Student Interview$0 to $11.7k/mo

Three, two, one. Hey everyone, Brandon Miles here. Today I have one of my clients, actually a consulting client of mine named Bryce T., but we're here to talk about something that's related to art actually today, so we're going to talk about how Bryce helped his relatives sell $5,300 in sculptures just this weekend. So Bryce, why don't I turn it over to you? Why don't you just introduce yourself a little bit, give everybody a little bit of your background, but then also share a little bit about your relatives, their artwork and what sort of work that they do.

Yeah, so my name is Bryce T. My regular business is more of an accounting firm and I have a coaching program around helping accountants build six-figure accounting firms. It's been a pretty good run and I really loved that kind of work, but my relatives invite me to do art fairs and art different shows that help them get their sales going, sometimes on weekends every once in a while inside of the summer. So I have basically three things going on right now. I'm super excited.

Nice man, that's awesome. So tell us all a little bit more about the artwork. What sort of artwork did they do?

Yeah, so they do more of just metal sculptures, generally like steel, aluminum, and they're just different types of metals. They're generally anywhere between a tabletop to these 90 pound sculptures that are six feet tall.

Very cool. What sort of collectors typically buy it and what do they have and do they have them outside, indoors? Tell us a bit more about that.

So there's a couple of different ways that are different places, different locations, because we do have pieces, the bigger pieces, inside and outside. We've had people where it's like, they just buy just a piece just to put in there, like 18 acre field, just in the middle of the field. We have some people that it's the centerpiece in their house, or they put it on their dining room table. So just a large range of what uses they get under them.

Interesting man, very cool. So for those who are just figuring this out, basically Bryce and I have been working together on his accounting practice and helping him with his sales, his marketing for that, but then he's basically been able to take some of those skills and those learnings and just help his relatives with their artwork. So why don't you just talk a little bit more about that? How have they typically sold artwork in the past? Have you been involved in helping them for a while and what channels, typically these art fairs that you mentioned?

Yeah, so as many people know, a lot of artists were hurt during COVID times. They would go to the fairs and all the fairs stopped during COVID 'cause we couldn't go and meet. So there was a lot of unrest about how to either get things going on the internet, or how to go and take the people who were coming to those art fairs, keep that relationship going and have them buy your artwork during the pandemic. So all you do is just go drive it to them or ship it to them. But you had to learn how to utilize internet. So one thing that we started doing was I started using what Harry was talking about in some of our consulting programs that we've done together, like how to go and identify who's a collector, how to go and identify what's the way to bridge that gap and talk to them. And that was the biggest struggle for my relatives. It was like, how can we go and find people when we can't go to an art fair, because everything is shut down? And that's why I was like, "Hey, if you want, maybe I can start helping you guys sell this stuff."

Got it. This was an actual offline fair this weekend that you went to, right?

Correct.

So are those picking back up?

Yeah. It was actually a mixture of both because we actually sold an extra $3,000 after the fair. So it was like we sold $5,300 on Sunday. And then from somebody from a previous fair, I was like, Hey, we're just sold a bunch of pieces, we only have this one left. Do you want this? The person was like, "Can we do a quick call?" I showed him the piece, the same way I did the art fair. And the person said, "Hey, let's buy this thing."

So it was actually 8,300 in sales recently.

In two days.

Good for you, good for you. Well, that's awesome. And so why don't you just walk us through the weekend a little bit, just share a little bit. You don't have to go through every single detail, but what was the fare like? Tell us about the buyers, how do you guys get connected?

So the fair was pretty bad in the beginning, It was a Saturday and Sunday kind of fair. Friday it rained almost the whole evening. And that's when you generally set up the tent and get everything going. Saturday morning, we come to the tent, our next door tent person, her tent was in a tree because there was a tornado that ran through the road that the fair was on. Our stuff was good, but her stuff was on a tree.

Well, if you've got weighted sculptures, it probably takes a lot of force to lift something.

It's one of those things, man. Like when a tornado comes through, tornadoes take a car.

Yeah, good point.

So we came in there and our piece was good, but that Saturday, there was not a lot of traffic, which is really hard when it comes to fairs, which is also why we're working with you. Sunday was really good because the people started coming out, it was sunny, it was really good. All day long we had pretty good traffic. Just simple conversation where it's like, "Hey, you like this thing, what do you like about it?" "Where would you put it?"

