 Can you really make money from your art in 2023? I get asked so many questions like these. What about the current financial situation? Will people stop spending on art? What will I do then? What if I'm a newbie and I just started out? Galleries are closing or have closed. So how do I sell my art? Should I just drop my prices? Well, I have the answer to all of these and more in this video. But stay right to the end, too, because I have some really useful resources that I think you're going to love and they're really going to enable you to make sure that you are building a stable business for next year. Well, hello and welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name's Sophie and I help artists just like you to set up Market and Grow, a highly successful business doing what you love. If you'd like more tips and tricks on how to build that successful business, then you're in the right place. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and hit that bell to get notified every time I post a new video. So can you really make money from your art in 2023? The simple answer, much to your relief, is yes. But it falls down to a few things and here are the three most vital things that you want to pay attention to. But number one, mindset. Where are your beliefs? Your thoughts and your beliefs form your reality. So if you think you can, you will. But if you think you can't, unfortunately that's going to come true for you as well. So it comes down to whether you are prepared to discover, learn and grow. The second one, strategy. That's what, where, to whom and how you plan to sell your products or services. And the third one, most importantly, is flexibility. Would you be able to and willing to pivot 360 in the middle of your year if it meant your survival? Or are you going to stay stuck in a rut and say, I've done it this way, Sophie, I'm not making any changes? Because I'm going to let you know if you are not going to play the flexibility card next year, you're probably going to struggle. If you've got something that's working for you, that's great, but times change. So we've got to stay alert, we've got to stay prepared and that might mean changing something altogether. So if you're prepared to work on your mindset, to be very focused on your strategy and to stay flexible, then I think you've got a good head start. Then of course, there's a few more equally vital things that we need to pay attention to if you're going to make money from your art next year. First up, more than ever, you're going to need to be 100% professional. So there's no time to be kind of dilly-dallying, not quite sure, you can't just be in that murky water. It's decision time, hobby or business. That brings me to the second one. You're going to need to set up as a business and create your artist's business plan because you know what they say, no plan, no business. And that's going to be even more important when we have rocky times ahead economically. So sometimes you can get away with it, people are going to say to me, also if you have never had a business plan, I've survived okay. Well, that's great, but when times get tough, the ones that haven't got the business plan are going to struggle. And you're not going to be one of those, right? You're going to be an artist who is professional, who makes money, who's going to do well in 2023. Then we look at the area of research. The third thing you're going to need to do is you're going to need to research more than ever. Again, it's not the moment to stay in a kind of foggy bliss of not knowing what's going on. You're going to need to do some research. And a vital part of this, the next one is not ignoring your SWOT analysis. That's normally when I teach business planning where most people run for the door, right? Shh, let's run for the door. Let's exit. SWOT, who wants to do that? What is that anyway? SWOT, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Right, this is really, really important when we have challenging times ahead. Strengths, you need to list out the strengths of yourself and your art business specifically. Then you need to look at your weaknesses. What things are you not so good at? Where do you need to plug the gaps with those? Opportunities. Now in a year that's a little bit turbulent, you will find there will always be an opportunity there for you if you can spot it. And then threats. Well, the number one threat you're going to write down, of course, is the turbulent financial situation, shall we say? And then you're going to look at how can you plug those gaps? How can you actually find opportunity where it doesn't look like there is some? Because again, like I said, trust me, there will be opportunity out there. And how can you make sure that your weaknesses and your threats are actually covered off? The next thing you want to make sure that you do is get financially savvy. And again, this is something you should be doing anyway. In fact, all of this stuff you should be doing anyway. But now more than ever, you want to get financially savvy, not just with your personal finances, but of course, your business finances. If it's something that you need help with, go and get some professional help so you understand what you need to do to run your business. Don't guess which marketing strategies to use. I know so many artists who are just like, yeah, I'm going to do that because that looks good. That looks easy, I could do that. Again, anything to do with guesswork goes out the window when times get just a little bit challenging. You need to do the research. Find out, well, where are your customers? First off, who are they? But we've got a video on that. If you're not sure who your audience are, make sure to check out that video and I'll put as well as that card, I'll put a link below as well. It's really important to know who the audience are because then you're going to look at, well, where are they already hanging out? And I've got other marketing videos. So again, I'll put links to the most useful ones below this one. But it's not time to be guessing which strategy to use. You want to make sure that you've chosen the best ones for your audience and for yourself. You want to make sure that you've chosen the smartest marketing strategies that are going to get your work in front of your ideal audience. Avoid putting all your eggs in the social media basket. That's assuming you take the social media basket into 2023 at all. Just know, so many times people ask me, Sophie, have you got a course in social media? Do you teach it? Do you talk about it? Should I be on this platform, that platform? Don't forget, you don't need to be on any social media to build a business. Let's just face that. It can be very useful. Of course, it's very good to build brand awareness. It seems very quick and easy. Although let's face it, we can spend a lot of time going down the social media plug hole, but you don't own it. That's the most important thing. And we have no idea what's going to happen in the future. So if all you do is build a giant Facebook page or focus on getting followers on Instagram or many million people following your TikTok videos, that platform could disappear or could change. That could do a pivot 360 next year and you'll find, oh