5 Ways To Build An Art Business

1. Trailer 5 Ways To Build An Art Business: Hi guys. Melanie here at Vision City Design Studio. I want to thank you for checking out my new course on the five key areas to build an art business. Now, I have been running my own art business for over 15 years. I'm a graphic designer, and I have been building my business in a variety of different ways. And so that's really why I am creating this course for you guys. Maybe you're an artist or a designer or a letter, and you want to know how to take your art skill and talents next level and actually make it into a business. If so, this is definitely the course for you. I've been building courses and trainings for artists last few years and really helping them to build their art businesses online. And I have found that these are the main areas of question that I have been getting for my students. So this course is really answering a variety of questions and really giving artists a structure to build. There are businesses on. I have found that there are five key areas to grow our business, including service products, passive art licensing as well as wholesale I'm gonna go over all of these areas in this course and give you a worksheet to fill in in order to figure out which of those areas really works best for you. Now, the really cool thing is that you can actually combine areas you can actually utilize more than one of the areas for your own business. I am personally utilizing three of the five areas in my own art business, and you can absolutely overlap them in order to work for your own lifestyle. I personally began my our business through service. So this is when I would actually create designs four clients directly, including in the music industry and the wine and spirits industry. Next came products for me. And when I created my own art products of the art prints, what happened was opened up other opportunities within wholesale and art licensing. Last but certainly not least, I've learned how to create passive passive is when you create something one time and then you sell it continually in the background. This is a really unique our business style. And I want to express that to you guys and share that with you guys at the end of this course, I'm gonna give you a challenge to create your own business plan, which is a really basic outline structure of the way you're going to be building your own business. This is a one sheet document, super easy, a really great way for you to refer to it later so that you can actually continue to work towards your own business goals. And so I found These are the kind of things that really help artist to move forward. So I hope you'll check out the course and I'll see you inside. 2. My Story: Hey, guys, I want to get quick Second, tell you a little bit of my own story. I find that in courses like this, it really helps to tell my story to create context as to the things that you're about to learn. So in my own personal journey, I actually started my our business offering service design. Now I would do music related packaging and logo design and, um, work for the wine and spirits industry as well. Posters pretty much anything and everything related to promoting not only music but the wine and spirits industry. And so those the kind of industries that I found myself working in, And it was a really, really great time of learning and growing, learning how to work with clients and how to really complete jobs and deliver them on time . It was a really, really great time for me, but after a while I wanted more, and I had a serious of events, including a move I moved from Toronto, Canada, which is my hometown to California. And during that process and that whole time of my life, I was ready for something new, and so I decided to go ahead until launch art products, I decided to launch my first ever Siris of art prints by sold on Etsy. Now that's really where I decided to go ahead and launch my own products. And it was a really great way for me to get started in products and to really do a first ever launch, so to speak. And so when I did that, it actually opened up for me. A wide range of opportunities, including selling on a variety of other online platforms, um, and getting into licensing opportunities actually got a licensing opportunity with Land of Nod. And since then, I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of both online and in store retailers, including Ross Wayfair walmart dot com. Ah, whole bunch of different on line platforms as well as in person. And so it's been a really, really great way for me to learn, and from there I then launched into wholesales. The wholesale is when you sell your art products into retailers. Now, for me, I was starting out selling my art products into small mom and pop kind of boutiques with in California, which is where I was living. So that was another really great way for me to learn how to really approach different people within wholesale how to price my products accordingly and really actually create lines of products and lions, sheets and all the different things that go into selling wholesale. Later on, I decided to learn how to create passive ways off selling my artwork. And so for me, it was going into things like printable, download, art and print on demand, which are other things I'm going to share with you within this course as well as, of course, teaching. Which is what? I'm doing it right now. And so those are some of the areas where I learned how to create things one time and then have themselves for me in the background. So nowadays what I find myself doing is I still like to work with clients. I have a variety of different clients I work with. I still sell my own artwork online and I create courses. So I'm kind of working in three of the five areas that I'm sharing with you within this course. So that might give you a little bit more context and maybe inspire you that it is absolutely possible to build on our business. Maybe we're just getting started out. I want encourage you that it's absolutely possible. It's really more about figuring out what areas that you want to focus in, and hence the reason why I've created this course. Few. So let's go ahead and jump into the first section and we were gonna talk all about service . 3. Service: Hi, guys. Welcome back. This is Melanie here, and I'm excited to get started in the first section, which is going to be all about service. Now, service obviously means that you are serving a customer or a client. Okay, so maybe urging commission work. Maybe you're doing graphic design services for a client, and you're working with one client at a time. So in this first section, I'm going to be going over a variety of different ways. You can serve people with your art, and serve is a key word. Your okay, So served means that it's not just about, for example, what we want as artists. And that could be a challenge sometimes. Right? But as a maybe you're you're offering to sign service for you, J a mural for somebody, or you're doing a commission of some kind. The ultimate goal here is to provide a service and serve somebody else with your art and then get paid for that service. Okay, so in this section, gonna go through several different areas that you can create income streams via service. Okay. So the first way that I want to break down that you can actually create an income stream via the idea of service would be with client design. So if you're somebody who is similar to myself, I'm a graphic designer. Aiken do logos for somebody. Aiken put no people's art on a T shirt and design something for them for a T shirt or for a large scale banners or for like, poster are, or like a brochure or invitation, basically creating a service of designing something for somebody to then go and use in their personal life or in their business. So this isn't really great income stream because oftentimes doing service design, you can actually charge fairly substantial good amount of money logo designs. I find they arranged for around maybe $100 to maybe $500 depending on how much experience you have or kind of what your reputation is. Also, when it comes to payment, it's what people are willing to pay you, right, So maybe you're just getting started and you're wanting to break into the service design business. Maybe you want to log goes, for example, one of the great ways to get this our business, our income stream going. It's actually do a couple of logos. Not many, but a couple of logos. Pro bono. Now I know you're like, Whoa, I actually took this course alone. Had it make money, Not how to do things for free. Don't worry, I'm right there with you. But one of the things I want to encourage you to