 business success. So for those of you watching not live later on, then a very warm welcome. And for those of you who are going to start watching live any second now, because it takes a few minutes to configure, then welcome to you as well. This is my very first YouTube live, actually. So I am super, super excited. And we're using some software that I haven't really used with YouTube either. So if anybody is on, I can see some people are coming on. If you could just let me know in the comments that you can see and hear me okay, then that would be just brilliant. So awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Vicki who's just given me a shout out saying all good. You know, when you set these things up, you're never quite sure whether you're just talking at the screen and nobody can hear you. Okay, great. I hope you're super excited for this content. I hope you've got a pen and paper handy because you're definitely going to want to be taking some notes. And I've also got a couple of exercises for you as well. So get excited as we spend this time together to really help you with moving forward with your art business. So I've got some notes down here that I'm going to do in the follow as well. So if you see me looking down, it's not that I'm looking anything down here just to make sure that I stay on track and deliver everything that I set out to deliver it. Don't miss anything. Yes. Hi, Joti. Hello, lovely. Here and seeing you. Great. That's awesome. And I know that the chat is working. So obviously I'm going to encourage you as well to ask any questions and give any feedback, etc. in the chat because I'm going to be asking things. So get ready to do that as well. Okay, so today as we know, I'm going to share my top three secrets for art business success so that you can really avoid that overwhelm frustration and simply just get on with making your art and making a living from that as well. And I hope that sounds really good to you. So make sure to stay on after this training. And I want to be specific. This is a full training, but after training, I am going to just share a little bit about an online course that might be of interest to some of you and how you can really get started straight away with some of this content that I'm going to be teaching you today. But I stress it is a full training. So it's not one of those that I'm going to give you just a few things and offer you something. I've got plenty of content for you. So like I say, pen and paper to the ready. For those of you here from the very first time, my name is Sophie and I help artists and creative just like you to set up market and grow your own successful art business wrapped around your existing art practice. And if that's something that you that you really want to learn more about, then make sure that you subscribe to my channel as well because I do put out short videos every week. So make sure that you're ready and getting those as well. Good morning. Hello, Sarah. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's so funny because I'm in the UK and obviously I'm not normally broadcasting from the UK. I'm normally broadcasting from the other side of the world. So I think a few people confused about the time as well. They were like, well, I can't be up at that time. It's like, no, no, I'm actually in the UK at the moment. So super excited to be here. Very excited to be doing that training from here as well. And thank you and a big shout out to my lovely friend, Sarah Bellarini, who has loaned me her flat this morning to shoot this this video from as well. Okay, so let's get straight to the content. So like I said, make sure you got pen and paper handy because I have got a couple of exercises for you. So secret number one, we need to get clear on what you want. And you might say, yeah, yeah, yeah, so if you heard that before, but just hold on a minute. All right, this is one of the biggest mistakes I see artists making. And that's not taking enough time to get really, really crystal clear on what you actually want and outlining a really clear vision for your future. So not doing this really means that you can end up drifting, you can get distracted, you can go down some rabbit hole somewhere, you can follow a new shiny object who's ever done that, you suddenly like you've heard of something and you think, oh my god, that would be amazing. I'm totally going to do that now. And you go off down there and you disappear down a track. You never really wanted to go down in the first place. And you know, all of this can mean that you can end up feeling a bit frustrated. You can lose motivation and ultimately you could put down and quit your art. And I don't want that for you. And I'm pretty sure that you don't want that for you either. So in order to not do that, we want to make sure that we're going to get a crystal clear vision. So this is what I typically hear. I say to people, what do you want? And they say, I want to sell more art. Okay, I want to make more money. I want to make a living from my art. And I think, well, what does that actually mean? Are you clear? Because I'm really not. When somebody says to me, and this is what I hear a lot of, oh, I just want to sell more painting, Sophie. So if you sold one more, does that mean you've achieved what you want? Is that what you want for your big vision, your future? Like what do you want to create? What do you want to leave as a legacy? Your art, you might want to actually really say something and you want to leave a legacy behind. So we want to get really crystal clear what it is you want. So you want to make more money. I'm going to give you five dollars or five pounds and you've instantly made more money. Is that it? I don't think so. How much money? How many paintings? How many online courses? How many workshop attendees? What's the income you want to be making? Do you want to leave your job if you still have a job? What are you doing exactly? You know, selling what to who, where? So really, when people say I want to make more money, I feel like this is more of a starting statement and it absolutely lacks clarity. Would you agree? Now, if there's anyone here who's gone, that was me, because I always start with everyone, what do you want? Oh, I want to, you know, I want to paint for a living. What does that mean exactly? So the very, very, very first thing we've got to do is gain clarity. Now, for me, clarity gives you purpose and motivation to take action. If you don't have clarity, you just sort of messing around, you're over here a little bit, you're over there a little bit. And sometimes I hear people saying, I just haven't got time to sit down and do that. You know, I need to be doing, I need to make the money. It's like, well, just take a breath for a moment and step back, because you can't do any of what I'm about to teach you next if you don't have this piece. If you don't know where you're going, how are you ever going to know how to get there, right? If you don't have a clear destination, then really you get up in the morning and you just see what happens. And life is going to happen to you rather than you determining how you want your life to be. So we want to make sure in order that you get that to have, you want to have a big vision that's 100% crystal clear of what you want, but also what you don't want. Because how many of us end up having a day where you think the end of it wasn't what I really wanted to do, or, you know, you get offered something, you think, oh, it's got