Want to Roto-Rooter Your Money Fountain?
Let’s explore a more authentic path to abundance for artists and creatives.
How to reactivate your innate connection between art, money, and integrity.
By Thea Fiore-Bloom, Ph.D
Are you like me?
Ever get into an art sales slump and wonder if there’s some big, caked-on hairball you can’t see clogging up your financial fountain?
If the answer is yes, are you up for Roto-Rootering that fountain today?
If you do this fountain maintenance, I bet you’ll feel more empowered and prosperous.
Some of you may even experience a bit of actual elation if you’re up for implementing the fifteen-minute, table-turning, website improvement that I suggest at the end of this post.
Ready?
How Artists Can Make More Money: First Fire Someone
The first thing you can do to remove those unsightly hairballs from your prosperity fountain is to fire someone.
I suggest firing whoever has been in charge of marketing in your brain.
That’s right, it’s time to oust that toy monkey with the cymbals from your C-suite.
Integrity Valence is In Town
Because there’s a new sheriff in town, and her name is Integrity.
Let me explain.
Heart-centered creatives like us came to earth with something I call a built-in “integrity package.”
We can’t shut it off or override it (without consequences like art burnout).
When I stress about sales, I try to remember to call Security to escort the monkey with the cymbals- out.
Once he’s out, replace him with your Integrity (along with your Imagination, Intuition, and Intelligence).
Consider Trying the Following Experiment:
Periodically, try to shake off all selling expectations and guilt.
Clear the deck of all the art biz experts’ advice and let Integrity & Company take the reins again.
Make a new three-month plan.
Base your new plan on the superpowers available to heart-centered artists like us: superpowers I refer to as our three I’s. (Intuition, Intelligence, and Imagination.)
- Invoke your uncanny Intuition.
- Draw upon your sharp Intelligence,
- and engage your rich Imagination.
And then take action.
You can brainstorm the plan via a long journaling session.
Or, you may get great results from this powerful fifteen-minute “Meet Your Business” meditation.
What is your new internal CEO telling you?
Don’t be afraid to act on her guidance.
Even if she tells you to ease up on social media and … go rollerskating.
(Sure, it’s risky to listen to kind inner voices, but no riskier than taking orders from a cymbal monkey, right?)
Joy creates prosperity if you apply it to your business.
And don’t blindly do what you’re told to do by art marketing “authorities.”
Instead, spend time and attention on your business every day of your work week.
No problem can stand in the face of you assaulting it with the twin forces of time and attention.
In the words of Wonder Woman (who boldly shouted as she swung her lasso over her foe), “Hola!”
Okay, now that we’ve cleared the decks and got more fresh water flowing between our hearts and our heads, let’s finish up with that website prosperity tweak I mentioned at the beginning.
How Artists Can Make More Money: Giving To Receive
Want to snap yourself out of the “I-am-a-subservient-slug-I-need-a-buyer mode?”
Want to get back into the “Ahoy! I-am-the-queen-of-this-fab-pirate-ship-and-we’re-headed-east!” mode?
Consider donating a percentage of your future art sales (aka tithing) to one or more charities you believe in with all your heart.
I used to remember to donate to true no-kill dog and cat shelters and other wildlife rescues across the world – but only occasionally.
But a few years back, I decided I wanted to make it a regular thing and thought it might help if I committed to it in writing on my website.
So I put a small announcement at the bottom of my writing coaching sales page.
Now, hear me out.
My pledge didn’t increase my sales.
I doubt folks even notice it.
But my pledge did positively alter my relationship with money, and it might do the same for you.
Here’s how.
How Tithing Helps Artists Make More Money Without Marketing
Tithing helped me rewire my mental financial computer and create new, healthy, emotional associations with money.
I don’t know about you, but in the past, selling was often laden with feelings of panic, money guilt, shame, or fear.
However, now if you buy a piece of my art or a coaching package from me, I have no time for second-guessing my work’s worth.
Because… I’m too busy doing a happy dance as I head over to PayPal’s new charitable giving site to send one of my animal rescue organizations ten percent.
It’s liberating.
Selling is now linked in my lizard brain with anticipation, excitement, and a feeling of micro-heroism for our furry friends.
Spam Avoidance Hack: Check out PayPal’s New Generosity Network Page.
It will allow you to easily give money without having to divulge any of your contact information.
This is fabulous because it’s a way to give small, frequent amounts to charity without being barraged by those endless, scary pitch letters featuring harrowing pictures of animals in need.
Just keep the box that says “Let the Charity Know” unchecked.
