Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 21 - Navigating the Business Side of Art with Tom Neel

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Ep. 21 - Navigating the Business Side of Art with Tom Neel · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: Hey everybody.
• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: We're back again with another episode of Big Talk about small business, and I'm here with my buddy, eric Howard, and co-host, so Mark, you kind of jump started that intro.
• 0:19
  Mark Zweig: I did.
• 0:19
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I mean did I caught you off guard, not in a well, not just me, but I think the whole the production team, the tech team too.
• 0:27
  Mark Zweig: But we're good, now Everything's fine.
• 0:28
  Mark Zweig: Can I do it all over again?
• 0:30
  Eric Howerton: No, no, that'd be boring for the audience.
• 0:33
  Eric Howerton: Then you, yeah, go ahead.
• 0:36
  Mark Zweig: Eric, it's not as wound up today as you normally are.
• 0:40
  Mark Zweig: What's the deal?
• 0:41
  Eric Howerton: I think it's just you know it's.
• 0:43
  Eric Howerton: Friday you know, I'm just you know, I'm just glad to get through the week.
• 0:47
  Eric Howerton: Mark, and just you know, just get ready for a nice relaxing weekend.
• 0:51
  Eric Howerton: Good, I'm just kidding.
• 0:53
  Eric Howerton: Like you hate that.
• 0:57
  Mark Zweig: Working for the weekend?
• 0:58
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, exactly, we have a guest with us today who's not in the studio but dialed in via remote, and this is my friend, tom Neal.
• 1:09
  Mark Zweig: Tom has a great story to tell.
• 1:12
  Mark Zweig: He is a very successful, fine artist.
• 1:15
  Mark Zweig: That's not how he and I became acquainted, but we're going to talk about that today.
• 1:20
  Mark Zweig: He's also a big gear head into cars and bikes and that was a big part of his past, and that is how Tom and I became acquainted is we're both into motorcycles.
• 1:36
  Mark Zweig: So, Tom, how are you doing today, buddy?
• 1:40
  Mark Zweig: I'm doing good Friday, eric's happy and you know, that's all it counts Right, have you had like a hundred mile ride yet today, tom, like you normally do.
• 1:52
  Tom Neel: No, I've.
• 1:52
  Tom Neel: I've been pretty chilled today with I didn't get.
• 1:56
  Tom Neel: I got on nothing, but I did 187 on my scooter the other day so that was wow 187 miles in your scooter, yeah.
• 2:05
  Tom Neel: Yeah, you know, I've got a.
• 2:07
  Tom Neel: I've got a 2023 Vespa 300 GTS.
• 2:12
  Tom Neel: It does like 80 miles an hour.
• 2:14
  Tom Neel: You can cover ground and it's super fun.
• 2:17
  Eric Howerton: They are fun.
• 2:17
  Eric Howerton: Do you usually ride?
• 2:19
  Eric Howerton: Is that like riding like just on some back two lanes, two lane, hills and winding turns and all that Are you hitting?
• 2:27
  Eric Howerton: How are you doing?
• 2:29
  Tom Neel: Well, this ride that I just did, I went up kind of a highway 321 that we have up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is big out east here, and and then I rode down the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while and then came off the mountain on this twisty turn road that the scooter likes.
• 2:49
  Tom Neel: In fact, I had this bozo behind me and a brand new Bronco that decided I wasn't going fast enough for him, so I just made him a tiny dot in my mirror in a matter of seconds and I think he was like well, what's this guy doing on this?
• 3:05
  Mark Zweig: scooter.
• 3:05
  Mark Zweig: He said that ain't no moped, that's right.
• 3:10
  Tom Neel: The biggest problems with scooters is that when people lose their license at least here in North Carolina the go to transportation is to buy 50 CC scooter because you don't need a driver's license Right.
• 3:22
  Tom Neel: So, anytime people see people on a scooter, they think they're a guy that's lost their license from drunk driving and they can't go over 25 miles an hour, and so I always have to kind of prove them wrong with my scooter.
• 3:37
  Mark Zweig: We have that same deal here, Tom.
• 3:39
  Mark Zweig: If you see somebody our age riding a scooter, the automatic assumption is DUI, but not ones that go 80.
• 3:48
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, now you live in North Carolina.
• 3:51
  Mark Zweig: Where are you exactly?
• 3:53
  Mark Zweig: What town?
• 3:55
  Tom Neel: Put your finger on Charlotte, move north, and there's a big lake there called Lake Norman, which, because of all the NASCAR drivers that live there, it's commonly known as the Redneck Riviera, and I live on the western side of that, in a little town called Denver.
• 4:15
  Mark Zweig: Okay, so so tell us a little bit.
• 4:17
  Mark Zweig: Tell us a little bit about yourself Now.
• 4:21
  Mark Zweig: Where did you grow up and how in the world did you end up?
• 4:24
  Mark Zweig: In North Carolina, in Denver?
• 4:27
  Tom Neel: I was born in Washington DC, raised in Maryland, migrated to Virginia, so I kind of call myself a Beltway mutt, and that's where my family was from, or, as they like to say, where my people were from.
• 4:41
  Tom Neel: And I did a couple of stints in other places.
• 4:46
  Tom Neel: I moved to California, in Southern California in the late 70s and then again in the mid-80s and one time in Connecticut.
• 4:58
  Tom Neel: But the North Carolina factor was is that my wife and I were looking for something else to do.
• 5:04
  Tom Neel: Or, as she said to me, I want to do something else.
• 5:08
  Tom Neel: And I knew that I meant I was going to be moving or getting a divorce, and I wasn't getting a divorce.
• 5:14
  Tom Neel: So we looked around, but North Carolina was a place that we had vacationed a lot.
• 5:22
  Tom Neel: So that's how we ended up in North Carolina.
• 5:25
  Tom Neel: So I could turn it into a longer story than it needs to be, but we moved here in 2019, about six months before the pandemic happened.
• 5:36
  Mark Zweig: Oh, wow, so you haven't been there all that long?
• 5:39
  Mark Zweig: No, yeah, so tell us a little bit about your career.
• 5:44
  Mark Zweig: I know you've had a very interesting career to get to where you are, and it certainly did not start out in art.
• 5:52
  Mark Zweig: So tell everybody a little bit about your background.
• 5:58
  Tom Neel: You know, I listen I was caught up in stuff.
• 6:03
  Tom Neel: If I gave you the earliest fun facts about me, I was a kid with dyslexia, so I wasn't at problems in school anyway before people really knew what dyslexia was.
• 6:13
  Tom Neel: And then my parents went through a divorce when I was getting ready to go into high school.
• 6:22
  Tom Neel: So when I went to high school there was 2,000 kids.
• 6:27
  Tom Neel: I had the only divorced parents, not like you'd find today right.
• 6:31
  Tom Neel: So it caused a lot of problems and learning things.
• 6:36
  Tom Neel: But the one thing I was never afraid to do was work.
• 6:39
  Tom Neel: So I worked as much as I could and one of those jobs because I love cars and I loved art, but one of those jobs was working with a friend of my brother's on his sea dragster.
• 6:56
  Tom Neel: So that gave me a taste into racing.
• 6:58
  Tom Neel: And then when I got to 12th grade I probably you know I should say this I got saved at least by one teacher, a teacher named Mrs Heidelberger, because I was just crashing and burning and man, I'll tell you the power of one teacher.
• 7:18
  Tom Neel: She got a hold of me when I was just dying in English, brought me in and she had a class on journalism and I ended up writing for the school newspaper, had one of the most popular articles and found something of interest in a person that actually cared about me when my parents were yelling at each other and the whole place was self-destructing.
• 7:41
  Tom Neel: So for me, by the time I graduated from high school which was I would almost classify as barely I was a working guy.
• 7:53
  Tom Neel: I went right to work on.
• 7:55
  Tom Neel: The one thing I thought I could make money with was cars, you know, and so the first 10 years of my working life were all automotive related.
• 8:08
  Tom Neel: But I kept stumbling into just wonderful things like I started working with a guy on the finest collection of Ferraris there was in the country at the time.
• 8:19
  Tom Neel: They were owned by the man that owns Silvercraft Furniture Company in High Point, and I can remember things like if you all remember the original Thomas Crown affair with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen, she was driving a very rare 275 GT4 Roadster and I can remember driving that car to North Carolina, and so this collection today would be $100 million worth of cars, and the guy that I worked for really taught me some work ethic about things.
