Creative Pep Talk
034 - $$$$$
Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is 8 to 10 years old. Now these episodes were intended to be evergreen and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do want to let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes and ultimately I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human and that these don't necessarily represent my best work or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode or at least go back to around 300 and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. the holidays are here, you gotta find a unique gift for Uncle Derek and your sister, Cassieree and her kids, Jetson and Jettin, Jirfree and Jagab and another two Jay kids. There's so much thinking, so much searching. Plus there's the ethical thing, you gotta shop small, it just, it's a lot, but it doesn't have to be. Uncommon Goods makes all of this simple and straightforward, for real. The site is chock full of unique and interesting gifts that also support small businesses. My fam loves advent calendars. I think Sophie would like the Stitch-a-Day advent calendar and 12 days of hot sauce is definitely shouting my name, sorry that wasn't me, that was the 12 days of hot sauce calendar shouting. We had tons of fun browsing the site for ourselves and kids and family to get 15% off your next gift. Go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk, that's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, uncommon goods, we're all out of the ordinary. Yo, it's the creativepeptalk podcast, this is me, your host, Andy J. Miller, I'm a graphic illustrator and I make pictures for a living. Okay, you can listen to this podcast at illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk, let's get started. Today we're going to talk about something that is on the minds of most commercial artists every day of the week, money, we're going to talk about money, that's the big issue. It's not always comfortable but it's something that's one of the most important parts of your business, it's 50% of your business. Now, me personally, I don't really necessarily get super crazy passionate about art on its own and same goes for business, I'm not crazy businessman, okay, but when they get together and they make the baby that is art business or commercial art, that thin diagram, that middle section, that's the part that I love. I love the mixture of these two things and if you're like me, then a career in a commercial art career might be for you and when I say commercial art, I just mean all the ways that you can have a career that are real career options as an artist, being, making creative work. If that's for you, you might be listening to the right podcast. Today, we're going to talk about the business side, the money side, a very, very important side. I know it's easy for us creative people to just want to think about the creative stuff all the time but without the money, you don't have the time to make the art, you don't have the options to choose what you do with your time and so money is incredibly important as you probably already know. Now, I'm not going to tell you how much money I made last year, mainly because I think there's just too much awkward weirdness that goes with that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to say I made this much money now but at the same time, I want you to know that I've made pretty good strides in this area. I feel like just to give you an idea as a 28 year old that I probably made last year my salary was probably comparable to other successful college graduates that are 28 years old in other industries like business. So I feel like on the career pipeline, I'm doing pretty good for a 28 year old. You know, I'm making more money on art today than I really ever thought was possible and just to knock it back at peg, I'm not making crazy money, not crazy money but good money for a 28 year old college graduate. I just happen to make my money making art and you know, I support, I'm the main breadwinner in my family, I support my wife and three kids. My wife has a successful Etsy business but she only opens it when she has time because she wants to focus on raising the kids. That's just how she wants to spend her life. So that gives you a little bit of a picture. Now early on the first couple of years, you know, I would say for the past three and a half years, I've had a pretty good financial situation and it's grown each year in a kind of healthy, steady way and but when I first graduated the first couple of years out, I've been graduated for about seven years. The first couple of years were pretty tough. They were pretty hard to figure out how to make this thing work and so what I wanted to do today was just share seven things, seven kind of tips and tricks, things that helped me early on to get stable or just basically help round out the financial side of my business and they're all things that were pretty big paradigm shifts for me and so I was hoping that they'll help you. I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have and I have applied this to my creative practice to, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro and that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's fluid engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out Squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself and when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met and we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're going to chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or AndyJPizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. Okay, let's get started. Number one, drum roll please. This is the big one. This is, number one is cash flow. Okay, now, here's the weird thing about words. You know, I was listening to a radio lab and they were all about words, I think the title of its words if you want to go check it out. They talked about how when you start to learn how to speak and then you start to learn how to read and write, that different parts of your brain actually open up. Like your, your brain actually expands in its ability to understand the world when it understands words. And I feel like so often, I will have a mental block. There'll be confusion in my mind and I will be searching. And