Business Savvy — Jeanne Rosier Smith

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 0:00

I need to make a living. And I really it what it had to do with was I love to paint and I really want to keep doing this, but in order to do it, I have to find a way to make to sell this stuff.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:13

Welcome to the BoldBrush podcast where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. Recently, I sat down with one of our most successful FASO users, Jeanne Roser Smith, to discuss some of her marketing tips and tricks that have helped her live from her work. Hello, Jeannie, how are you?

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 0:33

I'm good, Laura. Thanks for having me on here.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:36

Of course, I'm so excited to have you. Because, honestly, what I've seen is that your stats on FASO are amazing. And that's why we have you on here. We want to hear some of your secrets. But before we do that, I wanted to ask you for a little bit of background on who you are and what you do. Okay, sure.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 0:53

So I am a pastel painter, and I have been painting only in pastel for the past 25 years. I started painting when I was about 14. But then I ended up deciding to go into English. When I was in college, I majored in English and I ended up going to grad school for English and taught he taught college English for 10 years. But then, at some point, I looked around and sort of figured out that my high school babysitter was making more than I was and and I was doing portraits and people were asking me to do portraits for them. And so it kind of made it easy for me to make a switch to, to painting and I started gradually teaching people I started teaching private classes and and I think what happened was at the same time that someone sent me a box of pastels, I fell in love with that medium. And that made everything possible that I started to really, really get into studying pastel and doing pastel portraits. And people were asking me to teach them how to paint in pastel. And that just started to take on a life of its own. So I decided it was time to leave teaching in terms of teaching college and just made the jump into a different career path. And that was I was about 35. When I made that decision, my three kids and my youngest was starting first grade. So it was a good time to go into full time art. So I've been doing that ever since.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:24

Yeah, that's very brave.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 2:27

Yeah, it was, it was definitely the best thing to do. It was just I've, I feel really lucky to be able to do this full time and do what I love. It's just, it's been really, really, really fun and really rewarding. And I have to say when I was teaching English, it was it was I loved it. But I didn't have people come and tell me, this is my favorite part of my week. And it's my favorite thing that I do all week. And I as soon as I started teaching art, that's the kind of responses I got.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:54

So awesome. That's how you know it's fulfilling.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 2:57

Yes, exactly. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:01

And then, of course, as I mentioned before, and you just mentioned that you, you live from your work, which is what most people who listen to the show want,

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 3:12

right. And I that did not happen right away that took years before the income level grew. And it was kind of organic, it started out. I think it was really important that it was a balance of both teaching and painting. And for a long time, the majority of my income came from teaching, and little by little, and I also think that I really taught because I did not go to art school. A lot of my teeth, my a lot of my training in painting came from my teaching, because I really had to stay I did take a lot of art classes, but I had to sort of stay ahead of my students. And the more I was teaching them, the more I had to really upped my game, because I had a lot of students that came back month after month after month, and after a year or two and I was teaching, say a month of color and value. And then I would teach it again the next year, I had the same students and I knew I had to change up what I was teaching. So I kept deepening my knowledge and understanding. And so I got better over the years, just from how I was teaching. And so my painting got better as I was teaching more in depth subject matter. So it was kind of a good training ground for me for my painting as well. And I also started off with just one gallery. And then over time I got I picked up more and more as I went along. And then as my children grew up, and I could devote more and more time to painting, I was able to increase my income because the more you work, the better you get. And then the more you can earn, you know, the more attention you get and it just it belts.

Laura Arango Baier: 4:52

Definitely, definitely.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 4:53

In equals in equals results. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 4:57

sure, for sure. And then the When you were, you know, organically growing the sales, what do you think was the best approach that you've taken to sell your work?

