Art Career Experts

Sometimes….you have to give back!

ace — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:04:36 +0000

This says it all! Normally a portrait this size, commissioned by a client, would have fetched $900.00 Even though the Pennsylvania woman offered to pay me for the commission, I said “No.” There are times when you have to give back and this was one of those. -seriously, how can you charge a mainly all-volunteer Fire Fighter station of men and women such as this? The kind client did invest $325.00 for the incredible framing job though!

I have already received some orders from having done this BUT that was not my original intent. Some publicity? Well sure but this article was written quietly, after the presentation (and lol-bad photos from it) and my first inkling was a call from a collector who clued me in on the article

I am happy to have been a part of securing memories and we made prints available to the firefighters themselves.:-)

News – Raleigh

Tuesday, May. 15, 2012

Death of firedog brings community outpouring

By Chelsea Kellner – ckellner@newsobserver.com

About three months ago, Angus the Dalmatian, beloved mascot and honorary member of the Durham Highway Fire Department for 14 years, had to be put down because of increasingly painful seizures. In the wake of his death Feb. 23, firefighters discovered Angus had touched more lives than they knew.

Donations toward a memorial in Angus’ honor have streamed in, not to mention offers of free food, flea shampoo, obedience training and veterinary care for the station’s next firedog. Dalmatian breeders from Virginia to Alaska have offered to give the North Raleigh station one of their dogs for free.

An Angus fan in central Pennsylvania sent a memorial pencil sketch of the Dalmatian, and Franklinton-based artist M. Theresa Brown, whose portrait fees range into the thousands, donated a painting of Angus to hang in the fire station last week.

Angus was the beloved firedog at the Durham Highway fire station.

“We felt pretty empty for a while after he died,” firefighter Baker Mills said. “This is a way for us to remember him.”

Firedogs used to be an institution at fire departments, Capt. Barry Andrews said, a tradition dating back to the days when fire pumps were horse-drawn and Dalmatians would run alongside to calm the horses at the site of the fire. But they’ve grown increasingly rare. Durham Highway was one of the few in Wake County to have a firedog, Andrews said, and most believe they were the only station to have a Dalmatian.

“Angus literally watched dozens and dozens of boys come into this fire department and men come back out. Angus was that link between the old and the new,” firefighter Michael Greenham said. “Angus was the one there for every shift, morning, noon and night, for 14 years.”

In his early days, Angus rode to fires curled up in a helmet on the dashboard of the firetruck. He got his name from one of his first fires, a blaze at the Angus Barn restaurant. Later, he would stand in front of the truck when the alarm went off until they let him climb aboard, Andrews said – Angus wasn’t about to let the firefighters go anywhere important without him.

“It was fun to come to work when he was here,” Andrews said. “You looked forward to seeing him.”

Stop, drop, roll

The firefighters taught Angus how to stop, drop and roll, how to test a door for heat and how to crawl on his belly underneath smoke. In turn, Angus taught those lessons by example to local schoolchildren at community days and school events.

“It used to be that kids wanted to see the fire truck,” Andrews said. “Then we got Angus, and they didn’t care anymore – they wanted to see Angus.”

Earlier this year, Angus started having painful seizures. Sometimes when he lay down, he couldn’t get back up again. The veterinarian told the department it was time.

They picked a date two weeks away and put the word out to neighborhood groups and in HOA bulletins, inviting the community to come say goodbye. The response was overwhelming. A dozen or more people stopped by a day, bringing Angus everything from cozy dog beds to Arby’s cheeseburgers to whole steaks.

“People felt I think a sense of comfort when Angus was there – because for 14 years, Angus was always there,” Greenham said.

Time for goodbye

When it came time for Angus to go, the department asked his veterinarian to perform the procedure at the station. The whole department was in Class A uniforms with mourning bands on their badges, Greenham said. Three nearby fire departments stood by to answer any calls.

Afterward, firefighters laid Angus in a basket stretcher on the back of the fire truck, covered with their department flag, and held a full funeral procession to the animal hospital, where he was cremated.

The department is still a ways from raising the $5,000 to $10,000 for a proper memorial, Greenham said, but the donations continue to stream in since February, $20 at a time. A YouTube tribute video has gotten responses from viewers across the country.

The station plans to get another Dalmatian at some point, Greenham said, but it has to be the right dog – like Angus.

Kellner: 919-829-4802

The new commitment for your art business

ace — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:57:33 +0000

A surprisingly good read from a clinical psychiatrist, Ben Michaelis, from Huffpost that can be pointed in many directions! Your life, your art.

