THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: Years ago, I sold art every December at my daughter’s music school. It was a holiday boutique, folding tables, holiday lighting, parents with checkbooks. And there was a woman I met there who I’m going to call Denise, who did buy from me more than once. She wasn’t a browser and a looky-loo. She wasn’t a maybe. She was legitimately a collector of my art. And every single year Denise would come up to my table and say the same thing. Miriam, I really want you to paint my son playing his trumpet. Every year she brought it up. Not me. Her. So I followed up. And this was back when people still picked up the phone and called people. I called her. I saw her in person, and every time I asked her and she would say, yeah, I really want that trumpet painting. And she would use it as time to just talk to me. But it never happened. Not once. Not ever. Let’s run the diagnostics on that. The way I’d run them with any artist inside my coaching program. Did she not trust me? No, because she already bought from me. Was it the money? No, she definitely had it. And she already spent it with me before. Was it my artwork? No. She loved my art. In fact, she kept asking for more of it. Was it my follow-up? No. I followed up with her for years. Every single explanation. An artist reaches for the economy. They can’t afford it. They don’t value art. I’m not good enough. Every one of those comes back clean. Negative. Nada. Nothing. So what killed it? That’s what today’s episode is about. And I’m going to tell you right now. So you’re not waiting for it. The answer isn’t get the deposit. Because once I got a deposit for $750 and I still never got to make the painting, I’ll tell you that story in a minute.
Speaker 2: It’s The Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration 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: In case we haven’t met yet. I’m Miriam Schulman, I’m your curator of inspiration and this is the Inspiration Place podcast. Here’s the first thing I want you to write down because it’s going to reframe everything. Commission inquiries don’t die because of the money. They die on your calendar. Not the price, not the pitch, not your website, the calendar. Now, if that’s the kind of thing you want in your ears every week, the actual mechanics of why art sales fall apart, not vague encouragement or pep talks. Hit subscribe. That’s it. And I’ll see you back here. Same time, same place every week. All right, so let’s talk about the $750 deposit. Same music school, same boutique, different year. A woman comes up to my table. She has three children and she wants portraits of all of them. And I had gotten smarter by then, or at least I thought I had. I said, if you give me the deposits today right here at the show, the music school gets a percentage, which is true. That was the whole arrangement. So she wrote me a check, $250 per child times three. That was 750 bucks, 30% of the final price, $750. I had her money in my hand. And yes, the music school did get 20% of that, but I never painted a single one of those boys. I called, I followed up. She never scheduled a photo shoot, ever. And I want to be clear about this because I know what you’re thinking.
Miriam Schulman: It wasn’t the money she paid, and it wasn’t me. I was willing to do it. And it wasn’t the artwork. So here’s the sentence I want you to sit with: a deposit attached to no date is kind of like when a girl gets an engagement ring, but there’s no wedding date. And that engagement usually falls apart. She didn’t leave the boutique with a photo shoot on her calendar. She left with a good feeling she’d done the good deed. She supported the school. She said yes to something lovely. All of the emotional reward, but none of the logistics. And notice what my own framing did to that transaction. I told her it benefited the music school. Which was true and generous, but it also quietly turned her payment into a donation with a bonus attached. So every time she thought about it, she thought about it as she gave $750 to the school. She didn’t think about it as a deposit toward the commission. The portraits were the part she could defer forever without feeling like she really lost anything. And I let her because I assumed that once somebody has skin in the game, they’ll follow through. Now, I want to be honest with you about how long I believed that this was not a rookie mistake that I made once in 2005 and fixed it. I was still doing it in 2019, taking deposits at the same show and not booking the shoot, assuming the money would do the work for me, but it doesn’t.
