Becoming An Artpreneur: A Model for Creatives on Building a Profitable Business with Miriam Schulman

Take your business to the next level.

Next level. Step it up a notch.

I was like, oh my God, can we be more vague? What the heck does next level even mean?

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy and I want to my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy. Hello. Hello. Welcome to another great episode. In this one, I have a new friend named Miriam Schulman and she is incredible. I mean, okay, so she, she has a new book that's called Artpreneur. I love the name for one. And the reason why I brought her on isn't because of the book, but that's a great supplement. It's the fact that she talks with creatives and artists and business owners, of course, because there are definitely those in that, in that group of people. But at the same time, it's how to create a profitable business as a creative. That might even be the title of this episode. Who knows? But the point is it's delivered in the book, is delivered in the fact that you're going to listen to her in the way that she frames this to creatives. And I feel like a lot of us entrepreneurs are creatives. We are creating something from nothing. It's framed in a way that helps us really get down to the core of things. And you know, I'm talking about like the mindset to charge what you're worth, to even get what you want, to say what you want, to feel what you want, but also how to package everything up in a way that it's, it attracts the best potential customers to you. Leads, of course too. But there's so many things that Miriam has just given us in this episode that you're going to love. That's very actionable. It's actionable throughout the entire thing. So if you feel like you're struggling because you have some idea, maybe you are a creative, an artist, but even if you are not, if you're just someone who is looking to bust through another layer or maybe shore up some of the foundational items in your business. Things like pricing, the fact that the way that you produce products, the way that you talk with people and prospect, promote your things and sell. Miriam has something for you here, so you're gonna love it. She's also the host of the Inspiration Plays podcast. I told you. She has a new book called Artpreneur. If you want to get a free chapter, go to schulmanart.com believe you're gonna like her. She's amazing. Let's get into it right now. Miriam, we're going. Happy to have you here on the show and everything you're doing is. I feel like it's for a lot of folks and yeah, I'm just excited to really dive into you and also what you're doing with creatives and people that have these wild ideas in art that they just aren't sharing them or making money from them. So thanks for being here.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. We were having just like a great time before you hit record. So it's going to be an interesting conversation.

It's always a good start and we got to stop ourselves and hit record. So first of all, thank you for your book because your book Artpreneur is a cool name for one. And I feel like you're immediately when. When Rich Sheffrin connected us, which I gotta give a shout out there. Thank you, Rich. It was like, uh huh, duh. Like more people need to hear what you're talking about because you're chatting mainly to creatives, a lot of artists and I know a lot of artists and creative folks. And I think the key thing is that this works for everybody. That's why I like these kind of books where they're like, they might be like not so businessy to entreprene, but it's like we all relate to them. This is something that is close to me because of the artists in my family and also friends. I'm like, ah, yeah, there's a lot of stuff we gotta uncover here.

So yeah, See the truth is, and Joe, you, you recognized it right away. Is that what I'm teaching? Creatives is really what everyone else is teaching. They just don't think it applies to them. And so I'm telling them, yes it does and here's why. And speaking their language. So it's like I'm the translator, like how does this relate to you? And so that's why people who are in my world, who are, who don't consider themselves artists, are picking up the book and getting value from it. Because I'm, I'm making important, really distinctions about how things are working now in 2023.

Yeah. And they're timeless. Yet I feel like, yeah, in 2023, with the noise and like you mentioned, a lot of us creatives, really people in general, but maybe more creatives, we're on our phone, we're in the Zucker verse. Or we're, we're consumed with other people's narratives or algorithms even. And like we don't share our own shit.

No. Okay. If I could boil down what's the problem most people have, whether they're creatives or entrepreneurs in 2023 is I'm going to throw myself in this bucket as well. I think we're all spending too much time creating content rather than collectors and clients.

Explain, please.

So, and this was like a major thing with my book. When I first handed it my very first draft, the developmental editor was really taken aback. Wait a minute, why aren't you talking about TikTok Reels Instagram? And then she made an assumption. Oh, she's 54. She must be old fashioned. That's why she doesn't believe in social media. And when I got that those notes back, what, how. What I took it to mean was not that, oh, I should be talking about this stuff is like I didn't build a strong enough case about why this stuff isn't working the way we think it does. And so then I just dug my heels even deeper to, to really build the case out about why social media is not that magic bullet we all think it is and we're spending our time on the wrong things.

That is interesting. Yeah, agree. And there's, there's core things that I feel like if we. Well, for one, the timeless stuff is always the most powerful. It's not the shiny objects and the latest tool or the threads or whatever is new release that everybody's jumping on. It's usually doing the boring stuff. It's. And doing it for a long time and keep putting it out there, keep talking, connecting with people and keeping your mind straight too throughout the process. Because I know that's a big thing you talk about.

Oh, absolutely. So one of the things we started talking about before record was about the algorithms and Instagram. So when I first started writing my book, the average engagement rate on Instagram was 1%. And when I went to edit in early 2022, after I got those notes. It had dropped to.06%. So, Joe, you know, there's lots of people out there saying, I'm going to teach you how to increase your engagement. You know, these influencers and Instagram gurus. So you want to guess what the average engagement rate is for an influencer?

