Transcripts
1. Trailer SellYourArtMasterclass Part1: hi, everyone. When he was Melanie Greenwood, I want to welcome you to the cellular art Master class. I am so excited for you to check out this course because I'm going to teach you how to take the art that you're already passionate about making and turn it into an art product that you can actually sell the customers all over the world. I've been doing this for over seven years now, and I've also had the honor of teaching thousands of other artists how to do the same thing . So if you're an illustrator or a creator of some kind of graphic designer, a painter, this course is perfect for you. In this course, I'm going to be teaching you how to define your audience, how to really make sure that what you're making is something that people will be able to receive. Well, I'm also going to teach you how to decide on which art format you're going to be creating in. This is going to help you to really narrow your focus and really make some great decisions . I'm also going to go over how to produce your actual art products. Now, this is something that a lot of people don't think about. But when you're running an actual business, you need to know how to produce your products well and quickly so that you can then grow your business. I'm also going to teach you about sourcing art supplies as well as how to price your art work the right way. These are the questions that a lot of artists have been asking me, and these are the things that really help us to really set the foundation for our business moving forward. There is going to be a download. Worksheets and checklists for you to go ahead and download in this course is that you go through every section and make sure that you are recording your own answers. This is really a great self discovery for artists, so that you are the one building your own our business and making great decisions along the way. So I hope you'll join this course the cellular art masterclass Part one, and I hope that you'll enjoy learning how to sell your art online
2. Welcome To Sell Your Art Masterclass : Hi, guys. Welcome to the cellular art master class. And I'm so excited for you that you decided to join this program. I know for a fact that when you go through this training and you do the work sheets and you make sure to go through all the different trainings and really work hard, I know for a fact that this training is going to help you to build a riel off authentic art business online. I personally love selling my art to people all over the world. I love having. My are being featured in licensing deals and wholesale deals. It's literally one of most exciting things, because ideas that we have in our in our minds creatively can then be transformed into actual products for sale. And not just that, but a lot of them can even be transformed into products that are digital or what we call principal products so that we can actually make an income literally while we sleep. Now I know that interest you because you're here and you've decided to take this program. But I want to commend you because there's a lot of people that might dream about doing this . But the difference between the dreamer and those that actually are successful is the work that you are willing to put in. So I want to commend you for taking this program, and I want to really let you know how excited I am that you're here now. This program is going to be set up based on sections. There are several different sections, and within each section there's a number of videos. I want you to be sure to go through all the content. I've had people email me in the past, and they asked me questions about the program or about what I'm teaching them, and then they haven't actually gone through any of the content. As somebody who's the instructor of this program, I'm able to see how many people have gone through different parts of the program just so I can know how to help people better. And it's amazing when people ask questions and then I click on there profile and they've literally not gone through any of the content. So I want encourage you go through the content. Okay, it's here. You purchased it. It's yours. I would encourage you to go through all the trainings. Don't skip ahead. Don't go past certain things that you may not think are relevant because sometimes the things that you and I might not think are relevant could be the Keith things that were missing in our business. And it's not just about rushing to the finish line to get sales. It's really about building an online art brand from the ground up. OK, and this is what I'm really here to help you to do. And some of those really challenging decisions that we need to make along the way are the things that are going to propel you and I forward as artists. So I want you to commit a couple things. Number one. You're gonna go through all the training Number two that you're not going to give up. Okay, I know it sounds funny, but so those people, by a training online or wherever, and then they do part of it and they say I wouldn't work and they give up part way. Listen, don't give up. I know there's going to be parts of this program that are challenging that are going to kind of keep you on your toes, and that might even push your buttons a little bit. But I know how hard it is to build a business. And trust me, having a program to go through is like heavy a guide. Okay, if I had that when I was actually setting up my our business, it would have made my life so much easier. And so that's why I'm here. That's why I've created this program. I had so many artists asking for my help asking for to take me out for a coffee to pick my brain, as they say, And literally, I didn't have enough time to have coffee with 100 people, right? Nobody does. So that's why I create programs like this one, because I want to help you. I want you to also help yourself by going through the program, and that's why I've created it for you. I poured my heart into this. I don't hold anything back, and this actually can be applied to a variety of different platforms, no matter where you're selling. So the things that I'm going to teach you about in this specific program, you can apply across the board in within a certain section of the program I am going to go through some of the more popular online selling platforms for art and kind of talk about the pros and cons and give the overall general idea of each of those platforms so that maybe if you're in this stage of actually deciding where you want to sell, that might help you to decide. Maybe you have already decided on your selling platform you're already selling, and if so, that's great. I'm gonna teach you even more how to accelerate that. So again, I'm so excited for you to go ahead and get started. And I just wanted to welcome you. I am really, really passionate to help artists. So without any further ado, let's get started and go on to the next section.
3. Define Your Audience : defining your audience is really all about deciding who are the actual humans, the people who are actually going to be buying your art products. So really narrowing down who they are and actually creating kind of like a profile of who they are and actually creating this identity of them will help you tremendously, not only in the creating process but also in the marketing process. A lot of times, people just create whatever they want. They kind of turn inward, which is great as an artist to turn inward, but they just focus on what they are looking into or what they love. Then they created they, you know, maybe photograph it. They do all kinds of stuff. They build up a store. Um, and they even build up of social media and that the very last minute they're making, for example, of Facebook ad or they're making some sort of a promotional item. And then at the very last second they say to themselves, Oh, who my Targeting, who are the people that I'm targeting in this ad, for example? And that is like way too late to be thinking about that. So that's why I'm actually making this the first section because that's really how important it is to identify our audience will really help us to dictate everything. Okay, now there's a huge difference between just creating art for ourselves, which, by the way, hey, we're artists we need to create. So I'm I'm not at all saying that that's not a good thing. I actually love to create art for myself. A swell, However, for my business. I know who my audience is. And so I know the kind of products that are going to sell. Okay, this is not just to make your art master classes is a sell your art master class. Right? So you're here because you want to not only make but sell the art that you're making And so creating an audience profile is very, very important. And I'm calling it a profile because that for lack of better terms, because you and I need to know how to identify our audience. So in this section, I want to take you through a process on your worksheet. And if you haven't already done so, download your worksheets. They're actually the very, very, very top of this page that you're on, It'll actually have a section that's called download worksheets. It's right underneath the 1st 1st video as a welcome video for the entire off. Okay, so you could go there and download your worksheets. And in that you will find a page that is all about defining your audience. I want to go ahead and get that handy. Because as we're going through this process, I want you to start writing down answers, and by the end of this process, you're gonna have a really clear view of who you're actually creating for. Believe it or not, people don't do this, and it's amazing to me that they don't. In fact, I didn't really do so either. So at the beginning, and this is many years ago. So it's an easy thing to miss. However, brands that are really successful, even large scale friends like, for example, walmart or Target or Starbucks or Apple. You know, all the brands that we know of. They spend millions of dollars a year and so much time, and they have teams of people. They're just dedicated just studying the