Season 2, Episode 12: “How can I build meaningful online connections while saving time?” – Alexandra Verboom Fritz

Jessica Craddock: I am here with Alexandra Verboom Fritz, and her lovely daughter is actually joining us today as well. She's at an earlier point in her career where, she's self-taught and she's doing pretty well selling directly to customers with trade shows and art fairs and local art shows. But because she has this little one and also another little one on the way, that income tends to be really high and low because she can't do that many events.

 She is a contemporary western artist who is celebrating the cowboy culture that is alive in Canada. She's got a really cool little niche there. So let's go ahead and dive in and see where this takes us. Welcome, Alexandra.

Alexandra : Thank you so much, Jessica.

Jessica Craddock: We talked a little bit before I started this recording, but can you share a little bit about what you would like to figure out today? What's the main problem that you're having that you would like some light shown on?

Alexandra : Thanks, Jessica. Probably the biggest thing would be planning for the second baby coming. Pregnancy's been a little rough and I haven't been able to do a lot of work during it so far. The last few months I've been doing very little. In person things are not going to be very possible to do very many.

I'm planning a couple of them this summer, but there won't be too many throughout the year, I guess as our family grows. And so far I haven't done much online. I have a very small social media presence and it hasn't been a big focus on my business. And I'd like to create a plan to start making better connections online and just a more of a general direction for where to focus on my art career. Right now, I just kind of feel like I'm floundering, doing a little bit of everything without really strong direction.

Jessica Craddock: Gotcha. Okay. So when you say you are floundering, doing a little bit of everything, First of all, let me say, I think that's the number one complaint people come to me with.

I'm floundering doing a little bit of everything, and I don't know where to focus, and I want my life back.

What are you floundering and doing a little bit of everything of?

Alexandra : So trying to do a newsletter, which I'm not great at, always doing a newsletter and building a social media, which I don't post too often, only a couple times a week. Trying to do shows, but it's hard to do shows. So trying to prioritize which ones are actually going to be beneficial.

And maintaining relationships with previous clients and just everything. And I guess seems overwhelming. I'm good with the art side and with producing things, especially if I have a deadline, but because I don't have solid deadlines right now cause I don't have a solo show coming down the road or anything like that already set up.

So it's really easy to just meander and Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: I get it. I'm gonna be real honest with you real quick. I have a launch, quote unquote, that I am planning to do around August and over here on my wall, I have, here's all the things I needed to do to make it happen, but also it's not till August.

And I knew, I knew when I made that wall art. We're gonna call it wall art cuz that's all it is right now. That it was gonna do nothing for me. Mapping out a plan from start to finish is very ineffective for me, and I've also found for a lot of my customers. Maybe there are people out there who that's not true of, but it just feels too nebulous or overwhelming, or there's too many moving parts.

So, you know, one of the things that I like to do is break it down into just, an overarching plan of what I should be working on, but not here's exactly what the timeline and what needs to come first. Mm-hmm. And how that works is.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: So you said one of your priorities or maybe even your main priority is starting to move your business from offline to more online.

Alexandra : That's right, yes.

Jessica Craddock: Part of knowing that is knowing why you want to do that and how that's going to affect your life, affect your business. Have you taken the time to consider that? Like why is that, the North Star.

Alexandra : So the biggest thing for wanting to switch to more online would be that it's more manageable and flexible.

I can do that little bits here and there throughout home life. I can work at midnight if I need to. It's not as structured and as demanding for as specific time and place as what in person is. Down the road I would love to have a studio that's open to the public during weekdays or something like that, but that's just not a reality for me with my young family.

And I wanna homestead and we wanna homeschool and all the things.

Jessica Craddock: Right.

Alexandra : I'm thinking that if I switch gears and focus to the more online, Or at least that being a bigger part of my business. Like I still love the in-person and I wanna do some key events throughout the year, but that's not consistent enough for me.