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 5:08

You know, I was thinking about that. And it was hard for me to put my finger on just one thing that was most important. My sales have really taken off in the last four years or so four or five years, it was I primarily sell through galleries. And for me, it's been instrumental to find several really good galleries that really were supportive and successful. So that was a big piece for me. And in addition to that, also, the advent of Instagram was really important because I have grown my my reach and my name through Instagram quite a bit. So being on Instagram and and then continually posting and growing an audience was really, really important. So it's kind of a combination of the galleries and Instagram and building up a newsletter following so with my core group of really loyal and it's interested audience through through my newsletter, newsletter has brought me a lot of loyal followers and sales. So just having that newsletter group I started out I used to have a newsletter for teaching. And and then that grew into collectors. And almost every time I send out a newsletter, something comes of it, I would say. So it's really, really important.

Laura Arango Baier: 6:33

Yeah. So you would say you would probably say that newsletters are one of the keys. Yes,

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 6:39

absolutely. Key, I wouldn't I don't think I would be have the success that I have. Now, without my newsletter. No question. It's kind of my core group. Definitely.

Laura Arango Baier: 6:48

Yeah. And if I asked how often you send out a newsletter,

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 6:52

I would say on average, I probably send out every over the course of a year I send out about 30. Newsletters don't between 25 and 30. So it's about every two weeks, sometimes I'll go three weeks, I really get nervous. If I if I wait more than three weeks. It's usually between one and a half and three weeks that I send it out, I'd say yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:15

Wow. Yeah, that's what I would have thought. Because I've always wondered like, How often should I send that out? And then I also, I think a lot of people would worry like, Am I annoying? The people on my newsletter? Yeah,

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 7:24

no, I see, I and I used to think I used to feel that way. But I'm just really careful about the content that I put in, I really try to be I only put in thoughtful things. I keep them short. I keep them brief, I don't put in fluff, I try not to be too chatty. It's there. Mostly, I really try to believe and keep in mind, people are only subscribing if they want to hear from me. And I try to be kind of a positive thing in people's inbox that they want to say, Oh, this is something I want to read. This is a good distraction from all the stuff I don't want to see in my inbox. So I try to have something to say it's not just me, me, me, it's all about me. It's here's something you might want to know about. I will share something thoughtful that might brighten up their day. So I try to actually have some interesting content in there. I'll share a show I'm working on but then I'll, I'll try to share something a little bit personal but has a little bit more thought to it. And I've heard a lot of people say I got a really nice note from someone the other day that said that your newsletters have lifted me through the pandemic have really kept me going. Because there was always something that lifted my spirits. That brightened the world for me when things were really dark. And that made me just feel like okay, I am not bothering people. This is a good thing.

Laura Arango Baier: 8:50

Oh my gosh, that's so great. Yeah.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 8:53

So I try to keep it. It's not. I mean, it's not pollyannish I'm not saying like really falsely positive things. I just try to keep things

Laura Arango Baier: 9:02

thoughtful. Yeah. thoughtful and honest. Of course, yes. Authentic. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, also, I know that you wrote a few articles on writing newsletters, and I think that would be really useful to our listeners. So I'm going to include those in the show notes. If anyone's interested. I'm, I'm really finished reading those, because those, the advice you just gave was like, Oh my God, that's it, of course. Um, so speaking of advice, what advice would you give a younger version of yourself in terms of getting your work out there?

