THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: Usually the most graceful way people will use to try to get out of the selling conversation with you. So I’ll say, “Oh, do you have a card or do you have a website?” That is not the time for you to say, “Yes, I have a card. Yes, I have a website.” That’s when you say, “Oh, let me get your email address and I’ll invite you to my next show.”
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: Well, hey there, it’s Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration and host of The Inspiration Place podcast. You’re listening to episode number 309. I hope everything is well and beautiful in the world for you. I am just enjoying this amazing spring weather. It’s a really wonderful time with my family. I’m looking forward to seeing my mom and my daughter. I’m a little missing my son right now. I wish he was with our family too, but he is doing well for anyone who’s wondering. We did hear from him recently.
Okay, so today’s episode is kind of an interesting one, and I think you’re going to get a lot of value out of it. Some time ago, for my 300th podcast episode, I ran a contest giveaway. The giveaway was for people who left either a video review of the book Artpreneur, a review of the workbook, or a review on Audible of Artpreneur. Those people, not only were they entered to win something—we gave away three $100 gift cards—but all the people who entered were also invited to basically a coaching party. So it was like they got coached for a full hour.
Now, one thing I just want you to know, that was kind of like a lesson out of this, is that you get basically none of the opportunities that you don’t even try to take. Or maybe there’s a better way of putting that quote: you will totally fail to get the opportunities you don’t even take.
So for the video review, somebody said to me, “Oh, I’ll have to work on this and make it clever.” And I was like, “It doesn’t have to be clever.” When that person had reached out to me, we had literally zero entries. Then we did get one from Eurnice, who you will hear from later in today’s episode. We ended up getting, I think, a total of three entries. So if you had submitted an entry, that would have been a pretty good 1 in 3 chance of getting a $100 gift card.
We initially wanted video reviews of the workbook. We got none of them, and then we changed it to, “Okay, it just has to be a written verified review.” We got one verified review from Tracy, so she got the gift card for that. I think we got maybe one or two more reviews. We did get a bunch of reviews for Audible, but really not that many. I think altogether about 20 people entered this contest. They were invited to this coaching party. At the coaching party, maybe 12 people showed up live. I said, “Anybody who wants coaching, raise your hand, and I will coach you.” The six people who raised their hands are the ones you’re going to get to hear from today.
There is a mixture of artists on this call. Some of them have already been through the Artist Incubator program. The first artist you’ll hear from is Ginny Naegeli. Just by selling her art to raise money for brain cancer research, she raised over $200,000 from her art, which is absolutely an inspiration and a wonderful way for her to use her art and the monetization of her art to do some good in the world. So you’ll hear from her first.
You’re also going to hear from some artists who are not in the Artist Incubator program. When that happens, I am going to point out to you what they could have gotten if they were part of the Incubator. For example, we have one artist who was really struggling with what to put in her emails. She knew that if she was part of the Incubator, she would have had all the templates and resources available to her. But I did coach everyone in this coaching session. All six artists who I coached, I coached as if they were inside the Incubator. I didn’t say, “Hey, nah-nah-nah-nah, I’m not going to tell you what to do because you have to buy my program.” So you will get to hear some very specific strategies of what they need to do.
In addition, I will also let you know if there are people in the coaching program whose question is perhaps a follow-up question. I’ll give you some background on that as well. All right, so without wasting any more time, let’s get into today’s episode.
Miriam Schulman: Ginny, are you ready for coaching?
Ginny Naegeli: Yes, nice.
Miriam Schulman: So, Ginny, you’ve been inside the Artist Incubator mastermind, and you were part of that very first mastermind.
Ginny Naegeli: Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Did you realize that?
Ginny Naegeli: I did.
Miriam Schulman: That you were actually the first person who reached out to me and said, “Would you coach me?”