Cuz then I'm only having three or four sales a year. Well that's not, I need more than that.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. Okay. So let's pretend for a second that you did not have a young child and another one on the way. What would you say if we took the, the time constraint out of this just for a second. We're gonna put it back in because hat's real life. What would you want your business to look like right now? Not someday I want. Someday I want. Someday I want, but what would you want to build for now?

Alexandra : If it wasn't for family commitments and time restraints, I would love to do tons of in-person shows and hit every ranch rodeo across Western Canada and have an art booth there and those kinds of things. But that's not super possible.

Jessica Craddock: Right.

Alexandra : I love connecting with people in person and hearing their stories and explaining the art better and seeing their reaction and just building stronger connections.

I don't feel like I'm good at building connections online. It feels unreal,

and which I know is just my hang-up. Like you can build real connections online.

Jessica Craddock: Absolutely.

Alexandra : But it just doesn't feel right to me, so it hasn't been a focus.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: Well, first of all, let me say, thinking about my client list currently, none of them I have ever met in person.

Alexandra : Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: And I feel very connected to every single one of my clients. And not just my clients, but I have what I call an orbit list of the people around me, and I feel very connected to a lot of them as well. So I just want to share that it's very possible

Alexandra : For sure.

Jessica Craddock: To have online connections and relationships. But what you said about what you would want it to look like is you had hit all the ranches, ranch shows, and, ranch shows, that's not a thing. Rodeos, in person stuff because you like connecting in person. You like hearing stories, you like seeing reactions.

And you also said, I like explaining the art better. So the reason why I asked you all that is because sometimes people make decisions just purely based on what they think is easier, which, in a way you are doing, but I wanna bring it back to what is it that you really want, not just the easier and making it a little bit more possible to have that flexible, manageable schedule. But what you really want is to connect in person, hear stories, see reactions, and explain the art better. So what I would like to do with you next, I think, let me know if this feels like the right direction for you, is make a plan to connect as much personally as possible.

Not in person, but we can put in conversation or through video chats or something like that. Where you can still hear their stories, see their reactions, and explain the art better.

Alexandra : Right.

That makes sense.

Jessica Craddock: I think over the past, it's longer than this, but it feels like 10 years for me cuz that's basically how long I've, well, 15, I guess how long I've been living in this marketing world. We collectively have been told, here's how to grow your audience. Here's how to grow your email list, and it's all very content based.

Meaning write more posts. Post more reels. Do more stories. Create better opt-ins, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That model can feel very frustrating and slow and like it's not working, even though it is, but it still just takes way longer to see results if that is your main focus.

So, we've talked quite a bit at this point. You probably know that very well from me. But you're also saying I wanna build online. So I don't want it to be solely focused on a content plan. So you've mentioned you tried to do a newsletter, but you don't do it very well.

I've got maybe three social posts a week. And I'm really hustling to get all of that done.

Alexandra : That's right.

Jessica Craddock: It just feels, how does that feel to you as you're working on that stuff?

Alexandra : Icky and salesy? The newsletter, if I have like an event or something I can invite people to, then that feels more like welcoming and engaging. But when I have nothing coming up. I don't know. It feels empty, and I don't know what the, which, I mean like, we've worked together before. We worked on our content sources and all that and like topics. So like I have those, but it's still just feels lacking doing it.

Jessica Craddock: What feels lacking about it?

Alexandra : I guess I don't feel, I'm not a very long winded person. I feel like I'm kind of straight up, this is how it is. And to talk about stuff online feels like I need to just go on and on and on. And I just don't have it in me. Like, it's like,

Jessica Craddock: So I, inside of Consistent Income, both the group and the V I P level, I have all this curriculum and there is a section called Connect with Content.

And I have two different ways that you can follow. And really, if you. Learn, both of 'em, they kind of end up merging together. But what you are referencing is the, the three topics version of the content. There's a second type of content in there that I call content for her. And the reason why I love that one, and honestly it's the one I use the most, and it works really well for me.

It's called Content for Her because it's conversation based. So essentially your goal becomes, I'm gonna start as many conversations with my ideal art buyers as possible, and I'm gonna take whatever we end up talking about, and I'm gonna comment on that as a form of content.

