Valerie: 0:02

I am so excited to be back with you today having another conversation about art, about entrepreneurship. It is going to be so good. My name is Valerie McKen. You are listening to the Peaceful, Creative Podcast. I'm joined today by my husband, again Mac.

Mak: 0:23

Hello.

Valerie: 0:24

And we are going to continue having the conversation that we started in the last episode, so if you haven't yet listened to that, I recommend doing it. We dove into the idea of mindset when it comes to starting an art business, selling your work, being an artpreneur. What are some of these mindset barriers that we have to doing that? So I recommend checking that out. But today we are continuing that conversation into the most asked about topic. Over my entire career I've been getting this question. It is all about pricing and we have some philosophies around that. That's really going to help you. Before we get into that, I wanted to remind you of what we have going on right now, which is the launch of our newest course called the Peaceful Artpreneur.

Mak: 1:24

And we're so excited to be doing this because it's the first time Valerie and I have teamed up together to do a course. But it's super exciting because we're finally answering all the questions that, as Val mentioned a moment ago, have been asked of her and I over the last 10, 15 years of selling millions and millions of dollars worth of art across the two businesses that we have created, and we just felt like it was time, and so we're ready to dive in together with you. This is not a here's, a bunch of modules, go off on your own and do it, kind of course. What I'm personally really excited about is that we're going to do this with you. We're going to hold your hand, you're going to have plenty of opportunities throughout the course to be able to get in a hot seat or ask us questions and respond, and we're literally going to build this course around all of the participants as it's going on. So it's super exciting.

Valerie: 2:23

Because Mac, how many courses do you think we've purchased? That just sat on the computer, just a bunch of modules and throughout our entire entrepreneurial journey, which started back in 2008? Together, together, yeah. I feel like having that container where we could actually ask a question or say, hey, that worked for you, that's great, but is that going to work for me? And how can I fit into this? Because you are unique and, just as your art and creativity is unique, the way that you want to show up to this whole idea of selling is unique.

Mak: 3:04

And I feel like you hit the nail on the head. I think we've had so many discussions over the years about people who come out, they figure out a way to make it work for them and then they come out and act like an expert. What works for them is one size fits all and it works for everybody, and that's just not true of anything. Okay, so Elon Musk can send rockets into space and build electric cars. If he came out with a course on how to do that, I don't necessarily think that I would be sending rockets into space in five years. So that's why we wanted to build this course this way, where it is not a dialogue or it's not a monologue. It's a dialogue. We work together, we help you understand your strengths and develop your strengths and look at all of the talent that will be part of this, and we can work together to build a plan for you, specifically using the principles that we have come up with over doing this and selling millions of dollars worth of art over the last 10 to 15 years.

Valerie: 4:02

All in a community, which I think is the beautiful thing about it too. I think artists, we tend to be a little more nervous, maybe sometimes about being in a group like that, being in a community. But the power of that having somebody else that says, hey, I'm walking through this too, I'm doing this too, we're doing it together, we're encouraging each other, we're supporting one another, being with others in that way where you don't have to go at it alone, is so important, and it's going to be the reason why you actually make change and do something differently, because we all can slip back into our old ways of doing things. We might have aspirations or we have things that we say we want to do, and often the difference between actually doing it and not doing it is the accountability and having other people that you are surrounding yourself with who are doing the same thing.

Mak: 5:02

So, whether you have never sold an art piece in your life at any level, or you've been selling art, but maybe not at the level you want to, or you have questions, this course is for you and I know up to this point too. Everything that we have put out Valerie has put out in terms of her courses and her memberships, and everything has all been specific to artists in the medium of soft pastel, because that is your fine art medium. But this course is not soft pastel specific. This is for anyone who, any artist, who's creating?

Mak: 5:43

anything you have, mostly visual artists know if you're listening to this and you found this and you see that Val's all about soft pastel, that's true, and that's her form of art. But this is for everybody and right now is is the best time to get going. We're releasing this series of podcasts the beginning of November, but we have an early bird special that is available right now and it's only available for the next several days and then the price will go up. So make sure you check all of that out. We'll put a link in the show notes, but it's ValerieMcKeoncom slash sell with peace. No capitals, no spaces or anything, just ValerieMcKeoncom slash sell with peace. For all the details.

Valerie: 6:26

And if you're thinking, okay, I'm going into this busy time of year we know holidays are coming. December is crazy. The course officially kicks off in January. So we're going to be hitting the ground running in January. But when you purchase now, when you become part of the course now, there are bonuses that you are going to receive in November and December. So, although we're going to officially kick off, you don't have to wait. You can prepare yourself so that you are ready to go. You're in that zone, you're already. Just just ready.