Miriam Schulman: Now I want to hear your worst commission story, the one that still bugs you. Drop it in the comments because I do read all of them. And honestly, the messier the better because somebody else needs to know that they’re not the only one. All right. So let me tell you what I finally figured out. And it took me an embarrassingly long time. Look where every single one of these stories stalls. Denise needed her son with his trumpet, showered, cleaned, dressed nicely at a specific place on a specific day. The mother of the three kids needed all of them in the same room at the same time. Those 2019 deposits. Three of them. And this was during COVID. One family needed her son in front of the piano. Every one of those died at the same step. At the photo shoot, because the photo shoot is the only part of the commission that has to happen in the physical world on a specific day, with other people’s faces and schedules and hair and weather involved. And it’s the one step you cannot do alone in your studio. And it’s where many commissions go to die. Now here’s the part that proves it. Of those three deposits I took in 2019, two of them converted. One of them was because we did the photo shoot while the three kids were all home from college.
Miriam Schulman: During December break, there was a very limited window and the parents knew that, so they had the anxiety to get it on the calendar as soon as they can. We didn’t know that COVID was around the corner. Another one I had to do outside because yeah, the pandemic had started and nobody was going inside anybody’s house. And that one was because the grandmother paid for it, and the grandmother was the one pushing it along, calling, nagging, scheduling, making it happen. So sit with that. Two portraits got made during the single worst year in living memory for getting a group of humans in one place, one of them not part of the pod because somebody other than the artist was driving. But the third one, the mom, didn’t want to do it outside. She wanted her son at the piano inside, and he couldn’t wear a mask if I’m going to do his portrait. So it became a safety conversation. So I didn’t push because it was 2020 and how could I? But I would have done that commission in a heartbeat. All right. Now here’s the part that’s going to feel backwards. People don’t postpone because they stopped wanting the portrait. They postponed because they wanted it to be perfect. Does that sound familiar to anybody? Because I know that I didn’t hang up curtains in my home for like 15 years. I lived there because I was too afraid to commit to the fabric.
Miriam Schulman: But here’s how it shows up in portrait commissions. Oh, no. No, let’s wait for the photo shoot until the fall when the leaves turn. Let’s wait until the peonies are in bloom. Let’s wait until he gets a haircut. Let’s wait until the baby is at least three years old. Let’s wait until the kids are a little less feral. Wanting it more makes them wait longer. That’s why all your normal sales instincts come back clean. The desire was completely intact. The desire is the thing causing the delay. And here’s what nobody tells these parents. And this is what I want you to steal and write down. Waiting doesn’t make the photo reference better. In fact, sometimes it makes it worse. Over time, the photos I got got worse and worse because people had traditional cameras when I first started painting. And by the time my son’s elementary school gym teacher wanted a portrait of his daughter, he handed me a computer printout from his home computer with white lines running through the photo because his brother was out of ink. I was like, do you want me to paint the white lines into this artwork too? Or do you have a better picture? That “let me find a better picture” actually produces not a better picture, but a worse one later. So how do I handle it now? Well, two ways and neither of these are negotiable.
Miriam Schulman: One, I don’t accept seasonal delays. If they want autumn leaves, I will paint autumn leaves into the photo. It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the summer or the middle of winter. If they want a flowering tree and it’s February, fine. I’m a painter. I’ll paint the flowers. The perfect day is a false constraint. You can make the day. Number two: this one I got smart about. No rescheduling based on a forecast. Only actual rain falling from the sky. If we’re shooting outside and the weather app says 40% chance of rain on Saturday, we’re showing up. We move it for rain that’s actually coming down on us, not a prediction. And yes, you can book three months out if you want to, but only with a deposit. Hey, real question for you. And I want a real answer. What are you waiting for the perfect day to do? The email you’ll send when your website’s done? The show you’ll apply for when the work is stronger? Let me know in the comments. I need to say something here that took me years to give myself permission to say out loud, the deposit isn’t just about making the client behave. Because these were portrait shoots of children. They almost always happened on the weekends when the kids weren’t in camp or school or had activities. That means every commission shoot cost me a Saturday, and I had young kids of my own at home, which meant I needed my husband on child care, which meant a negotiation in my own home before I ever got into the car.