Alexandra : Right?

Jessica Craddock: So for example I wrote an email the other day. It was about perennials and how perennials are a part of my garden because they come back year after year and I don't have to keep doing the work over and over. And I referenced that to a conversation that I had with someone who said, I feel like I'm just putting stuff on Instagram and then it disappears.

Poof, it's gone. And I, I used what she was saying and responded to it and wrote an email about it.

The reason why I am I'm bringing this up right now is because you're saying I'm not very long-winded and I don't know how to keep talking about these same things. But when you make your content conversation, you never really run out of things to say because you're just responding to whatever that other person was talking about.

So you love hearing their stories. Right. Yeah. We wanna hear, and fyi side note, Lexi and I have a little plan about kinda what this looks like already. So I might reference that. So I'm gonna try to be as clear as possible here. But essentially what she is wanting to do is collect stories from people, create a series over it, get some PR around it, create an art show, showcasing all of these pieces.

None of that really has to change.

That's true, and I was thinking that like I could be repurposing those stories and like putting it in a blog and sharing them that way as well as some long-form content. Mm-hmm.

This is just the way my brain works. Like I see all of it. I see how it all fits together. But I don't think most other people's brains work that way. So help me understand where you are feeling the disconnect between that plan and building your online, what's the word we wanna, it's not really presence, it's more like building your online connections as opposed to in person connections.

Alexandra : And I guess that like the plan for the stories project will do that essentially it's gets been slow getting it going. Like, I've only done a couple interviews, and I'm just starting my first piece for the project. So like, once that really gets going, Then that'll be a good way to build connections.

I guess this gets more in the meantime, like I have a small collection of finished works that I'd like to sell. I can talk about a specific painting and share what that specific painting's about. But it's, how do I go deeper?

Jessica Craddock: Let's call one side of things. I wanna sell what I've already got, and one is the plan. Okay.

Alexandra : Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: So we've got the plan and we've got the collections.

What I hear is, well, I don't have this done yet. It's slow going, and I have no time. Correct me if I'm wrong or like steer me in a different path if I'm going the wrong way. But all that time you are spending over here on the collection could be turned off and moved over to the plan.

Alexandra : That's true. Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: This feels to me. And I hate saying this cause I don't wanna like make your work feel less, but it feels piddly. Like I'm just doing this because I'm not to this thing I really want yet.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: Accurate. Not accurate.

Alexandra : Yes and no. So I guess I kind of see the stories project an extension of the work I've already begun.

Cause I've been doing this like the cowboy series and some livestock of like cowboys that I worked with, people thought I know. And so it's the beginning of this concept for the story project of then inviting the, the subjects of the painting to share their story and that would then inspire the paintings to kind of reversing the process.

Jessica Craddock: Gotcha.

Alexandra : It's a bit of both. Like I, I understand what you're saying that Yeah. I could just, which maybe that's the better plan, is really if I spent the next two weeks using all of my energy on the project, I could probably finish my first piece and then get going with that.

Jessica Craddock: So what if, I referenced earlier, I don't really like to have a timeline start to finish. I like to have it, here's the things I need to work on in order to make this happen that are gonna move the needle the most.

Alexandra : Right?

Jessica Craddock: So one thing that's gonna move the me needle the most is creating new paintings. Like, that's almost always my starting place, because if you're not creating, you don't have anything to talk about, you don't have anything to sell, don't have new inspiration to share. Like, it just kind of puts everything at a standstill when you're not creating.

Yeah.

The other piece of this is we want to hear stories because that's our again, I'm, I'm guessing here, but I feel like that's one of the things that fills your cup, makes you feel inspired, makes you want to paint and makes you want to do this art business of yours.

Alexandra : For sure.

Jessica Craddock: I said earlier, relationships along with content are much more effective than just the content. So if the only thing right now that we're doing is hearing stories and telling stories from people. Cool.

Alexandra : Now, do I need to have the painting finished to share the story though, do you think?

Jessica Craddock: No.