Ginny Naegeli: Yes. And I did private coaching with you for about eight or nine sessions. Then you started the Incubator, and I went ahead and jumped into the Incubator because it was just fabulous. There are no art coaches out there. There are coaches for business and for art itself, but not art business coaches. So, you were the one, and it was amazing. Everything I learned was fabulous.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah and I’m so proud of all the gains you made. Like with your open studio, I remember I coached you on the open studio and I forget what you made the first open studio. I want to say it was $3,000. Does that sound right?
Ginny Naegeli: Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: And then the second one, I think you made $14,000.
Ginny Naegeli: I did, and it was all donations. So it was amazing. All the artwork that I had been collecting all these those years, people came and bought. It was a fundraiser so that helped.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it always helps when people know that it’s going to go to charity. I tell a lot of my clients now that one of the best ways to sell art is to partner with a charity and give a portion of the proceeds to the charity as if it was a gallery. So that’s wonderful that you were able to support a charity. You want to give a shout out to that charity? Since that’s something that I’m sure it’s dear to your heart.
Ginny Naegeli: Doctor Al, hello. It’s for brain cancer research, and it’s amazing what he’s done and what he’s doing and what they know now about brain cancer that they didn’t know 20 years ago. So my daughter and I raised $285,000 for them.
Miriam Schulman: Wow. Yeah, that is a huge win.
Ginny Naegeli: Yes.
Miriam Schulman: Oh my gosh, that is phenomenal. That really makes a difference too.
Ginny Naegeli: I think so. I think he’s going to find the cure. Find a way to stop those glioblastomas from taking our friends.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, okay. And how’s your daughter doing.
Ginny Naegeli: She’s great. Her cancer is stable. And, um, she had preserved eggs before the, uh, chemo and radiation. And she has a baby boy. Who would have thought? And so we’re just loving and living every day as a gift, and we’re thankful. And any chance I can raise money with my artwork, that’s my mission in life now. So, it’s fantastic.
Miriam Schulman: That is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that and inspiring everybody with that. So how can I coach you today? What are you struggling with?
Ginny Naegeli: I’m ready to hire somebody to help me. It’s too many balls in the air. I can’t stay focused. So I need another person and I want an Anna. I can’t steal Anna, I know. But I remember when you and Anna started. And when, you know, I could just see the growth that you were able to make. And I would love that. I would like an Anna. And I just don’t know how or who or what you delegate. You do it so well.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. I’m just so lazy and poor Anna has to do it all. Right, Anna?
Ginny Naegeli: I don’t think so.
Miriam Schulman: I’m just like, “Oh, I don’t have to do that. Okay, Anna, you can do it.” And then if Anna doesn’t have time, we give it to somebody else. So we hired Addy to help Anna. So if Anna is too busy, she has someone to give it to also.
Ginny Naegeli: Awesome.
Miriam Schulman: Well, now we have, just so you guys know, because I don’t think I talked too much about the size of my team. I used to remember back in the day, I’d hear other people say “their team.” I was like, “How do I get a team? Like, a team?” Okay, so I started off with Anna when she was, I want to say, Anna, and you can correct me in the comments or the chat, I want to say she was 19, and she was a student at Purchase College. She was an art history major. Purchase College is in New York; it’s one of the SUNYs. Purchase College is one in the SUNY system, and they have a job bulletin board, which most colleges and community colleges have.
That was the college closest to me, and one of the reasons I picked that one, as opposed to one of the other New York schools, was it was a commuting distance to my home. It was like a 20-minute drive to my home. They also have an arts management program. I wasn’t specifically looking for somebody who necessarily had arts management, but I did like that Anna had art history because I know that a lot of what happens in this job is writing about art, and it really helps to have somebody who’s interested in art. But I haven’t always hired people who met that criteria. Before I had Anna, I had interns.
