Sell Your Art Online With This One Simple Method.

Today, we're taking a nosedive into a topic that really could reshape your art business. So if you're one of those artists who's tossing your workout into the digital void and hearing sort of the pixelated version of crickets, this episode is definitely for you. We're going to dissect why your art isn't flying off the digital shelves and how you can rectify that faster than any promoter can spit out the words. You'll get paid in exposure today. I'm talking about the flip system. And this isn't, you know, some get rich quick scheme. You know that I'm all about the slow growth, the honest growth, getting to the heart of serving people over selling. So with an iced coffee in one hand, maybe a burrito in the other, or your favorite bourbon tucked away for later, let's jump into every artist's absolute least favorite topic business. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you of a five day, absolutely free workshop that I'm doing called the Sustainable Artists Workshop. This starts on June 5, 2023, and it's an exclusive workshop for artists who have sold their art or their creative service in some way in the physical format, but haven't figured out how to make it work online. Or maybe you're an artist who has something that you want to sell but you're not sure where to start. Over the course of these five days, I'm going to help you better understand what I call your ubab, your ultimate badass buyer. You're going to understand all the different ways you can start to make money as a creative, so you can start thinking outside the box and how to create an offer specifically for your person. So they can refuse it if they want to, but they won't. And we'll look at a super, super simple business plan that I follow myself called the five Ones. This puts refinement at the forefront. Instead of constantly having to rebuild something over and over, keeping your gears and like your friggin head spinning and not being able to get back to the creativity which is ultimately the most important thing making your art again. The workshop starts June 5th, absolutely free. Sign up at stopthestarvingartist.com workshop.

So let's talk about the flip system here. If you're putting your art out there in some way and trying to sell it and you're not getting people back to your website, you're not getting people to really even bite in any way, shape or form, you might be focusing on the back end of the flip system. And the back end of the flip system is really about the offer, like trying to get paid. Right? So the flip system goes focus, listen, interact, and purchase. Don't worry, we're going to go over all these in detail. But if you're focusing on just the purchase side of things, it's likely that you're missing the most important aspects that get people to trust you enough to actually purchase. There's a lot of differences in the online space and real life when it comes to seeing a musician online or finding artwork that you really love. And one thing that I say all the time is that if you want someone to fall in love with the art you make online, you need to get them to also at least somewhat fall in love with the artist. And this is not me saying that you need to go, like, sell your soul and be out there, like, crying on camera or whatever. This is just about saying, I am like you as a human being and I think we'd get along great. And now I got this thing that I made, and I think you're gonna love it. Check it out. So how do we get them across that bridge? We start with focus. Why focus? Because if you're flipping through your phone and your first encounter with somebody is a good one, you're going to focus, right? We're looking here to make something in terms of like, a video or a photo or something that gets your person to focus. And if they focus, they will watch the whole video. And that's enough. Because when someone watches a whole video that you've put out, they're going to be served more of your content. So that's step number one. Make stuff that gets your ideal person to focus. And if you don't know how to find your right person, go back and listen to last week's episode where we talk about identifying your ubab, your ultimate badass buyer. And that's going to give you a lot more context as you come into this lesson. So now we've got them to focus. The next step is to get them to listen. Listening means that they've gone from this surface level piece to now they want to go deeper. They're looking into your profile, they're checking out other videos. They're hearing what you have to say and being like, well, maybe I like this person. Maybe I'm into what they're into. Maybe I trust them. Maybe I think they're funny. Maybe I relate to them and their story in some way. Maybe I believe similar things as they do. Maybe I stand for the things that they also stand for maybe I'm fighting against the things that they're also fighting, fighting against. They're listening to what you're saying and determining do I like this person or not? Do I like what they make or not? And while if you're a visual artist, I know you want people to just view and be done, but that's not the landscape we're in. Listening is what it's all about, because listening creates context. It draws lines between you and the art that you make. So they draw a deeper connection and really a deeper definition of what the art means to them. Seth Godin says it this way. People don't buy things, they buy feelings. So if someone goes to the hardware store to buy a quarter inch drill bit, they're not actually buying the drill bit. They're buying the hole that they're putting in the wall and they're