Alexandra : No. Okay.

Jessica Craddock: There's a lot of different ways you could go about it. It could be that you have the story and you share it in parts and pieces as you are creating the work, like in process.

Alexandra : That's a good idea.

Jessica Craddock: It could be that the first story or reel or whatever that you do is an introduction where you tell the story and then the rest are about the process of creating the art and the conversation that you had about this and the way you relate to that in your own life and how you're pulling this piece into the art. Because they said this like,

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: Really more talking through what's in your head and what you've talked about with them and where your inspiration's coming from. As far as getting in front of more people, I keep thinking the word collaboration and that doesn't have to be the, to be this big, scary, complicated thing.

Collaboration could be as simple as I'm going to seek out stories of people who have an audience of their own, whether they're just totally really connected or they have an online presence, or they own a feed store, so that you can use them as a way to get more of your people.

Alexandra : Okay, that makes sense.

Jessica Craddock: So I would prioritize those stories since we only have so much time, and we're also wanting to build our audience online.

Alexandra : That makes sense.

Jessica Craddock: Two birds once, or maybe it's like three birds, one stone.

Alexandra : Right. Okay.

Jessica Craddock: And then. What works well for me, this is different for everybody. I have a couple different tools I use, but the tool that I use is, not, I have to write three posts a week, cause then I just automatically don't. If I give myself a, you need to do this, I will not do it. I know this about myself. I've figured it out. So instead, I look for, as I'm doing the work, I'm hearing the stories of people I'm collaborating with and I'm creating new paintings.

Every time a thought comes into my mind, I just create a piece of content right there and then.

Alexandra : Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

Jessica Craddock: And maybe it would be helpful for you to have some kind of framework, like, I want to look for their story. I want to look for any ways that I personally connect with their story.

Because of stories in my life. Maybe I wanna look for thoughts about why I choose to do X over Y for that painting. Maybe I wanna look for quotes that I really resonate from them about that I can talk about. What they said and why I connect to it. Like you can have any number of things, I'm just kind of spitballing here.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: But if you had those in your head, these are the things I'm looking for and when I find it, I just immediately go create a piece of content and put it out there.

Alexandra : Right. That makes sense.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, so what's the place where you want to put the content out there?

Alexandra : I think Instagram.

Jessica Craddock: Ok.

Alexandra : Yeah, I love that it's a visual platform that's, that feels right.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. And also, you said newsletter, but you immediately went to Instagram when I said where? I would focus my creation on Instagram and then like, however many newsletters you wanted to do. Did you say one a month?

Alexandra : Yeah, that's one a month.

Jessica Craddock: So maybe once a month go back through your Instagram stories and see what would make the best newsletter, and then send that out. Maybe you edit it a little bit or add a piece in or take a piece out, but like you take your newsletter from the inspired content.

Alexandra : Okay, that makes sense. Cool.

Jessica Craddock: So there's not that much to it?

Alexandra : No.

Jessica Craddock: We're creating new paintings. We're looking for stories of people with an audience of their own, and we're creating content along the way.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: You could overcomplicate this forever, or you can just think, okay, here are my three objectives.

And different things will come. You'll go, oh, you know what? Today I feel really inspired to find some new hashtags. And then you'll do that and you'll throw 'em in there. But we're not adding that as a have to. That's more of like a, oh, I feel like contributing to my three main goals in this way today.

So we've got our visibility covered. We've got our nurturing covered. We don't have anything about sales. In my mind, how this is gonna go is the person you create the story about, talk about, and build a relationship with is just pretty much 50 to 75% of the time just gonna buy it.

Alexandra : Right. Yeah. Which is my hope too. It's kinda a no commitment commission.

Jessica Craddock: Exactly. I love no commitment commissions. I recommend them a lot.

That being said, that's kind of like a, a built-in benefit of doing things this way, but we want to also have some sort of thing that we feel like we are contributing to the selling process.

Alexandra : Yes.

