Mark E Shellshear.

I always tell Artists that they are the asset, they are the value proposition and the Art is what you produce. If the Artist is the value then she can experiment, innovate and change and her collectors will go with her because she will educate them as to what she is doing. I wish Artists could grasp that it’s not the art it is all about the Artist, the value is in the Artist who produces valuable Art. There are so many folklore's in the Art game and most hinder the Artist from being successful. You are an Artist, not a style or a painting. You are a living breathing creative with a blessed imagination and limitless potential. If you are educating your collectors and followers as to what you are doing and why you are doing it and how exciting it is, they will come with you on your journey and buy your Art. Artists are free now of the Gatekeepers, understand why they perpetuated these myths, it controlled the Artists but those days are gone you control your own game n...

  What do you do when you get to top of the Art world? You are there but someone is coming to knock you off the top. You may want to be the most famous Artist in the world and then what? Someone is coming and will be more famous. These are not a good games to play because they are limited games, a beginning and an end and a winner. Football and golf are finite games, a beginning and an end and also there is a winner. These games are not good games, if you want to keep playing. We need to concentrate on the limitless game s where we are always playing. So we would be best to focus on the pursuit of excellence in our Art career because that is life long continual improvement, a game you can play forever .

The Art practice is about every day consistency. Turning up and working and then the next day doing it again and doing it better. If your desire is always to do it better, then you will improve and y ou don’t have to improve a lot, just a little bit each day. Most people want big changes and they have great bursts of energy and then back off, that will not get you where you want to go if success is your goal, you will need to work consistently improving a little each day and o ver a period of time this will change your life and your A rt practice for the better. I f you want to get to the top of the Art mounta in then do it one step at a time each day and learn well the lessons of each day. Consistent small improvement s are sustainable, but huge momentous improvements are not. Each day systematically doing it again and doing it better.  

  Remember what the hard times were like, never forget, as it will motivate you to never allow that to happen to you again. Be sensitive to others, you are not an island and we all need each other, allow yourself to be touched by the drama of life, feel it and make it part of you Artistic expression. Be sympathetic to the plight of others, be interested in them and give away a smile or hug at every opportunity you can, it may change the way a person is feeling. Be ready to listen to those in pain, often no response is necessary, they just needed someone to take the time to understand and listen. Use all these emotions and feelings you experience to inspire yourself to paint life and put all these human emotions and drama into paint on your canvas. We are only at this point in time and space for a moment, capture it and record it in paint for others to see and appreciate, your Art reveals the human condition through your creativity. .

So enjoy life, live it fully and always be in the now, don’t waste time on the past it is finished you can’t fix that. Be all you can, learn all you can and be a blessing to everyone who crosses your path. Live at peace with yourself, you are your only constant, so be kind to your self and you will be kind and at peace with others. Always strive to be the best person that you can be and be the good example you are looking for. Finally, leave a profit in all you do, in other words, leave things and people better than when you found them.  

  Being the perfect Artist is a problem in it’s own right as people will not talk about you if what you do is always perfect, they will only talk about you when you do imperfect work and once your imperfection is seen, then you loose because we wanted perfect because that’s the story you sold us and our expectations are so hard to meet. If we focus on being interesting, creating interesting Art and talking about interesting subjects we will get a following, because people are curious and will focus on what is interesting. Interesting is fresh every day, you cause us to look at what you are doing and talk about you because you hold our interest. We know that word of mouth is the best advertising we can get and people who do interesting things are worth talking about. .

  This is the way we do it in the Art world, it is the way it has always been done. B ut that way seem s to not work for most, so why continue to do it that way? Because it is the way we have always done it. But that way i s broken for most. You don’t have to follow conventional wisdom, you can turn it all upside down and do it your way, no one can stop you. Make those videos, story tell your paintings, sell directly to your customers and be amazing. W e will find you, as you cannot hide amazing.

  No, it’s all about the sale. The sale is what is important to me, because sales build confidence, sales build your Art business, sales are validation for the Artist, and yes sales translates into money because you want to prosper. The thing about sales, even small money sales is the confidence it builds in the Artist and they realize that they can ask for the sale. The self confidence that sales build in Artists can be seen in them talking to strangers and story telling their Art. Sales are magic because you realize people want your Art and are prepared to buy it with their hard earned money. The hard work in Art is selling and marketing your Art and the money you earn from sales is the result of that hard work. Focus on the process of selling your Art not on the money, that is the result of doing the hard work. It is always about the next sale, focus on selling. .