Valerie: 7:00

So we are going to be doing three bonus calls. There's going to be a pricing master class call that's going to really jump off of what we're going to cover in today's episode. There's going to be a holiday sales boot camp where you can even start to make some sales now, in the time when people are ready to buy. You could even pay for the price of the course before it even starts in january. And then we're going to be doing a vision casting workshop with creating a vision board and how we like to approach that idea of goal setting in a way that is very life-giving.

Valerie: 7:35

The whole idea with the peaceful entrepreneur that a lot of people come at these topics like this is hard work and you better hunker down and struggle and all of this. That's a very strong cultural messaging. But we want to say this gets to be fun and creative and feel good and you get to have a life that you want to have. You get to go after these dreams and, yes, there are parts that we have to overcome our old ways of thinking and that can get uncomfortable, but at the same time, we are all going for this idea of having a life that you love and this gets to be part of it.

Valerie: 8:14

So, if that is something, if the idea of selling your work, if it is even a dream that you have, like, oh, someday I would love that, but I don't know how that's possible for me. Maybe you're not even. Maybe you are chomping at the bit and you're like, oh, someday I would love that, but I don't know how that's possible for me. Maybe you're not even. Maybe you are chomping at the bit and you're like, I'm ready, let's go. But maybe you're saying, oh, I don't know if I'm ready, I don't know if I'm worthy of this, I don't know. I want to encourage you to still check it out, because you're probably more ready than you think you are, and we would just love to have you be part of this kick off the new year 2025 in this way.

Mak: 8:49

And so all of those bonuses are only available if you sign up before the deadline, the end of the week. So again, check that out. You get all of that for free. You get to start right away if you want to. And one other thing I wanted to say is about you were talking about the busy time of year. But people are. We're all just busy in general. You and I, we have two girls five and almost two and we're running two businesses and this life is crazy, and so we get it. We're're not gonna fire hose you in this course. We have developed it in a way that it will be fun, it will be light-hearted and it won't take up a hundred hours of your time. You know it will be. It will be. It will just be a lot of fun, and we understand how busy you are. So we're gonna give you everything, everything that you need to get going in your art life and in your art business, if you want to call it that, but without you having to dedicate like a crazy, crazy amount of time.

Valerie: 9:55

Yeah, so today we are with you for the next, I guess, four days now, including today. Including today. We're going to continue with this series of really tackling some of these big topics that we're going to be covering in the course, but just giving you an idea of ways that you can use this information right now, and we think you'll walk away with a lot of takeaways. Today, the focus is on setting a price.

Mak: 10:27

This is the big one. This is what everybody wants to know.

Valerie: 10:30

Okay, let's level set here. What are you actually selling as an artist? Let's start there with that question.

Mak: 10:40

I'll be the artist for a second Paper, canvas, paint and my time.

Valerie: 10:49

Incorrect? No, how often do we hear that, though, where maybe you have heard these ideas of pricing your work where it's like, well, how much did your materials cost? And then, well, your time, and then divide that by this and multiply by this, and and we're speaking here specifically to those who are selling original art. Now, of course, there are other ways to sell art. There are product manufacturing.

Valerie: 11:18

we have done, we've done it all, we've done all of it licensing product manufacturing we've done overseas manufacturing, we've done domestic manufacturing, we've done all of it. Licensing product manufacturing We've done overseas manufacturing, we've done domestic manufacturing, we've done print on demand. Print on demand. I mean all of it, but this specifically for this conversation. Let's talk about original art, and what is it that you are selling.

Mak: 11:36

Frankly, I think we should start there, because that's the best place to start. We tend to, when we get into doing something new, we over complicate things because of a fear of starting. So we, we, this is a natural human instinct instead of starting, we come up with all of these things, these checklists, all this stuff we have to do, and it's really, deep down, a subconscious way to avoid getting started. So if, if your natural instinct is well, I can't start because I need a logo and I need a website and I need to change all of this stuff and I need to find a printer and I need to do this and I need to do that, no, you could literally sell a piece of original art that you have in your portfolio today and actually make money today without any of that stuff. So that's why we're choosing to start with selling originals.

Valerie: 12:24

Yeah. So what are you selling then? If you're not selling the paint on a canvas, you're not selling the paper, it's art. You are selling air, you're selling energy. You're selling a feeling. You're selling somebody's joy, that you're selling them a feeling of peace. It is.

