In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com. 

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains how to “visualize” your success and use this concept to make it a reality; and how to get past the habit of comparing yourself to other artists.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 99 >

 

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer:
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads:
In the marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions from our audience. Well, that’s you right? Email your questions to me [email protected], where you can message me text me whatever you want to do. I write them down that I use them in here. Here’s a question from Dwayne in New York. I don’t know his last name, but Dwayne, thank you. Dwayne says, I’ve heard you mentioned visualizing your success. Can you speak more to that? I’m not really sure what that means or how to start? Well, Duane, it’s really nothing new. Certainly not new. It’s been going on for a long time. Let’s start with the basic premise. What is in your head controls? Everything you know, Is your stomach ever turned into knots from worrier stress? Well, that’s coming from your head, you know, you’re worrying, right? The premise is that you want to control what’s in your head, you want to control your thinking, you want to control the negative thoughts and push them out. And you also want to get the positive thoughts and the things that you believe could be happening in there and think about him a lot. So that’s why it’s a good idea to set goals, it’s a good idea to read those goals on a regular basis, and to believe that you can do it. So you have to believe something before it can happen. And I think you need to dream it or at least think about it a lot to manifest it. Now, most people think that’s kind of a silly idea. And quite frankly, I used to think so too. But when you think about it, most of the things that we have made happen one way or the other have been because we’ve been thinking about it. And you know, by the way, a lot of the bad things that we sit and ruminate about end up happening. Why does that happen? I’ll tell you a story. 30 years ago, maybe longer than that I was exposed to this concept. And somebody said, create a poster with pictures of what you want, you know, things you want houses and cars, but also pictures that stand for things you want, like family or love. It’s called a visualization board. The idea is to look at it every day and imagine yourself doing it. Well. I thought it was crazy. Hocus Pocus, woowoo stuff. But I thought, well, what the heck, everybody’s telling me it works. I’ll try it. And I really wanted a Porsche. Yep. But I couldn’t afford one. I didn’t have the money, I had no way to get the money. I had a small, relatively struggling business. And so I cut out a Porsche. I didn’t do the whole board. But I cut out a Porsche. And I stuck it on the mirror in the bathroom. So I’d see it morning and night. And before long, I was kind of imagining myself in it, you know, you want to you want these things to be vivid, you know, what color is it? What’s it like on the interior, you know, that kind of thing. And so, I finally told myself, you know, maybe the way to get it is I could sell my business. And I kind of wanted to do that in a way and I would reward myself if I got a certain price for my business. So anyway, I had no prospects sighs matter of fact, I wasn’t even considering it before that. But a year later, after looking at that picture every day, I sold my business, I put money in the bank, and I bought that exact Porsche. I mean, it was the same color, the same model, everything that I had looked at, and interesting. It kind of came to me. In other words, you know, I was kind of looking but all of a sudden, this guy contacted me said, I hear you’re looking for a Porsche. I’ve got one. I don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for or not. And he sends me a picture. It’s like that’s it. So I went over, drove over ended up buying it. It was a used one. I didn’t buy a new one. But it was pretty cool. And anyway, it’s something that I had visualized. So I’ve kind of learned that. That’s a cool thing to do. I visualized the plein air convention, I visualized plein air magazine, I people told me it wasn’t possible. But I just kind of pushed that out of my head got the negatives out and said, You know what it is past possible I visualize this big growing plein air movement that’s happening. And so there’s so many things that can be impacted. It’s like it sets the tone and makes you work towards it something that you kind of are doing without realizing it, because you start believing and maybe in the beginning, you don’t believe it. But you start looking at that picture, you start thinking about these things. Next thing you know, you’re starting to believe it. So for the last year, for instance, I’ve been imagining myself going to China on a painting trip, and imagining that maybe somebody would pay my way. Wouldn’t that be cool? Well, that’s not even I guess about a year. And I get a call today from this guy. And he says, We want to bring you to China. I thought how cool is that? So when I’m driving to a meeting, I imagine exactly how the conversation is going to go how things will work out positively. And it usually happens. And I even imagined myself getting a national TV show and I bought into it so big I could totally imagine myself doing it and get it Got a major network? And within two weeks, I accidentally kid you not met this man. I said, What do you do for a living? He says, Well, I, you know, I’m a guy with this network. I can’t tell you which one yet. But anyway, I said, Well, I’ve got this idea for a show. And I told him, the idea is, let’s have a meeting on Monday. And then the meeting happened with his executives. And guess what I got, I got a deal. So that’s how this stuff works. And I really strongly believe it works. It just sounds so illogical. And I don’t understand it, I have no idea. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, and, you know, the brain waves or spiritual or otherwise, but it’s a pretty cool thing. So if you visualize bad things they happen to so I try to push bad out of my head, you know, we all have negative thoughts. And I’ll tell myself, you know, it’s not like me to think that and I’ll just push it away. So anyway, that’s what visualization means.

Now, the next question comes from Carol, from the Gulf shore of Alabama, with a banjo on her knee. I’m sorry, Carol had to do it. She says, when I see the work of amazing artists, I feel like I’ll never be that good. How does one get past the inevitable comparisons we make to other artists? Carol, stop it. Stop comparing yourselves to others, not just in your artwork, but in everything, focus on yourself, being the best you can be? Well, you were I ever be as good as John Singer Sargent, the great master. I mean, how many really great masters are there really, you know, we’re probably not going to be that good. I mean, he had something special that most of us don’t have. I don’t want to be the negative thinker about that. But I also am, am being practical. He was a rarity. But we can still be great painters, or good painters, and maybe one day great, great painters. So you might be comparing yourself to someone who’s been painting for 50 years and has lots of experience. But who started out just like you struggling, you don’t know. You don’t know what they went through their struggles, their frustrations, who was teaching them the 1000s of hours they put in, you just don’t want to compare, you don’t necessarily want to go through what they went through. My dad once told me, son, somebody’s always got a bigger boat. In other words, no matter how good, how successful, how rich, how famous, how talented, there’s always somebody who has done more, you simply can’t get caught up in the comparison game. All you can do is study, work hard, put in the time, believe in yourself, get great mentors, and be happy with your progress. And a great way to do that is to look in reverse. What I mean by that is, look how far you’ve come. Look at what you’re doing today, compared to what you were doing five years ago, or 10 years ago. You know, sometimes I think, well, I really wish I had a better house or a better car. And then I kind of look back and I say, wow, look at what I’ve got compared to what I had 20 3040 years ago. I mean, I had nothing. I lived in a crummy little apartment little tiny. What do they call that studio apartment. I just did not dig it at all. And I thought I’ll never get out of there. And now I you know, I live in a nice house. And you know, it’s not a big giant mansion or anything like that. But I look back and I go, wow, this is a big improvement. So don’t compare yourself to others. It just doesn’t do any good. Get that out of your head. Stop playing that game. Be grateful for where you are and what you’ve got, and just continue to work hard.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected]. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

How to Submit Your Art Marketing Questions: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

  • Art retreats
  • International art trips
  • Art conventions
  • Art workshops (in person and online)
  • And more!