to be a yes. Somebody's offered me the opportunity to do something. I'll do that. And at the end of it, you think that wasn't something I wanted to do with my art. That's not a direction I wanted to go. And at that point you're just being led or you're being, again, it's a shiny object. You think, oh, I'll make some money doing that. Somebody said I could run children's workshops. I'll go over there and run children's workshops. But actually, I'm not a teacher, or if I am a teacher, I like working with adults. It's not something I want to do. But we've been sort of given the idea that we could make some money. So we go off in a whole other direction. And if it's not your big vision, it's not your passion, it's not what lights you up, then the rest of it's going to be hard slog, right? So we've got to get crystal clear on what you want, and leave aside what you don't want. It's like that Marmite effect, right? It's, you know, like the divide. So what's the reason that most artists don't do this? If you are on the call and you haven't done this before and you're like, I haven't really sat down and really got to the nerve of what I want to, why have you not done it? And like for a lot of people, they say, oh, I haven't got the time to do it. And I'm thinking, you haven't got the time to create the vision and clarity of where you want to go. You need to carve out the time, right? That's super important. But that's not a valid reason or excuse. For me, I believe that the number one reason that people don't do it is fear. That's the big F word, right? Fear. Fear of failure. What if I write out this big vision of what I want and I fail at it? Like who here would agree that we do not want to fail, right? Failing is not the good thing. Put in the comments if you don't want to fail. It's like, I don't want to fail. If that's a no, don't want to fail. Just let me know that because some people are afraid of that. So therefore they don't step into what they really could be doing with the art and with the art business because the fear of failure is too much. It stops you moving forward. But on the flip side, we've also got fear of success. What if you do create a multi-six figure or seven figure art business? Suddenly, you might have to manage a team. You might have to deal with more customers than you were used to, right? That can bring up fear. So we sometimes stay in that comfort zone of, oh, I don't want to do that. What if I get too successful and I have to do things I'm not used to doing? So I'll just stay really small, right? Don't want to fail Cindy. Absolutely. So we do all these things in order not to fail, right? We stay safe. We stay small. We don't play the bigger game. Yes, Eleanor agreed. 100% fear of failure. Thank you. It's just human nature, right? We're built that way. None of us want to fail. None of us want to fail. So therefore we say, okay, well, this is what I think I could do. You know, this is my big vision. My big vision is to do this. But actually, probably your big vision is to do something this size that might even feel a bit scary when you think about it might make your heart pounding like, oh my god, the palm sweating. And for me, that's a good sign. If you have a vision that really lights you up, that is really exciting. You really want to change the world with your art, with your course, with the book. You've got a purpose. You've got a drive. But of course there's the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. And that's huge. And in that gap, we don't know what's going to happen, right? And so most people are held back by, well, I don't know how to do that. So therefore I won't write that down. I've got the fear of failure. What if I don't make it? Or what if I do make it? Whatever it is, it's fear, right? I think we're all agreed on that. It's fear. Fear of whatever. So we stay small. So I'm going to encourage you today to really think big. Because I can promise you, when you found the vision and that kind of mission and purpose and it's crystal clear and it's big enough, it lights you up, it makes you excited. That is what's going to motivate you to move forward and do the things that might be a bit uncomfortable. So imagine this for a moment. You have a vision of your future that is so clear that when you close your eyes you can see every detail. It's as if you've drawn a detailed realistic picture, right? It's so clear. You see everything in there. So imagine you jump out, I don't know, a year, five years, ten years, it's completely up to you. You close your eyes and you look at what you've achieved and you can see everything. You can step into that picture and you can see it. You can smell the smells of where you are, the smell of the ocean or whatever that might be. You can hear the sounds around you and you feel, wow, this is what I wanted to create. This feels really good. That's how your big vision needs to be, all right? It needs to be that clear that it's like someone took a photo or you've done a detailed realistic picture and you can see it, hear it, smell it, it's that good. And if you haven't got there then you want to be working on that, all right? So we want to know, for example, practically how much money do you want to make? This is such a big question I get when I ask these people avoid this. It's like, well, I don't know. Money doesn't motivate me. It doesn't need to motivate you, but in order to get somewhere you need to know tangibly what you're looking at, right? We're talking about building an art business. So in order to build a business we need to know how much money you want to make, right? I'm sorry, folks! For those who are like, I don't want to think about money. Money doesn't motivate me either, but it's still a tracking device, right? It's a number that you can write down, that you can then do other things with and then you can move forward to build the business around. But without knowing that, then again, you're kind of punting in the dark. All right, selling what? Are you selling right now what you really want to be selling? Or have you got that book or that big retreat that you've always wanted to put together? Or a series of artwork or designs that you sort of has been in the back of your mind and you're thinking, well, I'll do that when . . . Who's got a I'll do that when project? I'll make the art I've always wanted to make when I have enough money, when I have enough time. All right, what else? Who has got a project that they're putting off until you do . . . Once I've left my job, I can do this, that and the other. Now, I came out of full-time teaching, so I totally understand. I had a full-time job. I went down to part-time and I built my business alongside. I didn't wait. I just got on with it. So, you know, it's really important that we don't put off things that you want to do. We've got this life. We're here. We're here to do what we're born to do. And if that for you is creating, you want to make sure that the time you're putting in now is doing the thing you really want to do. So if you're playing it small, you're creating something that you think, oh, this might sell. Who is doing that? If there's anybody watching who's just creating stuff, you think, well, that'll sell. So I'll make some money doing that. You know, get another income stream. Get a job while you're voting the business. Don't sacrifice your art and creativity. Make sure what you're creating is what you want to be doing. All right, when you let fear stand in the way, it's