interactions with their audience. Okay, So do you think that you and I should spend, you know, 5 10 minutes or even an hour of our time thinking about who we're actually creating for and writing them down. I even I'm going to ask you later on in this session to name your audience. It's kind of like you're going to be creating an avatar. I guess you get, say, of who your audience is. I know it sounds strange, but by creating a name for your audience, it's actually going to help you tremendously to really think of these people as humans. A lot of times we just look at our papal lists of the income coming in, or maybe our etc. Sales or Amazon sailed numbers or whatever analytics, and it really takes the humanity out of it. And what I want you to think about is the actual human beings, the people who are going to purchasing from you, and how can you, as an artist, connect to them directly and always think about it like this to always feel as though you're speaking or creating for just one person? And I I wish somebody taught me this earlier. I had to kind of learn the hard way. But if that somebody had taught me that a long time ago. I think it would have saved me a lot of energy and trial and error. Okay? Because when you and I think that we're making art for everybody were really mistaken. The truth is we're not We're not making art for everybody. As you can see behind me, I'm actually in my studio right now, and a lot of these pieces are mine. Not all of them, but everything. Except for this one. Right here. Um, but as you can see, this is my style. It's very black and white. It's very monochromatic. In some ways. Some people might say it's kind of minimalist because it's just black ink on white paper on DSO That's not going to suit everybody. And I'm fully aware of that. I'm actually okay with it. I remember hearing one time a marketing genius who is one of the marketing geniuses of our time, and he said it's actually important to connect with your own tribe and to actually repel people who are not into what you what you're making. So you actually want to be okay with the people who don't like your stuff? you want them to go away? I know it sounds like a strange thing to think about. It almost sounds kind of mean, right. But you want Onley your people to be following you on instagram following you on your email list, following you on Facebook. You don't want just everybody following you because, you know, majority of them will be buyers. You want your people following you. So you want to talk in their language. You want to converse in the way that they would converse. Okay. You want to connect to them in the way and in the places which I'll get to in a minute that they're gonna be hanging out online. Okay, so let's go on now. It's actually going to your worksheet and start answering some of these questions on your worksheet for defining your audience. The first question you're gonna run into is gender Now. I think it's really important to note what is the gender or who is the gender of the people that are you're going to be serving, for example, for me? I know for a fact that I specifically I only target women. And I know that because after a while of selling online and actually reaching out online and seeing my analytics and seeing different things within my actual instagram posts and different things like that. I know for a fact that my buyers are women. They're like 99% women and people that are interacting with my online experience. So people over social media, um, and in different a variety of different platforms there really predominantly women. It's usually 80% and higher. That's how high that a lot of my customers are that specifically are women. So for you, it might be different. Maybe you already have a social media platform already going. Maybe have Instagram is your thing, or Facebook is your thing or Pinterest. You can actually look into the analytics and see who are the people that are really following me, who have people that are commenting and interacting and engaging, so to speak with the post that I'm creating. You can actually look into those, and I will be showing you more of that later on the course. But you're going to be able to do that and be able to find out who those people are within every kind of social media. You can actually look into your analytics or your insights or even on your selling platform . Maybe you're already selling online with an etc. Or Amazon or Shop of Fire. Wherever you're selling, you can actually look into your own analytics or your stats is another word that they use or your insights that that's the word that they use on Instagram. You can find out who are the people that are already engaging with what you're creating, and that's a really great way to find out. Are they more female? Or they'll are more male? Or, you know, who are the people that are more interacting with your actual products with your posts? Who are those that are actually engaging the most? That's one of the ways you can really identify the gender that you want to be targeting, moving forward now. Sometimes you may be a mix of both, and that's okay, too. You could just have, like Eunice sex. That could be your answer. You have both, but I really wanted to narrow down. If you do find that you're creating more for women or men, for example, that I encourage you to write that down on the worksheet. Next thing I want to talk to you about his age range like for me? For example, I know for a fact that I'm generally creating for people between the age of about 20 to about 40 sometimes more like 25 to 40. I thought maybe they'd be more into their teenage years because a lot of my stuff is kind of cute and fun. But I actually found out over a period of time that the people who buy from me not just like things. People who buy from me are often times not just women, but they're often times in, like their mid to late twenties and onward into their early forties. And that's because a lot of times they might be new moms. They might be newly were married. They might be in kind of like that early stages of their professional careers. So a lot of people who are buying from me we're not, like in high school or in like their early twenties. So for that reason, I don't even target them when I'm doing. For example, on ad, I generally target between 25 40 because that's predominantly where my actual buyers are so for you, the age range may be different, and maybe for the beginning of this whole stage of trying to figure this out, you might be a bit of guesswork at this point. But it's better to be actually thinking about it with a certain age range now and then tested out and see if that's the range is going to respond well to say the things that you're putting out there. You can also find out more about this in your insides, your stats as well. So I would encourage you now to go ahead and write. That means range down. Another thing I want you to think about when it comes to your audience is what are their interests now Are they into fashion? Are the into artwork? Are they personally artist themselves? Now I want really extend a kind of a big clue to you right now. Ah, lot of times our audience is very similar to us now. What do I mean by that? For example, my audience is very similar to me in that they like modern kind of simple design. They like things that are kind of, um, minimalist in a way, but they like things that are kind of, er Theus. Well, they're also oftentimes new moms or they're in, like, kind, like the early stages of their professional career. So they're kind of in the similar stage of life, so to speak, that I'm at. So I find that by looking in the mirror, so to speak, you will actually find out a lot about your audience because you personally must like the Are you creating or otherwise you would be creating it. So how can you identify with your audience and start to think about things through your set of eyes? And a lot of times, the way that you see the world is the way that your audience will see the world. You might relate on on those kind of levels off interest. So maybe you're really into cartoon art. You're really into, like, comic books and different things like that. Chances are your audience will also be into that. So it's okay to even if you're in the early stages and you're not really sure who your audience is at this stage, it's okay to kind of hold up the mirror and say, Well, What am I into? A lot of times that might be a good way to get started. Your audience might be slightly different than that, but I find a lot of times your audience is actually a lot like you. So go ahead and write that down. Maybe a list of interest that maybe your audience would be into. I personally know that my audience is into fashion blobs. They're really into music. They're into, um, really cool kind of modern design and interiors. For example, the people who buy my art products when I see them hung up in their homes. Ah, lot of times their homes look kind of like my home. This is actually my home studio so they might have neutrals and, you know, beige and bamboo floors and white walls and, like, you know, very simplistic home. And then the black and white are kind of just pops really well in that style, so that that is the kind of audience that I personally have. So I want you now to go ahead and write down a list of interests that your audience maybe into and again, if you're at the early stages, you might be kind of slightly guessing at this point, But get this. It's better to actually focus on something than try it out. If you find there a little bit off, you can always change this later. But I want you to go ahead and write that down to get started, because it's gonna help you to start working towards really serving these people and really speaking into those interests. Another thing to think about is what occupations do your audience have. So is there a certain type of crowd that you are serving? Are they, you know, really into fashion? For example? Again, are they? Because if they are, then maybe that's something that would be of help to maybe do fashion