I confess to not being much into psychiatrists and further confess that I think half of them are full of BS. (my apologies to those who think otherwise) but I think this guy has a good handle on reality and so many artists need a bit of positive reinforcement that they may not be getting elsewhere!

Furthermore, many artists are NOT doing well in this current economy judging from my emails, so branching out and adding new elements to what you already do involves a commitment (There’s that word) of a new type!

Anything worth doing (e.g., living a mentally healthy life) takes commitment.

When I refer to work I mean a real commitment — not just involvement. You may be wondering about how these are different. This was explained to me once by a salesman I met years ago — I’ll try to get his accent just right for full effect:

“Sunn [sic], the difference ‘tween involvement and commitment is the same as the difference ‘tween eggs and bacon. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.” It’s hard to argue with that.

Commitment is key for making and sustaining real change in your emotional life. I don’t expect you to go ahead and turn yourself into bacon, but what’s needed is not just a wish to change in five sessions or less, or to have a therapist “fix” you, but an actual commitment to do something different — to push through when the going gets tough, because unfortunately it does.

A true commitment to personal change requires three things:

1. Vision
2. Promise
3. Energy

Let’s look at each of these things in turn.

Vision: It’s wonderful if you know exactly what you’d like the New You to look like, but it’s not necessary. All that that you need is to be open to imagining yourself and your life as different than they are now. You can explore the particulars along the way.

Promise: When you commit to change you implicitly make a promise. The promise is not to your husband, your sister, your kids, or even your Labradoodle. The promise you make is to yourself. It’s like writing a check with your mind. The way you cash that check is with work.

Work: Yes, work is a four-letter word, blah, blah, blah… But when you truly believe in something, when you are moving with purpose, work is not just not bad — it’s good. Work means throwing your energy at something you believe in to make a change — to make it the way you want it to be.

Commitment is the recipe for change. When you commit with your vision, promise, and work, it pays off in something better than bacon (if there is such a thing)… real change.>

Do your own Creative Research!

ace — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:09:25 +0000

Creative research sounds like an oxymoron (jumbo shrimp) but actually that is exactly what you need to do!

So just what is “creative” research? It’s a combination of reading, not jumping on every bandwagon, analyzing real facts and risk taking. What is important is to look at what YOU are doing in your particular art area.

The truth is, in this new economy, with the constantly changing social networking sites and new consumer thinking, the “blogging experts” are simply casting their bait into the same waters you are and hoping for a bite! Their job is to keep you thinking they have all the answers.
Your job as a selling artist is to do your own creative research and start thinking like a fish instead of reading “all about the new bait guaranteed to catch a fish!”

We are constantly exploring, tweaking and testing not only the avenues that have worked for us all along but the new ones, those that, in our long experience, show the most “common sense” promise. We continue to do well in our art business and what we share with you are the results of our Creative Research .

Think of all the time some of you may be spending daily on the computer reading other people’s blogs and devote some of that time to your own creative research. Sometimes you just have to get out there and do it!

What is most valuable to our members on this free site is factual information.
Share YOUR results based on what YOU have experienced. And hey, it’s OK to have less than stellar results We have fallen on our faces a few times too but that’s how we learned to walk
Start your creative research today!

A lesson in the advent of TEAMS

ace — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:49:06 +0000

So what happens when your Art group, council, society or club begins to shift from talking about volunteers and committees to assigning “Teams?” Is this a good change or a bad change? Or a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

The new thinking is that the word “committee” is no longer in vogue and perhaps it conjures up Congress or the PTA. Whereas TEAM conjure up teamwork, or the “go get ‘em” mentality. Corporate worlds have replaced the old words with the new for awhile now. But the question is : Has anything changed? Or is it still just one or two people looking for their little moment of authority?

We found it interesting when our county art council, funded by the state and memberships, began to shift towards the team mentality. Oddly enough that mentality was already there in the form of common good as a group of hardworking, unpaid volunteer Board members gave up many a Saturday to bring an obselete building and dying membership back into the light. There was that “just roll up your shirtsleeves and get it done” mentality and comraderie that did not need to be enhanced or clarified by a “committee” or “Team” tagline. The work got done in amazing time with amazing results.

Fast forward to a few new members fresh from corporate America (oh my we know how that works), with a Napoleon syndrome, and all of a sudden we are looking at charts and graphs that look like a family ancestry page and new papers to sign, rights squelched and TEAMS. And now, nothing is getting done but a lot of talk.