• 8:59
  Tom Neel: We'd end the day early and you guys remember Varsal, which you can't find anymore, but I would clean all the hoses in the shop and put them in a spiral on the floor and clean tools and stuff.
• 9:11
  Tom Neel: So I learned to work ethic that I'd never really had before.
• 9:15
  Tom Neel: And at the same time there was a guy there with a funny car.
• 9:21
  Tom Neel: So I started working on funny cars as a mechanic for those and, by and by, just different things that I did in the automotive industry.
• 9:33
  Tom Neel: One day, unless I was going to tell the story a lot longer, I ended up in Southern California.
• 9:40
  Tom Neel: Number three or four guy at a family owned $35 million automotive suspension company and some people will know it as Rancho Suspension.
• 9:50
  Tom Neel: It's a mere piece of what it is today.
• 9:53
  Tom Neel: But there, all of a sudden, I was really.
• 9:58
  Tom Neel: Any business that I had learned along the way had sharpened itself right to that point and I'm in 150,000 square foot warehouse with train cars pulling up to the back and it was my job to sell lots of parts and that all worked great.
• 10:23
  Mark Zweig: Was that your Tom?
• 10:24
  Mark Zweig: Was that a springboard to your current career?
• 10:27
  Mark Zweig: No pun intended.
• 10:30
  Tom Neel: No, it really was, because I found.
• 10:34
  Tom Neel: But I found that what it was a springboard to me was frustration.
• 10:45
  Tom Neel: I just I ended up hating my job and the one gift my father and I my father and I just argued and had a horrible relationship.
• 10:58
  Tom Neel: But he died at 52 and the greatest gift that he gave me was showing me how short life can be.
• 11:05
  Tom Neel: And so from that point on I said if I'm unhappy, I'm going after something I'm passionate about.
• 11:12
  Tom Neel: I'm not going to die in a ball of stress over something I don't care about.
• 11:16
  Tom Neel: And I decided right there.
• 11:20
  Tom Neel: And then I was going to be a fine artist because I had wanted to be.
• 11:23
  Tom Neel: I wasn't going to worry about money because I had learned business and I just figured I'd apply myself more into the creative side of things.
• 11:32
  Tom Neel: And there I went.
• 11:35
  Tom Neel: I walked away from that job that paid great money.
• 11:38
  Tom Neel: My boss couldn't believe I was doing it, but I moved back to Maryland and and painted day and night.
• 11:46
  Tom Neel: And here I am today.
• 11:51
  Mark Zweig: So how long ago was that time that you started to full time as an artist?
• 11:57
  Tom Neel: Um, well, I I left there in 1986 and from California, and by the time I came back, nothing happens overnight.
• 12:08
  Tom Neel: So I had a friend of mine.
• 12:10
  Tom Neel: It was in a commercial real estate and I started working with him, Um, and through that met a couple other friends, uh, but one guy ended up being a guy named Douglas Jamal, who is still a real estate developer, uh, well known in New York, and he used to have a business called nobody beats the whiz, which was a huge.
• 12:33
  Tom Neel: I remember that $600 million electronics company.
• 12:38
  Tom Neel: And you know, the one thing I have to say to everybody is that lessons come along in life and sometimes it can be one person telling you one thing that it can change your life.
• 12:54
  Tom Neel: Like Doug told me.
• 12:56
  Tom Neel: He said, um, always talk to the horse's head, because if you're not, you're talking to the horse's ass and I said wow, that's a great line, but it was really true.
• 13:10
  Tom Neel: So I made sure that, as I moved through life, that I was talking to people that could make decisions and not people that had to talk to people that had to make decisions.
• 13:22
  Mark Zweig: Right, yep, that's so such a good lesson to learn.
• 13:27
  Tom Neel: Yeah, but he knew, uh, even as I was being paid and things, that art was my passion and that was the direction I was going to go in.
• 13:36
  Tom Neel: And the other thing about it was is that, um, as you two both know, because you're successful, you can't get anywhere if you don't intend to.
• 13:47
  Tom Neel: So as soon as you start intending to do something, it's funny how doors just open up and you're like on a walking along the airport, you're dragging the bags in them, bam, you hit this people mover and you're just moving along and the only thing that really really happened is that you intended to get some place, and so many people I talked to they're going well, I can't make this happen.
• 14:14
  Tom Neel: I go.
• 14:15
  Tom Neel: Do you really intend for that to happen with this plan?
• 14:19
  Tom Neel: And they go well, and I go as soon as you're going well, you're not really sure you got to intend for it to happen.
• 14:27
  Mark Zweig: No question about it.
• 14:28
  Mark Zweig: You got to be able to visualize where you're trying to go, and then you'll make it happen.
• 14:36
  Eric Howerton: So when you were, I guess, was art really important to you.
• 14:39
  Eric Howerton: When you're growing up, you know younger, I didn't really catch that how much you were painting and doing things like that before you took on the job in California.
• 14:47
  Tom Neel: I mean I would say, eric, it was, you know, in the book I wrote I call it my salvation, because my parents were arguing and things were tough and rough and everybody needs something to ground them when things are crazy.
• 15:02
  Tom Neel: Sometimes it's religion, sometimes it's a best friend.
• 15:05
  Tom Neel: For me it was art.
• 15:07
  Tom Neel: I could go and express myself.
• 15:09
  Tom Neel: I didn't get any back talk out of it, it was just a good vibe.
• 15:13
  Tom Neel: So when I got to that place in life where life was stressful and for whatever reason, that job just was driving me crazy, it wasn't about people anymore, it was all about just numbers.
• 15:28
  Tom Neel: I turned back to art and from art that brought me and my wife Linda who has her own very interesting story, but she had built an art gallery ended up being the first person to sell my art From there.
• 15:49
  Tom Neel: You guys will remember 1989 was an incredible year in business.
• 15:55
  Tom Neel: 1990 was most certainly not.
• 15:58
  Tom Neel: It was a little like we have today.
• 16:00
  Tom Neel: We had the Gulf War, we had the country run out of money and in our particular case, where the gallery was in a town called Leesburg, virginia, they started to build a parking garage as we went into recession and killed all the parking spaces.
• 16:20
  Tom Neel: But you know, that intention thing stayed with me and the largest fine art publishing company, of which we sold their prints and some originals for them out of the blue, asked us to come work for us, for them.
• 16:37
  Tom Neel: And so all of a sudden I moved to Connecticut I'm working for this huge publishing company and kind of found myself as an artist liaison where I was going to meet some of the best artists in the country helping them with business, while they were helping me with art.
• 16:58
  Tom Neel: I mean, again I hit that people mover in the airport and I'm just fired off again like a.
• 17:04
  Tom Neel: I was shot out of a cannon.
• 17:05
  Tom Neel: And so around 1994, may of 1994.
• 17:13
  Tom Neel: And actually a bunch of those artists and my wife said you know, it's time for you to come a full time painter.
• 17:20
  Tom Neel: So that's even though I was painting and selling my paintings through that whole time never lost sight of that.
• 17:27
  Tom Neel: That's when I started painting full time.
• 17:29
  Tom Neel: I went, moved out and back to Virginia.
• 17:31
  Tom Neel: We had owned a second home there and I I basically told myself at that time you have $15,000, I gave myself a mental $15,000 alone and I said after one year, if you don't have any of it left, you're going to go get a job and you move on, and that was, you know, a bunch of years ago.
• 17:58
  Tom Neel: So you know, here we are.
• 18:01
  Eric Howerton: Congratulations.
• 18:01
  Eric Howerton: That's awesome story.
• 18:02
  Eric Howerton: It really is.
• 18:03
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 18:04
  Mark Zweig: So, tom, you've been able to be make a successful living out of your art.
• 18:10
  Mark Zweig: Why do so many artists struggle with this idea?
• 18:18
  Mark Zweig: I mean, it's sort of conventional wisdom, you know, I think you and I I told you once on one of our calls that my ex-wife and all her family were painters, and you know, the conventional wisdom amongst that group is, oh, you can't make any money as an artist.
• 18:37
  Mark Zweig: What is it that you did that made you successful, you think, aside from being talented, I mean, let's just say that not everybody who's as talented as you are is as successful in the art business as you are.
• 18:51
  Mark Zweig: Let's just start with that assumption.
• 18:54
  Tom Neel: Well, listen, mark, I'll put the talent part aside.
• 18:58
  Tom Neel: Let's not even you know, because arts all over the place and somebody might look at my paintings and go I don't think they're that great.
• 19:06
  Tom Neel: And they might look at some other guy that can't make a nickel and say it's the greatest art in the world.