illustrations. Then maybe your crowd is people who work within the fashion industry. That's a really easy fit, right? Or maybe, for example, you are somebody who does animal portraiture for, you know, people's pets. You do these pet portrait's and they're really fun, and their wild in the creative, you know, who are the people that made have these pets describe them and actually write them down? Now there's gonna be different key areas within your worksheet to write down these answers , and then there's gonna be an area of just have lined, Um, you know where you can actually elaborate, and I might have fill it in as much as you possibly can even use your imagination if you have to start to kind of think and imagine who these people are and think of them as just one person. What age are they generally? Do they have kids? Do they not have kids? Are they somebody who is interested in sports? Are they more interested in like, hippie kind of free people kind of stuff? Are they single? Are they married? He's the kind of things that I want you to go ahead and write down on your worksheet and there again, going to help you to focus again. Focus is key here on the right audience. Another thing I want you to think about are what are the kinds of brands that your audience are already following. Now, this is something that will be interesting because, ah, lot of times there may or may not be the kind of brands that you and I are following. So, for example, are the huge fans of Joanna Gaines, for example. If so, then that might, you know, change the perspective of you know how you're communicating with them. So I want you to go ahead and think about that. What kind of brands do they follow? Even writing down some of those names of brands, it will help you to kind of get inside of their head again onto another, deeper level, and it will really help you to think about how to serve them even more. Another really important question when it comes to your audience, is where do they hang out online? Now what I mean by that I'm talking about Do they hang out on Instagram? Do they hang out more on Facebook? Are they a part of a certain Facebook group? And if so, you want to know what those are? So this might require some research. It might require a little bit digging. But even looking on, for example, Facebook and finding out is there a certain Facebook group with this dynamic of people? For example, if you are somebody who wants to create art for baby rooms, you're gonna want to find those mom groups on Facebook because they're the ones who are really buying the products for their kids rooms. Right? So you want to find those mom groups? Maybe it's an environmental group. Maybe your artists dedicated to you know, you do beautiful watercolors that represent the ocean, for example. And maybe your passion is environmentalism, and maybe you gave a percentage of your you know, proceeds to a charity that helps clean the oceans. But maybe your audience are people who too are in involved in that. Maybe that is their passion as well. So even thinking about, you know, passion projects, things that people might join on Facebook or different online communities where there already hanging out there. They're already talking about that subject, and it will help you to then be able to say, Hey, this is who I am. Introduce yourself and share with them. What you make it may or may not be something that they want to buy, but, hey, you won't know until you actually introduce yourself. So these are the things that I think are very important. So again, go ahead and write these things down on your worksheet, and this is gonna help you to really identify your audience. last but not least as promised. I want to encourage you to go ahead and name your audience. I want you to give him or her a name and actually create an identity for this person. Now, this is a process somebody asked me to do when I was doing a very expensive marketing training. And they really kind of, um, actually challenged my husband myself with our business is to actually go through the process to actually do this. And it was so funny to me, I thought, how strange to be creating, like, a fake name and an image for a person that I don't doesn't exist. It was such a powerful thing, though, that I really want to implement that in this course as well. It will really help you to think about this person as just that a person, not a number, not just the pay, pal, you know, receipt, you know, order number. But you want to start thinking about your audience as humans. So, for example, what I want you to do is to actually give your audience member. So just one person a name. So maybe it's a fun name that you've always loved. Or maybe it's some creative, weird name that you it doesn't even exist. But you're gonna think about that person and you're gonna name them with that name. All right, so that's number one, and I Also, the next thing I want to do is actually go ahead online or go somewhere. Maybe you even draw the person but create a visual of the person. I'm Barack. She went online, and I actually downloaded an image of just some random person. It was a royalty free image on one of those royalty free sites, and it was a person that looked very creative. She looks kind of cool. She looked like she could maybe be a a new mom, and but she was kind of cool. She had this, like, you know, a record player in your sleep beside her. And she's just sitting there and it's you some random person. I have no idea who she waas, but I downloaded her picture, and I I printed it out and I wrote this name of this person or this audience name, and I printed it out and I stuck it up my studio. Now, how funny is that? And strange. Yeah, a little bit strange, but it's a powerful thing to do because it'll give you a perspective of the fact that you're actually serving a person now, Whatever it might be, whatever way works for you, I want you to make a visual of that person, and you're going to write their name and print out the picture if you can. If you have access to a printer, If not, you can put on your phone. Maybe you make it your actual screen saver on your phone. That could be kind of fun just so that you think. OK, I've got to serve, you know, Susie, or whoever this person is that you've named on your phone. But by actually getting a visual and putting it on somewhere that you can see on a regular basis, let me tell you, it will actually change your life. Now I remember somebody that I know. She works for the Barbie corporation, and she's a brilliant artist herself. And she's a fashion designer, actually, is a friend of mine, and she worked for the Barbie, our organization or corporation, and, you know, they specifically do this. Cos like that, like large scale companies like again? WalMart does this. Ah, lot of big big brands do this where they actually create an idea of a person and they named that person and they create identity for that person. It's obviously it's not a real person avatar, but, um, it helps them and their marketing teams to think with this person like this product that we're bringing in or not. And so, in the same way you want this one, identity is a kind of represent all your customers in your eyes. So go ahead and fill in your worksheet guys, and we can get started on the next section.
4. Decide On Art Format: talk about the kind of art products that you're going to create for your art business. This is going to be one of those sections where I'm gonna request for you to make a decision. But how you want to move forward in your art business? I'm gonna really challenge you to make that decision. Okay, Now there's a variety of different ways that you and I can create and sell art right? For example, originals, limited editions, custom pieces, prince or downloadable digital prints. Now there's a variety of different things, even around those ideas. But those are generally the main areas that I find are what are being sold online in general when it comes to two dimensional art. So originals is when you actually take the original piece of art that you've created, the one and only. It's a one of a kind item and you sell that for a high price. Now, let me stress to you that selling an original is not something that you should just sell for a okay, low price. You want to make sure that that original is going to be honored with an appropriate price. So, for example, maybe you do watercolors or you do original acrylic paintings and large scale canvases. You know you're gonna want to research how you want to price them, because obviously, once you sell it, it's gone. But you have to start creating all over again. And so you're allowed to sell originals at a much higher price for that reason, For example, my father is a painter, he's a watercolor painter, and I encourage him to start painting on and start selling them online. And so he was actually at an art show and he was selling Prince. However, when somebody looked at his print, they said, You know, I love these, but I actually wanted by the originals. And so he had the prince Mark. I think that there other up to $20 per print, but the gentleman who was there wanted to buy two of his originals. So my dad, you know, I I held his booth down for a moment, and my dad went, you know, just around the corner down the street kind of thing and came back with the originals. And my dad was like, Melanie, how much do I even sell these four? And so you know after a while, talking with this gentleman were able to come to an agreement on the actual price. And so the original sold for five times the price of each of his prints. And so my dad walked out that day with a couple $100 that he didn't expect to you making. And he was totally cool depart with his originals because he'd already made prints of them . And it's kind of like a hobby for him, So he thought it be a, you know, a fun way to to spend his time and to enjoy it. But here he was selling original paintings, and so it was a really great experience and a good example of how on original consult for many times, the price of print. Obviously, depending on what