Miriam Schulman: And if the client canceled on me, I didn’t just lose an afternoon. I lost the Saturday. I already blocked the child care. I already arranged it, maybe even paid for it. I also lost the slot another family could have taken. So when I ask for a nonrefundable deposit, I’m not being aggressive. I’m not using a tactic. I’m pricing a genuinely scarce, genuinely expensive thing. My weekend. And I want you to hear that because I think squeamishness about asking for money up front is exactly why so many of you leave an art fair with three people who said, do you take commissions but nothing else? And you go home and maybe you send a polite text, but you get nothing. You’d have a much easier time getting that deposit at the show while they were standing in front of you, than you will in a text message on Tuesday. It’s kind of like dating. You know, I like to use the dating analogy. It’s like the guy asking the girl for her phone number when he’s at the bar, when they’re flirting, not when he sees her on the street later. Then it’s creepy. Now, if anything I’ve said so far made you go, oh, no, that’s me. Hit the thumbs up. Not for me or the algorithm, but just so that I know that you agree with me.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so let me tell you how the system got built. I didn’t design my commission process. I built it out of collateral damage, out of the scar tissue. One rule at a time. Every rule I have exists because something specific went wrong. Hole number one. Starting without a deposit. Now, some of you may have already heard this story from my book Artpreneur. I called her Kim in the book, not her real name. We’ll use the same fake name again, and I’m going to retell it just so nobody’s left out. So Kim gave me a photo of her backyard, which overlooked a golf course. Gorgeous. I painted it, I was so excited about it back then. I thought getting the photo was the hardest part, which we’ve already talked about, that the photo shoot is the hard part, but I didn’t get a deposit. I was young, I was naive, I thought enthusiasm was a contract. Next time I saw her, she said, oh, Miriam, don’t start the painting yet. I decided to get my husband a set of golf clubs instead. But the painting was already underway. In fact, I’d finished it, so I bluffed. I told her that was totally fine, my gallery would be happy to sell it. And so she pulled out her checkbook and wrote me a check on the spot. But that was the last time I ever started a commission without a deposit, because notice what actually closed her.
Miriam Schulman: Now we’re coming back to this at the end. What closed her is I didn’t need her. I didn’t need the sale. And she wanted the painting. Hole number two. Doing the photo shoot without the deposit. Early on, I did a complete photo shoot for a woman with no money down. Gave her my time and my direction. I took her three little girls all around their big property. But then she went and hired an actual photographer. So remember, this photo shoot was for me to make a painting. She hired an actual photographer and had proper photos taken instead. And instead of getting a painting done, she had the photos blown up. I did a very valuable part for free and handed her the confidence to go buy it somewhere else. This is what speculative work gets you. Not gratitude. Not oh, you’re being nice. A more informed customer. So if you’re wondering whether to do a sample, a mock-up, a “let me just sketch something so you can see.” That’s your answer. And hole number three was booking the shoot without the money attached. I used to take payment at the photo shoot, but then I stopped even booking a shoot without money attached. So there was a family with three boys who wanted a portrait, and we scheduled the shoot, and then she rescheduled the shoot and she rescheduled it again.
Miriam Schulman: And then she never rescheduled at all. And I stopped hearing about it. And when I closed that, the ghosting problem ended because we never got to a place where changing their mind was free. So here’s the system I run now. Book the photo shoot or collect their photos, and a date goes on the calendar. Always. Number two: take the money, a nonrefundable deposit. They can reschedule all they want, but the deposit doesn’t go back. By the way, under $1,000, they have to pay for the whole thing up front. Below that number, a deposit is just a second collection event for no reason. Number three: sign the contract and I review it with them out loud in person right before we start the photo shoot. Now, I want you to notice that order because it surprises a lot of people. The contract comes after the money. Now, I know a lot of you are agonizing over when to sign the contract. You’re worried that if it’s too early, it’ll scare them off; too late, and you’re exposed. Stop. You’re treating the contract like a closing tool. It isn’t. It’s an operating document. By the time my contract comes out, they’ve already paid. They’re already standing in front of me. The kid’s hair is done. They’re wearing the right outfits. The camera’s in my hand. It cannot scare off the deal because the deal is done.
