I'm Done Waiting to Be Found

The quiet shift that helped me stop waiting for opportunities and start quietly creating them for myself.

Something has shifted for me this week and it’s left me actually feeling grounded in my business. No one is more surprised than me.

I’ve spoken about being an anxious lady who was in a regular cycle of burnout before, and whilst I’ve moved away from being that person, the anxiety has always lingered. I’ve been rushing through life, always wanting to maximise my time and create my fortune.

I’ve been posting regularly on a variety of social media platforms for years. I’ve spent hundreds of pounds on mastering the mysterious art of SEO, I’ve even been quietly building an email list because that can never be taken away from me. All of these things have been fine and I’ve grown a modest audience of people who are interested in my work but time and time again I’ve been left disappointed when sales aren’t where I need them to be.

The problem with all of these things is that I’ve been quietly hoping that if I pulled one magic lever all of my dream clients would be able to find me and fill my inbox with their requests. That if I simply worked hard enough on my messaging on the right platform that everything would click into place and I’d have a never ending supply of buyers.

The thing I’ve rarely done is thought about how I can go out and directly ask individuals if they’d like my work. I’m not talking randomers off of the street but more creating a database of opportunities for my business.

Connecting with people like Art Consultants, Retailers and Galleries could transform my business from me quietly promoting my art solo to having a team of cheerleaders who are also promoting my art for me. Plus hopefully making the whole experience more fun for everyone involved because right now running an art business can feel daunting and little lonely.

This week I started building a database of gallerists, interior designers, brands, publications, open calls and artists I'd genuinely love to work with.

I thought this was going to feel like really hard work, I had visions of me sitting at home staring at my laptops blank page whilst all of the cool people I’ve met and places I’d been fell out of my brain. I envisaged hours on mind numbing research that sucked all of my time and energy.

But what I hadn’t realised is that I’ve actually been doing this research for years, I’d just never had anywhere to put it.

My phone alone is a goldmine to start with. Things I’d screenshotted thinking “I’ll follow up on that tomorrow” and photos of the outside of galleries that I hadn’t had time to pop into all now have a place to live.

The illustrator who’s number I was given by a friend almost a week ago I can now research and send a proper intro to. It’s not that I hadn’t been gathering research and dreaming about where my career might go.

I’d been doing the hard part, I just had never built a system for myself to capture these things in one place so that I can block out time in my diary to actually follow up and contact those people.

Ultimately, it was WAY easier than I thought and every name I added to my little database felt like a reminder that my career isn't something that just happens to me. I get to decide who I contact first and how many emails I want to send.

I remember being in the early days of my scenic career and emailing every workshop I could find on google with my CV and portfolio. It was something that felt so natural then and I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to do the same thing with my art business.

There is also something really freeing within this layer of visibility, not only have I already built a variety of places for people to find out more about me and my work but I’m not limited to only talking about one thing at a time.

On the same day I could send:

One email to a gallery asking for them to view my art portfolio.

Another email to an interior designer introducing myself as an artist and muralist.

One more email to publisher with my illustration portfolio.

And one final email to a scenic workshop asking if they had any work for me next month.

One afternoon and I could nurture four totally different contacts without confusing anyone. I don’t have to build a whole new illustration account on Instagram from scratch or fight any algorithm for people to be able to follow up with me and my work. That feels more liberating than I can actually describe.

I finally feel like I have agency over my career, that I can do and be multiple things at any one given time without sacrificing my authority as an artist. This way I don’t have to constantly panic about having a niche as long as each of my website pages are talking to the people that I send them to. The ball is firmly back in my court.

I know this isn’t a magic bullet. I could send out a hundred emails and get ghosted by absolutely everyone. It’ll take time for me to populate my database, research and select the people that are actually a right fit for me and then craft an introductory email. This is not something that will transform my business overnight.

But for the first time I feel like I’m creating opportunities instead of waiting for them, and that feels like a massive step in the right direction.