you make of the way I say to price products are products in general. First things first, you're gonna want to research your competition and find out what other people who make something similar to you are selling their products for. And the key word there is selling. So you don't want to just go into somebody's site and or somebody's Etsy Page or Amazon Page and if they have, like no sales, then that's not really a good representation, right? You want to find people who already are selling and find out what are they, what the price range that they're working with. That's one way you can do that. And also by comparing the quality like, for example, are the pieces that you're using are the materials that you're using more expensive or less expensive. That can help you to decide as well. But by actually creating originals, you are able to then sell them for a higher price than a limited edition or print or a custom piece or anything else. Originals air really the most highest potential of income, However, Like anything when it comes to creating art business online, it will really be about marketing that original and actually getting the original out the door, because I know a lot of artists who have stacks and stacks of art in their basement or leaning on the walls in there Design studio and it's huge, beautiful pieces that original. But they're not selling because they haven't actually done all the other steps. So deciding it to sell originals is step one, but then, Obviously, just like with any of these types of styles of art, it's really going to be all about the next steps. So we're at this point. We're just really deciding on what form of are you gonna be selling up? The next form of art is limited editions. Limited editions are really special, and the reason why they're special is because there's only a certain amount made, and then they will never be made again. A lot of times, limited editions are then numbered and or signed by the actual artists. So, for example, maybe you want to create screen prints and you want to do maybe gig posters or some other form of a screen print, and you want to only create, say, 30 of each of your prints. And when they're gone, they're gone. Now you're gonna want a number and sign all 30 of them. So right when they come out of the printer and they you know, you're finished printing that maybe you print them at home or in your home studio or in your are in a friend's garage or wherever it is you're creating these screen prints you're gonna want to sign a number of them all, and I encourage you to do that in pencil, not pen, because something about that people like to see it in pencil because it's even more delicate. It can be rubbed off like, you know, pencil is even more of a delicate form of writing, like whereas a pen it almost could look like it's part of the art when it comes to limited editions. The really cool thing is, is that people love to collect them. They like to know that they were one of maybe 10 or maybe one of 50 or one of 30. And they feel like the value of that piece is even higher because it's a limited quantity. It's kind of like in fashion. For example, when of really high fashion designer makes a couture piece, they only make a handful. They don't make that many of them. And when it's featured on the runway or on the red carpet, it's so expensive because there's maybe one or two of them in the world, right? And so by limiting the quantity of these pieces, you're actually going to be upping the value of them. OK, so limited editions are very, very powerful. You can also sell them for a higher price as well. Ah, then you would a regular prints because you're not just mass producing them. You're a limiting them. Hence the name limited editions. So maybe that's what you want to create. The next kind of art that I want to talk to you about is custom pieces. Maybe you are somebody who is a hand letter and you want to do custom artwork for, say, wedding signs. That's a really popular thing right now. I don't think it's gonna go anywhere any time soon. So maybe you do chalk art. Or maybe you do hand lettering on wood. That's another really, really popular thing. And again, I don't think it's going anywhere for a while. So maybe you want to offer customizable pieces. You could even do that in the form of, um, a physical print or our physical item. Or you can actually even do that in the form of a digital item. Okay, so this is kind of something custom. Custom pieces can actually be used in both physical and the digital side of things. Now what do I mean by that? For example, Maybe you want to do wedding invitations or baby shower invitations or some kind of invitation. Obviously, an invitation is something that has to be customized because the information on the invitation will change every single time. So maybe you have invitation designs on your online shop, and when people buy them from you, then you take the time to customize them because they're being customized by you again. The price could be reflecting that, so it can be a bit of a higher a price item. Um, or maybe you take, you know, illustrated artwork, and then you put, you know, Children's names underneath them to then be sold two moms to be putting up in their kids nursery, for example. So you're may be changing out just the name and maybe the birth weight of the baby or whatever it might be. So again, customized pieces are very, very valuable to the customer because they feel like they had their say in what went into your art piece. It's kind like your art is meeting with their needs and with their specific elements that they want to incorporate in your artwork. So it's a very, very cool thing to do, Um, and it's something that can sell very well. I find places like etc. And a lot of kind of creative platforms, like etc. Sell very well when it comes Teoh customizable pieces. Eso This could go for any kind of, um, physical print paintings, any kind of even original art pieces or art prints. This can also be things that are used for invitations or a variety of different things, even a digital download items. And so that really is something the customizable art pieces, something that can really be used across the board. So it's something almost to kind of think about, Do I want to offer that is customization or not? Now, if you don't want off for customization is that's totally fine. I personally do not offer customization. The reason why I don't is because then I would physically be having to touch every single order. And I don't want to do that. That's more of a personal life cell choice of mine. So that's something to note. Okay, I do want to make sure that that something that you think about customize ations versus not customization is a lifestyle choice. Do you or Do you not want to work on every single art like order that is going out your door Now? Even people who are just changing out the name and the address or just changing out the, you know, details of an invitation. It still takes your time, right? It still makes you have to stop what you're doing. Run over to computer, get the order done, send back a proof or whatever right? There's a process. Whereas if you're saying our peace has already finished, then the person gives order it, and that's kind of it. Right then you're either shipping it out or it's being downloaded. So these are the kind of things you need to think about, right? Do you or do you not want offer customization? So go ahead and either say yes or no to that on your worksheet. Another way to sell your art pieces is by selling art prints. Now I personally sell Art Prince. As you can see behind me. I've got several of them. There's one right here, and there's another one. There's couple over here, Um, and I love selling art prints. There's a couple things I like about selling art prints Number one. They're easy to make. There you can do them in a variety of different ways, so you can do maybe screen prints or you dubiously parents. You can do digital prints, which is what I do. I started out doing actual screen printing, but I found that I didn't really want to continue in that route. And the reason why actually is for me. I was something that I was actually hiring out, and I found that the profit margins for me were just too too rich for me. I wanted to keep my profit margins very large, obviously, because then the more I have a profit margin and your profit margin is basically the price , um, between what you're spending to create your product versus what you're actually charging. So for me, I charge you around $20 generally for my art prints. But if I'm charging, if it takes me, say, $10 to make each print, then that's like, 50%. That's actually too high for me for me. I want to make sure that my profit margin is approximately 75% or more. I want to make sure that my actual products do not cost me more than $5. At this moment. My products cost me maybe 2 50 including actual packaging, as well as all the different things that I do in order to get a product of the door. Obviously, there's not include shipping, but to actually print and package and put, you know, plastic sleeves and corrugated cardboard. And the envelope that it goes in. All those different little expenses all come together. I think I'm in about right red, around 2 $53 at the most. So, as you can imagine, that's like a $17 profit margins. So for me, that's a good place. I like that because, um and this is whether isn't that like Prince because they're so inexpensive to make? I can then do sales Aiken do 50% off sales. I could do 25% off sales. I could do two for one deals. I could do a lot of different creative deals and offers with my prints because I know for a fact that it's not gonna costas much. Sometimes I even add a second print to my orders as just a extra goody, and so that's another way that I could just do so is because I know the cost. It's costing me to create them. That's just one of the things I like about prints. I also like how they are easy to ship because they're light. They can be just kind of put into an envelope and shipped flat. Or you can actually