Creating a Sustainable Career as an Indie Artist with Heidi Luerra, author of The Work of Art, Founder of RAW: Natural - Ep. 64

No one can pitch you like you can pitch you, but so many artists have a really tough time, kind of, it's not comfortable for them.

Welcome to Creative Counsel with Brittany Rettell. I'm your host Brittany, an attorney for creatives who believes in solid contracts and cute office supplies and who wants to empower you to be a more confident business owner. Whether you're a creative, influencer, maker, artist, shop owner, or content creator, you are not just a blank. You are a real bona fide business owner. So let's help you own your business and get you legally legit with Brit. Hi listeners, and welcome back. I just wanted to give some quick context for this episode and also ask an apology. As you'll quickly notice as you start listening, this is a super old episode. I should have gotten this out months ago. In fact, I should have gotten it out a year ago, but COVID happened, life happened, and it just, it didn't happen is what. And so I ask a huge apology to you listeners, especially to Heidi Luera, who was so kind and generous in giving her time. And I was looking through this conversation and I wanted to make sure that this came out and that the delay in coming out was in no way a slight on her and how useful her information was and her expertise. So, I— hopefully you'll really enjoy this conversation. So, as— so you can get to know and give some context for Heidi. So, Heidi is the founder and CEO of RAW Natural Born Artists, the world's largest independent arts organization. For almost 20 years, Heidi's worked with artists of all creative genres, starting her own clothing line. Um, she's also has grown RAW to a worldwide operation in over 80 cities with over 200,000 artists in the RAW community. So obviously she's got some stuff to say about artists, independent artists, um, artists who are creating, um, and making and having sustainable businesses with their art. So I love her no-nonsense advice, um, and just the, the personal touch and perspective she can bring as someone who is literally worked with thousands and thousands of artists and helped them curate and prepare for her kind of showcases, her events, which she obviously wasn't able to do last year, but up until that time was running successful events all over the country and even internationally. So, please enjoy this conversation here. Check out the links in the bio and know that I am still— I have a copy of Heidi's book and I definitely want to do still a giveaway with it. And so, if you'll check out, I'll have the kind of Instagram post in connection with this episode if you are interested in throwing your hat in the ring and to get a copy of this book. If not, please check it out if you're an artist who's looking to have some perspective on what does that mean to be a sustainable artist, to be someone who's looking to balance out maybe some of your creativity with some of the, the business sense and perspective that can come from being a community of like-minded people. So who are trying to help and, and to nurture that in you. So here we go, um, hearing from Heidi Luera.

Hello everybody and welcome back. I'm so excited to introduce our guest today, Heidi Luera, and I'm so grateful to be able to have her wisdom and her perspective. And she is joining us from her amazing loft in LA. And so if you hear some city sounds, and that's just part of the full sensory experience, you know, just pretend that you're listening to NPR podcast, right? So welcome to the podcast, Heidi.

Thanks so much for having me. Excited to chat with you.

Awesome. Well, tell us a little about, we kind of heard in your intro some of kind of your kind of origin story, but I'd like to hear kind of your perspective on where you started as a creative and then kind of where you ended up and what the kind of the Reader's Digest version of what that kind of journey and arc looked like for you.

Sure, yeah. So I think I've always been an artistic kind of creative kid. You know, everyone says this, but since they were born, they've been creating something, right? My mom really fed that into my childhood. She used to craft with me. She taught me how to sew, taught me how to draw, but I kind of gravitated towards fashion design at a really young age. So I used to go to the library, rent all the fashion design books. I think we had like one at my, at my junior high library. No one was able to check that out because I would just keep renewing it.

Right. I mean, they pretty much just should have put your name on the nameplate and just written it off.

Yeah.

No one, no one saw that book for like 2 years at least. But I would spend my afternoons when I, after I finished my homework, designing formal gowns. And I always knew that I wanted to go into the fashion industry. At a young age. I used to throw fashion shows in my living room with my sister's karaoke machine and dress up my brothers and my sister in wares from my closet or things that I cut, had cut and sewn. And yeah, so it's safe to say that I've always kind of creative kid, but I was also an entrepreneur as well. I had a lemonade stand, I had a club, a neighborhood club where I had typed agendas and my My friends had to come and we'd have, you know, curriculums and things of that nature that we'd have a monthly theme. So I really do think you kind of are what you play. And that's the things that you do when you're young really kind of demonstrates what you're most innately passionate about. Right. So that's where the creativity and the entrepreneurial, you know, vision, I guess, started for me. But yes, after I had my sights set on fashion school and 3 months after high school graduation, I moved from the small town in Northern California where I grew up to Los Angeles with the idea that I was going to go to fashion school and become this formal dress designer. Prior to starting that, I got kind of inspired to create a line of interchangeable trim tank tops. And these were meant for younger girls that I later expanded into kind of more of a women's line. So I started my own clothing line before I even went to fashion school, which is probably a bad idea. I should have learned more before I did that. But I was trying to market myself and find a way to go direct to consumer, sell direct to consumer, have a fashion show, have some marketing around my line because I didn't know how to really get the word out there. And this is pre-Instagram. This is even pre-Facebook. This was like 2005. So MySpace existed, but like, I don't know. I don't remember it being this platform where people were like marketing a ton or anything like that.

Yeah, you were more concerned with, you know, your cat wallpaper on your MySpace. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like the song and like, you know, your glitter page and your HTML.

Oh my gosh. All of that. I had all of that.

