#379: Miriam Schulman (Artist, Strategist, & Author) (pt. 1 of 2)

Today we released part one of our interview with Miriam Schulman. She’s a luxury-market messaging and pricing strategist for creative entrepreneurs. In addition to her business, she’s the author of the best-selling art business book, Artpreneur The Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Sustainable Living from Your Creativity. She also hosts The Inspiration Place podcast, that features experts on mindset, marketing, pricing, and more. 

Miriam’s content has been featured in a variety of mass market mediums including Entrepreneur, Forbes, and the New York Times. Artists of all types will learn A LOT as Miriam demystifies marketing, positioning, and sales!
https://www.schulmanart.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Announcer 0:18

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise 1:01

Hi, Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.

Nick Petrella 1:04

And I'm Nick Petrella. Miriam Schulman is with us today. She's a luxury market messaging and pricing strategist for creative entrepreneurs. She's the author of the best-selling art business book, Artpreneur, the step-by-step guide to making a sustainable living from your creativity. She also hosts the Inspiration Place podcast that features experts on mindset, marketing, pricing, and more. Miriam's content has been featured in a variety of mass market mediums, including Entrepreneur, Forbes, and the New York Times. We'll have her website in the show notes so you can learn more about her and all of her initiatives. Miriam, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Leaving Finance After A Crisis

Miriam Schulman 1:41

Well, thanks so much for having me.

Nick Petrella 1:44

So I read that you worked in finance for many years prior to switching full-time into art. What prompted that pivot? And looking back, would you make that change again?

Miriam Schulman 1:53

Oh, one 1000%. So um I what the turning point for me was when 9-11 happened. And I I knew I couldn't go back to that world. And for many people now, it was it could have been the pandemic, it could have been, you know, and people have personal crises all the time, like a diagnosis, a divorce, something of that nature. And there's nothing like a crisis that will lift the veil on whatever's not working in your life.

Nick Petrella 2:25

And so no regrets, you do it all the time.

Miriam Schulman 2:29

Oh, yeah. All day, all day long. Um, I've been fortunate to make a sustainable living from my art this entire time. So I've been a professional artist for over 25 years. Um, most of that, those years were doing portraits. Um, about 10 years ago is when I started teaching online art classes. And about five years ago, I've switched my focus to mainly helping other artists have the same success that I've had in my career.

Nick Petrella 2:57

Yeah. And we're gonna we're gonna unpack that. Uh one of the things, and not to not to belabor the point, because we have people who switch all the time. Did you give yourself a runway or did you just cold turkey say, I'm out, business or finance, here's art?

Miriam Schulman 3:11

Okay,

Learning Sales From Pilates Work

Miriam Schulman 3:12

great question. Because when I initially left um my hedge fund job, I did not believe I could make a living as an artist. So it wasn't like I'm gonna be an art. I mean, it's romantic to say I quit my job and decide to become an artist.

Andy Heise 3:26

Right, yeah, yeah.

Miriam Schulman 3:27

But that's not actually what happened. Like I never I didn't become an artist in the first place because I didn't believe that I could make a living that way. Right. And so that limiting belief kept me from plunging in when I quit my job. So at first I was painting on the side and I took a job as a Pilates instructor. And while I was working for the gym, that's when they taught me how to use sales strategies to sell personal training packages, because that's how the gyms really make their monies, is with the coaching of personal training. So it was then that I had my aha moment. Oh, these sales strategies could also be used to sell my portraits.

Nick Petrella 4:10

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 4:11

So that's when that pivot happened, really, is like, okay, and now I'm gonna go all in on I I understood that sales were under my control.

Andy Heise 4:21

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna talk a little a little bit about sales, sales later, but I think that that's interesting that it's it was sort of that that Pilates job that sort of opened uh it was that experience in Pilates, teaching Pilates, working at the Pilates studio that sort of um helped you see the opportunities for um you know creating a career in the arts. That's right.

Nick Petrella 4:47

And now the the journey makes more sense other than just okay, flip the switch. So total thanks so much for contextualizing that. So you mentioned now, you know, you help a lot of people, and you have help a lot of helped a lot of people over the years. What are some common issues that limit them in reaching their goals?