Do you feel like the communication skills that you and I work on in terms of doing things online, chatting and Facebook Messenger, things like that, were you basically being able to apply those same techniques at the fair, with these conversations?

The reason why your stuff works so well because it's almost like you're taking an in-person conversation and just putting on a computer. So it's literally the exact same thing.

Yeah. So this is just the other way, it's like now you're just going back offline and like using the same principles, but talking to people at the fair.

Yeah.

Very cool, very cool. So yeah, go on, go ahead. Tell me more about, were there multiple sales or it was just one sale for 5,300 at the event?

It was multiple sales, multiple sales. So we have different size pieces at different price points. So generally we have like a 500 price range, a 900 price range, 2300. And then we're going to start expanding it to more like the five grand. So multiple different sales.

And were there any interesting like anecdotes or surprises or anything from the people that ended up buying? Did anybody surprise you?

It's one of those things where you can't tell who has money.

That's true sometimes, it's very hard to tell.

It's very similar, when you talk about it inside of your programs where the sales, you can not take anything personally. Don't try and push people too far because we have people where they'll be super interested. They'll be touching everything, they'll be wanting to buy, you say the price, they're like, oh, and they're having it high and then they walk away. And most people make the mistake of pressuring them and they never get the sale. If you just let them walk away, then they come back.

So did you see that happen where basically people came and they had almost like a learning phase at your booth and then they like came back and they had a closing phase?

I think some people more wanted to buy it on the way back to their car because the pieces were so heavy.

I see, yeah. They're like, I want to see the whole fair and then if they still like your piece and there's something else, then they get it on their way out so they don't have to schlep it around.

Yeah, yeah. And the 80 degree heat.

That makes sense, that makes sense. Well, so it sounds like you've been helping out, not only with this art fair, but also general handling inquiries online too. Are there any other interesting takeaways or parallels where you've seen like, this same thing that I've been doing with my art accounting practice that Harry has taught me, and how it's been a parallel and applied to selling the art? Any interesting insights there?

Yeah, as far as the content strategy that we worked on the consulting end with some of your other artists students, just me being able to see what people are doing, where we're gonna be executing on that probably in the next like two weeks. And then we can really utilize everything you taught me on the art phase and really just blast it off online.

Nice, so you got the foundations in place for some of the online lead generation techniques. And you're going to be testing some of that out.

Yeah, because the pricing that we've seen, when you utilize what Harry talks about, it's so much easier to raise your price online as well. Only because it's not like they're comparison shopping. So that's the one thing I'm really excited to be able to utilize more of, is just raising my price because of the stuff we talked about inside the program.

Yeah. So have you done anything with social proof, any interviews and stuff for the art practice?

Not in the typical way, no. We have user centered photos and like taking photos with the people. We have not done the interviews, the social proof stuff we talk about yet.

That'll be probably some low-hanging fruit that you guys can explore doing as well. That's awesome. Any other interesting takeaways or insights from these recent wins? I mean $8,300 in two days. That's not too shabby.

Yeah. Price isn't real, that's one thing.

What do you mean by that?

Meaning that the price that you're starting out with and you're trying to sell it with is generally lower than what the market is willing to pay.

You're basically talking about, it's so psychological and that you can probably charge more than you think.

Well, yeah. The people who buy it, when you start pricing it higher, they ask less questions, they just walk up to you and they're like, "Hey, how much is it?" Because we don't put our prices on the actual pieces. You say the price, and just whip it out in cash. And that was a really big eye opener to me that people were just walking around with like four grand, five grand worth of cash in their pockets.

Well, they probably don't do that normally. But if they do that at an art fair, you know?

That's what I'm saying. So when they're coming and they're thinking about arts, if we had set our price at two grand thinking, "Oh, this is expensive!" We would've missed out on a lot of sales. So you can price it more than what you expect because the people who are going to buy your stuff...

Are prepared.

Spend money.

Interesting. That's interesting, man. Well, cool. Again you're one of my consulting clients. You're not technically one of my artist's clients, but let me ask you this. Do you feel like you'd recommend me to other artists? And if so, what sort of artists do you think I'm a good fit for?

Yeah, I would recommend you to other artists. I have actually recommended you to other artists. Who would be a good fit? Can you explain a little more like a specific style or?

I'm thinking personally less in terms of style, but more about in terms of what are their goals for their art practice? What level they're at in terms of the business side of things.