Valerie: 12:51

This is one of my favorite things to talk about. Just as a side note for those who know me, I can go on and on about this. But art, it's the mystery of art, of art. Why is it that you can stand in front of a piece of art and, just inexplicably, you're brought to tears. Something washes over you, that you feel compelled and drawn toward it, and it's different for everybody.

Valerie: 13:22

I've had a piece of art in my home, for example, and my mother-in-law I remember specifically she's like that's bad. Do you remember that it was a piece of? It was a watercolor, and she's like that is not technically good at all, but I loved it. And I think we have those experiences of art. Where is it the most technically proficient thing? And I teach that.

Valerie: 13:48

When I teach artists to paint, it's like, yeah, we want to have enough technical abilities to be able to materialize something, but at the end of the day, the magic is the mystery, the magic is the energy of it and how it touches you, how it makes you think, how it makes you maybe feel unsettled, maybe it makes you feel a little melancholy, or there's just something about it.

Valerie: 14:14

You can't put your finger on it. That's all forms of art, but even the visual art. It really is this magical, mystical way of creation, how and how we relate to one another as human beings, how it connects us, how words fail, but we have art to be able to say things that we didn't even know, that we needed to say or needed a release of. I could go on and on and on about this, but my point being in this conversation, that that's what you're selling. You are selling a connection to another human being, that they are saying yes to how this piece is making them feel, to how this piece is making them feel, and to me that's the magic of original art, because we could, you know, it could break down to the colors that somebody wants in their home and this is what fits their space, and we have that going into it as well, but really going into it as well. But really, these pieces that speak to somebody.

Mak: 15:31

What is that value? What is that worth? Yeah, absolutely, it's 100%, an energetic exchange in value. 100%. It has nothing to do with the material or the time or actually the physical energy that you put into a piece. There are pieces I always think about the Billy Joel example and that is New York State of Mind. He wrote that song in like 25 minutes on a Greyhound bus home from LA. He got home he went up to the piano he said the whole song took him like 25 minutes to write. And now that is one of the most famous Billy Joel songs of all time. It's been covered more than any other song he's ever written and everybody knows that song and when you listen to it I don't care where you are, what's going on, you feel like you're in New York. It was the energy. So that song, in terms of physical return on investment, he's made way more money on that song than songs that he put days or weeks into writing.

Valerie: 16:39

And because his energy was aligned and that song touched everybody who listened to it, there's so much that I want to say on this topic, because this is we talked about some blocks, some mindset issues in the last episode and another one that we didn't talk about. But another one is that some people have this feeling that it has to be hard in order to make money, and I think artists fall into that sometimes, and this is maybe why we have these cliches of the suffering, struggling artists, because we have this subconscious belief that you have to prove and earn. And if it, if I didn't put my blood, sweat and tears into this piece, how can I charge real money for that? But guess what you can. And I want to tell a story that I love telling this story because where we used to live in Pittsburgh, we lived in the same place of Leanne Ford, the HGTV designer, and we went into one of her stores that was this like cool buck mason hybrid of a store and it was really awesome. She had these.

Valerie: 17:48

They weren't even paintings, honestly, they're scribbles, they're like and they look like they're done in like crayon or something it's like this black paint and it's on the type of paper that is um like if you go to home goods and buy a bowl, they're gonna wrap your piece in this type of newsprint yeah right, um, and we were in there and I was just drawn to these pieces and I'm like oh, they're just, they're fun, they're bowls and there were like 25 or 30 of them literally just hanging over a railing going down to the basement where they store everything, right?

Valerie: 18:20

But I'm drawn to these for some again unknown reason. I'm like oh, I really like these. They were $100 each for this scribble and it was really cool. We were in there, we were shopping and Leanne walked in herself. We hadn't met her yet and we ended up getting in a conversation with her and she said that's my play, that's my fun, I love doing that and you could feel it again. It wasn't what was being said. I was already drawn to these things. And then I have her saying oh, that's my pure play. I'm a kid again again and I'm thinking well, they're scribbles, that makes sense.

Mak: 18:58

She freely admitted like each one took like two minutes.

Valerie: 19:01

Yeah, and guess what we did? We pulled out our wallet and said thank you.

Mak: 19:07

We wanted that.

Valerie: 19:07

Here's my hundred dollars. And guess what? We had the biggest smiles on our face the entire time doing it, because what that said about us, because what that said about us. We co-signed that story, that play, and we said we feel it too.

Mak: 19:28

And we want a piece of that. And I want to say now and I want to get this out there, because I can hear some of you right now saying well, it's because it's Leanne Ford, I don't care if it was leanne ford or some artist I had never heard of before because we really hadn't heard of her before, to be honest. Well, I mean yeah, we're not big tv consumers, so we weren't, you know.