What just happened? How could someone take a good idea, a working grass roots plan and indoctrinate it with corporate laws, bylaws, adendums, control intellectual rights, muzzle ideas and smother creativity-all in the name of “TEAM growth?” Worse of all, only we saw and spoke up about the “emperor’s clothes.” How could sane people not see this for what it was….and is? There is always a danger in removing the checks and balances in a democratic art environment….

Oh wait, we’re taking about Art right?

The Rise of couponing in small Business

ace — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:41:25 +0000

Interesting article that should interest those who wonder if coupons may work in their business. It has worked in our area of the arts for art lessons and all aspects of marketing should be explored before being randomly discounted! An excerpt:

…..Consumer demands are changing. Customers want more immediate access to the best relevant deals and are using the Internet as the primary way to redeem coupons. Now, one in five smartphone users use mobile coupons and the demographics of coupon users are shifting……..

The Rise of couponing in small Business

Greg Voakes

This week, couponing and consumer savings site Coupons.org launched an infographic called “The Coupon’s Comeback.” The graphic argues that couponing, a phenomenon largely dormant for the last 20 years, has found a resurrection in the form of online media, social couponing sites, and more traditional dashboard sites. “The Coupon’s Comeback” explores the rise in coupon offers and redemption since pre-recession times, the surprising demographics of coupon use, and the evolution of online couponing.

According to the graphic, Americans have been engaged in a “long-term affair with the coupon,” which is not entirely surprising, since the coupon has been around for over 100 years. Recently however, there has been a huge surge in coupon use and as a result, spending and savings are up. More and more small businesses are offering coupons, and the number of online coupons increased 360 percent since 2009. As more retailers get online, that number will continue to multiply. By 2014, the number of mobile coupon users is projected to grow a staggering thirteen-fold.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-voakes/the-rise-of-couponing-in-_b_1291453.html

The Artist Action Plan-plain talk for non-whiners

ace — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:53:28 +0000

The Artist’s ACTION Plan-by M Theresa Brown
Plain talk for artists who are tired of the whining and want some action!

OK. It’s been a tough couple of years. We all admit it. Everyone and every business has felt it to some degree. As working artists, whose total income comes from the sales of our art, we have had to improvise, expand,tweak, adjust, invent, add and scramble to live a comfortable lifestyle and pay our bills! To us, making a business plan has always been a call to action and we have done it successfully for over twenty years but never so much as the past two years!
So, IF you have heard enough of all the artist whining that has been going on about the economy and how no one is buying art and how no artist should have to sell or market and where is the guaranteed way and place to sell one’s art, then this article is for you. The economy is what it is and to achieve your goals in your plan of action, you simply have to make a few adjustments in your thinking and decide to work within the framework of what is here and now.
And as you can tell, at Art Career Experts, when it comes to selling your art, we have always felt that there is WAY too much emphasis on “making the artist feel good” talk and not enough on action. In a world where people feel it is their right and duty to “feel good” about everything, the fantasy world of expectations of what being an artist is all about has led to many thousands not realizing a dream. The reality is that all successful artists have had to work hard. Developing a strong work ethic has never stunted any artist’s creativity. And whoever thinks that is simply looking for an easy out!