do just to get your portfolio established , it's to do a couple of logo's or whatever it might be pro bono, meaning? Do it for free. Or maybe do it for an exchange or barter system. But basically, just get some great pieces in your portfolio. Does your portfolio, in this case, is what's going to serve you now. Maybe you don't have a website yet. And all that stuff, maybe a portfolio, is your social media feed. Okay, maybe it's your instagram feed or on Facebook. Maybe don't have you know the funds right now to put together a website. That's okay, by the way, there's lots of really great free template websites out there. WordPress is awesome for that, for example. So I want to just encourage you put together a simple, very concise and effective presentation of your portfolio that will really develop kind of drum up business, but you can't obviously have worked fully if you have no clients now, another idea here to get this kind of ball rolling of income almost like creating your own client work. Now, obviously, you're not gonna lie and say that this is a real client, but maybe you could just create ideas for just things that you're working on. Maybe it's phrases that you want to take and then make them into a logo or make it into a T shirt design and then just put it out there on social media and say It's just kind of some fun stuff I'm working on. But ultimately, you just want to show people that you are creative mind and you have a creative ability to offer a service in this area. So I hope that this encourages you guys to try out. Maybe client design is something I've been doing for years. The really cool thing about flying design as well as well as that you can often develop regular clients, so maybe you find people in maybe a magazine or in ongoing publication or in an ongoing business that will constantly need new fresh locals are new fresh pamphlets or whatever it is. So I find that client design that's one of the benefits is that you can have a consistency with it that way by having regular clients. Now, I'm not gonna lie. Having regular clients within this field can be a little bit tricky. So you're just gonna have Teoh look around, search around, ask around, maybe ask even clients working with How can I work with you again and things like that? So and another thing that you really want encourage for Clyde design is referrals. You wanted courage and maybe give incentives for your clients to refer. You two there friends. Are there other colleagues? Maybe you offer them some sort of bonus. Maybe you also offer them saying, if you're doing a logo design, maybe also offer them a business card and lay up for free as a little extra bonus, because any way that you can get the referral, you'd be really happy to referrals are every a good sign or in I should say in client design, So I hope that encourage you to check out client design. Another way to create an income stream with service is by doing commission work. So maybe, for example, you're a fine artist. So maybe you're not a designer and you're fine artists, maybe to water colors, oil paintings or something, and you want to take on commissions for maybe so new hotels. Or maybe you want to take on commissions for restaurants or for places that need fine art to be hanging. Maybe you want to take on commissions from interior design companies or people that are going to want your work to be hanging in their spaces. Obviously, you can take on commissions directly from the clients from the customers in this case, but this is a really great way as well to take on this commission work and have that become like service, because I know that you are technically creating art. So it's this one kind of almost balances both sides of being an art service and product because technically, you're creating something and you're giving it to them. So it's a little bit different than the other income sources and streams. However, this could be a really lucrative income stream, especially one of a kind. If you're making up a large scale canvases, for example, you can charge a pretty penny for those. And you can also just have them hanging in different locations and then have them kind of like price so that people can contact you for information. For that, I did not even my our business. I am not a fine artist, really, a more of a graphic designer. But even myself, in my poster art things up Hong in different places, and it's been a really great kind of side income. It's not my main income by any means, but in my case it's a little bit different because my pricing is going to be a bit lower because I'm offering things that are printed in multiples. But for example, if you're doing fine arts or things that are going to be just one piece at a time, then you can absolutely charge a very good amount of money. The way that you know how much to charge in that case would be by really researching other artists who are doing something similar as well as the quality. Like, what size is it, what kind of canvases it are using, maybe cycle materials? Are you doing things that could maybe kind of up the ante and increase your pricing. Maybe. Is it a part of serious? That's a limited edition? Serious? You know, there's different ways that you can actually do that appreciating. But by doing commission art pieces is a great income stream. One of things about this, so I find is that this this form of making an income with art is definitely a time consuming one. Now all the fine artists at their your plane out of your heads like, yeah, it ISS. It's a really long time to me things, So this may or may not be right for you and if it is rate, But if not, that's OK, too. We're really going through the different income streams to kind of find How can you take art you're making and really pull more income out of it. So commission work with art pieces is another rate income stream. Another really fun income stream with service is doing creative murals. Now, I have always had so much respect for muralists because I cannot work on a large scale like that. So I just love seeing great mural. I love going into like a coffee shop and see ah, whole like typographic treatment across a wall. Or maybe a huge, like beautiful art piece that's, you know, looks like it's a beautiful detail painting. I love that kind of stuff. So that's you. I want to just first of all give you props because I can't do that. And I absolutely think it's an awesome, awesome and fun, um, and very tiring but very fun form of an income stream. So this is a right thing. If you can create art on a large scale, maybe do. Graffiti are a lot of friends that do graffiti art, and they can literally just transform a room. And like a few hours, it's amazing. So I want to encourage you. If that's something that really interests you, you can absolutely look more into that. So maybe that could be a form of income for yourself, especially those of you who can work on such a large scale. Now, how do you go about actually building a mural muralist kind of business? One of the ways you would do that is by doing as many wells as you possibly can. So maybe, or even doing your own wells inside of your house like you're actually taking different walls in spaces inside of your own home or in the side, inside of friends, home or family's home. Whoever will allow you to practice basically and do some large scale beautiful artwork. Then next you're gonna photograph it and the best lighting as possible and really begin to put together a portfolio. Maybe you're showing that via your instagram account or your other socials really just showing people. This is what I'm doing now. You want to put that out to as many people as possible. Maybe you create a website, maybe a really simple WordPress website. I mean, there's Wicks. There's all different kinds of online website platforms that are really, really simple that are really highly visual. So obviously why you're creating a mural business, you're going to need to show those murals as large as possible. So on your website, you're gonna want to make sure your imagery is as big as possible feeling at the screen. Maybe just making a simple scroll would be fine. You don't want to make it hard for people to kind of have to see your art. You want to make it as big, and it's schools possible because obviously they need to see and feel how it's one look and feel inside of their space. Another thing you can do is go and just consult with different people. Go right into coffee shops and ask them, You know, if you see a blank wall in the coffee shop, just maybe go in, have your phone on you. And I know it's kind of like, you know, old school. But so I was walking in and shaking some of his hand and introduce