Why Most Artists Fail at Selling Online

If you're an artist who's sold your work in real life in some way, you probably have heard of some people doing it online and you might be wondering if it's realistic for you or not. So today we're going to talk about the biggest obstacles that hold artists back from making money online. So by the end of this video, I want you to have some sort of action step that you can take so you feel good about either moving forward in the online space or not. By the way, my name is Lennon, this is Tist, like scientist, and I have been very fortunate to help hundreds of creatives to grow their audience online, you know, make money, do things like that. And my big goal is to help artists who have sold their work in real life take their businesses online in a way that feels really authentic and just true to who you are. And so if you're looking for a lot of like, high paced edits and all that stuff, you're not going to really get that here.

We're going to keep it chill, aren't we, buddy? Yes, we are. And ironically, the things that keep you from making money online are not going to be things like your website or whether or not your art is good enough or your pricing. Like, those things, they do matter. But what I'm going to show you here, I think is going to really surprise you in that you're probably the biggest reason that you're not making money from your art online. If you hear Tist tip tapping, I'm sorry, he has an agenda right now. So the first thing that keeps artists from making money online is literally just overcomplicating things. So here's what I mean. There's two clients that I have called Hannah and Nemo, and they make these really beautiful, moving mosaics. And Nemo told me one day this thing that I actually kind of took as insulting at first. He said, lennon, you know, I used to read all the time, I'd like constantly be like, learning new stuff. And, you know, I don't do that anymore. And I was like, you know, sorry, like, what did I do? He's like, no, you don't understand what I mean. Like, now I just wake up and I make art because I know what I need to focus on. He's like, before I was constantly over complicating things. I was looking for the next, you know, possible money making opportunity. I was looking for all the different things that I needed to be focused on. And now, since I understand what to focus on, it just simplifies it all and I took that as one of the highest compliments that I could ever be given. Right. Because most artists that I see, they'll come to me and they'll say, lennon, well, I'm just not ready because my website's not ready. Or I'm just not ready because I'm not really sure how to price my stuff. Or I'm just not ready because, blank, whatever it is for you, you've probably got something in there. So when you feel like you need to have your website ready, your pricing structure ready, you know, your marketing materials ready, all that sort of stuff, stuff, you're literally over complicating it. And there's research from Columbia University that shows that when people are given too many choices, they often fail to make a decision at all. Tell me if that's true for you in the comments that you've gotten yourself in this position sometimes where you don't know which decision you need to focus on. And so you fail to focus on one thing. And when you fail to focus on one thing, that leads to the second thing that keeps artists from making money online, which is you're overworking yourself. You see all these things and you white knuckle everything and you're like, okay, I'm going to get it all done. I'm going to do the website, I'm going to do the marketing material, I'm going to work on the pricing structure, and I'm going to do my live events. I'm going to get all this stuff together. And, man, I mean, it's no wonder the business feels incredibly heavy and frustrating, right? And. And this literally sucks your creativity, because when you overwork yourself, you are decreasing your brain's ability to have creative output. And I think he saw something outside. But think about that. Like when you're putting all these things where your prefrontal cortex is having to, like, make all these decisions and it's firing all the time, you. You are, if not physically, at least mentally exhausting yourself. And likely at the end of the week, you're saying things like, well, I should have done more, right? Because two things happened. One, you overwhelmed yourself because you have all these things that you feel like you need to do. You overworked yourself with, like, this mental capacity that you know of just constantly thinking and making decisions, right? And so because you overworked yourself and you overwhelmed yourself, you're exhausted and you're stuck on things. And now it's just like this vicious cycle. And this leads me to the third thing that's keeping you from Making money online, which is over. Expecting you expect this all to happen within a certain amount of time. Well, if I don't get x followers in 30 days, or if I don't make my first sale in the next week, right? Or if I do this thing and it doesn't work out, your expectations are set in a place that you're basically creating a losing game. Let me, let me give you a stat that I hope will put you at ease a little bit. It takes on average someone to have seven to 13 touch points with you before they feel comfortable making a purchasing decision. I mean, online art sales are about the long game. But what's great about it, right, is that because you're building an audience, it's like a snowball. When you go to an art market, you got one shot with those people. And so your short term gain is great, but with the online space, your long term gain is what really is the most beneficial. That's your biggest return on your investment. And so what this all comes down to is the fourth thing, right? Which is really just over thinking. So overthinking is really about like, am I going to do this right? You know, am I going to hit the goal and am I giving it everything I can? You know, like when I tell you guys, hey, you're not going to get a lot of crazy edits or anything like that on this channel. We're just going to get into the goods. Like, I do that on purpose because that's A, the kind of people that I want to reach and B, the kind of lifestyle that I want to live. I don't want to run a business where I'm having to think about all these crazy edits. I used to try to do that and it just was wearing me out and creating a whole sense of, you know, fear around, like even trying to show up and make videos. And I used to say things like, well, it's because I'm a perfectionist. And what I've learned is that perfectionism is just your ego's way of keeping you stuck, right? Perfectionism is just, I can't even say perfectionism. Perfectionism is your ego's way of keeping you stuck. And.

There'S no better way for your ego to keep you stuck than being like, hey, you better do this right, you better do this right. And that just gets you down this rabbit hole of overthinking. And the thing is, is these obstacles, like, they don't just affect your sales. This leads to all kinds of doubt. It makes you wonder if you're on the right path. It makes you constantly try new things instead of getting better at the things that are working. You just don't see them as working yet. When you see failure for too long. There was a study that was done that 70% of people started to feel more anxious and full of self doubt. And this is exactly what happens to artists who don't see progress, right? They just feel this self doubt. And when you can't believe in what you're doing, you're already behind the eight ball, as they say. If you're recognizing these things like that is the first step. Because if you can see that, then you can say, now what is the one thing that I can focus on that will move me toward my goal? And now that you're in this world of like simplifying things, simplifying your art business, there's really only two platforms that you even need to be concerned about when it comes to your art business, especially in the beginning, you can blow it up bigger as you go. And in this video here, I'm going to walk through what those two platforms are. The only two platforms you need to be thinking about to start to make your online business generate income. Right? Because that's what I want for you not to think about virality or all these other things, all the little intricacies, like stop worrying about building a big funnel and just start connecting. How can we start to connect? And so check this video out. I'll walk you through those two things and everything you need to know.