How Artists Can Actually GROW Their Business Online

I work with a lot of artists who do local shows, local galleries, art fairs, things like that. And they're trying to take those sales onto the Internet. And one of the biggest problems is that they're stuck at 200 views or they've only got 30, 100 people on their email list, you know, from people on the Internet. And there's a lot of frustration there, and rightfully so. It totally makes sense. But I want to make an argument today that the reason you're not growing is because you're thinking too big. And so, without further ado, let's jump into it.

Welcome to the Stop the Starving Artist podcast. My name is Lennon Bone. I'm so glad to have you here. This is your first time here watching the podcast. I'm so grateful to have you. We've seen over 3,000 new subscribers in the last 30 days, and that is blowing my mind. Last week I talked about how I was out of town because my cousin has cancer, so my dad and I got to go down to Texas and be with him and spend a little time. And I'm really grateful for that. And a few of you were very kind to say that you were offering prayers for him or just sending good vibes. And I can't say how much that means to me. So thank you. As well as just dozens of new, very generous comments saying how much you're getting from these videos. And that really means the world to me. And so today we're going to continue to deliver on that. But first, I do want to say that members of my heart based sales accelerator, which is my program and my community, have now this week we have seen $254,459 in art sales from them since January 1st. That's over a quarter of a million dollars. That's insane to me. Super, super excited about this. We're in the third quarter of the year and we're going to be doing a lot of talking inside that community about growing your email lists, all these other things, I think we're going to see that number really, really start to move. So I'm super excited about it. But today let's talk about the power of thinking small. Because.

When I hear artists say things like, well, I only have 200, you know, views on a post, or I've only got 30 people on my email list, well, I can sense why that's frustrating. But let's like, look at the thing that is really important here, which is are we seeing those things as obstacles or are we seeing those things opportunity Are we seeing those things as obstacles or are we seeing those things as opportunity? Why is that important? Because if you see that as an obstacle, then the likelihood of you feeling good about your business, the likelihood of you feeling confident about how you're showing up online, the likelihood that you're going to do the things that are uncomfortable that you know you need to do in order to grow your art business online, and those that like. Statistically, the likelihood that you'll do that goes down when you see that as an obstacle. Why is that? Well, because when things feel this way, it's like, well, it's only doing this.

Then. Rather than seeing it as something exciting and full of possibility, we feel obligated. I've got to make another post today, and it's only going to get 200 views. Oh, I gotta freaking work on my email list. But it's only got 30 people on it. And as my coach used to say, obligation is a breeding ground for resentment. And if we resent something.

What are the likelihood? Like, are the odds that it's going to grow? Not good. You know, if my wife and I are in a part of our relationship where I'm resenting her, if I can't get past that resentment, what's the likelihood that our relationship is going to improve?

Very slim, right? So I love to look at these numbers and say, okay, well, I'm only getting 200 views.

And for me, I remember the days when, you know, I. I was on the road as a touring musician and we'd spend 150 bucks in gas to get to the next town, maybe play for 15 or 20 people. This was in the first days, you know, like getting started. Took five years to get to a place where we would draw 200 people in a room. Five years of consistently. And when I say consistently, I mean we were doing 150 dates plus a year. Some years. Some of you aren't even doing 150 posts a year. Right? That's the real, real. Like we were out hoofing it every day, out on the road, doing the thing, making it happen. And now I can sit on my freaking butt in my living room and make a post and reach 200 people and get data on what's happening with that post and why it didn't work. And I can ask someone for feedback on what I could do better. What a freaking gift that is. See, now we're thinking, impossibility. What can we do? Well, Lennon, I only have 30 people on my email list. Well, 30 people sounds like at least one sale, as we'll talk about in a minute. You know, on average, you're gonna sell to 3% of your email list. And if you got 30 people on there, the likelihood of you hitting one sale off those 30 people is really good. So we're talking about a potential $500,000. I mean, I got clients that are selling work for 8,000, 5,000, 8,000, 10,000. We're talking about real money, y'. All. So 30 people sounds pretty great right now, doesn't it? But it doesn't work if we're not nurturing them, if we're not speaking to them. Same with our social media. Those 200 views don't count if we're treating it like something we don't really want to do. If we're showing up with this obligated spirit and energy, that's how they're going to perceive it. You see what I'm getting at here? I hope this makes sense. So I love thinking small because growing a small art business is the only way you'll ever have a big one.

Growing a small art business is the only way that you'll ever have a big one. And with the Internet, it doesn't do this direct curve up, right? With the Internet it's usually flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. And then we have this huge hockey stick. So one of my clients made these really cool mushroom sculpture structures like shelves. And they were following my heart based sales accelerator, posting content about themselves, their mission, and doing it in a way that felt really fun for them. And every post they got a little better at who they were. And every post they got a little more comfortable with showing up. And that allowed them to make more posts because it didn't feel as heavy as it used to. And then all of a sudden one of them went viral. And then within I want to say two weeks, maybe three weeks, they had made $10,000.

So what I'm telling you is that in one post you could have.

