ArtBizVoice: My Audience and What they Need.

Dear Mr. Trump,

I took a couple of days off writing to ponder my purpose again. It’s a luxury I have at the moment because I have a number of projects going. I did take a break because someone questioned the wisdom of my using this format as a way to reach out to people like myself and to find a possible mentor.

The people I am trying to reach are people who are creative, don’t really understand the nuances of being an entrepreneur, they have no mentors who understand the challenges they face as sometimes they are the first in their families to go into business. My target for these blog posts are people who recognize your name because you have a media presence that most in business do not have.

My writing these letters to you gives people who need the information a key into the locked door of the business world they might not find any other way. You have name recognition to those on welfare, stay at home moms, disabled, people who have lost their jobs. They understand that you are an entrepreneur and a successful business man living the dream. They see the result of your education, experience, the people who mentored you but they simply don’t know how to get from where they are to becoming successful like you.

The questions they have are not answered by The SBA, SCORE or most business associations or state funded employment councilors because many of those councilors have never lived the challenges.

The people I’m trying to share with don’t have access to mentors, educators and others who have learned how to navigate the zero dollar start up business and operate it on a shoe string.  These are creative people, many of them living in poverty, many of them reach out to people like myself who have had experiences and came before them. Their only access is what they see on TV and what books they find when they shop at a store like the Dollar Tree or a Thrift store. Fortunate is the one who finds one of your books in either of these places or in a public library.

In this day and age people need practical help, not pat answers from people who haven’t been there. I heard on my local radio station this week that the number of first time entrepreneurs is the fastest growing sector in the economy this quarter. I think people are seeking it because of so many who have lost their jobs and industries over the last 4 years. People need this help. If they cant find work, they need to create their own job. They need to know what is possible, why and how to get there even in spite of their insecurities.

So, Mr. Trump, until you tell me not to write to you like this, I am going to continue to use the format to reach out to people and share what I know, what I have learned and where I have found to get the answers.

Thanks for being there.
~L

ArtBizVoice: Seriously? How are you allowing your business self to appear to others..

Dear Mr. Trump,

Yesterday, I found a blog that was new to me. It was by Shannan Trenholm. Her post was on people who hear what you are up to and tell you to "Be  Realistic" every time you share an idea or dream with them.

Most of my "seemingly successful" friends  who have this "Be Realistic" Attitude are successful because they had chosen to work for companies instead of starting companies of their own.

These friends judge the worth of a company or a business idea by these two things:
 *Are they top among their competitors in profits
*Does the company have  a good reputation among the community.
In other words those businesses have to be paying big salaries and on the social fast track.

One of these friends once told me "I will never put my name with anything that is not successful."

Not to fault my friend, because she is amazing in every way and worth every penny of her hire, but her perspective is that she doesn’t see potential in people or small businesses.  This means she inadvertently says and does things that show me that she doesn’t believe in what I’m doing. Or so I thought.

This past week I was talking with another friend of mine. I told her how exciting everything was becoming how many new possibilities were opening up in my business. Her response was "What do you mean, you just do some of your art on line on t-shirts, right?"

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

My successful friends had been demeaning my work all this time. I never noticed. Maybe I let  them do this because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my work. It has taken me a while to have a clear plan and really run the numbers. Then I mistakenly thought that my friends would support what I was doing simply because they were my friends. In effect they were not taking my business or me seriously.   I had let them demean my business. I wasn’t accepting what they said, I simply didn’t correct their negative attitude and words about what they thought I was doing . I, of course didnt let her demeaning of my business stand this time. I admit it was a little painful standing up to a friend I assumed was being supportive. Amazingly, we are still friends.

I have to say that my world view of being a self starter and taking the risks, while noble to me, it was not something my successful friends could relate to. In fact, those friends would never be able to run a business ever. They had no desire or talent for it. They are highly paid skilled worker bees that provide, sometimes white collar, services to large established firms. That sort of explained to me why people making 6 figures feel like they are middle class. They are workers but they just get paid more and have more social exposure.

Here is the thing, every business out there started with an idea or a dream. All of them had small beginnings. The success of a business is simply the pay off in the gamble in my opinion. All those successful friends of mine would not even have a job if someone like me and you had not taken the risk. It takes creative people with big ideas that they are passionate enough  to make it happen. As you know it can take a life time.

