The Art Industry is the Villian

If you're a visual artist and you've ever thought to yourself, there has to be a better way to sell art, or if you've ever lacked confidence around your art, you or your art or your ability for it to sell or how valuable it is, if you've ever lacked fulfillment because you worked a job that you had to to make money, right, but you knew you really wanted to be an artist, or if you just had friends or family members, teachers, coworkers, discourage you in your gift and your dream as an artist, right, or if you've been doing business and you're in the gallery system and you just tired of them taking 50% of the cash and when you sell some art that you created, man, and, or if you just just thought, right, overall just being a starving artist is some bullshit, you don't agree with it, you don't understand it, I'm here to tell you that you're right, all right. My name is Charest, and for the past few years, me and my team, we've been helping visual artists gain confidence, sell art, and transform into full-time affluent artists, all right. And so what is an affluent artist? So an affluent artist is an artist that keeps the majority of their money, they have an automated system to get new collectors, and they own their collector list, all right, and that collector list is your most valuable asset in your business. That's how you build a direct relationship with your collectors, so they buy your art for a long time, all right, and so if you've ever done business with a gallery that won't tell you who the collector is that bought your art, or they won't give you that collector's information, that's why, because that relationship is valuable, they don't want you to build it with them direct and cut them out of their tape, all right, and so, and this really leads me to why do artists have these problems, and from my research, I really think the entire art industry is the villain, right, and so why do I say this? So one, it really starts at a young age, and for many of us, it may start at home with your parents, your family, or your friends discouraging you to even be an artist, right, you're not good enough, or artists don't really make money, you need to do something else, focus on something that really makes them cash, right, then when you do go to school, you go to college, they'll teach you how to become better at your craft, but they don't really teach you how to sell art, or how to get new collectors, or how to market yourself, or how to get exposure, right, and so then let's say you do break free, or break out, and you get into the industry, in addition to them having economic barriers on so many different factors within the industry, right, they oftentimes won't give you access to the collectors, right, and so even breaking in the industry, you got to apply and ask people for access to opportunity to even be seen by collectors, or even trying to get in some fairs, sometimes just the cost to go to the fair is a huge return to get access to a marketplace of collectors, right, and so all of these conditions are really what creates starving artists, right, these are the issues that plague artists right now, and it's what creates why we have so many artists in the world that aren't succeeding with their art, right, and this leads to a lot of issues really, right, so primarily, you know, just having a little confidence as an artist, doubting your abilities, so you are your art, and this is your God-given talent, right, or having some type of unfulfilled job because you haven't figured out how to sell art or, you know, make a living from your creativity, and so externally, you want to make more money selling your art, you want to sell art full time so you can leave your job and spend more time with your family and make money from creating what your artistic gives, right, and then, you know, ultimately, again, philosophically I think being a starving artist is really some bullshit, I think there should be no starving artists in the world because artists create everything that's valuable around us, right, and so artists, just like you, should own the wealth that's created by your art, right, I think artists should be wealthy because we are the creators, and now, as I talk about the industry at large and all of the issues and challenges, I want to be clear that if a gallery can help you sell more art and further your career, I think you should do business with them, the only thing I propose is changing the way we view the relationship with the gallery, right, and so when you become an affluent artist and you use our methodology, you own your own collectors, right, you have the relationship, you're getting paid directly, you're keeping the majority of the money, now we don't have to go through a gallery, right, we look at them as a partner because they do have access to collectors and relationships that we don't, right, and so if it makes sense for you to do business with them, do business with them, but doing it this way, you go into the relationship with a lot more leverage, and so even from a, you know, payment perspective, maybe you can negotiate them down to 20% or 30%, right, instead of paying 50 or more because you're bringing a lot of assets to the table, okay, and so I just want to make sure that we understand the difference in how we think about it as affluent artists, okay, and so me, how did I get here, right, and so first, and just like many of you, I've experienced a lot of these things because I am an artist, and I've been an artist my entire life, right, since I was a kid, drawing characters on these cereal boxes, right, and so as I grew up, I didn't really have a lot of people encourage my artistic gifts, and so when I got back to college, I was playing basketball, got back into art and design, and in 2007, I had a house fire, and so my family, we lost everything, lost all of my art, and that was the day after Christmas, right, so the following year when I was depressed, ended up dropping out of art school, and, you know, I didn't have the skills to sell my art, I hadn't really learned it yet, right, so you struggle with confidence in sales because people all around you, they are already telling you that artists don't make money, you don't know we're allowed to do it, but this is really what took me on a journey to start the master business sales and marketing, right, I was like, I have to figure this out, and so over the, man, almost two decades, I became a number one best-selling author of how to create lifetime customers, you can find it on Amazon, I'm also the founder of artwork.com with two T's, and I'm the creator of the affluent artists program and community, alright, and I also spoke at BlackRock, which is the number one asset manager in the world about investing and buying art, and I've also had the privilege of working with the government of Barbados to help their artists sell art, alright, and you can also go to affluentartists.com/proof to see how we are impacting and changing artists' lives through our affluent artists program, alright, and so it's very simple to get results with our system and to work with us, alright, and so if you'd like to join our movement and become an affluent artist, there are three simple steps that you have to take. So you can sign up now at affluentartists.com/now, step number two, execute our simple six-step affluent artist process, we walk you step-by-step through selling your art online and setting up your affluent artist automated system to do that, and then step number three is sell art on Autopilot, alright, you'll be continuously getting new collectors on your list, and we have automated sales system to sell your prints and your originals every day and also every single week, okay, and so we agree to make this as simple and as easy as possible for all of our artists, man, that's why we offer our customer concierge level service, man, we have an incredible team that's ready to support you, we have personalized coaching, we also have a supportive community that you can talk to and build relationships with 24/7 of other artists and our art success coaches, and we also have a 200% money-back guarantee, alright, and so we make sure that you get results, all you have to do is show that you actually took action on the step side, and so if you're ready to become an affluent artist right now, you can go to affluentartists.com/now, or if you'd like to get some free information on gaining your confidence, selling more art, using your art story, you can go to our free presentation at affluentartists.com/mda, alright, and so I want you to think about just where you are in your journey right now, alright, because we really want to help you avoid your failures, right, if you've been experiencing them or if that's your current reality, right, so if you've been a starving artist or you are experiencing being a starving artist right now, if you're still doubting yourself, if you have low to no art sales, you don't know when your next sale is coming in, and you don't really have a clear marketing strategy to get new collectors, we want to help you stop experiencing that, alright, so your new reality, when you transition from being a starving artist to an affluent artist, we're going to help you become that new confident artist, right, in person, that's the most important thing right there is just transitioning and having that transformation into becoming that new confident version of yourself, alright, and this is going to allow you to sell art on autopilot because you got the belief and the confidence in yourself, you'll be able to achieve that full-time affluent artist status, so you own the wealth created by your art, you own your time, you can spend it with your friends, your family, traveling, whatever it is that you like to do, and all of this is going to allow you to share your art story and your message with the world, alright, so I'm really excited about helping you, serving you, joining our movement and joining our community, I mean you can look for interviews with other artists, other affluent artists that are on this journey that are succeeding and successful, and you can follow along as we help artists become million dollar artists, alright, and so this is going to be a fun ride with this show, I'm very excited to have you a part of this journey, and so if you're ready to take this journey with us, make sure you subscribe to the show, leave a review, go to affluentartist.com/now to sign up, join the movement, and follow me.