Valerie: 19:49

But we weren't big fans.

Mak: 19:50

We weren't big fans we didn't go in there looking to run into leanne ford. She's great and we, like you, know she's cool now. But but my point is it could have been, it had nothing to do with her. You should see this thing, this, this, it's this fun, playful picture of a martini glass and we just fell in love with it. It had nothing to do with her. So we didn't say OK, it's worth 100 bucks because it's Leanne Ford. It was worth a hundred bucks because it really represents sort of our personalities. And now it's framed and hanging in actually one of the most prominent positions in our house right now in Nashville, because when people walk into the room they see it and you go okay, these people are playful, they're fun, they're loose.

Valerie: 20:37

And it's a story.

Mak: 20:38

It's a cool story, and and so it's not because it was leanne ford. I want to put that out there, okay.

Valerie: 20:43

So that brings us to the next point. If we determine, okay, what it is that we're actually selling, you're? You're selling air, you're selling feelings, you're selling joy, you're selling a transformation of somebody's emotional environment into a piece of art that connects us. And I could go on and on and on and on about beauty and how we need it and, as humans, we thrive on it. It's big. You are not selling milk and eggs and bread.

Mak: 21:10

It's not a commodity.

Valerie: 21:11

That have a kind of an overarching idea of this is what this costs. We're not selling that.

Mak: 21:19

And so there's this like bizarre thing that we've run across now a couple times, where artists like, okay, well, there's like a square inch and you multiply the price per square inch and that's all based on how much success I've had as an artist and other artists judged me to be worthy of charging more because I got these letters behind my name. Let me tell you something right now. That is all superfluous. I don't know the word. What am I saying? Superfluous, superfluous. You know what I'm trying to say. That doesn't matter. That's all made up. The square inch size of your canvas doesn't mean anything. You can sell a canvas the size of a wall, an entire wall, for $5,000 if you want, but you can also sell a little, three by seven, three by five, four by six for $5,000. Also, it has nothing to do with it. What it has to do with is the energy, the value, the story, what you put into it and what it feels good coming back to you.

Valerie: 22:23

Right, it is all the value.

Mak: 22:26

Superfluous. There it is Superfluous. I wasn't going to not get that right, okay, sorry.

Valerie: 22:34

Let's talk about, then, what makes something cheap and what makes something expensive. So, if you would, since we're not talking about milk, eggs and bread, we got that out of the way. We know we're not talking about things that have a an understood value, because we all know those stories. We talked about the banana taped to the wall, and there was somebody else who I I learned about that made these, these pieces of art out of garbage bags and, um, out of like grocery store paper bags and all of this stuff. There's cool stuff, okay, and these pieces were going for like thirty thousand dollars. All right, so we're understanding, we're in agreement now that what we're actually selling isn't actually the thing and you always say you should talk, you should do a quick little story about your.

Mak: 23:21

You've this tiny little piece. It's like, interestingly enough, another martini glass, but that was done. That was done in Paris.

Valerie: 23:30

Yes.

Mak: 23:31

I love this little piece. Oh, yeah, and it's another great story. So sorry, I know we're getting a lot of artists.

Valerie: 23:35

Who is a friend of mine, great story. So sorry, I know we're getting an artist who is a friend of mine. She was in paris and she drew these pieces of art at a paris cafe. And then they're. They're simple drawings, they're sketches really. But I paid several hundred dollars for this sketch because I was subscribing to this idea of I am someone who wants that. I want to take who I am and say I am a person who values this, the story of that. I wanted to live that as somebody who drew this sketch in a Parisian cafe. It was about the story. It's about what that represented to me.

Mak: 24:20

And that piece is significantly smaller than the Leanne Ford piece. Oh, it's very small but was much more expensive. But I can tell you this, they were probably about the same amount of time to make both of these, and so the overall point here is you have to get the idea of some kind of structured reason for pricing out of your head completely. It can't be about the time, it can't be about the size, it can't be about the materials or the commodity.

Valerie: 24:50

Right. So what makes something cheap and what makes something expensive? In fact, this is a non-question, because if you lined up 10 people and you said, okay, what makes this cheap, what makes this expensive? Everybody is going to have a different opinion, and often artists get in this place of pricing something to try to appease somebody or try to make them think that this is what it should be. But we all have our differing views on this when it comes to everything, because it all comes down to what that person values.