Yeah.

To my shame. Yep.

You know, MySpace is still online and you can go and find your old profile.

No, no one, no one needs to say that. That just needs to stay in the Wayback Archive somewhere. Yeah.

I know, right? I'm like, how do I delete this? How do I get it out? But yeah, so I moved down here. I didn't find an entity that I could, an approachable one at least that I could go to, to showcase. And sell my line. I started popping up at swap meets, is like the only thing that I could really find. And it wasn't really my demographic, certainly. And it was kind of this, I had an innovative type of concept and it was just really difficult and it wasn't sustainable long-term. So I had friends that were also musicians, artists, fellow fashion designers, and I decided to kind of be the change that I wanted to see there.

And yeah, go full Gandhi. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to produce the show that I want, you know, but I just thought it was going to be a one-time thing for me and my friends to market. And then that would be it.

Right.

But people started coming to me on a regular basis after that, like after the first one happened, like that night, I had a model come up to me and she was like, my sister has this clothing line that you would love. And my brother-in-law has a band that has to be on this stage. And I was like, well, this is a one-time deal. What do you mean? And she was like, no, you gotta have another one. I was like, huh, okay. Well, I showed my line in this and I also directed it. So it was a ton of work.

Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah, I didn't show my line in the second show. So this all kind of organically came about. It was a complete accident. My plan was to be a fashion designer, but instead, Instead, I found this kind of organic need from the creative community where there was like a gaping hole and other people wanted these same things. So that's how it happened. And it just snowballed from there where it went on for— I ran that show for 3 years and it was a fashion, music, and art show. And then did some stuff in the corporate world, found out I had a knack for events by hosting the showcase events. So people would call on me to produce their own creative events, film premieres, fashion shows, etc. And yeah, I took all my experience. I had kind of like a hairy partner breakup with that showcase, as many young entrepreneurs often face. Right. We often partner with people out of convenience and not really, you know, vet them.

Yeah, and sometimes don't always go through the formal steps of setting down on paper what the relationship looks like.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, something I've talked about ad nauseam here, but for good reason. You know, when you've seen enough bad business divorces, as I call them, then yeah, you preach business prenups to the moon and back.

Yeah. Yes, 100%. So after that, yeah, I tried some different things, but that was really where my calling was. So I ended up laying my line down to rest and focusing full force on this platform that I wanted to build for artists because I felt like it was more rewarding and it was more nourishing to spend my time and energy on that. In providing this platform than it was for me to do my line. And simultaneously I was working in the fashion industry, learning more about it. I worked for a showroom, I worked with buyers selling other people's clothing lines to them. And I also, yeah, worked in retail for a period of time and went to fashion school and finally learned all the ins and outs. And I was like, oh, this isn't really what I wanna do with my life anyway. So, you know, and that happens typically as you grow and mature, you know. Yeah, so that's kind of how it came to be. And in 2009, I took all my previous experience and rolled it into what RAW is today.

Awesome, which is an incredible organization. I mean, I was reviewing your stats and you've done, you know, you've showcased like 192,000 artists, something insane.

It's actually more than that, we just haven't updated it.

You updated your website, you gotta get your content manager on that, you know, and you know, over like 1,500 showcases, I mean, that's just an insane volume of work, of, you know, pieces that you've been able to do, of, you know, bringing community together and all the things that go on with events. Yeah, that's just incredible. And so now you've grown RAW that you do host showcases all around the US? Do you do any international yet or just around the US?

Yeah, we're pretty much in every major metropolitan city in the United States, in Australia, in Canada, and we just launched in Mexico last fall. Yeah, it's— we have been around for 10 years though also, so this hasn't happened overnight. It's certainly been intentional to grow the organization and the community as far and as wide as it can go. Because we want artists everywhere to have the opportunity to be seen and heard. Yeah, our mission is to provide tools, resources, exposure, and education to independent artists and creative entrepreneurs, ultimately.

Which is just fantastic because, yeah, that's a mission that's close to my heart as well. And so I love that you've narrowed down exactly who you're serving and you found out what they need, just like you said in your own story. You know, you saw that there was this gaping hole in the market, that there needed to be a better platform and better tools, and that, you know, it's some critical part of, you know, especially independent artists' journey, having someone help with that platform and kind of give them a voice and exposure and a little boost and, and maybe some mentorship as well in terms of what they should be doing and how should they be, you know, approaching marketing their thing can make all the difference.

Absolutely, and that's part of it too. What a lot of the public sees is our websites. We have our online community and offline community. Our online community is pretty much what you would expect. We have artist profiles. They can upload their music, their film, their films, their photos, all of their links, etc., bio. But offline, we have our showcase events that— and that's the primary way that we kind of get the word out there is by these grassroots face-to-face things. And in a Instagram world, I think that's becoming more and more sacred and treasured is this face-to-face, in-person experience, as the kids are calling it, experience. Because, you know, you can showcase your work and your music and all of that all day long on social media platforms, but nothing is really going to replace that handshake, you know, or that eye contact or someone connecting with you, you can actually see this person and see their reaction to it. And so I think that's part of the value too. Yeah, but behind the scenes, the things that aren't really visible to the outside world is we have an entire department that is dedicated to making sure that the artist participating in the showcase is successful as possible, that they are led through the process, there is, they help them with marketing and self-promotion and getting over the fact that they need to self-promote because—

Yeah, you're gonna have to talk about you. There's not enough people in the world as great as you are. Everyone's a salesman at some point, yep.