• 19:11
  Tom Neel: So that's the first thing.
• 19:13
  Tom Neel: Just put that aside.
• 19:16
  Tom Neel: I think artists get a bad rap mostly because they themselves are not acting professional.
• 19:24
  Tom Neel: They artist.
• 19:25
  Tom Neel: Many of them by nature, want to hide under a rock and they want to lift the rock up and stick their hand out and grab this, check that somebody's dropped by the rock and pull it back under the rock.
• 19:36
  Tom Neel: And you know they're wallflowers and things like that and you know they have to understand that if your intention is to be an artist that's going to make a living, once you take $1, you're in business.
• 19:52
  Tom Neel: All of the rest of us that are in business or have been in business or help people with business realize as soon as that dollar comes in, that's revenue.
• 20:04
  Tom Neel: And now what are you going to do with it?
• 20:06
  Tom Neel: I mean, you know lots of businesses work for a long time before really revenue even happens.
• 20:12
  Tom Neel: So if you're getting some money for your art.
• 20:15
  Tom Neel: You're in business whether you like it or not, and you better accept it, and I've often told artists especially you're naturally going to gravitate towards classes and education that teach you about art.
• 20:31
  Tom Neel: Just please, for God's sake, take one business class, anything that will help you survive as an artist.
• 20:40
  Tom Neel: Just understand, and even if you're not good at business, even if you don't want to, then you need to acknowledge that you're going to have to have someone who is, because if not, you're not going to make it or you're going to be taken advantage of right.
• 20:55
  Tom Neel: So I used to talk to artists and they would be around talking at an art show or something, and I'd walk up and they would go we don't understand how you're successful, so successful.
• 21:08
  Tom Neel: And I would say because I don't hang around you guys, I hang around people that buy art and they would.
• 21:15
  Tom Neel: They would all look at each other and and go, well, but that's what it was.
• 21:22
  Tom Neel: So what when I turned and you know this wasn't something that happened overnight, but when I, my business was doing as good as it possibly could I invested in nice clothes, in a member of a country club, and the number one thing I created was not art, it was opportunity.
• 21:47
  Tom Neel: I looked for situations where I would be an environment where, hey, lots of business is done at a country club or find dining, restaurants and places like that have nothing to do with art, but you think of all the deals that go on.
• 22:06
  Tom Neel: This is where this is where business is done, and so, for me, I could either have a gallery, go and do it while I've owned a couple of galleries and I've directed a very large one To me if I was going to do this myself, I need to put myself out there.
• 22:23
  Tom Neel: I needed to look like somebody that was living in a gutter and and I needed to be responsible.
• 22:29
  Tom Neel: And so that's the biggest thing, if and I it's I want everybody to know, let's just say anybody out there is a creative type.
• 22:41
  Tom Neel: You can be an animator for Pixar and make a good living.
• 22:46
  Tom Neel: You can be a fine artist, painter, you can be a photographer, you can be a website developer.
• 22:53
  Tom Neel: It's still all going to come down to you.
• 22:57
  Tom Neel: Better understand how the business that you're in works, and you know or you will.
• 23:04
  Tom Neel: You will fit it's.
• 23:06
  Tom Neel: It's not a mean thing.
• 23:08
  Mark Zweig: That's the entire talk to the head of the horse instead of the rear of the horse Right.
• 23:13
  Tom Neel: It's, it's, it's absolutely the case.
• 23:17
  Tom Neel: You know, and I, even even on that level mark, I've told many people that just have jobs.
• 23:24
  Tom Neel: If you work for a company any company, any job your number one job when you get inside that company is to understand how revenue comes into that company, because the closer you are to that, the more you are protected and the less chance you're going to get laid off.
• 23:45
  Tom Neel: When things are bad, they go lay off the mail room guy or whatever.
• 23:51
  Tom Neel: They're not laying off people that are bringing in revenue.
• 23:53
  Tom Neel: At least at least understand how revenue comes into the company and if you're a small business, just a business of one person, never take your site off.
• 24:06
  Tom Neel: How your revenue is coming in Right, it's not just dropping out of the sky.
• 24:12
  Mark Zweig: So so I'm curious now I know you do commissioned art and then you also do art that you just want to do and you sell right, right.
• 24:22
  Mark Zweig: What's the breakdown there between commissions and stuff that you just want?
• 24:27
  Eric Howerton: to do?
• 24:27
  Eric Howerton: What does commission art mean?
• 24:28
  Mark Zweig: Meaning somebody pays you specifically to create a piece of art for a location or a building or to meet whatever their goal is.
• 24:38
  Tom Neel: What are your thoughts on that.
• 24:40
  Tom Neel: There are wishes.
• 24:41
  Tom Neel: So to me, I did gallery paintings that would hang in a gallery and I did commission art and really more towards, let's say, the last third of the time that I've been a painter.
• 24:54
  Tom Neel: I focused well, I'm not going to say 100%, but pretty close to 100%.
• 25:01
  Tom Neel: My brain was on commissions and at times I would have a dozen commissions lined up and my average painting was $6,000 to $10,000 and I was mindful of customer service.
• 25:20
  Tom Neel: That was all important to me.
• 25:25
  Tom Neel: I remember an artist one time saying to me.
• 25:27
  Tom Neel: She said I've got this commission to do and it's making me a nervous wreck.
• 25:33
  Tom Neel: I said why?
• 25:37
  Tom Neel: She says I don't know.
• 25:39
  Tom Neel: I took it and I have to wrap my brain around it and everything.
• 25:43
  Tom Neel: I said when did you take this commission?
• 25:45
  Tom Neel: She said well, it's been almost a year ago.
• 25:49
  Tom Neel: I said you don't have a commission.
• 25:52
  Tom Neel: That horse is gone, you've already lost it and you've made it harder for people like me that really do follow through.
• 26:02
  Tom Neel: If I did a commission for somebody, I told them when they were going to have it yeah, I made it them important and to understand If they needed something quicker.
• 26:18
  Tom Neel: Then I would turn to my other customers and say this has occurred.
• 26:23
  Tom Neel: Can I hold you off a little bit to try to finish this project for them?
• 26:27
  Tom Neel: I did commissions for Lockheed Martin, lots of hospitals and things like that, but those people want follow through.
• 26:39
  Tom Neel: For the most part, 80% of the artists out there couldn't do what I was doing because they really had to focus 80% on business and 20% on art.
• 26:53
  Mark Zweig: Well, they're too undisciplined.
• 26:55
  Mark Zweig: Let's be honest about it.
• 26:57
  Mark Zweig: You're disciplined, and it applies to everything, including how you communicate with your clients.
• 27:03
  Mark Zweig: Why do you think these artists are just so disorganized and unwilling to basically do what they need to do?
• 27:14
  Mark Zweig: Because so many of them do fit that mold.
• 27:18
  Tom Neel: Well, you know, art's one of those types of things.
• 27:20
  Tom Neel: There are people that are trained artists, that go to art school and college and all the rest of that type of thing, but schools, generally speaking, are not teaching business of art to people making art.
• 27:35
  Tom Neel: So that's part of the problem and I don't know.
• 27:41
  Tom Neel: I'm amazed we and I don't want to get into a political thing, but I'm amazed we live in a world where somebody that cuts hair, which is an artistic thing, needs to be licensed, but the president of the United States doesn't have to take a class on how to be the president.
• 27:57
  Mark Zweig: It's a little bit ironic, isn't it?
• 28:00
  Tom Neel: Right, right, you know I mean you'd think you'd have to take a year class just to understand how the government works, and generally speaking, but no, the person that cuts hair.
• 28:10
  Tom Neel: My father used to tell me the difference between a good haircut and bad haircut, back in his day, was four days, because all it has to do is grow out.
• 28:20
  Tom Neel: You know, it's not a big deal, but we, we go ahead.
• 28:27
  Tom Neel: Well, we artists never get to a place where they are required to think that they need to know anything about business.
• 28:38
  Mark Zweig: Well, I think, to a certain extent they they shun it.
• 28:41
  Mark Zweig: It's not just that they think that they don't need to know it, it's that they're actually against it, that somehow, if I learn about business, I've sold out to you know whatever it is, and you know when I'm no longer an artist.
• 28:59
  Eric Howerton: I mean Well, they, yeah, they are creative thinkers, right I?
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: mean it's.
• 29:03
  Eric Howerton: But what I'm really enjoying about this conversation is is that we're talking about something that, like it kind of brings us back to the fundamentals and the and the basics in a lot of ways, because, like when you said the country club thing, like it just struck me and I think, like I've always just kind of not understood, like how, like, true, like artists painting business works, I never really even considered it.
