re operating in yesterday’s model today.
Miriam Schulman: Trust is built a lot differently today. Luxury flows through direct connection brands and artists who build their own trust win. That’s why I spend so much time talking about how to build an effective brand, what kind of content to create for your emails and for your social media, how to do that story well, that’s what’s going to win. The ones waiting for the mall, the ones waiting for the white walled storefront, the ones who understand that aggregation of trust has moved from the building to the individual, and it’s not a threat. This is an opportunity. So if galleries aren’t the gatekeeper anymore, who is private trust networks? So here are the players, our consultants, advisors, designers, corporate buyers. Oh, plus your own email list. So if galleries can’t be relied on, how do you find collectors now? Okay, so let me first break down for you what an art consultant is, because I know that even inside my Artist Incubator program, there’s a lot of artists who this terminology is new to them, so it might be new to you too. Basically, you should think about. An art consultant is like a gallerist without a gallery. They don’t maintain inventory, but they do maintain the relationships. So an art consultant or an art advisor, they get paid to source art that fits a space and client needs and budget. So they work with private collectors, interior designers, developers, corporate collections like lobbies, offices, hospitality.
Miriam Schulman: And they’re paid via commission from artists or gallery fee from the client or markup model. All those are common. So the key distinction is that a gallery sells what they represent were consultant sources. What solves the client’s problem? Now let’s talk about how they operate because this is going to be like a major aha for you. And I know you’re glad you tuned in today, am I right? And I know you’re taking lots of notes. And if you are not taking lots of notes, this is definitely the section to pause me right now and go get a pen because you’re going to want to take notes. They don’t browse Instagram. They don’t. They build short lists. They build lists based on reliability. So yeah, they don’t want to flaky artists. Can you deliver consistency? Do you work in a series? Does your work have cohesion? So if they bought something from you or saw something from you and they liked it, and then they think of you and they go back to you, are you do you have other stuff or have you already moved on? Do you have other stuff like the thing that they liked? Is it part of a bigger collection, a bigger series that’s going to matter? The scale is going to matter. The scale is going to matter. They don’t want tiny artworks. They’re not sourcing little things like this. I’ve been talking about that a lot.
Miriam Schulman: They want installation ready pieces. Also, you need to have price clarity. They don’t want to do mystery math on what your artwork is going to cost to place it in a place. And then of course, the story and the fit. So client identity and space is going to matter a lot. So the storytelling still matters. All right. Before we continue, I have to mention something in case you’re listening and thinking, oh, but I’m not even sure what my story or positioning should be. Well, if you want help with that, I do offer a private paid service where I work one on one with artists. I only have room to work with a few artists each month where we do the complete signal excavation process. That’s the process where I excavate your unique story, your unique positioning, and really clarify what is going to attract collectors, art advisors, the press to your art. You’re going to walk away with a vault of around 100 angles that you can use for pitching to the press, creating content for your emails, for social media, and the exact phrases that you should be using in those pitches that we’re going to be talking about in this episode. So if that sounds like something you want to invest in, go to SchulmanArt.com/VAULT and I’ll meet with you one on one. All right. And now let’s get back to the show. Also, logistics will make a difference shipping, framing, lead times.
Miriam Schulman: And like I said at the beginning of this list, I started the list off with reliability. Can you deliver? And yes. So your professionalism, your response time, your invoicing, your files, all that. How efficient are you? How good are you at being a business to business? Because that’s what this is when it’s a, when you’re working and this, you know, by the way, this is true with galleries too. If you’re an artist and you want to be in a gallery, you are creating a relationship that is business to business. Okay? When you have a relationship with an art consultant, same thing. Your business to business rather than business to collector or business to consumer. B2c different model. Okay. But many things are still the same. So our consultants need low friction decision making and low risk placement. So your job is to reduce their risk and their work. So now let’s dive into where to find our consultants. This is not going to be fluff. This is going to be very specific. So I’m going to give you kind of like the different categories of our consultants. And it’s going to really depend on what kind of art you create, what type of channel is going to be the best for you. So one of the things that I do with clients who work with me, whether we’re doing this as part of our signal excavation work or they’re in my inner circle, after I do a deep dive and excavate their stories, and we create a vault of signals that they can be sending out to attract these collectors or attract the right relationships, then I build for them who they should be reaching out to.
Miriam Schulman: And it’s going to depend on their kind of art. And for you, my friend, it’s going to depend on your kind of art as well. So are you a photographer that does something that would scale. Great. Your art is perfect for lobbies. Perfect. If you do something that is a little more specific, like regional landscapes, that could work really well in the hospitality sector. So you see, there is a lot of room for you in this. And we’re talking a lot about two dimensional artwork, paintings, photographs. But sculpture definitely fits in with this model as well. There are placements that are looking for the 3D work as well, and it doesn’t have to be traditional painting and sculpture, fiber art. They’re looking for you as well. Let’s go down the different channels. So one thing that should be obvious are yeah, interior designers. They do act as the advisor many times. So one of my friends who is an interior decorator, I asked her how does she do artwork? She does. She says she does it in two ways. One is she just sees something. She likes it. She buys it and puts it in storage. The other way is once she’s working with a client and she sees what the space looks like.
