“What direction should I take my marketing to increase my art sales?” – Cindy Atchison

Jessica Craddock: This week I met with Cindy Atchison, who is an artist and graphic designer focused on expressing the beauty of nature and our world through stylistic landscape paintings. 

Cindy was struggling with what route to take marketing her art. She wasn't sure if she wanted gallery representation or more in-person sales, or if she wanted to focus on selling through her website. So, what we did was I took her through a dream life meditation to help her find her own answers, and I think she nailed it.

So, if you've got too many ideas to market your art swirling around, and you're not sure where to go next, this episode is for you. So, let's get into it.

Jessica Craddock: Welcome back to Intuitive Art Sales. I am here with an artist named Cindy Atchison, who is actually in the Durango area with me, which makes me really excited that I'm getting more artists in this area on this podcast, because this is my place, and I love it. And I really want to be able to feature people who live here along with all the people around the world who I also love, but I have a special love for the people who are right by me. So I'm really glad that you were able to do this with me. Thank you so much, Cindy.

Cindy Atchison: Thank you, Jessica. I'm so glad to be here.

Jessica Craddock: I'm so glad you are here. So, you actually came prepared with some questions, which is not something that people do very often, but it's fun when people do. I can kind of see what you're thinking about beforehand. go back and record a little intro after this, but. Can you, because you did it better than I would, tell us a little bit about what's happening in your world? How are you marketing your art? Where are you spending your time and where are you looking to grow? Give us a little summary of all that.

Cindy Atchison: You got it. Yeah. Well, I've been a graphic designer for about 30 years and I've always had the heart of an artist. But I haven't done part-time art until about two years ago when I got a studio in the Smiley Building Art Room. Which is a lovely studio in the middle of a three-story sort of community building, and has a lot of walkthrough traffic from an adjacent cafe. It's where I create, it's where I sell work and display work and have a art community that's just really wonderful. And,

Jessica Craddock: I was just going to say, I got to go visit and it was just the coolest building. If you're in the Durango area and you don't have an art studio, I don't know if they have space open, but you should go check it out for sure.

Cindy Atchison: Definitely. Yeah, I've actually started in large stylistic landscapes and I've developed this style with, with my acrylic paints that is sort of a geometric graphic style, which provides a lovely contrast of hardened strokes with the softness of clouds of our environment, of a wonderful memory of being outside.

And my goal is to just really connect with others about their love of nature, their love of beauty, and each other through this stylistic embrace of nature.

Jessica Craddock: Very good. Okay. So you are, the main thing that you are doing is setting up in this studio where there's quite a bit of walkthrough traffic. And I know you mentioned First Friday art walks and most of your clients are coming from that space. Did I get that all correct?

Cindy Atchison: Correct. You bet.

Jessica Craddock: And you also mentioned that you are doing, a little bit of social media posting here and there, say once a week, once every couple of weeks.

Is that right? And also a newsletter. So those are the main ways that you're selling right now. And you asked me what direction should I go next in order to increase my art sales. Can you on that question a little bit more for us?

Cindy Atchison: Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah. Right now, I am posting on Instagram and Facebook about every week or two, and I've got different audiences on each platform. And I also send out a monthly newsletter that features art and design and food, because I've had a blog the last 12 years as a gluten-free foodie. And it's just a really fun way to share three of my passions with people who subscribe.

Jessica Craddock: Very cool. But you had also mentioned, I'm curious about gallery representation, Maybe working on trying to increase those in person connections and sales, maybe going through my online website. I'm just not really sure where to go.

Cindy Atchison: Right. curious to see where to focus my energy next and most, most successfully because I do have my own sort of informal gallery where I sell out of the art space. And I'd have to increase my prices in order to have gallery representation. And I do like having a more affordable art than gallery art, but each has its pros and cons. So, I'd be curious to see which way you'd recommend directing  my energy for my marketing.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah, for sure. So out of curiosity, what is your price range at the moment?

Cindy Atchison: Yeah, my price point for like a 30 by 40 piece right now is 980. And what's been really popular are the diptychs, the two large canvases together, and those can go on up to 1600.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, so that's pretty reasonable, but enough that you are making something off of the sales. It's a, it's a good kind of in between price range where it's not too much, not too little. Love it.

[00:06:33] Visualizing where you want to spend your time can help you find direction.