stifling your creativity. I'm just going to say that again. When you let fear stand in your way, it's stifling your creativity. So when you think about your big vision of where you could go and you allow fear to get in there, then you're not going to be as creative as you really want to be. You're not going to be doing the work that you really want to be. So who here can resonate with that? Just let me know in the comments if you're like, yeah, I totally get that. That's been me. I'm just going to have a slug of the old water. It can stop you moving forwards with anything. All right, here's a mini exercise. So grab a pen and paper that I asked you to bring at the beginning or whatever you've got around you or if you've got a phone or so you can write it down. It's really good to write by hand of course. It's much better than typing, but grab whatever you've got around you. So the mini exercises, just take a few minutes to write out some bullets of what you really want to achieve. Totally. Yeah, thank you. So this is what we're going to do. You're just going to write out and you're going to think after I've been talking and I'm going to give some hints. So we want to just jot down the basics of what you really, really want to achieve. So let's start with turnover. We're talking about building a successful art business. We've got to start with the turnover. What do you really want to bring in on your art business? All right, so for example is it 30,000, 60,000, 100,000, 500,000, a million. What do you actually want to bring in? And we're not saying you have to bring that in right now in the next six months, but what's the big picture vision? Where do you want to be going with the art business? So write down a number. Paying yourself a salary of what? Again, you're 500 a month, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000. What is it for you? So just go ahead and write that down. What's the ideal salary you want to be paying yourself? If you don't just choose these numbers, then again it's like you're never going to get there. You need to have a stake in the ground where you can go okay this is what I'm heading towards because we're going to talk strategy later. How are you going to get there? So then selling what? So just put some some ideas down of what do you really want to be selling. What is it that really lights you up? And if you're watching later and this is not the live version, pause the video and just do this exercise for five minutes. What do you want to turn over? What's the salary that you would like to pay yourself every month from that business? What do you actually want to be selling? Do you want to create original work that's sold in a big gallery somewhere? Do you want to create print? Print on demand? Patterns? You want to get published all over different products? You want to have your patterns hanging on curtains? Like what do you want to create? You want to run workshops? You want to have some fabulous online course that you open every year and it gives you seven figures. You want to run retreats in the hill, in Italian hills somewhere. What is it you want to do? For example, do you want people with you? You want to build a small team? You want to have people that are working for you who just want to work alone? You want a business partner? A silent business partner? Do you want a studio, a shop? You know, do you want to be able to work and travel around the world? You want to be flexible and free? What is it you really want? How many days a week do you want to work? Do you want to work four days a week? You just want to work mornings only? You want to work weekends? What do you actually want to work? How many hours a week? I know so many people who say, well, I just work four hours a day. That doesn't happen overnight, but it happens when there's a plan in place, right? When you have a big vision and you're heading towards something, you say, okay, my plan. See, for me, I want to work four days a week. I want to have three days doing my own thing and four days. And I'm almost at that and quite often I'll take a Monday off as some of, you know, some of you know and I'll poodle around and I'll not really do anything on a Monday or I'll end early on a Friday. So I'm working towards that for me to be in that place where I can just work four days a week. Okay, maybe you want to do things like put exercise into your route into your day and you're going to exercise for two hours a day. What is it for you? What is it you want to create? So I say, if you're doing this live, I'm hoping you're scribbling in your notepad. Just give me a yes if you're doing that. And if you're watching it that later, pause the video, do the exercise and then come back again afterwards. The key point is you want to gain clarity. If there's any doubt in your mind, you haven't completed the exercise. If it's all a bit fuzzy when you think about it, your future, and I say, pick a time that works for you. Could be five years, could be 10 years, could be one year. It's up to you. You say, okay, this is what I want to achieve. If there's any, if you're sort of sitting there thinking, oh, I'm not really sure about that, keep going until you've got the clarity. Yes, scribbling. Love it, JT. You're amazing. So here's one last question to think about in this section. And I love this, and I've just worked this question with some members. We have an online membership and I asked this question to the people on the membership. And I love this. This is a classic coaching question, but it really opens up possibility. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? I'll say that again. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? See, again, we know that we're held back by fear. Fear of this, fear of that, fear of the other. So we play small. I don't want for you to play small. I want for you to do what you really love with your creativity. And I would love it this year to be the year that you step into it, grab it by the what's it, and just go for it, all right? Of course, there are always challenges on the way to everything that naturally happens. But again, we're going to talk about how to overcome that as we carry on with the training. So I'm hoping that you've got that. Yes, Alina says yes. Great. I'm loving it. Awesome. All right. So that's really secret number one. Let us move to secret number two. So secret number two, of course, is to create a plan to get you there, all right? So you need to get clear on the destination. You need a map to get you there. A step by step plan that's going to get you there. Otherwise, you're going to get lost and that little side street down there and that shiny object is going to come calling again. So when your vision is clear, like we said, and it really lights you up, then it's time to get planning. Now, don't zone out. I know a lot of people are like, oh, I'm an artist. I don't want to plan at all, planning thing. And here's the thing, I'm talking at this point about your artist business plan. And if you're already subscribed to this channel, you know I talk about that a lot, all right? So you might hate this term. So call it something else, right? You don't need to call it a business plan because it might conjure up door stepping documents. Listen, when I very first started out as a professional artist, I went and got some mentoring. And the guy I saw gave me the door stopper, right? He printed it out. It was like that. He said, oh, first thing you need to do is get a business