How Artists Can Make More Money: Announcement Action Step
So if you want to re-train your brain to associate money with “Hell Yes!” maybe you want to take fifteen minutes this week and:
- Select a handful of your favorite charities.
- Decide the percentage you feel comfortable with. (Start with 5% perhaps?)
- Put an announcement in your sidebar, footer, or at the bottom of your sales page with your promise. (Example of mine below.)
- Then smile your head off knowing you’re switching your financial brain channel from “Whoa is me” to “Hell Yes, I’m Helping These Guys!”
One of The Charmed Studio’s Tithing Announcements
If this sounds good to you, give it a go.
I sincerely hope that your prosperity fountain will soon be gurgling and flowing in no time, aided by the power of your love and care for the kids, animals, or areas of the environment you want to support and protect.
“A life based on giving becomes a life that produces wealth.
A life based on getting is a life of anxiety and money problems.”
– Steve Chandler
Over to you: what do you think?
Are you an animal lover? Is there a prosperity book you like?
Let me know in the comments below.
You may also like these other Charmed Studio Posts:
Black Artists Matter: 5 Easy Ways To Support Artists of Color
How To Get an Artist’s Residency? Don’t Apply For One, Do This Instead
Zoom Calls For Introverts: The Artist’s Guide to Looking, Sounding, and Feeling Good on Zoom
Attract More People To Your Art Website: 9 Ethical, Tiny Tips You’ll Love
How Artists Can Write a Book: 7 Pleasurable Steps
This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. This means if you buy books or stuff via my blog I may receive a tiny commission and do a happy dance. There is no extra fee for you. I only link to items I personally use and love; products that I think help heart-centered artists.
HeyThea-
Great post! Good way to get into a more regular habit and zap your brain into new thinking. I also liked the meditation. It made me realize I already do think of my business as a separate entity, but definitely need to communicate with it. Like the comments on charging what your worth, too! Thank you!
You are so welcome. Thanks for taking the time to let me know your experience with the article and the meditation was Kristen. I have done a few other meditations by Jaqueline Atkins over on Insight Timer that focus on individual chakras and your business. They have been helpful to me as well.
Great post. Great suggestions and I love the donation suggestion. I think my problem is a whole different kind of post. I’m not an artist but I was a videographer and I was great at marketing but my insecurity around the thought that my services weren’t worth charging for really got in my way if you can imagine. I never did charge what I was worth and most the time I ended up doing things for free. Not a great way to make a living. I did theater fit free for so long that I guess I figured that’s what I was worth. Oh boy this sounds like a therapy session sorry. But, donating is a great idea that would help in my situation for sure. Thank you so much again.
Hey Denise,
I have been there sister, for me, not charging was a habit that I was able to replace with a new habit-charging. I can’t tell you how many paid editors for national magazines were shocked when I didn’t want the opportunity to write entire articles for free or for a whopping 25$. It is easy to see how working free happens as an artist because even huge corporations expect you to make videos for “credit” or write for the “exposure.”
My writer friend Linda Formicelli used to sell mugs with an icy mountain peak image on it and the words, “Writers Can Die of EXPOSURE.”So my point is the creatives working for free idea comes from the top and filters down.
Don’t drink the KoolAid they offer.
Here are the 5 words I wrote out an index card and taped to my kitchen cabinet over the coffee pot where I could see them every day that changed things for me:
“WHAT COMPENSATION ARE YOU OFFERING?”
Perhaps that would work for you too? Maybe collect as many phrases as you can that perform the same function. Just having the language and speaking the words can change things. Here is a great little video from a videographer Matt Granger about “What compensation are you offering?” (I think videographers, like photographers ARE artists, btw.)
I bet if you have the language memorized, and you practice saying your prices out loud to yourself every day, many people will say yes to paying you. Some hypocritical folks will be shocked (i.e. they don’t work for free but you should)let them be. It’s a bumpy transition but you are strong, you got this!
Let me know what you think.
Thank you these are wonderful suggestions.
This was absolutely perfect! I can’t tell you how on the spot this was for me ! I truly appreciate this. I’ve been in a sales slump for a while now trying to navigate through and it’s extremely frustrating and stressful, this completely helped me💓
Jen thank you so much for letting me know this was a help to you, that makes me breathe in and out and be grateful to the crazy muse in my head who insisted I write this post. You are a wonderful artist and a wonderful person. Remember as a Quaker friend once said to me:”Way Will Open.”
Your sparkle factory will be back running as never before-before you know it, but rest for now for even a day or two because soon enough you will be bombarded with sales and won’t have time to rest then.
