Pricing, Prestige & The Business Of Photography - Miriam Schulman, E115

In this episode, Matt sits down with Miriam Schulman, professional artist, art business coach, host of the Inspiration Place podcast, and bestselling author of Artpreneur (HarperCollins). Miriam left Wall Street after 9/11 to build a six-figure art business and now teaches photographers, painters, and visual artists how to price their work, sell art online, attract collectors, and build a sustainable photography business without relying on social media. In this conversation we cover photography pricing strategies, how to sell prints at higher prices, the psychology behind luxury art buyers, why charm pricing kills photography sales, how photographers can find art collectors, the truth about Instagram engagement rates for artists, AI's impact on professional photography, and how to transition from hobbyist photographer to full-time professional. 

So if you are learning how to make money as a photographer, how to price photography prints, or how to build a photography business in 2026, this episode delivers the frameworks Miriam uses with her six-figure photography and art coaching clients.

Other things we discussed:

• How to price photography prints using prestige pricing instead of charm pricing
• The belief triad every photographer needs to sell high-ticket prints
• Signal excavation: how photographers find their unique artistic voice
• How to build an email list as a photographer (and why it beats Instagram)
• The $40 champagne pricing study and what it means for photography sales
• AI and photography: why photographers face more risk than painters
• LinkedIn for photographers: the most underused platform for selling art
• How to use local press and PR to sell photography prints
• The five biggest mistakes photographers make when pricing their work
• How to identify a production problem vs a pricing problem in your photography business
• Why marketing matters most when you believe your photography matters
• The wishy-washy pricing mistake that loses photographers paid bookings
  
  

Find Miriam and everything she offers on her website:
https://www.schulmanart.com/
_______________________________________

Transcript

Origin Story And Artpreneur Framework

Miriam 0:00

Like many artists, I was not always an artist. I was told you couldn't make a living that way, and I believed them. When I first started out and I was selling portraits, I looked around to see what other people were charging and decided I should charge less. And that was a big mistake.

Matt 0:17

Tell us about those years and the mistakes you made early on that you see other people making.

Miriam 0:23

So one of the biggest mistakes that I made myself and I see other artists making is the idea that cheaper is easier to sell. When really people are looking for things that are reassuringly expensive. People associate a higher price tag with something being better. It's not always about beauty, it's about what does owning this art, this photography say about you as a person. That's the key. I can give you some hacks today that will work. So it's one of the hacks.

Matt 1:02

Okay, Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Mood Podcast.

Miriam 1:07

Thanks for having me, Matt.

Matt 1:09

Thanks for being here. We've got a lot to go through, um, a lot of which is in your book, Artpreneur, which I'm gonna kind of reference as we go through the conversation. Um, but before we do, uh give us an insight into you kind of a little bit of your origin story. We're gonna kind of dive into how you transitioned through various chapters in your life, but um, tell us a little bit about you and what we're hoping to hear from you in terms of your expertise in the next hour or so of conversation.

Miriam 1:43

Okay. Well, like many artists, I was not always an artist. Uh, I was told you couldn't make a living that way, and I believed them, whoever they are, you know, parents, society. And so I took the practical route and I went to Wall Street because I figure if I need to make money, where do they make money? Oh, over there. Okay. So I went to Wall Street, but after 9-11 happened, I quit my job and decided that was a sign from the universe not to go back to that world. And that's when I started painting on at first on the side, because I still didn't believe I could make a living from it. And I was painting on the side and working for a gym who taught me how to sell personal training packages. And that's when I had my aha moment because I saw that what they were teaching me could be used to sell anything, including art. And so that was over 25 years ago. And since then, since then, I've built a six-figure art business, one that I can count on year in and year out.

Matt 2:50

Cool. And and we're gonna, like I said, the the book, we can't cover the entire book today, obviously, but we want to encourage everyone to go out and and read it. Give us a give us a synopsis of the book. I mean, it's almost like a snapshot of what you've learned during those formative years and um what you put into practice for yourself and now for other people. But just give us a synopsis of of the book and and what it's entails, essentially.

Miriam 3:16

Yeah, so uh, you know, uh 20 years of being an artist, but then other people wanted to me to show them how. So this started back in like 2018 is when I started the Inspiration Place podcast. And once I was giving voice to my story, people said, Well, could you teach me how to make a living as an artist? So I developed my coaching practice and I was getting the same results, or I still get the same results for my clients as I did for myself. And I've gotten many artists over the six-figure mark through my methods. So the foundation of what I teach is in the book Artpreneur. What I do in there is I break down really the five biggest mistakes holding artists back, which it applies to artists in many ways. It applies to all entrepreneurs make these mistakes, but I make it very specific to artists. And then the five foundations about what you really need to focus on instead. And I do weave in a lot of these personal stories that I'll be sharing here today. Uh, but that is the foundation of the book, the five pillars of how to build a successful business, a successful creative business.

Matt 4:30

Great. Yeah, I've got the book here for those for those watching. Um what would you kind of pick out in terms of those? I'm really interested in the the start of your journey as an artist and then entrepreneur and kind of an entrepreneur. And why you felt that it was this myth of the starving artist was not gonna be you? And those those first kind of avenues into making money from your art, tell us about those years and the mistakes you made, the big mistakes you made early on that you see other people making early on when they try to transition.

