Go Get It!
Small Business Trends posted an article on The Trend of the Artist as Entrepreneur (Anita Campbell, November 29). It reminded me that I really need to explain something about the title of my blog, “Art is Work.”
What I don’t mean is that creating the art itself is work. That’s pretty obvious.
What I mean is, the process of making a living as an artist is work.
It would be great if I could just sit here in front of my Macbook creating cute, funny animals while slurping my coffee without doing anything else.
The truth is, I spend more time on marketing and networking than I do creating art. For me, that’s cool because I just love doing that stuff. It’s fun, it’s a little game I play. It’s a bunch of mad scientist experimentation and research and I geek out on it.
What if you don’t geek out on that stuff? What if you hate it? What if you just can’t get started or know where?
Three things you need:
1. You need me. What else am I doing here? Hit me up! Ask me questions. I’ve been at the struggling-to-pay-rent-my-portfolio-sucks end and the how-did-I-get-all-these-clients end. Ask me. Whatever. Please.
2. You need to follow these blogs and these people on Twitter. They are experts in getting unstuck and creating a business:
@havi The Fluent Self
@ittybiz Itty Biz
@GrantGriffiths Home Office Warrior
@garyvee Gary Vaynerchuck
3. You need to go get it.
Wow, that’s deep, huh? If you’re scratching your head or beating your fists on the table, saying, “but it’s not that %^&*ing simple!” you are absolutely right. It’s just a statement that means nothing on it’s own.
What I mean is that you can’t put up a cool web site then sit around and wait for the commissions to come in. They won’t.
What you’ve got to do is put yourself out there, call some people, send cards, mail samples, go to conferences in your niche market (if you don’t know what that might be, let’s talk). You have to work to bring it in. Take some chances, fall on your face a little bit. You have to.
In the coming weeks I’ll be expanding in the “Go Get It” idea so it doesn’t just sit on my blog like a slimy marketing slogan. I’ll show you how to “go get it.”
In the meantime, you can always go to step 1 above. I’m here to help. All you have to do is ask.
Sparky Feedpants
