The Key to Selling More Work

Your art doesn't speak for itself. I'm going to make an argument that it never has. It's always been either friends, press, some rich white dude, you know, that probably looks something like me, who said, like, this is important, and he happens to, like, pull some strings. And the gatekeepers of the art industry or the music industry, they understand that. That's why when you go to an art gallery, you have a placard on the wall that, like, tells the story of the art. When you go to the symphony, there's a program that reads off the inspiration behind the pieces. When you, you know, go to a concert, the songwriter will, like, tell what his song's about. It's the reason we watch, like, freaking documentaries, right? So what do we get when we understand the story of the art, the artist and their beliefs? We get context. We get an understanding of, like, do I stand behind this or not?

You might be like, well, how is this, like, keep an artist broke? Well, it's keeping artists broke because the middlemen, those fat cats or whatever, have said, like, you're not capable of doing this right. And you've been told your whole life that you're going to be poor, that this isn't, like, something that you can actually achieve, but you can do this, and you can do it your way. You don't need to be a great marketer or, you know, be on social media a thousand hours a day. This is doable. So check this out. 90% of people are willing to buy something that was recommended to them by a friend. Why? Trust. And 67% of consumers need to feel like they trust a brand before they continue to buy its products or services. So what we can do as an artist is build trust while showing the art and create opportunity for people to see, like, oh, I stand behind this person. I like them. I want to support what they're doing because it supports my mission as well. So I got eight ways that you can build trust with people. You can absolutely do this in person. But, you know, I run a company where we help artists do this online. So I'm taking this from an online perspective. But the first thing is sincerity. When I think of someone who is sincere, I think of someone who is being a bit vulnerable. And that doesn't mean that they're, like, crying, you know, in front of me. It means they're not afraid to show some of their imperfections, and they're not afraid to say what they believe. They're not afraid to admit, you know, when they're wrong and they're not afraid to just, like, show you that they. They really care. And there's an energy that shows up when a person feels sincere versus when they're taking a script and, like, running with it, you know? So it's to me, about showing up as your authentic self. The second thing is your value system. What do you value as a human being? So I personally value things like connection. I feel like, you know, we should show up to serve people with our creativity as opposed to just trying to sell it to them. One of the big values inside our little company is like, how do we make people feel seen and heard? You know, that's huge to me. If I'm not doing that, not only am I not serving people the best I can, but if I'm not doing that in the real world, like, I'm not living up to what I feel like is my calling as a human being, you know? So the third thing is competence. And this goes back to being yourself, right? Confidence means that you understand something. And I have this understanding of the basics of business and selling, creativity and art. I'm nobody special. I don't have a marketing degree or anything like that, but I've studied it a lot. I've put a lot of time and effort into it, and so I'm competent in it. I was like, well, there's nobody else that seems to care about teaching marketing and sales and like, these things that feel really slimy and to artists in a way that hopefully doesn't make it seem as slimy. So why don't I go do that? You might say, lennon, I'm competent as a painter or as a songwriter or whatever. That's really it. Not true. What do your friends come to you for when they need help? Cause they're likely not coming to you for your paintings or your songs. There's something in there that you're really confident in or that you care about. And you can pair that alongside your work as you're building trust. And that can be really, really powerful because you're bringing more value as a valuable human being. And the more value you bring as a valuable human being, the more valuable your art is. The fourth thing is a pretty obvious one. It's your network. So I mentioned that 90% of people are more likely to buy from somebody that someone recommends. So what gets someone to recommend? Well, they recommend somebody that they trust and that they feel in alignment with. So you know your network. Once you start to build this trust, your network will grow and word of mouth will become more and more prominent. In the things that you do, the fifth and sixth thing is commitment and reliability. So how committed are you to this thing and how reliable are you to keep showing up? Which brings us to one of the last ones, which is consistency. Right. So you need to be committed to the thing enough that you can reliably be consistent doing the things that you said that you were going to do. So what is it that you can commit to reliably and consistently showing up in? Obviously, making your art is one thing, and that's really important. And when people see consistency, when they see that you're reliably showing up in a certain way, they will trust you more. Right. So for me, you may have never heard of me until just now, but I've been doing this business for almost two years full time now. Have I been committed to consistently and reliably showing up here on YouTube? No, I haven't. Right. So should people trust me here on YouTube? Probably not yet, you know, and I have to be ready for that. And the same thing is true with you as an artist. And ultimately, this is the biggest one. It's all about relationship. How are you building relationship or how are you utilizing relationship from other people so that comes back to your network. But you know, in the beginning of this business, and we still do this often, you know, I'll just reach out to people and try to exchange emails or send DMs, things like that. And I think this is incredibly valuable. This is one of the things that I have my clients do a lot. Because when you build relationship, not only are you building trust, but you're learning who you're customer is as an artist. And that'll help you decide, like how you speak to them and what you say. And that's a whole different topic that we'll get into in other videos. But you can see what I mean that like, this idea of relationships not only is beneficial in building trust, but will allow you to understand and speak more confidently to the person that you want to connect with. And you might listen to this and be like, oh my gosh, this is going to take so much time for me to accomplish. You know, I think one of the biggest mistakes that artists make is they feel like they have a time management problem. They feel like they need more hours. There's actually something else I think you need. And I did a whole video on this because, you know, we all know that if it's just about blocking off your Google calendar, then we'd all be doing the thing, taking the action that we need. To take. And that's not really what we're talking about here. So check this video out. It's going to be really valuable to help you get into action on the right things so you can actually get rid of some of the other things. So I'll see you in this one. I really appreciate you being here.