Valerie: 25:30

So, like us, we really love nice hotels. We like that is valuable to us. So if you would I'm not even going to name numbers because it doesn't matter If you would say a certain number that is a night at a hotel, we might say, oh, that's a great deal, sign me up. That sounds good. But to somebody who doesn't appreciate that, like we have friends and people in our family who are basically like, why would you invest in a hotel on your vacation? All you do is sleep there. I want the cheapest, just I want a bed and that's it. So then you would give them that same number that we pay for a night in a hotel and they would go oh, my goodness, that is expensive. I would never do that, and I think that, as we're saying this, you can probably think of examples of things that maybe you value, that you find to be good deals, or you consider that to be cheap because of what you're getting for that.

Mak: 26:24

And you know, I think another really good example of this is, you know, organic food versus non-organic food. At a grocery store. There are some people who really value organic food because it says something about them, who really value organic food because it says something about them, who they are, whatever that might be. And so you're willing to pay sometimes 30%, 40%, 50% more, in some cases 100% more for the same thing as something that isn't organic. But to the person who doesn't care about that doesn't resonate with that. The price is way too high.

Valerie: 26:57

They would say it's not worth it because it's a value thing always value, always, always value, and it can go down to something literally being a couple dollars, oh yeah, and you're going to have somebody say, nope, that's not worth it. Like the app, you're gonna play words with friends with the ads, because if you don't value that, then that is going to feel like it's expensive. And the best, the great thing about it, it's different for everybody.

Mak: 27:26

Everyone is different.

Valerie: 27:27

So let's release ourselves from that and recognize this is an issue of value and not everybody is going to value the same things. You have somebody who doesn't value a piece of original art. They want to go to Target. Okay, that's fine, that's them, that's what they value. Guess what you don't have to talk to them, you don't have to price for them. And that brings me to the point of all of this is that you get to decide where you want to live, what you want to play in, who you want to call in the person that you want to make your customer and collector. You get to decide that and plant that value for yourself, stand strong in that value and then call in that person.

Mak: 28:21

You, your job is not to appease the other people who don't value those things and so often you know, one of the tricky parts about pricing that artists run into is they talk to their friends or their family or their fellow artist friends and they say I'm thinking about charging this or that or whatever, and they allow all of the opinions of these people to filter in to what you're going to charge. But the truth is that has nothing to do with you or your potential buyer. You're letting the opinion and restrictions and all of that value that has been created in the minds of other people determine your outcome, what you want to do, and that will not help you in any way, shape or form. Some people might say, oh yeah, charge X and it seems really high. And some people might say I would never pay more than $10 for that. You can't operate listening to either. You have to do what feels good inside of you.

Valerie: 29:25

You will rise and fall and second guess on the pricing and, knowing this too, part of this game is rejection. Guess what? Because it's an original, there's one that means it is made for one person. This means, by setting a price, you are automatically going to exclude a number of people who that is not for, and that can be really scary. That can be something that that requires courage to plant a flag and say this is what I'm saying, the value is, and in doing that, you know that you're saying this is not for you, if, if you are not into that, but but that act of courage is the thing. That is what is required, I would say, to do this, to set values, to sell your work.

Mak: 30:26

And beyond courage, which it definitely takes, you have to keep in mind that you have to just know that rejection is part of it and not take it personally, because the the value is in is in it's on them If. If the buyer says, no, that's too much, or I wasn't planning on that, or whatever, that doesn't mean that your piece is still not valuable or not good. So many people associate whether someone buys something or not based on the quality, the fact the person showed interest in it. That means they like it. It just doesn't mean that where you value the piece and what they're willing to pay, that just doesn't align and you witness this every single day in your life. And I'll give an example.

Mak: 31:14

We have family members who will not rent a movie on Apple TV because six bucks is too much money to rent a movie at home. They just won't do it and we don't understand that. Because that's a cheap night, that's a great night. In Six bucks let's rent the movie, let's watch it, let's all enjoy it. It doesn't mean that the movie is bad or that the service Apple provides is bad or anything. It just means in their mind, spending $6 to watch a movie at home is not the same value as it is to Val and me, who would spend six bucks to watch a movie at home. And that's how, you have to remember, people are looking at buying anything that they buy. It's always a value issue. It is, and so it doesn't mean that your painting isn't worth it. It just means it didn't align with the buyer. That's it. So when you start to look at rejection that way, it changes.

Valerie: 32:04

Right, and I will just give a little plug again, because being in a community of people who are also going through this is so powerful, because they are very real human emotions of rejection. You're the artist. You're putting your heart more than out on your sleeve. You're putting your heart out there and having it walk around and that can become heavy. We can get bogged down with what that feels like. So having people in your corner, having people in your ear saying, no, this is what we're doing. Let's look at this with a lightness. Let's test this, let's try some different things. It's so, so powerful.