recently, that happened to me again as a side note, I knew that I was getting really passionate about how to be successful as an artist, how to, how to get new clients and how to promote yourself and all that stuff. And I didn't have a word that really was explaining what that was, what that feeling was, what that process was. And then I stumbled upon this word, I knew the word already, but the word was strategy. And I realized that that word, when I connected it to all these ideas, that's exactly what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about the strategy behind being a successful commercial artist. When I figured out that word, so many other things became clear. And for me, cash flow was like that. When I heard that word for the first time or when I connected it to my business, I realized it was, it solved an issue in my head. Because here was the issue. When I looked over how much money I made in a year, and I compared that to my bills, this was in the first couple years I was graduated, there didn't seem to be any problems, yet there would be times when we were really struggling and we didn't know what to do. And I realized that it wasn't a income problem, it wasn't that I wasn't making enough money. It was more about managing money and it was more about cash flow. Now you've heard people say that freelance can be feast or famine. And yeah, I think that there's a lot of truth to that and I understand that. But I kind of relate this idea of cash flow and feast or famine to dieting, okay? Now I know something about dieting, my whole family loves food, we're always trying to lose weight and be more healthy, but we love food. And me and my brothers, I feel like we've all done the kind of dieting where you save up calories so that you can go wild at the end of the day or you save them up all week so that your weekend you can go wild with your calories, which is terrible, it's terrible for your body, it's not the way that it should work. And I feel like this is so much like the freelance life that's kind of obvious where you do these projects, you might work for two weeks and then you get paid 60 days later and you get a big chunk of change and if it's, you know, $5,000, $10,000 you feel like, whoa, that's amazing. Like when you get a check for $10,000 you're feeling pretty good. The truth is though, is that $10,000 doesn't go as far as you think it would. And if you haven't been getting paid for quite some time, $10,000 actually isn't that much. But I think when it comes in that big chunk, it's like that, it's like saving all of your calories for the end of the week and then going crazy. But the truth is it's not healthy, it's not how it doesn't, it makes it incredibly hard to budget your time and your money. And I think that if you're a creative person, there's a chance that you're not amazing at budgets and managing money. That usually is a different part of the personality spectrum and that might be a challenge for you. So if you make money in this feast or famine way, that budgeting issue is actually pretty difficult for the best of the best of money managers. And so it's something that you need to think about. And so for me, I started to, when I first started about a year and a half, two years, I started thinking about this issue of cash flow. And I think of it like this, instead of waiting till you're so hungry that you'll do anything for money and you get out of control, before it gets out of control, instead of saving up your calories for the end of the day, figure out ways to have little snacks, little bits of money that come in regularly. Now I think for me what was a challenge, if I got paid $10,000 to do a job, making $5 on a poster or making $20 on a poster, it just seemed so insignificant. It was hard for me to even wrap my head around why I would do that. What I'd rather get a $10,000 check or a $20 check. But what I realized was that the $20 poster was like the granola bar that you'd take to work. So that in between breakfast and lunch, you eased off the hunger pains a little bit. That way, by the time it's lunch, you don't go crazy because you're out of control because you're desperate for food. It's that same way about managing, is this making a sense, I don't know, but it's how it makes sense to me. So the way that you get there, so instead of just shooting for these giant jobs and waiting and feasting on these jobs, figure out ways to up your cash flow, figure out ways to make a look, to just have money always trickling in. So one of the ways you can do that is to have products, is to have to search out small jobs that come in regularly and not to blow off little jobs, especially if they're quick. Another way of doing it that's been really helpful for me is early on, I did some design work where I had, I figured out a few relationships locally where I could do design work for them on a retainer. So I knew they were going to pay me $400 a month, which isn't a massive number, but it was cash flow that I could guarantee that came in on a regular basis and that massively helped my cash flow problem. And so for those of you that work at a design firm or have, it may be not the worst idea when you leave or if you've already left, to start doing some work on a regular basis with them, and maybe it doesn't have to be a day a week, but it's just a certain amount of kind of job, say you, you know, you'll design three logos for them for a month for, you know, X amount of dollars. I think that is a great way of having regular cash flow and don't ignore these littler chunks. Don't ignore those. That's actually super important. You know, my wife, she sells on Etsy. She sells animal ear headbands and she's actually, she may, she, even when she's open full time, she ends up having to shut her shop because she can't keep up with them demand. She makes these really nice, high quality, felt animal ear headbands and she actually did embroidery in college in England and so she's just really excellent at it. You can go check it out at the, the thread house, go search the thread house on Etsy. She's not open right now, but you can still see some of her sales and stuff. So she does these amazing animal ear headbands and I think early on, it was hard for me to understand like, okay, she's selling these for $8, $10, $15 