I used to have either summer interns. So in 2013 or 2012, I forget which, when I started online classes, and when I had the idea to start the online class, what I did was I had a summer intern, and I said, “Tell me what software I should buy, what kind of video camera I should buy.” The phones weren’t as sophisticated yet. And by the way, anyone who does want to make an online class, I still think you should get a real video camera because the lens on the phones are just not as good as the lens you’re going to get even on your cheapest digital camcorder that you can get, like on eBay or Amazon. So I said, “Tell me what software to buy, what camera to buy, and now teach me how to use it.” Okay, so he was a summer intern.
Before Anna, I was paying the interns $10 an hour. I also had interns that I would get from the local high school. The local high school has two programs. They have programs for seniors for the last six weeks of school so that they don’t have to work; they can do an internship for 30 hours a week. I’ve had, I think, one or two people come to work for me through that program. There’s also another program they have for high school students. They have an alternative school called the A School where in January, those kids don’t have to go to classes for all their classes; they can do an internship instead. So those were free.
I do prefer paying people; they’re more accountable to you when you pay them. So this was $10 an hour. But don’t forget, this was back in 2013. Now the minimum wage is $15, and Anna gets much more than that. By the way, don’t worry, Anna is not starving. Anna now has 401k, paid time off, and healthcare with me. She’s a full-time employee; it’s not just ten hours a week. But when I started, she was ten hours a week. So that was $100 a week, or $400 a month. And yes, it made a huge difference.
Ginny Naegeli: Yeah, that’s where I’m ready. I just don’t know what I want them to do.
Miriam Schulman: Everything that does not need to be done by you.
Ginny Naegeli: Okay.
Miriam Schulman: Which is pretty much anything on the computer.
Ginny Naegeli: Like?
Miriam Schulman: Editing photos, posting on social media.
Ginny Naegeli: Listing artwork on the website. Got it. I could do more website work. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: And also when Anna, um, in 2020, like around January, February of 2020, she told me she wanted to move to Vermont. And so, nothing to do with COVID. She actually went remote in March of 2020 with COVID, but then she moved to Vermont in April. So I had to go virtual with everything. Up until then, she came to my studio. But that was a really big change for us in 2020—how to run things remotely. And then that’s when I started to take on more remote help.
Ginny Naegeli: I think I just need somebody that’s like really willing to work side by side with me and virtually and I get you just need to pay them. I just didn’t know what tasks like how much do you hand over and do you have anything to sign?
Miriam Schulman: No. I mean you can, you can have them sign a disclosure. All right, Ginny, you’ve got this. Just get started.
Ginny Naegeli: Thank you.
Miriam Schulman: You’re welcome.
Rachel Sherard: Hi, my name is Rachel Sherard. The Ramoshi is my business name. And I’m kind of just starting out and I’ve been doing the markets a little bit. Like, I know you said it’s a nightmare but I kind of had just started. So I guess my biggest thing is like how to get clients. Like, I do live streaming, so most of the people who I’ve done work for, like commission projects, have been audience members in my stream that have decided to order from me but I am looking for a larger pool. Like, what’s your advice on that?
Miriam Schulman: Tell me the kind of art you do.
Rachel Sherard: I do wood burning. So it’s wood burn, and then I paint on some of them.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. When you go to weather flea markets or whatever your go to, do you collect email addresses when you’re there?
Rachel Sherard: I have not been collecting email addresses yet.
Miriam Schulman: That’s the fastest way.
Rachel Sherard: No, I have not yet because my website is not set up for that yet.
Miriam Schulman: One of the best ways to start collecting emails is you make some postcards. They kind of look like that. I think I may have the actual one sitting around some—
Rachel Sherard: Oh, literally have people manually fill out their email address.
Miriam Schulman: Oh yeah. And this is much better than having a clipboard where people write it. People do not want to put their email and name on a clipboard because they’re paranoid about privacy. There’s something that gives a different energy when you make these postcards, because you’re handing them a postcard to fill out. There’s almost this reciprocity. They feel like they’re being given something, and you can have them fill it out whether they buy or not. When they’re thinking about it. I usually, as soon as they come into my space, ask them, “Hi, I would say, ‘Hi, I’m Rachel, I’m the artist. What’s your name?'” As soon as they tell me their name, I would write it down on the postcard. Now they may not, and they may end up not giving you the email later. But at least when you talk to them, you don’t have that situation where they just told you the name and you forgot it two seconds later. It’s really easy to refer to people by their name. Like, you see how when I say “Rachel,” blah blah blah, like, you see how good that feels? Oh, she actually cares about me. There’s something.