Yeah, you have to, especially as an artist, you are in and of yourself a business and so you need to make sure that No one can pitch you like you can pitch you, but so many artists have a really tough time, kind of, it's not comfortable for them, which is understandable, but it's a hurdle they have to, you know, get over in order for them to have a long and sustainable career as an independent artist.

Amen, yeah, especially if you're, you know, if you're a personal brand, yeah, I mean, I, and that's curious, I wonder why that is, why there's so much, mental work, you know, mindset work that needs to be done there in terms of people to think that I'm okay, this is good enough. Do you think it's just like an imposter syndrome or just kind of other demons or voices that maybe are attacking, you know, in the inner self?

Yeah, I think creative people in general, and there are some statistics on this, to a certain extent we are more emotional, we are more impacted by what others think as a result of that. And so I think it's really a psychology type of almost mental health matter more than anything.

Which, you know, yeah, there's probably— I mean, I believe that my father-in-law is a psychologist, and it's something he says is that our weaknesses are our strengths turned against us, or our strengths misused. And so when I think about artists, I think about, well, they're so good. Sometimes creative is about connecting and being in close and relying on their emotive part of their brain, which is wonderful when you're producing art and you're trying to get an emotional reaction. What's not great is when it's used against you, you know?

Yeah, right. 100%. No, that's a really great point. And I think that's mainly where it comes from, is just the self-doubts and just wondering, am I good enough? Yeah, is my work good enough? Am I good enough? And then like, why— I don't want to bug anyone, you know, to ask them to support me. And that's just really not how, especially now, the art world works. Like galleries, record labels, all of that is kind of, I don't want to say archaic, they still exist, but they need to find new and creative ways to keep their businesses going because the internet has completely democratized art and creativity, which is fantastic, but it comes with pros and cons where everyone is buying everything. So if you're DIYing, you need to be able to promote yourself. You have to be the loudest person.— that's speaking about work. Yeah, because you know it the best.

Yeah, you know it the best. And, you know, with the people that I help, you know, when they get so excited that they're like, "I have a book deal!" And I'm like, "That's awesome!" But the book deals now, as great as they are, and it's still something to celebrate, are not the book deals of 20 years ago when a publisher was gonna come in with their whole team and promote you and get, you know, all that. That's just, that's not what the world is now. That's not what budgets look like now. That's not how people promote things. And so with that means that you don't only have to be the creator of something, but yeah, you do have to kind of manage your own marketing and at least have a working knowledge of that, or know that if you're not great at that, then know that you got to get some help and some mentorship there quick.

Yeah, self-educate. Yeah, something for sure. It is, it is a necessary thing if you're going to make it. Awesome.

Yeah, well, I'd love to kind of hear from your expenses— I mean, your experience in hosting these events, which, I mean, you've just had such an incredible volume now, and now you've had the point in your organization where you're— you've hired and have a team and are having other people manage these for you. Um, what have you learned about events and what, you know, what, what makes a great event and how do you make sure that it's pulling off and, you know, going towards the mission that you want it to? And what are some of the mistakes maybe that you made earlier that you maybe see other people who are getting started in events do?

Yeah, I think with showcase events events in particular like ours are really kind of interesting challenge because we have fashion shows, live music, a pop-up art gallery, vendors. So where most events are, you know, one of those things, we are all of those things and we have to make sure that everybody has their, you know, portion of the spotlight. So my experience might be slightly different from other people's, but the fundamentals of events are the same and I think the number one thing is organization over communication, making sure that you confirm those details like 3 to 5 times, you know. And it— a lot of the events, especially when we were starting, we were pulling them off with shoestring budget. So it really does, you know, surprise, surprise, come down to creativity and how to produce things as well. Yeah.

Were you guys just funded by ticket sales? Did you do sponsors? Or what was the model that you— that was successful for you.

Yeah, yeah, we are funded 100% by ticket sales. So we don't— we've had sponsors here and there, but nothing substantial enough to like cover the full expenses for a showcase or anything of that nature. And we— it's— sponsors are a lot of work.

There are a lot of hand-holding because, yeah, they're just another stakeholder that you got to keep happy.

Yeah. Exactly. And so to us it was like, well, why don't we focus on making our showcases as best as they could instead of, you know, I would welcome sponsors, but like, I don't want to jump through a million hoops for a small portion or a donation of a drink or something. Right.

It would have to be someone who's a really good fit and it would need to be a meaningful, you know, to make the juice worth the squeeze.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that was another one of our rules. Like if we ever work with sponsors on anything, whether it's in-kind or monetary, that it provides some value for artists. And we don't want to just slap a label on our event and be like, okay, here, this is sponsored by so-and-so. That wasn't really kind of our style. To date, like, if you look at our website, we have no ads running, not even like the Google AdWords. We've never had sponsors in that way. And we've never had venture capitalists or investors. We've never taken on outside traditional fundraising. It's been, we've bootstrapped this since day one, $0.

That's incredible. That's so incredible, Heidi, seriously.

Yeah, so. I'm very tired.

Yeah, I'm sure you are very tired, and she's like, yes, and I'm very tired to boot because of that. So yeah. So now with your events going on, do they run year round, or do you guys have a high season or something, or?