Jessica Craddock: I kind of want to do an exercise with you that I don't know that I've done on this podcast before. And I'm not going to do it exactly like I do inside of my Consistent Income program. Because to be honest, I could not find all of the questions that I have written down for that exercise, so we're going to kind of wing it, which is fun.

Cindy Atchison: Okay, let’s do it!

Jessica Craddock: It's one of the exercises that I do one to increase your confidence in the way that you are spending your time, but also to use your own tuition to help you understand if I could dedicate the next three or four months of my life to making another arm of my business work, where would I want to spend my time? And it's a meditation.

Cindy Atchison: Mm-Hmm.

Jessica Craddock: called Live Your Dream Life Now. And essentially, I think maybe we can get a little bit of clarity so that you can find the answer to your own question so that I can then guide you through one of the paths.

Cindy Atchison: Excellent.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. Okay. So, Cindy, I'm going to ask you if it feels better, if it's easier to do just to close your eyes. And I'm going to do this with you. We're just going to take a quick second to count backwards from 10 to one and just get a little bit more relaxed and we get in our body. That's where I feel like the real answers can be felt. So, I'm just going to count backwards. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Okay, if it's easier, just leave your eyes closed for a minute.

Cindy Atchison: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: We're going to pretend life is perfect. Well, 6 a. m. Let's go later. 8 a. m. You just woke up and your house is quiet. There's nobody in it. You've got time all to yourself. You've got three hours. What’s the first thing you're going to wake up and go do?

Cindy Atchison: Well, my husband probably would've left a cup of coffee for me before he went to work. So, I have my warm cup of coffee in my bedside stand. And that's just a warm hug, even if he's not there.

I head downstairs and we have these great picture windows that look out in a park across the street, and there's always people and dogs and strollers and joggers and bikers on the river trail across the street from our house.

Jessica Craddock: I love that spot.

Cindy Atchison: And so, I usually like to go on a walk before I eat breakfast. And we just live in this beautiful area of Durango. And so, I love to go for morning walks or after I have a great breakfast, I can hop on my bike and ride down the river trail to my art studio, which is really lovely in the sense that it's one of those places that I don't have to go to.

I, I get to go to, and I want to go to. The Smiley Building is just this wonderful, warm, inviting place. And my studio lives large, albeit small. It's only about nine by 10, but it’s got everything ready for me to just start creating. It's all set up. And I love just creating large canvases that express an emotion and a journey and a local scene from some place that meant so much to me that I want to capture it on canvas. And so, it's just a joy to create.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, so let's back up for just a second. On this walk, when you've got this warm cup of coffee, you're walking down the river. What are you thinking about? What are you doing? What's happening in your brain? Mm

Cindy Atchison: Hmm. I'm a planner. Even when I try to relax, I think about what I do the next hour, the next day, the next month. And there's so many good things to do in life. I love my graphic design work. I love my artwork. I love cooking with my husband and entertaining. My kids are in college, so I love to hear what's going on with their world and touch base. And it's always good to think about what sort of self-care you're going to do. Exercise or cross-country skiing or biking or downhill skiing or whatnot.

Jessica Craddock: So then how does all that make you feel? What feelings come up while you are walking, biking, looking at the river, in your head planning, going to your studio, painting local scenes.

Cindy Atchison: I am just so blessed and fortunate to be here. I live in a beautiful place, and I've got good relationships with my family. And I just wish everybody could have this sort of environment, so I do love to share that.

Jessica Craddock: Let's pretend for a second. We haven't gotten dressed yet. What's your favorite outfit to wear, something that makes you feel like your best, best self, the most expressive and most creative, whatever that is for you. What kind of outfit are you going to put on?

Cindy Atchison: Mm, it's a mix of practicality and, and expressiveness. I love wearing vests. Well, we're in the wintertime now, so that's what I'm thinking. Where the collar is high and it unzips, and it's open. And I like to wear a colorful shirt underneath a favorite pair of jeans.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. So now you're dressed as your best self. You've gotten to your office and you're having your best day. Remember, this is the best day you have ever had.

[00:12:41] Be honest with yourself about how you want to spend your time.

Jessica Craddock: What are the three things that you want to do besides painting and go for that walk?

Cindy Atchison: Hmm. Man, I’ve got to order a dirty chai over at Smiley Cafe because a shot of espresso and some almond milk is just a rocking way to start the day.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, I don't think I've ever had one of those. I'm going to have to try one.