• 29:29
  Eric Howerton: Like you know, I'm just you just kind of think of the ones that are famous and whatever that, the galleries, and you know it's just like, oh, there's only one in millions that could ever make a living in art, just like what we were talking about earlier.
• 29:41
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but I love what you said, though, tom.
• 29:43
  Eric Howerton: I mean that's so cool, like because it's it's true, because it's kind of I can kind of identify with that a little bit, because I did have a you were a photographer.
• 29:54
  Eric Howerton: A photographer and a creative studio.
• 29:55
  Eric Howerton: At one time I was behind a camera and behind the computer all day, design and trying to be creative.
• 30:01
  Eric Howerton: And then one day I sold all that and it's like and I showed up at the country clubs or whatever.
• 30:05
  Eric Howerton: It started writing marketing plans and doing and making sales presentations.
• 30:09
  Eric Howerton: Yep, but you know, but I mean.
• 30:13
  Mark Zweig: and then you brought up like you said that in a podcast recently.
• 30:16
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it's really funny.
• 30:17
  Mark Zweig: It does tie into that, it does.
• 30:19
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, but what I love was your.
• 30:21
  Eric Howerton: You talked about the commission stuff and you focus on where the there's money to be made and you could fund your, what you'd love to do.
• 30:30
  Eric Howerton: It's all tied to your passion, but then you really owned up to the customer service and the and the service of the client Like.
• 30:39
  Eric Howerton: So a quick question on that, though do you get some joy out of providing that service to the clients?
• 30:44
  Eric Howerton: I mean, is that some way to like?
• 30:46
  Eric Howerton: Does it express your creativity a little bit Like, do you?
• 30:49
  Tom Neel: Oh my God.
• 30:50
  Tom Neel: Yeah, I have to tell you, just as an example, I imagine there's a couple and this has happened to me and they've been married for 50 years you think about all the trials and tribulations, up and down, things, that they've had children, this and that and the other thing and they come to you and for their 50th anniversary they want you to paint a painting to celebrate their marriage.
• 31:15
  Tom Neel: Are you kidding me?
• 31:18
  Tom Neel: I mean, I'm like I can't believe it that these people went through 50 years of marriage and then they're asking me to paint for them and I've done this, as you know retirement gifts for people that started a company when I was born.
• 31:34
  Tom Neel: And I'm thinking well, this person started company in 1955 because I'm an old guy.
• 31:41
  Tom Neel: And, and, and, yeah, and here they are years later asking me to paint to celebrate the occasion of their retirement or something like that.
• 31:52
  Tom Neel: So yeah, I get a lot of that.
• 31:55
  Tom Neel: I never want anybody to think that I ever banged out a painting because of money, because I never did I worked on one at a time and put all my attention and love into it.
• 32:08
  Tom Neel: I never want to think anybody that anybody would think that I never cared about art or didn't have a passion for it.
• 32:16
  Tom Neel: But I was a one man company and I had a product and the product is you know, you're either got a service or a product, and sometimes my me as a person was a service because people asked me to speak and do all those types of things.
• 32:36
  Tom Neel: I did everything that I could do as a one man company.
• 32:40
  Tom Neel: And now listen, my wife, linda.
• 32:42
  Tom Neel: She was part of the company too, but she had her own things going on.
• 32:46
  Tom Neel: But it was really me making a product and I've had people.
• 32:51
  Tom Neel: I'll tell you a great art story.
• 32:52
  Tom Neel: We had a gallery and I'm not going to say the artist name in case there's any way I could get back, because I haven't.
• 33:00
  Tom Neel: I haven't talked to this artist in years, but he was a potter and he did this beautiful pottery with leaves all over and stuff like that.
• 33:08
  Tom Neel: He came to the gallery with 20 new pieces that he was going to be dropping off to us and he put down this platter and then he he would go.
• 33:19
  Tom Neel: How much is this platter going to be this a long time ago, back in the late 80s.
• 33:24
  Tom Neel: And he goes that'll be $35.
• 33:27
  Tom Neel: Nobody pulls this other platter out that look guys, I'm talking about pretty identical for a handmade piece of pottery.
• 33:36
  Tom Neel: And I go okay, so two times 35.
• 33:39
  Tom Neel: And he goes what?
• 33:41
  Tom Neel: And I said what?
• 33:43
  Tom Neel: And he goes I can't believe.
• 33:45
  Tom Neel: He goes don't you see how this glaze move this way and that way?
• 33:51
  Tom Neel: And this happened and this happened.
• 33:53
  Tom Neel: And I said I said yeah, but nobody that walks through the door is going to think that's 35.
• 34:01
  Tom Neel: And what do you want for this one?
• 34:02
  Tom Neel: He goes I want 65 for this one.
• 34:06
  Tom Neel: I picked up that piece of pottery and I handed it to him and I said I want you to do this.
• 34:11
  Tom Neel: I want you to take this home and love it to death and when you're done loving it to death, bring it back to me and I'll sell it for $35, like that one right there.
• 34:21
  Tom Neel: And he looked at me dumbfounded but I told him.
• 34:29
  Tom Neel: I said you have to understand that this is not going to be seen.
• 34:34
  Tom Neel: You're not going to get 100% more for this one over that one.
• 34:39
  Tom Neel: So you know, all of these things are what I would like to tell artists if you really want to have fun with your art, learn about the business of your art.
• 34:53
  Tom Neel: You'll find that it's almost recreational.
• 34:58
  Tom Neel: You love to paint and everything else, but don't despise business.
• 35:02
  Tom Neel: Just understand that you can't.
• 35:05
  Tom Neel: They're not these pieces you paint.
• 35:07
  Tom Neel: If they're your children, hang them on the wall and enjoy them.
• 35:10
  Tom Neel: You're not going to be a working artist.
• 35:12
  Tom Neel: But if you want to be a working artist, then all you really need to do is understand that you make in a product and learn everything you can about selling a product or a service Period.
• 35:24
  Tom Neel: There's books, there's classes, there's all kinds of things.
• 35:29
  Tom Neel: But if you're going to fear it or you're going to be a wallflower to it, you're going to struggle way, way, way more than you need to do.
• 35:37
  Tom Neel: That's all it is.
• 35:39
  Mark Zweig: You know Makes sense.
• 35:40
  Mark Zweig: What advice do you give to these creative people that you run into?
• 35:45
  Mark Zweig: Because I know you know a lot of people.
• 35:47
  Mark Zweig: You run into a lot of other people who are trying to make or do something that's creative and make a living off of it.
• 35:55
  Mark Zweig: Aside from learning about business, which I completely agree with, I might have told you this before, but I used to teach a class here at the Fay Jones School of Architecture.
• 36:08
  Mark Zweig: The title of it was Everything they Don't Teach you in Architectural School.
• 36:12
  Mark Zweig: It was a lot of business stuff, because the architects are just exactly.
• 36:22
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's true, they're being trained.
• 36:24
  Mark Zweig: You built a whole business on that.
• 36:26
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I mean yeah, our business provided.
• 36:28
  Eric Howerton: Business advice for architects and engineers.
• 36:30
  Mark Zweig: Business advice to architects and engineers, but a lot of them have these completely dysfunctional attitudes.
• 36:36
  Mark Zweig: They don't know anything at all about selling or billing or pricing or cash flow, dealing with banks, whatever.
• 36:45
  Mark Zweig: But aside from learning about business, what advice do you give these people, in particularly like about marketing themselves?
• 36:56
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, buy nice clothes, go to a country club, but what else?
• 37:02
  Tom Neel: Well, I mean well, there is, but you just have to understand that sometimes you're the product.
• 37:09
  Tom Neel: And it's amazing when people are buying art, a lot of times they want to be directly connected to the artist.
• 37:18
  Tom Neel: I mean, I've gone to parties, guys, where people are walking around the room and this guy's a dentist and this guy's an artist, and they find out I'm an artist and they're glued to it and very often the thing that they say to me this is an indirect way to your question, mark, but people in general can be this way.
• 37:39
  Tom Neel: I've had many people smart people, wealthy people say to me I can't draw a straight line with a ruler, and I'll be at a party with them and I'll say all right, so we got to find a ruler.
• 37:54
  Tom Neel: And they go what are you talking about?
• 37:55
  Tom Neel: I go well, we're going to get you over that tonight, right now.
• 37:58
  Tom Neel: And they go well, you know what I mean.