And by the way, whenever I go to a restaurant, I always ask the server what their name is. I get such better service because I’ll say, “Hey Julie, blah blah blah.” It’s not like, “Hey, you, get me some water here.” So you get their name, and when you’re talking to them, if they buy while you’re wrapping up the thing, say, “Okay, would you mind just filling this out while I wrap your thing up?” If they end up not buying, usually the most graceful way people will use to try to get out of the selling conversation with you is to say, “Oh, do you have a card or do you have a website?” That is not the time for you to say, “Yes, I have a card. Yes, I have a website.” That’s when you say, “Oh, let me get your email address and I’ll invite you to my next show.” As simple as that. And if there’s any kind of traffic at a show, if it’s a two-day show, you should be able to pick up 100 emails every weekend that you do a show. Okay?
Rachel Sherard: I guess the whole email thing is a big thing for me because I feel like once I start collecting emails and I have to start sending out emails.
Miriam Schulman: Yes you do.
Rachel Sherard: The sending out emails is the stressful part. But—
Miriam Schulman: No, only if you tell yourself it is.
Rachel Sherard: I guess, like, what to put in an email. And I know that. Yeah, in your intensive program, you have, like, you give templates and stuff, but um, without that, I’m just trying to figure it out, you know.
Miriam Schulman: Rachel, are you posting on social media?
Rachel Sherard: Not as often as I should be.
Miriam Schulman: Well, how often are you posting on, let’s say, Instagram?
Rachel Sherard: At this point, it’s like when I, when I think about it, which is probably like once a month or twice a month, honestly. `I know it’s not enough.
Miriam Schulman: It’s not. So, you’ve got to think about it like if this was your boyfriend and you only texted him once a month, he would not be happy with you. So, you’ve got to treat your collectors like they’re your best friends and stay in touch with them. So, three times a week on social media, and whatever it is that you would be posting on social media, pick one of those ideas and put it in the email.
Rachel Sherard: Um, the most recent sale I did was the pet portrait. Uh, a commission project that was, uh, someone’s dog that I burned a portrait of.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so that’s basically three emails right there. The first email is, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so excited. I’m going to get to paint this or wood burn this bulldog,” and maybe show the picture of the dog and “I chose this piece of wood that I’m going to be working on. And if you’re interested in getting your dog too, click here and you can find out how to get a portrait.” That is an email. Second email, a week later, “I’ve made this progress on the dog portrait. Look what I’ve done.” So do you see that? The third one, maybe it’s done, “Look at me.”
Rachel Sherard: Gotcha. So like [inaudible].
Miriam Schulman: Exactly. And on social media, you basically the in-progress like every day that you show them okay this is what I did today. That’s it.
Rachel Sherard: Okay.
Miriam Schulman: All right, you got this.
Rachel Sherard: Thank you.
Patrick Olfert: I’m trying to get away from the corporate job, obviously, but I run a website, Rafterburn.com. I sell digital abstract art. And I think some of the challenges that I have right now are just like, I do a lot of different things. So, kind of, you know, that garage sale mentality you talk about in your books? I’ve learned a lot, and I think I’m doing a great job. But, yeah, it’s really just, uh, yeah, just kind of narrowing down what my niche will be and really, like, yeah, hitting it hard. But, uh, I really like your content and everything. So far, I’ve started on your book and am reading that, but, yeah, I have a lot of it figured out right now. I have the website and production, and I’m really starting to, I guess, get into it. Um, I guess the other thing too, that I think a lot of people struggle with and I do myself is like, actually, that was an amazing idea you had with getting that email, uh, content, or the email, uh, from everybody. Like when you go out, you know, to a show or to a sale or where you show your art. Um, I probably need to print off some of my stuff, too. So I have like I do the print on demand thing. So there’s just an unlimited amount of, I guess, you know, products that I can offer. But it’s like what I guess, you know, my question is like, what do I really focus on as the, uh, yeah, um.