Mak: 32:44

And I was going to say that and we're going to walk through all that with you. So if this right now is like there's, probably you could be feeling inside like a welling up, like, oh my goodness, this is also, it seems, feels so scary. That's what we're going to do for you in the course. We're going to walk alongside of you and help you through this, because it is a big step mentally and emotionally for a lot of people. We understand that.

Valerie: 33:06

So basically what it is boiling down to when you are thinking of setting your prices, if you are pricing in a way to appease someone, that's not a good path to be going on. But you get to decide and we're going to workshop all of this together in the course to really help do this. But what I want to say is allow yourself the space to get quiet and really think about what would feel so good to you to get, what would just light you up. Because here's the other thing I want to say, and we talked about this in the last episode the idea of selling something and buying something is an energetic exchange. It's this beautiful cycle.

Valerie: 33:54

It's not that you sold something and took something from somebody else. No, you're giving them something. You're giving them that energy and that feeling that they want, that they value, and it feels so good to them and it feels good to you. But what happens if it doesn't feel good to you? Because you undervalued it, you discounted it like crazy. You were afraid because somebody said, well, that's way expensive. And then you said, oh, I'll do it for half. And then you got that sale Does. And visualize it that you put a price out there and there is somebody with like the biggest smile on their face, like we did with Lee and Ford's store, and we're like here's my hundred dollars you know, basically waving it in the air, smiling the whole way home.

Valerie: 34:49

Think about that exchange and you got what you wanted. You got what feels good. How are you going to show up? You're going to package that piece with glee. You're going to be putting it together. You're going to be smiling the whole way to the post office and that is that's what you want. This is, this is your life. Doing this is to enhance your life and make you feel good, not to take away.

Mak: 35:15

The energetic exchange should be cyclical and beautiful when it's aligned and you have received this feeling in your life many times before whether and I'll use an expensive item as an example, but you know, like you see, that I don't. You know if it's, maybe it's a gucci bag or even a new set of of of, you know, if you pastel a really expensive set of pastels or you say, okay, I really want that item, and even if you save up for it or whatever, in the moment that you make that purchase, you you feel over the moon. You walk into Gucci and you're like I'm taking that bag. Or you finally make that order online for the new paint set or whatever it is, and it might be 500 or a thousand dollars or whatever, and you, but in that moment you feel so good, it feels amazing, and that's actually what you're buying. You're buying that feeling, that of of like.

Mak: 36:14

You know, like, for me, I love eating out, going to, like, finding like a Michelin star restaurant and it's like I'll, I'll, I'll pay that money because I love that experience, I love that feeling. I'm happy when they hand me the bill because this was like an exciting, fun thing that I did. I'm paying for that feeling. Yeah, the food was great.

Valerie: 36:33

But if it was just about getting your belly full, go to McDonald's, right, it's like you're a smoker.

Mak: 36:40

So that's what you have to keep in mind that feeling that you have felt when you've made that big purchase, or a purchase. It doesn't have to be a big one, just something you've always wanted, maybe a book you've been wanting to read for a while, and you finally go buy it. In that moment it feels great and even sometimes a little bit later you still love the item. But after the high of buying it has gone away, you go. You still love the item, but really it was that moment of purchase that was so exciting and that is what you are selling. You are selling that moment for people.

Valerie: 37:12

And that's part of the invitation that selling is, which we talked about last time. That selling is really just opening that up as an invitation to say, hey, I'm available for this, let's do this, let's connect in this way, let's have this exchange happen, which is really cool and cool to be part of All right. So, really practical stuff. We want to give you a checklist, almost, of questions to ask yourself. When you've arrived at a price you feel like, oh, this would feel really really good, and so here's a list of questions that you can ask yourself to help you really land on what that should be.

Mak: 37:51

And, by the way, there is no right or wrong price. This is how you look at, because every single, every single person listening right now is going to have a different price.

Valerie: 38:01

You might be saying fifty dollars is your price because you yourself have a different view of what's cheap and what's correct correct, but you also might be listening right now and going.

Mak: 38:08

you know what I really think. Five thousand dollars is what I want Beautiful, either way. Both prices are correct, as long as inside the moment that that purchase is made, you actually feel lit up and feel really good, and that's what Val's about to go over.