plan. And it was tiny, like 10-point font or something. And I went home and I'm not kidding. I burst into tears because I didn't understand the jargon that was used. I didn't understand the pie chart. I didn't understand how that document was relevant to me as a painter. Who here resonates and understands with that? Have you ever seen or been given a business plan document that just makes you want to cry because you're like, I just don't see how that's relevant to me. How does that work as an artist, right? All of this stuff just looks like, this is not for me. So I really didn't like the term either. So maybe you call it a mini blueprints or a mind map or it's maybe going to be, you know, your future path or whatever it is that you call it. We just basically want to get the plan on to paper. I'm an old fashion girl, although, you know, I do have all the kits. Resonates so much. Oh, I'm so pleased, Eleanor. That's so cool. So I'm really a believer in writing stuff first. It really does get the neural pathways going and it does really get you in a much better state when you write. But at the end of the day, we're trying to keep the paper down and we also like to have things online as well. So however you do it, it doesn't matter. We just want to get it done. So use or create a different word. Come up with your own word for what we would understand as a business plan. Then we use that. All right, so here's some things that I'm going to talk about that go in the plan. Now again, if you're on the channel, you might have seen other videos and I'll sign post to those below here as well. But basically, we've got, I tend to put a plan into seven sections. So for example, in this plan we're going to need to decide on some of the following. Like mind mapping. See, Jyoti, that's the thing, isn't it? Mind mapping is great because I'd like to take a giant sheet of paper and coloured pens and then you can mind map out and all the different pieces of your plan can be on the mind map and then you can put that up on the wall so that you've got it in your creative space and your constantly looking at it, right? So I think, you know, a mind map is a really good way of doing this as well. All right, so in the first section of your plan we're really looking again at the bit we've just done in the previous secret, right? The first secret was about having that vision and that and seeing you're getting clarity on it. So it's all about clarifying what you want. How much money do you want to be making? What is your vision, mission, purpose? What values are you going to use? So it's all about that vision piece that we've been talking about. And in the second section we're really looking at products essentially. Well, what do you want to be selling? Well, we've also talked a bit about that. Products, services, both, what exactly? And then we're using something like we have a full proof, I can't say that separately, full proof pricing formula. When I very first did a training on that a while back I struggled with saying that. Full proof pricing formula. I've no idea why I struggled but I did. That's me. So you want to be able to price your items for profit because is there anyone here who struggles a little bit with pricing their items, right? We create something, we birth something, we write the book, we make the calls, we put on the workshop, we create the products. Now we have all these beautiful things. Now suddenly we have to put a price tag on them and that again can bring up the mindset stuff. It can bring up the fear. What if somebody doesn't want to pay that amount for my product? That's a whole other conversation from the training. We need a special formula that's going to enable you to come up with the perfect price that will put you into profit and will work for both yourself and your customer. And so we call that a full proof pricing formula. So within then the next set we're looking at is audience. So who do you want to sell your products and services to? And yes, you have a choice, right? You have a choice of exactly who your target audience are going to be. Who's that ideal customer? You know that perfect person who comes along and says, I love that, I must have it, let me have it immediately. Here's some money. Who is that perfect customer? We want to make sure that we can keep them in mind at all times. So when we're doing our marketing, when we're doing our selling, everything that we're doing, we need to be really clear who that person is. And part of this plan is enabling you to find out just that. Then there's the research bit. This is the bit so many creatives give up on. And this piece is critical, right? It might be fun to do some of the other bits. It's like, oh yes, what am I going to be selling? I know I can sell this. Let's do the pricing formula. I've got some prices. I can do the vision mission thing. I could do all of this stuff. Now suddenly it's like, oh research, okay, I don't want to do research. I'll go back to the studio. And I know so many people give up on this. But actually it's probably the most dull part. But it's the critical most important part to your art business. You might say the marketing and sales and finance is surely Sophie. And I'm going to say yes, but I think second only to this piece. Looking at your competitors definitely. But also looking at your strengths and weaknesses and finding the gaps and how to plug those gaps. What are you good at? What are you not so good at? Because the pieces we're not so good at don't get done inevitably. And that can be a real hole. That can be like having holes in the bucket of your art business. So imagine you've got this bucket with all these possibilities for your business. But there's some holes over there. There's a crack at the bottom of the bucket. And you put the worries all just draining out. Until you come until you can plug the holes in that bucket and keep your business whole and filling up. Then you've got a problem, right? If you've got anyone knows who's living in an old building in the UK and you've got leakage happening, it's not good. So we need to find strengths and weaknesses. You want to look at our competitors. Supposing you're living in a town and you just want to sell locally. And you've got this thing that you do that essentially you can't see anyone else particularly doing it. Then you do some research and discover that actually somebody just moved into the area who's offering exactly what you offer. That they offer something more on top and people are going over there. Right? We've got to stay on top of who else is doing what we're doing. A, we might be able to collaborate them with them, which is brilliant. But B, we need to be able to make sure that we can offer something unique for our customers. So this is the most important part of this this area and that is how can you stand out from the crowd? So let's imagine you want to sell online for a minute. How many billion people? I did I did see that number. So something like 5.6 billion searches on Google a day or is it something like that? A ridiculous number of people are online. So imagine people that want to buy art or art courses. They want to learn something. People who are looking for things online. There are millions of people looking and there are thousands and thousands of artists who are offering something probably like you're offering. Right? Why not? There's only so much that we can create. We're going to have people who are offering what we're offering. How do you stand