Miriam Schulman: I tell my clients not to focus on print on demand products because there’s so little profit in them. Like you make maybe $0.80 off of a mug. Right? Right. Like I you, those of you who do those print on demand, you can tell me what the going profit margin is. You have to if you want to make $50,000 a year from your art, and some of you want to make more, you want to make 100,000. Let’s just go with 100,000. How many mugs and products do you have to sell to get there? So if you can do a pickleball digital artwork and print it out really large and sell that for $2,000, now you only have to find 50 customers to buy this $2,000 digital art on metal of a pickleball court. That’s really cool. And that would get you to your goal of 100,000 a lot faster. Does that make sense, Patrick?
Patrick Olfert: What you’re saying like print actually like print it out, like, you know, kind of punt, not really punt, but but go for it. Get a get like this large format, uh, you know, whether it’s a canvas or a rug, um, and sell it.
Miriam Schulman: I wouldn’t do it as a rug. I there’s that’s going to be a very hard sell. I know that a lot of us have this thought that products that have utility are easier to sell. But it really isn’t. Okay. So the the ones that are easiest to sell are to, to go high end. Uh, we do have digital artists who are in the group, So Suzanne is a digital artist, and she sells to interior decorators. And, Suzanne, you’re selling your art between 2 and $3000. Is that right? Sometimes more.
Suzanne Kaltbaum: That’s the low.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. So tell tell us about that.
Suzanne Kaltbaum: So I solicit I go after interior designers because they’re repeat customers and a lot of their clients. If they’re hiring an interior designer, then they have, you know. Extra cash to spend, and, um, but I print. I don’t have it at my home. I print when they order, so when they order something, I can make it to the custom size. And then I send it to my printer and he ships it directly. And that way I don’t have to pay a lot for inventory. Um, I mean, that’s what I do, and I only offer one medium I print on HD metal, so I don’t do canvas, I don’t do other things. And that’s my specialty because not a lot of people print on metal or HD metal. They print on regular metal. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: I think, um, Patrick, from what you’re just. I haven’t seen your art, but from what you’re describing, that might be a good substrate for you as well, because you have, like, this AI generated. You know, that would might be a cool thing, but you but you as the artist need to make that decision. So I would, you know, look at what are your three best works, get some samples of them printed and then make the decision. And this is for everybody. There are websites where you can do a million things, print on demand. I don’t think that’s a good approach for customers. They do not like having all of those choices. Just like we don’t like making choices and decisions. Our customers get overwhelmed when there’s too many choices and they end up not getting anything at all. So Patrick, I hope that helps you with with some of your problems. Did you do you have one more question you want to ask before we move on to Suzanne?
Patrick Olfert: But like you said, maybe print off like one of my you said best pieces like in a high format, like type situation.
Miriam Schulman: Well, I think you should print make some small prints to see if how you if you like the way it looks. Right. Okay. But you don’t have to. You’re if you’re a digital artist, you’re basically in the business of selling prints. So if you’re going to a show like, um, or friend Rachel, it’s going to a show, she’s bringing physical work with her. If you go to a show, you need to bring some physical work with you. But if you’re selling online, you can put it digitally into a room. But now you have the task of building up a clientele that you can email and get to your website. So that’s a different task than going to, uh. I do think Rachel’s approach of going to these in-person markets is a great approach, because everyone who goes there is interested in buying things, especially if you go to a higher end art fair, not necessarily something where there’s it’s a low, you know, where you’re next to the corn stand. You don’t want to be next to the corn stand. So makes sense. Patrick. Yep. Thank you. Okay. You got this. All right. Suzanne. Hello. Nice to see you. How are you? Good, good.