Valerie: 38:26

Right, you have to align with that price, because if you are aligned, if you are misaligned in the other way too, if people like us, if they say, well, that should be a thousand dollars, and you just, in your gut, you're like, you know, beyond the fear of that. If there's a moment where you're like, oh, I would love that, but I'm afraid that's different than just saying, oh, no, no, I'm just not aligned with that. You really it's a lesson in listening to yourself.

Mak: 38:53

And I want to say too, how many people are in the world, like how many billions of people? I never get that number right. There is a buyer at every price for everything, and I just want to put that out there. Somebody bought that banana that was duct taped to a wall for a million dollars or whatever it was. So there is a buyer at every price. Just because they might not be in your immediate circle of friends or family doesn't mean that person doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that the first 10 people you talk to will be that person, but there is a buyer at every price. Think about the billions of people, how many people there are in the world. It's incredible, right.

Valerie: 39:32

All right. So the first question to ask yourself is is it a number that makes me feel excited and kind of tingly inside, versus the feeling of a little bit let down, a little bit like, oh, that's nice, but I feel like, oh, I don't know, it's a little safe? So those two feelings ask yourself, is this a number that makes me excited, that you would want to like jump out of bed and package this thing up and you are so excited to take it to them because you're just like lit up about it? So ask yourself that question because I think a lot of artists, and a lot of artists that I talk to default more to the appeasing. Let me discount this.

Valerie: 40:23

I don't want to upset anybody kind of a realm and you got to get real honest with yourself of how does that feel inside. The second question is if I would get busy in this or if I would start selling these pieces every day. Is that sustainable? If you are going to take your time although we don't want a price based on necessarily hours spent of making the art it's more about can you physically do?

Valerie: 40:53

it Can you physically do it and is it sustainable to your art practice? Even, are you able to buy what you need and buy what you want? To continue in our practice and make it sustainable, if you would get busy, do you have to hire more child care? Is that going to cover that child care If you would get busy? And then you, when you say yes to something, you say no to something else. So what is that exchange? Is that in an appropriate value for that exchange if you were to get busy? The third question is this contributing to a life that I want, what is success to you? You get to pick again with all of this. You get to decide what that is to you. Are you going into this saying I want to be able to pay for my family's vacations, I want to move to being a full-time artist or whatever it is? What is the life that you want? Do you want to go on vacations to the south of France?

Mak: 41:58

like I do.

Valerie: 42:00

What do you want? What do you want in life, and is this contributing to that life that you want? Because, again, when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. So, overall, is this feeling good? Is this contributing to the life that I want to have?

Mak: 42:15

Yeah, and that is really a great exercise to start with, and I know for a lot of people it can feel uncomfortable. But if you would take 30 minutes to sit down and get quiet with yourself and even have a piece of paper and write down a number, what is a number? How much money do you want to make selling your art over the next year, over the next 12 months? Or do you have a goal? I want to take the family to Paris for Christmas next year? I want to take the kids to Disney World, or is it? Hey, I just want to be able to cover the cost of our car payments every month.

Mak: 43:02

Whatever your goal is, sit down, write that down and actually get real with yourself for a minute, close your eyes and think what do I want, what feels good, what would light me up? And so few of us, so few of us, take that much time to think about ourselves and what we want and what would make us feel good. And it almost can get uncomfortable. You could write down $5,000 over the next year. You could write down $5 million, but knowing that is a really good starting point for helping you understand what will help light you up and make you feel tingly and make you feel good when it comes to pricing your art moving forward.

Valerie: 43:41

Yeah. And then the last question to ask am I calling forward the customer that I want? Are you pricing for the person who wants to get their art at HomeGoods and are you trying to appease that customer? Who is the customer that you are calling forward? And are you calling forward the customer that you want to have? If you're doing commissions, are you calling forward the person who trusts you, the person who is paying you a lot of money? They're paying you the money that is a high value, so they're going to be hands off with you and they're like we want you to do your thing. Are you calling forward the person who is going to more micromanage you Like? What type of person are you calling in? And are you calling in the person that you want to call in with that price?

Mak: 44:35

And I want to say right now too, if any of this is again starting to make you feel a little uncomfortable or you're having second guessing, you're saying, oh, this sounds a little crazy for me. That's something that you should really dig into, because this is going to be a little uncomfortable, because it's a new way of thinking about, something that has sort of been standardized or whatever that's been in your mind for a long time. But let me tell you something there are thousands of people selling art and having a career and feeling really good about it every day, who are successful, pricing their art in a way that makes them feel good and feel happy. So if the old way of doing it is comfortable for you right now and you're feeling a little skeptical about everything that we're saying, I think you should take a moment and really, really evaluate that.

