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This monthly review keeps your art business honest (279) · The Art Biz

• 0:00
  Hi, I'm Alyson Stanfield, and this is The Art Biz.
• 0:04
  So I've been thinking lately about the artists who have come to me, not just
• 0:10
  recently, but also in the past, and said, "You know, sales are not what I
• 0:17
  want them to be. My income is lower," or it's just the sales have just stopped
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  altogether, and they want to troubleshoot.
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  They want my help to fix this.
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  And I think that sometimes they want a quick answer.
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  They want me to tell them to post more on Instagram or send more emails, and
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  I'm just not going to do that because who knows what the problem is at this point.
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  There are so many factors.
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  But most importantly, I just don't know their goals.
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  I don't know them as a person.
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  I can't do this.
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  I can't.
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  I will never.
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  I refuse to tell people what to do if I don't know what they want.
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  I have to diagnose the situation from a couple of different directions,
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  and here's, here's how that works.
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  First, as I mentioned, I need to understand their goals and ambitions.
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  What do they really want?
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  If it is sales, then what amount of sales?
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  What is reasonable for them?
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  What is reasonable for them for their price point, for their productivity,
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  for the amount of effort that they're going to need to put into it?
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  What is the weight of this story on them?
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  And by that I mean, you know, when your sales are down, your ego takes a hit.
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  You just don't know how you got there.
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  You begin to question the value of your art.
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  All this stuff can happen.
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  So I need to know where they're coming from and how this is affecting them.
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  And then, a- as I mentioned, I really need to know how much
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  energy they're willing to expend.
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  How much do they really want this, and why do they want it?
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  Why is this important to them?
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  I really need to know that And then I'm gonna ask about the numbers.
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  What are your numbers?
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  What is the data behind this decrease or this nonexistent amount of sales?
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  And this is something I don't expect everyone to know
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  off the top of their heads.
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  Like, I don't expect you to know the numbers that I'm gonna ask
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  you off the top of your head.
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  But I do want my clients to know where to find this information quickly.
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  So where to look for it and how to find it is what I, is what I
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  want, um, to be at your fingertips.
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  So I'm gonna lay this out about the numbers, about finding your numbers, and
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  I'm gonna lay it out for you to use, to be usable whether you have no numbers,
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  whether you're fairly new to it, or whether you've been doing this a while.
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  You're a seasoned artist, you've got a track record, and you want
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  to know more about what to look for
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  But first, let's talk about numbers just in general, business numbers.
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  Because I've been doing this long enough to know that facing reality
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  can be scary, not just for my clients, but for myself and my own business.
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  And that's what numbers are.
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  They are real.
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  They… We might not be able to touch them, but they are real.
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  They're attached to something that is measurable, and that it, and it tells
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  a story that we may or may not like And they get downright frightening when we
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  attach the numbers to our art or our art business, 'cause that's so personal.
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  And, and it's just, it- there's just something about it that we
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  don't want to deal with numbers and the art at the same time.
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  So there's a lot of fear that comes up, a lot of anxiety around the numbers.
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  Maybe you're afraid, as I have been in the past with my own business,
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  afraid that you're gonna get depressed if you see the numbers.
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  I totally get that.
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  Or that the numbers reflect the quality of your art.
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  If your numbers are low, it means nobody likes your art.
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  We know that's not true, but there's that fear there.
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  Or maybe you are afraid that you're gonna see clearly that
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  your expenses are too high and something's going to have to change.
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  Once you see them, you can't unsee them.
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  You're gonna have to do something about them.
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  You're gonna have to trim expenses, or send more emails,
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  or overhaul your website.
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  All of this is scary.
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  You can't unsee the numbers once you see them.
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  And even good numbers can be scary.
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  Let's say you get great results from a particular project, or a body of work,
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  or a workshop that you're teaching, and it's telling you that you need to
• 6:02
  pivot and take advantage of the moment.
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  Jenny McCarty talked about this in episode 277.
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  I talked more, a little more about it in all of episode 278, how important
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  it is to pay attention to the signs.
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  that would be one of those external signal, Talked about the three signals
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  in episode 278, that it's also a results signal 'cause you're seeing good results.
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  So it's a good sign, and again, even that can be scary.
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  So all this fear means that you ignore the numbers until tax time because you think
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  ignoring them at least keeps hope alive.
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  At least, at least there's a chance of something good happening.
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  And I am here to beg you not to wait, because I know that ignoring
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  them only makes things worse.
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  It makes your anxiety worse because you know it's something that you
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  need to know about, and you, it's always hanging over your head.