yourself to be giving that business card or just showing them a bit of your instagram account. By the way, don't do this during busy time. Do this on a time when you find that will be a more quiet season, ask to speak to their manager or owner, especially its moment Pops coffee shop. Obviously, it's gonna be a bit hard to do this in larger scale kind of conglomerate like franchises that may or may not be as easy. However, By doing this in mom and pop shops, you can really build up your portfolio, and the number one thing when it comes to mural ism is to really photograph those murals beautifully. Okay. Nowadays, our phones are so good that we can actually do this point easily. Always keep up to date with your portfolio and showing showing showing this is the kind of thing you have to show over and over and over again. And you'd be surprised that when you walk into these kind of places and start to show your work, um, that they might be like, Oh, okay, sure. We need something for that wall. Yeah, let's do it. Maybe they'll give you a small space to begin with. And then, you know, based on their customer response, they might wanna do a whole nother wolf. And you can charge a substantial amount of money for a mural because you're literally climbing a ladder is your It's very physically intensive process. So you are able to charge several $100 just for one mural. I would say most murals range from 500 up, depending on how large the Wallace and also how much reputation you're getting. So maybe kind in the street art world, so to speak. You're gaining that rep of being able to go into a war and coffee shop and transform the place. As you gain that reputation, you can increase your prices incrementally so more and more and more so, don't be afraid to put a really good price tag with your art and, um, and also be even open to doing artwork on the outside of building. This is another thing that muralists could dio again. It boggles my mind how you guys do this, but literally even spray painting the side of a building or doing you know, painting on side of building signage is massive, obviously with muralists, and I love it. If I could do this, I totally would. But I want encourage you. This could be a really great service, conceptually, a service borderline product, in a way, because you're creating decor. Okay, you're creating Sign. It's a lot of ways, so muralists I want to give you a shout out, and I hope this encourages you to possibly try out making this an income stream for your art. Another really awesome income stream could be to create custom work for people directly. A lot of times nowadays, people are really into say, for example, custom pet portrait, it's or custom family portrait. It's so people would maybe provide a watercolor painter with a photograph of their family and then ask them to create a really beautiful, unique custom. Um, you know, Fortress via watercolors, and this is actually really, really cool. It's a growing trend. I see a lot of, um, this also really big with pet portrait. It's people love their pets, right? So they wanna have this beautiful portrait of their dog, and then they put up in their home in a frame it and they they put in front of Wall Gallery . But it really adds some charm and personality to their home. Is this actually a really, really great way off creating an income stream? If you have the ability to do that kind of work, maybe it's not the, uh, watercolor. Maybe do Penan ache. Or maybe you do really minimalist kind of line drawings is a really, really growing right now. I see a lot of that in interior design. Space is very minimalist kind of work on. If that's something that you could do that I encourage you to make that an income stream again, you're going to need to provide, you know, samples of what you've done This is also something that works really well at trade shows or craft fairs and markets. Ah, lot of times I've been at these kind of events and I've seen people actually set up a booth and they've got a whole bunch of variety of examples of their work. And while they're there, they're actually taking in customer like clients. So maybe these clients are They're actually paying them a deposit to then, you know, do their artwork later, right? It's not gonna do it on the spot trade shore at the craft beer. But this could be something really cool. Just set up maybe some booklets for people to look through. Just showcase your work. You always want to be showing your art upright as well. At any event. Your ad. So maybe if you're like sending a wall behind you are Curtin or like a nets of some kind to kind of hang your pieces on. You want to be showing your artwork upright, not just flat on a table, really big deal when it comes to live events. But I definitely want to encourage you to check that out and maybe think about that. How can you actually take the art you do. Maybe you are already doing watercolor opinions. It's something that you do on your own time. But you've never thought of actually making that a kind of like a client service, so that would become a really cool income stream. Maybe you do one a week and you charge, you know, a couple $100 per piece. This is a very custom offer. This also works very well say, for invitations. Wedding sign Ege as well is another really big one. So this is also where you can charge fairly good amount of money. Obviously research what other people are charging for in these different categories because I don't offer these categories so I can't get the pricey. But I find that when you research, it's very easy to you know, research on Etsy is a great place for custom work, like these kind of wedding invitations or wedding sign Ege. So I encourage you to think about that. Is this something that I can actually take with what I'm doing now and apply it to offering a service to clients? Another really cool and creative way of credit income stream via service is actually do art live Now I Have you ever been at an event where there's a live painting happening? Or I've been to many conferences, for example? And there's an artist on the stage doing a painting while the person speaking like How cool is that? First of all, um, I've I've seen that happen, and that's a really, really creative, an interesting way of offering your art as a service. This may be the Arth you make is going to be kind of inspirational, or it's going to go along with maybe what people are talking about in a conference or motivational speech or on stage when somebody's like speaking at a church, for example. I've seen all kinds of things like that, and it's actually really cool. One guy I saw, he actually was on stage at an event, and he was doing the face of Christ. So he was a literally doing like Jesus in space. However, he had the canvass turned upside down, so he was just throwing paint and he's played down in like, 100 times. But it was so cool because it looked abstract right. But then, as the speaker was kind of finishing up this message? Um, the painter Then flip the thing upside down and there it Wasit was this beautiful face of Jesus is kind of really went with what Speaker was talking about. So things like that. I mean, this is a little out of the box, right? Unusual, creative, and it's definitely exciting. You can charge a very good amount of money because you're creating a one of a kind piece. You can actually sell that piece at the end of the event and you got lobby and you sell it or you can sell it to the organization or the place that's hard you to do. So so that's kind of like a service again. And a products. A lot of these things kind of overlap with products, but that could be a really great thing. And the beautiful thing about this form of income stream is that you go to an event, you have your supplies, maybe you have your canvases or whatever you're painting on, and then you just do the piece and then you leave. So it's kind of quick, Um, and so from a business point of view, this is actually something that that could actually be really great as a service, because you are. It's a very confined focus, amount of time that you're working on it, and it's also very spontaneous. So obviously, every time you do it, it's gonna look a bit different. So those kind of things you're gonna need to tell the client or the person that you're providing is live art piece for is that it's going to be different every single time. There's lots of room for error, so to speak. But that's kind of the charm of doing live art. And I think that's what people like about it is that it's so spontaneous. It's so exciting to watch. And this could be really cool, especially those of you maybe like to kind of perform. Maybe you do this live art