They run year-round, but we are quarterly. So every major metropolitan cities, we're quarterly. So for instance, Brooklyn will see us 4 times a year, LA will see us 4 times a year, Austin, Texas will see us 4 times a year. That's probably most likely going to be changing up a little bit. We're working on something for 2020 that's going to be quite exciting. And then in smaller cities, Boise, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the smaller areas, we will be there 1 to 2 times a year as well.

Gotcha. So, and how did you find, I mean, kind of grow your team to help you with this? I mean, I imagine the beginning, because you said bootstrap, it was probably friends and whoever you could rope into, hey, you doing anything this Saturday? You know, that kind of situation. Where did you evolve from there? How did you find people who are going to help? And what did that look like in terms of you as you built an organization instead of just a one-woman show?

Yeah, that's a great question. So I started the Showcase by myself, March 2009. I did have some interns and some people helping, but it was kind of my brainchild. And also I did all the work for it. But my partner, actually my now partner, came came to the very first show, the very first ever Raw Show, and he is a web tech genius. His name is Matthew Clayhorst. He also ended up being my husband later.

Spoiler alert. Yeah, you guys work really well together.

Yeah.

That's a whole nother radio show, husband and wife team. But yeah, he's our CTO. And so he's really been the linchpin on the technology side that's allowed us to be in all of these different locations and be able to kind of scale up to as big as we are because we can be more efficient. You know, we have a proprietary system that we've spent the last 10 years, you know, perfecting and building, and it's specific and unique to our organization and our company and how our staff works, etc. So that's awesome. So that he was the first person involved and we kind of, yeah, tag-teamed it on the online/offline sector for, I want to say, almost a year. And then we brought on an intern for our websites who was a journalism graduate. She worked at a local newspaper. She was a referral. We we didn't pay her, and she ended up being our VP of branding, brand marketing, and she was with us for 6 years, and she was kind of our number 3. And so it just kind of, and then we picked up another person and another person, and now we have 65 employees.

65 employees, oh my gosh, like W-2 employees, like you are running payroll and employing them.

Yeah.

And we have even more contractors because we work with photographers and hosts and DJs in every city. So we have hundreds of contractors as well that just show up for the event nights. But yeah, our staff in the office, 60, 65 employees.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys all kind of congregate? Do you kind of keep kind of a traditional office space where everyone comes and do a lot of people work from home? Or what's kind of your, your balance that you've kind of felt in terms of your company culture?

No, they all work here. We employ a lot of millennials. I'm a millennial myself, technically, and we tried the work from home thing and they can't make that work.

It wasn't a good fit.

Yeah, it didn't— we didn't see as much productivity, if that makes sense. So yeah, we kind of have a rule that everyone needs to come into the office if They wanna get paid.

That's good, you know, I mean, yeah, just to lay down some really clear expectations here, some clear boundaries that, yeah, if you wanna see the money, then we should probably do the work and do it this way.

Yeah, I think when I started, I tried, when I was like a new boss, I started this company when I was 24, and I was managing people, you know, sometimes twice my age throughout this process, And when I was a newer boss, I was trying to please everyone and like, oh yeah, you can totally work from home. Yeah, you can have this and you can have this. And I learned very quickly, like, you got to set boundaries and it's ultimately you have to do what's best for your company and your organization. Otherwise people can, you know, they're not— it doesn't mean that they're bad people, but they can take advantage of that.

So, right.

And I also find it's impossible to make everyone happy anyway.

So we should just throw that expectation out the window and move forward.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. So as you, as you kind of transitioned into that manager role, was there anything else that was helpful for you to kind of get mentorship on? How do you manage a team? And especially, you know, when you're working in an arts organization, do you find that your people are creatives themselves or do they come at it from more traditional business backgrounds? Or how do you kind of mold those two worlds together?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I read and have read a ton of business management books. And so I really took the time to self-educate myself because I knew I had some management experience from retail when I was much younger. But for the most part, and I was like in high school, I was like the captain of the dance team and editor of the yearbook. So I've always had responsibility, you know, and people that I needed to manage and have under me. And that's, I think, just the product of being the eldest of 4 kids as well. It's kind of—

Amen for oldest girls.

Yep.

Who know how to get stuff done.

Yeah. Yeah. So, but I really tried to sharpen my skills on all of those things. And I still like constantly read things and consume information as far as, you know, management and business and leadership goes. A lot of it you learn through experience and you learn what works and what doesn't work. But yes, the majority of our employees are creatives. They're in bands, they're artists, they are in fashion, they're all of those things. So it can be difficult to kind of blend the fact that, you know, we have deadlines, we have this, we have this for this reason, because it's a balance between money and mission. And a lot of creatives are, you know, not always eager or they're maybe a little fearful about talking about money and how money serves things. But you need that creative, you need that financial fuel while also sustaining, you know, the mission of what you're doing. So it's a combination of the two and they have to work together in order to form sustainable businesses on a creative level.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, I think that typically a lot of people, because I see the same thing when I work with people and they have, they're uncomfortable with money, they don't want to raise their prices, which is typically what I'm telling them to do is that you need to be charging more for your products or your services. And you know, they're like, oh, I don't, this kind of happened on accident, like they don't even want to claim their success or to like call it that they want to go somewhere, they're not even comfortable with even saying it out loud almost. And I kind of have to do a similar locker room speech like you said that the more money that you have, if you can have sustainable money in your business, then it allows you to serve more people. But if you don't have that money, then guess what? Your business dies and then you can't help anybody. So it's not about you being gimme gimme, I want all the money, Scrooge McDuck swimming in money. Let's forget that image for a little bit. You know, and it's exchange of value. And if you can't, if you don't have a plan for how to keep that consistent and then pay your team and keep moving forward, then, then the value train's going to end.