Miriam 5:10

So, one of the biggest mistakes that I I made myself and I see other artists making. And to be perfectly honest, I'm I'm still always having to push against this edge for myself and my own growth is the idea that cheaper is easier to sell. When really people are looking for things that are reassuringly expensive. It doesn't matter if we're talking about cars, vets, babysitters, uh artwork, coaching packages. People want they people associate a higher price tag with something being better. And so cheaper isn't always easier to sell. And sometimes that can definitely work against you if you're underpriced.

Underpricing Stories That Changed Everything

Matt 5:56

So how did this how did you come to realize the skill? Give us a give us a story, I guess, of those early years as you as an artist trying to kind of give things away for free and discounts and cheap. Okay. Did you learn through doing basically in that? Yes, I did.

Miriam 6:12

So I mean, I mean, I may not have had the all the language that I have now to describe the problem, but when I first started out and I was selling portraits, I looked around, and this is the um early 2000s when I was looking around to see what other people were charging for portraits and decided I should charge less. You know, that was a big mistake. So I arrived at a price of $300 per portrait. And my first one of my early experiences was going to work with a client who wanted each of her children painted. And I went to her house to look through her photos. We were gonna, I was gonna work with her photos to make these this artwork. And instead of picking out just one photo for each child, she ended up choosing three. And that's when I realized, oh, I could have charged three times as much. And so that she would have done the more appropriate thing, which is choose one photo and have one portrait of each child. Because I visited her house a year later. She didn't even frame all these paintings. Like, you know, she could afford to buy them, but not frame three of them because the framer wasn't underpriced. Right. So that was then I like tripled my prices. That uh other times that this has happened was I got sick of doing dog portraits. So I told my assistant, oh, I'm so tired of these dog portraits, just double my prices. So she did that. And that same week, I got three orders at the double price, doubled price. And one of them came from a client who had bought it at the cheaper price. Now, a lot of artists, not just artists, but people who are raising their prices, they think, oh, if I raise my prices, someone's gonna be mad at me. Like, like as if everyone memorized our prices and uh like we'll notice. So the the client who bought it at the cheaper price and then the double price, they didn't, she didn't even say anything about the double price. They didn't notice, didn't complain. And whenever I'm encouraging my clients to raise their prices, same thing. They'll they'll have past collectors come back, buy it at the tripled price, pay more. They don't complain, which means the prices could have been even higher. Just shows like how underpriced we actually are.

Matt 8:41

Yeah, I see that all the time, especially in the photography world. I mean, I'm not as uh as uh cognizant of the uh the the painting or the other kind of other art forms, but I imagine it's very similar because what we're what we're offering most of the time is not a solution to a problem. And I know you referenced this into your in your book as well. You argue people to pay more for pleasure a lot of the time than problem solving, which I don't always see. Certainly in theory, we're taught in marketing to solve someone's problem or solve someone's own.

Miriam 9:14

Yeah, it's it's not working for for us photographers slash artists, because uh and the problem is not a blank wall, because a mirror will solve that problem, right?

Matt 9:26

Elaborate.

Miriam 9:27

Okay, so there's there's no one's having a problem um with getting a photograph uh photography. Uh it's there's not there's not a problem. So what they're really want to pay more for, you it's the it's not just the pleasure, it's also the prestige. So of course there is a ceiling to what people can pay, are willing to pay, feel comfortable paying. But you're always gonna want to pay more for something that's gonna give you more pleasure in the owning and gives you more prestige in owning it, which is why they can charge such exorbitant prices for like a Birkenbag. There's a prestige factor or um a Tesla. There's things that people want more because they're expensive, they want it more. Like, do you want the photographer that's like you got your friend's high school, you know, your high school, his high school buddy to photograph you? Or could you get Steven Lazell to do it? Or is there someone in between? Now there's gonna be that person that like it satisfies that self-esteem. And paying high prices is part of that for people.

Matt 10:48

So, how do we create that prestige? It's not just about charging a high price.

Miriam 10:54

Yeah, there's so there's a lot of things that go into it. I can give you some hacks today that will work. I mean, there's about becoming the micro celebrity in your niche, in your town, in your area. I leaned into that heavily when I was building my art career. So it wasn't about um for for me, it was about getting the cool moms to commission me. Once I got the cool mom to commission me, I was in. I was in.

Matt 11:28

So it's sad, but it's true.

Press That Reaches Real Buyers

Miriam 11:30

Yes, correct. And then I carried around, and and this what I'm talking about now, I did it then because I didn't have we didn't really have the the smartphones that we do that today. But I actually think that if you use this technique, it's works better than pulling out your phone. So I carried around a grandma brag book. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's that it's okay. All right, Matt, maybe, maybe you're too young to remember. But like 20 years ago, Graham, it was a grandma brag book, it was a four by six photo album that grandmas would put pictures of their kids in. So I would put pictures of the cool moms, portraits, their kids, like portraits, basically. Yes. And so when people would ask me about my art, I would just pull it out. Like I didn't wait for them to ask. I was like, I just pulled it out. Oh, do you know Kim? Of course everyone knows Kim. Here's her kids. Look what I look at her portrait that I just finished. I got so many commissions that way. So I became a micro celebrity. So one, it's like that self-promotion angle, but it was also about getting press, local press. So that's something that's available to everybody, no matter what type of photography you're doing.