• 38:00
  Tom Neel: And I go no, I actually don't know what you mean.
• 38:02
  Tom Neel: I go nobody comes out of the womb.
• 38:07
  Tom Neel: An artist, nobody comes out of the womb.
• 38:10
  Tom Neel: You know a CEO, you learn these things.
• 38:14
  Tom Neel: But if you just say to yourself, I'm not creative and I'm not that good, and you compare yourself, you're not going to apply to yourself what you need to to become good anyway.
• 38:28
  Tom Neel: So that's, I'd say that's the first thing you got to believe in yourself.
• 38:33
  Tom Neel: Then you stand for something you know.
• 38:39
  Tom Neel: If you at the very least stand for yourself, I've seen artists at shows where their paintings on the wall and the gallery director wants them to be out, mingling and they're like stuck against the wall and sliding down and you know, not applying themselves.
• 38:56
  Tom Neel: But the customers out there don't want to bite you, they want to love and hug you.
• 39:02
  Tom Neel: They think you're cool, they think that you, you know.
• 39:08
  Tom Neel: I will remember one time I was at a show and there was a guy that had bought one of my paintings, or two of my paintings.
• 39:15
  Tom Neel: It was up in Vermont and he said to me he goes, god, you know, I, your creativity is just so amazing to me, I, I just wish I had some of that.
• 39:26
  Tom Neel: And I go, what do you do?
• 39:29
  Tom Neel: And he said I'm an orthopedic surgeon.
• 39:32
  Tom Neel: And I said whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 39:35
  Tom Neel: I said so you're the guy like that.
• 39:38
  Tom Neel: When my mom broke her hip, made a nine inch cut down the side of her leg, cut off something that God or science created, put a new bone in there, realigned it and got her to walk straight again without a broken bone.
• 39:52
  Tom Neel: I go how are you not creative?
• 39:55
  Tom Neel: And he looked at me and he said he goes my God, I wish you were in med school with me, because all they teach us is protocol and no one has ever said I was creative.
• 40:06
  Tom Neel: And I said, well, let that be done.
• 40:09
  Tom Neel: Tonight I'm calling you creative and it was like I released this guy from prison.
• 40:14
  Tom Neel: It was amazing.
• 40:17
  Eric Howerton: Well, I mean there's two points like what you were making.
• 40:20
  Eric Howerton: First one is it's like how some folks need to understand their creative.
• 40:28
  Eric Howerton: Creatives need to understand that they actually do have business sense and they can learn that right, like you're talking about the ruler.
• 40:34
  Eric Howerton: Like being an artist, you have to work and apply and study it and practice it and go for it.
• 40:41
  Mark Zweig: Right, it's, there's a discipline of business.
• 40:44
  Mark Zweig: It's the yeah as well.
• 40:46
  Eric Howerton: I do that as an artist.
• 40:47
  Mark Zweig: You, they like I think that's revel.
• 40:49
  Eric Howerton: That's kind of revealing to me in the sense that because I do know, know some of the artists right and creatives, that they don't think that way, naturally, like a business person would, but then they block themselves from even getting into skipping over that fence to be successful on their own because they don't think that they had the capacity or capability that they actually do.
• 41:11
  Mark Zweig: Because the programming, the self affirmation that I can't do this, I don't want to do this.
• 41:16
  Mark Zweig: I'm not good at this.
• 41:18
  Eric Howerton: Right and you have to be natural at it.
• 41:20
  Eric Howerton: You have to be good at numbers to be in business, and you don't.
• 41:23
  Mark Zweig: I mean, dude?
• 41:23
  Mark Zweig: I just had this conversation with my 17 year old uh-huh Wednesday about her inability to pass the driver's test.
• 41:32
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I can't drive, I'm not going to be good.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: I'm not.
• 41:36
  Mark Zweig: I'm never going to be a good driver.
• 41:37
  Mark Zweig: I'm like you cannot keep playing that record over and over in your mind or you will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
• 41:45
  Mark Zweig: But I think what Tom said makes a lot of sense.
• 41:48
  Mark Zweig: That, um, you know, you got to.
• 41:51
  Mark Zweig: You got to stop doing that.
• 41:53
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, and and and everything, and a lot of things can be learned, especially in business.
• 41:57
  Eric Howerton: Right, and like it's not that hard, you can learn to sell.
• 41:59
  Eric Howerton: Yeah.
• 41:59
  Mark Zweig: No, it starts that hard.
• 42:00
  Mark Zweig: You can learn to market.
• 42:01
  Eric Howerton: You can learn to write contracts.
• 42:03
  Eric Howerton: You can learn to provide customer service.
• 42:05
  Eric Howerton: You can learn to do billing and cash flow statements.
• 42:08
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, no, it's true, you have to be an expert in everything.
• 42:10
  Mark Zweig: It's not brain surgery or orthopedic surgery yeah.
• 42:14
  Eric Howerton: I mean, but you can still learn to do that if you want to.
• 42:16
  Eric Howerton: The other thing, tom, I really liked what you talked about was and I'm glad you said it is that in all actuality, as an artist, you do have a an advantage of selling that it is hard for other salespeople to do like that are professional salespeople because artists are cool.
• 42:37
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, no that's true.
• 42:38
  Mark Zweig: People are very interested.
• 42:40
  Eric Howerton: I have an interest in, like if I was going to commission you know Tom to to do some paintings for me.
• 42:46
  Eric Howerton: I am, like intrigued in wanting to see what you come up with.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 42:52
  Eric Howerton: Like I'm excited and about this genuine, this authenticity, this creativity.
• 42:56
  Mark Zweig: But you know what that's?
• 42:58
  Mark Zweig: That it ties right into an article I read.
• 43:00
  Mark Zweig: It might have been this morning, I can't remember because I get up early and I stay up late.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: So, everything is a worm, as you know.
• 43:07
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, no, it was Tom.
• 43:09
  Mark Zweig: You'll appreciate this too.
• 43:11
  Mark Zweig: It was saying you know, content marketing is the big buzzword today.
• 43:15
  Mark Zweig: Okay, If you were selling truck parts, you'd be putting articles out about how you know performance stats and you know reliability and functionality and and the race, victor, whatever, whatever was related to these parts, and that would be considered content marketing and we use social media for that.
• 43:38
  Mark Zweig: But what this author was saying is really, content marketing is dead.
• 43:42
  Mark Zweig: What really matters is the person.
• 43:45
  Mark Zweig: People want to get to know you, the person behind the content marketing, which is exactly what you're saying.
• 43:53
  Mark Zweig: Okay, and it doesn't matter what the hell you're selling.
• 43:57
  Tom Neel: If you're selling art or anything, if you're a salesperson and you're selling something, the first thing that you have to make people like is you way before the product, way before the product?
• 44:12
  Tom Neel: Otherwise, you might as well just send the product to their door and see if they like it and don't use the salesperson.
• 44:19
  Eric Howerton: So you said something under two, tom.
• 44:21
  Eric Howerton: I think is goes along with that, because you are selling, you, and you're also selling like your reputation.
• 44:28
  Eric Howerton: And if you, you know it's like when you said you put all your love into that piece of work, right, and you did that because it's your product.
• 44:38
  Eric Howerton: But I can guarantee you that you didn't even say this.
• 44:40
  Eric Howerton: But I can maybe predict that if I commissioned you to do a piece of artwork, you went out and you put your love in it and you brought it back to me and I was like man, I'm just not, I just don't, I just don't like it.
• 44:52
  Eric Howerton: You know I was wanting, expecting or wanting something else.
• 44:54
  Eric Howerton: I can bet you that you're.
• 44:56
  Eric Howerton: You would probably try to find a way to make good and make that client happy because you're, because that's what you do.
• 45:02
  Eric Howerton: Am I right on that?
• 45:04
  Tom Neel: Yeah, yeah, it's true and I will tell you in the literally hundreds of commissions that I've done, I will admit because I think this is a good thing in business to do.
• 45:16
  Tom Neel: In the 35 years of doing paintings and during that time paying for other people, I have had two or three people that were a problem for me, two or three.
• 45:34
  Mark Zweig: That's pretty damn good, Charlie.
• 45:36
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, it is Right.
• 45:39
  Tom Neel: Yeah, one of these people I made a mistake on.
• 45:44
  Tom Neel: This is a business mistake.
• 45:46
  Tom Neel: I should have never taken this commission.
• 45:48
  Tom Neel: This person bought a couple of paintings for me, then wanted me to paint this painting, and every time I was talking to her she was talking to me about problems that she had in her life.