a headband and I'm, you know, I'm making bigger chunks but way less often and it was actually her business that sorted out our financial issues, even if it wasn't making as much yearly as what I was doing. And she spent a lot of less time because she's always wanted to focus on the kids, but she was making less money yearly, but it was that, it was those little amount trickling in every day or every week that actually solved the cash flow problem and when your cash is good, your business is good and that's something that I think is your biggest thing. If you don't have that sorted out, that's the first thing on priorities because not having good cash flow is the business killer. All right, number two, get local, okay. When I moved back to Columbus, Indiana, we lived in England for five years. I went to college over there and when we moved back to America, our idea was we will move back to where I'm from, to where my family is, we'll get, you know, kind of regroup because the move from England to America is a big move, we'll regroup when we're ready and we'll find where we ultimately want to move to and that was Columbus, Ohio, that's where we live now. But so we moved back to Columbus, Indiana, which is a great place. It's got amazing interesting heritage with all kinds of interesting design and illustration history, even though it's a really small place. And, you know, for the first couple of years, while we're back, you know, that's when we're struggling the most, I didn't think to even get connected in an art-related way into the town because it's a small town, you know, it wasn't even a city. I never thought about doing that. I never thought about it because I just thought, well, you know, I'm going after these big jobs, you know, so that we can make the money we need to make. And you know, I just thought the type of work I do, it's illustration, there's not any need for that in the town, there's no, you know, magazines or advertising agencies and so I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to focus on doing that. About two years in, I started to get more involved locally on committees for the arts-related organizations, I started going to all the art events, mainly just to make friends and contribute, whatever contributions I could do as an artist. And so I started to get invested in the community, I started to make connections and even in that small town, I ended up making about 30% of my income locally way more than I ever would have dreamed possible. Way more opportunities, opportunities for murals, opportunities for some design related work, opportunities for some animation things, there was so many more things, there's so much more, don't assume that you have a whole vision of what's available out there. I think one of the best things that you can do to help your cash flow, to help your ultimate bottom line of the year is to get involved face to face locally no matter where you live. There's so much work and so much value to be had from that face to face interaction and you can contribute, you can give back and you can also take, you can also be rewarded for having that interaction and I think there is so much value to be had and it's so much easier to get value when you're making those face to face interactions and so no matter where you live. If I could make 30% of my income in Columbus, Indiana, I can almost guarantee that wherever you are by getting involved, you can make a better income and get some real value out of your local face to face interactions and I really believe that. You know there's a famous story about a traveler who goes and search for treasure and he travels halfway across the world to do so and we realize is that there was treasure right in his backyard that's where it was the whole time and I almost feel like so many commercial artists go out there, they're searching on the internet, they're making those connections, they're trying so hard to get their work out there into the global perspective and they ignore the treasure in the backyard. I can almost guarantee that there is plenty of untapped potential just a few blocks away from where you live and I really do believe that. I think it's really important even just for your sanity. You know I don't want it to be, I don't want to come across like getting involved locally is all about money because it's definitely not the case. I think having those face to face interactions is a giant deal just for your sanity as much as it is for your bottom line. All right, number three, specialize globally, generalize locally. Another way to kind of expand your finances as a commercial artist, a way of looking at how to approach your career. Okay, the way I think of it is this, let's do the sports analogy, I don't know anything about sports but I think that helps me to make these stupid analogies. Just how I kind of look at it. When you're in high school and you're a good athlete so if you're wanting to be a commercial artist I'm assuming that you have some interest, taste, skills or talents in art to some degree and in the same way that if you lean towards being athletic and you're more athletic than the average Joe then in high school you're going to be likely to be able to play every sport and be on every team. You could do track, basketball and football, you could do baseball, all of them, you can do them all and you can start on every team and in the same way locally out of that smaller pool of people you're more likely to be towards the top end of the talent and so when it comes to that, when the competition isn't really steep it means that you can actually generalize, you can be the jack of many trades and actually be successful. So locally in the past what I've done, I'm not really doing that right now because I'm doing a lot more illustration, I'm increasing my amount of my most highest contribution work every year but what I used to do was really helpful. I did more design, more practical design stuff early on in my career and I'm not the most amazing logo designer in the world that is for sure but on a smaller scale, on a local scale where the competition is smaller I was one of the best locally and so I got to do a lot of local jobs like that and so when it comes to local you can have a general portfolio. What I tell my students