Valerie: 45:27

And in this conversation too, you get to test, you get to play with it. This exploration into artpreneurship is another wing of your creativity. Let's play. Let's play a game. Let's see what happens. Let's try this. How did that feel? That felt good, that didn't feel so good. Let's move and try and test things and test things, and the beauty of doing that is there's no right and wrong. It's just like as you are creating the work, you're flowing through it and you're letting it be, this experimentation of what unfolds and that's even part of the goal setting and everything and knowing what it is that you want, but yet, at the same time, you're not holding on to that outcome so tightly. You're able to play in it and test it and change and adapt and see how it feels and be on this journey, which can be really exciting, instead of the typical cliches that we hear.

Mak: 46:34

So, if all of this is something that you are or you're feeling and you're excited about, or even you're more curious about diving into, this is what we're going to be covering in the course beginning in January. But this is, let me tell you something, this is like a quick flyover of this topic. This topic is so much deeper and there's definitely some mindset, work and things that need to go into it before we get into that, and so we're going to cover all of that in the course beginning in January and we want you to come along with us and we want you to know that we're going to come alongside you and that community of people will be alongside you. So if this sounds really scary, that's okay, Because Valerie and I have created this course to be a safe place where you can experiment and talk to us and interact with us and other people in the community to help you through this process. So if it's feeling scary, that's normal, but that's also good, because we only grow and improve and get better when we're uncomfortable.

Valerie: 47:43

And knowing that there's so much that goes into it because if this has uncovered this idea of this is value, not price then how do we convey value? How do we tell your story in a way that resonates? How do you show up in the way you present your art and marketing your art? That is going to build that value. That all becomes part of this conversation that we're not even touching on right now, but that is something that all becomes part of the creativity that is being an entrepreneur and having somebody and a group of people to be able to go through that honestly creative journey with, to say, well, I tried this and this doesn't work and I'm not getting this and I'm feeling bad about this, and kind of taking that swirl of thought and being able to have it land in a group and in a container where we can all help each other. I think that's really a huge part of what the journey is going to be.

Mak: 48:44

And one of the big things that Val and I both believe in strongly and I take my coaching clients through this and you and I talk about this all the time is this concept of failing fast. And what I tell my clients all the time is this concept of failing fast. And what I tell my clients all the time is look, our goal isn't to spend a ton of time building something and then release it, only to find out it's not quite perfect, because no one has ever done that in the history of selling anything. It just hasn't happened. People, they constantly tweak.

Mak: 49:10

So what we want to do and what you want to do, is try to fail fast.

Mak: 49:13

And that's why having the support, because the first three months of the course but then you get essentially like three additional months for free that are us supporting you in the community, supporting you.

Mak: 49:23

So because we're not going to get the story quite right the first time and you're not going to have a sale right out of the gate and it's going to take some time, but over time you're going to build that muscle and all of a sudden it's going to get easier and easier and you're going to feel so much better about it, and that, again, is why we structured the course this way, and one of the big things which we're tackling in the next episode tomorrow on the podcast is I know you're saying okay, val, it's super easy for you to sell because you have this big social media audience and you have this big following.

Mak: 49:54

Oh yeah, leanne Ford, she can sell because she's super famous. So tomorrow we're going to dispel all of that and we're going to be talking about how to sell your art right away without an audience. How can you right now, with whatever your audience is I don't care if it's 100 followers on Instagram and no email list or thousands of followers how can you start selling art right now without an audience? We're going to help you work through that.

Valerie: 50:22

I'm so excited to be back. I feel like we love having these conversations. This is such a privilege to be with you to be talking about this, so thank you so much for listening. I hope that you had some key takeaways, some ahas, from this episode and if so, please let us know. Please DM me. My DMs are open at Valerie McKeon on Instagram. I would love to hear if there was something that really was maybe a breakthrough for you as a takeaway in this episode.

Mak: 50:54

And, of course, don't forget that there is an early bird special right now for the course. That's going to be good through the weekend. It's a significant savings, and then you get those three bonus calls over the next two months before the course starts in January, which has a really high value. You get all of that for free. So if this is feeling like something you might be interested in doing, then please visit ValerieMcKeoncom. Slash sell with peace. No capitals, no spaces, all one word sell with peace. All the details and all the information is available there and if you have questions as you're hearing this and you're not quite sure, you can always email us to support at ValerieMcKeoncom and we'll answer all your questions. We'll be getting back to you right away and help you understand. Whatever questions you have. We'll answer to the best of our ability.

Valerie: 51:46

All right, everybody. We will see you again tomorrow. Bye.