Miriam Schulman: And reviewing it out loud minutes before I pick up the camera means we define the scope while they’re excited and present, instead of arguing about it for weeks later when they decide they’d rather have two small paintings than the one large one that they paid for and I started. Also, the photo shoot is included in the price. Whether I shoot the photos or they hand me photos, same price. Because I’d rather shoot it myself, because my photos give me a better painting every single time. And I struggle so much with the photos that they give me. You know, the computer printout with the lines through it. But I don’t charge differently because I don’t want the shoot to be the thing they’re trying to save money on. All right, now let’s reconcile a few things that I said that maybe sound like they contradict each other. I told you to take the deposit at the show. And I also told you I took $750 and got nothing. And both are true. And I’ll explain why the deposit doesn’t necessarily buy you follow-through, but it does buy you standing. Without money, you’re still a stranger. Sending a text into the void. With money, you now have a reason to call, a relationship, and a client who feels like something’s unfinished. And that’s real. That’s worth having. Take the deposit at the show. And this is true of not just portrait commissions.
Miriam Schulman: This is true of any commission. It’s just not the finish line. But I did treat it like one for a long time. Now let’s talk about the part that is a little bit of mindset, because this is where artists lose years off their life. All right, client number one, double portrait, two boys. And she starts giving me a really hard time about one of them. She says, you know what? It doesn’t really look like him. Now, I rendered the photo faithfully. But here’s the thing. We all look different in photographs, and every single photo looks different. And we look a little different in photos than we do in real life. And a perfectly accurate painting of a photograph can still correctly not look like the person. It happens all the time. Now, what I have in my contract is that if that happens, it’s totally fixable. Bring the child in for the sitting. I will work from life, I will adjust, I will get back to that client in a moment. End of story. Spoiler alert: she does love the painting, and I got paid for it. But before I get to that, I want to tell you about another client. This one: a woman wanted a painting of herself in a formal gown, seafoam green gloves up past the elbow. Very specific vision. And she came to every sitting with her hair done differently. Bangs. No bangs. Different again. She wasn’t sitting for a portrait.
Miriam Schulman: She was auditioning versions of herself. That painting sat in my studio for months. And you know what finally moved it? The local paper ran an article about me, and the painting was printed in the article. So she saw herself in the newspaper and she came by and she paid for the rest of the painting and said she loved it and left. But six months later, she called and demanded that I repaint the entire thing from scratch or give her all her money back. I refused, so she was so angry. She told me that she didn’t want the painting and she was going to burn it. Now, I never heard from her again. I saw her once, years later in public and I did what I call ignore. It’s like combining, recognize and ignore. You recognize somebody, but you pretend you don’t see them. So I just turned around and walked the other way. Now, here’s what I understand about that now. And it’s probably the most important thing in this whole episode. She wasn’t unhappy with the painting. She was unhappy with herself. And no artist on earth can paint that away. In fact, I kind of remember telling her a version of that. I told her that I wouldn’t be able to make her happy. If you agree with that, if you ever had a client like that, give me a thumbs up. I just want to know I’m not alone on this, and I want you to hear something, and I want you to hear it as permission.