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 9:36

So I was thinking about that. I think one of the things that holds artists back is a sense of humility. And a sense of feeling not worthy or my art might not be good enough. And I think one of the most important things that we should have going out there is that our work is important, and it's something that we should share with the world. Old? And also these three words, why not me? Why shouldn't I be the next one to do well and to have success, and you may be doing the world a favor by sharing your work with the world. So I think don't hold yourself back. Because of a lack of ambition, ambition is a good thing. You know, why not? Me? Why shouldn't I be the next one to do? Well? So that's, I think that's, it's okay to be ambitious, it's okay to ask, Hey, why should I be the next one to do this? So that having that question on the top of your head, why why shouldn't it be me is a better, more positive way of going at putting yourself forward. I think that's, that's a better approach. Another thing that really helped me a lot was finding good mentors. And they don't even need to be people who have agreed specifically to help you. They don't have to be direct mentors, they can be people that you find that you want to model yourself after people that you admire. I'm gonna give you an example. I went to a women's conference one time and one of the speakers was Sara Blakely, the billionaire, founder of Spanx, and I found her to be so inspiring. She talked about how at the dinner table growing up, her dad used to say, what did you fail at today, and that was a goal was to try so hard at something that you failed, because that meant that you were really pushing yourself. And I thought that was really cool. And so she just talks about, don't be afraid to push yourself beyond where you're what you're capable of just that fearlessness of continuing to try hard. And so I I subscribed to her Instagram, and I started looking at everything she she was posting, and she's just a really inspiring person. And she's all about inspiring others to succeed. And so she's been kind of a mentor without knowing it. She doesn't know me. But she's, she's been terrific with all kinds of business advice. And so I've really kind of taken adopted her as a mentor. So I think you can find all kinds of mentors out there, and use their advice without necessarily taking up any of their time. So find out people who are in positions that you admire, and just modeling their behavior.

Laura Arango Baier: 12:27

Yeah, and it's really interesting that you're you picked someone who's actually businesswoman and not necessarily a painter. And that goes to show that we're actually not like, we're in the business of selling our work.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 12:40

That is such an important point. That's another thing that I think was really important for me to realize is I have to learn to be a business person that was absolutely not something I was comfortable with. Not something I saw myself as but once I started to realize I have to think of myself as a professional. And as a business person, I had to learn how to do that I was an English professor, I was not comfortable with marketing, I didn't know anything about it. And as soon as I started to kind of accept, alright, I need to make a living. And I really it what it had to do with was I love to paint and I really want to keep doing this. But in order to do it, I have to find a way to make to excel this stuff. And but it was more about if I think of it as sharing it with the world as opposed to oh, well, somebody please Binus you know, what, so okay, just to if you think of it as finding a way to solve somebody else's problem, and when I when I started to work with galleries, and I realized, if you treat it like being a professional, if you walk into the gallery, and you realize you're a business person and their business person, and you're gonna be working together as professionals, then it's you're making their job easier. And that's really the only way that they're going to be much more apt to want to work with you. If you walk in as a professional and say, Hey, I've had X number of sales this year. So they understand, oh, you understand that this is a business. And here's how I can provide you with this. This is what I can deliver to you. You show them that you understand inventory and you understand organization, and this is how I can deliver this to you. They'll be there, you're going to make things easy for them. They're busy, they're there, they need you to be organized. And and they need you to understand that they say that they need you to they need to see that you understand that it's a business.

Laura Arango Baier: 14:33

So definitely, yeah. So I'm guessing that made it a lot easier to work with galleries as well, you know, since you know, yeah, how things work?

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 14:41

Yes. Yeah. And I think yes, it does make it much easier. And having I found this software, the artwork archive that I work with, to kind of keep track of all the inventory and just know where everything is. And that's another thing that I wish I had started keeping You better track of everything. I think FASO does a great job with that as well. Just being able to, if I had started taking pictures of things 25 years ago, that would be would have been great. You know, I didn't, I don't think FASO existed at that point, you know, it would have been nice to be able to archive things from the beginning. And I need both systems just to keep track of everything and know where everything is. But I don't think I could function without both that without your website, and also with our artwork archive to print up inventory sheets and things like that. And really, they work really well for me. So yeah, yeah. And

Laura Arango Baier: 15:33

that's, that's one of the things a lot of painters and artists, like forget about inventory, and you know, things went, how much they sold them for all the important info. And I actually, I recently did a recording with Clint, the CEO of FASO and BoldBrush. And we were we were talking about inventory, because someone had asked on on the sovereign artists website that we have where people ask questions. Someone asked about FASO implementing an inventory, or like some way to download that information. And I and Clint said that FASO is working on it. So maybe you'll be able to work with that as well. Yeah,