out? By going through this planning process one of the key pieces in the research section is working out what makes you unique. How can you stand out and make that clear as well so that when your customer comes along they go that's exactly what I want. You're doing exactly what I want. That's brilliant. I'll have it thank you. Because when we try to appeal to everybody we please and I can I can say anybody can buy what I have. When it comes to the marketing section you're going to drown, right? You don't have enough time or or money to try and market globally to anyone everybody hoping somebody might buy. You need to be really clear. You want to have a niche and you want to be making sure that you're doing something that sets you apart from other people. Going through the planning process is going to enable you to find that thing. Then the next bit is kind of how do you want to run your business from day to day? So do you want to do it like I'm doing it from a laptop the other side of the world or a tropical island somewhere or something? By the way that looks great on the photos but I remember many many years ago my vision of course was to live somewhere warm. Tick was to be creative. Tick was to work and inspire other people to do the same thing. Tick all of those things. But I have this vision. I'm going to work from the beach. That was my initial I'm going to work from the beach and I've got there it's like well it's sandy it's tropical so I'm sweating the sun is on it doesn't work right it doesn't work. So you've got to think about how do you want to run your business day to day? Again is it just you? Is it a team? Do you want your own studio? Do you want to be working online or your hate computers? I mean you're here so thank you. You might hate computers actually I just want a physical business. I want to run out of my own little studio and do my own thing and have kind of like a micro business. All of these things are possible. You can do any of it so long as you're really clear and you have this really good step by step plan that you've ironed out any possible you know any things that might work might not work. So part of that research obviously as well is threats and threats and challenges because you know none of us could have worked out the pandemic was coming along right and everybody who had a physical business suddenly lost their business overnight. But people who had an online business started booming because everybody was online. But if you'd got a business plan you would have had a plan be a backup. What happens if something goes wrong in the threat area you'd have had an answer for that. So we had an answer for that get online with the membership it was like there it was sitting right there so having this plan is critical. What about the sales and marketing piece? This is the piece that most people get excited about. It's like I'm going to build a business plan how am I going to sell things right? How are you going to reach the people that you want to sell to? This is this is something these are questions I get asked every single day what marketing should I be doing? How do I get in front of my customer? And then this is going through the plan you're going to work out well this is my customer well then maybe these are the marketing strategies I'm going to be choosing. Which things are going to work you know what strategy is going to work best for you and your audience? Where are you going to find them? What sales platform are you going to use? Somebody the day right under one of my videos oh my goodness me I never even thought about working out where my customer was before choosing the sales platform I'm using. Well because what can happen is you put your work up on a platform over here and your audience is still looking for something over here they're going I can't find and you're going hello I'm over here but if you did your research and you've gone through a plan you'd have worked out that your audience is here and you'd have placed your shop right there in front of your audience. Marketing terrifies me. Yeah you know again back in the day when I very first left my J-O-B you know the just over broke thing and I stepped into the world of being an entrepreneur somebody said oh yeah it's marketing and I said oh excuse me I didn't even know what the term meant all right and it was I remember going to my very first marketing and sales workshop and I resonate with you it terrified me too and I sat there notes and I just thought this is horrible I don't like this very much but over the years I learned to love it and I learned to realize that actually as artists we can be really really good at marketing we've just got to pick the strategies that are going to work for us and our customers we want to get a little bit of knowledge about how to do them but a lot of them these days involve being creative they involve writing or they involve making videos or they involve creating images isn't that wonderful but we get to use our skills with marketing we just you know there's definitely a few things to be learned I have lots of videos on marketing on this channel as well and of course it's a mindset thing isn't it it's you know once we understand a bit about it we feel better about it and once we feel better about it the confidence starts to go then we'll start to have better results when you first start out it's a bit like it's like all things isn't it but honestly I promise you the more that you do it the more you learn about it the better you get the confidence grows it happens not necessarily overnight but it 100% will happen okay and then the last bit of course is the money the lovely money the money that people say to me I'm not motivated by money but I'm sure you like it coming in your bank account all right so tracking the money what comes in what goes out your expenses and how does that achieve the money goal that you set at the very beginning so without solidifying all this information you're basically flushing your money and your time down the drain and I'm pretty sure that none of you want to do that I know certainly I didn't want to do that so one of the most critical elements of having a business plan and why we also update it every year is because we set out first off how much money do I want to make and then of course we plan the exact ways that we're going to create it so I've got a very simple example and there's an exercise coming up you'll be pleased to know that's right it's really simple so if you have access to a calculator that would be great otherwise you can again if you're watching later then you can just pause it and do it that way so here's the super and I want to say this is I'm going to stress this this is super super simple but it's the basic fundamental that I teach all the time so this example says we're going to start off with a turnover figure and so just to be clear that's not the profit so the profit is what's left once you've taken all your expenses out so the turnover is everything that's come into the business so we normally start with that figure as in a plan because it's easier to start that way so we're going to pick the annual turnover figure like we did back in the vision and we're going to say okay for this example maybe let's go with 60,000 really easy to divide so then you say okay now I'm going to take my main product say 30 by 30 inch paintings canvases paintings on canvas and for example let's say the average price point of that is typically 1500 dollars, pounds, euros