So with that in mind, if you need your ego stroked and your hand held, and my “get ‘er done” directness offends you, there are plenty of other bloggers making big money soft peddling the “artist life fantasy!” So I won’t apologize for skipping the feel good stuff because if you are serious about making a living with your art, you will be more interested, and won’t mind, getting down to brass tacks and making a Plan of Action for the year. Your mindset needs to be on getting it done and turning it into your reality. The one guarantee is that once a plan is written out and put into effect, it is a record of each quarter and each year of your art business and shows you exactly where your ideas are or are not working.
1. Start with what you accomplished last year. It does not matter how you felt your year should have been- look at all the positive events and accomplishments.
2. Look at how these accomplishments helped you realize or move toward your goals. Look at what you planned to do and didn’t get done. Did that hinder you or did you end up taking another path toward your goals? Everyone has a goal whether they wrote it down or not. Let’s assume for the sake of this article, that you are a visual artist and that your goal is to make $50,000 in art sales income this year.
Let me digress as I am going to assume that you have the ACE marketing book or audio or workbook or even the basic business plan. To have and have read or listened to them indicates your decision to get serious. Because the basics are in them all and you will already know the over 75 places online and offline to sell your art! To not have any of our marketing tools means you’re not ready to commit to ANY plan as you are still seaching for the one that suits your needs. Be truthful and know yourself
Now, what you want to do is look at how what you did or didn’t do last year moved you towards or away from this goal. This is what you need to know to be able to make this year’s Plan of Action and make it work.
The Goal: Earn $50,000 this year in art sales. That is approximately $4200.00 monthly. It is a figure that needs to stay in the back of your mind.
The Action Plan: So how are you going to do that?
1. List every place or way that you sold a piece of art last year or recently and decide that you will improve on it!
2. Look at every place on the ACE list of where YOU can sell your art in public.
a. Narrow the list to 2 places that you can actively pursue
3. Commit to either Etsy or Ebay for your online store.
a. Set up the store
b. Monitor it daily
4. Look at WHO else can help you sell your art.
a. local Gallery
1. contact them with portfolio of work
2. see what they do that will help you
b. Friends, co-workers, family
c. art groups, co-ops, businesses
5. Art Shows
a. which ones will support your kind of art?
b. use common sense and decide if local or distance is the way to go
6. Newsletters-monthly
7. postcards/snail mail-quarterly
8. emails, phone calls, follow ups
9. What else can you do with your art? Multiple “streams of art income” WORK!
a. classes/workshops
1. online and/or offline
b. new products
1. online/offline and where
c. reproductions in all forms-same thing
d. etc.
10. Social Media
a. commit to Facebook and develop your page or your friends
1. Hint: stay away from controversy on your business page!
b. Linked or Twitter-you can survive fine without them-work them if you want
11. Website-
a. This is all in the ACE books -you need one
b. Blogs-yes and keep it up
c. Youtubecan be a good thing for traffic-no experience required-simple
12. Cut your losses-eliminate or cut back your time and effort on anything that is not giving you some return for your investment in time and money!
13. ALWAYS know where you are financially! And which one of your streams of income is falling behind or not working!
14. Plan your marketing using all the free outlets-be very selective with paid advertising.
15. The five words that will stop you from being successful are “I don’t feel like it.” Decide to change the way you are working and stop complaining! It’s too negative.

Remember the 80/20 rule. Twenty percent of your effort leads to eighty percent of your results. Look at what worked last year. Build on that. Look at what MIGHT work this year. Build on that. Nothing works if you don’t try.
We want to work smarter not harder. It’s hard enough already. If you didn’t love doing it, you probably wouldn’t. Keep you eye on the ultimate goal. Think of it as a destination. Your action plan is your ACTION PLAN. It is way past time dreaming that past artists had it easier or that an artist should not have to market or that marketing is a “necessary evil.”
Does it really matter if you get to your destination by a different route than you planned? No. What matters is your attitude. Stop blaming others. Then add your determination to roll up your shirtsleeve, work with what you have and start making your goal a reality.
“Even a kick in the rear is a step forward.”

Should I announce that I am raising my art prices?

ace — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:07:38 +0000

A question on our forum:

“I want to raise my prices on my art. Should I announce this in my newsletter? “

This is one of those good questions that we have seen before and where there are as many opinionated answers as there are repliers! Since we pay every bill with the sales of our art, Steve and I think carefully about such changes and the possible repercussions in any decision concerning prices.

We DO have something to lose by following the wrong advice, well meant as it may be….but conjecture without facts can be foolish.

So, in our opinion and in practice with our art business, when we raise prices, we do so quietly, without advance notice.

Our increases are always small but certainly manageable so we see no reason, especially in challenging times, to possibly give our prospects one more reason to put off a decision

After all, art is a want, not a need. Remember that!

There are good, sound marketing reasons why manufacturers and distributors have not said a word about the shrinking of their product packaging while the prices increase (ie:consumables such as coffee, tea bags, 1 lb bags, etc.)

This is not new. As a kid I remember 36 birthday candles in a consumer box. Then watched it drop to 24, then 18 and now I think it’s 12? LOL-tampons used to be 12 in a small box now it’s down to 8, and the number of sticks in a package of gum has certainly dropped…etc. Unless you use a product regularly (coffee comes to mind) you do not notice some of the small changes.

And NO one announces these changes by the way…they usually come through some expose’ in an afternoon TV show

Having commented on the shrinking product, Steve did the identical thing when he kept his well known $100 price tag for one group of his popular oils by decreasing the size of what that amount purchased. Same quality, same price, smaller package.

There will always be that school of thought that says announcing an increase in prices will result in a flurry of sales “before the increase”. Our experience has proven that it is not quite that cut and dry.