Oh, geez, I don't even want to. It's lower. I'm sure that's.

That's really funny. No, it is higher, but it's only 1.12%.

Still low as hell. No control.

Okay. And it's not the algorithm. We all want to say. Oh, it's the algorithm. They want us to pay for things. So when I first started launching my book, I thought, okay, I'm going to do Instagram Lives with all my, you know, Insta famous friends and artists followers. And right before you go live, and you can try, everyone listening can try this themselves. When you go to Instagram and you press the plus button and pretend like you're about to do a live, it will tell you how many people are on the platform of your followers, not how many are tuning in live. That comes later. How many are even available to you at any time? So back in January, I had 25,000 followers. What would you guess would be, out of 25,000 people, would be people on the platform?

Oh, she's hundreds. Let's say low Hundreds.

You wish.

No.

Okay. In January it was 65.

Okay.

That's not how many were tuning in. That was how many were available. Okay, guess what? I did it again today just to see, because I was on a different podcast and I went, I said, let me. Let's just see what it is. So today it was 13.

That hurts maybe, because out of 25,000.

Well, now I have 27,000, so it's even worse.

Yeah, yeah.

Out of 27,000 people. And we're, we're not recording this at 2:00 clock in the morning, people. This is like in New York, it is 3:30 in the afternoon. It is in the middle of the day in San Diego. And there was 13 people of my 27,000 followers on Instagram.

That's gotta do something to the people, like influencers or anyone sharing and using social media's primary marketing channel. Like, what kind of stuff are you going to do? Like, mentally, like, I'm not good enough. People don't care about me. They're not showing up. Like, all these things start bubbling up, I'd imagine, right?

You can't increase the engagement if they're not on the platform.

It's like you just, there's nothing you could do about it.

That hurts. Okay, so I want to get into details on like what do we do, Miriam?

Okay, so, all right. I mean, let's talk about some obvious things. So everyone from Ryan Dice the king of marketing, to Marie for Leo the Queen, say it's email marketing. What do the numbers say? What did the numbers say about email? Well, we all know the average Open rate is 24, 25%. Would you agree?

Okay, yeah.

All right, so out of 100 people, that means 24, 25 people are going to see your thing, your shiz. Right. Okay, so if you compare that to the 0.6% on Instagram, you're looking back. All right. Okay. So that means on email you only need 100 people to get 24 people to see it. And on Instagram you need 4,000 people to get 24 people. 4,000 versus 100. The numbers don't lie.

And that's not even talking about how qualified or focused or intent this audience is.

That's right, that's right. So that's, that's where people come, then they come up. It's like a 40x return on your investment of comparing email to social media. I mean, and if you look at what the charts are, email marketing is at the top and then it goes all the way down. And social media is like right before radio and television.

You know, it's like it's that bad now.

It's that bad.

I didn't take long. Radio has been around for 100 plus years.

That's right.

I feel like it's going to get worse. I mean, obviously you get these like blips, like you have threads, you have, I think Instagram released their broadcast channels so you can, you know, invite all of your non existent active people on Instagram to broadcast too. But that's like a one way community. Obviously email kind of is too, but. Well, it could go two ways, but email, email's king. And obviously there's other things to supplement email, but I would agree. I mean having a core place where you more or less control or own the list and you can do what the heck you want with it, you know. And so yeah, okay, is that, is that like a, like an aha moment for a lot of creatives? Because they've been, you know, I have.

To beat them over the head with it. I think people maybe in your world maybe who have been listening more often get it, but with me, they really, I have to beat them over the head because they don't believe me. So then it's like, I don't want to listen to you, I don't believe you. I, they'll say, I don't open my emails. It's like it doesn't matter what you do, it's what your customers doing.

That's right. And for the entrepreneurs listening, small business owners, there's a lot of folks who, yeah, everybody's heard, grow an email list and all that. But like who's actively emailing? Because that's a whole another action broadcast.

That's right.

Or there's a whole follow up sequence. Like have you thought about the journey within email that you can take people on?

Well, this is the, the other thing that I see. It's like, so there's the ones who don't even have the email list, but then there's the others who have one but don't really use it. Or they only use it once a month because they're afraid of bothering people. So you know, if you're emailing Once a month, 12 times a year and the average open rate is 25%, that means they're only going to hear from you probably or open your emails four times a year. Now you would never do that on Instagram. Instagram, you're posting every day. So why would you, why would you only write? Why do you think you only have one thing to say a month if you're posting multiple week times a week on Instagram? It does, doesn't make sense. Right.

Again, it sounds like a mindset thing. It's a self sabotaging excuse or something. Pattern they picked up. Maybe there was someone that maybe they saw their unsubscribed numbers start to drop. It's like, I see that almost as a good thing.