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  You also know, because I tell you this all the time, that you are the CEO of your art
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  business, and that if you're really trying to make a profit, if you're a business,
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  and the definition of a business, one of the definitions, is that you try to make
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  a profit, then not paying attention to the numbers does not help you in any way.
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  You need to pay attention along the way, not just at tax time.
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  So whatever direction that fear is coming from for you, you can't duck it forever.
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  It's something that you have to conquer if you want to improve
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  the results in your art business.
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  In case it's helpful, remember this.
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  Even if it's not helpful, remember this, and, and return to this again and again.
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  Maybe make it a mantra.
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  Numbers are neutral.
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  They are objective data points.
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  They just exist.
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  They're there on paper or on your screen.
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  They don't care how you feel.
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  You don't care how they feel.
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  They just are.
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  And they're, they're just data.
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  So the obvious question at this point is which data?
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  What numbers do you need to pay attention to in your art business?
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  And that's where I wanna go next, because not knowing what to
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  look for is yet one more reason you might be avoiding this work
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  So what I want you to get in the habit of, have it become part of your routine,
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  is to do a, a check-in with your numbers.
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  You c- it can be part of a broader business check-in, and the
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  frequency with which you do it all depends on your level of activity.
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  So if you're a part-time artist, and you're not making a lot of sales,
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  you don't have a lot going on, maybe you just do this quarterly.
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  You don't wait till tax time, but maybe you just do this quarterly.
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  If you're just starting out, and you don't have a lot, a lot of
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  numbers, maybe you do this quarterly.
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  But if you're very busy, and you don't have a lot of numbers, I
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  encourage you to do it monthly because regardless of wherever you
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  are in your art career, you will gain information by doing the numbers.
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  And if you're very busy, as I said, if you're very busy, it
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  helps to do the numbers monthly.
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  they might not be financial numbers, as you will see.
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  They might be other numbers that you pay more attention to in the beginning.
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  This is something that I did for my business every single month for years.
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  I had a whole binder full of monthly check-ins for this.
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  Um, I think I finally got rid of it.
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  But anyway, it was a lot of data, and it was just this self-accountability
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  that I created for myself because I knew to be true what one of my
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  coaches said to me, and that was, "What you pay attention to grows."
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  And I don't know where that saying comes from, who said it
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  first, but it's really good.
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  If we give it our attention, it's more likely to grow.
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  If we ignore it, it's less likely to grow, and I know this
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  to be true for myself also.
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  So I'm sharing this.
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  I've lived this.
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  I know this, and I know this from working with my clients.
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  I like the monthly thing because it gets you in the habit-
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  But whatever works for you.
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  Okay.
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  What you're going to do with this business checkup, business review,
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  business check-in, whatever you wanna call it, financial check-in, but it's
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  more than finances, as you'll see.
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  This is a high-level picture of data that allows you to see
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  what's working and what isn't.
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  You're not gonna get in the weeds, although you might be tempted to at some
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  point, but you're not gonna start there.
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  You can always add more details later, but I want you to k- get in the habit
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  of creating this high-level overview of the health of your art business.
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  And money is one place to begin.
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  So you know the formula, sales minus expenses equals profit.
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  So you, you track your sales, you track your expenses, and then
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  you, have your profit every month.
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  And for those of you who have worked with me, you know that I'll, I'll ask you
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  for the sales number, but I'll also ask you to break it down to income sources.
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  And those income sources could be venues
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  Or they could be types of art.
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  They could be commissions or reproductions or originals or sculptures and paintings.
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  However you break it down, where did… What was selling?
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  What was, what was selling?
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  But sales first, and then you can break it down further later.
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  Then I'm gonna ask you about your email list.
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  What is… Who, how many people are on there?
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  I'm gonna ask you the frequency that you used it, because i- if you
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  just email once a month, that's not going to give you a lot of data.
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  It might not even… If the email was yesterday, you might not even
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  have good open rates, because it hasn't been out there long enough.
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  So you might have to wait a little bit.
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  It might be better to look at 90-day trends in your email.
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  Again, it depends on the frequency that you're using it.
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  But I'm gonna ask you how many people on your list.
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  Is it growing or shrinking?
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  Most email lists are shrinking these days, which is okay, 'cause we have other
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  means of being in touch with people.
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  But there's email lists, so there's open rate, and there's click-through rate.
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  If you have a low open rate, it's gonna affect your deliverability all around.
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  Need to fix that.
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  We need to work on that.