The Mindset Traps Artists Repeat

Miriam Schulman 5:05

Oh my goodness, where where should we start? Um, so what I actually doing a podcast um that's coming out probably after after this one airs. And I like the exposure artist Barbie. That's the um the artist who wants to do things because it's good exposure. Right. Um, the art idealist Ken. No, that's not the way art should be sold. You know, real artists don't do it that way. Right. And and you're laughing because you've heard all these things as well. There's the polite creative, like, well, I don't want to make things weird and ask for the sale. So a lot of what holds people back is really their mindset. Like they're afraid to charge higher prices, they're afraid to ask for the sale, which you absolutely have to do.

Nick Petrella 5:54

Absolutely. Do you think it's because people are trained to think of art not as a business? And it doesn't, and um, you we're using visual art, but it could be it could be anything. Why do you think that is?

Miriam Schulman 6:05

Yeah, a lot of the things that I see show up in every business, but it's more so in artists because art school has kind of done artists a big disservice by romanticizing the starving artist trope and really

Commerce Myths And Michelangelo

Miriam Schulman 6:26

drilling in that commerce is bad. Whereas if you go back in time, you know, Michelangelo, he was painting what the Pope and the Medici's wanted him to paint. He wasn't like just, oh, I feel like doing an angel today who wants who wants to buy this. That's not the way it worked, you know. And it wasn't like I only do sculpture. No, the Pope said, please paint my ceiling.

Nick Petrella 6:51

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 6:52

And he's like, Well, I'm not really a painter. And the Pope was like, Yeah, but I'm gonna pay. I'm I'm gonna, yeah, you're an artist, and I want you to do it, and here's how much money's involved.

Nick Petrella 7:01

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 7:02

So he's like, fine, get me this, get me the scaffolding.

Nick Petrella 7:05

Yeah, that's right. So you think it's just that mental set of years, generations of being commissioned by patrons and supported by patrons, whether it's the church or whether it's some sort of government, and you think that that is in the back of the mind in how physical.

Miriam Schulman 7:23

Oh, I'm what I'm what I'm no, what I'm saying is that Michelangelo was very much um part of the capitalism of his day.

Andy Heise 7:35

The opportunity he was seeking opportunities as an artist. That's correct.

Miriam Schulman 7:38

He wasn't just painting what he felt like. So these art idealists who say, well, real artists um don't cater to commerce, that's not that's false.

Andy Heise 7:50

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and leads right into my my question, and and it has to do with sort of that that concept.

Positioning Art Without Changing It

Andy Heise 7:58

Um, when you're when you're helping artists sort of find their audience or find their customers, is is it about helping them think about doing something differently with their work to meet uh a market need or a market want or desire? Or is it about how they package their existing work and communicate that to an audience?

Miriam Schulman 8:21

Great question. So in most cases, it's not about changing the art, it's about positioning. So positioning the art in talking about it in a way that signals to their ideal collectors that this is for them. I do talk about trends in the marketplace and the art world. And again, I get that pushback, but it's kind of like artists are and always have responded to the zeitgeist of what is happening. So, like again, like let's use Michelangelo. Like he wasn't doing pop art, he was doing renaissance art, you know. So it's these trends happen, and it's not about artists should be chasing trends, it's about artists should always be responding to what is happening, not necessarily in the commerce, but what's happening in the world. So these trends happen because of what's happening in the world. So, like right now, uh, one of my artists who's hugely successful, Bo Sapphire, and she's doing six figures in our art business, she does cyanotypes, um, which is blue, botanicals, and people love it. And reports from Artsy and Art Newspaper, you know, all the all an art basel, they all show that people are drawn to calming art right now. That is because what's happening geopolitically, people want calming art. So it's not, we're not, I'm not saying like artists should change their art because this is what sells. It's that art should pay attention to what's happening in the world. Yeah, art should be in conversation with that.

Andy Heise 9:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes total sense. And I love your your use of the word positioning there because it is, it's it's about, you know, again, you're not gonna change who you are and what you do, but it is about like where are you looking or where are you focused in terms of getting your artwork out into the world.

Miriam Schulman 10:08

Right. And art should be a con art and artist should be in conversation with what's happening in the world. Artists should not think of themselves as an island.

Nick Petrella 10:17

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

How The Book Deal Happened

Nick Petrella 10:19

Let's uh switch gears, talk about your book. HarperCollins published Art Peneur in 2023, and I'm sure there are listeners who would like to publish a book. So could you tell us how that project started? Uh, did someone contact you? What happened?

Miriam Schulman 10:35

I love the way you asked the question because that's what most people think that somebody contacts.

Nick Petrella 10:39

Right.