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 16:11

that would be great. What so one of the things I love that you guys have just implemented is the ability to show a framed picture of your work, and see it both framed and unframed. And that was a big motivation for me to take pictures of all my work framed, which I had realized was a huge drawback. I had a lot of galleries that would say, oh, I need to, I need to know what the size of this one is framed. And I couldn't remember what I which frame I put it in. And it was it was turning into a nightmare. Because it you know, something that I had framed a couple years ago, I couldn't remember. And then I wouldn't know the frame dimensions. So I've started taking pictures of things both framed and unframed, just so that I would know for my records, what the sizes were in which frames things were in. So and plus it is a huge advantage when you're marketing something to be able to show people a picture of it framed, as well as our frame. It makes sense. And it looks so much it's so nice to have those be able to show something on a wall framed.

Laura Arango Baier: 17:04

Yeah, and to scaling. Great. And to scale is

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 17:07

such a great marketing tool. It's really helped me to sell things.

Laura Arango Baier: 17:11

Yeah, 100%. And then, of course, in terms of upselling, since you do work with pastels, and you have a very specific niche, you paint a lot of the ocean and all of these things, right? How did you find your niche to be able to sell your work to.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 17:28

So it's kind of interesting, it was a I sort of fell into the seascape thing, the subject matter. I was teaching, I used to change subject matter of focus every month, and I was doing a month long unit where we were painting water. And so one day I thought, well, let's do waves. And I had a morning, afternoon and evening class. And I did three little demos on waves. And they the little demos came out really good. They look nice. They were little eight by eights. And I had just signed with a gallery on Nantucket. And so I ended up taking those three little paintings and sticking them in frames and bringing them to this new gallery on Nantucket. And we were unpacking them. And as we were in the gallery unpacking stuff, some woman walks into the gallery, sees them on the floor and buys two of them on the spot. And so I thought so of course little light bulb in my head, I was like, oh, okay, these are going to be popular. So that was a little motivation to do more waves, but also when I was painting them for the demos, you know how when you start a new subject, there was this, I had this kind of itch to explore the subject further, I thought there was so much more here that I wanted to know. And I grew up spending I grew up in Maryland, not on the shore, but close enough that we would spend all of our family vacations at the beach that was just our place. And so I had a real strong emotional connection to the ocean and that swimming was the only sport I was ever any good at. So I love body surfing and I love swimming. And so I just would spend all of my time in the water whenever we were at the beach. And so it's just I have a strong connection to the ocean and still do and spend all of my any time that I have off on go to the beach. And so I think that it was easy for me to say okay, I need to explore this further. And that was almost 15 years ago and I still feel like there's more to learn and there's you just don't get tired of painting the water. There's just the tides and the light and the movement of the water. There's just always more it changes constantly. There's always more to learn. So it's just a subject that I think well I will never tire of and I would say about 70% of my work 60 to 70% of my work is good concerned with coastal and an ocean subject matter. I still do I paint I live in New England I paint a lot of snow and other New England landscape. subject as well. But I always go back when I need to really just decompress or relax after doing one of those that are more challenging to me or more. Just just more landscape related. I'll always say, Okay, time for the beach again.

Laura Arango Baier: 20:17

Yeah, make sense? And then do you think it was it was kind of easy for you also to find this niche also through Instagram.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 20:26

So I actually, so here, this was interesting, when I was starting, I had already, I've been painting seascapes for about 10 or 15 years. And then I got into Instagram after I'd already sort of found this subject matter, and I was already known for it. So my Instagram, I did not initially use Instagram as a marketing tool. And then when I realized that that was going to be important, I started paint, I started just posting work randomly. And then I noticed that if I've just posted more and more seascapes, and put more and more seascape hashtags on there, I was attracting more people. And I realized it was very interesting. As I started to do that, I realized it was developing on Instagram, a community and an audience and, and I was fun to play with it, because then I would throw in a random tree or snowscape. And I wouldn't get anywhere near the response as when I had this, you know, and people would wander away, you know, it would, it was definitely a seascape focused audience. And so for a while, I thought, Okay, I'm just gonna develop this audience and really just focus on the seascapes. And then so I definitely have a niche audience you might be if you want to use that word, but then I thought, okay, there is that particular, this particular focus here, but I don't want to be known only for this subject matter. I do paint other things as well. And I want people to know that this is not my I don't want to be too reductive. So I do share everything that I paint, and it's okay with me. If people wander off for a little while, they will come back because I have, I do mostly I do paint a lot of seascapes. So I have several, what I like to do is I've several I'm pretty well known for my snow paintings as well. And so I will paint those in the wintertime and I'll paint seascape, I also paint I asked, my favorite thing to paint in the snow is in blizzards is seascapes, because it gets me back to the beach. But I tried to put enough variety in there. So people know that I'm not just this one thing, but I have two or three different niches that that I tried to focus on. I'm not all over the map. You know, I think that having you I think it's very difficult for an audience to understand you and to recognize you if you are, too if you have too much variety, I think you need to focus on a couple of one or two things. So it's Bally