not actually buying the hole. They're buying the shelf that they're making. And they're not even buying the shelf. They're buying the moment when they've put the shelf on the wall and everything is off the floor in its right place. Their significant other comes in and kisses them on the cheek and says, thank you so much. They're buying a sense of pride and accomplishment. So when people are listening, they are saying, what am I buying into here? What am I feeling right now? So if you're not getting people to buy your work and that's how you're putting it out, maybe they're not focusing and listening enough to get to step three, where which is interacting with you. Interaction kind of goes in its own varying levels. And I teach this inside my program, design your creative career. But interaction looks like commenting on something, sending you a dm, listening to your call to action and responding. So when you say, hey, what do you think about this? They actually start to interact and engage. Interaction also looks like getting on your email list, becoming a part of your free community, going and listening to your podcast or your long form videos or content or whatever, reading the things that you put out into the world, you know, just being a bigger part of you. They want to go deeper in the interaction phase. And I would say it's really, really important to get them off of social media in this phase and into your own ecosystem, whether that's an email list or a private community somewhere where you can actually engage with them. Should the whole thing fall flat like we saw with other platforms in the past? We've seen Instagram lose its reach, we've seen Facebook do the same thing. TikTok has also declined in some ways. So what can we do to get our people in our own world so we can engage with them whenever we want to? And now that they've gone through this whole process, you can present the thing that you offer in a much meatier way, not in like a 15 second blurb. And that is so powerful because now you can talk about the value that your art has. And again, the value your art has is not decorating a wall or something that you can listen to on your ride home. The value that your art has has to do with the story of yourself as the artist and how you hope that the thing that you make makes them feel what you hope, it helps them get through what it's fighting against, what the status of this person will be when they engage with what you are telling them that you're engaging with as you create this thing? You know, it's just think about it in this sense of like, the way it all comes together is the way that we, as the buyer of this thing will say, oh my gosh, this is so valuable because when I tell somebody about this painting, I know that they're going to be like, oh my gosh, I know what linen's standing for here, right? So I'll give you an example. This is from an artist, Ted Carpenter. I don't know if you can see this very well, but I went to hear him speak at something called Creative Mornings that we have. They're national. But when he spoke, he talked about how on Sundays he started to develop a system where he would draw something with the sun so you can see the sun here. And the reason that he did this is because he had lost touch with creating his own creativity. Essentially, everything for him kind of had become the capital J, O, B. And so he didn't have time to just do what he wanted to do, but he didn't know how to get back into the thing that he loved or the thing that he had fallen in love with in the first place. And so when I look at that piece of art, I don't just see a cool graphic, which is part of it. I see this story of me, this guy that, you know, since I was a teenager, absolutely loved music. Ended up, you know, being on the road, being on Billboard Top 200 records, and then going into commercial music and doing these things that essentially like, cut off the creative side of what I did because I had to fit into some box. And so in a lot of ways, you know, I've lost touch with my own creativity. And so this piece reminds me to set aside time, to rediscover what that is. Even if it's in a simple act of one day a week, I'm just going to set aside two hours and. And just do my own thing. And that's the power of the flip system, right? He got me to focus, to listen, to engage and interact with what he does and then ultimately purchase. And there are ways that we can do this incredibly ethically so, you know, we don't have to feel like we're being all slimy or salesy. And hopefully, if you're taking this approach, you can see why this isn't slimy at all. The first thing I want you to know is that an exchange of money is simply an appreciation, right? It's me saying thank you. Thank you. Especially if that exchange is. It feels right, you know, when I pay the plumber for a great job in the house and, like, for a great experience and for being nice to me and, like, you know, treating my kids with respect, like I'm paying for that experience, not just the service. And I'm happy to do that. Why? Because I want to show him how much I appreciate the experience that he gave me. And as artists, we can do the exact same thing. And so if you want to talk about what ethical promotion looks like for you, go listen to this next episode. I'm super excited about this one. And don't forget to sign up for the Sustainable Artist workshop coming up June 5th. StopTheStarvingArtist.com workshop and if it's past June 5th, then go to StopTheStarvingArtist.com to see more resources on how to grow your community so that they respond to the work that you make and you don't have to change who you are as an artist.