Cindy Atchison: Oh, it’s so good. You’ve got to go there. So, you said, besides work, what am I doing or thinking about?

Jessica Craddock: It doesn't have to be besides work. Just what you want to do with your day.

Cindy Atchison: I want to connect with people in the Smiley Building while I'm there. There are always a couple artists in there. I've got some friends who work in Smiley Building, and I look forward to connecting with people and meeting them. Just interacting with my community a bit, and if it's a perfect day, I'm going to have lunch with my husband downtown.

Jessica Craddock: Because you're a foodie.

Cindy Atchison: Yes. And we have so many good restaurants here.

Jessica Craddock: So, you've done a great job. You spent the morning on yourself. You planned your day. You have had an excellent coffee times two. You're connecting with the people in the Smiley Building. You're painting. You're going out and having lunch with your husband. Now let's say, I don't know, we can pretend it's the next day or after lunch, whatever you want to do. You still have three more hours, and you have no one to answer to. Actually, let's change the question. You have an appointment. It's the appointment that you are so excited about, and you've been looking forward to it forever. What is it?

Cindy Atchison: Oh. It just popped into my head… I'm meeting friends at Durango Hot Springs!

Jessica Craddock: Oh, yes! Please. Let's do that.

Cindy Atchison: Since it’s the perfect day.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. It’s the next day. We get to have one more perfect day, and you are spending that day promoting your art. You get to do that in whatever way you want to do, and you will have a 1000 percent success rate. What are you doing?

Cindy Atchison: Well, I love doing this monthly newsletter. I usually choose a theme, a word if you will, and write a little intro paragraph about what my thoughts on that word are, whether it's gratitude or renew or ablaze. And then I tie in that theme to a piece of art that I've done recently or not. And a graphic design project as well as a great recipe.

And as I'm writing that I hope I connect with people. I hope people appreciate what I'm writing, and I sort of, you know, think about the people that that's being sent to. And I get warm, fuzzy feelings hoping that feel a sense of joy or connection from that.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. You've been doing that for so long now that only took the morning. We still have the whole afternoon. What else?

Cindy Atchison: Am I still marketing? Okay.

Jessica Craddock: It's sell art day.

Cindy Atchison: Sell art day. So, I am going to go through my artwork and post on Instagram and

Jessica Craddock: This perfect day. Posting.

Cindy Atchison: On this perfect day. Yes. So, I'll post on Instagram, and I think it'd be fun to show some process images because I don't feel like I do the process enough of, you know, sketching, composition, color studies, and then the art.

I think people really enjoy the process and feel like art is much more attainable if they see somebody else to process.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. All right, we're done. You can open your eyes.

Cindy Atchison: Hi there!

Jessica Craddock: Welcome back. Your questions were do I want gallery representation? Do I want to sell more in person, or do I want to go focus more on my online website? Your perfect days included being with people, connecting, writing content, painting. So, what do you think your answer is?

Cindy Atchison: This is a good exercise. I think connecting with people through the writing and choosing of artwork and trying to make that connection through process perhaps.

[00:17:22] Nurture your connections by creating more invitations to those people.

Jessica Craddock: So, a combination, which is the combination I recommend over and over of content with relationships, selling your art that way.

Cindy Atchison: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: So. It's not necessarily an in person versus website question, it's how do I do it together in a way that work as one.

Cindy Atchison: Mm-Hmm.

Jessica Craddock: And the gallery representation kind of falls off the table.

Cindy Atchison: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: It sounds like I was really oversimplifying, sure. But then when we're thinking about like where am I spending my time, one of the ways that I recommend connecting with people, nurturing and sharing in order to make them feel that connection to your art. If it's not just an instant, I see it, I want it, et cetera, is hosting invitations. What I mean by that is, how can we very purposefully create more containers to have more connections with the people around us?

You mentioned that food and being outside are two of your favorite things to do.

Cindy Atchison: Mm-Hmm.

Jessica Craddock: Perhaps, I'm just going to throw out some stuff here. Perhaps, you add in a monthly invitation to dinner at your house where your artwork is hung up all over your walls. Is it hung up all over your walls? Okay.

Cindy Atchison: It is not at home.