I mean, oh, I call that like, it's like checking the hair in your hairbrush. There's going to be hair in your hairbrush when you brush your hair. It's the same thing with unsubscribes. It doesn't mean you're going bald.

No, it's true. I mean you're pruning the, whatever the hairs that shouldn't be the dead hairs. Dead leads. Weird.

Exactly. Okay, so that was, I would say is mindset block number one is they think that all they have to do is figure out how to sell on Instagram and then they'll have a business. And Instagram is for connection, not selling. So whether you're connecting online or in person, the artist, the entrepreneur, the artpreneur, whoever it is, Like I said, this is for all business people that you fill in the blank. The person who's spending eight hours of their time connecting with customers and creating clients and collectors will have a better business than the person spending eight hours developing content for social media. It feels like you're doing something. It feels fun, it feels productive, but it's not gonna make you the same kind of money.

That's a good point because it makes you feel productive. And that's. I feel like any, like, the digital space just has this vacuum. I was chatting about this with Rich Jeffrin yesterday. He's like, the biggest and best work is thinking typically, or like taking yourself out of there and creating something new. Like, in this case, it could be art, something with your hands, something else without the Internet, at least without that input of stuff. And yeah, shoot, I just had a whole thread that I wanted to go down. But mindset block number one, I mean, that's. That's a big one.

That's. Mindset block number one is people selling on Instagram. Mindset block number two is cheaper, is easier to sell.

That's a big.

It isn't. It isn't. So this is like the analogy that I like. I actually didn't use this one in the book because two reason. Dan Kennedy used it first. And also my publisher didn't think that artists would relate to Rolex analogies too well. But if I were to sell you a Rolex watch and I say, hey, Joe, I have one, it's $49.50, or if I posted it on eBay, it's $49.50,. I don't think I would get many takers for it even if I posted it for $400, because we know that Rolexes should be 5, 6, $7000. So here is a situation where it's actually easier to sell a watch for $4,000 than it is for $400.

Now, they've done lots of research around this where wine sells better when it's priced higher. No one's going to say, oh, this, you know, this $9 bottle of wine should have been $50. They've done taste studies where that people actually will rate the wine lower if they paid less money for it.

That's right, I've seen that. And then you do it blindly and you're like, yeah, that $9 bottle probably does taste the equivalent to like a 50. But you're not going to think that once you see the pricing and see the label.

So most people who aren't buying Rolexes and My audience, who can't relate to that at all, and you know, they don't want to. My publisher didn't want people to think, like, I'm walking around for Rolex, which I'm not even. So like, I like to talk about vets and babysitters.

Okay, yeah, give me that analogy.

Okay, so if you have a dog, do you have a, do you have a pet?

I have two lovely dogs, yes.

Okay, so if your dog needed life saving surgery and he was going to have a perfectly healthy life after that surgery, so that's not what we're talking about. And it cost two, I don't know, $2,000, would you go shopping around for a cheaper vet? Like if I said, hey, Joe, I, I know a vet who could do.

It for 50 bucks over here in his backyard.

No, you pay the $2,000 for your vet and if somebody says, oh, I'll do it for 700, you'd be like, wait a minute. Like, even if you. Let's not make it such a big difference. Maybe it's 700 to be like, well, what's wrong with it? Yeah, no, I think it should be 2000.

Yeah.

Okay. And for those who have kids, are you shopping around for the cheapest babysitter? You know, if I said, hey, I know the going rate in San Diego is $20 an hour. What is it in San Diego? Do you have kids?

Probably is. I haven't have, luckily I got family here. But yeah, I'd say 20 is good.

I don't know what it is either because I have kids, but they're grown ups now.

Whole different phase.

Right. But when I needed a babysitter, it wasn't going to be like, okay, Jimmy will do it for like $9 or $3. It's like, no, I don't want Jimmy. Thank you.

Jimmy's nice and all, but I don't trust.

You know, it's like you imagine the south park kids showing up the babysit, right?

We all got this. No, that's right. Yeah. It raises objections. I think that's the key thing. Because we're not our clients or our prospects who are looking for whatever it is that we're creating. And but us as the creators get in our heads again. Maybe it's an abundance, some kind of lack of abundance loop that's going on. Some. Something from our past. Maybe we got to clear out something that we continue to perpetuate with our language. I know you speak about that in your book too. Little things like that can start moving us closer to Actually charging more. I'm feeling confident about putting ourselves out there. I feel like that's such a big thing.

Yeah. So let's dive a little bit deeper into what the whole mind's what happens. So if you or I were to tell somebody, you know, you need to raise your prices. What immediately happens is when we are going do anything that is new to us that makes us feel uncomfortable. Our fear based mind, our brains have evolved for survival, not goal achievement. Our fear based minds will come up with all kinds of doubts. I don't call them excuses because when we think these thoughts they don't feel like excuses, they feel real. And the smarter you are and the more creative you are, the better you will be at coming up with all kinds of bullshit about why this thing won't work. You and you believe them like it feels because it feels real. So then what happens? So you have fear that leads to doubt and doubt is going to lead to confusion, overwhelm. Why? Because if you're coming up with reasons why something don't work well, you got, let's research it, let's make it. I call it procrastinating.