Miriam Schulman 10:40

And this is what I want the artists to know is it doesn't matter if you're writing a book, selling a painting, no one's coming to you. Yeah. They're not coming to find you. If you want these opportunities, you have to go out and look for them. So my first step was getting an agent. And so I found an agent. That took a little while. Uh, actually, for most people, my path was actually very short. And part of that was going back to beliefs. I actually didn't know that it was hard to get an agent or hard to publish a book.

Nick Petrella 11:16

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 11:17

So I wasn't operating from that place. Like when somebody said no, it was like, okay, well, not her.

Nick Petrella 11:23

Who's the next one?

Miriam Schulman 11:24

Right. Um, so I found a publisher, um, an agent, and she's the one who pitched me to the publishers. And Harper Collins said yes.

Nick Petrella 11:34

Awesome.

Miriam Schulman 11:35

So I it wasn't like lots of publishers said yes to me, but I only needed one.

Nick Petrella 11:40

Exactly. Exactly. Now, how long had you been practicing art or during your art business, consulting business, when that occurred?

Miriam Schulman 11:49

Okay, so um, like I I said, I've been teaching how the business side since about 2018. So it's more than five years. It's so we're in 2026. So it's uh eight years. Um, I had started my podcast around that time. Um, I wanted to like give voice to my story. And when I started the podcast in 2018, people naturally started asking me to help them. And that's what led to the coaching. And the podcast is really what helped me get the book deal because publishers are looking for writers who have an existing audience for their message.

Nick Petrella 12:32

And that's in other fields too. I know because I came out of the music products industry and the music industry, and when you have someone with a huge following, whether it's fans on Instagram or fans go to concerts, it makes it easier when you're writing endorsements because they're bringing in potential customers. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's that's fantastic. So it took you eight years to become an overnight success with the book, basically.

Miriam Schulman 12:57

Oh, yeah. Well, I decided I decided to write the book um in 2020. And at the end of that year, I realized writing a book was the wrong goal. And so in 2021, my goal became finding an agent and a path to traditional publishing. Gotcha. So when you publish a do a traditional book deal, you don't have to finish the book before you get the deal. You only have to you have to write basically what's known as a proposal, which is a sales page, why this book matters, who's it for, why you're the person to write it, and about how you're going to market the book.

Proposals Frameworks And Platform Proof

Andy Heise 13:33

Great, great insight. Well, and and and so, so talking about like positioning, how did you sort of position your sales pitch for this this book on um you know how artists can launch their careers as art as artists?

Miriam Schulman 13:46

Great question. So, first of all, um one thing that HarperCollins was very interested in was that I had a framework. So the framework was something I already was teaching and already getting success with my students. So that's the framework, that's the backbone of the book. So that's one thing that the the publisher in a nonfiction book is always looking for. Do they have do they have a they like frameworks? But the other thing I did was in addition to showing my audience, so not just the social media, but here's my email list. Yeah, like this is the size of my email list. I have 30,000 people on my email list. I think then I had much less, but now I have about 30,000. Um, this is my podcast. These are people who are tuning in every week in all these countries. But the other thing I did, which brings us back to your point, Nick, is in my book proposal, I actually listed all the people who I thought I could count on for endorsements.

Nick Petrella 14:40

That's that's great.

Miriam Schulman 14:41

And that, and so if you open my book, you'll see like the first two pages are filled with people who are both in the art industry and in the business and who also write business books who endorse the book.

Nick Petrella 14:55

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's good. I mean, because it it not that you need it, but it lends credibility and support. So it's like a uh, you know, imprimada or something like that.

Miriam Schulman 15:06

Well, it does two things. One thing, I don't know about you, but I've picked up books and opened it up. And if there's somebody that I trust have endorsed the book, I am more likely to buy it.

Nick Petrella 15:15

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 15:15

Um, but the other reason is the publisher knows that, oh, these are people who Miriam can count on to put um put her on their podcast. Now, truth was not everybody who I got an endorsement from did that for me. But, you know, it was still, uh it just showed that I I understood the whole process and how the game worked.

Nick Petrella 15:34

That's good.

Andy Heise 15:36

So you you mentioned so sort of packaging, this is who I am, this is what I can uh this is what I bring to this book writing project, and we're gonna be able to sort of hit the ground running. So just kind of to close that loop, you mentioned like, okay, I've got podcast followers, I've got uh an email list of 30,000 people's people on it. Uh the point of that is like when you announce you're going to be selling a book, you can do pre-sales or pre-orders, or before this book is even printed, you kind of have already have demonstration of traction and um people who want the book.