I am not against  being "realistic"; however,  I must say that realistically without people who have the dream and the passion to take the risk there would be no place for any one to be successful.

~L

If  you would like to see Shannon Trenholm's blog you can read it here: http://shannatrenholm.com/2011/work/be-realistic/

ArtBizVoice: Getting People Involved. ( The PPN Project)

Dear Mr. Trump,

Since I basically have no start up money and I live on a shoe string budget on the best days, I came up with this idea of how to market my work. I call it Partner Marketing or Partnership Program for Non-employees(PPN). Perhaps there is a better name already for it.

Here is the need: I need to make sales to pay for art supplies to keep making art and pay for my expenses.  The people I invite into the program want to buy original art but cannot afford it. Usually the art they want is something special to them like a pet portrait or a painting of their child and their horse etc.

The goal:

The key to my marketing strategy is to sell as many reproduced products as possible. These products will fund further art and some additional programs I would like to accomplish in my community.  By using PPN participants to share the product s  this increases my chances of making the necessary sales and gives them  an opportunity to have art that they couldn’t otherwise afford.  The cost of making the art is covered.

How it works:

Sample of PPN Project invitation

Each person agrees to participate for a year(They can actually participate as long as they want to). For the first month I work with them to teach them how to do the project. Basically participants share three or 4 pre-determined items throughout the day on their social media venues. Each item they share has a special code assigned only to them. Each sale of an item with their code gives them a point. The points are tallied at the end of the month. The participant then receives a statement of points that they can use as a discount against the purchase of original work or signed prints.

The participants in the PPN project also are taught how to do recommendations and reviews and given support in how to market as they go. In the program they do this about 2 or 3 times a week.

The program is active marketing, meaning sharing the content in a public way and talking about it to generate interest.

I read once in Guerrilla Marketing, that a product or brand name must be seen at least 15 times before  a potential client will remember it and act on it. IF, of course, it is something they want or can use. Participations should begin seeing a response to their efforts by sales that begin on about 15 day once they fall into the routine. It generally should take no more than about 15 minutes a day to do this sort of program, especially if they have multiple social media venues. This program will allow people to see what is available multiple times on multiple venues, help a worthy cause, empower people in the project and help me to go on to paint another day.

One important distinction about this program is that it is not aggressive marketing; Meaning that those who participate are not allowed to spam. Spamming is repetitively posting the exact same information over and over again to a large number of people who have no interest or who have not asked for information. If participants spam on their social media or email they will be removed from the program and banned from further participation. 

Active Social Marketing will do four things:
Provide information about the product,
Provoke a discussion
Show people how to purchase the product
Lead people to other products they might enjoy having, if the original product is not to their taste. 

Beautiful day today! Warm and sunny. Have a great day,
~L

ArtBizNews: The Crab Pot Theory of Community Dynamics

Dear Mr. Trump,

There is something really important that hinders the poor and disabled for being successful sometimes. Its something that they can overcome with a bit of help. My dad called it the "Crab Pot Theory" of Community Dynamics.

 The Crab Pot Theory is based on several false statements:

 1. Rich people never have to work a day in their lives.

2. Rich people got that way because they used poor people.

3. You cant leave us because we need you.

4. When we get money we have to spend it on what we want to because thats the American Dream.
5. We don't have to pay our own way because someone else will take care of us
6. Any money you make belongs to us
7. No one in our family ever made anything of themselves so you cant either.


I would call these false statements curses. There is a verse in the Bible that says: "faith comes by hearing"When people hear these statements over and over again they begin to believe them and it becomes a physiological disability. Like calling a child stupid and dumb and telling them they will never amount to anything. Soon they believe it and act accordingly.

My dad illustrated the "Crab Pot Theory" this way. We visited Tidewater where he grew up and one day all the adults decided to have crabs for dinner. So they went out and caught the crabs and brought them home. Dad invited me into the kitchen to show me. The way you cook crabs is to put them alive into cold water then slowly heat the pot. The gradual heating slows the crabs and they don't realize they are being cooked. Well most dont. Some sense something is not right and want to get out of the heat. So they start climbing out of the pot. But just as they get to the top the crabs below them use their pincers and grab their legs. The lower crabs then pull the ones trying to climb out back into the pot. Thus none are able to escape.

The Crab Pot Theory of  Community Dynamics is not insurmountable. People do over come it. Usually its when they wake up one morning and figure out that everyone around them is happy except them. When they take stock of their lives they discover its because all the enabling they have done has pretty much sucked them dry. No one is looking out for them. No one is helping them. No one is even listening to them.