I was going to say, I love.

That, that line, let's make sure we don't fail by researching everything.

And I feel like we do more of that procrastinating the more we're in the game because we're like oh wait, hold on, I just found out another book that's going to allow me to go a little bit deep into this thing.

And that's right. That's right. And then as you do the research you find more reasons why things won't work for you or that you don't know more ways that you can fail. So it just like will build on itself. So that's the procrastinating. Like if you think about the flight or fright, you know, type of thing that's trying to fight your way through it but you're just going to get more overwhelmed because you'll get conflicting advice. You still won't know what the right way forward is. The other way is you will indulge in I don't know, I don't know what to do. Right. You tell yourself, I don't know. Meanwhile you can ask Ms. You know, cousin Google and, and to YouTube but.

For most things or cousin, cousin Chad GPT that's always going to give you a confident answer that is not always correct.

I'm about to say that I've got into arguments with chat GPT I feel like and I'll and I'll correct it and they'll gaslight me, like, right. Oh, I didn't mean that. It's like, well, what did you just say to me? Now I can't do it all.

Exactly like, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, man.

That's right.

It's crazy.

So, yeah, so we have fear that leads to doubt. Doubt that leads to confusion and overwhelm, which leads to procrastination. Because if you're not convinced, if you don't believe what the next step is, most likely you're not going to take action to do it. So then what happens is you feel guilty because why you're not following through on your dreams that you want to do. So that's the dream killer.

And that hurts. I've been there. And until you can pull yourself out of that. Because I feel like us as entrepreneurs, whenever we're seeking something, I mean, it's tough, like half the battle. I think it's figuring out where the heck are you orienting yourself like a North Star, figuring out where roughly you want to go with things because without that, you're kind of going everywhere. Obviously that's not helpful for anybody. But yeah, it's like this. There are these mental ruts and as entrepreneurs, it's not easy to work for yourself and to do this as a solopreneur in a lot of cases. So, yeah, do you talk about that, like actually finding out roughly where you want to take your art or your creative work as a business owner?

Oh, yeah. So I spend a lot of time with my clients. We really always have to start with the five foundations and I'll say what they are. And again, Joe, these are the same foundations for any business. It doesn't matter if you're selling painting, sneakers, sculpture or coaching packages. So you have, what are you producing, what are you pricing it at? Does that math work? That's something I see a lot of people do. Like, well, you know, it takes you a week to do that and you're only pricing it at 500. So do you realize if you sold everything you're making, you will only make 25,000 a year? You know, and they don't do that math. But there's a lot of service providers who don't do that math either. Well, you know, you're pricing your website, whatever X the number of dollars and you know, it's taking this many hours. When are you going to pay, you know, so.

Good point. Yeah.

Right. So production, pricing, sometimes it's easier to change what you're producing. Sometimes raising the prices. Fix it. Sometimes you have to do a combination prospecting. We already talked about that. Not relying on social media, building an email list and a physical list. Yeah, like, there's no spam filter on people's front door mailboxes. So that's the prospecting piece. Then there's. I call it promotion because it' starts with a P. But I really mean selling sales. Sometimes people conflate marketing and selling, and that's a mistake. You know, marketing is more about the awareness. Selling is closing the deal, and then finally it's productivity. Are you spinning? Are you setting your goals? Are you setting, Are you celebrating your wins? So goal achievement.

Is there one out of there that you find people struggle the most with?

Yeah, it's usually one of the first three P's. It's usually either if I would add a. A third if I were to rewrite my book or come out with a new one, I would talk a lot more about people not being obsessed enough with what their customer wants and being too caught up in what they want.

How do you get people out of their own heads? Because, Rita, some kind of quote. It's like we're the only ones in our heads. You know, if you think about it. Yeah, it's true. So how do you get people out of there?

Well, this is why I say, I say that the entrepreneur, the artist who spends eight hours talking to their ideal customers, clients, collectors, are going make a lot more money than the one spending eight hours creating content.

Good point. This content is going out and not really that internal.

Right. And. And you're producing things that you don't even know if it's really what they need. Like, so just to kind of tie it up a little bit more neatly. So we said people think cheaper is easier to sell. What I see a lot of artists doing, and, you know, I would say this is true of a lot of business people when you think cheaper is easier to sell, and they're selling these small things and these small packages and you need a lot more customers and it's a lot work. And you know when I told you, like, that won't work for me because thing like when I have these conversations, it's like, well, you know, it takes you a long time to make the small painting and you'd make a lot more money making a bigger painting. I'm like, well, I like to paint small.

It's like, okay, maybe combine them into a whole assortment of things.

You know, I'm not a real artist if I'm doing what my Customer wants. It's like, well, you know, Michelangelo didn't want to paint the Sistine Chapel, but I think the Pope gave him a lot of money and that's why he.

Was the one to do it.