Jessica Craddock: So maybe it's a monthly picnic studio. Maybe it's a plain air painting by the Riverwalk once a month. Maybe it's, in your content, we are being very purposeful about inviting people to one-on-one studio visits.

Cindy Atchison: Mm-Hmm.

Jessica Craddock: Just thinking about, okay, here's all the things that make me happy. How can I turn that into an invitation where I can be keeping my eyes out for people who I connect with, for people who have shown interest in my work in the past, for people or places or local businesses that I would like to collaborate with in the future, that I have something to invite these people to. So, it's not just sign up for my newsletter, which is great. Let's get them to sign up for your newsletter, but also how do I make a stronger bond more quickly?

<< COMMERCIAL BREAK >>

 Jessica Craddock: I'm going to insert myself here real quick and mention, Cindy is someone who is naturally pretty good at connecting with people and building those relationships in a way that makes people more inclined to buy her art, to be perfectly frank.

Maybe that's something that you are good at as well, but you'd like to get better, have more of a systemized process to do so. Or maybe you're someone who really identifies with kind of stinking it up.

Either way relationships are half of the equation in being able to sell your art more quickly.

And if this is something you're interested in learning about, I want you to know that the Money Now For Artists Bootcamp is coming up April 1st through April 30th. Registration closes on the 28th of March.

And this lean, mean program is made to get you ready to start selling your art in the very fastest way possible. We'll have four live workshops where you'll learn the three steps to be ready to sell your art. And then you will learn these steps, exactly, with examples to take, to build relationships and create content, to find more people who are interested in your art and get those sales rolling in. I'll put a link in the show notes.

It's going to be an experience like you've never had.  We'll just leave it at that for now. Go check it out.

<< NOW BACK TO THE SHOW >>

Jessica Craddock:  And what I like to do is think about it in terms of month rotations. I hope you've heard me say that. I like to focus on visibility one month, and then nurturing the next month, and then selling the next month. So, if we're thinking about it like that. How can I get more people to know that I make art in Visibility Month? You've already got Durango First Friday. That's something that we've already established, but what else do we add in? Could it be during First Fridays from now on, we're really keeping track of people that we have those conversations with and then inviting them to our quarterly Cindy Atchison open studio visit and saying, please bring a friend. I will have XYZ. We'll talk about art. What are, what are some of the things you like to talk about?

Cindy Atchison: Well, I love the idea of having a little picnic. You know, you could have a theme each First Friday where you bring something that's shared on your newsletter.

[00:23:02] Use the content of your newsletter to invite people to an in-person event.

Jessica Craddock: And you also used your word.

Cindy Atchison: mm-Hmm.

Jessica Craddock: In every newsletter you have a specific word. It could be we're going to have a discussion about this. I'm going to feature this food that I had in my newsletter, and it's going to be lots of fun. Bring a friend or two.

Cindy Atchison: Excellent. Well, and I always pose a question in my newsletter that has to do with the word, and so maybe I can actually take that question and um, talk to talk to people about that.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. So, you're, you're taking your content and you're bringing it into your relationships. So, they're not working. I only am getting people to my website through content, or I only am showing people my artwork when they stop by my studio, but we're trying to intermingle the two. It could be that every month you do that same thing. So, the visibility month, bring a friend. The nurture month that we're going to have an extra half hour where we can do an activity together or, you know, something where you could just spend a little bit more time together. And maybe the sales month, it's you've got some sort of extra if they buy a piece while they're in your studio that month. They get a print with it, or they get a discount, or they get a, something to entice them to come so that you can say, I'm selling things without feeling weird about saying I'm selling things.

Cindy Atchison: Okay.

Jessica Craddock: It’s not a requirement. It's just a little bonus.

Cindy Atchison: Yeah. I sell greeting cards, notepads of my work, and so people could choose one of those.

Jessica Craddock: Perfect. The other element to this is Yeah, we have our website online. I need to spend the time to update it, turn it into a shop, all of that? You can, is the answer. With the answers you gave me, I'm not going to say it's a necessary thing that you need to invest your time in, because still the majority of the people in your world are in Durango.

Cindy Atchison: Right. They're all local sales and occasionally somebody will be on vacation and purchase a piece, and I'll wrap it up nicely for them. But it's a lot of local sales.

Jessica Craddock: So really what we're doing is we're just building on what we're already doing. How I increase what's already working to make it work more.

Cindy Atchison: Perfect.

