Category: Marketing

Art Licensing 2012 - Let's Get Practical!

1/1/2012

It's a new day. January 1, 2012. Time to get our licensing on!

I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but I am aware of a profound shift available to me as the old year walks off into the sunset, leaving me with all the green newness of the new year before me. So, what to create in this brand new year? What seeds to plant?

The two major seeds, this January 1? A day job, and licensing contracts. So, it's time to get practical. Since we can all use a little bit of organizational butt-kicking once in a while - and particularly after a holiday season, I'm thinking - I want to share with you my plans, beginning January 3rd (I'm still on vacation, so it'll wait, but only until 6:00AM, 1/3/12! I'm locked and loaded!).

I am going to start by using (1) A Daily Schedule, and (2) An Intentions List.

The Daily Schedule

The daily schedule is going to look like this (in theory, anyway, until the practice portion of our program shows me what adjustments need to be made):

6:00AM - Meditation
7:00AM - Food
8:00AM-Noon - Le Job Hunt! And email check (personal and business).
Noon-1:00PM - Food (see the repetitive pattern here? I do like to eat.). And a walk.
1:00-2:00 - Gather information on two, and only two, places to submit my work for that day,
2:00-3:00 - Do what I can to put my work into proper submission format for those two places.
3:00-4:00 - Submit! Mail! Email! Whatever it takes to make my new daily goal of 2 submissions.
4:00-5:00 - Draw
5:00-6:00 - Food (Yay!)
6:00-8:00 - Draw, Draw, Draw, and work on my business and marketing (Somewhere in there I'm supposed to be blogging, etc..., which brings up The Intentions List).

The Intentions List

Here's where the Daily Schedule takes a shot to the head, I'm afraid, because as I become more invested in growing my business, these intentions are going to impinge on and irrevocably alter my Daily Schedule! Here we go:

(1) Setting up webinars.
(2) Doing some marketing in regards to my blog, and looking into video and audio blogging.
(3) Communicating on a daily basis with my fellow artists - through LinkedIn, email, Skype, whatever it takes.
(4) Continuing to learn about licensing from Tara Reed, Joan Beiriger and others. And continuing to apply what I'm learning!
(5) Preparing art for Valentine's Day projects I've been invited to participate in.
(6) Continuing to work on my art collections so that I have 12 pieces for each collection; this is supposed to be the magic number.
(7) Continuing to create other artistic marketing tools that are not yet completed.

This is more organizational thinking than I've ever done in my life - at least for my own business. I've been an administrative type for too many years to count, and I've done the organizational bit for others' businesses. But for my own? Different! And now that I'm looking at the daily schedule and the intentions -uh - I'm gonna have to do my daily schedule over again. D'oh!

I will be having a talk with my cat, Thomas, to let him know that if my head explodes, he should just prop me up against my desk until I come to.

Oh yes...I forgot about the recording session I'm going to be doing on the 6th for my singing. Where does that fit in, exactly?

Crikey.

If anyone has any better organizational ideas, I am all ears!

Tally Ho!

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Marketing - Where Are My People? And do I have to go find them?

10/27/2011

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Well, it's time to find those people who are going to want to use my art.

Only thing is: where are they?

People like Joan Beiriger and Tara Reed have lots of incredible information to offer on this front, as far as how to find manufacturers that jibe with your kind of artwork.

But what if you don't consider yourself a marketer?

What if the thought of doing this just makes you tired, and puts you at risk of just giving up? The way it often has affected me...

Well, it's back to the beginning. Anytime we feel overwhelmed or underwhelmed, it's back to the beginning, back to the art that filled us with passion to begin with. Drop the effort for a day, or two, and just create. But is that enough? Over time, no. But we start with going back to what we love, and then we have to figure out how to love the next step - even the marketing one.

I have discovered that Attitude and Outlook is king - or "queen" in this case, thank you! :-)

I've tried many things over the years that I simply couldn't maintain and bring to fruition - my attitude flagged, my outlook became jaded and frightened, and then - boom - I was done.

So I'm doing things differently now.

For one thing I'm exercising patience - the view of the long-distance runner. If I could introduce you to the people who know me best, you would know that this is a seismic shift of an attitude. I had simply heard too many stories of people who made tons of money in one industry or another simply by being focused and working hard and all of that. You know: the Great American Success Story. I compared myself to them, and always came up short, in my mind. Even when I felt focused enough, I had no patience to wait to see what would come along to help me on the next step of my journey. No way I was going to invest my passion in this thing (whatever it was at the time) if it wasn't going to prove to me pretty darn quickly that at least something was going to happen.

Patience. A novel concept. And being me, I've found a way around patience, by looking at my art licensing career as the long-distance run. Seeing it that way, there's no patience necessary - there's just a far away finish line which I haven't set up, and which might even be moved closer if the judges choose to [God, luck, karma, however that works for you]. But having no immediate control over whether that line moves, I just keep on jogging along!

But what keeps me peacefully jogging along, rather than anxiously hunting under every bush along the way?

Attitude. I hate to say it, in a way, because in the past I heard that word and thought, "Yeah, that would be nice. How exactly do I change that???" But here's how it goes when it comes to art licensing, for me:

I'm looking for my people - those marketers who will look at my work and say, "Oh my God, where have you been??? I've been hoping to see something like this!!!" I could think to myself, "Who's going to want my stuff? There are so many talented people out there who are already licensed. Why would they want me?"

Attitude Police calling! Rather than bum out, I look to where the next small step might come from. "Small" is a HUGE key here, at least for me. Where once I thought I had to go out and become a marketing genius, now I simply turn to my friends and say, "Where do you see my work?" And then I turn to those who have gone before - Joan Beiriger "coincidentally" posted an article that addressed something I need to know for my current next step - and I start learning, I start asking questions (LinkedIn), and I start toning my mind to receive new ideas, new thoughts, directions I would have never thought of. And I develop the attitude of willingness - willingness to follow an idea, an instinct.

When I take an attuitde of willingness to follow and add it to the long-distance runner mentality, now I'm cookin' with gas!

Now I look at the researching as being a Sherlock Holmesian process that is proof of my incredible resourcefulness and curiosity and humility (to the process), and I start to have fun, rather than push myself so hard against the concrete wall of MAKE IT HAPPEN that I break my skull, and my artistic spirit.

Where are my people?

They're out there. And along the way, as I do my run, they'll turn up along the side of the road with cups of water, and start to run alongside me.

We can do it. And it's best when we do it together.

See you on the road!

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Hi! I am a licensing artist, professional actor, and ardent lover of just about anything creative. My motto is "Enjoy! Succeed! Share!" This blog is a window into art licensing as well as my artwork and the creative process that feeds, delights and sometimes pummels us all. Here's to the artists!

Art Licensing 2012 - Let's Get Practical!

Marketing - Where Are My People? And do I have to go find them?

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