roll them and place them into a art. Tubas. Well, so I really like selling prints. There's a variety of reasons, but those were some of my reasons why I like to sell prints, but I want you to go ahead and write down if that's something that interests you. Is Prince something that is right for you Now, before even move on about this subject, you can actually take a lot of your art and actually make it into print. So, for example, maybe you are a watercolor painter, and you do really detailed florals of botanicals. You can actually have them digitized and then brought into your computer. Just have them cropped and maybe added a little bit, depending on what it is you're selling and then have them printed on Say your own, you know, recycled papers or whatever it is you would like to do a lot of people print art prints on card, stock, paper. That's a I print on. And so I find that that's a really fun way to represent your pieces. A lot of times you can even sell both originals and prints. So maybe you have originals for, like, $200 each, and your prints go for, you know, 20 to $30 each. So that is something you can do is well, if you wanted to do both. That is something that I recommend for people who want to kind of test the waters and see what's gonna work best, as well as to have a high price item and then a more of a lower price items that you can kind of meet both types of customers where they're at. Some people just have higher budgets, and they want the originals and other people. They're like Adam, really care for the original. I just want that art piece for my my kids room, so they're not really looking to spend hundreds of dollars on one piece, so art prints are a really great solution. They kind of needs people in the middle they want in our piece, but they have a limited budget on what they want to spend on. So this is where art prints are really great solution. And again, they're easy to ship and they're lightweights. Other really great way to sell your art last but definitely not least is digital download art or what people call principles. No principles are a phenomenon of the last several years, and I've absolutely loved selling principles. Principles is when somebody actually can download your art and they can print it off for themselves at home or other local art printer. And I have actually I was so skeptical at first when I discovered principles and I saw people selling principles on etc. On. That's why I've been selling my own artwork, and I thought, This can't be right. People cannot possibly want to actually download their own artwork and then printed themselves like to customers actually really like this and wow, was I ever wrong? Because I started to add principles to my lineup of products. And let me tell you right now I have 50% of my products that are sold our principles or digital downloads. So people love doing this. They like the fact that number one principles are instant. So if I like a piece and I can download it right now, it's kind like when you go on iTunes, you can download the music right now, right? So the fact that they're instant really appeal to people who are in a pinch who need art, you know, for their their gift that they're giving that night. Or maybe it's something like they need Teoh, you know, get a piece or they need to download some kind of a decor item for their wedding the night before their wedding, you know? And so this is the kind of product that is instant People like the fact that they don't have to have it shipped to them. And so that brings me to the next. You know, topic is that there's no shipping involved. There's no shipping involved when it comes to principles because people actually download them themselves. And so if I were to buy from you, I would pay say, like I I sell my principles for $7 so I would say pay $7 on your store, and then I would actually once the charge went through, I would have the ability to download the digital file, which is, you know, or what we call a printable files. And so then I would download it myself as your customer, and then I would actually print it myself at home on my home printer. Or I could actually just save it on my phone or ever and I could actually are on a USB key and I'd go over toe. Or I could just email it over to a local printer and have it printed that way. So principles air really handy for people, and they really liked them. And thirdly, principles are always much, much less so. As you can see, I sell my prints for around $20 in my principles for around seven. So it's literally like 1/3 of the price of a physical item that I would be selling. So people do this in a variety of ranges of, of prices. Some people go as low as, like, 3 50 or $2. I personally don't recommend that you go that low because I want you to keep your value of your art high. I would say Don't go lower than $5 for a printable. That's my personal opinion. Um, so you can research your audience again, Research right, research your audience and see the stores that they're buying from, like maybe it's on, etc. Or on Amazon. Or maybe it's on Shopify, one of the stores that you find you relate to the most and find stores. They're actually selling well and see what their prices are for their principles, and that might give you an idea of what you could actually price your products at again. Pricing is gonna be something that wanna handle in its own video, because it's such a big topic. But it's like it's kind of hard to talk about this topic of deciding what type of products you're going to create without thinking about your pricing because you're pricing is really going to help you define your business. And so that's the kind of stages were in right now. By defining what form of art you're going to be creating, you're gonna need to think about your end result, which is selling right, so they kind of go hand in hand together. So I hope that this has helped you. I want you to go ahead and write down on your worksheet what kind of art products you're gonna create, Whether they're going to be originals, limited editions, custom pieces, prints or digital download principles. Help us has helped you guys. Let's go on to the next video and continue growing this thing.
5. How To Produce Your Art Products: Hi, guys. Welcome back in this video. I want to talk to you about how you're going to actually be producing your art pieces. Now, this specific video are for those of you who are going to be having the need to print your art pieces. So, for example, what I want you to decide in this section is whether you're going to print yourself whether you're going to hire a printer or number three if you're going to print on demand. There's another thing that people call of his p o d. In other words, print on demand. Okay, now there's benefits and drawbacks to all of these ideas, but it's really important to kind of decide on this at this stage off your business. Now this is really a lifestyle decision, and so that's why I want to take a moment to really focus on this, whether you are printing yourself, hiring that printing out to a printer that you're still having to buy, for example, in bulk. Or maybe you have to buy, you know, 100 pieces that wants to bring the cost down or whether you're printing on demand. It will really change up the overall flow of your business. Now I really believe that by creating structures and the way things that run in your business, that will really help you succeed. Because, for example, you don't want all of a sudden get a huge order and you have to stay up for, like, three nights in a row to try and get that order at the door, unless that's something that you want to do. Maybe that's something that's exciting for you. Like staying up late. Do your own screen printing, for example. And that's part of the vibe of your business. And if that's the case, then awesome. But if it's not and you're like Oh my gosh, what if I signed up for kind of thing? This is a huge stress for me, and I have three kids and I don't have any time for this. Why did I thank you? You know, screen print my own stuff, then that's going to be a negative thing. And that could be an overwhelming thing, unless that's what you want, right? And so I feel like making those kind of decisions now are key, because by not doing that, you might run into kind of the pains of it later. So let's first talk about printing yourself. If printed yourself is important to you and it's something that will actually make your life easier or it just be more of a passion project for you, then I encourage you to select that on your worksheet. If that's something that you always pictured, maybe you're going to print your own cards at home on an actual physical in the canon printer or again. Maybe it's a screen printing passion that you have. Maybe it's like line oh, cut printing that you like to do, and you even do it on fabrics around different materials. Hey, if that's part of your art process than hey, I want encourage you to do that. There are want to be both benefits and drawbacks to any of these decisions. So when you think about, say, printing yourself, there's going to be benefits. The benefits could be the fact that you can do this on your own timing. You don't have to wait for a printer schedule, or you don't have to obviously pay Ah, printer the extra cost. Um, and you Maybe it's something that you enjoy to do. Maybe you pour yourself a glass of wine at night and you do your own printing. Hey, if that's your thing, great now. The drawbacks, however, could be just the lifestyle commitment to it. So, again, maybe you have an order that comes in for, like, a wedding or something that's big, and they need, like, 100 of the pieces that you're making for them. And then you're kind of stuck late at night or early in the morning trying to catch up with your orders. So it is something that is a time commitment. It is a structural part of your business that you will then be tied to, and I don't say tied to in a negative way, but in a realistic way. You will have your time committed to the printing. Okay, Yeah, that is something that is