Yeah, that's right. And that's why he did it.

Wow. Yeah, that's. Jeez, there's so much, so many different ways here. Okay, so on these, was it five P's because I, part of me wants to go to like where you began because we didn't touch on that yet because we jumped right in. But I, and I like that. But I know you have your own story in your path and I'd like to maybe give me some case studies or something along the way. Like to kind of like relate this a little bit more.

Okay, so P is production. It's what are you producing? Like so what I talk about in the book and this, sadly this is a true story. But I get many versions of this story I got would get an email, you know, Miriam, I paint on rocks. And a lot of people don't see that it's real art. So how do I find my audience? So here's the thing. I laid out what the 5Ps are and the biggest problem that happens is people think they have a prospecting problem, meaning all they need is a bigger audience. And by that they usually need a bigger Instagram following or TikTok. So they think the problem if only I had more people. But really nobody wants your hand painted rock. So that is a problem of what are you producing? So you gotta solve that first. Are you producing the right thing? Are there people? It's not what you are obsessed with what you like to do the most. You know, it's like that thing, do what you love and the money will follow. It's a lie. You gotta do what your customer loves. They don't want pan painted rocks.

That involves talking with your customers or potential customers.

That's right, that's right. Because they can't hang it on the wall and impress their friends. So you know, you have, you have to talk to your customers, find out what they want, what they're obsessed with, not what you're obsessed with. So that's production. Then we talked about the pricing. So you can't just raise the price on a hand painted rock. That's not going to work. You have to change what you're producing. But sometimes the problem is as simple as raising the prices that can fix the problem as well. If they're just not charging enough and they can charge higher for what it is, that's the next place that we go. We, we talk about raising their money mindset around that.

Right? That's the money mindset piece. I mean, from the creatives that I know and I, I feel like we're all creatives. If we're an entrepreneur, we're a creator of something that is out of nothing ultimately, you know, like originally, and ideally, it's syncing up with a buyer or potential buyer and you have some financial planning behind what the heck you're going to do with this. So. But that, that money piece, I feel like, is the blockage to a lot of folks. And I don't know, like, how do you approach that? It's, it's. Obviously you can run the numbers, but some people just don't like to even do that. So they're like, not. They're ignoring, which obviously can lead to bad things and all sorts of stuff. So how do you, like, shift that money mindset to one that's, that's focused and actually feeling empowered and abundant?

It's a great question. The first thing that I do is the math. And it's not scary math. It's not even spreadsheet math. It's if you were completely sold out. So we identify first, what's your capacity, so productions really, what is your capacity to produce? It's not how much you like to make your things, it's what's your capacity to produce what it is that you're making. So if you were fully booked, you know, 40 hours a week, or if you were making all that you could in a week, and now you take that, how, how much you can produce times how much you're pricing. With that equation, what you have times what you're charging equal the amount you want in a year. And if the answer is no, you gotta fix that. You gotta fix that first. So I tell people I can tell you how to sell. But like that example I gave you earlier, if somebody's selling a product that's only $500 and they can only produce enough to make one sale a week, I says, well, I can't help you make more money because if you were totally sold out, that'd still only be $25,000. So you have to do that simple math first.

Yeah. You don't want a constraint that's honestly an obvious constraint like that. Your time or your price. Yeah, it's.

I mean, that was something that I discovered. Oh, I think I want to say this was in 20, 20, 2016, 2015, something like that. I Was hanging out with my friend Blend, another artist, and we were doing Law of Attraction. And then I said to her, hey, wait a minute. This manifestation isn't going to work. We don't have enough art to sell.

We can manifest anything, but that's right.

So that's when I figured it out. It was like, hold on. We don't. We have to make more art if this is even going to work. Because I was like, trying to do the numbers of, you know, let's do a vision board where we sell everything. And I was like, oh, no, that's not enough. No, something's gotta change.

Yeah. Yeah. And change it now while you can. And when that aha moment comes, and I love it. Yeah. Don't. You don't need to get a piece of paper. Start drawing out some math. Get a calculator if you really need one, but it should be simple math. And obviously start with, what do we need? Because I feel like just. Just knowing that that could be the North Star just to get you moving in the right direction, you know, that's right. Give you that momentum. I feel like we can create that, but it is up to us. And. And actually doing the damn thing.

Yeah. And then in the book, I give examples that are not just painters. So musicians, people charging by the hour. Like, what does that look like? If you charge premium versus charging, quote, unquote, average, whatever that you think that is, what does it look like? If. Now you're teaching a group class.

Yeah.

Which they, you know, and I'm talking about musicians, which they have. They have those people who have Suzuki strings for kids, where there's 20 kids in a class. Well, what if you taught that online and you had a hundred people in there? Now, what does it look like? Like, so to look at it from different ways, can you change what you're doing? Can you change your pricing? Can you do both? Can you package things? Those are the things that people need to fix.

First off, I like it. Now, let's talk about. Let's talk about you. Like, when you started off in the beginning, did you have any of these blockages? I'm sure you had every single one of them. Okay, perfect.