Matt 12:47

And fast forward to now, uh has that changed in any way? You know, social media obviously has a big part of it to kind of have this prestige.

Miriam 12:56

I love these questions, and there's so many things to unpack. So um, press is still the fast track. Um, I have one client who's a painter, not a portrait artist, um, does wildlife, and she got a feature in Art Collector magazine. It led to $9,500 in sales, as well as a repeat collector who spent over $29,000 on her art. So that's within the last few years. I have dozens of those kinds of stories. Um, my client Grace, she's a Canadian, but she's a diver. She does underwater photography, but then she paints her underwater photographs. And so instead of getting into art collector magazine, she focused on like Scuba Ray, Diver magazine. She went to where her collectors were gathering and told stories about her process and her art that way. But she's putting her art in front of her ideal collectors, not in front of other artists.

Recessions And The Luxury Myth

Matt 14:02

Sorry to cut away from the episode for a minute, but I wanted to talk to you about something very quickly. Now, I spent a long time thinking that isolation was part of the deal when it came to photography. That if you were serious about the work, you did it alone. You'd consume enough, watch enough, read enough, and eventually it would all cohere into something meaningful. And it sometimes did. But mostly I was just alone with my doubts and no one to push back on them. What changed things for me wasn't a course or a workshop. It was a conversation with someone who was doing the same kind of work and cared about it in exactly the same way I did. The doubts didn't disappear, but they got a little bit smaller and I felt more okay with them. They got named. That's what I'm building with The Mood Insiders. It's a place where the work is taken seriously, where you can bring your questions and, of course, your half-finished ideas, and where someone will actually engage with them. We have the ad-free extended podcast episodes with bonus content. We have monthly masterclasses, QA sessions, and of course the weekly book clubs and direct access to me and my team because you don't have to do this alone. So the link is in the show notes, and hopefully I'll see you inside. When you talk about um I have so many questions around this because I see it's such a such daunting issue for a lot of. I mean, I talk about photographers just because I know photographers and I I work with so many of them. So there's people who are just starting out and figuring, like, you know, there's this existential threat to photography, there's existential threat to society and and um, you know, recessions around the corner and limit personal limiting beliefs.

Miriam 15:54

Oh my gosh, I hate I hate the recession around the corner. I in like the all eight years of I've been a coach, there has never not been a recession around the corner.

Matt 16:06

Okay, so what do you say?

Miriam 16:07

And there's always art selling.

Matt 16:10

So that's that's uh that's what I'm getting to is we I feel like there's this sub-narrative that art is this luxury, especially things like paintings, maybe not so much photography. But if I go down the photography route and you talk about collectors, how do we go and find, you know, there are people that a lot of people that collect photographs and photographs from people who that they admire or have a wonderful story behind. Maybe it's not just about the image, but it's about the the artist. How do we find these collectors and how do we how do we I I want to say it, recession proof against um, you know, sales of art and the luxury kind of identity of art that we feel is going to disappear as soon as there is a recession or as soon as there is a downturn, or as soon as people have personal financial issues.

Miriam 17:02

First of all, let's just talk about the reality. So the art newspaper that I think it's put out by Christie's. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they just ran an article about how the most recent art market, um, and I can't recall off the top of my head now which fair they were talking about or which auction they were talking about, but they were worried because of the Iran-Israel war and the recession around the corner that sales would be down and they were up. So like the data is pointing in a completely different direction. And in terms of my own community of emerging artists, I have the data as well to back up. Art sales have not slowed, slowed down. So people will buy even during a recession, even if there's a recession looming. So what why?

Matt 17:56

I mean, yeah, I mean, I I totally agree with you. I'm trying to try to play devil's advocate because I'm trying to get through two.

Miriam 18:01

I'm just saying there's the facts, there's the data we have that just backs this up.

Matt 18:05

So why is that? I'm more interested in like why is it we just it is a myth that art is a luxury, but people need that in their life. People need to have that people need to feel good. Feel, feeling, yeah.

Signal Excavation And Stronger Artist Language

Miriam 18:19

Yeah, they want the feeling that the art or the photography gives them. Now, for people on the upper, upper, it could just be the feeling they get that they can afford X million dollar artwork. I mean, that's a thing. Um, but it's just like you want to surround yourself with the beauty or what it's not always about beauty, it's about what does owning this art, this photography say about you as a person? That's the key. That's the key that you have to unlock. What is it, the identity? So when I work with artists, I do what's called a signal excavation process where we excavate their through line, their story, and we uncover that thing about what does owning the art say about the collector?

Matt 19:07

Interesting.

Miriam 19:09

And I can give you examples of like that too.

Matt 19:12

Yeah, please go ahead. I'm I'm I'm doubling down on this topic because I think it's important.