great with you, and that's something that you want. Then I encourage you to select that. If it's not, then you may want to look at some of the other options of how to print. The second option is actually higher your printing out to another printer or what, maybe etc, or a lot of these online platforms would call a production partner. Okay, A production partner is somebody who helps you get the job done and actually finish the product. So you might be the creator of the art. But maybe you then make art prints on a specialty paper and you get them printed in a special way that you have somebody help you to create. So maybe you hire a screen printer or you hire a copy printer to print your art pieces. Your cards. Your calendar is your note pads. Whatever it is you're creating your hiring somebody to do the printing for you. Okay, I personally hire a printer to print out my art prints. Now, maybe that might surprise some of you because you might think, Oh, I thought you made them yourself. I decided early on the very first collection I ever made, that I was not going to print my own art pieces. I remember having this discussion with an artist who I respected, and I remember them saying, Well, do you want to be a printer like somebody who's a printer for most of the time, or do you want to be designing most the time I remember thinking, Oh, that actually made that decision very easy for me. So now I pose that to you. Do you want to be more somebody who's printing most the time or creating most the time? If you're more of a designer or illustrator type or a creator type, the idea of printing all the time is not to be attracted to you, right. But if you're somebody who enjoys Thea art of printing So, for example, like screen printing or line oh, cut block printing. Those kinds of printings are a form of art, right? And so there's a variety of different styles of printing. Maybe you do letter, press or you do something that is the actual process of it makes you feel alive, makes you feel like you and enjoy that process. Then I want to encourage you to absolutely do that. But for me, I knew that my problem with printing myself was time around the time that I was launching my own art business, I was also becoming a mom, and I knew that that was in my very near future at the time. And so I knew that with a newborn, I was not gonna have the physical capacity of time to actually then also do my own printing . I wanted to do screen printing at first, and so I asked around. I actually asked one of my heroes, who's very, very recognized designer. He's actually one of the designers, that invisible creature in Seattle and they're brilliant design house. I talk about them all the time because they're really, really inspiring. And they're really cool guys, too. And I asked one of them, I asked Ryan, I asked him, Hey, do you have any recommendations? I need a screen printer And at the time I was living in your l. A. And so he recommended somebody and I went there and I chatted and turns out he's the same screen printer that obey uses. So I was just like, Okay, I'm sold like I was in love. And so I used the same screen printer and loved it, and it was a little expensive. Not gonna lie, but I did. I did it and I loved it. It was something that was a really good experience for me. I was unable to create the art, email it to the printer and have him prints out for me. All I had to do was tell him how Maney I wanted and what size I wanted, and that was it. So it's kind of great for me at that stage of my life. I later on transferred my artsy printed digitally because my artist black ink on white paper and I found that the actual quality was looking very, very similar. It was gonna be a fraction of the cost. So I personally decided to go ahead and do digital printing at, ah, high end kind of like art copy printer with people who are very good at printing art on specialty papers. And so for me, that was the route that I decided to go. So again, that is a lifestyle choice, so that might be more of what you're looking to do. Maybe you don't want to physically get yourself, and maybe that's a better choice for you to hire a production partner to print for you. Another way that you can actually print your artwork without having to yourself is by doing print on demand. Now there's a variety of different on line platforms that will actually enable you to do just that for example, print Fel is the one that I've been using that I've really been enjoying so far. And it's been something that has been really handy because I can then kind of test the waters with other products. So, for example, I make our prints. However, I have noticed that several of my art prints are like my key number one sellers. And so, over this last holiday season, I've decided to go ahead and try some of my art pieces on pillows. Okay, now, this was something that is a very new thing for me, but I've had people ask me to do this before, and I it kind of goes hand in hand for me. So I felt like I can try this. Okay, The beauty of this is that I just send the art. I upload the art to the principal website and then they kind of give you these mock ups of how your products will look and I can then sink it back to my online shopping at the time. It's etc. And so for me, it's a really great handy tool because number one there's no cost to me upfront. I could just send our upload my art to their platform and Aiken then decide what products I want to create. So I also created mugs, so I created mugs and pillows. I'm just testing them out this season. But maybe you want to test your art out on T shirts or on hoodies or on aprons, for example. This is a great way to do so, or even just as prints or posters. You can actually do your prints as print on demand as well, so you can do a variety of different products. This way, it's a great way to kind of test your market and see where you get the most sales and get the most reactions, and you do all this without really any cost to you now. Obviously, the cost for them to produce an item is going to be quite a bit higher, because it's basically going to be the cost of them to create the item to print on it, the cost of them to handle it while it's being put together and shipped out. The shipping is an extra cost that your customer will add on, and they will pay for it themselves. But for example, like I think up for my pillows. It was about, um, I think, $8 or so to create the pillow design. But when you think about that, that's kind of expensive item t to be creating. But if I were to go and make them myself up front just to make you know a few of them, it would be, you know, quite expensive, right? Very quickly I'd be spending 100 bucks, right? But because I'm doing that through print full, I could do a variety of products and test it out and see which one is the ones that sell. And then I can actually promote them that way and really, um, gain a variety of new clientele that way. So for me, it's been a really interesting process. There are a variety of different kinds of print on demand websites that you can look at, and I find that they are popping up left, right and center. Now, one of the reasons why I like print full is a couple of things. Number one. It's got a really good way of pricing. You can actually set your own pricing for your pieces. You can also select whether you want your art to show up more than once on an item. So, for example, if you want to try your art on a T shirt, for example, you could have just the front of the T shirt. And or you can have, like two sided for items, which I find is really key because the mawr that your art shows up on something that more expensive, it is for them to make it so you can actually decide the price that you're paying them. So based on what you're going to sell the item for, how many times you need your are to show up on their item, it'll really dictate the price, which I kind of liked because I felt like I was more in control as an artist. Other reason I like it is also because print full can sink with the online selling platform that you're going to be using. So, for the most part, a lot of the different platforms that we're using they're going to sink with print ful. You can even use woo commerce, like many of you who are maybe selling directly from your own website. So maybe you have a WordPress site or some form of a different personal website and you're selling your art pieces directly from there. Then you might be incorporating the wu commerce, um, selling, you know, kind of system within your online shop on your site. And so that will even integrate with print full, which is great. So when you have an order, um, that comes in print full will then get notified and actually create the order and be able to go through the process of getting the order at the door. So I find that to be a very, very, very effective obviously it it syncs with, etc. With Shopify with Amazon, of course, and a variety of other ones, and I find it very, very convenience. That's one the reasons why in this specific program, I think it's important one to be brought up. So I see you're interested in creating a print on demand accounts on principle. I would encourage you to check the link beneath this video, and I'm actually gonna have a link there where you can go ahead and just check it out. If that's something that will serve you. If not and that's really fine, too. But I want to at least put it out there as something that could potentially serve you. So all you gotta do is click on like beneath this video, and then you can actually create your own account on principle. You're on user name and log in a password, and then that way you can create your own account and start adding products right away. So it's is easy as pie. I mean, it's super, super intuitive, easy to operate. They've got a great help menu and demo videos that makes it really impossible to mess up, so I encourage you to check it out. You can also link your selling platform right away, and that's part of the actual set up process. So go ahead and check that out of that serves you and I hope it does.