Like I said, you know, I've made all the mistakes that I hate that when I'm on podcasts and people say, what mistakes have you made? I can't think of them. And it's not because I haven't made them. It's just I'm so add and I. I always future focus. So I was like, let's let's forget about that. I've moved on already.

I've been told that too. I'm like, you compartmentalize things really well. I'm like, yeah, because I just don't want to spend my energy there.

That's right.

There's a lot to learn from it. So is there theme or one of the P's that pop out when you were just starting to get that momentum going, building your confidence? What was that one you had to really push through or work through the most?

Okay, so I told. I told you about that. Aha. I had with the law of attraction. I just like not producing enough to make the work, make this work. Pricing continued to go up with. With just different scenarios. So one story I tell in the book, I had taken an on a commission, and the woman had given me a photograph. And it was to PA Wingfoot Golf Course, which is this famous golf course in her house, overlooks the golf course. So you can imagine this woman has all kinds of money. And she gave me the photo. And we told the size, and I want to say it was 600. So I thought, okay, we agreed the size, we agreed the price. I'm gonna go paint it. I saw her the next week and she said, well, if you haven't painted that yet, please don't. I decided to buy my husband golf clubs instead.

Oh, geez.

And I hadn't taken a deposit, right. So. So I bluffed. I said, well, well, my gallery would be more than happy to take that painting. They were really interested when I had stopped by the other day. So once she heard that, she took out, you know, it was like the sense of urgency, like, how do we do this urgency thing? And so she whipped out her checkbook and she wrote the check. But I really believe that it was not. It had nothing to do with my art because she hadn't seen the art yet, Right. So it wasn't because the art wasn't good enough. But she believed that a set of golf clubs was a better gift because it was a higher price tag.

What we're talking about is that she didn't think that a painting was going to be good enough. I didn't put a high knife enough price tag on it. And there were several situations like that where I realized, oh, I'm not pricing enough. Because, for example, with a portrait woman who has two kids ordered three portraits of each child. And I was like, okay. And then I tripled my prices because she should only really be ordering one.

Really well made one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's yeah. So pricing is. It's huge. I mean, it's perception. It's. It's perception of quality, perception of you as a creator, as an artist. And. Yeah. And that's. Luckily, that's something we can control and I guess. Yeah, like how do you. And I guess the math, like, do you think seeing the math is enough to bust through that barrier or is it like just getting out there and having these experiences? Obviously, it's probably a mixture of both. It's just like trial by fire in a way.

Okay, so the advice I'm going to give is going to sound like it's not related, but it has everything to do with it. So if I told you that confidence was the biggest factor in raising your prices, you would agree with that, right?

Yeah.

Okay, so here's the thing. Self confidence, if you look up the definition of confidence, it actually says to trust. To trust. Right. So when we talked about before about how if you want to do something and then you come up with reasons why it won't work for you and then you procrastinate, every time you don't do what you say you want to do, it erodes your self trust, it decreases your confidence, and every time you commit and you do what you say you're going to do, it increases your confidence. And that has been the biggest change with my clients, is simply getting them to commit to what they say they're going to do because that's what raises their confidence.

That was one of the notes when I was thinking about when we were going into this, this chat, is belief in declaring. Like declaring it internally, but also sharing it and declaring it confidently with others and being comfortable doing so. Because I think that also builds momentum and trust at the end of the day, like you just suggested.

Yeah. So the very first chapter of the book, and then you might have noticed this, Joe, that every chapter title is really like an affirmation. So the first chapter is choose to Believe. And that's what I start with. And the one thing that I talk about in Entrepreneur, which I don't hear anybody else talking about, is the belief triad. So belief triad is belief in yourself. We've all heard that. And belief in what you're doing, your product. We've heard that too. But nobody talks about belief in their customer.

Yeah, interesting.

That is the key to unlocking higher prices. Being willing to put yourself out there is believing in that audience.

Where does that. Talking with them, I would say is probably 80% of the way there. Right.

It's. It's part of it. The story I'd like to give is in or bring up is in Pretty Woman, where Julia Roberts goes shopping on Rodeo Drive. Have you seen the movie?

It's been a long time Time.

Okay, so just to refresh people. So she's a hooker, and Richard Gere needs her to dress not like a hooker. He says, here's my gold card. She goes to Rodeo Drive, and the mean salespeople won't wait on her. Why? Because they don't believe that she has the money to spend. So she goes off to a different boutique, lots of shopping, comes back with all the dress of the nines, all her shopping bags. She goes to the mean salespeople, say, hey, remember me? Big mistake.

Yep.

Now we all think we're not those mean salespeople people. But how many times, Joe, have we talked to a client and not offered them our highest package?

Yeah, good point.

Or we're selling smaller art. Or we're keeping our prices low. That's not believing in our customer. That's what lack of belief in your customer looks like.