Great article! And Thanks for sharing my book here. 🙂 I especially loved the meditation video you shared – wow, that was really good. I’m going to share that one with my entrepreneur friends!
Thanks for taking the time to comment Maria. I am honored you came over and did that. 🙂
Yes, I was blown away by that simple meditation too. We can learn a lot FROM our businesses in 15 minutes.
Hi Thea! Another excellent blog post! I have done something all my life which brings me great joy and sometimes generates sales down the line. I love making things for local performers. Recently I made a grand tiara from chandelier crystals for a local performer who is pretty outrageous. It took me three months to make and cost me about $300. It was fantastic and several of his followers bought some other pieces of mine. He contributes joy and love in my community and the joy I receive when I see him wearing it is beyond words. What about donating works of art to hospitals, hostels, animal shelter tag sales or arts organization raffle sales? One must give to receive has always been my motto!
I saw that crystal tiara you crafted for your friend Chris Wells who helped so many artists during the pandemic with his project The Secret City and thought it was wonderful. I wish I could include photos in WordPress comments, but you can’t in my theme. Anyway…
What did Winston Churchill say… “We make a living by what we get, we make a life but what we give.”
Big hug to you my friend. You are a wonder.
Thea, another excellent blog! Yes, Linda Blondheim’s common sense approach to the art business, her love of nature (especially fruit trees), food and fabulous tea parties speak to me and her followers and collectors. I know many artists (including myself) who ignore the marketing gurus, follow their intuition and routinely sell. Last year I realized that I created my best work when I was not focused on selling it. It was quite an eye opener! Routinely donating a percentage of your profits to a charitable organization is truly liberating.
Hi Sylvia,
One of the reasons I signed up to your blog right away was your courageous irreverence when it comes to “marketing gurus.” I think many of us went into the arts,or returned to them, IN SPITE of various authorities dictating what we should and shouldn’t do. So I say let’s follow your example and Linda’s example and stay free to keep doing our own dance. You are a great example of a successful seller who has given the Bronx cheer to a lot of the fear-mongering out there. Thanks as always for your insights and supportive comments.
Thea, AMEN to re-wiring our financial brains to create new, healthy, emotional associations with money. Love your shifting just an inch or two in a different direction to gain a totally new perspective. Onward we go!
I also love how you pepper your blog with art created by subscribers. Brilliant!
Dotty, I am so happy to hear you could relate to my latest adventure in brain shifting. And thank you for reinforcing my sharing of subscriber art. There is a piece of yours in your wonderful portrait of friends series that I would love to share with my other readers on the blog, I will contact you shortly about that. In the meantime- Onwards!! Ever Onwards!!
Thank you so much for writing this insightful post! It came at a very much needed time in my life. As a creative, I often struggle with the traditional marketing tactics that art marketing gurus give, and how those tactics clash with my own integrity. This post is such a great reminder to be true to who I am, and to listen to my own intuition about what works best for me. I also loved the idea of changing our relationship with money through giving back! We give ourselves a boost by lifting up others. I also believe that what we give to the world comes back to us!
I am so happy that I stumbled upon your site. You are a ray of light!
Sarah
Sarah, you made my week. Yeah, I have kind of had it with “tactics”! This is not a war. Many, not all, Art marketing gurus often come from a corporate background and are not themselves artists. Therefore they don’t get our perspective on marketing and money and creativity because they haven’t been there. Nor do they have the same natures that we do. I want to encourage artists to subscribe to Sarah’s new blog. She and I share a lot of beliefs about giving ourselves and break and going within rather than without, to get direction, sustenance and energy.
Sarah, you made my week. Yeah, I have kind of had it with “tactics”! This is not a war. Many, not all, Art marketing gurus often come from a corporate background and are not themselves artists. Therefore they don’t get our perspective on marketing and money and creativity because they haven’t been there. Nor do they have the same natures that we do. I want to encourage artists to subscribe to Sarah’s new blog. She and I share a lot of beliefs about giving ourselves and break and going within rather than without, to get direction, sustenance and energy.
Oh, one more thing…here’s an original example I came across this month of authenticity and joy increasing art sales. Artist and Charmed Studio subscriber Linda Blondheim attracts happy art buyers to her tea-themed paintings- via her own tea parties. Way to go Linda! I firmly believe Joy communicates non-attachment to buyers and I think people buy more from people they sense would make this art whether the buyer was around or not. I know I sell more art when I am not attached to whether someone buys it and I am staying curious and enjoying the quest itself. What about you?