Jessica Craddock: That could be as simple as when I'm halfway through the painting, I have a process where I reach out and email them and say, Hey, I'm, I'm really loving this painting. It's going great. I've gotten all this specific feedback and here's specifically what I love about it. And I also just wanted to say that as you know, I'm creating this for this gallery show down the road, but I wanted to offer it to you first before I put it available for sale to the public. Do you have any interest? And if not, it's totally okay, but I just wanted to see as a courtesy. If you had interested in purchasing it before anyone else did.

Alexandra : So you would suggest doing that before it's even finished?

Jessica Craddock: Yes.

Alexandra : Okay.

Jessica Craddock: Just starting opening the conversation.

At that point, we're not trying to close the sale. We're just trying to see, do you have interest in this? So that I can like stay in touch with you throughout the process and, you know, keep you updated and tell you what's up. And maybe, maybe I offer you a payment plan or maybe I say you gotta buy it by the date. But you have an idea in your head already at the halfway point if this is headed toward that person or if I need to create a plan to sell it.

Alexandra : That's a good idea.

Jessica Craddock: Maybe we say you can purchase it before this show as long as I have from this date to this date that I can borrow it back, or something like that.

Alexandra : Right. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I was thinking is that. Yeah, that'd just be, you can take it, but you need to, if you're local, I'll come pick it up, but otherwise, ship it back to me for the show and then I'll ship it to you kind of thing.

Jessica Craddock: Or we can make the payment plan if you feel comfortable with that, the payment plan would end at the end of the show, and then as soon as the show's over, I'd ship it to you.

Alexandra : That's true. They could do like a 50% to hold it or something, and then the rest to take it, something like that.

Jessica Craddock: What I like to do is use an online software to say, okay, it costs, I don't know, $2,000. There's six months between now and when I think I'm gonna have my show, so I'm gonna divide $2,000 by six months. And I'm gonna say this is the payment per a month, and it's automatic payment kind of thing. We're not invoicing them every so often. If you wanna do the 50% upfront and then the 50% at the end, that's fine too. Throwing some options out there.

Alexandra : Yeah, that payment plans a good idea.

Jessica Craddock: So what are we missing?

Are we missing anything? We got visibility, nurture, sales. We've got our main activities we need to spend time on. They all focus around a central theme idea. They're working together. Is there anything that we.

Alexandra : The only thing I was also considering, which I know you're not a big fan of prints, and I've never done prints before, but I was considering doing, like setting up a print on demand just to kind of run on the background something that's low maintenance.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah.

Alexandra : So that as I'm doing these, they can just go there for prints.

Jessica Craddock: I don't have a problem with doing that because. The, the problem that I have with prints is that people use them as an excuse to not have to try to sell bit big ticket items. They take the place of selling high ticket items or mm-hmm.

They take up all your marketing time and you don't make that much extra on them. But if we've got all that in mind, then we're actively thinking about that and figuring out a way around all of those. I have no problem with prints. I have several clients right now who do big paintings and once a month we'll do like a print release of that painting for, you know, two or three days.

You can order this print and then it closes up. And then I ship them all out, and then I'm done with it. I don't have to market it anymore. A little extra income on it. And either it's sold or maybe it's like it's earmarked for something.

But if you're really interested in this painting, here's a way you can get a piece of it too.

Alexandra : That'd be really nice way to do it that is just like a limited timeframe, and that way it doesn't take up so much time. I don't know a lot about how prints work. Like if you do a limited edition, like say you say you're gonna do a run of 50, is that all you can ever do that painting ever again?

Or can you do like a different size and then like and do another edition run? Does that ever happen?

Jessica Craddock: I'm sure some people do that. I feel personally, like if I bought something. It was a limited edition run and then they brought it out again with a different size. I would feel a little bit funky about it, but that's just me.

Alexandra : Right?

Jessica Craddock: And you gotta kind of go with your comfort level. And if you really wanna get specific, you can define it on limited edition means this size and this time period and blah blah. Like you could do that.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: But the model I really love that I kind of just described isn't. A limited edition of 50 or anything like that.

It's, you can buy it this weekend and then it's not available again.