Enough to really substantially grow your business. But I also want to say that if I handed you 2000 new potential clients right now, would you know how to handle it? Because right now you maybe feel like frustrated, annoyed, all these things with like, where your business is currently. And if you can't handle where your business is now, imagine trying to handle 2,000 people that are coming at you saying, I want this thing, I need this thing. And now you're trying to appease them, right? When in this state you're trying to appease an algorithm. We have to learn to be able to let go and open up a little bit. I hope this makes sense. So let's do some real practical numbers to talk about how you can make $50,000 in the next year, maybe two years. I don't know. You know, it takes time to build your art business. So I'm not here telling you it's going to be fast. If somebody's telling you it's going to be fast, they're lying to you, right? It can be fast for some people, but for the majority, it takes time because you just have to learn new skill sets and that's okay, right? Be okay with that, Be okay with small. So let's pretend that you have pieces that you sell for $500 and you want to make $50,000. That means you need to sell 100 pieces. Pretty simple, right?

And like I said earlier, on average, you're going to sell to about 3%.

The people on your email list. That means you need 3,333 followers on your email list in order to hit the hundred sales. That's not so crazy. How many of you are sitting there thinking, I need to get 20,000 followers and 80,000 followers, 100, 200,000 followers, right? And I'm here to tell you, like, I talk to artists almost every week who have tens of thousands of followers and are not making money from it.

It's true. So in order to hit that number of 3,333, you only need to reach 10 people a day to get 10 people a day on your email list. Now, some of you will hear that, and rightfully you'll go, well, but I can't get one on my email list right now. Well, the first question I have is, are you asking them to get on your email list? Are you telling them you have an email list? Are you telling them the opportunity, like, this is what I teach in the program, right? You need a system that does this. But secondly, let's just say for a second, like, yeah, you're growing, you're learning how to grow, you're learning what your message is. You're learning how to speak all these things. What would it look like if you just got one a day? One a day. One a day is going to equal about 365 people, and that equals 11 sales, $5,460 the next year, right? And again, if you just think, well, right now I'm not getting one a day, and that leaves you frustrated. Well, again, with the Internet, it doesn't work that way, right? Growth happens as A hockey stick. So you have an opportunity to hit that literally with one post. And I see this all the time. So we need to see the possibility of what's there. And I know that $5,460 is not a life changing amount of money, but when you think of it in terms of this is where we start in order to get to the next phase, that is pretty incredible. Because then once that's happening and we build a little momentum and people are sticking around now because the message is clear, because you're more yourself, all these types of things now, it's going to be much faster to get to that. 3333, right? Pretty incredible. But here's the dirty truth. For many of you artists, according to creative independent, only 12% of you actually have some sort of sales plan or online strategy. 12%. And 65% of you post and hope, meaning you just kind of make a post, you post a process video and you just hope somebody sees it or you're using somebody's hook strategy and you're hoping it works. Well, I'm here to tell you, like, without a message, without understanding who your person is, all these things, like you're gonna miss out on that. If you want to learn a little more about my process on that, I do have a free workshop that you can check out. You can go to the link in the description below to check that out. But here's what's really cool, is that 90% of art buyers are looking for meaningful connections with the artist, not just perfect art. How exciting is that? 90%. That means nine out of every 10 people, if you just focused on connecting with them, you have a better likelihood of getting them to get on your email list and potentially buy. And when you have an email list, you are actually five times more likely to get someone to buy. Five times. Crazy, right? And this is a really interesting statistic as well, because only 8% of artists that are online make over $100,000 a year. Only 8%. Okay, this makes sense, right? Because again, if only 12% have a strategy, like 8 out of that 12% are making over 100k. Sounds pretty good. Sounds like having a strategy really is helpful, right? But what's interesting is those people that are making over $100,000, they've built their income direct to the collector, not through a gallery, direct to the collector, online. Guys, there is power in the Internet if you just have the opportunity to see.

The possibility and not the obstacle. And one of the biggest problems that artists have is that they see the obstacle. And I get it. There are inherently, there are a lot of things about social media that is not great.

But there's a lot about it that's also great. You know, we've connected more with like minded people in the past handful of years than we ever have. People simultaneously feel more connected and more alone. Which means that again, there's both good and bad aspects of it. But what I believe is that the more positive content that we have out there, that's not just strategically trying to get someone to pay attention, but is actually trying to help someone, trying to serve someone. And I think that's what artists do best, is they help people think about the world and see the world differently. Like, think about that, think about an Internet where that's what we're seeing more of. Not just cat videos, not just political nonsense that's pushing people apart, but stuff that gets us to see the world in a way that's positive. Like, what would that do for the world and for you as an artist? So the two things you need to focus on in order to grow your art business is one, getting consistent new potential clients, right? Which means more eyeballs on your stuff. And we're gonna talk more about how to do that. But the other thing is that you need to be making more offers to them, which means you need to be letting people know, like, where they can buy your stuff, how they can buy it, what's for sale. And most of you don't have a plan that does this. So in the next video, we're going to talk about the biggest mistakes that I see artists making right now when it comes to getting new potential clients and making offers so that you can really avoid those.

Because they're really simple. And honestly, you're probably going to be frustrated when you see some of them, because I know you're doing some of them. So check this video out. And then in the next video, we're going to be going over a plan to actually get more of those potential clients and make more offers so that you can make this thing happen for you. You can actually build a small business, grow a small art business so that it can get bigger. That's my goal for you. So don't forget, you don't make art. Your art is a byproduct of your thoughts, your experiences, your beliefs, your ideas.

And the faster you can get somebody to connect with those things, the faster they will connect to the work you make and the more likely they will be to purchase it because they no longer see just a work of art. They see a story that connects with them. So you don't make art. You are the art. I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for being here.