How to stay Focused on Art and Selling

If you’re creating consistently and still not selling, the problem usually isn’t your motivation. It’s the gap between making something you love and marketing it in a way buyers understand. I’m new to this platform, but I’m bringing decades of high-tech experience plus years of making art to one simple goal: help creators stop guessing and start selling.

We zoom out from “how do I sell a painting” and talk about selling any creation: prints, designs, decor, handmade products, or whatever you make with your own hands and brain. I share a practical checkpoint for creators who’ve made 10, 20, or 30 pieces and feel overwhelmed by what to do next. We also get honest about craft. Creativity can be a gift, but selling requires skill, repetition, and refinement. I talk about the years it takes to perfect work, why early attempts often don’t land, and how improving the product is often the fastest marketing upgrade.

Then we dig into buyer psychology and customer intent. People don’t shop randomly. They’re usually trying to solve a real need: furnishing a new home, finishing a room, buying a gift, or finding a style that matches their identity. When you create content and product listings that speak to what buyers already want, your TikTok marketing and Etsy marketing get clearer, stronger, and easier to repeat. Posting on every platform isn’t a plan. Doing incredible work and putting in consistent marketing work is.

If this helps, subscribe for more creator business advice, share the episode with a friend who’s building their own shop, and leave a review so more artists and makers can find it.

Free Art Festival Guide: https://mailchi.mp/aca15a65f111/free-festival-art-guide

Artist: David Bornancin

Media: Acrylic Paintings

Style: Abstracts and Landscapes

https://www.davidbornancinpaintings.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@intensedjb

https://www.facebook.com/david.bornancin/

https://www.linkein.com/in/dbornancin

Email me at: intensedjb@gmail.com

Subscribe to my Channel as it supports my body of work.

Transcript

Questions From New TikTok Creators

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, a lot of people are texting me and sending me messages, and thank you all for all your questions. But uh one seems to be a common theme, and I'm very new to TikTok. So I don't have years of experience with TikTok and uh selling on TikTok. But I have over 40 years of experience in high technology and also uh an artist, so I do have a powerful set of skills, but I see people are struggling, sending me messages, you know, please help me on understanding how I can sell my creations. And when I say creations, I don't want to focus just on paintings, I don't want to just focus on wall art, I don't want to just focus on home decor. Uh, I want to focus on no matter what you're doing as a creator, and I think it's important to take a step back and see where you're at. Uh have you created 10 pieces or have you created you know 20 or 30 pieces, and you're having problems trying to market that because that's really what you're doing. You're creating something, and then you're trying to market or sell the item that you've created, and uh buying uh people that purchase items, they're very funny about the way they purchase items and what they're interested in. And what I mean by that is they already have something in their mind, they want to go out and buy a new car, and they just want a new car. They're gonna go out and buy something for the house. They're interested in, they just purchased uh a home and they're moving in, they're a young couple, and they're looking to buy some uh pieces walllocked or wall pieces or prints or whatever the case may be. And they have this idea in their head, and now it's it's attracting them to look at your items, and they like the piece. So going back to my advice, anything we do as a creative person, as creative process, as um uh a creative uh uh marketing ploy, it has to be really good. So whatever you're doing, whatever you're designing, make sure you perfect your skill. It's a skill and it's a gift. There's two things. It's a skill I have and it's a gift I've been gifted to, or gifted with, excuse me. And you have to perfect it. It took me years and years and years to perfect my skill. It wasn't five minutes. I didn't in two minutes paint something and it was sold. And the funny part was uh I did 150, 160 uh uh uh drawings and then I converted them into designs. And at the beginning, uh I didn't have success right at the beginning, not because I didn't have the skills or the talent, uh, because A, I didn't know how to market uh the products right, uh, didn't understand what the people see and what they want and what they're interested in and what sells, and I had to perfect the uh the ideas, and I had to perfect the design, and I had to perfect the actual items before I was able to sell. So I want to give you some inspiration, meaning uh don't give up. Just take what you've done so far. Let's say you've created 10 pieces, take a look at every one of those and make sure that you feel in inside of you, inside your soul, that you've done the best you possibly can, and then move forward and decide how are you going to market that? Because just putting it on YouTube, just putting it on X, just putting it on um uh Meta, just putting it on uh TikTok, just putting it on other uh areas, Etsy, without doing the work, without uh uh coming to work every day of the week, you're not going to be successful. So do incredible work and then put in the work in order to make it happen.