Miriam 19:16

Okay. So I just came off, um, I did a signal excavation session with my client um who is a former physician. And she doesn't have a lot of art um selling experience outside of her fronts. So it was very difficult for her to articulate like what it was. You know, I said, hey, what, you know, why do they buy it? And they says, well, they they see me when they look at the artwork. I was like, okay, well, let's figure, you know, let's figure out what that wavelength is that makes you you. That so, you know, she has a lot of, I mean, she sold a lot of artwork, but just because it's to her friends, she can't really tease it out herself. So when we unpacked her life, she not only was a physician, but she was a division one athlete in college. Like she made the the gymnasti the US gymnastics team. So she's like, hi, achiever. Um, but then she talked about um feeling like she didn't get enough credit um when she was a radiologist and you know, this whole narrative of always having to perform, right? Okay. And then we started to talk about when she does feel peaceful, when she does feel quiet, and she said, in nature, and what does that feeling give her? Do you feel peaceful or empowered? Like we've we ended up with that as being like the main vocabulary once we teased everything out. So by the end of this, uh, and she's she paints mostly flowers, by the end of that, we can then create a narrative arc where we're saying your art is for that woman who always felt that she had to perform, but now is drawn to collecting these flowers. Flowers don't need to be formed, performed. And not weak little wallflowers, but these are powerful symbols. So that beauty, that flowers can be beautiful and powerful. So that tension that lives in her work. We were able to articulate it in a way that her collectors now can respond to it and feel seen by her artwork. That's very powerful collector language that she can now talk about her art. So it's not just my art is, you know, calm flowers and I enjoy being a no, nobody nobody wants to do that. Or nobody wants to hear that. And nobody wants to hear about how painting makes her calm. Nobody buys art because of the way it makes the photographer feel or the painter feel. No, no, it's how how do you feel?

Matt 21:54

Yeah, I talk about this all the time as well. It's like this fee this feeling of wanting to be understood, both as An artist, but uh as the viewer, as the buyer, as the collector, as well. Like, oh, you get me, or that's projecting me, or that's reflecting me. I see myself in this, and that makes me seen and warm and loved. Exactly. Exactly. And that's also where the uniqueness comes in. People always ask how do I stand, especially photography, which is about as ubiquitous as you can get. How do I stand out from the crowd? How do I be different? You be different. Like you are the only one that's you, and that's your difference. You've just got to find a way to to to show people that, to tell people that, to express it. And that comes with a lot of the language that you attach with it, right?

Limiting Beliefs And Mindset Support

Miriam 22:42

I'd like to give another example. So I worked with um someone who's a retired um Navy officer, and he did boxing and um he does pet portraits, which again, lots of artists do pet portraits. And the way his language sounded before we worked together, it's like, well, I loved, you know, I capture the eyes, and the eyes are the most important thing. I was like, yes. And as a police officer during your time, I bet you got very good at reading faces. So then by pulling in his biography, we were able to show how he was not just the obvious choice, but the uh the real choice, the reason you would want him to paint your pet portrait, because of the way he's able to read faces. So we're able to weave that something that made him very special and different, that you wouldn't necessarily connect with being an artist into his story.

Matt 23:49

I bet you see a lot of limiting beliefs in that. I is that like the first barrier you generally have to push down with people? Because it's such a common thing, isn't it?

Miriam 24:02

Yeah. Not just the first, but that's always the challenge. Because um, Matt, you can give the best advice in the world. But your clients, the artists, you listening out there, um our brains have evolved for survival, not goal achievement. So anytime you're giving advice that's gonna push up against something that they strongly believe, like, yes, people won't buy my art if it's priced higher, our brains are gonna feel uncomfortable and come up with all kinds of reasons why that's a terrible idea and why that won't work for them. And the more creative you are and the smarter you are, the better you are at coming up with those reasons. And notice I didn't say excuses because they do not feel like an excuse to you.

Matt 24:55

Well, we talked about uh yeah, we talked about like market conditions, isolation, lack of success, fear, time, all of these okay, excuses, but reasons why people don't necessarily take that next step. But that's why we have people like you. Just quickly while we're while we're on this subject, tell us about your coaching programs and hierarchy and where people can find that.

Miriam 25:19

Okay, so um, first of all, if you like what I said today, the best place to like really um get more of that is the inspiration place. So either the podcast or the YouTube. That's where I share lots of stuff for free, or in the book, which you can't get from the from the library. But like I said, when we when I work with clients, we are working through those five areas. What do you need to do? But also in my coaching program, I do include a mindset element. And I actually have a mindset coach who isn't me, who comes in twice a month to coach my artists through these limiting leaves. They need to hear it from somebody else besides me.

Matt 25:58

I was just gonna say, like that there's there's only so much we can do if we're not professional mindset coaches or or psychologists. And I think so much of this comes down to your mindset. And as soon as you kind of clear the are able to kind of clear most of those limiting beliefs out of the way, then the world is your oyster, right? And you kind of open up to all of these opportunities. And more importantly, you believe you can do it because your mindset is is different. But a lot of it stems back from there. Do you work with um do you work with various artists or are they all painters, or what's the kind of variety?

Miriam 26:34

Um, I work with all visual artists. So photographers, painters, fiber artists, sculptors, um, digital artists. I work with all visual artists. My book is written, though, to be any kind of art, artist, creative person. So I've included like examples of how to make more money as a musician. Um, so the book is written to be much broader.

Matt 26:59

Yeah, let's go back to the book uh uh quickly because I'm interested to know what has changed, if anything, since writing that book, what, three years ago? The world is moving so fast, the digital world, especially moving so fast. Can you give us an insight as to you know what you would change, if anything, or if you're writing it again today, what would be different?