whatever currency you work in so your question is how many would you need to sell in a year to make your turnover goal so in this example of course it's 40 now you might say so this is the scenario isn't it I remember the first time I learned this you might say oh that's great I actually work really small and I churn out about 40 in a month so that's not a problem or actually it takes me a really long time to create that 30 by 30 to sell 40 in a year it would be really tough because I don't know if I can even paint 40 in a year so this is where reality this is your place where reality will happen where you look at it and you go hmm okay something's got to change right if I can't get to a place where I can even paint 40 let alone sell 40 then something's got to something's got to give so either my price has to go up or I've got to introduce one or two more income streams and this is the point of the plan isn't it if you don't know that and you simply start painting 30 by 30 canvases and then finding places to sell them at the end of a few months time you're looking and going oh I've made a bit of money but oh gosh actually my outgoings are out and I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be you need to really get the reality and sometimes the reality can be not very great right you go I'm going to make $200,000 and I've got this product to sell and suddenly you discover you need to sell thousands and thousands of them and you start to feel that fear it's like how am I going to do that so we want to make sure in the plan that you're being there's an element of reality like I can actually physically make that or I can take the time to create that online course now I know we've got Joti who's launching her course right at the moment so you're going to know exactly how much time and energy it's taken putting into a course and launching a course so you know we've got to be realistic when we look at it so you might look at that original figure and say okay what if I sold two or three different items and then you can split the money down and you can say okay this proportion on my paintings this proportion on a course this proportion on prints for example and then when you do that maybe you start to go okay this is more manageable I can do this and this is essentially how you start the plan this is what underpins anything all right over to you the second exercise grab your pen and paper and I'd love for you to pick that annual figure that you already put back in the vision write it down pick a key product that you've either got or you've decided that you would like to have and then divide that into your turnover and work out how many you'd need to sell in a year if you just sold that one item so as I say it's a super simple calculation then you can look at that and go hmm okay yeah no that's probably doable or you look at it and go I can't create that number of things so do that little exercise and I say if you're watching back later pause the video and do it and if you're doing it live you're just going to have to whip the calculator out all right I'm working on an oil painting piece quite different from others in the market awesome client that would pay for it my work is so far unlike this one oh so my work is so far unlike this one so the stuff you've done before is different to this one already so you're saying you're creating a different kind of product basically from what you've currently been doing I mean listen I still advocate our pricing formula and I do have another video to that as well which I'll link under this one but at the end of the day you know you want to go through that formula because it takes you through six steps that means you can price anything but we still want to know who that audience is so the steps in the business plan will take you through all of it see this is the this is a struggle isn't it you can't really do one piece without the other you need the audience you need to know kind of where they are you've got to have worked out a price point that works for you and the way that you're going to be selling the item so if you know that you want to sell via a gallery and you know that your ideal audience shops in galleries then you know you're likely going to need to chop out 40-50% for example so you want to use our pricing formula so definitely check out that other video or hang on to the end because it's all sold in the course as well no worries awesome all right so once you've done that exercise that's the end of the second secret so the third secret drum roll is constantly be working on your mindset all right and this is the piece that I think a lot of people know that they should be doing but don't do and then you know wonder why sometimes they're not always getting the results that they want so now you've clarified your vision you know where you want to go you're like this is what I want here's my big vision this is where I want to go and you've started to map out a plan of how you're going to get they're using an artist business plan the final secret is the mindset piece you want to be constantly working on your positive mindset so that you can execute the plan right with ease because let's face it it's fun doing the vision right you're writing out this is my vision this is what I want this is lovely you might have a little bit of that f-word it's fitting in the old fear word but it's enjoyable writing the vision it can be satisfying building out your artist business plan you're like look I have this mind map I have this document this blueprint I have this lovely thing here's my vision of what I want here's the plan that's going to get me there now what okay it can all crumble when you get to now putting the plan into action because of course that plan whether it's on a whether it's mind map or written however it's done is a working document that you want to follow day in day out because you want to achieve the goal and get to the big vision right I'm assuming you all do so we want to remember things like what we focus on expands so if we focus on success and ease we get more of that but of course if we focus on the other we'll get the other as well we're not even talking about that so one way to keep yourself in a positive zone is of course to surround yourself with other artists and creatives who are on the same journey who want the same things and can help bolster you up right so if you're part of an artist community and you're all working towards a big vision and you can all kind of you know support yourself as you move forward another way is to be learning and I'm not talking about shelf help you know the endless courses we all buy we've all done it and never take I'm talking about really you know having that intention to learn something new every week or every month so that we're constantly expanding so if you have a fear of marketing it's like well I need to learn a bit about marketing so this month I'm going to learn about I know email marketing and now suddenly I feel more confident because I've gained a bit more knowledge so I think we want to be doing that as well and that all helps because the more knowledge you have the more confidence you have with doing something the better you feel the more you'll do or more of it right so it's all expanding the positive mindset so and of course you know you're going to have down days you're going to have days where it doesn't work because at the end of the day building an art business or any business for that matter