music, playing in the background or maybe you're a part of the actual event like you are like watching you doing our peace is actually part of the entertainment. I mean, people have all kinds of different types of entertainment, come to events and parties, so you never know could be a really cool income stream 4. Products: you guys welcome back in this section, I want to talk to you with products. Now maybe some of you have never thought about doing this before, but this is actually an area that I'm really passionate about because when I went from doing freelance designed to actually creating art products, in my case, I create our prince T shirts, sweatshirts, things like that. I found that a whole different avenue of income streams opened up to me is an artist. And so those are the things I want to share with you in this section, the first type of art product that I want to suggest it would be to sell original art online. And you can do this through, etc. Through Amazon for Shopify. I personally sell my own art on etc. And shop by and I find it works really well. And what you would do is you actually photograph your original artwork and did he have it framed or have it kind of photographed? You can even photograph it with your iPhone or your smartphone nowadays, just by using natural lighting and maybe setting it up any very, very simple kind of non distracting way photographing it on a 90 degree angle right onto the artwork. You can have it set up within the scene if you want. One of my favorite ways to actually showcase art is by using mock up editor dot com, So you may want to check out that as well, but it's a really great way of actually showing how the art would look in a room. And so I find that really helps to sell original art. And when you're selling an original, you can absolutely charge the top dollar for it because, as you can imagine, it's It's an original. It's a one of a kind. There will never be another one of these, and so it's really important to price it accordingly. I would actually go ahead. Are you? And I researched what other artists that are created a similar pieces are selling for, and maybe if you are somebody who's just getting started, you may want to keep your price is a little bit more on the reasonable side so that you're not overpricing and price yourself out of the market. But as you become more and more known and as you were selling, more are online you can slowly but surely increase your prices based on really reputation. It's like anything as you get your name recognized. And maybe you're getting more followers on your socials. You're getting more people following you more people into what you're offering. You could always increase your pricing, so selling originals online is an amazing income stream. Now, keep in mind, this form of income stream is definitely tied to time. So you're going to be actually making the art piece for a substantial amount of time, I'm sure, because creating an original often does take a lot of time, but then you're gonna have the opportunity to sell it. Now, I have a lot of their courses on skill share where I teach on other platforms. Well, where I actually teach you how to sell your art online and tips and tricks on how to do that. But this is just me offer you a suggestion that maybe you create original watercolors, original paintings, original fine art pieces. Maybe they are, um, you know, mixed media pieces. I would encourage you. You can sell those online and actually shipped them to people all over the world. You want to So I encourage you to try that Another way of creating an income stream with your art via products is to do what I do, which is actually on my favorite things is to actually make art prints. So I actually take the art I already and making, and I actually make it available via art prints. So while I'm not, I'm gonna show you one of mine here. It's actually one of my art prints. It's called All You Need is Love. So I actually print my art pieces on thick card stock paper. In my case, all of my pieces are black and white. There's only one of my pieces. Just kind of give you guys ideas. Maybe you do art and you wanted, then have it printed and made into a print. Ah, print means that there's multiple copies of it, so you can actually do that? Maybe by doing limited edition prints. Some people print maybe 20 of each piece, and that's it. They just signed them a number of them, and I find that that actually in a way helps to sell them because it makes them more. It adds more scarcity to the fact that you don't have that many of them, so you can then charge a bit of a higher price for your prints. But in my case, I just sell my pieces for around $20. Sometimes I do sales and maybe $15 or two for 20 whatever it might be. Now, these are great also for selling at events in the craft Paris holiday markets, farmers markets. You can then take your prints and sell them there in person or online. I find out line is actually the best way for me. You can sell them with Amazon. Actually have a lot, of course, is all about selling your art online, so I won't go to redundant and too much information here about that. But that's really a great way to create income. I find, too, that by creating Prince, actually really, it opens you up to other opportunities. Like for example, when I launched my art prints on etc. It actually opened me up to get contacted to do other things. So, for example, I also had the opportunity to have the same friends license to a company called Land and not where they converted them into Candice's had that happened with a variety of different things. I've had some, he says, sold into Ross, another on like online and in person stores. So this is a really great way to sell your artwork. And it's also a fairly economical way as well, because the only really cost that you would have is actually your time. Jack should create the artwork and then, um, the cost of printing them. I personally print mine via digital printing methods, so I I'm not doing, say, screen printing or Gillislee or, you know, letter press or whatever for me. I'm actually decided to do it digitally. That's it works for me, but for you, you might want to scream prints. You might want to do letter press or a line a cut. Use a lot of different forms of art prints that you could make, so I encourage you to check this out. Maybe art prints is the way to go for you, so this could be a really great income stream. Another great and creative income stream that you can make via products would actually be by creating pre made wedding invitations. I see this a lot online on etc. on a lot of people's online shops, and I find it's actually really clever because people have done is they've actually say, for example, made pre made designs up wedding invites that they will then later customize when they get an order. And this is a product because it's something they can sell over and over again. You know, you seem all the different online websites in tiny prints or Shutterfly companies like that . That's really what they're doing. But you can do to. You can actually set of your own website you want, or you can, you know, jump onto, like an Amazon or two, etc. These kind of companies were. You can actually put up your designs with some temporary you know how to just filled in information just to kind of hold spacing and then have it customized to your customers. So maybe you're doing baby Ah, shower invites or wedding shower invites or, you know, wedding invitations and people will pay, um, a good amount of money based on what you're creating. Now, how do you price those again? Research what other people are pricing for what you're offering? Obviously, paper quality is going to be a big one for this. You can also do this digitally, which I'll show I'll talk to you about later. But, um, this is an income stream that could be really great because you're offering a product. It's technically a pre made product, but you're then gonna customize it for their own name, their date, their information on the address and all the details for the wedding rspb cards and stuff like that. So this could be a great income stream. This is kind of, in a way almost passive because you're technically have already created the product and people are just buying that design already made. So like 100 people could buy that design, right? All you would be changing. It's just the names, addresses and the details, so it's kind of partly passive where there's a little bit of custom work in there. So this could be something that's right for you or not, depending on what your goals are with your business. And this is kind of cool one. Because now days there's no limitations on