Miriam 27:20

Yeah, okay. So um I'm gonna talk, I want to talk about two things. Um, one of them is the social media angle, um, which has changed, but in the direction I was telling it would change in in the book. So we'll we'll talk about that first. And I don't want to lose the thread on what I absolutely would change in the book if if the publisher would say, let's do a second edition. Okay. So the first thing is social media. Um my book doesn't contain a lot of tactics on social media. And my publisher wasn't too happy about that. And the developmental editor came to me. Uh, they didn't come to me. They went to like they went to Harper Collins, and Harper Collins kind of said it back to me and says, you know, she's saying this, this, and this. She's saying, Oh, why isn't she focusing on social media? I guess she's old-fashioned because she's in her 50s. And it did sting. However, I knew I was right about this. So instead of putting in more social media tactics, I doubled down on why you shouldn't be relying on it. And I'm going to tell you why. When I wrote the book, so I started writing the book in 22. Back in the beginning, um, the average engagement rate on Instagram was 1%. In other words, one out of 100 people not with buy your stuff, engage with your stuff that's like comment or DM, right? Only 1%. By the time I went to edit the chapter, it had dropped to 0.6%. So it's not even one out of 10%.

Matt 28:53

What kind of time frame is that? Months.

Miriam 28:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt 28:56

Wow.

Miriam 28:57

Um, we're in 2026 now. The average engagement rate, do you know what it is, Matt?

Matt 29:03

I don't want to hear it. I I know it's probably 0.1%.

Miriam 29:08

Okay, you're you're you're actually pretty close. So it's it's the average is 0.3, but that's only because sports teams have a 2% engagement rate. They're the ones who are pulling the average up. But home decor and retail, which were is where you would put art and photography, it's 0.15. That's basically one or two people out of a thousand. So I was right about like social media is not the future of marketing. And I'm not the only one saying that. That's something Marie Forlio was saying when I wrote my book. Ryan Dice was saying that as well. And really the goal is to move anybody you come in contact with, whether it's in person or online, to your email list. Okay. So that's the first thing is uh what has not changed or has changed and continued to change in the direction I was talking about. Do you have any questions about that?

Matt 30:05

Well, so I mean, to do to use social media well, you have to kind of be all in for a you know, a a good amount of time.

Miriam 30:19

Let's let's pause for a minute because all right, I don't I don't know what it is now, but when I was writing the book, um the the average engagement rate being 0.6, I also looked up what influencers and people who are good at social media, what their engagement rate was, it was still only 1%. So a little better. So all these people who are who are teaching us to be better at social media, it's not good odds.

Matt 30:52

No. However, if you're able to garner a 10,000 follower audience, and you're able to actually understand what social media, in my opinion, should be used for, and that's not to be famous, and that's not to seek engagement, but it is a a one part of many marketing tools, like you said, to funnel people to your own IP, your own autonomous you know, website or your ecosystem or something. That's why you still got to give social media attention because it's just one. I mean, you don't have to, but if you can do it well enough with decent strategy without burning yourself out, it can be a very useful marketing tool.

Miriam 31:40

You can, and that's a very big if. So I worked with a client in all of 2024, and her best month, she made $19,000 in August of 2025, and she made $90,000 that year. The her best month was the month that her Instagram was shut down.

Matt 32:03

So how did people, how did she make sales?

Miriam 32:06

The other methods I'm talking about. So publicity and in-person events and making those opportunities. So the the if you're talking about if you can do it without burnout, but the I'm glad at least you said like you want to move them to your ecosystem. But if you're getting a even a 24% open rate on your emails, which is considered low, out of a hundred people, that's 24 people who's gonna see your photography, your art, whatever it is you're you're talking about. To get the same results on social media, you would need 6,000 people to get 24 people to engage with it. That's not buy. That's just like or comment or hopefully DM.

Matt 32:56

So how do we get people on email lists?

Miriam 32:59

So there are six ways you can get people to the email list. And we're talking mostly to photographers today. Is that right? Yeah. So the easiest way is just this is what I tell my artists all the time. The easiest way is just to ask. So people are gonna say, where can I see your art? Instead of saying, here's my Instagram handle, you say, Oh, Matt, I would love to invite you to my next show. What's your email address?

Matt 33:23

Got it.

Miriam 33:25

And I know people are thinking, but I don't have a show coming up. It's the next show. It's whenever it is. You're gonna eventually have one. So uh that that right there is the easiest way. There's other ways too, but that's the easiest one.

What Miriam Would Change Today

Matt 33:39

Now, when it comes to photography, the whole infrastructure of the internet rewards speed. Post small, post faster, be first, be everywhere. The algorithm doesn't care whether you went deep, it cares whether you showed up yesterday. And I guess that's not photography specific. Now, for me, I built my work around a different bet that there are people who would rather go slowly and understand something fully than go fast and understand probably nothing. That depth is not a liability, that the work you make when you take your time is categorically different from the work you make when you're chasing the feed, maybe, or chasing the algorithm. Now, the Mood Insiders is built on that same bet. It's a private community for photographers and visual artists who are serious about the slow work. We have monthly masterclasses where we actually go deep on craft and thinking. We have a weekly book club, monthly QA's. We have the podcast, of course, but ad-free with bonus content. And we have direct access to me and my team. It's not another newsletter you'll forget about, not a Discord server full of noise. It's a room with a small number of serious people and a very clear and supportive focus. It's just $19 a month. The link is in the show notes, and I really hope I can see you inside. Okay, so let's go back to what you would change in in the book.