If you study marketing and do your own due diligence, you will see that with “end of year” sales, inventory sales, etc, etc, there is a pattern that all the businesses use and imitate. You would do well to follow the patterns of successful businesses and see what the trends are (they all have invested big bucks into market analysis) before randomly deciding to increase or decrease something as complex as pricing.

If you go back through the newsletters you will see an article I wrote for our Art Career Experts and shared with other online magazines/blogs about pricing art. (Help me Sell my Art)

I repeat a key point here-it is NOT some magic number that will help you sell your art-it is your whole package. Having the “perfect price” will not sell your art. Perfecting your image and your art package will

JC Penney ending sales? What does that mean?

ace — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:28:09 +0000

As the economy rolls on, all businesses are faced with decisions that were not in a long range business plan! Even the big boys are struggling to make sense of changing customer needs and have had to come up with creative and innovative marketing ideas to stay afloat.

So this article in the Associated Press caught my eye. Are we really so different from other retailers?

J.C. Penney Says ‘No Sale’: Cuts All Prices, All the Time to Simplify Bargain Hunting

J.C. Penney (JCP) is permanently marking down all of its merchandise by at least 40% so shoppers will no longer have to wait for a sale to get the lowest prices in its stores.

Penney said Wednesday that it is getting rid of the hundreds of sales it offers each year in favor of a simpler approach to pricing. On Feb. 1, the retailer is rolling out a three-tiered strategy that offers “Every Day” low pricing daily, “Monthly Value” discounts on select merchandise each month and clearance deals called “Best Price” during the first and the third Friday of each month when many shoppers get paid.

The plan is similar to Walmart’s (WMT) iconic everyday low pricing strategy except that Penney’s goal isn’t to undercut competitors. Instead, Penney aims to take the guesswork out of shopping in its stores by offering customers fewer sales and more predictable pricing.

Penney’s plan comes at a time when stores are struggling to wean shoppers off the profit-busting bargains that they have come to expect in the weak economy. The move is risky because shoppers who love to bargain-hunt may be turned off by the absence of sales.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/Aml32Y

An artist’s business plan and a bottle of wine

ace — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:56:23 +0000

So what would an artist business plan and a bottle of wine have in common?

We have an artist’s only business plan template on our site designed by us, for artists, for a $4.99 investment. It is an immediate download.

Now why, you may ask, is it not free?

We have discovered that the value of our advice, just like art and a bottle of wine, is often determined by price.
Think about it. A bottle of wine at a dinner may range from $9.99 to $299.00 and although you may not know wine, the first thought in your mind is, “Wow that $299.99 bottle must be something special!” It’s a natural response
But it is also surprising how many people will sip both wines and determine the $9.99 actually tasted better! (I was privy to that blind taste drama once and the results were exactly that-royally ticking off the connoisseur!)

So if you are serious about laying out your 2012 business plan and do not know where to start, we promise that the taste test won’t flop! Our template is designed to get you thinking about your 1 year plan in art. We want you to think BUSINESS and all it entails.
Take it seriously-as though you had to make the plan for a bank loan, THAT will force you to look at goals, costs, needs and how to get there!

If you read our advice on creating your artist’s business plan and think “but I just want to be an artist” or “so and so’s online advice seems easier”, then you are buying into the fantasy world that non-working artists are promoting and will have to make some intelligent choices .

Writing down your goals takes some thought. Making it happen takes some work. Set 2 bottles of wine aside somewhere in your studio. Use them as a reminder that price often determines value….think your business, your art…..but in the end, when you have thought out and completed your plan, you will feel like celebrating…..and guess what? You will really know what being empowered feels like! And sure, open one of those bottles to celebrate!

The 3 things your business plan must have!

ace — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:43:50 +0000

It is always good to see what professionals in other businesses are doing and when it comes to the elusive “business plan” maybe the best way to encourage an artist to create one is to bring in additional articles!

We created the “Artist Business Plan” template to help artists over this hump. Just $4.99 and you’ll have an instant download!

Additional helpful information can be found (as we mention in the introduction) at both the Small Business Administration (SBA) and SCORE is a sub-chapter of this organization.

Rieva Lesonsky

At the end of the year, most people are in dual modes of looking back at how their business did over the past year and looking forward to what can be improved in the New Year. It’s probably time to blow the dust off your old business plan and see what’s missing. Most likely, there’s room for significant improvement. Here are three ideas to craft a fresh and effective business plan for 2012……….

http://www.score.org/resources/columnists/rieva-lesonsky/three-things-business-plan