Jessica Craddock: It’s not about adding a ton, but you can add as much as you want. You can make weekly invitations if you want, but I will say that in the nurture month, one of my favorite things to do is really focus on one on one studio visits, whether that's in person or virtual. But in your case, it sounds like it would be in person. How would you feel about that?

Cindy Atchison: I think that's a great idea because usually at these Durango First Friday Art Crawl events, we have a featured artist, and we all rotate. But that's only for half an hour or so from 5:30 to 6. Otherwise we're technically there from 4 to 7, so I could make, you know, the picnic time at some other time, or even the whole time.

Jessica Craddock: Or, a different Friday. Or, not even a different Friday. Maybe you're normally there from Monday and Tuesday from 11 to 2. I don't know, I'm making this up. But, you could create a calendar where you can say, I have this time and this time open. Would you like to stop by the studio sometime, and we can just go get a coffee at the coffee shop and see if there's any questions you have. Or we could talk about my process, or if you don't even have any questions, I could just sit there and paint, and you can hang out with me for a little bit.

Cindy Atchison: I think that'd be fun, creating that connection time. Because I don't have regular office hours, which is not to my benefit because oftentimes life will get in the way. Or I'll have this fabulous graphic design project and that pushes into the afternoon, and I end up not going to the studio. And so, I'd like to have regular hours to hold myself accountable to be there.

Jessica Craddock: If you had appointments to be there, you would be there.

Cindy Atchison: Right.

Jessica Craddock: Another thing that you could do if we're thinking about intermixing our marketing plan is whether or not you have an appointment, let's say we try to have an appointment every Friday at 12. Well, this week, we didn't have one because, just didn't work out. I can do it virtually.

I can go live on Instagram or Facebook or both and have little studio time and just leave your phone on while you're painting. And talk to it occasionally. See if people have any questions they want to talk about. You could use this kind of format of, I have this word that I've been thinking about as I'm painting. I'm just kind of chit chatting with the people who want to come in and sit with me.

Cindy Atchison: Oh, fun. I think that'd be a great idea. Kind of an open studio time.

Jessica Craddock: Yes. So, we're starting to bring it a little bit more online as well, but also having those personal connections.

[00:28:41] Use the social media platform where you make more personal connections.

Jessica Craddock: So, then the last thing you said was I want to post Instagram or Facebook more.

Cindy Atchison: I think that'd be a good idea because I don't do it very often, and I tend to get some great feedback and I have received some sales from people who have seen it on Facebook and Instagram or my newsletter and then come in to talk about it, So yes, I'd like to post on Facebook more and I'd like to find a way to authentically invite people to subscribe to my newsletter.

Jessica Craddock: So, what if the week before you send it or the day before or whatever you say I'm talking about this. Here's a little, if you've written it yet, here's a little snippet. If you want to read the rest, I'd love to have you on my newsletter. Send me your email address, sign up here, or comment a word and I'll message you and get you signed up. I'll make sure you get it.

Cindy Atchison: Okay. That’s a good idea.

Jessica Craddock: Instead of just saying, sign up for my newsletter, why do they want to sign up for your newsletter in the first place?

Cindy Atchison: Have some sort of a question or teaser to engage people so they want to sign up out of curiosity.

Jessica Craddock: What do you do now to get people to sign up for your newsletter besides having a sign-up sheet in your studio?

Cindy Atchison: I have a signup sheet in my studio and that's all. If we have an engaging conversation, I always ask them if they'd like to sign up for either my newsletter or the art room collective monthly newsletter, because there is one for the entire group that we send out as well.

Jessica Craddock: I love that because you're being supportive of your community, but I want you to prioritize yours.

Cindy Atchison: I sometimes prioritize all my other things and leave my own and self-care to last priority, which is a resolution to switch around.

Jessica Craddock: I think we can all relate. So, in terms of Instagram, Facebook, I'm saying both because you said both, there's one that's more important to you versus the other, is there?

Cindy Atchison: Well, it's interesting in Instagram is my business, social media, where I don't have lot of personal posts on Instagram. It is only for my artwork. And then on Facebook I have a personal account where all the family photos are, and I get a lot of feeds from everybody else's personal things. And I do post on there when I have a new piece of artwork. I do have a business Facebook account, and I just post on there whatever I post on Instagram.

Jessica Craddock: Where have the sales come from? Do you know?