Miriam Schulman 16:08

Yeah, that's correct.

Andy Heise 16:10

Uh and and getting those endorsements from folks, I'm I'm just you know, that's there's social capital is such a big thing. You're it's not really it's not costly for them to write an endorsement, but it is you asking them to do something for you in exchange for, you know, so that your book will hopefully sell better. I'm just wondering how do you approach those types of conversations

Endorsements And Making It Easy

Andy Heise 16:32

with people? That's a good question.

Miriam Schulman 16:34

Great, yeah, great question. And not everyone's gonna say yes because it isn't that easy. And they're putting their name on something. Well, what if your book stinks? You know? So um I actually put together like a package that not not a physical package, this was digital. Um, I would first ask them before I would spam them with what I'm about to tell you. It's like, you know, is this something you'd be interested in?

Andy Heise 16:56

Soft a soft pitch to them first, yeah.

Miriam Schulman 17:00

Right. And then um, and then sometimes I would even name drop. Like if I wanted, like when I wanted Amy Porterfield to endorse the book, I said, well, Todd Herman, yeah, and I forget who else I drop name-dropped, you know, like these people already said yes.

Nick Petrella 17:15

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 17:16

So um, it lets them know that your their name is going to appear next to these other names who they respect. So it gives that credibility. But what I did was I put together a PDF of the book. If they wanted to read it, they could, but most people don't, when even for endorsements. So I gave a synopsis of the book. I also pre-wrote um endorsements for them. I said, you can feel free to use any of these. And it's not that you're putting words in their mouth, but people are just inherently lazy. They don't want to have to read a book and come up with an endorsement. So this was before Chat GPT.

Nick Petrella 17:58

I mean, yeah, exactly.

Miriam Schulman 18:00

Now maybe people don't that that wouldn't have been the case. They don't need that. But back then, that like my book came out the same time ChatGPT came out, so and people weren't really using it then.

Andy Heise 18:10

Right. Yeah. So you make it, you try to make it as easy as possible.

Miriam Schulman 18:13

Yes, you make it an easy yes. And that is exactly what I teach my artists is how can you remove friction? So this is the lesson for a listener. So it's not just about how do you get a book deal. Right. Like whatever it is that you're doing, and you how do you make it an easy yes for the other person? And what things are you doing that is not making it an easy yes? So are you asking them to contact you to find out how much shipping costs?

Nick Petrella 18:41

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 18:42

Because that is not an easy yes. People don't want that's annoying.

Nick Petrella 18:45

Yeah. Right.

Miriam Schulman 18:46

You know, like if I was the, you know, I bought this from LL Bean, I didn't have to contact LL Bean to find out how much it would cost to ship to New York City.

Andy Heise 18:54

Right.

Miriam Schulman 18:54

So Yeah.

Andy Heise 18:55

I that's that's something I talk with my students about too, is like, don't be surprised when somebody wants to buy some from something from you. Don't let that be the first time you've thought through, like, okay, how is this gonna work? Right. Exactly. Like, oh, do you take Venmo? No, sorry, I don't have Venmo. Oh, well, can I write you a check? It's like, yeah, I don't really, I don't have a uh, you know, a bank account for my for my business. Okay, well, then do you take Cash App? No, I don't have that one. You know, it's just like ah why you know be prepared for that success. So we've talked, you you mentioned how uh in in your own story, and and um you've kind of already talked a little bit about this, but how mindset is often the most the biggest obstacle for for artists. Was there uh and again you kind of already touched on this, but maybe go a little deeper. Was there a moment in your own career where that was true for you, where your mindset about uh being being an artist actually um prevented you from pursuing something?

Pricing Confidence And Peer Pressure

Miriam Schulman 19:50

Of course. And it always is the biggest obstacle to growing as a business person. So I'm I'm still always working on my mindset. It's not like I've reached nirvana where I'm enlightened and now I don't need to work on that anymore. Um one story I shared, which happened early on in my career, and this is very common, um, not just for artists, but people who are early in their business, is they don't know what to charge. So they look around what other people are charging, and then they charge less. So that's really insidious, especially as an artist, because you're basically copying other people's starving artists' mindsets. And you're positioning yourself at the bottom.

Andy Heise 20:32

A race to the bottom, yeah.