Miriam 35:04

Yeah. Okay. So um I wrote the book in twenty, it came out in January of 2023. And there's a chapter in there called Embrace Your Inner Weirdo. And that's about leaning into your quirks and what's special about you. And back then, I think I conflated political identity with identity. Your pol and so I talked a little bit more about um my at the time politics than I would do today. And since um 2023 with uh October 7th, my my politics have changed quite a bit. So then I thought I was attracting people who aligned with what where I saw myself. And now I realize, no, that that politics is not an identity. So your identity is much more than your voting record. That's what I would definitely change about the book. Not because I got criticism about that, which I definitely did, but because it wasn't necessarily aligning myself with my core of who I am and sending out the right signals.

Matt 36:18

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Um you haven't mentioned, and I've I'm reticent to bring this up, but I feel like I have to do my audience justice and bring this up. You haven't mentioned AI, and I want, I know you've talked about it on your podcast. I want to hear what you generally feel about AI, but specifically to artists, how it's going to, how you believe it's going to or currently change our artistic world and our practices and what the future might look like. And therefore, would you change anything or put something like that in the book?

Miriam 36:55

I yeah, I would definitely address AI. One of the reasons that I haven't written a second book is because of AI. I was going to bring a book out about marketing. And I, and so this is a full year ago, and I knew I couldn't talk about marketing without talking about AI. And yet AI was changing or is changing so much on a weekly basis that I couldn't write a book that wouldn't be obsolete by the time it came out. And AI can't, I'm not anti-AI, I'm not a Luddite. And it probably does pose more of a threat to photographers than it does to many of the artists that I coach who are not photographers. So visual artists who are working in more tactile mediums probably have less to fear from what is possible with AI than a photographer does.

The Belief Triad And Pretty Woman

Matt 37:54

Yeah, I still think the fundamental values stay the same with the artist and with people either buying the city. 100%. So I'm not sure. 100%. I see it as an issue in in some areas of the photography world, but certainly in the more fine art area and the those kind of personal project type photography um areas. I don't I did if anything, I think it's gonna become I think art genuine is gonna become more valuable. Um I I agree with that. Yeah, watch the space. Walk us through um this whole believing in oneself. We talked about limiting beliefs. Um and in the book you talk about this this triad, this belief triad. Can you um talk a little bit more about how I guess believing in oneself, because it sometimes it can sound trite, you know, oh, just believe in yourself.

Miriam 38:50

But Because it is trite. It is so trite. So what I talk about in the book, Matt, the belief triad, there's three things. It and the triad is belief in yourself. Totally, like you said, yeah, everyone talks about that. It's like, oh, who cares? Um, believe in your art. And the but the third thing that I talk about that I never hear anyone else talk about is believe in your buyer. So here's what that looks like. Matt, if you're gonna set sell me a photograph that's $10,000, you don't only have to believe in yourself and your photography. You have to believe in me as the customer that I am worth it. If you're thinking negative thoughts about your customer in in this way, like, oh, she won't pay that, she can't afford that. Um, you know, are though those are like uh there's a recession looming around the corner. That's not believing in your buyer. So the story I like to tell is in Pretty Woman. Are are you too young to know that movie?

Matt 40:01

No, what a great movie.

Miriam 40:03

You've seen it though. Okay, all right, because everyone's okay. So she she goes to Rodeo Drive and the mean salespeople won't wait on her. And we all think we're not the mean salespeople. But sometimes we are doing that same exact thing. We're thinking, oh, she won't pay 10,000, people don't buy pay those prices in my town, or I shouldn't be selling art right now. There's a war or a recession looming. You see how those thoughts are not believing in your buyer? Instead of thinking thoughts like, my art means something to these people, they they want it, they deserve it. Now, if you're thinking of when you're trying to sell, if you're thinking about yourself, why you're worth it, and you're trying to prove to the customer why you're worth it or your art is worth it, but they're sitting there wondering if they deserve, because what I'm thinking in my mind, when I'm gonna make a $10,000 purchase or a $100 purchase or a $300 purchase, whatever it is, I'm not thinking, is this thing worth it? I'm thinking, do I deserve to spend money on something that I want? That's what I'm thinking about. And that's what people nobody talks about that.

Matt 41:20

No, I don't, I don't hear many people talking about that at all. And it always comes back to pricing, doesn't it? It comes back to the your value and the belief of your value in that price. You know, that you talk about prestige pricing and charm pricing and what part of the brain should buyers be using to, you know, buy your art. And I love and I love all that because people don't really talk about it, but it's this mindset in how you portray yourself and your art that I think has to be has to be an integral part of your artistic pursuit, right?

Miriam 41:54

Yeah. So that's one of the hacks that I promised I would share with the listeners today is the difference between prestige pricing and charm pricing. Charm pricing is seems to be the only thing people know about. So that is like pricing a print at $497 because it's under $500. Um, that's what charm pricing is. However, that can work against you. So when you price something at $497, you're you're saying a few things to your buyer. You're saying every dollar counts, which if they're making a luxury purchase, you don't want to be saying that to them. Like that's a Walmart strategy. Walmart says these this package of underwear is $14.97 because they know that you're looking at every penny, right? So you want to use a rounded number. Also, numbers like $497 are processed by the logical side of the brain. Now they've done research where they priced champagne, a luxury good, at $39, $40, and $41. And they found that it sold the best at $40. $40, a rounded number is processed by the emotional side of the brain. Which side of the brain do you want your customer using when they're deciding whether or not to collect your art?