is if you're going to go around looking for work locally, it's okay if your portfolio is more general. Now online the competition is global and I think it's important to get laser focus when you're competing online for business. I think it's important to be constantly in that search for what is the thing that I do better, that I could do better than anyone in the world and that can be very, very, very tight like I feel like, like I've said before, I think I could maybe be the Michael Jordan of taking simple shapes and talking about big, fluffy, ethereal, spiritual, philosophical things with simple shapes, that's kind of, that's what I want to do, I want to be the Michael Jordan of that and I think maybe, I don't know, maybe there's some people out there that are pretty good at it but I think maybe I could be the Michael Jordan of that, I'm actually in the running for that, that's in my mind, when it comes to online, when it comes to big market, you've got to specialize to a crazy degree, however it's hard to develop that business, it's going to take time and energy to develop that skill, to promote that work and to be able to live on that income full time and like I said, I'm getting closer and closer to that but early on, while I'm still trying to develop that, while I'm still wanting to pour time into that global competition, I have to make ends meet and so I did more general work locally because the smaller the competition, the more general your work can be, the more general the focus but the steeper the competition, the more you have to have that laser focus on, I'm really, really, really good at this. So that's my, that's my number three, specialize globally, generalize locally. Number four, double it, this is my spammy, marketer, spammy, snake oil, salesman marketing thing, double it, take whatever you, take your, this is when I think about the office, Andy Bernard was trying to put on a little seminar to get potential clients to sell paper to but he said it was like a small business seminar and all of the people like Jim and I don't Michael and Stanley and Phyllis, they all dropped out and they wouldn't do the seminar because they didn't think it was going to work and so he had to go to the B team and so he got Kevin from accounting and Kevin goes in there and he plays black Sabbath and he does it like runs around the room, it's one of my favorite parts and he's like really out of breath and he says, take, all right, close your eyes and think about your biggest dream, now double it and I think that's what this point is, is whatever your biggest dream is double it but okay, maybe not, this is what I'm trying to say is that early on when I was thinking about an ideal salary, I was always thinking about what was the bare minimum that I felt like I could survive on as an income, as an illustrator, if I could just earn X amount of dollars and to be honest it was something like 30 grand a year or something like that and I thought if I could just earn 30 grand a year, then we would be able to pay our bills and we would be able to survive, you know scientifically it's proven that humans underestimate the amount of time it's going to take to do any given task. For instance, a few months ago we recently bought a house and I love this house, it looks like the house from my drawings, it looks really like a little simple, kind of like just like if you think of the most basic symbol of the house, that's what it looks like and I really like that for that, it's a cape cod and we have this nice deck out in the back and but it hasn't been taken care of properly, it's not doing too bad but you know they haven't refinished it recently and so I had to refinish it last summer and I hate to do these types of jobs, I don't know why I just don't like them, I don't like fix it jobs and doing up stuff, it's just not my thing but it had to be done and so I got some deck paint and we're going to paint it a nice grey and I thought I'll be able to do this in about a day and it took me three full days of being super diligent and you know I think when you think of these fix it jobs you always think I'll do it in like three hours and it takes you nine hours, you know I feel like it's the same way about money, you think alright you look at the bills and then you look at you know how much you need to pay, how much you need to earn to pay the bills but you don't account for the fact that your car is going to break down, you don't account for the fact that you know how much it costs to just go out to eat once in a while or go to the movies or all this stuff, it's going to take so much more money than you think and this is not supposed to be, it's going to take way more money than you think it is, so you know be depressed because you're not even close, it's not like that at all but I feel like whatever that bare minimum number is at least double it and you know what when you get there you might figure out that even that wasn't enough to really not just survive but thrive as an artist and as a human you know early on in your career you can be it's easier to be in kind of like student mode and and get buy on less but eventually there's going to come a time when you're going to want to have a real life and have a real career and so I think whatever that goal is that you think this is kind of what and maybe you're an established artist, I know a lot of established artists listen to this and maybe this isn't about doubling the amount of money that you think you need or you need to double your salary or whatever but it is, it can be about other goals and it can be about generally looking at your career and not thinking small you know whatever just as a side note if it's not your, if you don't need to double your salary a way that you need to maybe expand your mind in your goals, Jim Kudal talks about he's a head of Kudal partners one of the co-owners of field notes he said that when it comes to making your goals, setting your five-year goals it's really important to expand what you think you can achieve and expand your goals to not be exciting for the person you are now but to be the exciting for the person you're going to be in five years you know they're been times when I've shot too small and by the time I reached it you know two years later it didn't feel that