Yeah, 100%. You are spot on correct. You have to, you have to have that as a foundation in order to fulfill what you need to fulfill, right? Because yeah, without it, you're, you're nonexistent. And then who are you helping? Zero people.

Yeah, you know, yeah. And there's a, you know, as much as we love, you know, the bohemian artists in Moulin Rouge, um, yeah, it's, it's— we don't all have to be starving artists. That's not the way to be a true artist, is to be on the edge of poverty at all times. You know, you— there's, there's a path for you to be able to have a good comfortable life and provide for your family and, and to still not be, you know, sell out to the man.

Quote unquote. Absolutely, it's unnecessary to starve, for sure.

Yeah, for sure. So as you've kind of built this organization and now, you know, as you talked about, you not only, you know, want to provide this, you know, experience and make sure that there's, you know, experiential learning and opportunities for people to interact with your artists and the people you're showcasing, but that there's mentorship and kind of support coming as part of that. What is it that you find that your artists and people that you're trying to help are in most of need of, and what do you find that you guys are the resources that you're offering and that you're, you're trying to make sure that the holes that are being met.

Yeah, I think it's really the business side of their work, which was the impetus and the inspiration behind writing my book, which I know we'll discuss. But I find that I witness a lot of creatives around me that are picking up books or self-educating more on the creativity of their work, like which is great. They should be sharpening those skills as well. But I don't think we have a problem being creative. I don't think that's where we need to self-educate the most. I think we have problems with being able to sustain ourselves with doing what we love. And that takes that business acumen that needs to be grown and honed. And so I think that's the number one thing that I see a lot of artists not realizing that they need that or not realizing where to even start or what questions to be asking themselves or others. So I think the number one thing overall though that leads them to one career path or another is really determining what they actually want out of their creative career. If that's that's the route that they wanna go. They wanna keep this a hobby. If it just brings them joy and doesn't make any money and they don't want any pressure to make any money, that's totally fine. But I think a lot of creatives need to start there. They need to figure out exactly what they want and then you can form a plan to work backwards to actually get there. So I'll say that's the biggest overarching thing, but it's really like self-educating on the business side. Starts with understanding what you want.

For sure. No, I think that I totally agree with that. And you know, when you saying that, it reminds me a lot of, you know, other works because I'm always trying to make sure that I'm reading books in the space and understanding my creatives and also understanding their struggles and what their, you know, mindset challenges or whatnot. And I think of like Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert's work, which I think is excellent because she speaks a lot to that tension of saying, you know, sometimes We go and we get training or even get an education in something because we feel like we need that piece of paper to say like, oh, I'm good now. And she's like, no, the piece of paper didn't do anything. Like, you needed to figure that beforehand.

And on the other—

on the flip side, there's nothing wrong with deciding that this is my art, and also my art's not going to pay my bills. And if you find that out for yourself, that's a really clarifying and liberating choice to make too.

Absolutely, and it saves you a lot of time and money if that's the case.

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, what do you guys do in terms of kind of teaching the business, um, stuff to your, um, to your artists? You know, where do you— do you guys start at the beginning about— you kind of mentioned like some branding and marketing, and do you get kind of into, you know, legal and accounting stuff? You know, all the sexy things that I, that I talk about.

Yeah, we have a couple things. So we have a resource center on the back end of our website that has several blogs and step-by-step guides to the basics, like 101. Also, when an artist is part of a showcase, they meet with the showcase director/artist experience director and they kind of take them through the process again. And it's very kind of consulting one-on-one because everyone has a unique— we showcase 10 different crafts or genres of art. So we have film, fashion, music, art, performing art, hair and makeup, accessories, photography, and technology, and craft. Yeah, if I didn't say that one. So everyone has kind of a different need, and as they're preparing for this showcase, so that's a huge resource that's a little bit more specialized. And then we also have what we call Industry Exchange, and that is once a month we do a live chat and kind of, we put it in podcast form as well with, excuse me, industry professionals. So we've had attorneys on there, we've had marketing and branding. We actually have a marketing and branding one next week. And these are chats where artists can write in and ask questions and we kind of, you know, ask our own questions and explain that. So those are all good resources for that and we're gonna be expanding upon that in 2022.

So I'm excited.

Awesome.

Yeah, well, that sounds like you've been smart and trying to really cover and give a, you know, a broader perspective of training and mentorship into what maybe someone needs that they may or may not have learned in art school. As wonderful as art school is, but it doesn't mean, you know, just like even, you know, law school was great, but still I graduated law school and I didn't know how to start a business. I still had to figure that on my own, and I thought if this is challenging for me to figure out, I can't imagine how it is for someone who has an Etsy shop and who sells cute baby hair bows and is wondering, how the heck am I supposed to do this without getting in trouble and make this legit?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it doesn't exist. And it's really unfortunate that there isn't more entrepreneurship classes and things of that nature for these different trades, because they absolutely need them, especially now. Yeah, we're living in a time where you can start a business really easily, and that's fantastic for a lot of things, but there needs to be more, more information for sure that comes with it.