Laura Arango Baier: 22:59

total, because that way, it's like, it's like if you went to McDonald's, and instead of burgers, they were selling pizza. It would be really competitive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by FASO. If you're listening to this, it's safe to say that you're probably an artist. And you've probably struggled like most of us have to sell your work online using some random website building platform that isn't even made for artists. If this sounds like you, then check out faso.com forward slash podcast, FASO is an art marketing platform specifically designed for artists to help showcase your work. And not only that, it'll also help you sell your work things too. They're really easy built in E commerce and marketing channels that help promote your work to over 48,000 collectors. On top of that, you'll also get access to marketing tips and help with your social media from top people in the industry. So if this sounds like a really great thing, and you want to take your artwork to the next level and sell as much as you can, then go check out faso.com forward slash podcast BoldBrush but also like to give a huge thank you and shout out to Chelsea classical studio for their continued support in this podcast. If you're interested in archival painting supplies handmade with a lot of patients go check out their Instagram at CCS fine art materials. Um, and then would you say that you found more collectors through Instagram? Because of this niche?

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 24:28

No question. Absolutely. I have I have gathered was so now I have about a little over 50,000 followers on Instagram and definitely more people have have come through Instagram, for sure. And people have they'll find me on Instagram and then they'll go to the galleries from there they'll they'll go to my website from there or they'll join my newsletter from there so it's a great place to get exposure. I'd like to put the reels on there. And then because that's kind of a new thing with the algorithm, that's really the best way to get new people. So that's definitely made a big, that's a big marketing. A big marketing boost is Instagram 100%. Yeah, I don't know how else I would have found 500 or 50,000 people looking at my art. Gosh. The other thing is I had a couple of years ago, when the pandemic first happened. We had an art opening for a solo show. And we couldn't have anybody there because it was the beginning of the pandemic. So I did an Instagram Live tour of the gallery show. And I had, initially we had 400 People watching live. And then, you know, we had 1000s of people watch the taped version afterwards. And it was even though no one could be at the show. At the opening or even in the gallery the entire time was the best sales I ever had. Because of because of Instagram. So it was kind of amazing. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 26:00

Oh my gosh, technology's just China. Everything. Yeah. So

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 26:04

since then, I've done those kinds of tours as much as I can. Because it really, it just exposes the art to a much wider audience.

Laura Arango Baier: 26:12

Yeah, especially people around the world. I'm sure you have collectors on in other countries at this point. Thanks, Stan. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's, oh, my gosh. And then what would you say is the greatest challenge you've had when trying to sell your work?