• 46:01
  Tom Neel: Now I've had to listen to a lot of problems.
• 46:04
  Tom Neel: Go on when people are saying, right, so I'm listening to all this kind of stuff.
• 46:08
  Tom Neel: But I said, yeah, I need to get some answers about this, this and this.
• 46:13
  Tom Neel: And she was always like, oh well, I got to go, I'll call you back.
• 46:17
  Tom Neel: And she wouldn't call me back.
• 46:19
  Tom Neel: So when the painting finally got done, her husband loved the painting, but she didn't love the painting.
• 46:24
  Tom Neel: And so here I was, I invested all this time, and the husband's like honey, I love this painting.
• 46:31
  Tom Neel: And she's like this is not what I wanted.
• 46:33
  Tom Neel: And I will tell you, gentlemen, I said you know what you're going to have to figure that out, because every time I tried to talk to you about these things, you went in a different direction.
• 46:46
  Tom Neel: You didn't want to talk to me.
• 46:47
  Tom Neel: So that thing with the customer is always right.
• 46:50
  Tom Neel: Your customer, my customer right now is your husband.
• 46:53
  Tom Neel: He seems to like the painting.
• 46:55
  Tom Neel: I'm going to have to walk away from this one, right, but those cases were were so incredibly rare that I you know, I just chalked it off that this is the kind of thing that's going to happen.
• 47:11
  Tom Neel: So you know, but for the most part I've been over backwards for people.
• 47:17
  Mark Zweig: I'd like to take this a little bit different direction too.
• 47:20
  Mark Zweig: Okay, my guess is, knowing you and how meticulous you are with every single thing you have and how serious you are about your commitments to deliver things on time, my guess is that your work area is pretty clean, you're organized and that you have certain times that you work instead of just any time.
• 47:46
  Mark Zweig: Am I right about that?
• 47:48
  Tom Neel: You would actually be partially right.
• 47:50
  Tom Neel: My work area is generally pretty clean, but I can have this disarray that goes on because of dyslexia.
• 48:02
  Tom Neel: I take a lot of things and I have them out of my head on the table, as it were.
• 48:09
  Mark Zweig: I know so many successful people with dyslexia.
• 48:12
  Mark Zweig: I mean it's, it's insane the number of CEOs and entrepreneurs I know have dyslexia, but you go on.
• 48:20
  Tom Neel: And you know, because I'm a writer and if you treat that like painting, writing is one of those things where it's not just spelling words wrong, they come out all kind of different ways.
• 48:34
  Tom Neel: So writing for me as a battlefield and my brain can be three sentences ahead of where I am trying to fix a word that something comes out S, m, e, t, h and then I'll spell it and then the next time I spell it a completely different way.
• 48:52
  Tom Neel: So for painting, yeah, I kept pretty clean.
• 48:57
  Tom Neel: I wasn't one of those people that always had paint all over my pants and stuff like that.
• 49:02
  Tom Neel: Part of that also is a health issue.
• 49:04
  Tom Neel: I don't think it's good to have pain around your to the polls and things.
• 49:07
  Tom Neel: So you know, I'm a little like that.
• 49:11
  Mark Zweig: I know somebody got poisoned Really.
• 49:12
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, Remember Dalva Duarte.
• 49:15
  Mark Zweig: I mentioned to you who is the painter.
• 49:18
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, she got poisoned by her own paint, you know, like moistening or brushing her mouth or whatever she did.
• 49:27
  Tom Neel: Well, it's, it's.
• 49:29
  Tom Neel: You've got things like heavy metals, like cadmium and things like that that are in pain paint.
• 49:34
  Tom Neel: So it's not, it's not good.
• 49:36
  Tom Neel: So to a degree you're right, mark, but I don't want to come in like a flying angel and say everything was spotless and clean, because I'm not 100% that way, what about your work hours?
• 49:48
  Mark Zweig: Do you have that scheduled, tom?
• 49:51
  Tom Neel: Yeah, and I always called to people that asked.
• 49:54
  Tom Neel: I always said I was a hit and run painter so the easel would be there.
• 49:59
  Tom Neel: I might wake up at five o'clock in the morning going and paint.
• 50:02
  Tom Neel: I never painted eight hours.
• 50:04
  Tom Neel: I always wanted to walk away from artwork and come back and look at it.
• 50:07
  Tom Neel: So I might paint for 45 minutes, go look at an email, come back, paint for an hour and a half, go away, look at it.
• 50:13
  Tom Neel: I might be painting at 10 o'clock at night.
• 50:16
  Tom Neel: I might be painting at four o'clock in the morning.
• 50:18
  Tom Neel: You know I lived on a big piece of property and had to mow a lot of grass and so if I needed to mow the grass on Tuesday, I'm gonna mow the grass on Tuesday and paint.
• 50:31
  Tom Neel: You know I'll do it another time.
• 50:34
  Mark Zweig: That's what.
• 50:34
  Mark Zweig: That's my future business idea.
• 50:37
  Eric Howerton: Hey, I'm in on this mowing grass.
• 50:39
  Eric Howerton: I got a good zero turn man.
• 50:41
  Mark Zweig: What's that?
• 50:42
  Mark Zweig: Oh good, zero turn.
• 50:43
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I want to start something called the old man's lawn club when you can be in we'll let you in where we all just talk about how mowing puts us in a Zen, like meditative state, and what types of tools and equipment and techniques we like to use, because it's a great story for you.
• 51:05
  Tom Neel: You guys are going to like this story.
• 51:06
  Tom Neel: I'm on a plane flying to Albany, new York, and there is a guy beside me who, just for your audience, I want I'm only saying that he was gay, because he was openly gay and funny as hell.
• 51:24
  Tom Neel: So we're flying along and he's talking and doing all this kind of stuff and, and after a while he tells me this story about his father.
• 51:33
  Tom Neel: He says my dad's got a pretty high pressure job and he goes when he can't take it anymore.
• 51:39
  Tom Neel: He has a helicopter flying to our farm in the end of Rondax and he gets on a bush hog and he bush hogs until he can't push hog anymore.
• 51:50
  Tom Neel: I said, wow, that's amazing.
• 51:52
  Tom Neel: And so I said he got, sounds like he's a mover and a shaker.
• 51:59
  Tom Neel: And I go by the way, we haven't introduced ourselves which your name?
• 52:03
  Tom Neel: And he goes.
• 52:05
  Tom Neel: My name is Ed, ed Merrill, and my father is Merrill of Merrill Lynch.
• 52:10
  Tom Neel: My mother is Lynch of Merrill Lynch and I went what?
• 52:14
  Tom Neel: And I never knew that.
• 52:17
  Tom Neel: The reason the Lynch family, like if you work for Safeway, she is the heir to Safeway and that's why, when you work for Safeway, your retirement is in Merrill Lynch, because of the connection there.
• 52:31
  Tom Neel: So and he was actually the guy I caught him on the way to was in charge of what they were going to do with Stapleton Airport in Denver when they closed it down to open the new Denver Airport.
• 52:46
  Tom Neel: So we he was just on a business flight, but I was there you go, merrill.
• 52:51
  Tom Neel: I mean Merrill's out there when he can't handle it, he's bush hogging.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: I tell you, I, I wish they never closed down Stapleton.
• 53:00
  Mark Zweig: It was so nice you flew in, you were so close to Tom DIA was out in the middle of nowhere.
• 53:05
  Mark Zweig: I did a review of that airport when it opened up because it was horrible, but but anyway, yeah, you know that's funny, you know I was just there two weeks ago at Denver, and it was a madhouse.
• 53:20
  Mark Zweig: I grew up next door to Roger Reini, who's the one who started Scott trade, and my dad gave him books to read, like you know, sloan's book and Deming's book and stuff like that, Because Roger would talk with him when he was young.
• 53:38
  Mark Zweig: Of course, now he's a billionaire.
• 53:39
  Mark Zweig: You know he's in poor health right now, but anyway, it is funny how those those people his dad was a lawn cutter, roger senior was always out there on his gravely tractor with the pipe hanging out- of his mouth, and he lived to be 100 years old cutting grass.
• 53:59
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, tom.
• 54:00
  Mark Zweig: So so where do you go from here?
• 54:03
  Mark Zweig: I mean, how long are you going to continue doing what you do?
• 54:06
  Mark Zweig: What are your plans at this point?
• 54:08
  Tom Neel: Well, I call myself semi retired.
• 54:11
  Tom Neel: I'm, you know, I'm still a writer, I'm paying.
• 54:16
  Mark Zweig: Tom has a has a book.