6. Name and Logo: One of the things that I get asked a lot is how to actually name your art business and how to create a logo for your art business. So let me just start with naming your art business. A lot of people think, How do I know whether I should name my art business after my own personal name or if I should actually call it a kind of like a concept name? For example, my art business is called Vision City, and I actually named my art business Vision City as a result of the fact that my husband and I were traveling from city to city city on music tours all over the world. Those were you don't really know my story, and my husband is a rock musician. Still, to this day is, and we've had the opportunity to tour all over the world. We've been to Japan, have been Sweden. We've been all over America all over Canada, all over Europe and a variety of other countries, and it's been an amazing adventure. It's been a lot of work to, but as a result of traveling from city to city to city, that's really one of the reasons why I called my own brand vision city. Now I remember actually, the day I named my art business, I was actually in Copenhagen on tour and it was a day off and a whole team of us were out there and we found ourselves in this old home and somebody had kind of said, Come on over and have some coffee And I just needed a few quiet moments myself, and I was really thinking and praying and feeling it out. You know what? I'm gonna name my business. At the time I was running my own art business. I was actually offering a lot of service design for record labels and, you know, people with the music industry, because that's where I found myself. And I was really trying to figure out well what I want my business to represent. And I start to really close my eyes and think about that. And I really wanted my business to represent a place so to speak that people could kind of come and visit and be inspired. And so the word vision came to me because when somebody has a vision or an idea, it's kind of like the idea of a vision being a dream, you know? You know, people say that without vision, people perish, writes, It's kind, like the idea of having a vision for your future. And so I really wanted to use the word vision in my business because I feel like vision is not only about site, but it's also about dreaming. And so I wanted that concept to be a part of my business. And then I, um, when I was thinking about what else could I incorporate into my name, the term? Or that the idea of city came to me because I thought, Well, if it's going to be this idea of visiting a place and becoming inspired, you know, it's kind of like me right now. I'm visiting in the new city every single day, And so for me, Vision City came to me and it just felt right. It felt like that's what I should call my business Vision city, And that's really where that concept started for me. But then more and more, I've gone and grown in my business and in my logo. It's all become more and more clear to me because I really want again to be known from my own new style, which is black on white. And so for me, it's a very, very black and white brand that I'm building. And so that's really where my name came from. Some of you might say, Well, how do you know if you should actually name your brand after your own personal name? Now I often say this, you know, Do you want your brand or your our business that you're building to be recognizing a concept? Or do you personally want to be taking on more artwork for yourself and have your name recognized? Now? That's really where those two deciding factors are made. So if you would rather your name to be recognized, which is totally cool, there's a lot of artists out there that their first and last name is the name of their business, you know, And you know, the several great you know, designers and all trays I follow right now on Instagram that I am so inspired by and their businesses actually their name. It's their first and last name. Or you could say no designed by Allison or whatever your name is right. You can always incorporate what you make and then the word by and then your name. So that's another way you could name your business. But this is really the time to decide on your business name. I would encourage a couple things, though. Number one. I would encourage you to keep it kind of concise. You don't want your name to be a sentence long. Okay, I would say like three words at the most if you get it in one or two. Even better, like Vision City is the name my business. It's only two up 203 words. It's only two words, and I find that that's nice and kind of short. People can kind of get the idea. Um, but I've actually also added the words of Design studio there because at first I had people calling me thinking I was a nice studio. Are optometrist, which is kind of funny, but the word vision could be a little bit deceiving for me. So again, I would actually encourage you this, maybe even think about that like, you know, having a concept name. Those kind of things can happen, right? So people might think, you know, that you're in my case, an optometrist, because I have the word vision in my company. So you may want to think about that of actually naming your business something a bit more, Um, kind of obvious. So maybe it's art prints by alley or it's, you know, actually naming the product and then actually calling your name and included in that. People say, though, when do I When do I know it's the right time to use my name or not? If you would like your name to be recognized in order to gain some commissions? So, for example, you want them to be hired by, um, either design studios or customers or, you know, custom work. For example, you want your name to be the thing that people remember when they leave you. Then that's what you should do. You should go after referring to your name, or but if you'd rather it be a concept that they remember the name it after a concept name . So those air to the basic to general ways that you can name your business. Um, you could always do a slight combo where you say, for example, in my case, I might say Vision City Art Prints by Melanie Greenwood. So I might do that in some cases, but most the time. I just go by Vision City or efficiency design studio. So I want you to go ahead now and decide on your business name and write that on your worksheets. I know that feels like a big thing, and it's kind of scary, but I want to go ahead and write it down, maybe do a brainstorm on a separate piece of paper and then write down a, um, an answer on your worksheet again. It's really hard to build something without a name, so you need to create your name and actually go ahead and decided that now it's a very exciting time when you think about it creating your name because this is something that will carry forward and that people will begin to even refer to you by and it's a really fun part of the process. Now, the other thing that you're going to to be deciding on is your logo design. Now you can either designer Lower yourself. You're If you're so inclined you can hire a logo designer you can hire Ah a variety of different online sites. There's a ton of different online sites, which I will name for you in front of you on this. Screens don't miss any of them, but you could check out these sites where you could actually find an online artist to help you to design one. If maybe you do painting. But you're not really somebody who can design a logo in Illustrator and make it into a vector file to be a legit logo design. And you want your logo designed to be in vector format and as well as in a online format, which is going to be a J peg. So a vector format will be an AI file in Illustrator. You may also want a PDF and GPS or a variety of different printing files, but generally you're gonna want a I A P D apinan GPS off your logo design that you can then use to print out. Maybe you want to make business cards, and you won't make T shirts or something that lacks in corporate your logo on them. Maybe when you're going to trade shows and things, you can have you in a couple of friends, rock in your T shirts and just holding down the, you know, trade show Booth looking like you, you have the branding on you, which is very cool. So I encourage you do that. Um, and I also encouraged you that when you're creating your logo, you're gonna need to create in two variations and a lot of people don't do this. And this is something that drives me that So you won't want to make sure that you create some kind of an icon that you can use in social media. Now I still notice social media print. Predominantly, it will give you a very slow a small space besides your profile name. So it's the on instagram. It's a circle, or on a variety of different platforms may be different, but it's generally there a square, a circle. So I want you to think about that space for your logo. So either make your entire logo either in that circular shape or in this in the square dimensions so something can fit inside of that shape, as well as another form of your logo. That could be a bit more horizontal because in some places you're going to need to have to have your logo field or horizontal or a landscape view. Okay, it's kind of more of a wider representation. So maybe you have your icon on one side and your name written on the side. Or maybe your icon the top in your name underneath. Or maybe it's a combination of the two, um, but some form of a kind of an isolated format of your logo. Maybe it's just the icon that you can use on instagram or Facebook or Pinterest, um, as well as some format that is a wider landscape view of your logo that will just serve you overall across the board on your website, on all social media platforms and so one. And it's frankly just really good practice toe have those two auctions of your logo, so I hope that this video has helped you. Let's go on to the next section and keep building your art business