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 26:29

I think most pest Ellis would agree with me that the greatest challenge is, for our medium is people are not familiar with pastel. And they tend to be reluctant to purchase work that's under glass. And there are a lot of galleries that are slow to want to represent work done in pastel. And because of the glass, they're afraid to ship work with glass. So you have to work harder as a pet stylist to explain the medium. And to find galleries that are they're open to taking pastel, which is a shame because it's an it's a stunning medium. And there are lots of amazing artists working in pastel. So it's just something that I think pastel us need to work a little harder and pay attention to which galleries have opened their eyes to the beauty of it. And to the popularity of it. I mean, I have had really great sales, and there's plenty of collectors who really love it. And so it's there are there is a really good market for it. So it's just, I think for for anybody who has a pastel ista out there, if you start looking at the past, tell us who are selling their work, keep an eye on which galleries are selling it and check out with check them out. Or even if you're going to sell on your own, just be become articulate about explaining that pastel is actually the most archival of all mediums. It doesn't doesn't have, it's just pure pigment, and a little bit of binder. And, and I spray my work with fixative, so that it's a little bit more stable before you frame it. But it can I've shifted all over the world. And so it really is quite stable and safe. And you know, once once it's properly framed, it's not going to change ever. So it's just a matter of being able to explain well, what's what's beautiful about it, or what's, why it's safe. So you just have to get a little bit more become an advocate for the medium that was to me was the most challenging thing about it.

Laura Arango Baier: 28:40

Wow. Yeah, I didn't know that about pastels. That's cool. Yeah. So I guess as a follow up question, I am curious because you do have a lot of experience with galleries. And I'm sure there are a lot of people out here who are wondering, some of the best tips you can give to someone who wants to start working with a gallery.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 29:01

Okay. So let's see tips for getting into for wanting to work with galleries, I think finding a good match for you is really important. So doing a lot of research would be my suggestion, really spending time looking around and finding a gallery where you feel that your work would fit in well. So where your work is the same quality as the other work in the gallery where when you walk in, you like the feel of it and you feel that your work would look really good on their walls and fit in with the other work in the gallery in terms of price point and style. So it has to it's a tricky thing because your work shouldn't be exactly like anybody else's work on the walls but would also complement the other work that's there. Ideally, you want to find a place where you can go visit the gallery and get to know the gallery. It's kind of a long process because you want them to feel are familiar with you and you want them, it's kind of a, it's, I would sort of liken it to dating because you, you need to show interest and you need to show them that you're that you know them that you're interested in them that you and you want them to get to know you. So it may just be that you can do that over social media where you start to comment on their Instagram posts, and you get to know, they get to know that you're that you're making substantive or intelligent comments on the work that they already have. And as you're doing that, they may notice your work as well. I don't know if you've ever noticed that. But when you when people comment on your work, I pay attention to the ones where people are actually making interesting comments. And then I might look up what their work looks like, well, galleries might do the same thing. So you can get their attention that way. I heard a really, really great idea from Alyson Stanfield, who does the art biz success groups. She suggested sending making up postcards and sending a gallery that you're interested in a postcard with one piece of work on it, one of your works on the front and writing a personalized note on the back to the gallery. Because anything that's printed shows an extra effort, and it's anything that's handwritten, they, they could very well keep that on their on their desk, and they're going to remain top of mind, put them on your mailing list. And when you send out newsletters, there, you know, send them a newsletter, send them so that they know what's going on with you. So something like that would be so that they you know, they know that you're interested and you're going to stay kind of at the top of their, their list I just having now gotten to know a lot of the gallery owners that I work with, when they're looking for a new artist, they're going to go with the people that they can think of who's who are in front of their, you know, whatever their perspective is. So whoever they've been keeping an eye on, and you want to be one of the people that comes to their mind. So

Laura Arango Baier: 31:57

that is an amazing tip. Yes, yeah, no, I'm gonna have to try that. Because it's very true. I also pay attention to when when someone makes an interesting comment on on my Instagram, I was like, Oh, I wonder who this is. So it would make sense also that, you know, galleries especially up and coming galleries would be more careful with Instagram, it would be more attentive, because there's so much talent on Instagram that they can find.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 32:22

Yeah, yeah. So you want to find a way to catch their eye and be memorable so that when they're actually like, you know, I'm gonna need to find another oil painter, I'm looking for somebody. You want to be the one that they think of?