Matt 43:26

Emotional side of the brain. Wow, that's a fascinating example about a champagne. I'm just trying to put myself in that position, which one I would choose. It'd be forty dollars. It feels right.

Miriam 43:40

It feels it feels right.

Matt 43:44

Yeah, and you reframe um uh um the what was it, the buy the the buy one get one free and the the the collector's choice that you put around that type of framing. Why did Does the language matter so much with this type of thing? And where do we even start? Because we don't want to take a marketing degree. We don't want to, you know, we may not have the intelligence that you do or the financial kind of expertise that you do with your background. Why do we even start with all of this language and these semantics that help us market ourselves and our and our products?

Miriam 44:26

You know, the thing is that even if you don't need the money for your art, why do all this? If you as an artist believe that your art matters, and I believe art matters, and I believe our world needs art more than ever, that's what makes marketing important. Because the better you are at marketing, the better you are at sharing your art with the world. And that's what really matters.

Production Choices And Curation Problems

Matt 44:56

Yeah, it's belief, isn't it? It all comes down to belief in whether you think your art has value and whether art actually matters in the first place. If you don't think it matters, then you're just kind of peddling an empty wheel. Um you also talk about um this product this problems of production and problems of audience and the production problem and the audience problem. Is that something else you're able to elaborate for?

Miriam 45:24

Yeah, so the five areas, and I'll just name them quickly: production, pricing, prospecting, promotion, and productivity. We already covered pricing quite a bit. Um, production, though, is you're creating something that can't be priced higher because of what it is. So for example, that would be Matt, if we're talking about a photographer, you can price, you can um sell a photograph on metal, that's a large production format, and you can charge a very big premium for them. Or you can put your photo on a mug. Right? That can't be priced higher. So in my world, it it can look that way, but it can look like um production problem would be an artist who are trying to sell greeting cards or stickers. They just can't be priced higher. So it's not so much their mindset around raising their prices, but they're selling something that feels safe to them. However, you can't build a business that way. I had an artist come to me who was making handmade greeting cards, and I don't remember she was asking $5 or $10, and it was doesn't matter. Let's say it was $5. And she said, My problem is I can't find enough people who like greeting cards. I was like, that's not your problem. I mean, you would need 10,000 customers rather than putting the same art on a canvas that you can charge a thousand or five thousand. Now you only need 10 customers. So that could be a production problem, but it's not just that. It could also be uh I've worked with artists who they're colored penciled artists, and maybe they tell me it takes a week to do something. Like I as I do understand that if you sold everything you made and all you did was create these things, the most you could make was 20,000 a year. You know, like it was it's not a pricing problem, it's simply their capacity to create their art is limited. Now, for photographers don't usually have that problem.

Matt 47:40

Yeah. Certainly not digital photographers.

Miriam 47:43

No, no, no. That their problem is usually this, if I may. Not curating. Every photographer that I've worked with had a curation problem. They love everything the same, and it's like, oh no, you're overwhelming your customers with too many options. Do you do you find that too?

Matt 48:02

I see that all the time. Uh it's it's the biggest, it's so difficult. I don't know why for photographer I guess if you're digital photographer, you have so many images, you might sit at your screen and have a thousand images to go through. And so the problem starts there. Um, but yeah, I see I I see that all the time. Um and trying trying to please everyone, you know, because they've got different types of, you know, they can do this style, they do this style, and this is me back then.

Miriam 48:30

That's being a Target instead of a Tiffany's.

Matt 48:35

For the for the non-American crowd. Well, I'm sure the non-American crowd know what Target is, but um.

Miriam 48:41

Oh, yeah, do they have Target where you live?

Matt 48:44

No, no. Target's just I think Target is purely in America. I don't think it's even made its way to Europe yet. But um, we all know what Target is. It's a it's a I mean, how would you describe it?

Miriam 48:55

Well, I mean, like you go to the pharmacy, you could buy you know, lipstick at a pharmacy, or you can go to Harrods and you're gonna pay a lot more money. You know, everything's gonna matter on on the venue. And the more specialized something is, the more they can charge.

Plateau Traps And Being Decisive

Matt 49:12

Yeah. Yeah, it makes total sense. Let's um I want to kind of move forward into present day and beyond for the artist that's already doing a lot of this that we're already talking about, and you've probably got many of them in your your um your coaching container, but for those that are doing a lot of what we're talking about, but maybe plateauing, what are the kind of bottlenecks that you see are quite common at that stage?

Miriam 49:42

Yeah, um, this would be very true of photographers that are kind of stuck in pricing from 10 years ago. Like this, oh, they think this is the sweet spot. I I remember that happened to me with my prints. Like I said, no, the sweet spot for 11 by 14 is $75. And honestly, Matt, it wasn't until I started coaching other artists that I decided to push back on my own, like selling stuff. I was like, well, who says that's a sweet spot? And then that that weekend I raised all of them to 100. I sold more. So like we all have these limiting beliefs, and a lot of times like our pricing can be outdated. Like I know my mom gets very upset if a paperback is is $19, it should be $7. I'm like, really? Should it?