That's a very good point because there's always a percentage of people who will go for that high ticket, whatever high ticket is to us and to them, I guess, but. And if they don't go for that, well, guess what? You have the conversation rolling already. So you can always figure out something else within the spectrum, if that is even an option for you. That's a good frame to put it, because it's. That's how I like to build offers in general, is start with the top and then essentially figure out, like, I know you could do a group environment or whatever, but it's like, why not work one on one or something with people that could be your best client? You just got to put it out there and ask or have that conversation. How would you. Do you. Do you tell or. Because creatives come in all forms, artists and all that. Is there like a business model or a package or a way to put themselves out there as an offer and present that? Like maybe on this. This vein here, Pricing. Pricing it high enough where the demand, the perception, like, how do you put that together? I feel like a lot of people get stuck at that point and like, how to communicate that as well.

Yeah, that's. That's a really great question. So one of the first things, the first thing I always do with my clients is we look at their 5P's help. I use a tool to help them evaluate where they are. They feel needs to change. They say usually brings up Their, their limiting beliefs. But the next thing we look at is messaging. Because a lot of people, they don't. Because they don't spend enough time talking to their customers. They don't really know why people want what they have. And you see a lot of vague things being put out there. And I'm going to give examples both in the art world and the business. Business world. So in the art world, they'll say things like, my art brings joy. Fluffy, so vague. And you know, you know what the business people and coaches say. Let's see if you can guess.

Let's see here.

I'm sure you won't be wrong, but like, I'll just tell you what I see.

Yeah, tell me.

Take your business to the next level.

Next level. Step it up a notch.

I was like, oh my God, can we be more vague? What the heck does next level even mean?

So it's not results oriented, right? It's not.

Well, it's just, it's just too vague. It's like, yeah, the art makes people happy. Yeah, the business coaching will take you to the next level. But why?

What specifically? So first thing I do identify, I look through the 5Ps, what's broken. Usually they've misidentified the problem. They think, they think it's a prospecting problem, but really it's a production problem. Or they think it's a prospecting. They don't have a big enough audience, but really it's pricing. Okay, next we look at the messaging. Why are, why do people want your stuff? What are you selling? Where's the gold? Let's keep, let's find the gold and then keep digging.

And that's. So it's. Yeah, it's that, I mean, really simple as that. And the messaging, I guess it's going to refine over time. The more you do this, the more people you chat with, the more input you're getting and feedback and noticing what they are looking for and what kind of art do they want to proudly display or what, Whatever service or offer you have out there, keep doing that double down, right?

And then even, let's just even circle back to the glory days of Instagram when we all had lots of engagement. Like those likes didn't tell you anything. And if somebody didn't like on your thing, that didn't tell you anything either. But when you're in person, when you're talking to somebody, when you're having a consult, I keep trying to bring in different like modalities. You get some feedback.

Well, just this right here. It's even virtually, you know, having these video type of chats.

That's right. That's right. That's a. That's right. It doesn't have to be in person. In person, but for sure.

But you get those.

Having conversations.

Yeah, yeah.

How much time are you spending having conversations with people? Not with your computer? And it. I know it feels safe behind that computer screen and it feels productive behind that computer screen, but that's not what's going to build your business business in.

Terms of, like, when it comes to content. Because we talked about not living inside your content and having conversations. I know you're a podcaster. You obviously have a book and you do this kind of thing. You guest on podcast. I might be a little biased because I love it as well. Podcasting.

Podcasting.

Yeah, yeah. Is like talk about how you create or how. How would you suggest someone to create content in a way that still lifts everything up, like conversations and offers and all that.

Okay. Okay. So for me personally, for my podcast, my best content actually does come from the conversations that I am having with my artists. Whenever I have. I'm having lots of conversations. I can. I have so many ideas of what to. What to talk about. The problem I see with a lot of creatives doing, and probably this may be true of business people, too, is they're talking to them to themselves instead of to the person who will buy what they have. So for artists, it looks like this. They're talking to other artists. They're talking about. About their process of how they create. And I will say to them, well, unless you want to sell art classes, that's not what collectors want to hear about. They want to know your why.

What makes you tick. Why are you.

That's right.

Why are you doing.

That's right. That's right. So for my. For the listeners out there who are creatives and want to know what to do, like what I tell them, whatever content you are creating, whether. And I like YouTube a lot, be for them, because most people are not going to scroll down to that reel that you did two weeks ago. But YouTube is out there forever, and YouTube is owned by Google, and the search algorithms are beautiful. So talk to your collectors. What would you talk to your collector about? Would you show them around your studio? Yeah, yeah, right. Would you talk about the technique? Not so much.

It's.

Why did you choose that. That paint that thing today? Why did you choose to sculpt that thing today? If you're an author, why is it that you're writing this way? Who are some other people in your audience besides creatives? Make sure we speak to them.

Oh, a lot of small business owners. So a lot of people with online, you know, coaches, authors, experts, people. Those types of coaches.