my goodness me, what I've been doing before, I can't do now. So more than ever, you need to build your own marketing, your own mailing list, your own business. And if you want to, move away from social media. No more hoping you're gonna make a sale. No more sitting by the phone going, it's not ringing. Sophie, it's not ringing. I posted something, it's not ringing. All right, no more hoping, wishing, waiting. Be strategic. I've got videos, I've got resources, I've got training, I've got all the things that you need in order to set up and build a stable profitable business, right? And of course then there's the work piece. You've got to be prepared to do the work to put those strategies into place. So no more hoping. Make sure that you have strategic formula or steps to follow. And the last tip in this section, planning. Make planning your best friend. If you're one of those artists who says to me, oh my God, Sophie, I don't ever want to do any planning. I totally hear you, right? I get you. But sometimes planning can actually be really, really useful. In fact, if I didn't plan, I wouldn't manage to do all the different things that I get done in my day or week. I would be running around working out what I should be doing. I'd be chasing my tail, I'd be firefighting, right? I don't want that for you. So planning can really enable you to get maximum time in the studio if that's what you do. Maximum time making or delivering whatever art products or services you make and minimal but effective time running the business side of things. So let's go back to those questions that I get asked all the time that I mentioned at the beginning. So what about that current financial situation? Well, I think we've pretty much covered that, haven't we? You're gonna get professional, you're gonna get savvy and you're gonna be prepared to be a bit flexible if you need to be. Will people stop spending on art? Listen, people will never stop spending on art. Do you perhaps need to look at a different audience sector very possibly? It could be that the people that once bought your art are not gonna buy it next year. In which case, again, this comes back to flexibility, right? This comes back to mindset and flexibility. You need to find a different audience who will buy. I can assure you that there are a group of people who will always buy art and they are not affected so much as other people buy financial changes and economic unrest. So you just gotta make sure that you are prepared to pivot like we spoke about and find those people who will always buy art. What if I'm a newbie and I'm just starting out? Well, I have lots of tools and resources to give you at the end. So remember to hang on to that. But again, we've talked about setting up as a professional business and we've talked about having a business plan. When you have a business plan, you have a simple roadmap to follow to enable you to get where you want to go. If you don't have a business plan, you don't have a business, right? What if other artists are doing what I'm doing? Well, they will be and they have done forever and a day. This makes absolutely no difference. The things that you can do about it, you can decide to completely ignore it and carry on anyway, because if there's a market, people are buying that your competitors work and they're gonna be buying yours as well. And the other way to look at it is to just say, well, how can you make yourself different? How can you come up with a unique selling angle that your competitors haven't thought about? Really simple. Galleries have closed. How on earth am I gonna sell my art? So this really is only gonna affect you if you are 100% all your eggs in the gallery basket and all the galleries that you use to sell your work have now closed. Again, what did we talk about staying flexible? It's time to pivot. There are many ways to market and sell your art. Galleries is only one of them. For starters, you could look online. You could take your physical business online or you could do your own set up, your own shows, have open studios, have exhibitions, find places to rent and create that opportunity where there seemed like there wasn't one before. And last but not least, my favorite question or my least favorite question, perhaps, should I drop my prices? Now this is where I wanna get out and get a giant sledgehammer and bang in the answer to this question, all right? It's a resounding no, no, no. You never, ever drop your prices. Why? Because it makes it look like the value of what you've produced has suddenly bottomed out. Oh, actually, this piece that was worth 5,000 is only worth 2,000. Well, what was wrong with it that you suddenly put it down to 2,000? Okay, so dropping the price on your art is an absolute no, no. Finding a different audience who resonates with what you've got at the current price point is spot on, pivoting, changing, doing something different. The only time we might want to drop our price and we're not really dropping the price is if we've got old stock and we wanna have a sale and we want to move it on. But your current collection or your courses or your art coaching or any of the things that you do, if anything, you should be raising your prices in a new year. And this is where we go back to number one of those three things. And that's mindset. When you believe in the value of your product and or service, then that is gonna exude to the customer. The customer wants to buy a high quality product or service. And if that's what you offer, there's always a segment of the market who are ready to buy just that. At the beginning, I promised you some resources. Now you probably already know that below this video I have a list of freebies or maybe you've never checked out before. So maybe you check it out this time. I have a variety of different PDF freebies covering various different topics for 10 things that you want to be doing in order to make a living from your art. That's a really good one right now. I've also got a fairly new free training. It's about 35, 40 minutes max. It's not a long training. It's the six steps to successfully sell your art, probably really relevant that you might want to grab that training. And then as well as the free stuff I have to paid for items that again, I think would be really, really useful if you're looking to seriously set up and grow your business next year. The first one is my foundational Build Your Artist Business Plan online course. You can check that out. Again, I've put links below the video and you can grab that for just 97 Australian dollars. And then the other resource which is the ultimate resource, perhaps ideally if you've really created the business plan and that is our Art Business Academy. The Art Business Academy is a monthly membership for female artists specifically in order to help them gain the confidence and the skills to set up and grow that business. And it is underpinned by our Art Vis Success path that walks you through every stage of growing a successful art business. If you want to find out more, make sure to check out the links below this video to find out everything you need to know about the online course and the membership as well. Thank you so much for watching this video and I'll see you on the next one.