• 54:18
  Mark Zweig: I'm sorry, tom, but I did want to mention your book, living an Artful Life, but he also writes a lot of articles.
• 54:28
  Tom Neel: I ended up here.
• 54:28
  Tom Neel: You guys can buy it on Amazon, but it's it's a digital form only now.
• 54:33
  Tom Neel: But Living Artful Life was the name of my company that I have with my wife and this book, I think, is a good book.
• 54:42
  Tom Neel: I don't want to over plug this book, but I think this book is just a good book for people that have gone through life and they're missing creativity and they want to put creativity back in their life.
• 54:55
  Tom Neel: It's kind of a guide to that.
• 54:57
  Tom Neel: So Live an Artful Life.
• 54:59
  Tom Neel: You can find on Amazon under my name.
• 55:01
  Mark Zweig: Also, it's very easy read and it's it's really good writing.
• 55:07
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, Tom writes a lot of articles and blog posts to this day on a variety of subjects, including motorcycles.
• 55:16
  Tom Neel: Yeah, so I always look forward to two weeks from now, I'll be down in Atlanta writing an article for the Porsche Club of America.
• 55:24
  Tom Neel: I'm driving a couple of cars like that, so I've done a lot of.
• 55:28
  Tom Neel: I've done I don't know over a hundred Porsche articles, because I was a Porsche file.
• 55:33
  Eric Howerton: I'm telling you like I think that people need to get grass, like living the artist's tough life, the creative life.
• 55:39
  Eric Howerton: I mean you can get yourself plugged into some pretty cool stuff and get paid for it.
• 55:43
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, that's true, you know.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I mean what?
• 55:47
  Eric Howerton: a life.
• 55:48
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I'm serious Like you took charge and were intentional, like you said earlier, about having a life.
• 55:53
  Eric Howerton: You know, doing what you love to do, and then you just applied those skills and just you weren't afraid really to jump, to jump over and learn new things and go for it.
• 56:05
  Eric Howerton: You know, and I bet you, there's so many folks that just tell themselves no right out of the gate.
• 56:12
  Mark Zweig: They do.
• 56:12
  Mark Zweig: It's unfortunate.
• 56:13
  Mark Zweig: I mean it is for everybody who Peter principles there are many more who are Paul principles.
• 56:19
  Mark Zweig: I mean they don't realize their potential.
• 56:21
  Mark Zweig: It's true, you know, it's true.
• 56:25
  Tom Neel: You know, you guys, I was talking to a friend of mine who's very successful and we were talking about the music business and something you know, something about, mark.
• 56:41
  Tom Neel: but I mean, I've been around a lot of people in the music business and you see people that they're the package, they look great, they play great, they got a great sound.
• 56:52
  Tom Neel: And I said to him I go boy, this is unfair, isn't it?
• 56:58
  Tom Neel: Sometimes?
• 56:58
  Tom Neel: And he goes, hey, listen, it's that everybody can't be successful.
• 57:04
  Tom Neel: And I said, well, if they wanted to, maybe they could, but that's just not how it works.
• 57:11
  Tom Neel: So anybody listening to me right now that happens to listen, you could be a successful person.
• 57:18
  Tom Neel: I have met people like this who paint.
• 57:21
  Tom Neel: But they are.
• 57:22
  Tom Neel: They are very important and successful people and they even go I don't know how to convert it from my retirement into being a painter and like all the stuff that you did to get you to this point.
• 57:35
  Tom Neel: You're going to have to do to get to that point.
• 57:37
  Tom Neel: But don't think you can't.
• 57:39
  Tom Neel: You just have to intend to do it and care about it.
• 57:41
  Tom Neel: Now, out of that, it might be one in 100, it might be two in a thousand.
• 57:47
  Tom Neel: Whatever it is, some people will do it and other people, I'm just convinced, are not going to do it.
• 57:53
  Tom Neel: They're going to be actors and actresses that wait tables and it's that's what makes the world go around.
• 58:01
  Tom Neel: But if your intent were doing it, if you really, really want to make it happen, you can't sit there and put your hands over your face and go.
• 58:14
  Tom Neel: I hate business.
• 58:15
  Tom Neel: You're not going to make it.
• 58:17
  Tom Neel: You're just not going to make it.
• 58:18
  Tom Neel: You're going to have to care about it.
• 58:20
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, business takes everything you got.
• 58:22
  Mark Zweig: It takes every skill you have.
• 58:25
  Eric Howerton: It does.
• 58:25
  Eric Howerton: But if you want to be an artist or you're creative and you just want to enjoy life, like Tom has yeah, with lots of motorcycles- and Porsches yeah.
• 58:35
  Eric Howerton: You know, like you talked about earlier, you know your one man show, you know almost all the time other than your wife helping out right and doing some times, but I mean number one thing is sales.
• 58:47
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, like you, can you?
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: can not do anything else.
• 58:51
  Eric Howerton: Just be just be, you know, be confident behind your your art, and talk to people and understand that they like you, yeah, and they want, they're interested in you and your product, or they wouldn't talk to you.
• 59:02
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, sales and selling yourself.
• 59:05
  Mark Zweig: Show up Right and doing, doing the, the, whatever it is, and then the other thing is not giving it away.
• 59:14
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, Because you know Good point, Very good point.
• 59:18
  Mark Zweig: I see this constantly in my students with their new venture plans.
• 59:21
  Mark Zweig: That's like we're going to be the cheapest of whatever it is.
• 59:23
  Mark Zweig: I'm like, no, you're not.
• 59:24
  Mark Zweig: That's not where you want to be as a small business.
• 59:27
  Mark Zweig: You want to be at the top of the pricing tier and do a better job than anybody else, Not be the cheapest.
• 59:34
  Mark Zweig: A lot of people are just afraid to price things.
• 59:39
  Mark Zweig: You know, pricing is so critical.
• 59:42
  Mark Zweig: I was talking to a guy that's in the music business.
• 59:45
  Eric Howerton: And to your point, tom, about like in the, there is a systemic issue with like artists, musicians, live performances.
• 59:54
  Eric Howerton: They play for free all the time and people and what they don't realize is like any, anybody that's going to bring you into a venue or an event is in business mode, thinking right, and you reach out to this artist, I mean I would.
• 1:00:09
  Eric Howerton: I'm going to say, hey, you want to play at the show?
• 1:00:11
  Eric Howerton: And if you don't ever bring up to me that you charge, I'm never going to say anything to you ever.
• 1:00:19
  Mark Zweig: You got to be willing to ask.
• 1:00:20
  Eric Howerton: You have to say well, I charged 200 for that.
• 1:00:24
  Tom Neel: And so, Eric, in the music business, listen, you find a guy with a guitar, a girl with a guitar.
• 1:00:31
  Tom Neel: They go and they play at some venue, whatever it is coffee shop, whatever you want to bring up winery, whatever what I'm talking about with understanding revenue, if I'm that person, I'm going to do everything in my power to understand how many people have to come in there for that for me to get paid.
• 1:00:53
  Tom Neel: I'm going to understand what makes a good night a bad night for them.
• 1:00:58
  Tom Neel: I'm going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and I'm going to say listen, if I can, if I can bring more people in, will you pay me more money?
• 1:01:10
  Tom Neel: I'm going to ask for it and if the person says, well, you know, $200 is all I can pay you, I go well, listen, I would go out on social media and I would blow this place up if I can do it.
• 1:01:22
  Tom Neel: But if you don't care about me, I need to find somebody else.
• 1:01:25
  Tom Neel: It's a give and take, but you have to understand their business.
• 1:01:29
  Tom Neel: If they're paying you.
• 1:01:31
  Eric Howerton: You're totally.
• 1:01:31
  Eric Howerton: You're totally right.
• 1:01:32
  Eric Howerton: I mean, because it could be okay, 200, but if I bring in 50 people, you pay me 350, right, like you up, you up the ante because you got into their business case and needs.
• 1:01:44
  Eric Howerton: I mean honestly, like that's what business is all about.
• 1:01:46
  Eric Howerton: It's about vendors and contractors and partnerships, employees, what everything he talks about earlier.
• 1:01:52
  Eric Howerton: Tom.
• 1:01:53
  Eric Howerton: It's all everyone has to be aligned to that vision of creating that and driving that revenue.
• 1:01:58
  Eric Howerton: And if you can find a way to do that, which just sounds like exactly what you've done over your career, is like you've, you've basically have been able to put yourself in the shoes of your client.
