Terrifying Thing About Self-Employment..Fear of the Unknown..Artists Plight..Selfies Drive Traffic..
Transcript of a coaching call (YouTube video) between Chris Collins and Adam (self-employed mural/artist). Adam describes a 15-year studio offering murals, decorative finishes, signage and commissioned art, and his struggle to find time to market and stabilize sales. Chris reframes Adam's offering as an emotional/marketing outcome—murals drive selfies, hashtags, organic social attention—and advises Adam to sell that outcome rather than technical features. Chris also recommends hiring a commission-only salesperson (10% base, 15% over targets) to prospect full-time, and suggests reading Chet Holmes' The Ultimate Sales Machine (chapters on hiring and time management). The call closes with website/Instagram details and a promise to share/promote Adam's work.
Chapters
Adam, how are you?
Chris, thank you for taking my call. I'm very well.
You. So tell me about your business and what's your question?
I am a self employed artist. I run a studio that specializes in.
A variety of different styles of murals, exterior and interior. We also do decorative paint finishes.
We do some painting, just regular painting. I also do commission artwork. People will hire me to do portraits, landscapes, fine art pieces, things of that nature.
An ongoing issue that I've had, I mean I've been relatively successful going on. This is 15 years of Nielsen Studio nil, SOM Studio.
So I'm proud of that. But the ongoing issue has been trying to find time and be effective at filling the funnel or continuing to trying to figure out a way to effectively market.
Market my business and try to reach the demographic that I want to reach to generate business that's effective not just fiscally, but with my time that I have. Because I'm sort of a one man show.
You know, I'll be, I'll design and I prefer to do the projects myself. I'm not really a desk type guy where some people would send people out to do jobs. I have a passion to do it, so I enjoy painting. So if I'm doing all the projects on site, it just limits my time.
That I would have to use to, to market. And I have a website that has a lot of imagery of my work. I've had postcards made, brochures. But I get to the point where it's like, you know, where am I sending these cards and brochures? I mean, what. It's just kind of, it's just been an ongoing issue because I want that security, that the terrifying thing about being self employed is the fear of the unknown, not knowing what projects are down the road. And.
I need that feeling of security. I know it's not going to be all the time, but I just feel like after all of the successes that I've had with projects that, you know, I should be booked for a few months in advance and not have to be panicking and worrying all the time. So I'm trying to figure out how do I effectively get more leads and more potential clients.
Yeah, that's the million dollar question, right?
Yeah.
So I have a couple ideas for you, but let's first kind of talk about our target and.
Who our audience is. So at the end of the day.
When you do a mural for somebody on the side of their business or inside their business, what is the change that happens in their business?
What is the change that happens in their business.
Yes.
Well.
Brings. It brings life, it brings excitement, it brings conversation.
It brings style.
You know, it's the client. The client. Get a custom designed piece that's one of a kind of.
And it's a piece of artwork that.
Covers up what was a blank, boring void of space.
Okay.
The other part of the business, the other things that I do as well is I do really large scale logo painting and sign, like classical hand painted signs. And the obvious answer, do me a.
Favor, Adam, don't talk about features and benefits. Let's talk about emotions for a second. So, okay, what are the comments that you get from businesses after you do a mural? What do they say to you? Positive. What are the, what's the feedback? So you said, I love it. Excitement, conversation. It brings life. Let's unpack it a little bit. Go just focus on that for a second and kind of recall some of your favorite clients and what they said. Employees said, what changed? What was the upside? But don't talk about paint, color or size.
What emotions.
Yeah, I would say the feedback is, I love it. It's better than I thought it'd be. Everybody has been talking about it. People are taking their picture in front of it. A lot of people are doing selfies with your, with your work in the background.
It makes it more fun to come to work.
It feels so alive in here now. It was so boring before.
Okay, there's your. There, you're done. We're done, Adam. So that's what you're selling. So write that down. You're selling viral hashtags and selfies and marketing. You want your business to go viral, to get attention and to be a well known hashtag. That's what my murals do for your business. You can pay somebody to do social media and to get you, you know, you can pay thousands of dollars every month and it won't get you the, the amount of viral attention that one of my murals will. Every business wants that.
Wow, that's awesome. Okay, so basically just tell the client instead of saying how great the image is, kind of stress how great the outcome could be for them in a viral kind of situation.
Yeah, it's marketing. What does every business want? They want more eyes on their business. So you're getting more eyes on their business in a cool, fresh way that's organic that people are going to talk about.
Right.