  When you are marketing and selling your Art you want the buyer to talk so you need to ask questions, we want the buyer to open up so we must talk the least. Tell your story and then finish with a question. People love to talk and be the center of the conversation. If you do it with questions, people feel like they are helping you. Questions open the customer to get emotionally involved. You are letting them talk and you are their captive audience. Well crafted questions will lead a customer to a decision point where you will get a yes or no and of course we are fishing for a yes. This is your money we are talking about, don’t leave the sale to luck or the customers control, ask good questions and be in control of the sale.

One of the biggest hindrances to success are excuses. I will do it once I have everything ready. I will do videos once I am good at them. I am planning what I need to do to be ready to start. Some make a career out of getting ready, but never actually get started , t hey tell me, y ou don’t know how difficult this is to do. If your waiting for everything to be perfect before you start, what if things never are perfect? Others decide to do and do, even if they are not ready. Decide and do, don’t make excuses not to start, you are giving those who have started a really unfair advantage. What can you do today that will make change happen in your Art career?  

When you are selling your Art you have to help people deal with their fear of commitment. You have to work with the client as they persuade themselves to do something that will benefit them. This is the work of selling to someone who likes your Art piece and now you have to help them make their own decision to buy, you can’t make it for them. Buyers remorse is real, so the buyer must feel that they made the decision to buy and were not pushed into it. My attitude was that the customer was now a friend and I only wanted the best for them and my job was to counsel them so they Befriend first and then you are helping a friend.  

  Two business people I know both have a story they tell themselves. Can we predict which one will be more successful through what they talk about? We can know the stories that people tell themselves through their words. One talks about business and finding new ways to generate more wealth. One talks about hobbies and holidays and sees business as a necessary evil. The stories they tell themselves become their truth. They might not be true but they become their truth and their reality. In the Art business it’s no different, w hat story are you telling yourself, one of limitations and scarcity or one of growth and success?

  Many people are waiting for something to happen that will benefit them, get known, get sales, but what if it doesn’t happen? This lock down has been an amazing opportunity for some and time off for others. Some Artists have had a sales bonanza and some convinced themselves that people wouldn’t buy in lock down. One thought they would sell and one thought they wouldn’t and they were both right. The Art market is still there, it has just changed, nothing is like it used to be. Yesterday is broken, stop looking back to how it was because this is how it is. You have a choice to be a spectator or a participator. Today it’s your turn to participate, well it’s always been your turn so connect with new people through showing your work on all the different sites and groups. Show your Art, talk about your Art let us see what you are creating and get our attention. Believe in yourself, you are important a nd it’s your turn so participate.

  Pushing yourself a little harder to stand out means you’re going away from the center and leaving everyone to really appeal to someone. Because you cannot have wonderful Art and sell to everyone, as Art doesn’t appeal to everyone. Most people would never buy a painting, it’s just something they don’t think about. We need to search out that someone who loves Art and buys Art by putting our hand up and getting noticed. Put your hand up [ make videos, write your blog, post your Art and story tell your Art] so they can find you. They can’t find you, if they can’t see you.

  Years ago I was talk ing to an Artist who did not agree with some of my thoughts and every time I said how we need to always see the positive and strive to be a better person and they bought up some famous Artist whose behaviour could contradict what I was saying. This happened a couple of times so I decided to politely exit the conversation, I would not change his mind and h e certainly would not change mine I thought as I was leaving how sad a life he must lead to always have to find something negative to say so they could counter the argument to be a positive and a better Artist. It’s a strange decision to always see the negative and act that out , yet with just a slight adjustment to their thinking life they could decide to make a change for the better. To be positive is an internal decision that goes against what the thief and your internal critic want s , but you must be the one to change you. I believe we can change our world, if we decide to change. I kno...

  We have a lot of time to create Art during these trying times and creating new original work should be our priority, innovating and experimenting. If we are in a jet going from Singapore to Sydney then we want it to be a perfect flight, no incidents, by the book, we don’t you to be doing creative flying. If you are a heart surgeon and you are operating on us we want it to go perfectly, by the book, no experiments please. If you make pacemakers that go inside people to keep them alive, then we want every one made perfectly to specification, by the book, please don’t innovate. But you are an Artist and we want you to innovate and break all the rules, we want you to throw out the book and do it your way with your imagination. We want new and different, we want the original you, we don’t want a repeat of yesterday, we don’t want copies and we don’t want by the book. We want you to startle us, make us look with wonder, we want to be transported to a new reality, we want ...