Miriam Schulman: If she doesn’t have anything in her storage, then she will go to the artist and source it. But I have another friend who’s an interior designer who says she doesn’t deal with the artwork at all. And I know a lot of interior decorators. They don’t. They’ll work with your existing art and they just don’t. They don’t care. They’ll put a mirror up in the space, they’ll put a print up. So interior designers, some of them can be very valuable, but it’s not the only thing to rely on. Next is commercial design firms. So commercial design firms that are designing hospitality, designing office spaces. The next category that you should pay attention to are luxury staging firms. These are higher end projects, Corporate art programs. These are sometimes run by our consultants and sometimes they’re not. So that’s something else to pay attention to local art consultants. Now this you can find basically. And yeah, ChatGPT will help you do this research. Basically, it’s your city or a city near you, plus the word art consultants or art advisors. Again, make sure you explain what kind of art you do and it’ll generate a list. Easy. Linkedin is another great source for finding art consultants. The job titles you need to look for are, of course, our consultant, art advisor, art curator, art procurement. And also FYI, you can find our consultants on Instagram. Just look for the hashtag and location.
Miriam Schulman: So hashtag art advisor, hashtag art consultant plus the city. And the last way to find our consultants is to look at the installed art credits. So if there’s a new boutique hotel or a new luxury building, you can find the credit of who placed the art there. And that’s how you can find those people to build relationships with. Okay, I’m going to give you a checklist now. I’m taking lots of notes. Right. This is an action packed episode. So next you need a tight body of work. Not 12 styles, not three mediums. Very tight, very cohesive body of work. What is the body of work mean? A body of work is usually like 6 to 20 artworks available. Okay. Does that mean you have to wait till you have 20? No, you don’t have to wait till you have 20, but it’ll be a lot easier if you have, let’s say, a dozen available in your inventory to start pitching. You want to have a one page PDF ready to send out once you’ve made contact. I’m not telling you to spam our consultants with this next step here. This is like step two. Once you’ve made contact and you ask them if they’re interested, then this is what you send. You can send them, you can send them a PDF that has those 10 to 15 pieces in them. It will include the sizes, the mediums, the prices, the lead times for getting it where you’re willing to ship it, what’s available and what is available to me to order.
Miriam Schulman: That is what they’re looking for. Okay. So if you can organize that in a one page PDF, brilliant, brilliant, that will make their job a lot easier. The other thing is your website. Your website needs to be clean. It needs to be easy to navigate with the series names with the consistent pricing, not pricing all over. You want to include those room mockups so they can visualize how large is this artwork? How is it going to look installed. And finally you need to have trade friendly clarity. What do I mean by that? Well what are your policies? What’s your commission policy? What is your terms? What are the framing options? What are your delivery timelines? Get clarity on these things. This is why, by the way, working with an artist business coach can be very helpful. So you can get this kind of clarity. Okay. Next we’re going to talk about how to pitch them. Quick pause right here. Because if you’re listening to this and you’re realizing you’re not quite sure how to talk about your art yet, well, that’s exactly what I help artists with. I offer my signature process. It’s called the Signal Excavation, where we work one on one, and I help you clarify your message and positioning. That’s your story, your messaging, everything that’s going to connect your ideal art collector, even if you don’t know who that is yet to your art.
Miriam Schulman: And that way you can use that to attract collectors, designers, art consultants, and heck, even galleries. You’ll leave with a vault of around 100 messaging angles that you can use throughout your content, whether that’s pitching to the press, your emails, your social media will even draft your artist statement so you can start using this language immediately. Now, if you want the details, go to SchulmanArt.com/VAULT. Schulmanart.com/ VAULT.
Miriam Schulman: All right. So now let’s talk about how to actually pitch our consultants. Script and the rules. So let’s talk about the rules first. Short, specific and oriented to their client outcomes. Show that you’re easy to place, but don’t spam them. Don’t be like the the lady and we’re talking about department stores. Don’t be like the lady who stands there at the doorway with the perfume ready to spray the next customer who walks in. This is not a spray and pray marketing method. And really, our consultants do not want you to cold pitch them that way. On LinkedIn. Linkedin is great for finding them, but build a relationship with them first. Follow them on LinkedIn. Comment on their posts. Then when you reach out, they’ll be like, oh yeah, there’s that. There’s that artist who made those clever comments under my posts. They’ll be much more open to you that way. Now, when you do pitch them, here’s what you need to say. You’re taking notes, right? All right. I make work that solves this design problem.
Miriam Schulman: Here’s my portfolio tailored to your esthetic. I have pieces in these sizes. Ready now. Collectors respond to this story. Yes. No. Your story, but keep it tight. No D’var Torah here, no Ted talks. You want a very tight story. So if I were to give you an email skeleton, you are taking notes, right? Okay. One sentence. Why? You’re reaching out to them. In other words, why you’re a fit. You’re not asking them, hey, will you look at my art and see if it’s a fit for you? No, no, you’re not doing that one sentence. What you create in their language, one sentence about your replacement readiness. In other words, your sizes. And like I have six foot whatever, whatever ready to go now in stock a link to your one page PDF. Or you can say instead of putting the link in there, you can say, I can send this to you, which is a clean way to do it. And low pressure CTA. If you want, I can send a short list for current projects and that would be the permission then to send a PDF. All right, so galleries are not the only door. Consultants are a door. Your list is a door. Designers are a door. And stop waiting to be chosen. Become easy to place and make opportunities happen for you. All right, my friend. So I’ll see you at the same time. Same place next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook, at Facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram at @SchulmanArt. And of course on SchulmanArt.com.
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