significant anymore and it wasn't exciting but the times when I shoot for big bigger than I can you know even imagine the times I get to those things it's so much more satisfying so if it's not your salary it might just be your general goals but I think I do think it's hard to expand your perception right like you're limited on how far you can see in advance there's so many things that I'm doing now that if you would have told me I was gonna do them in five years I wouldn't even imagine being able to do those things and so I think when you look out into the future you shouldn't base it on everything you can see now base it on things that are unseen plan to to grow in ways that you can't even understand how you're gonna grow I think that's the best goals you know it reminds me of this story that I heard about Henry Ford he was talking about how they I don't know anything about engines but I think it was like an eight-cylinder engine don't quote me on that but I think it was like an eight-cylinder engine he was telling his engineers I won an eight-cylinder engine and they were like that is impossible with all the technology we have right now that's impossible he says well make up the technology I don't want you to stop until you have it and they said it's impossible he said okay just do it anyway and so they worked and they worked for six months or something and he came back and he said did you do it and they said no it's impossible he's like we developed this technology we developed this thing but we still can't do it he's like all right this is your job keep going until you do it and if you don't ever do it just never stop doing it and eventually he had that eight-cylinder engine and in that same way when you're setting your financial goals or you're setting your artistic goals you don't have to understand how it's gonna happen but if you have the vision for it and you set your sail that way when time comes that you need to learn a new skill or develop a new practice or come or overcome an obstacle that you didn't foresee then it's time to practically figure it out but I think it's more important to grow your vision now beyond what you can see and that includes your salary and your finances because just like painting that deck it's gonna take more than you think all right number five this is no shame no shame if you struggle with money if you struggle with spending money earning money if you struggle with anything to do with this game of art and business shame is never the answer you know early on when I would struggle I would beat myself up because I came from a family that were all business finance accounting minded and money was easy for them the easiest thing in the world and they didn't understand you know my mom wasn't in the picture and she was the artsy one she's the one that where I got my money skills from if you know what I mean and she wasn't in the picture and she because she wasn't in the picture it I didn't have any of that security of some people struggle with this for some people it's harder than other people and so I had I had a lot of early on in my career I felt like I had a lot of shame attached to the fact that the money thing wasn't super easy for me to figure out and it took me longer than it took my siblings or my parents and but here's the thing that shame is a defeated attitude you know I've recently heard this idea of hope is the seed of success and it sounds really weird and you know woo woo spacey you know whatever but it's actually true is that you know the student that thinks he has a chance of passing the test will study and if he doesn't think he has a chance at all he doesn't study he doesn't even study and so I think that shame actually causes you to do worse work it causes you to work at it hard if you think I'm never going to get the money thing I'm never going to be able to survive as an artist I'll never be able to thrive financially as an artist you won't even try right and so shame actually keeps you from trying but if you have hope and confidence that one way or another you're going to figure this out you're so much closer to the path to success and I really do believe that and I think that goes for any area it goes for the area of developing your skills if you look at the editorial artists in the market and you want to be an editorial illustrator and you look at what they do and you think I'll never do that I'll never be that good ah suck I just suck at drawing this or doing that or whatever it's that shame attitude that's actually it you can't shame yourself into success and I think sometimes we think we just beat ourselves up enough we'll get there and I just don't think that's the case and I realize this is getting very close to Oprah but I do believe I think these are the issues that actually keep us from our highest contributions as artists it keeps us if these personal deep rooted issues that keep us from doing our best work and I think if you don't believe and have hope and confidence and you shame yourself about never adding up you're you're going further and further away from the path to success as a commercial artist okay number six drop the starving artist act destroy this false narrative that says the best artists are the starving artists first of all let's just make this let's just make this clear we're not talking about fine art this podcast isn't about fine art I don't know about fine art maybe you do need to be living on the street to do good fine art I don't know I don't know anything about fine art but what I see I'm talking about developing a craft and if you're gonna be successful commercially you have to learn how to be really good at developing great creative work on command and if you gonna do it on command it's got to be a craft and what I mean by that is you've got to be able to know how to do it you can't it's not good enough just to be able to perform you got to know how you perform because you have to know how to get into that place and I love John Kleece the Monty Python guy who talks about how to be creative what are the circumstances when does creativity happen and so one of the things he talks about is your most creative place is in play and I will tell you when you have financial issues you're not going to start playing that's not when you're going to