For creative iconoclasts who want to pay their bills AND do the work they love, get insights, ideas, and next steps from a graphic novelist, author, & business coach. Find out how to build a balanced and productive creative life, and to thrive financially with simple, sustainable business foundations—without creative compromise.
The step-by-step plan to find high-value clients
I’ve been talking a lot over the past year about one of the biggest contributors to the painful income gap most creatives experience: relying on selling low-cost products via a LOT of marketing, especially social media.
There isn't anything inherently wrong with that approach, if you love producing content for Instagram and marketing 24/7.
But if you don’t? The best way out of that crunch is to design a high-ticket offer that you can sell to just a few clients.
The number one thing I hear when I say this?
“Who the hell would pay me that kind of money?
Where are they? How do I find them?”
These questions were vivid for portrait painter Sarah Marie Lacyas she pivoted her career from running a painting school to making a living as a portrait painter.
At that time, she was asking $3000, and struggled to believe that anyone would pay more for her work, despite her fifteen years of experience as a professional artist (and her stunning work!)
She needed to get clear on her pricing, and she needed get her work in front of a brand new audience that wouldn't blink an eye at spending 5-figures on a portrait commission.
That was in 2021. Just a few months after committing to a relationship-marketing plan, Sarah started seeing major changes in her business.
Now, Sarah has a six-month waiting list and her prices start at $10,000. She’s joined Ottawa’s most exclusive club, where she’s regularly rubbing elbows with female CEOs (her ideal audience) and even governors and ambassadors.
Even better, her outlook on the value of her work has completely changed:
On this episode, Sarah takes me step-by-step through the networking plan that increased her portrait income by 250% in one year, and she reveals what actually happens when you raise your prices and stop undervaluing your work.
Ready to hear more?
Listen to the full episode, and check out the transcript here.
Autonomous Creative
With Jessica Abel
For creative iconoclasts who want to pay their bills AND do the work they love, get insights, ideas, and next steps from a graphic novelist, author, & business coach. Find out how to build a balanced and productive creative life, and to thrive financially with simple, sustainable business foundations—without creative compromise.
So, as of writing this email, my time tracking tells me that since January 12 I’ve spent 143 hours and 10 minutes on revising the Creative Focus Workshop. That feels like an undercount, TBH. I’ve also shut down several sources of revenue for Autonomous Creative, most notably, an entire program, Authentic Visibility. The numbers are not looking good. And just in the last 3 weeks, I’ve spent close to $5000, said goodbye to my longest serving team member (good luck, Lou! 😢), hired a whole new...
Got 5 minutes to play around with me? I’ve put together a tiny treasure hunt for you full of old, slightly embarrassing photos, art, and ephemera from my cartoonist past for you to discover. For example: Want to see me drunk in a bar in Tijuana with semi-famous cartoonists in 1999? Oh yes you do. These photos have never before been on the internets! No joke: I had to literally scan small rectangles of paper to make this for you. my weapon of choice in the 1990s Also: unpublished work! Comic...
Once, when I told her to empty the dishwasher, my daughter’s face clouded into a scowl. But it wasn’t simply that she didn’t want to empty the dishwasher. No, she told me that she had been just about to get up and empty the dishwasher on her own. As soon as I told her to do it, I stole the virtue of doing it solo, and I robbed her of her agency. And now, she wanted to sit down and NEVER empty the dishwasher. Sound familiar? Yeah, me too. But wait, there’s more: The other day, a friend said,...