So because the, the, yeah, the barriers to entry are low, and that means that it's easier for a lot of people to get in, and then, but then there's not maybe the support, you know. I, I see with a lot of my clients that they're super talented in so many different things, just probably not Traditional business training is one of them. And so yeah, making sure that like, hey, you got to set up separate bank accounts. That's an important thing to do. You, you should probably, you know, get an LLC. You need to be careful if someone's an employee or an independent contractor and probably have some sort of written agreement and be careful about, you know, intellectual property and rights because that can get really messy, especially when you're doing stuff with friends and you're all, hey, let's go do a fun style challenge. I want to do a photo shoot and a party and it all sounds great until it's like, well, who owns the pictures and who gets to post the pictures and who gets to sell the pictures to brands and yikes.

Right, exactly, exactly. There's so much to know.

Yeah, there's a lot of things to know. So, well, tell me a little bit about the process then you said in writing your book and tell us more about that because I know that's something that a lot of my audience are interested, why they're either they are thinking and they have a book in them someday or they're kind of, you know, more actively on that process. In that journey? What did that look like for you?

Sure.

Oh my goodness. Wow. This was a crazy project. So this is the first book I've ever written. I have always been kind of interested in writing. I've had other people tell me that I was good at it, but didn't really know, you know, typical artist self-doubt, right? But I've always been interested in it. At one point in my childhood, I wanted to be a writer for my profession. I think even before I wanted to be a fashion designer. So it was really kind of cool to come full circle and back to those like early roots and remembering that I really love doing this. So I had an emotional roller coaster throughout the process. It took me about 2 years, but I've had notes in my phone for years beyond that where I had just written down little things that I would learn or like what I wish I could tell every artist or, you know, and I just kind of had this running list of, I don't know, just random thoughts for years and years. And I think our, you know, RAW turned 10 years old this year. So on kind of the year prior to that, I started this in 2018. I was kind of looking at 2019 as like, this is a big milestone, you know, and it's something to celebrate. We had a campaign and a huge birthday party and a whole thing, but was like, I would, I would like to write down, finally write down all of the things that I actually know that I want to share with these people. And so I took the time to start doing it and I self-published the book purposefully because I didn't want, I didn't want it to be irrelevant 3 years from now if it came out with a publisher. Which it might have been because publishers are quite slow. And I also wanted to make sure that my words were not overly filtered or modified to, yeah, to serve like a publisher's needs. I wanted to get really raw.

Because it's on brand, yes, you know, yeah.

Yeah, and I wanted to just be blunt and like no nonsense about it and say what I wanted to say. That being said, I did still have my attorney look at it and make sure I wasn't like gonna get sued or anything. There is a legal disclaimer in the book.

Exactly.

Good for you. See, there you go. There, attorneys can be your friends. They've got your back. There's, there's, there's room for us in your heart.

Oh, I love my attorney. She's fantastic. She's like one of my favorite human beings. It's rare, you know, as a business owner, you feel really weird and nerdy when you like talk to your attorney and you're like, oh, I love them, you know.

No, that's great, and that's the goal. You know, when I have clients who, they, you know, they feel better after talking to me and not worse, you know, even when, even with sometimes I have not great news, or I'm like, you're not gonna like this, but this is probably what we need to do, or whatnot, um, then yeah, I, I feel like, because yeah, you, you shouldn't overlook that there's counselor as part of your, you know, you know, is part of your title, not just spew what the law is, but you're supposed to help in their business, you know.

Yeah. No, it's so refreshing and comforting just to know that there's someone on your side because it's lonely at the top, as they say.

It is lonely at the top.

Yeah. But yeah, the book writing process was indeed that. It was a process. It was at times I was like, this is amazing. I'm feeling really good about what I'm writing. And then at other times I was like, oh my God, what the hell am I doing? I cannot believe I'm going to put all these stories, these embarrassing things out into the world about all the mistakes that I made. And then other times I'm like, I don't even think this is good. And then who cares anyways? It was like, it was an array of emotions, but it was a very cathartic experience at the same time because I got to kind of delve deeper into some things that I didn't get to comment on earlier in my career. And now that enough time has passed, I can talk about it. But yeah, it's, it's, the book is essentially a business book that is very relatable, I think, and written in a fashion that is easy to understand and read for creative entrepreneurs that are independent and artists that are independent and that want to create a business from their work. I cover everything from personal brand to creative brand, sales and marketing. I talk about failure and working through patience and working with others, partnering with others. And then I talk about, you know, when you get to your first levels of success, there's a whole nother set of challenges that come with those as well.

New level, new devil.

Yep. Exactly. I haven't heard that before.

I like that. Yeah, that's good because yeah, I think a lot of people, they make the mistake that like, 'Oh, when I get here, when I get to B from A, then I won't have any problems.' And it's true, you probably won't have the same problems. You hopefully don't, but you will have new problems. And hopefully the aim is that they're more interesting problems, more nuanced, because you're getting, you know, higher, higher up in your little hike and your climb there.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's, that's really it, is coming to terms with the fact that this is a mental game. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And I think in our world now with everything on demand, and there's an app for everything, there isn't an app for hard work and time and being patient. And that's something that we have to teach ourselves and kind of stay in that frame of mind on because it's extremely important to the success of a creative's career that they remain patient and go through those things. So the book kind of covers the gamut. It's meant to parallel with an artist's journey from, you know, very foundational things of making sure that you overcome self-doubt to, hey, here's the peanut gallery's coming at you as soon as you're successful, so get ready for them too. I talk about my personal story, again, like some embarrassing stuff in there, some oversharing perhaps. Tips and different things, different mistakes that I made that people don't need to learn the hard way. I have little blocks of like no-nonsense advice where I just get real brass tacks on it. And then I have work boxes where they're like step-by-step guides that people can kind of go through the exercises on if they're interested to do so. And then I also profile 15 other creative entrepreneurs that have kind of arrived at this level of success from all different creative walks of life that I've personally worked with. Some of them are raw artists, some of them aren't. But yeah, they share their stories and it just makes you feel like you're not alone.