Miriam Schulman: Every artist has a Green Gloves client. Every single one. Including one of the greatest portrait painters America ever produced. John Singer Sargent painted Virginie Gautreau, the woman we now know as Madame X: black satin gown, one strap slipping off her shoulder, and that impossible profile. Now. He exhibited it at the Paris Salon in 1884, and the room turned on him. People were laughing at it. Critics savaged it, and Gautreau, who had been completely on board while he was painting it. I mean, she posed for him with her strap down, with her shoulders out. She was devastated, not because the painting was bad, but because how she was seen in it. She and her mother went to Sargent and begged him to pull it from the exhibition. I’m sure she wanted it burned, but he wouldn’t. And that painting nearly ended his career. It’s a big part of why he left Paris for London, and then it sat in his studio for more than 30 years. 30 years. The best portrait painter of his generation, with his greatest work. Leaning against the wall because the sitter couldn’t stand what she saw. And he sold it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I think it was called the Metropolitan Museum back then, in 1916, for 1,000 pounds, which was not much even then.
Miriam Schulman: And when he did, he wrote to the museum and said, I suppose it’s the best thing I’ve done. But he asked them not to use her name on it, and that’s why it’s called Madame X. So when your client hates her portrait and she wants it redone, and when she threatens to burn it, when she can’t look at it, I need you to consider that you may have painted something true, and truth isn’t always what somebody wants to see of themselves. That’s not an art problem and you can’t fix it with your brush. Okay, let’s get back to the mother with the two boys. The one who was giving me a hard time because I never told you how I turned that situation around. So her son had come in to see me more than once, and at one point, she was still giving me a hard time. And I said something that I want you to hear. I offered her her money back. I told her, you know what? You can take that deposit and go buy your husband a nice set of golf clubs instead. Yes, I used the same thing that Kim used on me, and the fight went right out of her. Oh. Instantly she stopped pushing. Oh no no no no. I love it. I want you to do it. So we did the sitting. She loves the painting. She thanked me every year with a Christmas card.
Miriam Schulman: So let’s look at that. Kim tried to cancel the painting to buy golf clubs and she wrote me a check. The second I said my gallery would take it, and years later I offered a different client the same exact escape hatch. But she didn’t take it either. Same mechanism both times. The moment I was willing to lose the sale, the resistance collapsed. That’s your answer on refundable deposits. And it’s better than any clause you’ll put in a contract. My deposit is nonrefundable, but I’ll still hand it back to somebody who has genuinely stopped wanting this. Because a resentful client costs more than a refunded deposit. I’ve offered, but I’ve never actually had to give a deposit back. And one more thing I actually took a commission last week. It’s an 11-by-14 landscape, $1,000. But the email started with “my wife and I,” which, if you’ve been on the internet for any length of time, is roughly how every scam email begins. So I nearly ignored it, but it was completely legitimate. Note to self and to you, some of your real inquiries might look like scams, so look twice. Now, under $1,000, there’s no contract. He just paid me up front. Done. And yeah, I did have a problem with his reference photo. The reference photo he sent me had a big watermark right over it, and I told him I couldn’t work with it. But then I never heard from him, and he’d already paid me.
Miriam Schulman: So I told my assistant, hey, find the image, buy the rights to create derivative artwork from it and pay for it. My assistant has my credit card. I didn’t make my assistant pay for it. I didn’t hassle my client. I didn’t nickel and dime him about the cost of the $40 to buy the rights to use it. That’s what it looks like when you’ve closed all the gaps. All the holes. The client never even sees the places where the commission could have died. It just feels smooth and professional and easy because I spent 25 years making every possible mistake, so it could feel that way. Now, here’s your assignment. Don’t go write a better follow-up email. Go look at your commission process and find every single place where a client can wait without it costing them anything. Then close them one at a time. That’s the whole job. And if you want the bigger picture, how to sell more art without being Insta-famous. Without chasing, without discounting, without acting cringey. I have a masterclass for you. Go to SchulmanArt.com/SellMoreArt. It’s free and you can watch it right now. That’s Miriam Schulman signing off. I’ll see you the same time. Same place next week. Book the date. Take the money. Then talk about the contract and stop waiting for the leaves to turn. You’re the painter. Paint the leaves. Stay inspired. Bye for now.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram @SchulmanArt and of course on SchulmanArt.com.
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