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  We need to fix your subject lines and the content so that people
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  really wanna open your emails.
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  And then we need to clean your list also, s- that will help
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  get the open rate up there.
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  Then you might wanna track your number of followers.
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  This is not something I normally do when I'm diagnosing a client's sales, because
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  I don't think followers says a lot, but I, I also think it's a useful number
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  for you to track so that you can see if your followers are growing or shrinking,
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  and you know what kind of content is working on Instagram or, or your social
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  platform of, of choice, let's say.
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  But check your number of followers.
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  Don't just check it.
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  You're gonna record all of this.
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  Then I'm also gonna ask you about your website.
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  I'm gonna ask you about the number of unique visitors, their, you
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  know, what the top content is, how long people stayed, et cetera.
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  And then there's all these other things that I could ask.
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  Those top two are the ones that I'm mostly gonna ask about.
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  I'm gonna ask about your sales income versus expenses, and I'm
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  gonna ask about your email list.
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  If there's 2,000 people on it, that's great, but if you're
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  not using it, what good is it?
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  We can diagnose it from there.
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  There's so many other things that you can track.
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  You can track submissions, the number of submissions you sent out, the number
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  of proposals you sent out, the students that you enrolled in your courses, the
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  mailings that you sent, whether they're postcards or emails, personal outreach.
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  If you've been listening for a while, you know how big I am on personal outreach
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  'cause I think it moves the needle more than any amount of broadcasts do.
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  So those numbers are just part of your review, but they're a big part.
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  Remember, they are data.
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  They are a point in time that you can track over time to see whether
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  something is growing or shrinking, and maybe allow yourself to get
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  a little curious about them.
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  "Oh, I noticed that I sold more this way this month.
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  What could that have been the result of?" Or, "I noticed that my email
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  click-through rate just plummeted.
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  What happened there?" So it allows you to get a little curious, and
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  it's so worth your time so that you don't keep doing things that aren't
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  giving you results, that you're really focused on the, the things that bring
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  you the good stuff in the future.
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  Okay, so you need to formalize this.
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  It is not enough to keep this in your head.
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  It's not enough to look at the numbers and think that, uh, you're
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  gonna remember it next month.
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  You need to create a notebook or a spreadsheet or something so that you can
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  compare the numbers month after month.
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  And remember that this has to work for you.
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  When you do it needs to make sense with when your expenses come in,
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  when you pay your bills for the month, when you send your emails.
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  Like, all that has to come into play.
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  I do mine around the fifth of the month, but my bookkeepers do it on the 12th, so
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  I need to reconcile that a little bit.
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  And what you track is what is important to you, and that can change over time.
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  You just have to allow it to change.
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  But what I don't want you to do is to do what I did in the beginning,
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  which is just do too much.
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  To track too much is overwhelming.
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  I want you to track high level and get a picture of that so that you can follow
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  your curiosity about those numbers and dig into w- what's important to you.
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  I keep saying that, but what's important to you where you think you
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  might be able to make adjustments.
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  Do start with that high level, the, those first two things especially, that
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  is your revenue and your email, and then maybe your website and social after that,
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  Whatever it is you're trying to grow, track it.
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  and remember that numbers are just part of the review.
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  You have to look at the activity behind those numbers.
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  So what happened to get you those numbers, or to watch those numbers decrease?
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  Like, what was going on or what wasn't going on that could have
• 19:02
  helped you get better numbers?
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  When you have the numbers, when you know what's behind them,
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  you'll know what to adjust.
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  You'll have at least a sense of direction so that you know what your
• 19:15
  next steps will be, or at least have a, an educated guess about your next step.
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  It will be based on something and not just, you know, the next
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  great idea that you see some marketing person posting online.
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  This is for you.
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  This, these are only your numbers.
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  This is only data that you could have, and you are the CEO of your art business,
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  so don't put it off for too long.
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  That's it for this episode of The Art Biz.
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  I am gonna be back next week with an episode with Heidi Fahrenbacher, who
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  paid attention to her numbers, raised her prices, slowed down, isn't doing
• 20:00
  as much, and doing just fine, I'll look forward to sharing that episode with you.
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  If you want to see the show notes for this episode, you can
• 20:12
  always go to artbizpodcast.com.
• 20:14
  You're gonna look for episode 279
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  If you like what you see on this channel, I hope that you'll like and subscribe,
• 20:24
  and share it with other artists that you think might benefit from it.
• 20:28
  I'm always grateful to hear from you.
• 20:31
  Thank you so much for watching