Laura Arango Baier: 32:34

Yes, absolutely. Oh, my gosh. And then of course, I kind of want to touch back a little bit more on selling through your website. What, what tips can you give on selling your website using like Instagram, for example.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 32:52

So what I do at this point is when I put when I put works on Instagram, which I try to do, every day, I put something up on Instagram, I usually, I often I'll put new work on Instagram, that's not on my website yet. But if it's something that I want to sell myself, now, I already I have nine galleries now. And at this point, there's so many galleries, that usually all of the work that I produce needs to go out to the galleries, but occasionally I'll produce something that I'm not sure where it wants where I'm going to put it. And maybe I'm hoping it's going to sell before it goes out to a gallery. And in that case, I'll just go ahead and stick it up on my website, put it on Instagram, and if I'm lucky, somebody might see it inquire about and they'll say oh, it's yeah, it's on my website. And then they can go buy it direct from my website. And so that that will work work out perfectly. Sometimes I'll just I'll just have it on there. Often I will put something on Instagram and say this was just delivered to Susan Powell gallery or to gallery 31 or which whichever one it might be, and then someone will see it and then contact the gallery I've had I probably have a sale like that at least every couple of weeks where somebody will go from Instagram to the gallery and buy something direct at the gallery. So So that's one way that I get around the galleries being upset with me. You know that it doesn't it doesn't compete with them because I bring a lot of business to their galleries by referring stuff there. The other thing that I feel like FASO does for me that really helps is they have that artwork alert you know where where artwork will just go out. Even if I'm I haven't added work. If I add work then anyone who signed up for an artwork alert will every time I put a new piece up on the website, they'll get an artwork alert that I have new artwork that's out and then if I go for more than two weeks without putting anything new on there, then they'll get something that's older that will go out and that will always bring people to my website. So. So that's another way that I've sold work. The other day, I had some random, somebody just bought a large piece that I didn't happen to have in any galleries just bought it off my website, a really very large piece that I just shipped to them. So that was really nice. I was really surprised, unexpected. He was just looking around at my website and bought something. So that doesn't happen that often. But it does occasionally. But usually it's it's something new that I've just posted on the website, and people get emails from it. But this is another reason why the newsletter is important, because the people who get the emails are the people that are my newsletter. So every time I put a new piece on my, on my website to over 2000 people get an A notice about it. So I don't know what better marketing you could have than that.

Laura Arango Baier: 35:49

Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. And they're already people who are interested anyway. So you want them to know, have you ever made a newsletter? Like saying, Hey, I have a new painting? Or do you just rely on the artwork alerts.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 36:03

So I do send out the newsletters every couple of weeks. And sometimes one of the things if I don't have anything specific to say in a newsletter, what I will, because sometimes they're about shows or whatever, I will often take a piece that I've recently done and tell a story about it. So I'll have a piece and because really, every piece has some sort of story. And that's what I think people are going to connect to and you want to know what is what inspired this piece or sometimes the story is, I started this piece two years ago and I wasn't quite sure what was wrong with it or how to fix it or why it's was sitting in my studio and didn't feel finished. Now the piece was the story will be about the the evolution of the piece. So there's lots of ways to talk about your artwork. And I think that people are interested whether they're an artist or a collector in the whole process of creating the art. So just sharing a little bit about the process of how the art gets made, can become anything can become the the topic of a newsletter but explaining that maybe the setting of what what inspired you about a particular piece one time I had a a winter piece and I talked about how I listen to audiobooks while I'm painting. And so I described the book that I was reading while painting and how it was it was kind of in Congress, but explain how this what I was listening to informed the emotion informed what I was painting. And then I talked about how I don't even pay for the audiobook, I found this downloadable thing that attaches to my it's Libby's is it flippy it's like a library thing. And I can use my library card and get these audiobooks for free. And I had all these people really excited reading me, thank you so much. I didn't realize I could do that. And they were all sending me book, suggestions for audiobooks. So, you know, it's a nice community through my newsletter. So, but people love hearing these stories, and they I've definitely sold paintings that way, you know, just from hearing the story about the painting.