  People are six times more likely to buy from you if they like you and trust you. Our first task in selling is getting people to like us and trust us, so first impressions count. Be nice, be friendly and be welcoming. Our second task is to help them make their decision to buy our painting. Statistics also say that the last impression of us is the lasting impression. So we have to make the sales experience a fun experience and after you take their money, their sales experience is not over until they leave the gallery or your studio or your art booth. Keep the sales experience going until you say good bye. The last impression of you is so important towards the next sale with them. We want them not to have just purchased a wonderful painting from us but they have a lasting impression of us and they like us and trust us and the experience with us was enjoyable. We want them to have a great experience with us so now they will refer us.

  W ithout sales the professional Artist cannot survive, yet most Artists do not study selling. We have to sell but it often seems we are ashamed to be selling. On this mornings video I demonstrated how I would sell online and before I made the video I wrote out what I wanted to say. Why do this? I don’t want to leave anything to chance, I know if it is written out I will stick to the script, I won’t panic because I know what I want to say. Most people don’t make videos because they don’t know what to say, now few people suffer from talkers blog but we do when we get in front of the camera, so write out what you want to say and read it off, simple but effective. The video is the most effective ways of selling online, yet it is not used effectively, things happen by design and taking deliberate action. Before you make the video write out what you want to say, do your introduction then swing to the painting and read your script then swing back to your face and gi...

  T he good thing about an Art vision and a strategy to accomplish it and sticking with it even through the tough times, is most won’t. So if it takes 10 years to be a success, then giving up after 4 years means you loose. In the beginning it’s like nothing works and no body is watching, but if you can hang in there and go the distance you will get the satisfaction of seeing it does work and they are watching. It’s when they are not watching you cannot panic and loose your nerve or question what you are doing, it will take self belief and commitment to your vision and you must be in it for how long it take s . Self belief and commitment to your vision must be steadfast, no one promised you it would be easy, there will be hard times, you will loose friends but it’s all part of the process of being successful. H ow long will it take, as long it takes.

W hy am I posting this painting? What is the end result we are looking for? A like, a comment, a share, a meme or are we really wanting a sale? Are we selling or posting? There is a difference, if we are selling then it will look like an advertisement, it will have a title and what medium we used and tell us the size, it will also tell us all about the work, why we created it and what it’s about and it will mention the price and how you can contact us, that’s what adds do. If we are just posting to show a few friends, then it will have title, medium and size. Before we post we must know what we want to achieve and create a post that will give us a good possibility of accomplish ing that goal. Knowing what you want before you post creates opportunity.  

Most Artists never contact a customer after they sell a painting. Why is this? We don’t want to bother them? Or are we afraid they don’t like the painting any m ore and will want their money back? Imagine if we contacted them and they are very happy with their painting and love having it hanging on their wall. You could ask them to send you a photo graph of it on their wall and then you could post that on your page, another happy customer. You could tell them about your new work and ask them if they would like to see some photos. You would be building trust and relationship with them and that would grow into a friendship in the future. Contacting our former customers is always a good thing to do especially in this pandemic time , it shows we care about them and their Art work more than they we re just another sale. Imagine they may buy from you again as you treated them like a human being, showed respect and consideration for them. Follow up is caring ...

I am sure we would all agree with that, but how do you calculate what they are worth? Someone who has a 20 year career in Art is going to be able to ask a lot more for their Art than someone with a 5 year career. The value of the painting is not just based on how long it took to create it and what you believe you should get as an hourly rate, it is based on reputation, popularity, sales record and how well you are known. If you have facial recognition and signature recognition within and outside the Art scene then you will be able to command bigger prices than those who are not as well known. This is the key to big prices getting well known, the perception is that if you are well known and you have sold a lot of work, of course your prices are high. Our priority is getting well known.  

  Three people sat down on a busy footpath and the three take off their caps and place them on the ground in front of them. That is all the first one does and all day only a coin was put in the cap. The second person ha d a bell which they were ringing to get the attention of people walking by, they looked but only a few coins were put in the cap. The third person ha d a bell as well and they also ha d a sign hanging around their neck and the sign sa id , “ I can’t feed my three children. Could you kindly help me? “ Many people put money in his cap, he got peoples attention and then told them a story, hooked them emotionally and the people helped. All three people looked the same and had the same cap, but very different outcomes. The first person could not get attention. The second person got attention but did not give a reason for people to help. The third person got attention, told a compelling story that had an emotional hook and closed the sale many tim...