Suzanne Kaltbaum: So my question is back to my website. I understand that it’s overwhelming and I have too many things. My question is how many categories can you have before it’s too much? Like can I have three categories maybe beaches, graffiti and cities and call it a day and just have like ten images on each, or just keep it at the one category and call it a day? I’m kind of struggling giving up because there’s so many pieces I’d never be able to show them. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Three three is good. Three is probably not going to be too overwhelming. Um, and but don’t forget that you can rotate things. You can. Right. Like, don’t I know these are all your children and you want them all to be, like, shown and represented and you know, but.
Suzanne Kaltbaum: Yeah. I’m just afraid that if I even with rotating, if I don’t have, let’s say three categories, it’ll never get out there. And if you’re there today and you’re looking at this quarter’s beaches, you know, whatever it is, you won’t know there’s other things.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, that that’s having I think that’s having a scarcity mindset around things. Okay. That you think, well if I don’t show everything. So the way to think about this, it’s kind of like if you go to a boutique that sell or a potter, a potters boutique, and they had every single thing on the table, it looks very garage sale. But if they have pottery and they have like one beautiful bowl and then like here they have the four glasses, it looks so it looks curated in high end. Or if you think about Chanel bags, they don’t have every Chanel bag that’s possibly available in the store. And people who like Chanel bags will go back to the store. Okay, let’s see what’s new. And if you train your customers, the designers, to know that this is what you have now and this may not and have that scarcity like that FOMO. Well, if you don’t get this now, it may go away. When we rotate the next collection. That could be a good selling point, right?
Suzanne Kaltbaum: But I’m thinking more of the average person because I want them to be able to shop on the website, but it probably works the same way.
Miriam Schulman: It’s the same way. Like if if I go to, um, there was this one absolutely true situation. I think I talk about this in my book where I needed an athletic bra, and I went on Athleta, which is a subsidiary of The Gap, and they were literally like 200 different bras. I was like, I can’t make a decision. I don’t know what the difference is. I can’t look at all these things. I’m sorry. So I end up not doing anything.
Suzanne Kaltbaum: Yeah, I get that. Okay. I just have to break out of my scarcity.
Miriam Schulman: I need to have, like, just. These are the five things I don’t want to see. Everything. Um, there’s another designer I follow, Brittany Allen, and I sometimes buy her workout clothes. And sometimes, if she has too many things, it’s a turn off to me. Oh, you mean you make that, you know, blue rose bed print? I can get it in a skirt and a top and a this and a that. And if I’m going to wear it, I’m going to see 20 people coming down the street in the same thing. So, like having things curated, you’re doing a benefit for your customer and you’re also making things more high end.
Eurnice Harris: It’s Eurnice.
Eurnice Harris: it was good. It it, um. And I’ll, I’ll just say this. I was really surprised about all of the information that I got, because here I’m, I’m, I’m also a woman in my 50s. Um, I went I went to art school years ago and ended up switching careers because I heard the same thing that you say in your book. One of those mental things that I used to hear all the time, artists don’t make money. And even though I loved it, I went to school for it, and that’s all I ever wanted to do. Um, I’m doing I’m doing it, but I want to do it full time. And I wanted to be profitable. Right. So some things, uh, that I’m doing now, I started teaching it, uh, again, I was it was one of those things that was suggested some years ago. And the reason I didn’t go into it and this might be, uh, I guess a lot of artists will find this to be true. I was always told, or I used to hear that, you know, if you’re if you become an art teacher, that’s because you couldn’t you weren’t good enough and you couldn’t make it out there in a real company. So now you’re teaching. So it’s like, I think I carried that. And when you were talking about in your book about these mental blocks and stuff, and so as I’m reading, I say, that’s me, man, that’s me. And I was like, wow, I didn’t realize that that was really actually holding me back part of the way, too.