wedding invitation or any kind of announcement cards or invite designs. You can have water colors, All America pop art you could have photography. Maybe you do beautiful nature photography. You could dio another really great one is hand lettering is awesome for this. So those of you who do hand lettering, maybe you customize the hand lettering of the person's name or off like you know, just the words saying you're invited that kind of thing. So maybe this could be a really great income stream for you, but I hope that this will give you just some ideas and maybe filled us in on your worksheet . Is this something that work for you or not? Another great way to sell products with your art is to create T shirts. You know, T shirts or something. They're not gonna go away. Everybody loves a good T shirt with the great saying on it are great art piece. Maybe you have kind of a personal opinion on a topic or political thing or whatever on, and you want to really inject that into your are in place on T shirts. People love that kind of stuff. There's a really big saying that's happening right now, you know, like keep calm, carry on or, you know, she believes she could so she did. Or but first coffee was around for a while. All these sayings that we say or like Yes, girl, I'm seeing that a lot right now or anything. Unicorns, for example. I mean, these are the trending things, right? But what you could do is you can actually a apply some of those things to your art style and then place it on T shirts. Okay, now, T shirts, Just a bit of a back kind of heads up. A lot of times the T shirt companies, they want you to send the artwork in via a vector file. A lot of times, especially screen printing on T shirts, yours. Your printer will want a vector file. So you're gonna need to go through the process to create that. Maybe all the graphic designers that are watching this you're familiar with the vector of files? Dr. Files are basically files that come from illustrator Adobe Illustrator, and basically they are the kind of files that can be expanded or shrunk down, and they will never lose their qualities. They're not X elated, And I'm getting kind of techie and my talk here, but that's the graphic designer and me, but you're gonna need to do that. So maybe if your art piece is not in the vector format, you're gonna need to go through the process to do that. And then I think it's looking into, you know, actually T shirt quality. What kind of T shirt? So I want to put my clothing on. What brands are out there? Um, and this is something that's a lot of fun. You can go and actually feel the fabrics. Go to your printer, try on the different shirts. That's a big one. Makes you like the fit. Okay, I know in the past, my husband is a musician. We've ordered T shirts, tons of teachers over the years and trying them on getting a sample and making sure you love it is very important. That's one big, big, big advice to make sure that whoever your customer isn't in your customer is women or men or kids. But you know a couple of them to try them on in front of you. Take a picture of it, make sure you're happy with how it's in a look so that it's easier for you to sell later on . If you're really excited about it will be able to sell it a lot easier. That could be a really great product that you offer with your heart. And there is a lot of different ways that you can create products with you are These are just some of the ways so help this is encourage you to think about how to really create products with the art you're already making. And so I encourage you to fill in your worksheet and to think even more about how can I actually apply some of these things to my own heart just 5. Printable, Print on Demand and Teaching: I guys, welcome back in this section, I want talk about passive forms of passive income for me is definitely one of my favorites . It's where you create something once and then you get paid for it over and over again, passively. So while you're not even thinking about it, why we're not working on it are there are forms of passive income in this section that are partially passive. So some of them might require some custom. I know, name changing and things like that, which I will get into in a moment. But this whole section is really dedicated to forms of income that are passive for us as artists. And this is amazing. Okay, this is ah really, really revolutionary thing that I didn't even know about or really implement in my own business for several years. And when I started to, I was like, Wow, where have I been? I can't believe I have been missing out this whole time on these different forms of income . It's let's jump right in and get into these forms of income and income streams that are passive. All right. The 1st 1 on the list of passive income sources would be to sell principal art, a principal art also known as a digital download. Art is something that is an amazing way to sell your art and to create passive income streams into your bank accounts. Okay, I do this through etc. As well as through Shopify, and it's awesome. I have lots of other courses on here where you can actually see more information about that . But if you've never thought about selling your artwork in this form, it might be a way something to consider. You can do this with your originals. You can also be selling them as originals on and then sell principles off them. You can sell prints like I do. I sell both prints and digitals of the same artwork. So, for example, I have this art prints, for example, this cells in my store, my online shop. People can purchase a Friday of size of it, for example, my dream art print. But I also sell this as a digital download as well. So it's kind of nice because I could be selling this while I am doing other things. So let them out with my family. We're having some lunch somewhere or were on a trip somewhere. Or maybe we're just out of the park or whatever it might be just life, you know, at the grocery store, and I'm getting sales happening and gang little notifications on my phone. And that's really fun, because it's passive. I don't have to do anything. When somebody orders a digital art of art print, what happens is they will actually order the art piece digitally. They will pay the price, which for me is about $7 us. You want to keep your digital pricing between 5 to $8 somewhere in there so people go is low is like 3 $54 really up to you based on what you're selling. But what happens is they will actually purchase the digital download and the old download it themselves. So I don't even have to make the print. And I don't have to ship the print and I just make money. So yes, it's only $7. Somebody might say, Yeah, but this look, that much money the cool thing is about digital downloads or principles. Is that people often by more than one. I mean, it's kind of like buying something online. It's digital. You're gonna get it instantly so people love that. And so it's a really great impulse buy, and it sounds funny, but it is so you might be looking for, like a sign for their wedding. Or it might be looking for a little art print hanging their baby's room. But then when they come to your online shop, maybe it etc. Or shop fire Amazon or whichever one that you've chosen, Or maybe it's your own website. Maybe it's a WordPress site I would ever be. Maybe while they're looking at your arts online like, Oh, that's so cool. But that actually goes really well with that one. But I should get okay. That's what happens often times within my own store. So people are not usually buying one, but you should buying like two or even three, and they put them together on the wall. So this works really, really well for, like, kids are for kids rooms, kitchen art, anywhere that people are gonna want to fill while this works excellently. This is also really great for offends parties. Maybe you are having a wedding, and you want Teoh get some wedding sign. Ege for different tables or a brides maid event. Took a bridal shower. Maybe sweet table at a wedding. You need a sweet table side like this is the kind of stuff that you might think. OK, people actually buy this, but they do. It's actually helping solve a problem that they're having, meaning there have a challenge. They need signs for the wedding ring for the event. But maybe you're the person to provide those kind of science, so a principles are a game changer. I cannot stress enough how cool they are and love selling principles. In fact, almost half of my orders right now in my own land shops are principles, so that just tells you they are not going anywhere. People like them more and more and more because they can then be more control. Like if I need something