Ep 4 How to do the slow and steady boring stuff to succeed

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome back to the “Living From Your Art” podcast with Elie Castonguay, in my car!

Yes, car sounds, and road sounds everywhere! This weekend, I’ll try to figure out how to have a better sound so that you don’t hear these: “click, click, click, click, click…”.

So, anyway, it’s in my car, so we have to deal with it! So, this morning, I want to talk to you about the fact of doing boring stuff and slow and steady stuff. I think I’m going to call this podcast episode: “Slow and steady boring stuff”. Yeah, that’s it. Slow and steady, boring stuff doesn’t mean slow and steady, boring results. It’s actually quite the opposite because most people have stuff or actions or admin work or whatever the kind of actions that they don’t want to do. We all have them, like personal stuff, chores, doing the taxes, calling our mom, whatever it is.

So, but when it comes down to business or artistic business, there are some things that we prefer to do. Compare it to things that we don’t really want to do. As artists we always want to create, right? We want to attend workshops. We want to better our art or craft. We want to learn new creative stuff, new creative strategies, increase our knowledge about arts and all that jazz.

But most of the time, we don’t really like to do the admin, promotional and social media stuff. And that’s okay! I mean, as an artist, we’re not here to become like a marketing pro or a social media guru or whatever you call it. I understand that you want to create more than you want to manage, and this is normal, and it will always be normal.

But if you want to start making a living from your art, or if you’re already making a living from your art. You want to increase the quality of life that you have for you, your wife or husband, your children, or your friends and family. And if you want to set a good example of a really successful artist, then there are some boring, slow and steady stuff (boring stuff) that you will have to do, even if you don’t like it.

And the good news is that when you get to a next level of success, you won’t have to do them anymore. So, what do I talk about? Like, what do I mean? Which kind of actions? You know, most of the time when we have a business, we have ups and downs and this is normal too, but the ups and downs have to go upwards through time. So multiple ups and downs but going up in a general view.

Promotion means talking about your services, telling people that you exist, telling people that they could buy from you, finding new prospects and then go into sales mode and then selling the new prospects, etc . So, when you finally have sales, it’s good because this is what you want, right? This is important to be able to make a living. But when you have sales, then you get into production, you have to produce what the people bought. Would it be a show? Would it be a painting? Would it be a song? Would it be a kid’s show? Would it be a book, whatever it is, but when you’re producing what you sold, you’re not promoting anymore. So, what happens is that you’re going to have a down in sales for a couple days or a couple of weeks after you start producing, if you stop promoting.

But most people, when they are really busy working and producing (and that’s normal) they don’t promote. So, what happens is that you have these huge up and downs in sales, revenue and income, and it can bring your moral and your happiness down (let’s say it like this!).

It can bring your happiness down. So how do you go against this? How do you go through this without having these huge ups and downs and your happiness moving up and down at the same time, you have to do the slow and steady, “boring stuff”.

I think I talked about this in the first podcast, in episode number one, when I talk about social media and that you have to put in your schedule. It doesn’t have to be always the same day, same time, but I recommend it if you’re able to do this, but every day, you have to at least tell yourself that you have to contact five new people every day. Would it be over social media? Would it be over email, doing a phone call, whatever it is, but that way, even if you’re busy, you know, that you’re growing your business every day and five new people per day is not that much.

If you do it, let’s say five days of the week, Monday through Friday, that means 25 totals. Every week you would have 25 new people; not past customers, new people that you find and contact through social media, emails, phones call or in-person if you’re able to. That means 25 people x 52 weeks; that’s about a thousand per year, new contacts of potential prospects.

Let’s say that you close about 5% of them, that means 50 new clients in a year, because you did the slow and steady, boring stuff. That’s pretty much what I wanted to talk to you about this morning. Because unfortunately, and I say unfortunately, because we would love if it could be a different way, but this is how business works, slow and steady, boring stuff wins the game when it comes to sales and marketing.

Creativity is what we all want and being creative and creating new stuff! New creations are all we want to do, right? But to be able to create them and be paid for them and make a living from your art, then you have to accept that the slow and steady, boring stuff has to be done as well.

And the good news is, as I told you earlier, that when you achieve or attain or arrive at a certain level of success, well, you won’t have to do as much of this slow and steady boring stuff, because you’ll have the money to hire people, to do it for you. But in any new business or growing business, you have to learn this stuff yourself first.

That was my message for you this morning: be willing to do the slow and steady, boring stuff! Like, keeping your books, your accounting books, up to date, your expenses, your income, creating Excel spreadsheets, or, if you’re good with any kind of software for taxes, do this with any software. It helps to keep track of stats, any kind of admin stuff or promotional stuff, but mainly your focus should be on promotion and contacting new people every day.

That’s my main focus for you this morning. And I mean, I love you guys wherever you’re listening from. Whenever you’re listening to, I do this for you. I want to help you to make a living from your art. That’s what I do, Full-time! I’m a marketing coach for artists, so if ever you feel the need to have some one-on-one coaching or some specific tips for your particular business, artistic business, please send me an email.

I would love to speak with you and maybe work with you to help you grow your artistic business.

My email is: elie@livingfromyourart.com and I would send you a link so we can meet over a Zoom call. Keep being creative, keep being awesome, I love you guys; artists rule this world! And without you guys, this world would be a freaking prison, a garbage truck of a planet. So, keep creating, keep helping people around you. I love you guys. Talk to you soon.