feel your most playful I'll tell you that you're going to feel your most playful when you're secure and confident enough to take time when you and when you have time if you have financial issues you don't have time and in order to play you have to have big chunks of time where you are free emotionally and mentally to put yourself onto the page now I think about in psychology Maslow's hierarchy of needs now I don't actually subscribe to this idea but the idea is that unless you have your basic needs met you're not going to start thinking about the higher things in life like spirituality and art and education and all that and if you don't have something to eat and you don't have a roof over your head you're not thinking about those things now I don't necessarily think that's true but I do think there's some truth to it and in some ways I think about it like this if you're thinking about where your next meal is or you're thinking about how you're going to keep a roof over your head or you're thinking about paying off medical bills all the time if you're in a crippling place financially you're going to have a hard time worrying about the higher level issues of expressing yourself and I think it's by having these things met that we do our best work Lisa Congdon wrote the book Art Inc she's an illustrator and artist and one of the things I heard her talk about in reference to this book was we've got to let go of this starving artist thing because she believes and I completely agree that our best work is found in being a secure holistically happy person someone who has a great foundation of values who has a great foundation of you know friends and family and and and I think that money is a part of that I think if you don't if you can if you have a future where you can figure out how to meet the demands of money yeah sometimes you're gonna have big bills sometimes that you can't pay and you have to you know go on a payment plan or whatever yeah sometimes that happens and that's okay and that doesn't mean that you can't be creative but if you have no hope if you've if you've gotten yourself into such a mess financially it is going to be so incredibly difficult to get into that open creative mode and to do your highest contribution work and so I think it's so important for us to drop this idea of this struggling starving artist and I actually want to kill it even more so because I don't want other people in the world to think that we should have to suffer to be creative people and you know why not because I think we're entitled to getting paid to do creative work because I believe that the world is actually infinitely more infinitely better for having people having the creative people pay their highest contribution to the world and that's actually what makes life worth living you know I don't know the exact quote I never do but Winston Churchill said something like this they came to him during the war and they said we you know we're struggling financially and we need to cut the arts programs and he said you can't do that because what's the point in fighting this war if we lose what's worth fighting for and I agree with that so much I think we can't the other reason we need to stop perpetuating the starving artist thing is because it gives other people the people that have the money to pay us for our work it gives them the power it gives them the perception that we should be starving that we shouldn't get paid that we shouldn't thrive as people because we chose to do creative work and I think we've got to let that go we've got to quit thinking small-mindedly financially number seven and my last one is acknowledge demand okay I've heard a lot of people talk about this Scott Belsky talks about it on 99 you if you look up Scott Belsky 99 you sweet spot you're going to find an article he's the creator of Bee Hanson 99 you and he wrote an article about this and he's not the person who invented it it's all over the place but the idea is your sweet spot consists of your passion your skill and a demand in the market so a market where there's money that will be paid for this type of work and those where those three things intersect and actually I'd throw another one in there but that's for a different time where those three things intersect that's where your sweet spot is now I think about I think we all know that if we if our first concern is where's the most money in the market that's where the tail is wagging the dog instead of vice versa I don't think that when it comes to setting your goals and and going out there in the market I don't think the number one thing you need to think about is money I do think though that on the list of things you think about it needs to be on there I think sometimes you know I always say this that I think wisdom is the key to wisdom is nuance and that and the lack of nuance is the lack of wisdom and I think because we know that the first thing we think about when it comes to making art we know we shouldn't be led by money first and because of that I think it causes us to think don't think about money just think about your talent and what you love I don't think that's true actually I think when it comes to the hierarchy I think you need to first and foremost think about what are you most excited about doing then the next lens is what are you really really good at and then the next lens is where is there money to be made it's a combination of all three and I think you need to go in that order but I think it you have you can't just say what are my best skills and what am I passionate about you do need to put money into the equation and how do you do that I think you do that by looking out into the areas that you want to possibly work where your passion and interest lie and your and your skills look out at all of the people that do that that are much further ahead of you and if there's a lot of people doing that and the work seems plentiful in those areas then search out towards that area but if you want to do so for instance right I think people that do kids market work in a graphic way that there's a lot of opportunities there and there's lots of different niches within that right and I think you should try to bury yourself deeper into a specific part but I think when it comes to like simple kids work that's a pretty