Okay. I think you can help out both the beginner, intermediate. I'm not advanced so I wouldn't know. You do have a lot of artists are doing really, really well right now. So I think you can help people. If someone needs some structure, maybe they'd been trying to sell it at these different art fairs or maybe they'd been trying to sell it online, but they just don't know what to do. Or they don't have a structure in place, they should generally come to you because you just say, "Hey, do this, do this, do this." "Do not do all this stuff that's going to waste your time." So you can focus just on your art and creation and you just sell it. Exactly.

Got it. I love it, I love it. No, I think it does. I think it does, I think you're right. I always like to say, if somebody is at least sold like one or two pieces, it doesn't even have to have been at a crazy high price point, but they've sold some pieces and they're just really committed to growing and growing their art practice doesn't mean they have to be full-time they can be part-time, but they just have to be committed and dedicated to their art practice. And that typically means like lots of professionals, I've worked with a ton of those folks, but then also like I would call them rookies, people that are getting started, but are serious about it, if that makes sense.

If they want to make money, then they should come to you. If they're just having fun...

It's funny you say that. There's a lot of artists out there that are just doing it for passion and that's so great, that's awesome. We're all about basically not only doing it as a passion, but also monetizing it, making a living, making an income and you got to want to do that because otherwise I can't help you. That's the thing I help you with.

Like the stuff that you show, it's going to help out my relatives so much because the ability for them to be able to just say, I'm going to do this, this and this. And if I just follow it correctly and the same way that you lay out in your program step by step, I don't have to worry about money in the same way that I used to. They don't have to worry about money. It's just so--

They can make your art practice predictable.

Exactly, yeah.

That's awesome, I'm so glad to hear that. I'm so glad to hear that. So why should someone who's listening to this take action right now?

The amount of time that you're going to lose, and the frustration that you'll go through if you try and figure it all out yourself, when you've never run a business or you've never sold things and you're just used to just creating stuff, you might as well just pay the money, so you can start making the money back almost relatively immediately for a lot of the people joining the program now, it's just money. You're going to get more of it, spend it, get the skills, build your art practice. That's why you should do it now.

Yeah. So it's very different. Like what you're saying is like most purchases we buy, if we buy something like a new motorcycle or a new guitar, like behind you, it's just money going out and it doesn't back around. And what you're basically saying is you're investing in yourself and those funds will come back around. It's a more rational thing to do, if that makes sense.

When I first started, I was so scared to invest money to work with you.

You were really nervous on the call.

I was freezing up 'cause it was like, it wasn't about how much money was. It was just the fact that it was like, am I going to be able to get this money back? 'Cause I've been trying so hard and I don't know. But then looking back, it was like the only reason I was able to really sell the $8,300 in two days was because of, I joined this program. I joined this program with you. You showed me how to motherfuckers. Sorry, to the people.

It's all right, it's all right. We have an adult audience.

You also showed me the money doesn't stop. I've collected more than six figures since we started working together.

I see what you're saying, yeah. That's another thing people think about. Thinking about money is like, it's just static in someplace, but it's actually more, this flow, it's like a river it's moving around the economy and you basically learn how to way deeper into the river and like capture more of the week. But then you go ahead and spend it on other stuff you invested in hiring people or more art supplies or advertising so it's like, you're basically getting deeper into the flow of the river, if that makes sense. I like that image.

Yeah. Does that fully answer your question?

Yeah, it does. And so let me ask you this too. What would be your number one piece of advice for artists out there right now?

Get structure, so you can sell your art for more money.

Get structure so you can sell your art for more money. Yeah, get organized, get systematic and then that'll help you make more. That's good, I like that. That makes a lot of sense to me. Cool. What's next for you and your relatives? What do you have planned to help them grow their art practice the next two, three months?

Next goal would be 10K per month. This is our second show, first show we did about five. This round we did about eight, next round I'd like to do about 10 to 12. That's just gonna be from us, just raising our price again.

Okay, excellent. Well, awesome, man. This is so great to catch up. I appreciate you taking the time to record this, but I just thought you shared that win in the group. And I was like, what? Bryce is working with accountants. How is he selling art? I got to hear more about this and capture this and so we can share that with our audience. So thank you for sharing more about this win and if anybody wants to learn about you or any of this stuff we talked about, where can they find out more online?

You can just type in Bryce T. I have a lot of different avenues that I'm online, so you'll probably find me somewhere.

Cool. Awesome, man. Well thanks so much, we'll talk soon.

Excellent, talk to you soon, thanks.

All right, bye.

Bye