Alexandra : So there's not a quantity restriction.

Jessica Craddock: It's not a quantity number. It's a timer.

Alexandra : Interesting. Okay.

Now could you ever revisit that, like say like a year or two down the road, there's still requests for that print.

Jessica Craddock: It depends what you want to do. So if that's okay, if you wanna leave that option open, then you can say, if you want to buy this this year. Okay. You can only buy it right now. The only reason why I might not use that yet is because your audience isn't that big yet. And so if you say, I'm only gonna offer this this weekend, and then you make two sales and then it gets closed forever, right? Yeah. I dunno. Maybe that's okay. But honestly I have, I might actually be okay with that because it builds this trust that when I say it's only available, it's only available.

Alexandra : Right?

Jessica Craddock: And then every time I complete a painting, I've got a 48 hour window that you can buy it.

Alexandra : Okay.

Jessica Craddock: Kind of training them to buy immediately. Right. And along the lines, keeping track of anyone who shows interest in it so that you can go back and say, Hey, 48 hour sale happening, starting now. If you wanted it, get it.

Okay.

So that brings that relationship back into it as well.

Alexandra : Yeah. Now, how did, would it work, like putting that painting, that image, on like cards later? Like is that frowned upon after you do a limited edition run or something?

Jessica Craddock: Again, I don't wanna speak as the expert on this because I don't know that there is a rule book.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: I don't make very much money off of cards or coffee mugs.

Alexandra : That's true

Jessica Craddock: Like, I don't even worry about it.

Alexandra : That's true. Okay, good point.

Jessica Craddock: I mean, like you, you order a coffee mug. I do this for my daughter's artwork. You order a coffee mug, it costs $30 and $3 of it goes to the art program at school. I don't mess with anything that's not giving me a good potential to bring in a significant income. It just doesn't feel worth it.

Alexandra : And that's how I've kinda been in the past, so.

Jessica Craddock: Mm-hmm.

Alexandra : That makes sense. Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. So in selling process, I'm writing down, and you can change this if you want, but I'm writing offer for sale halfway.

I'm also writing down, prints open 48 hours after completion.

Was there anything else we talked about about selling? Is that it? I think that was it.

Alexandra : That was it.

Jessica Craddock: I mean, that's, that's a really simple plan. I feel like that's definitely really executable.

Alexandra : Yeah

Jessica Craddock: We feel good?

Alexandra : Yeah, I feel really good about that. Thank you.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, great. You're welcome. I'm just gonna throw out there, like we had talked about PR and some other things. These are our core activities. Let's focus on them. When we have some time and space, maybe we can you know, pitch some stories. But that's a project, not a core activity for now.

Alexandra : Right. So not a priority. Sounds good.

Jessica Craddock: Because we covered it with the collaboration piece.

Alexandra : Right.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, so sounds good.

Yay. That was fun.

Alexandra : Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: And felt that felt

Alexandra : Thank you.

Jessica Craddock: Light and easy. You're welcome. Can you tell people where to find your art if they are interested in looking at what you're doing?

Alexandra : So I'm on Instagram and Facebook. My handle is @ Painter of the West. It's all one word. My new website is aver boom fritz.com. So that's a V as in Victor, e r, B as in Bob, O O M, F as in Frank, R I T z.com.

Jessica Craddock: Great. Perfect. Shout out. To my podcast manager, julie Rose. She makes this possible cause if I had to do everything past recording this conversation, nobody would ever hear it. So thank you, Julie. If anyone needs a podcast,

Alexandra : Well, thank you, Julie.

Jessica Craddock: Lemme know. I'll hook you up.

Alexandra : Perfect.

Jessica Craddock: Yes. So, okay. Thank you so much Lexi for doing this with me. I know it's kind of a last minute ask. Someone dropped out and I needed a guest and you were, you popped right in there. And so thank you to you too.

Alexandra : That was perfect. Thank you so much, Jessica. I always appreciate you welcome your help and guidance.

Jessica Craddock: Happy to do it. Okay. Thank you.