Cindy Atchison: One sale came from Instagram.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. What about Facebook?

Cindy Atchison: No, I get a lot of personal input from people I know in town personally on Facebook. And so, yeah, it's really hard to know where some of the sales come from, but really most come by the studio, see the artwork at an event.

Jessica Craddock: They might have found you from Facebook is what you're telling me.

Cindy Atchison: It's kind of hard to know because you don't always know where people see your information or what they Google.

Jessica Craddock: So, why don't we try this? Why don't we try for the next three months, and I know that you can cross-post and it goes from one to the other, but I want you to make one the primary. And I feel a little bit torn on which one is serving you more, whether it's Facebook or Instagram. Even though you made a sale through Instagram, you’ve got people in your community seeing your stuff on Facebook.

Cindy Atchison: I get more comments on Facebook.

Jessica Craddock: Which one's easier for you to post on? Let's go with that.

Cindy Atchison: Oh, probably Facebook.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, so we're going to start with Facebook, and you can push them to Instagram if you want. I want you to make Facebook for the next couple of months your primary posting platform, the place where if you go live, you do it on there. The place where you invite people to your newsletter. The place where you're posting your new work. The place where you're saying, Hey, I've got this thing. Does anybody want to come? The place where you're saying, Hey, I went skiing today, and here's why… It made me feel amazing. That combination of things it feels like would be more natural for you to do automatically on Facebook.

Cindy Atchison: Right, because it is a more personal platform for me where I post the great ski photos or the hike photos and a photo of people that I know.

[00:33:29] Look for interest and make personal invitations to those people.

Jessica Craddock: We're thinking about sharing our newsletter, our invitations, really finding, and this is where content gets special, is finding the people that you're making the connections with through your content, and then making personal invitations to those people.

So yes, I'm saying come to my thing, but if you notice that someone liked it or mentioned it to you offhand at some other event that you see them at or asked for more information, you're going to make sure, Hey, I'd really love it if you came because. X, Y, Z.

Cindy Atchison: Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: I could, for example, when I came to your group,

I told everyone there, hey, if you want to be on my podcast, hit me up. That was a group invitation. But then when we were emailing, and I was like, yes, be on my podcast. You're going to be more inclined to do it than versus me just saying, hey, everybody. So that's the difference. You’re looking for the people who are considering you and paying attention, and then you’re saying, you should come. I want you to be there. That applies to your Instagram, your Facebook, your newsletter, people who are signing up as they're walking through. We're looking for the interest so we can make those personal.

Cindy Atchison: Like there's this one gal who bought a painting and her daughter went to the same school as the school my kids went to third to fifth grade. And so, we have that connection. And I know her daughter's an artist, and it might be fun to invite her to just paint with me for some of that open studio time.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We said a lot of things. So, I want to make sure that you have a, I can walk away knowing that I'm going to do X, Y, and Z differently than I was doing before. Now I want you to repeat that back to me.

Cindy Atchison: Absolutely. I am going to do one time a month, a group thing, an invite probably at First Friday. And I'm going to invite people to share in a foodie picnic of some kind with the food that I feature on my monthly newsletter. And I'll send personal invites to that. And I'll also post more than one times a week on social media regarding a newsletter, regarding an invitation, a personal invitation to join in for art open studio time, whatever that looks like. And, for three months I'm going to have Facebook as my primary posting site, where I post invites, perhaps live video, which scares the heck out of me. I'll have to learn about video.

Jessica Craddock: I know, but here's the thing. Most people aren't going to show up. You get to practice when you do the first several lives. From what I know about being live and the people who do attend, it's probably just going to be a couple of them. You get a deeper conversation with those because those are the couple of people who really wanted to be there. And when you do it on a regular basis, it will grow, but it'll start off with not very many people coming. But you're painting anyway, so why not turn the camera on?

Cindy Atchison: Right. Okay. Well, I liked your comment about making connections and how you sell as much as the art does, because people like the story. People like the backstory behind the artwork as much as the art

Jessica Craddock: Mm hmm. Yeah, so I'm going to add one more thing and then we're going to wrap up. You said I'm going to post about my newsletter, my invitation, all the, all the things. Those posts don't have to be about my newsletter or about my thing. They can be about, I forget what your words were, I'm going to make one up, peace. And I have been thinking about peace lately. And here's why. And I really, you know, this word is this and here's how it showed up in my life this week. And I'm also going to be talking about this in my newsletter and, how cool would it be if a group of people who got together, who really been trying to embrace this word, got to have some time to spend together and look at art and think about the meaning for them. I have this other thing.