Yeah, yeah, well, coaches. It's, it's what I'm talking about to people on my podcast. It's what, what are your customers struggling with right now? Not what are you most interested in talking about. About what are they most interested in hearing about. Get obsessed with that. That's how you make money and that's how you design offers that are going to convert if you get obsessed with what your customer wants. Because a lot of us think, oh, it'd be so much fun to make a class on how to. I'm going to be ridiculous now. How to like make a crochet doily for my coffee mug. Ridiculous.

I need one.

But it's like, no, like maybe your customer's not interested in how to. I mean maybe they are, but like you know how, how to do chat, GPT or so, whatever it is. Well, just because you're interested in it doesn't mean your customer is. So get really curious what are they interested and be willing to have those conversations.

Yep. And really get to know them. Yeah. Have the conversations, understand the pain points and the things they're actually looking for. But also I've received some amazing advice over the years, years on this show from people who are great salespeople and all that. And yeah, it's always figure out like what are the no's? What are these blockages that are going to pop up that just cycle through your customers minds, not yours, and try to analyze every, you know, and figure out the flip to that that you can provide to them and either through your product or at least your messaging and how you can deliver that for them.

Yeah. And one of the really important things I do in all artpreneur is I have an overcoming objections chart. And then what I do in that chart is I talk about what's going through the customer's mind when they're presenting an objection. So it's not about what's going, it's not about what you're thinking about. We spend so much time about thinking about ourselves. And here's the thing, Joe, at the end of the day, when somebody is making a purchasing decision, if they're just deciding whether or not I want to buy, buy Joe's podcasting package, Miriam's painting or whatever it is, and it's, let's just make up a number, let's Say it's a ten thousand dollar something something. They're not trying to decide if Joe is worth $10,000.

Right.

They're trying to decide if they are worth investing $10,000.

Bingo.

That's what's going through their mind. It's their self worth that's on the table, not yours. And we're so caught up in ourselves, we forget about that. That's why understanding the belief triad and believing in your customer works so well. Because you have to believe in their worth. You have to believe that they are worth investing $10,000 and you have to believe that more than they believe in themselves.

Yeah. And we can maybe help them believe that through our content, through the, the messaging we put out there. Because it's trust and it's. Yeah, it's typically trust.

It's not just the content. It's also. And it's not just the words we use. I think people like, they want to get the templates and what are the words and what are the scripts. And it's kind of like when you go into a beautiful home and it's decorated perfectly, but it smells bad. So if you don't have that feeling, no matter what words you're using, your words will have that smell of desperation. It has to feel confident. It has to come from that genuinely confident place. And have to. How do you develop confidence, commit and do what you say you're gonna do?

There you go. I think that that is gonna get a lot of people moving the right way. I just wanna stress again how cool your book is and the fact that it's. It's our preneur. It's very actionable and just like this whole chat has been, it's. It's great for everyone and I want to reread it now after, you know, because I kind of flip through. That's the thing. It's very actionable that you can go kind of quickly through it. There's some amazing quotes and all that, but the point is to get your ass in motion. And I feel like that's the hardest part for anyone who's starting something new as a creative. I've seen it. I feel like I am a creative too. More on the music side. And there's a lot of stuff that I know it's internal and it's like you don't share it, you don't talk about it and all that. It's this vicious loop. So I love the fact that you're breaking people from those cycles and, and thanks for sharing here. Tell me about Your podcast and some of the other stuff that people can check out from you. Because I know some people are going to jump over, don't jump ship, but you know, collaborate, Go check out, listen.

To more than one podcast. I mean, how many podcasts do you put out a week, Juan?

One or two? Yeah. Okay.

All right, come on.

You can add more.

All right. If you like what you heard today, I have more of that drug over at the Inspiration Play, so find me over there. And I also have a free chapter for our listeners today. So you can go to shulmanart.com believe shulman is spelled like school S C H. And if you rather talk to my AI robot, DM me the word believe. So the robot actually helps you out initially. But I do if you send me something personal, then it will be me who will talk to you.

Wait, so where's the DMing? Is that actually on like Instagram or.

Oh, yeah. So yeah, I do use Instagram, but. But for connection, for talking to people.

Got it.

That is, that is what it's. It's valuable for. So as we talked about before, it's not about creating reels for Instagram, but if you're going to spend that same amount of time on social media, use it in your DMs. Even if you're just thanking your followers. Like, hey, how'd. Thank you for following me. How'd you find me here today? You'll be amazed at how much your business grows.

I love it. Yeah. And there's, I think there's like automated stuff. I don't have one set up for myself, but I would will after this. I have to ask you some follow up questions on that, but.

Or just, well, DM me the word. DM me the word believe. Because that flow that my team set up is actually quite it. It's really baller. I literally love it.

All right. I love to model. So there we go. All right. DM Miriam, y' all believe. Go check out her free chapter Schulman art.com believe and check out the podcast as well. Thank you so much for, for giving so much. And we covered a ton, so appreciate it. I'm sure we're going to hear from a lot of people about it too, so thank you.

Thank you.

All right, all right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard. If you got some new nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list, writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast and I will see you next time.