isn't a nice smooth upward line right life is not like that it does this whoa and then it goes that didn't work and then it goes okay this is this is really good I've tried something I had an exhibition that tanked you have to be able to say okay that was one thing up I go again oh that's working that's working that's working oh that didn't work so it goes like that all right and this is about having that mindset and belief to know that it's not a straight line straight up to the big vision right it's going to wobble but overall it's going to go up and mindset is going to help you stay on track you have the plan you've where you want to go there it is it's crystal clear I can see it I can smell it I can imagine it I can see myself there now I have the roadmap that's going to get me there I just need to follow it and I need to stay in a kind of positive upbeat mindset so that I execute that plan on a day-by-day basis does that make sense I'm hoping that you're kind of like okay I'm getting it so it's it's sort of the big picture is pretty simple right of course it comes down to action so just remember that you are when you're happy and in flow you're unstoppable so keeping in that positive mindset and doing things to keep yourself positive and it enabled you to move forward much faster so there you have it yes indeed yes indeed yes absolutely so there you have it the three key secrets or the three top secrets to art business success number one you want to get clear on what you want so make sure you do that exercise and really keep going until you've got clarity right number two you want to create the plan to get you there so you want to put together your own artist business plan that says huh I want to get here these are the different this is how I'm going to do it this maps out how I'm going to do it and secret number three you want to keep moving and working on your mindset because you know my experience business success is 80 percent mindset and 20 percent strategies and the number of people that say to me what hashtag should I use on Instagram Sophie what should I put in my email you know none of this stuff is is relevant if you don't believe that you're going to succeed all right if you're not staying in that positive I've got this I'm you know I'm on it I'm doing it the mindset is critical to your success so you want to be working on that okay so let's talk about next steps at this point you might be thinking that all sounds great Sophie but how do I get this fabulous standing artist business plan including the help with the vision and of course putting the plan into action so that I can make the money that I want to so that I can hit that goal I'm so glad you asked so at this point if it's okay with you I'm going to just talk a little bit about that course that I mentioned because it might be relevant for some people other people who'd be like no don't need it that's fine but for those of you who like I really would like a bit of help at this point then hang in there I'm just going to talk you through the course and how you can get your hands on it if it's something you would like okay so these three secrets it took me years to actually figure out I learned early on of course having a clear vision of what I wanted I wanted to travel I wanted to live somewhere warm I wanted to be always summer I wanted to paint and coach and help creatives in business and I'm doing that and then for me for me the secret number three came along that was the mindset and I want to say thank you to a million personal development courses and training and mentors that I've had over the years to see I knew that that piece was really important so I had the vision and I had the mindset but it really took me a while to actually crack the business planning part because I'm sure you've heard you know if you fail to plan then you are planning to fail I hate that quote because it's like yeah it's so real right or no business plan no business that's what one of my mentors said to me no business plan no business and then I had all the stats thrown at me the number of people that went out of business in the first two years of business and the two reasons for businesses failing number one a lack of cash flow and number one a lack of business plan so I think it was drummed into me at an early day early on that it was like this was vital but it wasn't until I created my own artist business plan that it was like oh it doesn't have to be the door stopping document it actually can be quite fun and easy to do so luckily I put all this knowledge into an online course called build your artist business plan it's a simple seven-step online course that will literally walk you through filling out the artist business plan then you can do it in seven days or less and actually you can listen to it in just three hours so you can do it really quickly if you want to but we sort of suggest that you listen to a module and do the stuff maybe for an hour and you just do it over a week because it's less impacting and you've got time to think about it as you go forwards so build your artist business plan is the only online training that I know of that not only gives you easy to follow steps to structure that business plan but also provides you with the possibility to design a highly successful profitable art business doing what you love so what's inside the course I hear you say the seven modules plus a bonus module so they're going to mirror exactly what I taught you earlier in the secret number two so module number one is all about the big picture so we're talking all about how to come up with that turnover figure the vision mission purpose your values what's important to you all of that good stuff is in module one module two we're going into that research remember how I said that that was the most critical part of the plan you know what makes you different how do you stand out all of these good things you're going to have another module on finances you're going to have a module on the products and services what do you offer what's the price point the audience the business model the sales and marketing all of the different things that I've talked about today so you'll figure out what you want to sell the price point that you want to sell it you're going to figure out that audience who is it that you actually want to sell and how to get in front of them you're going to figure out the business model how do you actually want to run your business that research how can you set yourself apart from everybody else who seems to be doing what you're doing then how can you do of course the sales and marketing piece what are the right marketing strategies for you and to get you in front of that audience and how are you going to do that how often are you going to do it all of those good things and sales we've even talked about that what's a great sales strategy how do you actually get somebody from liking what you want across the line you'll make these decisions in this plan and then there's a bonus module that pulls it all together and uses a quarterly planning technique that I just love and makes life so simple for us creatives because sure in the plan you're going to be writing you can put it out on a mind map but this last pulling it together module is probably my favorite module because you use a simple sheet of paper or a whiteboard or whatever you want and you're going to end up dividing your year into quarters and you get some even more feet on the ground reality and the number