7. Sourcing Supplies: Hi, guys. I wanted to do this quick, short video all about sourcing supplies for your art business. Now, one of the things I want you to know about right away is that in general I would encourage you to not buy supplies at retail if it any way possible. If you have registered your business with your you know, local government are basically your city that you live in. One of the benefits of doing so is that you actually get to have a registered business number that you can then purchase items at wholesale. So what I want to encourage you to do is to think about where you can then use those that number to give you Ah, much better pricing when it comes to sourcing your supplies. So, for example, you don't want to just go ahead and buy items that are supplies on sale. A lot of times, people will go ahead and find a craft shop and go to the sale, bends and things, and they'll find items that are on sale and they'll kind of stock up on them. The one problem with that is is that the reason why items are on sale in generals because they're being discontinued or they're being sold out of right. And so, if you will then use that as your source of supplies. When your business is growing, you're not gonna be able to then go back and get more. You need to goes to places that are going to have consistently have the products that you're going to need because you and I were talking about selling are tryingto build a business here. This is not just a hobby, so I want to actually discourage you from just shopping the sale. Been so to speak, because although it seems like a great idea upfront, what happens is you kind of get burned in the end, trying to refine that exact supply that no longer exists. Maybe it's no longer in in stores anywhere, or it's no longer about Michael's or whatever kind of craft stores that you've been looking at. So I'm going to think about that. The other thing away to think about is when you're trying to find companies to actually purchase supplies from at a wholesale level. One of the places that you can do so is at trade shows now, maybe you are at a trade show and you are a cellar. You've got your own booth set up, and in that case you can literally kind of wander around and meet people and find suppliers that way. But if you're not a vendor or a cellar at a trade show, what you can do is you can actually google different trade shows. And look up there, Exhibitor lists. OK, when you're looking up in Exhibitor List, you'll then go down that list. This is actually I'm just gonna warn you. This is not a fun task by any means, but it's definitely something to do kind of one of those roll up your sleeves task to really find the right suppliers. You could then go down the list and find suppliers that way. A lot of times they will have the word wholesale in their actual titling. And if not, you can just make a quick phone call and ask them, Do you offer wholesale for these specific products? Um, and then you can then go from there. You can order them on their website, or you can just go into their actual stores, depending on what it is when you go into their stores. If they do offer wholesale pricing, you'll just have to provide them with your art business number. That's a registered number. And that way you can actually save a ton on, say, paper or on maybe paints or, you know, paint supplies, brushes, pencils. All the come things that we use to create the art that we do. Ah, for me. I actually did this with Kelly paper. So Kelly Paper is one of the brands that I use as a supplier, and they do this so they actually offer you a fairly good discount on paper and paper. For me was Air is expensive item, especially recycled papers or specialty thick card stock papers. It can be very expensive. So have a discount on. That is a huge win, and again, it's all about keeping our margins wide. Opens that we have low cost and then that way we have a larger margin when it comes to selling things, we want to have a low cost to create every single item so that we can have a larger profit margin. Okay, another really great place that I have personally really enjoyed to use for my supplies has been you line dot com. Now you Linus felt you l i any dot com and that's a great place to get. Say, shipping supplies Cardboard Ah, corrugated backing board. You can actually get your rigid, hard mailers that are kind of like your envelopes that you can send your art out into. I always encourage you to also use a cardboard backing as well. You can also get clear bags there that you can slide your artwork into. That could be resealable. Another website as well, while talking about clear base is actually a website called clear bags dot c A. And that's actually where I purchase my clear sleeves or bags that I put over top of my artwork that can then be sealed just to prevent any moisture from getting into my actual art product at all. The number one concerns in general when you're shipping, obviously is moisture or Ben's or dense, and so these are the kind of supplies that you will need so again it's you line dot com or clear bags dot c A. So I just wanted to make this quick little video just to kind of encourage some thought in some direction. When it comes to sourcing supplies
8. How To Price Your Artwork: pricing Your art could be something that's really scary. And I know a lot of artists kind of panic and get really freaked out about it. I, too, felt the same way. Like, how do I know what to price things? That and honestly, at the beginning, I feel like I was kind of just guessing. Now, one of the ways you're gonna really get started when it comes to Price in your artwork is to really compare what you make other people. So number one encourage people. I was encouraged, my students that take my courses, my webinars, that by my check less and so on, I encourage them to do some research, find out who else on etc, for example, is similar to what you do. This is gonna take a little bit of rolling up your sleeves and doing a bit of research, and that's okay. I encourage people to find other artists and creatives. We're making something that's similar to them. That's step one, Step two. I encourage you then to check out their pricing and then go on to the next step, which is to really compare quality. Now, when it comes to price and quality is everything. For example, sizing. How does it how does their sizing in your size and compare? If you offer something that's larger, you can usually offer a price. It's a little bit higher now if your product, for example, is a different type of paper quality. For example, I sell art prints, but all of my paper is £100.100 percent recycled. So as you can imagine my price to actually make my products, it's gonna be a lot more than it would be to just by the regular paper. You could get it any copy center. So I literally have to spend more money, a lot more money making my products than somebody who just uses a regular copy paper. Even if they're using heavier weight copy paper. If it's not recycled, it's gonna be a lot less expensive. So for that reason, I can charge a little bit more now. I don't want to be outrageous and price myself out of the market, because then we're not gonna actually get sales. So you don't want to price yourself so high that you're losing sales and you don't price yourself too low because then people perceive that the product isn't all that good. So you want to be right in the middle to get the most potential buys. Another way you can really compare pricing is by using Marma lead. I talk about this a lot in my online program called the Etc Artist Dream Kit. But for those of you who are new to this concept, Marma Lee is an online ah program where you can actually discover the right keywords and do keyword research for your online Etsy shop. So its specific for etc. In finding the right keywords for your shop. Now they're going into too much S E O. In this video, I want talk to just specifically about pricing now within the keyword research tool of Marma Lee was actually a whole section all about comparing prices. So it's a really great way to figure out what would be. The high price point will be the medium and will be low and trying to figure out where you want to be in that, And it's a really great way to determine in my pricing a little bit too high and my pricing in the more moderate pricing or my pricing way too low and price myself too low out of the market. So that's another really great research tool for not only s CEO, but for pricing. Ah, lot of people miss that in marmalade, and it's a really, really great tool. Another thing to consider when you're thinking about pricing your artwork is, do you offer custom? If you're customizing any part of your artwork for your customer again, you can increase the pricing for that product. So, for example, maybe you are making baby art prints for baby rooms, but you are customizing the name and you're adding, saying it may be the birth details at the weight, the baby's height and so on. If you're adding special specific details, or maybe you're making custom invitations, any kind of custom artwork or custom designed, he's Maybe you're a watercolor painter and you actually get photos of people's homes, for example, and you do watercolor illustrations of someone's home. For that reason and the fact that it's actually a custom job, you can charge more of a price again. I encourage you to find other people who are also doing custom work in your niche and find out what it is they're charging to give you a bit of a basis. And don't just find one find, like, eight fire, like, almost like 8 to 10 people. Find a variety, write them all down and kind of figure out the averages. Find that middle ground that you're comfortable with, but that you're not gonna be overpricing. And I could be under pricing again. You want to find that middle road because that's where you're gonna meet them. Most customers, someone encourage you in that If you're offering custom, that's another way to price your work.
9. Part 1 Project: everyone. I hope you've enjoyed the cellular masterclass, Part one in this video. I wanted to share with you the outline for the project that that land for you in the project section. Step one, you're going to go ahead and print out the attached Sell your art masterclass part one worksheets. Step two. As you're going through the video content for this course, you're gonna be asked to answer the prompted questions on the worksheets. Now, this is going to help you make import decisions for our business. Step three. Once it comes the end of the video content, make sure that all your worksheets air filled in. Now I know sometimes it might take a bit of reflection and time to answer these questions, but I want you to commit to complete all the work sheets. Step for you're gonna share your worksheets, answers with us in the project section. You can choose how many of the sheets you want to share if you want to share one or more. I heard you to take a photo of it with your smartphone and upload it so that we can all see your answers and encourage you. Step five you're going to go ahead and share a small right up about your artwork and maybe even share a photo of one of your pieces with us. Just let us know kind of what your art eyes about, what kind of style you have and maybe some of the goals you have here are business. The reason why I heard you to share this kind of stuff is because it really helps to create community and really helps to get some feedback. Maybe some other artists can give you some feedback as to where they have kind of gone for different supplies or different experiences they may have had. That may be of help to you. And I find that when you share maybe some of your schools or some of the things that you desire if you're our business, it really is an important step because sharing is really key when it comes to selling right . So, in order to really get your our business on the right tracks, trying to share a little bit about yourself and your process, or maybe your goals, this is actually a really, really great way to just kind of let other people in to what? Your goals are your art business. I hope that you have fun with this project, and I hope it really helped encourages you.
10. Sell Your Art Masterclass Part 1 Final Thoughts: Hey, guys. Congratulations on finishing part one of the cellular art Master class. I am so excited for you as you've gone through this first section, I'm sure you've downloaded your worksheets and fill them in. And I hope that they've really helped you to make really great and effective decisions for your art business. I want to encourage you. First of all, if you like this course, please leave me a review. I love to hear what you thought about it. You have any questions or concerns? I'm here to answer those for you. I also want to encourage you to go on to part two of the cellular masterclass. In this next course, you're going to learn how to choose the right selling platform. I'm also going to go over the pros and cons of having a personal website versus selling on a platform of sorts. I also want to encourage you to check it out because I'm going to talk about selling policies as well as personal about sections. These are all really important when it comes to building your own online. Our business I want encourage you to check out the cellular masterclass. Part two
Melanie Greenwood, Designer & Founder of Vision City Studio