today for a gift like me, it's Mother's Day, right? And I have a side that says about Mother's Day or love you, mom like that. I need it now. I don't have time to wait for you. The shipment to me, right? So you had something for principles. I could then go ahead and download pay the five bucks or seven bucks or whatever it is, and that's extremely convenient for customers. So the convenience factor with principles are exit none. So I definitely want occurs you. Maybe that's something to create income stream for you, and it's completely passive. So I love that you can do custom principles. So maybe, and that kind of brings me on to my next point, which would be principal customized invitations or announcement cards. I know we kind of mentioned invitation earlier in sports, but in this case you're not going printing the medal in shipping out anything. You're going to provide the design, maybe on etc or on online shop. But then the person is going to want you to customize it for them, and then they download it themselves. Now, does that mean that they, you know, they charge, Are you charged? Unless, yes, the price will be lower because you're obviously not sending them physical item in the mail . However you can still charge a great price for wedding invitations is actually something I've thought of adding into my income stream lists because you creates a beautiful wedding invitations, for example, and and then you send off the design. Now, some people ask you, how do you know if you're in a print like more than you want to print, you can do kind of like an agreement thing where you say and I only allow you it did these air 100. But here's the thing. I find that that doesn't work as well because, yeah, when somebody has the actual digital file, they're gonna print as many as they want at, like, staples or wherever. So I would just say price it based on what you're comfortable to let go that design for And then basically, that would be customize price of a keep in mind. You are gonna have to customize invitations, announcement cards so that may or may not be what you want to do. That is not as passive, but it's kind of it directly past. It's kind of been a passive income in a bit of customization, but that might be something that works really well for you in your business. So wanted. Definitely touch. I'm not here. You can also do things like digital downloads for teachers, for planners, for calendars, maybe like teaching activities for Children for a while. there I was doing like, customized, like coloring sheets for different clients that I worked for in my local hometown. And so obviously in this case, I was actually providing them with the file, and then they would go off in the printed as many times they wanted for their events. So you could do that kind of thing where you have digital downloads, available your website or your online shop, and in this way you could then have people download them as they need them as they're going through, like different events are putting on our Children events, camps. It's a really great opportunity for, like, camps or Sunday school things like that. We're gonna need things on going. This would be a really great connection for that. So any kind of digital downloads in that week greeting from source another really great way of creating a passive income stream for your artwork would be to do print on demand. Print on demand is when you send your art files into a print on demand company, a printer, and when you get orders for those pieces, maybe T shirts, art prints like me or maybe do you know cards whatever it might be moving to do backpacks. There's endless list of products now that you can do print on demand. And whenever you get an order, that printer will automatically be notified, and they will prince and ship and handle all customer service everything for you in order for you. Teoh not have to think about the order at all now. Obviously, there is a cost involved and print on demand. So, for example, in my business, I use a service called principal dot com, and I recommend them really highly because they're really organized. You can actually put your own Rabel on the packaging so you can submit a label of, like your logo on it and message or whatever. Basically, that way it looks as though happy just more coming from you rather than from this kind of print house. So this is a really great way of maybe creating some new products with your art. Maybe mugs, maybe pillows. I did pills for a while all day season. Really fun. I got a call to try out products this way, too, and see what your customers like T shirts are always a great idea to try out and Prince. I mean, there's so many different things. You can add your artwork to aprons. I mean, people nowadays, I think critical has swimsuits. Ah, full body surfer outfits run all all kinds of things. You even take little designs that you've created and create all over fabrics. So that could be really fun. Of what? Celebrities like backpacks, things like that. So I would encourage you to check that out as well. The beauty of that again is that there is nothing to be done once you get in order. And you just keep creating art and actually test things out and put out there, Sue. But customers are liking on and go from there now. Yes, you're gonna need to price accordingly. So your T shirts, meaning to be a A few bucks more. They normally would be, as there is a cost conceded, obviously a print on demand. So they're charging not only for the products, but for the service off having them ship it for you. So, yes, there is a cost involved there. But if you look into, say, a company like fruitful, I know Amazon does like a print on demand. Things well, you may want to look into and this is a really great way to kind of. We have your time is an artist, cause a lot of times are whenever challenges is artist. I'm speaking for myself here, but I think it might really too many of you is that we like to be the ones to create this stuff. Maybe not the ones to do all the logistics, right, Like the shipping and labelling and doing this and that Customs forms to ship things out and all that kind of Messi techie stuff or admin stuff. I'm not really some one of my favorite thing to do with my time to go to the post office and to ship things out. So that might be the way you feel as well. So print on demand might be a really, really great alternative and a way for you to we have your times could be creative. You also look into things like society six or Zazzle. Now they are different because they more provide a royalty payments. It's not like you're getting the full pop of payment. I should mention that earlier. But on a company like print, full dot com on and even on Amazon, you have a lot more control over what you're charged for your pieces. You can actually set your own prices, and they will show you what they're charged would be. And then you can actually set how much of a profit you're gonna give yourself. So you're gonna want to make sure that your profit margin is enough so that if you ever do like sale, for example, that it still makes sense that you're making money. So those are things that think about or with print on demand entirely. But it's definitely something to think about it. It's definitely been a lot of fun. My husband does. This is well uses print on demand for his music merge, and he sells tons of products this way. So we've put things on loves and pillows stuff, so this could be a really great and passive income source for you. Another really great income stream for artists would be to do kind of what I'm doing right now, and that's to teach. Maybe you have an art skill that is totally teachable, and you can then train other people in. Maybe you're a hand letter and you want to do Maybe workshops. A good friend of mine in Texas. She does beautiful hand lettering. He rushes and she holds workshops and social. Actually, you know, get space of some kind official, borrow it from somebody, or she'll set up in a cafe and she'll do a little workshop in telling a back room somewhere . And she'll have, you know, between 10 to 20 people or so, and she loves it because this is something she can kind of do. It's a very dedicated amount of time, as you can show up, do work, she workshop. For some people, you provide them with some you know, materials and papers and different painted paintbrushes and things. And everybody pays a fee to come to this workshop. So maybe your art form is something that people want to learn more of. Maybe two graffiti art, or you do watercolor painting, and people are interested to learn how to do your style. Maybe you've got a following on social media, but you've never thought to