More of the things you want, and fewer of the things you don’t

This is the third video where I’m teaching the really high-leverage things you can do for free so that

• you feel more validated in your art because people want to buy it,
• they get it,
• they come to your shows,
• you have an enthusiastic fanbase and
• you have the respect of your peers and other artists who are ahead of you on the journey and can help lift you up.

In the first video we spun your communications around so it’s no longer about you, it’s about them.

In the second video we looked at how people buy art, and how to change your website so it ‘converts’ better.

By implementing those, you’ll already have a much higher chance of waking up to good surprises in your emails which is a lovely way to get a spring in your step.

And it’s not harder than the hamster wheel you’re on now. It’s just different. And by the way, that’s a good thing. You want to be outstanding not samey when a buyer wanders past.

This is completely do-able for you, I’ll come to that shortly.

So let’s just change a bit more brain wiring and talk about .. now don’t switch off, this isn’t what you think .. pricing.

Firstly, let’s just get out into the open your resistance.

OK, I’m going to say something, and I want you to notice how you react. Mostly mentally, what your head says next. But possibly also bodily, how do you feel, and where do you feel it?

You might want to write down your reaction so it doesn’t get confused by my analysis afterwards, so I’m going to count down from 10 while you grab a pen and a scrap of paper .. 

Ready to spot your reaction? Here it comes:

I want you to double your prices

Alright, what did you get?

• That would put me out of step with my peers
• I’m not worth that
• People can’t afford it
• I’ll sell less and I want to get my art out there

But also, is there a knot in your stomach? A dark knot? Say hi to it, put some cheese out for it. What’s up my friend, come talk about it. Welcome your dark knot into your loving, caring light and see if you can’t work it out.

The main one to break is our link to capitalism and the protestant work ethic. That’s what’s behind any thoughts about “well, it takes me 20 hours to make a painting and there’s £100 of materials so if I charge (woohoo) £20 an hour that’s £500 and £20 per hour full time is about £36k and that’s OK”. Protestant work ethic.

You escaped the factory to be a free artist. So escape the factory!

It’s not about the effort you put in. It’s about the value. There’s an artist on LinkedIn who is very successful, has a big studio, sells big, and the work appears to be basically pendulum painting with the canvas being spun. He even shows it. 1 minute, there’s your painting. Sells for thousands.

It’s not the effort, it’s the value.

Value is .. what does this do for the buyer? Particularly, what problem does it solve for them? How does it make them feel? What’s that worth? That’s the price.

You only get to understand that through the sorts of techniques I talk about in video 1 where you are asking people how your art makes them feel.

So far, then, we’ve focused on your buyers, you’ve attracted them with your pheromones because you seem to be solving a problem they have, and you’ve made a website that doesn’t trip them up and they are ready to buy.

At that point, the price isn’t key. Can you solve the problem is where you should focus.

That’s not even the big thing.

Here’s the big thing.

Let’s now, forget about price. Completely. Let’s measure average worth.

So .. I would measure the average worth of someone who signs up to your mailing list.

But you can measure it elsewhere .. the average worth of a Facebook Page follower. Or the average worth of a buyer.

So if someone signs up to your mailing list (did you miss my mailing list training .. bet you did 🙂 ) .. what happens next? What happens when someone signs up to your mailing list?

Let’s say you get 365 mailing signups in a year.

And 2% of those buy a painting, average price £1,000 so that’s £7,300.

What if you had an upsell for those buyers? Have you seen my (bigger paintings)? You know how you were considering this other one as well, what about both for £1,500? 

And what about downsells?

Let’s think about that for a minute. You could set things up so that someone who keeps coming back to your website but hasn’t bought gets at least an invitation to your mailing list as a popup. And once we have their email, we can automatically offer them and only them something smaller, easier.

It could be literally smaller paintings. But then we can go down to greetings cards and badges.

By thinking about and implementing good, thoughtful upsells and downsells that aren’t cheesy and genuinely do help the customer find something they can afford, a way for them to access the value you offer, you’re raising the average worth of someone who signs up to your mailing list because those who can’t afford it find something they can afford, and those who can afford it .. some of them go big.

Now, what about your buyers? Might they buy again? Might they become a collector? An advocate of your work? What’s your programme to encourage that? How do you make them feel special?

And so with all of those changes and programmes in place, many of them automated, maybe someone who signs up to your mailing list is no longer worth £20 on average, maybe they’re worth £40 on average. Well that’s nice, now you have a marketing budget.

And with a marketing budget, you can rise and keep rising.

1. So I’ve introduced buyer-focussed messaging so what you say is meaningful to those who read it. So you are engaging. You matter to people. They want what you’ve got.
2. Then we’ve created consistency so people feel they know and can trust you.
3. And here in this video I’ve shown you how to ask for the value you are creating, and how to adapt so people with different budgets can still connect.

Now, as you know, over the last year I’ve created and released training courses to help artists like you gain the status you deserve and one of the things that’s bugged me about that is .. I get fantastic feedback and it’s been completely awesome to work with everyone .. but for those who came on a number of courses it was a little confusing which courses were happening when.

So I had a bit of a wrestle with that and here’s the plan.

First of all, I’m going to rewrite and rerecord all of it, just because I’m better at it now so hopefully I’ll be a little more punchy and deliver in a more effective way for you.

The big thing is, I’m going to arrange it rather like a year-long university course. So we have a set of modules per term, a managed time-commitment from you (like .. a morning every week, that sort of thing), and we progress from the quick wins early in the year to the deeper, higher leverage stuff later on.

And we get holidays too of course, so there’s time to reflect. Important, if you remember my Rock Star Lifecycle.

And .. and here’s my upsell .. if you want my help throughout, literally, I’ll help jolly you along, we’ll do coaching where it’s right and if you get stuck on the tech things, if you want my view on how to arrange your website, if you need someone to write your copy .. I’ll be there with you and I’ll literally do those things for you if you like .. where you stop, I’ll start, and we’ll make a partnership to get this done and make good surprises your new reality.

So the course will start in the first week of January, but I’ll open up a limited offer on Thursday. This will be the offer price for the year’s training, and an upsell if you want my hands-on help to get this done.

So watch out for my next video to see what you get, and then registration.

If you’ve already taken a course with me, watch out for an email once the doors open, I’ll contact you individually with a discounted price to acknowledge that you’re already part-way in.

Just so you can see what I’m doing here, my downsell is that you can still do the individual courses, it’s just that the full programme will save you money.

And then the downsell below that is the book that I’ve planned but haven’t written yet (I keep arguing with experts about the title) 🙂

And below that, a programme for people who have no money, where art is their escape route. Haven’t written that yet either, but respect to you people, these free videos are for everyone and you can bootstrap yourself, but this course isn’t for you. But know that I haven’t forgotten you and I’ll come back to you.

So this is no longer about whether you can do this. With me by your side to pick up the parts you drop, it’s no longer even about whether you trust yourself to do this. We can step you up together so that you are supported by a growing fanbase of buyers, you have the respect of your peers, your art practice is successful, you’re making a difference, you have your freedom, there’s a buzz at your previews and it feels .. great. I’m your partner to make that happen.

Let’s actually do this .. watch out for the next video.

Stay safe, sell art.