Eurnice Harris: So, um, and also to 100% believing stepping out there, I stepped away from, you know, my job, uh, in 2016, I just took the leap of faith. And God still has sustained me and my husband in the process. But I want to take it to excuse me. I want to take it to a another level so that it can be truly profitable. I get some projects, like right now I’m I’m on display at a place I’m from, Indiana. So I’m at a display and a couple of, uh, places. I’ll be a live artist there next week, as a matter of fact. my goal is I want to be able to be in an artist’s full time because I believe that this was my gift that God has given me.
Eurnice Harris: And I just you being finding this book and all of that. I believe it was divine order, too, because that’s something I was praying about. And I just happened to see your boot camp last year, and I was like, I don’t usually fall, you know? So you look at these things as it is. And I kept reading and I said, you know what? Let me just check this out. I said, you can’t beat free. And it’s and it’s a boot camp. I’ve never, ever done that before. So even being on there, and that’s when I was inspired to buy the book. And then as I’m reading the book and I slowed down because I thought I was just going to go straight through it. But it’s so much good information, and you’re challenging us to not just, uh, procrastinate, learn. That’s the one of the terms you used in the book. Um, because that’s what I was doing. It was like, I want to know understand what I should be doing all of that. Long story short. So anyway, I just my question is, do you think because I don’t want to take up so much time either. But, uh, my question is, would, uh, classes, online classes be a good idea to kind of move forward to as far as the income wise so that because I’m also doing another part time job on the weekends besides doing what I’m doing, uh, now, and it does cut down some of my time of studio.
Eurnice Harris: Studio time.
Eurnice Harris: I’m enjoying the classes, uh, teaching live because it’s really kind of putting me back out there again. And I’m really enjoying that. I know how to do a little bit of this, uh, ink work, painting, drawing. And those are the classes that I’m teaching drawing, painting, ink work and color theory and things like that. But when it comes to selling the pieces of artwork, it now, my if you look at my website, I have sections of those, but I’m wondering something that I read in your book and making having uh, being sort of, uh, a smorgasbord of, of things and people don’t know what you really, really do. So I’m wondering if I should just as far as my own work, focus on what I enjoy. I love doing portrait work and I love doing concept illustration. That’s what I those are my two favorite things and some abstract, just to, uh, to free myself up when I’m doing the more intense stuff.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, the, the stuff that you do for classes. What I would do is make that available for sale to your students. Oh, okay. Um, lots of teachers do that. They like. I’ll set up a table in the back of the class, and they just like, these are the class demos, and you can offer it at 50% less than what you normally offer because they’re a demo. Like that’s how you can position it, um, and not put it on your website and just only put on your website the art that really speaks to your soul.
Eurnice Harris: Gotcha. Okay. All right. That’s thank you. And like I said, I’m still still looking at the book, still writing my notes, and I’m slowing it down. I read some of them today, but I really appreciate it because I think it’s the So Far is the best book that I’ve seen that really kind of spoke to me at my stage, me being in my 50s now, and I’m like, man, where was this book 30 years ago? But thank you.
Miriam Schulman: That’s you’re welcome. That’s why I wrote it. This is the book I wish I had 30 years ago when I started. Yeah. It’s like there wasn’t a book that really told me what I needed to know.
Stefanie Rapoza: Um, Stephanie Raposa, um, abstract artist. Um, I’m starting to. Are you, you know, get into the interior design space. So it interested me hearing. I think it was Suzanne. Susan. Um, kind of want to see, like, what her work is like, too, because I’m kind of going that realm, but doing the physical rather than the digital. Well, they start out digital and then I take them to canvas. But, um, yeah. So I’ve been painting since seriously, painting since 2018. So. Um, for a little bit now. Um, and then I’m a graphic designer. Part time to full time freelancing right now. So.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. And then how can we help you today?