maybe take what you do and actually make it into a workshop or have a training of some kind, or the alternative is to do what I'm doing now, which is actually to do something online. Maybe on a platform like this one where you can actually put up horses and film them sick on film me. Right now, I'm actually in my home studio and I'm filming for you guys. So maybe this something that you could offer your, you know, just add to the mix of your own business. Maybe, you know, one day, a month or a couple days a month you set aside to create some courses may be there shortly courses, or maybe they're full on programs. Maybe you could actually teach what you do. The kind of art that you make in your photographer and you want a photography course. You know, there's lots of things you will want to know how to do, but they're not gonna necessarily pay to go toe like college to do it, okay? And that's where platforms like this coming in really handy. People wanna learn, but maybe they don't have either the finances to go into, like, a full on program or you don't have the time. People don't have the time all the time to go on and take time with families and stuff. Maybe short concise course is kind of like this one plug in here is that it's getting, But maybe this is a really good place to learn and also create. So maybe you're like, I'm really good at teaching. If I could do that, even surprised I didn't like that I could teach either. But I've been doing it now for a few years, and it's been helping thousands of Ernest. So it's also really fulfilling Teoh. And it's completely passive the income in this form because, um, you create the courses once you put them up, and then you get paid platform that your that your action sharing on. So that could be another really, really cool and surprising income source for you. Maybe you're not somebody that you could teach, but you absolutely can. So maybe give it a try. Currently, I will just tell you right now I'm actually using my computer. Um, look, camera inside of my computer and 1/2 1 light. I got some windows open here, and that's it. A little microphone. I'm gonna do what you're not supposed to do in courses and show you my microphone thistle microphone is called a raspberry, and it's really handy. It's tiny correction. Travel with it as well. So super easy. It's actually easier than you might think to go ahead and create your own courses to teach people your own art style. Muted, maybe teacher, logo design or painting or whatever you do. But that could be a really great income source for you. 6. Art Licensing: Hey, guys, welcome back in this video. I want to talk to you about art licensing. Art licensing for those of you who are not familiar, is actually when you give a large scale retailer permission on its through a contract in order for them to use your artwork on a variety of different products within their shop. Maybe it's an online shop or an in person shop. So our licensing is really a powerful tool in order to make an income stream in the form of royalties. And let me just break this down a little bit easier for you and I'll share my own example. Now, in my own business, I actually had a licensing deal with a company called Land of Not the Land of Nod cells. You know, Children's products. They are home decor company. There are a subsidiary of creating Barrel, so they kind of have really cool modern. I'm in upscale pieces for Children, so in my case, they wanted to use my artwork in the form of canvases in order to sell them in their shop. So I didn't actually sell canvases in my own online shops. This is a great way for me to do a licensing deal with them because they wanted to use my artwork in that form. Now, cos they want to use your artwork for a day. Cows, maybe for calendars. Maybe they want to put your artwork onto Children's T shirts or onto swimsuits. Backpacks? I mean, you name it. It's really pretty much endless the amount of ways that people can use artwork nowadays you based on the side of mugs. Maybe it's on the side of those kind of aluminum of reusable water bottles that we see everywhere nowadays. So this is the kind of stuff that people do in order to use our artwork in licensing. The way you would start getting into licensing is actually to connect with a licensing company. You can do so by googling a variety of different companies within your own local hometown. Or, in my case, I actually work with a company in California, even though I live here in Toronto, Canada, so it really doesn't have to be a local company, but basically you're gonna want to ah, look up a licensing company and then approach them over email or through their website and just let them know what it is that you create what kind of art you make. You may need to send them photographs, obviously of your arts and dig and see what kind of art you have. Maybe send some digital files just that they can actually see the art that you have to offer. Now, if they decide to kind of sign you in and basically become your agency or your agents, what will happen is they will then shop your artwork to all of their clients. So maybe they work with Walmart or I, Kia or Target Or, you know, Ross. A lot of these other companies that sell artwork or creative arts type products. So this is really the way that you want to go. If you want to get into licensing. So say, for example, Walmart is interested in your art, and they want apply it, say, to clothing what they would do that as they would actually contact your licensing company. And they would put forth an offer that licensing company with then contact you and send you a contract and actually send a So usually it's a multiple page contract, and it's something that nowadays you don't have to actually physically sign anymore. It's everything's online. We'll send you the contract. You can sign it if you so choose to. Now. The rates nowadays I find for licensing are usually between 10 and 15%. Now that is not off of retail. So say, for example, somebody sells a piece of your art on a large scale canvas for, let's say, $60 just for hypothetical reasons, Then what you're gonna get is 10% of the wholesale. So it's not of the retail, so you will not get the $6 which would be 10% of $60. You would actually get 10% of the wholesale price that was sold from the company who made your product. So let's say you're licensing company makes and sends your product over to Wal Mart in this case, then what will happen is you will actually get paid 10% on the wholesale. So maybe the wholesale price is $25. You'd actually get $2.50 in that case, so it kind of might seem like OK, that's a really big sale. I'm only making you know, $2.30 But the whole idea with licensing is that your artwork is suddenly everywhere. Okay, you're getting a lot of exposure and you're getting a lot of eyeballs in order to bring awareness to your company. So this is another income stream because it's sort of a trickling income stream that could come in and and frankly, if you start to sell a lot of pieces and those $2.50 can really add up to a lot of money if you start to sell thousands of pieces, especially thousands per month. So depending on what it is you make, this could actually be a really great income stream. Now, royalty payments for licensing is usually paid out. Quarterly, in other words, has paid out four times per year. So every three months you would be expecting a check from your licensing company, just kind of breaking down any sales that have happened and the royalties have incurred from those sales. So I wanted to be sure that you knew about licensing and art licensing. This is definitely a really highly seasonal seasonal type of art creations. So based on your licensing company, they may actually start to kind of give you leads as to what kind already should be creating for around the Christmas season or for spring in like Mother's Day season and all these different seasons that we go through in art. So this could be a really great income stream for you guys, so I want to share that with you so you could consider it, whether it be right for you and your artwork. 