What happens when someone stands up against this sort of  community dynamic:Guilt trips and derogatory statements to hold them down make them fail. The real reason the community does this is because the community has become so dependent that they are fearful to loose the bread winner. Some of these bread winners are 13 and 14 years old. By the time they are 25 they have nothing but three jobs a day that keep them poor, keep them from spending time doing what they love and keep them from being with their own children.  Their poverty has nothing to do with who is rich and how they got there. It has to do with the unhealthy dependency of their family and sometimes their community that holds them back.

Why I think this is important to understand is because those people are a growing number of our population. Those are potential work force. And that is a whole sub-strata of creative ability that is being squandered by a culture of forced economic failure. I realize we cant help everyone of them out of the pot; however, maybe we can lift the ones at the top out of the pot and release them back into the sea of possibilities.

Have a wonderful weekend,
~L

ArtBizVoice: State My Passion, Then SUPER SIZE IT

Dear Mr Trump,

Today my goal is to figure out how to state my what my vision for my business is in One quick sentense and then in the second sentence say how I am doing it.

What is my Vision?
Ok, this is going to be a bit harder than I thought. Why? Because just defining vision is probably too broad. People would assume my vision would be simply for my business.  I have bigger fish to fry and my business is going to get me there. And no I’m not really that political, so politics is not actually part of my vision. However, they possibly overlap as politics affects policy, and policy affects the daily lives of everyone living in the country.

So what is my true Vision for my life:
To  provide a platform for the issues I care about while providing entertainment and education for  my community, my state , my country and the world ( I guess that would be globally). 
Ok let me say it this way.

My Personal Vision is to build a company that will provide entertainment and educational opportunities for issues I care about that will benefit the local community and can positively impact the world.

How am I going to do that, you ask?

I am doing this by passionately creating art that encompasses those issues and working that art into designs that can be incorporated into everyday things that people wear, use and collect , then marketing those items globally.

Gosh, I could really use some input here.

Simply put my Mission is to: Use my talent and skills; build a business,  then help make life better for as many people as is my ability to reach.

I saw this quote by you yesterday on twitter:

"You have to love what you do or you are never going to be successful no matter what you do in life.” - Think Big

I do indeed love what I do. I love connecting with people who love their animals and want to make a better life and I love creating things that bless them.   I am already living it.. now its time to Super Size it!

Today was my kind of snow btw. Just enough to be beautiful.

Blessings of the Day to you,
~L

ArtBizVoice: 30 Seconds

Dear Mr. Trump,

I’ve been sitting here for the last two years thinking about  what direction I would like to take my business in.   And as I did I realized that my communications skills need some major improvement.

So before I go any further I’m going to say that It has really taken me a long time to figure this out. In business we don’t want to be friends we want to be beneficial acquaintances. That means that time is of the essence. That means in the first sentence I have to state my proposal.

I have to say its very intimidating. Everything in one’s life boiled down to one sentence and spoken with concise passion so as to convince the world that your project is the one they should choose. Scary!

I have of course seen your program, The Apprentice. Well I did years ago. That was the first time I  ever saw it in action. I think writers and artists, because of the time they spend alone and in their heads, sometimes are not aware of how to condense and efficiently  use  language for  busy people.

I remember seeing writer Dick Francis in an interview years ago when I still had TV, I remember how he had to think about answers and then slowly spoke. He wasn’t aware of the 30 second sound bite. There was a lot of dead air space that seemed like an eternity and it made this brilliant man seem a bit less intelligent than he really was.  I suppose that is what it boils down to. ..yes, between 15 and 30 seconds to get  one’s point across.

So here it is… you want to make a proposal.
1. Do it on one sentence  to get the attention
2. Follow through with details in the next 2 sentences
2. Keep it narrow
2. Have all the information so you can answer questions.
3.Get the message out as quickly as possible.

So  Tomorrow I am going to try this out on my blog.

Have a great afternoon. Think we might have some snow here tomorrow.

~L

Bloggers Note: I gave up TV in 2003 because of the expense of Cable. When the new change over to digital happened in 2009 I had to give up watching most TV because the antiquated TV's  I have (black and white) and an archaic Color set  are of little use in the "digital age of TV. The money I could use for that entertainment I put into  my business.