Miriam Schulman 20:33

That's right. Whereas a dentist, if somebody gets a dental whatever or a plumber, they're not gonna like, oh, I better be the cheapest person.

Nick Petrella 20:43

Yeah, that's right.

Miriam Schulman 20:45

Like, I'm just starting out, therefore I can't charge as much. Yeah. Or you don't say, well, I'm gonna pay this dentist like 10 times more because he's been a dentist for 20 years. No, the price it doesn't matter if somebody's been a dentist one year or 30 years.

Andy Heise 21:02

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 21:02

I mean, unless you're going down to Mexico, you're paying the same thing for that root canal.

Nick Petrella 21:07

So I often wanted to go to a tradesperson just to tell the story and just say, you want to come to my house and do this just for the experience? For the for the exposure. Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 21:18

Right. Like, you ever try that with your plumber? You know, a lot of people use my toilet. You can put your URL over my toilet. Yep.

Nick Petrella 21:28

I would even charge you.

Miriam Schulman 21:29

Instead of paying right, instead of pay instead of me paying you. Yeah.

Andy Heise 21:33

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 21:34

And yet artists do that all the time. Like, oh, you know.

Andy Heise 21:37

I'll even cook you a meal out to to help to to I'll feed you while you're do while you're working. Yeah.

Nick Petrella 21:43

Right. Yeah, that's right. Like the band, but but nobody can see you. You got to get do it in the back room. You gotta eat in the back room.

Andy Heise 21:50

So much of that comes back to the positioning in the market, though. It's like understanding who your customers are. Because I see this with my students too. They think their customers are their other are their peers. And like, well, yeah, of course you're gonna. To price your work accordingly because you're trying to sell to people that don't have any money. And that's not probably who you should be targeting if your goal is to make this a financially sustainable activity.

Miriam Schulman 22:14

Yeah. I wanted to share a story that came up recently in one of my coaching programs. So one of my artists who is very successful, six-figure artist, and she charges like $1,400. And actually she should be charging more. And she was sharing a story how the artists around her were saying she charges too much. I says, Well, what do they make and what are they charging? So she's describing this woman who makes these oil paintings and they're $300 and they're about this big. I says, Well, her prices are from 1997. I mean, yeah, this woman's been doing it a long time. And she, it's like my mother who complains that a paperback is so expensive because it's $18 and because she thinks it should be $6. It's like, mom, a paperback has not been $6 since the 80s. Like, okay. So, you know, they see what other artists are doing and they care more about other people's opinions than they do about their own success.

Andy Heise 23:14

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. That that yeah. That peer um recognition is so important for artists. They want to feel like they're a part of something. If they go against that, then they feel like they're maybe in in in commercial sense of you know, selling out or whatever, whatever that is, and they're no longer part of that sort of in-group or that peer network or whatever.

Tribal Brains And New Thoughts

Miriam Schulman 23:36

Well, that's just human behavior. We're tribal beings. We don't want to be ousted from the tribe. Yeah. But unfortunately, I don't know if it's unfortunate, but our brains have have evolved for survival, yeah, not goal achievement. So anytime we do something that's gonna make us feel uncomfortable, whether that's charging more than your peers, whether it's asking someone to buy your art, whatever it happens, going for a press opportunity, your brain is gonna your brain feels uncomfortable. It's gonna come up with all kinds of reasons why it's a terrible idea. It's just a horrible idea. And the more creative you are and the smarter you are, and these listeners are all very creative and all very smart, the better you are at coming up with these stories why it's a terrible idea. And notice I didn't say excuses. Right. Because it and it doesn't feel like an excuse. No, no, no, that you don't understand, Miriam. This is real. This is this is this is the story. It was like, okay.

Andy Heise 24:35

Yeah.

Miriam Schulman 24:35

But um, that's what keeps them stuck.

Andy Heise 24:39

And that's that that again, that's the mindset thing, right? And right. But yeah, I was as we were talking about that too, mindsets are really hard to change in people.

Miriam Schulman 24:48

Yeah, but sometimes that's well, first of all, that's what you need a good coach for because it will hold a mirror up and say, you realize that's just a thought. That's not a fact. So what I did throughout my book, Arpreneur, is with each chapter, I would say, now you might be thinking, but yeah, and I would put in some of these common things so people could see themselves, and that's usually the first step. And then what is the replacement thought for that?

Andy Heise 25:17

Yeah, the entrepreneur mindset.

Announcer 25:19

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