of people that have a haze at this module is massive it's like oh my goodness me okay this is great now actually I can see how this all works and I can make a plan that works for me so this whole course has a value of just under a thousand dollars there's so much content in there but it's taught in really short sharp videos somewhere around the three five minute videos so that you can just do it quickly and easily and you can get into the action and doing of your plan so by the end of this course by the time you've taken the course which I say you can do like you can Netflix it in three hours or you can just do like a module a day especially if you're still working or doing something else you can fit it in the months so by the end of the course you'll have saved hours of your time wondering what you should do and instead you'll have that 100% clarity on the best way to build your art business you'll have removed that risk factor having done the right research so you won't be trying this thing over here trying that right you'll have done the research and worked out what you want to achieve you'll have gained 100% clarity on what you want to do or what you don't want to be selling all right and how you're going to be doing that you'll also have chosen that audience and how to reach them so you can start building an all-important relationship over time you'll have concentrated on the right marketing and sales strategies for you and your audience and avoid flushing all that money and time and of course you created a simple blueprint mind map plan for you to follow every single day so what's included in this course you have 24 seven lifetime access it's an online course you have your own unique logins you can log in whenever you want and the good thing about having lifetime access is for example we've just updated one of the modules in there so when we do that again you'll just get the updated version all the time so they said there's those seven modules plus the bonus pulling it together module it's around 29 super short lessons so you can do it in bite-sized bits you get our beautiful artist business plan template that you can fill in online or print off you get the artist cash flow template and a video on how to fill it out folks and all the money you get also to use if you want to the private facebook community that you can go and ask questions if you want to now I'm also going to be doing some lives in there so you get two bonuses when you join this today so the first bonus is I'm going to be running for um dive deep and we have to say that again so if you four lives that dive deeper into the into the content I'm just trying to say things twice in one sentence there so basically I'm going to take kind of two modules at a time and just go a bit deeper into that so those live trainings happening in the group and whenever you're watching that they've either already happened or about to happen you'll get all the recordings of all the lives that I ever do either in the facebook group but also upload them into the course so you'll have extra extra kind of content and deeper dive into it as well and then the second bonus is a separate mini training that I'm going to be running live again this this um probably in this next month and then we'll also be uploaded included with the course and that's called how to put your business plan into action and it walks you through some simple steps of once you've got the plan right and the mindset how to actually action the plan like how do we do that on a day by day basis so I've made it so what now what do I do so that little training would actually tell you practically how to actually put your plan into action so that whole bundle there has a total value the bonuses the course the modules all the all the extra training and upgrades you're going to get total value of around two thousand dollars of course I'm not going to charge you that today you know that how that goes so you can grab this course grab this course build your artist business plan for just in Australian dollars ninety seven dollars and that is in British pounds around the fifty five fifty six pounds if you're US dollars it's around sixty eight but wait there's a three pay so if you're just starting out and you're like oh so if you're all the dollars all the pounds are adding up you can get in from thirty five dollars on a three pay so that'll take three payments over three months I'm just going to put the link in the comments I believe there's also a live link below this video as well but I've just popped it in there so that takes you direct to the page that gives you all the information again probably much clearer than I've just spouted it at you gives you all again of what's in the course the bonuses you've got the choice of paying full or paying on the three pay and like I said you've lifetime access now what happens if you just think oh god okay um I've bought the course but it's not the course I wanted then you we also have a 30 day money back guarantee so there is zero risk for you joining today you join today in a week down the line you're going to go I learned nothing not that we've had anybody ever say that but you might hate it right if you hate it we won't be offended and we'll offer you a full money back guarantee so we've got that so just to sum up this course is perfect for you if you're just starting out as a professional artist and you want to make a hundred percent sure you're setting things up correctly from the start it's also perfect for you if you've been trying to sell your work for a while but somehow nothing is quite working and it's a bit frustrating and you just want to get going it's also for you if you really really want to have a successful art business now is the moment 2022 is your year or 2023 or 2024 whenever you're watching this you're passionate motivated and you're ready to do the work required hit the link take your choice of payment and we'll see you on the other side if you've got any questions you can shoot them below this video or if you want to be you know you can send me a private message on Instagram I hang out over there a lot if you want a direct message me and say I have a question on that page you'll also see at the bottom I'll frequently ask questions so we've covered a lot of questions that people often have for courses in that page as well so that's really all I wanted to say it's a fabulous little course we love it we've had really good feedback from people who've taken it it's been kind of closed off for a year or so at the time of recording this and it just seemed like such a waste to have it sitting there so we're like let's refresh it make it look new and lovely and let's have it available for anybody and everybody to purchase whenever they want to so grab the link shoot over there get yourself the course and we'll see you on the other side I'll say any questions just pop below the video or shoot me a dm anywhere and so thank you so much for investing your time I really am honored that you spent it with me this morning this afternoon this evening this night whenever wherever you're watching this will now stay this stays on my channel anyway but I say I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who stayed on to the end and wish you all and every success with building your very successful and profitable art business and I will look forward to seeing you back on this channel as well very very soon all right take care everybody thank you so much for being here