Stefanie Rapoza: So, um, I’m going through some of the training and I’m interested in doing. I started email marketing a few months ago. Um, my list is low. I’ve got around 85 to 90 people on the list right now. Um, but I’m looking to create that free offer that you talk about to get more signups. Um, and I think I wrote down. I think they’re going to do the free collector’s guide or since I am going like wanting to move towards the interior design space, I thought about creating like a guide for like how to choose art for your home kind of thing, because I started to write a whole blog on it, and then I realized, well, this could really be like an offer and gated, rather than just a blog post that I put on my website. So I was wondering, do you think that that might be more valuable than doing the Free Collector’s guide or.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it’s basically the same thing. The Collector’s Guide really is just showing your art in room views. And don’t overthink it. You do not have to be the expert interior design. Guru advice. Really. They just want to see what the art looks in rooms. That is enough. And make sure you have like QR codes. That takes everything from that page to where they can buy it. Okay. So links.
Stefanie Rapoza: Yeah. And then once I create the offer itself. You know, get the pop up on my site. I guess I’m having the issue of like, getting, you know, social. I’m not getting any views when I’m posting. I think I’m being pretty consistent. I’m like 2 to 3 times a week posting. Um, but that’s obviously not the focus. It’s the email. Um, but definitely like where digitally I can get.
Miriam Schulman: How many followers do you have on Instagram likes? 740 something. I think that’s a lot of people. Yeah. What I would do is I would start going down your follower list, starting with the most recent follower, and send them a message that says, and we do have this exact training inside the incubator, which you’re a part of. It’s called Insta Connect, but the message you can start with is like, um, hey, um, I’m in case we haven’t met, I’m Stephanie, I do abstract art. How did you hear about me? Or thanks for following. How did you hear about me? What I do when I welcome followers is I say, I’ll say, did you hear about me because of the book of the podcast? Because I want them to know I have a book in the podcast if you have, and this is for everybody here. If you do have some sort of credibility marker that you know, are you following me? Be me because you saw me. Like, if you have some sort of credibility that you can humble brag about. Oh, did you find me because of this thing? And it’s not because you want to really find out if they saw you because of the thing. You’re letting them know that you had this thing happen.
Stefanie Rapoza: I’ll have that next month. I’m getting in a local magazine here.
Miriam Schulman: Perfect. So? So then. But you don’t have to wait till then. I would start welcoming your new followers. And this is the kind of thing. It’s a little bit tedious. I usually do it when I’m either sitting, uh, in front of the TV or if I’m in the car, a passenger in a car. I’ll just go down my follower list.
Miriam Schulman: So Monica says I have a question. So direct message followers asking how they find out about you. Yeah, that’s one way to do it. Like I, I say we message. I mean I have like 30,000 followers on Instagram. We still message everyone who follows me. We do skip some though. Just so you know, we’ll if they don’t have a picture, I don’t message them. the way you message them is you click to their profile and you can very quickly tell if somebody has a catfish profile or not. Like if they only have six posts there, I don’t bother, especially if it’s a guy who only has six posts like it’s his.
Miriam Schulman: It’s his creepy profile opportunity account. Yeah, it’s his troll account. I don’t message his people so you can see really fast. Also, if they say something offensive in their bio, I don’t message them. And for me personally, I’m only messaging artists for you guys. You’re not just messaging artists, but if somebody’s following you and it’s clearly it’s a sunglass brand, like you just started following whatever some sunglass brand, three sunglass brands are suddenly following you because the robots do that. Obviously don’t message the sunglass brands, but you message all the humans. So. Okay. Anything else Stephanie, on this topic. So this is about moving people what I would start doing Stephanie, is so you go, you’re in the incubator so you can you can take advantage of that training. There’s a lot of good ideas in there for you about how to start moving people from Instagram to your email list and start talking about the freebie, like getting them to DM, you, getting them to comment if they want something. And all of these, um, are this is like up to the minute things that work really well on Instagram.
Miriam Schulman: And that’s it. Until next time. Until then, stay inspired by everyone.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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