Matt 50:30

So like 50 years ago, maybe. Right.

Miriam 50:32

I know.

Matt 50:35

Pricing. A lot of it comes down to pricing and and people. I mean, uh, I worked with someone who is starting their own business just a few months ago, and they they you know, you asked them the question, what what value would you put on uh whatever it was, you know, an hour's photo shoot or something like that. What do you think your time is worth? And it took them so long to be, I mean, I don't think they ever really answered it. It's such a difficult question to answer when you think about what value I put on every hour of my life. You know, it's not just the actual equipment, it's the time, it's the opportunity cost, it's everything that goes into it, and it becomes a really big issue and a big problem. And then you start comparing yourself to other artists, other businesses, and it just becomes a melee of confusion. And you know, then you turn to people like you. It's like, what should I, what should I tell me what to do?

Miriam 51:32

And the worst thing you can do is be wishy-washy. I wanted to hire a photographer myself, and that guy totally sabotaged it for himself. Like I reached out to him, I said, Oh, I have a speaking engagement, blah, blah, blah. I said, What's your half day rate? He said, $800. Um, but like somehow in the conversation, I said I would only be doing two hours. He said, then well, then it goes to my hourly rate. Like the half day rate was $800, but included post-production. But the hourly rate didn't include post-production. I said, so the number's gonna be between $550 and $800, then, right? You know, it was like, and then he ended up disappearing on me, which I knew he would, because it was kind of like he he saw he was underpriced himself. Like he because he was wishy-washy. Like he obviously didn't have the numbers ready for me. And then I didn't want to hire him.

Matt 52:24

Don't be wishy-washy, guys.

Miriam 52:26

Oh, is that our biggest gold nugget today? Yeah, yeah.

Advice For Those Starting Their Business

Matt 52:30

Whatever that means is wishy-washy in itself. Don't be wishy-washy. Okay, well, um, Miriam, it's great to chat to you. I want to end with a couple of uh other questions because again, a lot of these questions are based around what I see in in first person with a lot of people I work with. Now, if you think about someone who's never treated their art as a business, there's so many people out there that do photography as a hobby but are kind of like teetering on the edge. Maybe you've done the odd family portrait, or maybe sold the odd print, or whatever it might be. What's the first thing? If they want to kind of take that step, what's the first thing they should do this week?

Miriam 53:10

Um, set up a business banking account that's separate from your personal bank account. I mean, it I'm I'm assuming it works the same way in Europe as it does in the US. You okay, yes. Treat it like a business from day one. You want separate containers because it helps you both mentally. It's not just about the bookkeeping and the taxes, which it will do that too for you. But if everything's all mixed up, if you need to go make an investment in your business and it's mixed up with your personal finances, that's when you have people who say, I need to ask my spouse, you know, like why? It's your business.

Matt 53:50

Cool, great, love it. And and and for you personally, what are you working on at the moment that excites you most that we might be watching out for?

Miriam 53:59

Um, the the my biggest personal thing right now is really been my YouTube videos. And I mean, I have a team around me that helps me with that, but creatively that's been lighting me up the most.

Matt 54:09

YouTube is social media though, right?

Miriam 54:12

It is, but it it's not technically actually considered social media. It's like the video, I mean the real the what's called the shorts, maybe are social media.

Matt 54:23

Yeah. So why YouTube?

Miriam 54:27

Okay. So if you were to ask me where photographers should spend their time online, the two the two platforms that matter the most are YouTube and LinkedIn.

Matt 54:39

LinkedIn. Oh, I don't do anything on LinkedIn. Why?

Miriam 54:44

Okay, LinkedIn. LinkedIn. It's like the it's not about going viral. It's not about likes, it's about connecting with the decision makers. And who's on LinkedIn? People with jobs and money. But that's the best place they could connect with gallerists, art consultants, interior designers, the people who are making the buying decisions. That's that's my mic drop. How about that move down there?

Matt 55:13

Yeah, we could, we could, we can LinkedIn and YouTube. There we go. You have it, guys. Good luck. Off you go.

Miriam 55:19

Yeah, good luck with that. Now that the podcast is over and you can't ask me any more questions.

Matt 55:25

Miren, great to chat to you. Remind us where we can find things like Inspiration Place, Artist Incubator, all this, all the stuff that you you offer people.

Miriam 55:34

All right, Inspiration Place, wherever you're listening to the Mood Podcast. Um, and like I said, I am on YouTube, the Inspiration Place, um, my book, Art Preneur. And if you don't like Amazon for whatever personal reasons, it is published by HarperCollins. So you should be able to request it from a local bookstore uh or your library could get it for you.

Matt 55:58

And we're gonna feature this book. I didn't tell you, but we're gonna feature this book on my book club. Um we're gonna we're gonna talk about it. So I may reach out to you again to see if you want to um spend 10, 20 minutes with us answering a few questions on there. But um, we'll feature that in a few months. So excited to to send that to my community and see what they think about it. And because I I know it's gonna help a lot of people. So thank you.

Miriam 56:21

All right, well, thanks for having me today. This was a lot of fun.

Matt 56:24

Yeah, great fun, Miriam. Take care. Thanks so much for joining me.

Miriam 56:27

Fire it up.

Matt 56:28

Go make some money. Okay.