Laura Arango Baier: 38:13

Yeah, and people always love to connect to to the artist. Oftentimes, it's not just the work that gets you. Yeah, right.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 38:20

Right, right. Yeah, I feel like I've definitely gotten to know people through my newsletter, I get lots of responses with with nice notes. And I always respond to them just back and forth. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 38:29

yes, that's also really important. A lot of a lot of people don't reply, and I think maintaining that relationship nurturing it can be so important.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 38:37

Yeah. And it was, especially during the pandemic, it was really a nice way to stay connected to people. You know,

Laura Arango Baier: 38:43

definitely, yes. Especially because people, like you had mentioned earlier about the person who applied to hear your newsletter. They need something to hope for right something to to lighten up their day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Oh, my gosh. And then I guess one final question, and that is, how do you recommend artists to create passive income? Oh,

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 39:12

let's see passive income. So I do have a few other things that I sell, besides just my original artwork. And I think there's a lot of different possibilities. It's kind of probably endless, the things that you can do to create passive income. I have created, I have cards, gift cards, I do a calendar every year. I back when back when we used DVDs, I recorded DVDs, and people still order them. And so there's those sorts of things. I have two sets of pastels, you know, I have a seascape set of passed out two sets of pastels from Terry Ludwig pastels, which are my favorite pastels and those can only be ordered through my website. And then there's a set of Richeson handrolled pastels that are my seascape and landscape pastels. So those are all kind of products that people can buy. So that's one way. And then I also have recently in the this is another thing, if you're a teacher, you can record videos. And I have recently partnered with a, with an outfit called Epiphany, fine art that is an online academy that their philosophy is that art or art instruction should not should be affordable, and should be accessible to all and that everybody can learn how to paint, and which I just really love that philosophy and agree with it. And so I started, especially because I decided that I really want to make all of the things that I've been teaching for 20 years accessible to everybody. So I started recording all of the lessons that I've been teaching my workshops and my classes that I did for 20 years. And so I've started, I've created a video library called a pastel playbook. And so I've created this video library that's available by subscription. And that is also a form of passive income. So if you're if you're a teacher, that's another way of doing it. And I know FASO also has that capability, right, that you can record videos and put them right on FASO. So that's a great idea for anybody who likes to do that kind of thing.

Laura Arango Baier: 41:28

Awesome. Yeah. And how can people subscribe tier two video, of course.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 41:33

So they can go to epiphany, fine, art.com. And I have a homepage, and you can subscribe on there. And if you just wanted to try out to see what it's like and kind of test the waters, you can either subscribe for a month, or I also have live video events. So there's one coming up, I think it's May 24. I'm doing one on how to how to work, how I work with photos to put emotion and excitement into a seascape using my photo references. So that's it's a live demo. And it's live online. And so there's a there's a chat, and we've got somebody monitoring the chat. So you you can ask questions, and I can answer them live. So there's a live version of live event. And then there's just the regular subscription on Epiphany, fine, art.com.

Laura Arango Baier: 42:18

Perfect. Yeah. And we'll include the website in the show notes. So people can go ahead and check out your website and check out your classes. And then of course, they want to find out about these live events. They could follow you on Instagram. Right? Right. Yeah, it'll be on there. Perfect. Yeah. So this was really awesome. And interesting. I have to get on my newsletter game, apparently. Um, so thank you so much, Jeannie. This was so fun. I really enjoyed it.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 42:45

Thank you so much.

Laura Arango Baier: 42:46

I enjoyed it. Also. I hope this can help people.

Jeanne Rosier Smith: 42:50

Me too. Thanks. And you know, just I think the my last word would be pick things to do that you will enjoy it because if you enjoy it that will come across, you know, just genuine, authentic stuff that you enjoy. If it's not working for you, if you're not enjoying it, don't do that. Do something that you're going to enjoy. Not everybody's going to enjoy every part of marketing. So find something that you you can do that's realistic. If you don't like something, just don't do it. Do stuff that you like.

Laura Arango Baier: 43:17

That's an excellent, yes. It's about the passion and striving and being authentic. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Awesome. Thank you.