big market it's a competitive market but it's a pretty big market now on the other side the people if you look at like the artists that make graphic work that can be successful by focusing on gallery work like work for the gallery that market is very very tiny I can count on my hand the amount of people that are financially successful by pursuing full-time gallery work as graphic artists that's my point that's the lens that you put I want I know I want to do graphic art I know I that's the kind of the graphic illustration where it's like slick graphics meet meets picture making I know I want to do that for sure that's what I think I'm good at but I looked out throughout the and I try to find where's a real market and I think there's lots of people you know there are people that work outside of markets they're the exception to the rule now you can't plan on being an exception we've talked about that before you can't plan on winning the lottery right you can't that's not a plan that's not a financial plan because you can't plan on being the exception however you can make a good plan to go out into a market that is a that's an actual established market and then along the way if you happen to be the exception to the rule great but you can't plan on that and so I do think it's it's in the matrix of things you need to think about that money is not number one it is in the list it is a concern and it and it should influence the direction that you take heading towards a market that has ample opportunity is really important to make a living as an artist that's pretty much all I've got this week I'm so passionate about this subject why I'll tell you why because I hate working jobs that aren't creative you know it just kills my soul to do that I love making money doing creative work and it's hard it's not an easy thing but I've managed to grow every year and I feel like I'm in a pretty good place I'm so thankful that I get to make my living making art and because of out of that gratitude that's why I make this podcast because I want to help other people who are in the same boat who are desperate to make a living doing what they love in creativity and there's not a subject that's probably closer to my heart than money because money is the key can you if you can make enough money then you can have enough time to make your work and so I'm so passionate about this I'm really happy to have shared it with you I want to just say real quick thank you for the latest reviews on iTunes the past couple have been so sincere and lovely and I just it meant a lot to me it's really awesome thank you for those of you who love the show and take the time to do that it means a lot not just to me but it's also how iTunes ranks shows and it's how they promote the shows that have the most reviews and so that helps you know I've been on the new and noteworthy section on iTunes before and that's helped grow the listener base and so if this is helping you you know out of the goodness of your heart you want it to help other people and reach other people and so you know thank you for doing that I really appreciate it thank you for all those people this week who have shared this on Twitter who have shared it on Instagram there's been a bunch of you a bunch of you have emailed me of different ways that this has been meant something to you and that makes it so much easier to continue to come back to this stupid microphone and record myself for an hour on these thoughts on commercial art it makes it so much more exciting to do that when you guys are being so encouraging and so thank you so much I wouldn't be able to do this without all that and I thank you just for I don't know all the support and the growth and listeners and and all the encouragement means so much and I'm glad that my struggles can be joy for you and yeah so thank you and remember you can listen to this on illustration age dot com slash creative pep talk you can also listen to it on my site Andy hyphen Jay hyphen miller dot com slash podcast you can get a creative pep talk poster there that says do not be afraid inspired by the do not be afraid episode and you know what I've got a bunch of stuff in the in the works I've got some educational ideas online kind of education pursuits in the future some kind of really some like smaller level ones like Skillshare type things but I also have some deeper level educational experiences that have been on my mind where I take a small group and we go through some real strategic ideas and feedback and that will be that will cost more money but it also be really exclusive and it'll be me doing what I do best and giving you all the stuff that I know and so if you're interested in that let me know it's not going to be cheap but I think it's going to be worthwhile I'm kind of planning that I've also got a digital book in my back pocket that I've been working on and so you know I'm keeping busy and at the same time I'm going to keep bringing you this pep every week and I hope you enjoy it thanks for the support and until next week I'll try to get you another smaller pepi talk early next week and but until then do whatever it takes to stay peped up and making great work see you later. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey y'all one more quick thing earlier this year I rebuilt my website using Squarespace's new fluid engine and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible. With social media going haywire I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients. I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately and if you want to check that out and what I was able to do without any code check out AndyJPizza.com if you want to test it out go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself and when you're ready to launch use promo code PEPTALK for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for supporting the show and for supporting creative people. [Music] I did consider Barney a friend and he's still a friend to this day. The idea of Barney is something that I want to live up to you know I love who you love me I call it the purple mantra Barney taught me how to be a man. Generation Barney a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us listen to wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music)