Nicholas Ribera of Chain Assembly attends a two-day symposium on making money in the arts organized by the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. He shares his experiences and takeaways from the event, including classes on wholesale, building a brand identity, and accountability partnerships. He also discusses the importance of creating multiple revenue streams and the value of networking with other artists. Nicholas highlights the insights he gained from various speakers and panelists, as well as his plans for implementing what he learned in his own business.
- https://stpeteartsalliance.org/
- https://www.heatherrippert.com/
- Music by Old Romans: https://www.instagram.com/old_romans
You can listen to the episode here (or wherever you listen to podcasts) or read the transcript below:
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:24.91)
Hello everyone, is Nicholas Rivera of Chain Assembly here. I am coming to you on July 22nd, 741 a as I drive over to the University of St. ... University of South Florida, St. Pete College campus, which is just about 15 minutes from where I live.
I am going to be participating in a two -day symposium put together by the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. This is, I think there's about 40 artists involved maybe, I'll get more details as I get there. But it is a series of classes, two days long worth of classes about making money in the arts. So I signed up for a couple of things, one of
First event I'll be doing this morning is with Pamela Joy Trow, who, a wonderful woman who joined us on our podcast a few episodes back. We talked primarily about wholesale and that's really what her class is going to be all about. So I'm going to be reporting back on some of how that went. Some of the other classes I've signed up for is one about building a brand identity. I'm excited to learn about that. On top of that, I also will be
connecting with what they call an accountability partner. And this is gonna be just when they connect a couple of artists together and you, guess, both have plans and we make sure that we stick to those plans. I haven't really been given all the details yet on how that's gonna work. But, so what I'm excited to see is that my accountability partner is Heather Rippert, who
I connected with a couple years ago and during co -starters, which was this week long course about entrepreneurship and small business starting stuff. And she was definitely a really cool go getter on that thing. So I'm glad to be able to connect with her again in a more strict structured situation. So I'll try and get her to pop in on this recording with me when I do connect with her
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (02:43.982)
So, for now, just wish me luck. Not really sure what to expect, but this is gonna be fun, I'm sure. I'm sure I'll learn some good things. Whenever I do learn, I'm gonna pass along to all of you whenever I have a chance to record. And speaking of which, I am talking to you all on a new recording device. This is called the H1 Essential by Zoom. It is a 32 -bit float recorder, which from what I understand
It automatically... left onto the I -275 North ramp to Tampa. That was my GPS. So this recorder automatically adjusts based on the volume around it so you won't get any peaking and you won't get any audio that's too low for the recording. So we'll see how this thing goes. Alright, thank you very much and I'll check back in with you later. So I'm about to play some audio from the aforementioned...
Accountability Partner. One aspect of this event is we were all assigned different partners that we can meet with at least once per week over the next four weeks to make sure that we are all working towards whatever goals we set. And so when I met with my partner, I put a recording to us and you're about to hear the audio of said recording. I was lucky that the partner I was given is someone who I already knew.
think we bring it up in the meeting, but she and I were both on a, in a program a few years ago called Co -Starters, which is all about helping entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. And so it was fun kind of reconnecting with her over the years. And I definitely want to bring her on for a more in -depth interview at some point in the past. sorry, at some point in the future. So here is my preliminary.
introductory meeting with my accountability partner, Heather Rippert. All right, Heather. So what's your name, place and intention? we're doing? Well, she started with place, so I'll start with place. So I'm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (05:04.206)
I love the culture of that city and the enthusiasm of that city definitely is infused into who I am and how I operate in the world. And I've traveled around and lived in a lot of different places and I've really enjoyed, you know, going from place to place. I've lived, you know, I've been in Florida 14 years and I lived in Edinburgh, Scotland. I did a six months.
there while I was in college, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. I lived in Minneapolis for three years and New Jersey for four years and then other areas in Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr, Art Mawr is where I grew up. So yeah, I like to be in a lot of different places and explore and learn from people and surroundings.
Okay. So that's a place. And my name is Heather Ann Ripper and that's Ann with an E like Ann of Green Gables. And my mom wanted to name me Anastasia but my dad wanted, he was a, his dad was Henry Aloysius Ripper and he was Hank Aloysius Ripper and he wanted me to be an HAR so.