Yeah, like cue Sondheim, like, you know, you are not alone, you know, like no one is alone, but we all need to sometimes have that reminder, you know, in person and especially in these fields where, you know, you're frequently doing work on your own. It's in your studio or it's at your table in your office or whatnot. And it can get really lonely to feel like no one quite understands what it's like to be in your journey, yeah.

Right, and that's what made this, talking to these artists, like I wrote a large amount of the book prior to interviewing them. And then when I went and interviewed them and got a chance to chat, it was like even more empowering that, okay, this, it was encouraging for me and brought me confidence to be like, this book definitely needs to go out into the world because they've all had very similar issues to what I had. Like there were so many common threads. It was awesome to talk to them and to understand and just feel like you're not alone in your artistic woes, that everyone goes through them. Yeah, and different times and for different reasons, but they all have kind of the same lessons hidden in them. So for sure, yeah, that was really fun.

That's awesome. Well, that sounds wonderful. It sounds like, yeah, it'd be a great resource for, for everyone to dive into. So we'll for sure link it in, in the show notes. Um, you know, you, as you were talking about kind of the, the woes and what it's like to kind of walk people through being maybe changing from being on your own and then kind of working maybe in more of a collaborative environment, or now moving towards a community and the strength that comes from that. Um, how have you navigated, or how have you seen people deal with, um, kind of that borderline between copying or being inspired by? Or— that's a question and an issue that I think comes up a lot for people in terms of, um, what am I supposed to do, or how close is too close, and what's the ethical and legal lines? And, um, And I would just love to hear kind of your perspective as someone who's, I'm sure, seen a lot of that, yeah, in your biz.

Oh yeah, so we have artists that write in every once in a while that are like, this person is blatantly stealing my work and they're in your showcase. And it is really difficult from, the internet just makes it so easy. So dang easy. To nag, yeah, to just nab people's work. It's insane. I do actually cover that in the book too, not necessarily from a legal perspective. I do recommend copywriting your stuff as much as you can, and there's some things that you can do as far as like, you know, signing and dating your work and taking a photo of you creating the work.

So if you need to go that process, you know, yeah, detail your, yeah, your work products or whatever.

Yeah. But ultimately it seems a little out of control. It's like, I don't know. Remedy other than, you know, to say some people just kind of suck and they're going to do that. And I think coming to terms with the fact that they don't have original ideas enough that they need to go and steal other people's, like, find some solace in that. It's definitely— they say like imitation is flattery, or the highest source of flattery. It's like, I don't feel that way, you know.

It feels like a sucker punch.

That's what it feels like. Yeah, absolutely. So I certainly like can sympathize and empathize with creators that go through that. And in our early years, we had some previous contractors that exited our company and then learned everything they could and started their own thing and used our pictures from past showcases to promote their nonexistent showcase.

So we— That's not cool. You know, for that, that's copyright infringement. Yeah. Photographers. That's a clear line.

But yeah, they got shut down real quick on that one. But yeah, it doesn't feel good. And it's like, but at the same time, I'm all for there being another outlet for artists. So ultimately, cool, go do that. That's fine. But don't try and make what— don't try and create something with somebody else's intellectual property or photos or things that we cultivated, you can't put your stamp and label on it. Yeah, so I wish I had a better answer for that. I don't know. I think protect yourself as much as you can, but also reach out to that person. I would reach out, and I think there's nicer ways to do it. I really don't like when artists start blasting on social media like, this person stole my work, Yes.

Yeah, I've talked about that quite a bit because I've got a whole guide on my— on my pod. I actually have a podcast episode all about this, and I talk about like that should be your last step of last resort, meaning like you've tried everything else because you can't take that back, first of all. And I've also had people who, they emailed me super upset, were like about ready to post. I like talked them down out of the tree, you know, from it, and then it turned out that they were wrong. Like the other person had come out with it earlier than even theirs, and/or like it was like one of those, you know, parallel discovery things where you both just kind of bubbles up. Because guess what? Sometimes that happens because the market's ready and mermaids are hot right now. So it could both be that you came up with mermaid things.

Like, it happens. Exactly. And that, and that is another point that I make too, is just like there is a limit to original thought, and it's very possible that you were thinking doing the same thing at the same time. And that should make you friends, really, you know? Yeah. How cool is that at a certain point? But yeah, I do encourage artists not to get crunk online and start posting. I just think it paints you really unprofessionally. But what you can do is reach out to that person privately, not in a public forum, and say, you know, I see some similarities between our work, can I ask ask, you know, where you're inspired by, you know, where are you getting these ideas and see what the response is because like you said, they could have been doing this, you know, way prior to you and you just never know. So I don't think that it's ever a good idea to start with the social media bashing. I think it's ask questions, be calm, be professional, remember your own personal branding it can harm your own creative brand too, you know, if you're bashing people. Like, I don't like— when I see that, I kind of already know I'm not gonna work with that person, you know. Like, oh, this is how they handle issues and problems?