• 1:02:08
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, which you know, I think when we were talking I was talking about that a little bit at your class the other day Yep, there's an innate ability and I think this might be from a creative mind to visualize the pain points that your clients are going through, or like from the hospitals, like can you visualize what they're saying they need, and see the hallways and see how all this flows together and what they're trying to accomplish?
• 1:02:33
  Eric Howerton: You know, maybe at hospitals are trying to let let patients kind of feel this comfort or their families feel right peace and you know, and if you can dream that up and you meet that expectations.
• 1:02:46
  Eric Howerton: But that means you've gotten in line with their business Right, Exactly With their, with their, vision Sometimes.
• 1:02:53
  Tom Neel: Sometimes it's being also in line with the person itself.
• 1:02:56
  Tom Neel: I mean, I'll tell you a story.
• 1:02:57
  Tom Neel: This doesn't happen all the time, but it's happened to me multiple times.
• 1:03:01
  Tom Neel: So one time a guy called me about paintings.
• 1:03:05
  Tom Neel: I didn't know him from Adam.
• 1:03:07
  Tom Neel: I drive to his house, he introduces himself and his significant other and we go in and we're talking about the paintings that he needs.
• 1:03:18
  Tom Neel: But we're in a big room of a big house and there's a bar sitting there and a little time goes by and then all of a sudden a chink happens in the in the armor and he goes.
• 1:03:31
  Tom Neel: He goes.
• 1:03:32
  Tom Neel: You know, I really want you to do this.
• 1:03:34
  Tom Neel: He goes.
• 1:03:35
  Tom Neel: I'm going through this stuff, he goes.
• 1:03:36
  Tom Neel: I'm going through a bad divorce and my, my son's really mad at me and and all of a sudden he opened up.
• 1:03:42
  Tom Neel: So by the time it was over, the two of us have been sitting there talking for three hours drinking beer at his bar.
• 1:03:51
  Tom Neel: Nobody's plastered, we're just two guys talking.
• 1:03:55
  Tom Neel: And I said hey, listen, I came from a divorce family before.
• 1:04:00
  Tom Neel: Most people did.
• 1:04:01
  Tom Neel: Be honest with your children.
• 1:04:03
  Tom Neel: They already know something's going on.
• 1:04:05
  Tom Neel: Just be straight with them.
• 1:04:06
  Tom Neel: And all of a sudden I wasn't selling art, I was just being a good guy.
• 1:04:12
  Tom Neel: Right Over the next two months.
• 1:04:15
  Tom Neel: This guy did, just over the next two months, $40,000 worth of business with me and that guy, okay, okay.
• 1:04:26
  Tom Neel: That guy called this summer and said, tom, I'm going to be down here at the low.
• 1:04:33
  Tom Neel: He's an equestrian too and just sold his companies and and has the big jet and the whole.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: Thing.
• 1:04:41
  Tom Neel: And he says I'm flying down.
• 1:04:43
  Tom Neel: And he goes I haven't seen you in a while and I want to see you.
• 1:04:46
  Tom Neel: And can you, can you come?
• 1:04:48
  Tom Neel: And it's an hour and a half away to this place and my wife was an equestrian and everything, so they knew each other.
• 1:04:54
  Tom Neel: I said, man, I'd love to see it, let's get together.
• 1:04:57
  Tom Neel: So we go there.
• 1:04:58
  Tom Neel: Well, he just sold his company for $1.1 billion.
• 1:05:02
  Tom Neel: Okay, that guy doesn't need Tom Neil in his life, does he Well?
• 1:05:10
  Tom Neel: But you know what, when he was down in the dumps, I was a guy that just cared about him, and I still care about him today, more than I'd write him to check back to stay his friend.
• 1:05:24
  Tom Neel: You know, he's just a great guy.
• 1:05:27
  Tom Neel: So sometimes when you're doing business whether you're an artist because it doesn't matter whether you're an artist or whatever you never know when you walk in the door what the opportunity is going to be.
• 1:05:41
  Tom Neel: But be open to it.
• 1:05:43
  Tom Neel: Be open that on the other side of that door I'm going to go and they called me and told me to come here.
• 1:05:49
  Tom Neel: On the other side of that door is opportunity and I'm I'm be happy about it.
• 1:05:55
  Tom Neel: Walk in there with the enthusiasm that this is going to be great.
• 1:06:00
  Tom Neel: I had a customer one time call me and say I want to come by the gallery and some paintings because I have an interest in the commission or something.
• 1:06:08
  Tom Neel: I said fine.
• 1:06:09
  Tom Neel: He came by and he says, well, I like that, I like that, I like that.
• 1:06:12
  Tom Neel: He picked out seven paintings on the gallery wall and my gal and he said I said well, I'll bring anything to your house just to let you see what you're looking for.
• 1:06:23
  Tom Neel: He says you'll bring these seven paintings.
• 1:06:26
  Tom Neel: I said, yeah, I'll bring the seven paintings.
• 1:06:27
  Tom Neel: I came home with one painting what?
• 1:06:31
  Tom Neel: By the time it was done, we moved that painting from there and this painting from there and took this down off the fireplace.
• 1:06:39
  Tom Neel: I had one customer that, after buying thousands of dollars worth of artwork, they built a new home and she said you're the only person I trust to hang artwork in my house.
• 1:06:53
  Tom Neel: I'm good at that.
• 1:06:55
  Tom Neel: I made myself good at that.
• 1:06:57
  Tom Neel: I hung shows for people.
• 1:06:58
  Tom Neel: People hang it too high.
• 1:07:01
  Mark Zweig: They always hang in too high, Don't they?
• 1:07:03
  Mark Zweig: Tom Drives me mad.
• 1:07:06
  Tom Neel: They hang it too high.
• 1:07:07
  Tom Neel: They don't have any.
• 1:07:08
  Tom Neel: I could write a book about that One picture in the middle of each wall.
• 1:07:13
  Mark Zweig: We always have to hang the art for our friends too.
• 1:07:16
  Mark Zweig: Absolutely drives me crazy.
• 1:07:17
  Mark Zweig: But go on, I love it.
• 1:07:20
  Tom Neel: When I was done, I hung over 220 pieces of art, memorabilia, all kinds of stuff, in their house.
• 1:07:28
  Tom Neel: I provided a service that had nothing to do with being a painter, but the reason they wanted me to do it is just because they liked me and trusted me and believed in me, and I believed in them and all these people just they remain my friends, and so that's how it works.
• 1:07:49
  Tom Neel: Sometimes I know I don't want everyone to sound easy, but it's all doable.
• 1:07:55
  Tom Neel: But you have to apply yourself and intend to be successful.
• 1:07:58
  Mark Zweig: Amen, brother, amen.
• 1:07:59
  Mark Zweig: Well, unfortunately we're running out of time, because we could sit here and talk to Tom all afternoon.
• 1:08:05
  Mark Zweig: It's awesome, it's awesome Tom.
• 1:08:07
  Eric Howerton: It's been an awesome combo.
• 1:08:08
  Eric Howerton: I mean.
• 1:08:08
  Eric Howerton: I think people are going to really enjoy this one.
• 1:08:11
  Mark Zweig: I do too, and also.
• 1:08:14
  Tom Neel: I'm back if you ever need another topic.
• 1:08:16
  Mark Zweig: So where can they see more about you and your art?
• 1:08:20
  Mark Zweig: What is your website, Tom?
• 1:08:23
  Tom Neel: If they want to look at my website, my last name just remember my last name is Neil and EEL, and so I go by Thomas Neil, so thomasneilcom.
• 1:08:33
  Tom Neel: And if you put in Thomas Neil into Amazon and look at the book Live and Artful Life, you can read some excerpts and things like that and find out about me and things on the website.
• 1:08:47
  Tom Neel: Now, as far as doing work going forward, I'm still doing some paintings, but I'm doing less and less of it, more and more writing, and I've had a good life and so I'm not.
• 1:09:01
  Tom Neel: You know, I don't need a gallery or anything like that.
• 1:09:05
  Tom Neel: I'm okay Financially.
• 1:09:07
  Tom Neel: I'm I did okay.
• 1:09:09
  Mark Zweig: So no wait, it's awesome.
• 1:09:12
  Mark Zweig: I appreciate that.
• 1:09:13
  Mark Zweig: Well, listen, we really appreciate your time today, tom, and for our audience, yeah you guys are great.
• 1:09:21
  Mark Zweig: This has been another episode of Big Talk.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: About Small Business.
• 1:09:29
  Mark Zweig: And we'll see you all again next week.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the ask the host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.