7. Wholesale: last, but absolutely not least is wholesale. Wholesale is when you are selling your artwork into stores now maybe their local mom and pop stores, maybe their larger scale retail shops. Or maybe they're even major franchise retail stores across the nation. Now, wholesale is an amazing opportunity to create an income stream because one of the benefits of wholesale is that you are getting large scale orders. Now let me just break down what I mean by that. First of all, when you create products, let's say, for example, you are taking your artwork and you're putting them on cards. This is a really great form of wholesale. So for all of those of you who want to do something along the lines of cards, you may want to really listen up for this. This tip say you're creating a whole line of cards with your artwork on them. What you would do is you actually begin to approach different retailers in order to have them bring it your cards in. Now, when I was doing wholesale, actually, I'm not doing wholesale right now, and the reason why is because I find I was having other areas of my business were growing that I need to focus on those areas. And this is actually one things you may want to take away before I even go further into this is that you may not be able to do all these income streams, but find the ones that are really right for you. And in my case, it did not involve wholesale. However, it's a really great income stream. I didn't work in wholesale for many years. So wholesale is when you will actually approach a variety of different, um, retailers. You may want to start with local mom and pop shops, maybe some local gift boutiques. Flower shops, for example, places that you can actually walk in the door, shake a hand of the manager or the owner and actually show them the kind of products that you are selling Now. Once you get a variety of these kind of retailers under your belt and they are purchasing from you regularly, meaning they're actually selling through the prize that you're creating, then that's going to create an income stream because it's going to be regular now, say, for example, somebody is ordering cards for you. One of my tips when it comes to ordering state cards or any kind of product is the have a minimum order amount. So, for example, if I was selling cards, I would sell them, usually for wholesale of $2.50. Now say, for example, that card was going to retail for $5. Now, as you can see, wholesale is always 50% of what the retail price is. So that is a really big deal. When it comes to creating products, you want to make sure you're still making money at the wholesale price. Okay, this has to be a bit of a profit margin there. Now say, for example, somebody wants to order these cards from you. In this example, you only just set a minimum order amount in order in order for them to actually do the order. So for me, I had a minimum order amount of $100. Now, that was what I felt was worth my time to actually create the order. Let's say you make prints or you make you know, you know, greeting cards. Or maybe you are actually doing, you know, tote bags or whatever. It might be that you're creating. You want to create a minimum order amount, so maybe they have to order safe. It's tote bags. They have to order at least 20 you know, or whatever it might be. But when you're actually creating these types of kind of group packages in order to sell them, one of the ways to really sell that through is to create an incentive. Incentive is when you throw in an extra goody when they meet your minimum order requirements. So say, for example, your minute minimum order requirement is $100 okay for them to spend with you in order for you to do this order. Maybe you add in a couple of extra cards just as a bonus, or as a incentive for them to do their order. You might also want to offer incentives for reorder, so maybe you also offer a couple of prints or you offer some notebooks or some new pieces that you're launching in order for them to test the waters with their customers in those items. So wholesale, as you can see, is a very systematic way of selling your artwork on products. One of the things about wholesale that you should also knows. That's very seasonal, I found, anyway. Is that as say, for example, we stick with the card idea when it comes to cards, for example, that's very much a seasonal item. So there's gonna be like the holiday season. There's gonna be Valentine's Day. There's going to be Mothers Day and Fathers Day, and then maybe there might be different events or holidays during the summer. As you can imagine, Halloween, all these different types of things right, birthday cards and, you know, friendship kind of cards or just kind of open ended cars. Those could be sold all year. However, you want to keep on top of these holidays when it comes to Ah, Wholesale, because is the kind of times when people are going to be ordering months in advance to make sure they have stock for their stores. This is very much true when it comes to mom and pop shops and smaller shops. When it comes to a large scale retailers, they're probably ordering things like six months in advance. So you don't want to approach people for Christmas, for example, when it's like October, you want to be approaching people for Christmas literally in, like, August or even July. And so I know it sounds wild to be thinking about Christmas in July. But that's actually when people are ordering and getting new products and just thinking about products to be ordered for their holiday season. So this is the kind of things to think about. When it comes to wholesale, however, wholesales a great income stream because they're going to be ordering a large amount of products at a time. So instead of selling one piece at a time, which you might do in your online shop or at an event wholesale is when you sell, you know, 100 pieces at a time, or you might sell 50 pieces at a time, and that's a really great way to get larger income streams as they come in. Now, one of one of things I want you to be aware of when it comes to wholesales that you need to be very organized. So if you're a very great administration and really keeping things in line and organized, knowing how much stock you have, creating systems and using things like QuickBooks and using things like accounting software just to keep, make sure that you're keeping on top of all these different types of expenses, and that is definitely something you'll be using within wholesale. If you're not strong in those areas, doesn't mean you can't do that. But maybe just, um, maybe get somebody who can help you in that area. Have a variety of other courses where I give you some more hints and tips and tricks on really how to keep those finances in order when it comes to your online art businesses, so they may become very handy as well. But I want to be sure to share with you all about wholesale leads to get your mind thinking about it, because that might be a potential income source and stream for you. 8. Conclusion and Challenge: Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my course on the five ways to build on our business. I really hope it's served you and encourage you and inspired you that there are a lot of different options when it comes to art and building an art business with the art that you already love to create. Now, if you have not already I encourage you to download the worksheet that I've been talking about throughout this course. And it will really help you to kind of discover which areas really work for you. So that's kind of like a self reflection time and really get honest with yourself and really figure out which area do I want to go into? And maybe it's more than one area now. I also want to offer you a challenge at the end of this course, which is to create a plan. I've actually got a planned worksheet as well that I want you to download now and fill it in and figure out a plan. And this is this work. She will help you to do that to actually move forward from here. So say, for example, you discovered that you really want to grow in the area of products. Maybe you already have. Ah, lot of service design that you're doing and maybe you already already kind of busy in that area. But you now you want to look into how to develop products for your business. Then I want encourage you to fill in this plan work sheet in order to move forward in that . Now, this work she's going Teoh kind of question you and ask you to put down dates and plans and like a real way to actually move forward towards this goal. So I hope that that really serves you as well. And please note that while you're downloading this plan and working on it, this is not set in stone, right? This is actually just a way to move forward. And as you move forward, you might discover, Hey, this isn't for me. Or maybe I don't love this as much as I thought I would. And that's okay. The whole point of this plan worksheet is actually for you to just start moving, Okay? Athletic action is actually what fuel success. Not just thinking about it, not just dreaming about it, but taking action. So I encourage you to take action towards your our business goals. And I really hope that this course is encouraged you and inspired you. Thank you, guys. And I'll see you next time.