Probably not. Yeah, not the greatest, you know, conflict management skills here in terms of— yeah. And, you know, like you said, there should always be some solace that I think the more you dig down into, you know, what makes makes you, you, and what's your why behind your art, your content, your product or whatever, your service, then you should realize that no one can really copy that because it's more than just what's on the outside. It's those underlying things and it's heavier, more intense work to do that and to figure that out for you and to connect with why are you serving your audience and your people the way you are, but that's very difficult for someone to exactly mimic or rip off.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

All that good branding stuff. Well, this has been wonderful. Well, do you have some parting advice for— I know there's so many creatives who are listening to this who are like, ah, I just wish I could talk to Heidi and could get an hour of her time. I wish I could take her out to lunch and pick her brain. I'm sure you get that a lot. And now, it's so great that you can just toss them your book, which we will. We will say go read Heidi's book. But what other kind of, you know, parting advice would you say for people who they're, they're in that kind of that lonely hustle and they're wanting to get to that, to the next step? You know, what have you helped artists do and what, what should they be doing?

Yeah, I think it again comes back to that first step. What do you want? Do you want to make money from your work? Do you want to be in a gallery? Do you want to get signed to a record label? Ask yourself why you want those things because and there's an exercise in my book for this. Ask yourself why, because you will eventually whittle down to what the core is and your core motivation for attacking anything that you want there. So a lot of times you'll find that it's just make more money, or actually you really like music, but you don't want to be in a band, or you don't want to do the things that it takes to, you know, take your your stuff to the next level. So it's really figuring out what you want, why you want it, and then I think it's putting a plan in place, working backward from that thing. So if your goal is to be sustainable and you're a visual artist and that's what you do and that's what you love to do and what you want to do all day long, instead of focusing on, oh, waiting for that, you know, gallery to pick you up and make make you famous, discount that that will ever happen. Not to speak negatively, but think about it in terms if you had to do it yourself from scratch, you know, what, what, and what would you do and how would you plan it out if you were the one responsible for making your monthly income at a certain amount?

Because there's no white horse and you shouldn't plan on it.

There is not, and I have a whole chapter about that. So I would say decide what you want, why you want it, and then put a plan in place to get it and work really hard. You're gonna have to sacrifice for it. You're gonna have to reevaluate on a regular basis if this is still what you want when you're having your really crappy days. You know, you need to try not to make decisions those days about the future and your career, but re-evaluate on a regular basis and make sure that you're headed in the direction that you want to be.

Awesome, such, such great advice, Heidi, all the way around. So will people want to connect with you? If they want to find your book, what's the best way to do that?

Sure, it's called The Work of Art: A No-Nonsense Field Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs. It is available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. You can also go to my website at HeidiLaguera.com and there's links there and things. I'm probably going to be doing a couple of sales over the holidays. And then if you're interested in RAW, showcasing your work, submitting your work to be taken a look at, you can go to rawartists.com.

Awesome.

And I did ask Heidi if we can do a giveaway for the book, and so we are going to have that when the episode comes out. And so So if you guys are listening to this and you're like, this sounds amazing, I want a chance to get this, just go to my Instagram post that will be kind of promoting this episode and I will give you details for how to enter to get a chance to win this book and then I will send it off to you with love. And thank you so much, Heidi, just for taking the time to be here and chat with us and your busy schedule managing your 60 people and your, you know, hundreds of shows all over the world.. And we're just, yeah, really grateful to have your wisdom and, uh, to share your perspective and story.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Brittany.

You're lovely. Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that was helpful to you. Um, I want to add that, um, Heidi has also added to her, uh, to her many talents, um, consulting and some consulting slots to her business. And so, and she's offering that especially this year as so many people have had pivot, um, during COVID during quarantine, and especially with, um, live events being taken out of the picture and some of the networking opportunities that come through independent artists and being able to have shows of all different types. And so if you're interested in that, check it out at hatchplanning.com. Link will be in the podcast episode below. And there's several different service packages, including a free discovery call that she offers to people if you're interested in talking to someone, um, and getting some wisdom as to in terms of launching and growing your creative entrepreneurial venture, whatever that is. I also want to add, if you have not taken a chance to leave a review for the podcast, I would certainly love if you'd do that. So the reviews are really helpful for finding other people to be able to find the podcast. They kind of tell the podcast players that this is a legit podcast that should come up in search results. And because searchability is so limited, you know, all these things that I talk about here, there's no like a way to SEO and, you know, have this come up in terms of a search engine when people are looking to get more information about this. And so one way that we can try to combat that and get more people to find this information to help them is for podcast reviews. The more reviews I get, the more likely that anyone who's trying to look about the business of creative entrepreneurship can find this podcast and get the help that hopefully you've also enjoyed here. So you can get that to the bottom if you go to the bottom of your iTunes here in your podcast player. You can give me some stars or even write something in, which is super helpful. Here's one from Yes Newbie. He said, he or she said, can't get enough of this. It's so helpful to listen to someone who knows and is willing to share their talents and knowledge. Thank you so much for those super kind words. As a words of affirmation girl, which I totally am, that's my love language. You don't know how much that means to me. Thank you so much for being here, for giving me some of your time and attention, whatever it is. That you're navigating in your day, in your week, your month, and your year. I hope that you understand how valuable and important your contributions are, whether they're seen or not. And I hope that you feel like you have the confidence that you have to move forward with your creative, um, business, whatever that looks like. Remember that you are a real business owner. So let's have you own your business and own your business journey, whatever that looks like.

Thanks so much.