[00:38:16] Make your social posts about you with feeling and context.

Jessica Craddock: The posting is about you, then there's, and here's this thing you should know, because you're reading this far.

Cindy Atchison: Nice. Okay.

Jessica Craddock: Most people will just post, Hey, everybody sign up for my newsletter. If it's a newsletter post, but those don't work as well because there's no context. There's no desire. There are no feelings. Is that wrong? No, but the more you can just say I'm Cindy. Here's what I'm thinking about Oh and do this.

Cindy Atchison: That's great advice just because, you know, I tend to agonize over posts trying to make perfect and to say the right thing, and so I end up postponing it and not posting. But if I make it genuine and relate to a newsletter, which is already being done and relevant, that's a good way to do it.

Jessica Craddock: So, I'll add one more challenge to your three months Facebook and treat it like a journal with a call to action at the end rather than I have to post about my art. Mm

Cindy Atchison: That's a great idea because I've been wanting to focus more on the process of art more. I've got an artist residency coming up at Willow Tail Springs Nature Preserve, where I get to create art for a week. And I am so excited about focusing on the process of my art through, through sketching, through color studies, through thinking about what I learned with every sketch I did. And maybe I can bring that into, you know, a question that's the name of each piece. So. Oh, yeah. is kind of an invitation for other people to think about what that question means to them.

Jessica Craddock: That's fun. So, it's almost like you're naming them based on what you're thinking about and encouraging them to think about what it means for them as well.

Cindy Atchison: Right. And that journal would be a nice part of the process.

Jessica Craddock: Part of the journal is the process. Part of the journal is what you're thinking about. Part of the journal is something that happened in your life today. Part of the journal is about something that happened that made you mad and why you think that, people should do this other way instead. Okay. I know we could have gone deeper on any one of those things that we just said, but it just felt like the right move to show you how to take that meditation and turn it into a plan. Yeah.

Cindy Atchison: that. That was a great exercise to live your dream life and to execute a plan based upon that.

Jessica Craddock: It just helps you pull out the things that you really care about. Like, how do I utilize those to market my art? You did a great job. Thanks for doing it with me. I know it's hard to meditate on a recording.

Cindy Atchison: Thank you. You made it easy.

Jessica Craddock: Oh, good. I'm glad.

So, Cindy, tell me where can people find your, if they're in the area, they can go to the Smiley Building, but how can they find you online if they're not.

Cindy Atchison: They can go to cindy atchison.com or I'm on Instagram and my handle there is a cimiatch, C-I-M-I-A-T-C-H_Design_Art. And I'm also on Facebook.

Jessica Craddock: If you could pick one of those places for someone to go, where do you want them to go?

Cindy Atchison: I'd rather people go to my website because there's links to all my social media there.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, and also signups for your newsletter.

Cindy Atchison: There is a subscribe button at the top of my webpage to sign up for my newsletter, which will take you to the bottom of the page to sign up. I welcome everybody to sign up for the newsletter.

Jessica Craddock: Okay. This was fun. Did you have fun?

Cindy Atchison: I did, I did. Thank you.

Jessica Craddock: You're welcome. I know you're like, I don't know. Is this a good idea? And then you did it, and I'm so glad you did. Thanks for being brave with me.

Okay. We'll talk soon. All right.

Cindy Atchison: Thank you so much.

Jessica Craddock: You're so welcome. Have a good night.

Cindy Atchison: Bye-Bye.

<< WRAP-UP >>

Jessica Craddock: Okay. Did you see how that all came together? All we did was dig into what does she really want her life to look like? And what's working for her and how can we connect all of the dots into a marketing plan?

If you want to try this exercise for yourself, go ahead and save the video or the podcast, whichever one you're listening to. And, go back to the questions that I asked Cindy. Journal your own answers, and see what do you come up with?

And remember if the next thing you need to do is just get started selling art, I really want to encourage you to sign up for the Money Now Bootcamp. It's going to really change the way you think about how complicated it needs to be in order to start making art sales and know what to do when you need to make those sales.

Again, link in the show notes. Talk to you next time.