And so people are going to want to take selfies, they're going to want to hashtag it. They're going to be talking about it for five to 10 years. And so I'm putting eyes on your business. And you know, you could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising and you wouldn't have the enthusiasm and the organic shares that you'll have with one of my pieces. So now I want you to pay attention to something. Adam, what did we do right there? What? Why did I tell you not to focus on features and benefits? Because you started to kind of go there on me a little bit. And that's where everybody goes as an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
Talking about the thread count and the leather and the, the size and the. Nobody. Nobody cares about that.
Right, right. They want, they want. It should be about them rather than me.
Right. And it's, you know, it's, it's a very like, you know, having an original art piece. So here's what, here's your, here's your pitch. It's an original art piece created for you that's going to go viral. You're going to get more shares, more eyes on your business and social media than anything else you can do. That'll cost you tens of thousands of dollars and you won't have the organic original enthusiasm for it that you will on an ad that you're probably not good at writing anyways. Business owner. And you're going to say that in your way. I'm being, you know, because this is advice on being to the point. You're not going to be that crass, but that's what you're selling. Okay, so now we. Does, does that resonate? Is that a great marketing tool for you?
Yeah. And I, I admit, like, the.
Marketing in general has just been kind of like uncomfortable for me and.
Okay, well, here's the second part of this. So we agree that that's the angle that would work. I think it would work. I would test it for sure. But the second part of this is you need to hire a salesperson, your best in front of a wall painting. And it's not scalable for you to sell, bid. And so you need a salesperson out there doing a needs analysis with businesses. They give you all the information. You bid it, they go sell it and you pay them 10 or 15% of what they sell. And they're out there full time doing.
What I was thinking is doing, doing a commission based salary for someone that would go out and pitch.
No salary. No salary.
10%.
How much do you want to do a month in sales?
It would be nice to do around 20 grand.
Okay, so we want to do 50 grand a month in sales and we're going to pay somebody 10%. If we do 25,000, they get 15% of. Of it if they're over 25,000. So if we do $50,000, they're going to make 7,500 bucks a month. And that's great money in Milwaukee.
Heck, yeah, it is.
So shoot bigger. How do I get the salesperson do more?
How do I go about finding someone that would be willing to do this? Because it's not. It wouldn't be like you said, it wouldn't be a salary. It wouldn't be hourly wage job. It's based on commission. So where do I find someone like this?
Okay, do me a favor and pick up the book by Chet Holmes called the Ultimate Sales Machine and read the chapter in there about hiring salespeople and do that. So just. You don't have to read the whole book. Just read the chapter on hiring salespeople and do that. But he tells you how to hire salespeople and it works. And you don't have to be that extreme. But you. The. The one thing is, artists are different than the really good salespeople. And so you just need to understand the personality of a salesperson. They take a lot of rejection. No. Doesn't faze him. You're not looking for a salesperson who gets easily discouraged. So just understand what you're trying to hire. Run some ads, do his interview process, and you'll find a salesperson. There's so many salespeople dying to sell art. It's like the funnest thing. Like, yeah, it's a home run. And when you write the ad for the salesperson, like, make sure you include in there that what they're selling is, like, selfies and fun. Because people are going to be, you know, a lot of salespeople sell stuff that people hate. In the end, they're going to be selling something that means something. It's an original piece of art. It has a soul. It carries on for years. So make sure you talk about that in the ad. But understand, the kind of salesperson you want isn't you. You're not the salesperson. A really good sales person is. Will hit their head against the wall, will walk into business after business and take, no, no, no, no, no. They will sell you better than you could ever sell yourself. When you hear them sell you, you'll be that guy.
That's awesome.
That's what you want.
Can you repeat the name? I know it's Chet Holmes. Can you repeat the name of the book?
It's the only book he wrote. But it's called the Ultimate Sales Machine. It's a great book.
Ultimate Sales Machine.
There's just a. There's a chapter in there on hiring salespeople. And read that chapter in his chapter on time management, too, is really good.
That's a book I. I will pick up, like every year and go to a couple chapters and read it. It's so good.
Wow. All right. Yeah, definitely. We'll check that out.
That's great. I want to check out your stuff, Adam. So tell me what, what your website is. I thought I wrote it.
All right, it's www.nilson nilson hyphen-studio.com, so nilsen-studio.com okay, everybody listening.
Go, go check them out. Give him some love. Are you on Instagram?
Yeah, I'm. I'm on Instagram. It's Nilson Nil S O N Studio.
Art Murals.
Okay. Friend me on there. I'm Chris Bulldog Collins.
All right, send me a. Send me your something that you're proud of and I'll post it in my story with your hashtag.
Awesome.
Great, Adam. That's great stuff. So let me know how that goes. But that's going to work for you. I know it is.
I really. I really appreciate the help, Chris. It's been. It's been awesome talking to you and I'm going to put that. I'm going to put your advice to work real soon here.
Great. Have a great week. Keep us posted.
I will. Thank you. Have a great one.
