So you're trying to grow your art business, but knowing how to actually do it feels like a daunting task. You might be thinking to yourself, "I wish someone would tell me how to do it!".

Naturally, you start looking towards someone who you perceive to be much further ahead in their career. The one who has it “all figured out”. And when they start telling you about the number one thing they have done that has made them successful, you listen attentively and carefully take notes.

They may say something like:

"You need to be consistent."

"You need to wake up early, and get it all done before the kids wake up."

"You need to post on social media every day."

"You need to do process videos."

"You need to reach out until you get a yes."

Etc, etc, etc

So you take action.

Then a lack of something happens. It's not working for you, and you may begin to feel frustrated and defeated. You might feel as if something is wrong with you.

You find yourself asking, "How come it works for them, and not for me?"

Ah, there it is my friend. You have stumbled upon the very answer.

It's not working for you precisely because you are not them. Let me explain.

If someone tells you the key to success as an artist is to do market fairs, but you've tried it before and hate the idea of going back to constantly lugging your art around from market to market, setting up, dealing with customers in person, and then tearing it down at the of the day only to do it all over again the next day, do you think it will bring you success?

Say you grit your teeth and do it anyway. Even if it does bring monetary success, will you enjoy the process?

If you're not enjoying the process, could you really call that success? After all, success should be more than just making money.

There is a better way to go about it, so let's dive in shall we?

The Actual Key to Success

Do you want to know the actual key to success? The kind that makes you money AND makes you happy at the same time?

Can you guess what it is?

Hint: It's you!

You hold the key to your own success. You in your entirety and complexity, your likes, your dislikes, your talents, the way you naturally operate and attract. You are the keeper of the keys (like Hagrid!).

In fact, there isn't any one magic key that will lead you to success. It will always be an accumulation of keys, or rather events and actions that will make up the story of your success

This means your set of keys is not going to be the same as someone else's.

As you start to discover which keys open which doors you're able to add them to your cabinet of success.

The way to discover the keys is to pay attention to your natural rhythms and then find ways, methods, and processes, and then align your business with those. We'll dive more into how to uncover your keys later in this post.

How I found one of my keys

First, let me share with you two stories about how I figured out one of my magic keys.

Let's go back to 2014-16, years 2-4 of my business.

It was young, hip, and happenin'. Everything was going swimmingly. Sales were pouring in consistently. I was getting lots of magazine and blog coverage about my art, and people were emailing me with collab opportunities. Fantastic!

As I saw my business growing organically I began to wonder what it would look like if I specifically focused on growth.

One of the "keys" I kept hearing about was that I had to create a repeatable system to generate more sales. I freaked out because I had no system. I had no clue how any of the things that were happening to me came to be. But I had this fear they were all happening simply out of luck, and the more that I listened to the gurus the more I feared that my luck would run out.

So I hyperfocused on creating a sales system with email and social media funnels to attract more followers and move my cold traffic to warm traffic to eventual customer.

Most "experts" used social media as their main source of traffic and claimed it was the reason for their success. But in order to be successful there they stressed the importance of being vulnerable and authentic, sharing my personal life, and baring my soul so that people could connect with me on a deeper level. Because people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it (sound familiar? *ahem* Simon Sinek).

So I spent an enormous amount of time crafting a hero story (if you read Story Brand, then you know what I'm talking about), working on email opt-ins, email funnels, and lead magnets. I also spent time trying and failing to write engaging captions, being entertaining, and trying to go live even though it made me break out in sweats.

At every step, it felt like I was wadding my way through a muddy path. I was going against who I naturally was- a shy introvert who values privacy. But I was determined to make it work because it worked for "them" and I wanted what they had.

I went on this way for a few years, and do you know what happened?

The harder I tried, the less money I made. Year after year my business continued on a decline like a boulder going down a steep hill.

Around 2019 I started to suspect that maybe trying so hard to follow someone else's path of success wasn't right for me.

I accidentally stumbled upon my magic key when I decided to learn more about Human Design and looked up my chart (2/4 Generator). It implied that my opportunities were meant to come from my community. From people who I’ve developed relationships with or people who found me through someone they knew and ended up reaching out to me.

All of my "omg-I-can't-believe-this-is-happening" opportunities were never the results of my being proactive. When I look back on the years 2013-2016, those always felt like magic to me because things would just show up out of nowhere. In retrospect, I can see that my "sales system" was simply word-of-mouth.

Like my licensing deal with Anthropologie, my commissions with the Bellagio for their villa suites in Las Vegas, or my studio feature in Design*Sponge. None of these were a result of my reaching out. They all come to me because someone had tipped them off about me - a coworker, a friend, or a relative who had my art in their home or came across me some way or another.

Learning that essentially others were doing the marketing for me was a huge relief for this introvert, and confirmed my suspicion that I didn't need to try so hard to put myself out there. No more overthinking freebie-email opt-ins, and following trends on social media.

I’ve since let go of the need to feel like I HAVE to be proactive and let my natural magnetism work in my favor. I've developed my own "scaleable sales strategy" and I've kept it super simple.

I mostly send emails to my growing community at least once a month, post occasionally on social media only when I truly feel like I have something to share, and pin on Pinterest. That's it. That's my entire sales framework. Ta-da!

The only other thing I do is provide great customer service to my customers and partnerships. This helps deepen my relationship with them and they in turn are more likely to share my art with their network.

To other people, this may seem very passive, and yes in a way it is. Again, I myself am not doing very much. To others looking in, they might not understand how I could run a business by taking such a backseat approach to my sales & marketing.

Here's the thing, I don't need them to understand. This is my unique magic key. This is what works for me and at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

After I mentally let that pressure go two things happened: 1) I felt better overall and 2) my sales significantly increased!

Uncover Your Key

It's your turn to uncover your own magic key.

Remember, it may not look like anyone else's. It may not even make sense to anyone else. That's ok! It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you.

Again, keep in mind that your overall success is never going to come from a single action or source. It's always going to be a compilation of actions and events.

Take some time to answer the journal prompts below:

Where have your best opportunities/sales come from?

Dive deeper into the areas that are already working for you.

What forms of marketing do you have an aversion to?

Let go of anything that is causing resistance, avoidance, and procrastination.

What form of marketing feels natural?

It's better to have 1-2 marketing channels that you love than trying to do all of the things just because you feel like you have to. It could be social media, short or long form emails, sending postcards, calling people, ads, live events, meet and greets, studio visits, etc

How do you communicate best? With visuals or words?

Some, like me, may find it easier to communicate with images and videos rather than with words, or vice versa.

What business models work best for your personality?

If you're more on the shy side, then maybe adopt a strategy where others do the selling for you like galleries or licensing. On the other hand, if you're more outgoing then maybe you'd do well at markets, large shows, or showing up live on social media.

Embrace these ingredients, collect more of them, and add them to your sauce of simmering success. There's no right or wrong way to go about it. Actually, let me rephrase that. The only way you could be doing it wrong is if you're trying to force it and go against your natural ways of being.

To conclude, the key to success is individual and unique to each person. It's important to pay attention to your natural rhythms and find strategies that align with your strengths. What works for someone else may not work for you, so it's essential to discover your own magic keys. Embrace what feels natural to you and focus on the ingredients that make up your secret sauce for success.

P.S.

If you decide to look up your Human Design chart or any other personality test you can compare your findings.

Do they line up? If they do then it's definitely worth experimenting with! If they don't then maybe they can give you some ideas on what to test.