They agreed on Heather as my first name and then we got the Anne, not Anastasia as the middle name and referred, so I've got the H -A -R. And then lastly, intention. So my intention being here in the summit is really just to expand my community, connect with other artists and you know, the retail.
that we were just in with Pamela was great for learning. I wanted to learn about that and I'll be in the collaboration this afternoon and I'm really excited about the collaboration. I want to learn about that like how to do, you know, I just want to expand and grow and make new connections and have new ideas of how I can get my work out there and...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (07:26.83)
In different ways. Okay. So based on that, I want to start on my intention. I signed up for this mostly because I wanted to also network with other artists. I just came off of like two conventions that kind of like gave me good energy. One was like a paganism convention where I was selling stuff. Then another one
a board game convention where I was meeting with lot of publishers and pitching my games and stuff and I love that energy and so when I saw this thing come up I'm like that sounds delightful. I don't necessarily think I'm gonna learn anything new. I didn't think I was gonna learn anything new but then Pamela's thing was incredible and I took so many notes for that.
and she's like a font of information. But the reason why I said I didn't think I'd learn anything new is because I feel like personally I do all my best learning through my own Googling. But I had an art teacher who told me that art is problem solving. you'd say, for example, I have this message I need to get across. What is the best way to do that? And it's lots of trial and error until you get to whatever type of imagery you need to get that message across.
that trial and error I find I explore best on my own. So that's one of the reasons why I didn't sign up for that collaboration thing because I'm not a great collaborator. I'm always just kind of pushing myself to go as fast as possible and everything and I hate when I get stuck behind waiting for someone to finish their part. But anyways, so I guess that would be intention. Grew up in Miami.
I spent two years living in Nashville, probably when I was like 20 to 22 maybe. I can't remember exactly when I moved to Nashville. But I was working at a research company in Miami. Then I got hired into their corporate office in Nashville. And then I moved to St. Petersburg 18, 16 years ago. I've been with the company for 18 years, so. Whatever it was I moved to St. Petersburg, I think it was 15 or 16 years ago.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (09:45.53)
I'm still with the same company, so that's my place. But I love St. Peter. I don't plan on ever leaving. My wife says if we were to ever leave St. Peter, would probably be for another country. So I guess that would be the case. I'd probably leave the city just to go to maybe move to Mexico City or something. And my name is Nicholas Rivera. My sister's name is Alexandra, so our parents named us after the Russian czars. So flight relation to you then as Anastasia.
middle name is Julian. That's because my dad's middle name was Julian and my grandfather's name was Julio. So that's where that comes from. And last name Rivera. My dad always told me it was from the Basque region of Spain where my family originated. And it is just like the local dialect of Rivera. And it means edge of the sea, like the Riviera. And I don't know if I filmed three minutes, but that was me.
Okay, very cool. Ooh, can I add one thing to my name too? Because you just jogged something in my memory about, so the last name Ripper is actually, that must be time. No, go for it, My dad's fathers immigrated from Hungary, his parents immigrated from Hungary in 1904 and their last name was Ropash. And at Ellis Island, they changed the name to Ripper.
So. Any idea what kind of plan you have for? Yes, because I'm going to be specific about I'm doing an open studio and a it's a it's going to be called Heather's Healthy Horizons Celebration and open studio because I am at the tail end of breast cancer treatment and
Got a really good health report after I had surgery. that was... to someone earlier who also has breast cancer right now. writing a book about that is also in my agenda. Okay. Have you written a book before? I haven't. So that's something new that I'm going to be doing going forward. So...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (12:12.802)
Yeah, I'm doing it on August 4th. So I want to use this as the opportunity to be creating that. I want it to be revenue generating. I did an open studio last year in November, and it was great. I made a nice chunk of change. Where's your studio? It's in my house. Where's your house? Clearwater. Clearwater, right on the border of Dunedin.
So yeah, and it's gonna be like either 11 to five or 12 to six or something like that on a Sunday. Are heavy neighborhood? No. So you're just the destination guy? Yeah, so I'm the only destination. There's no other artists in my condo complex. It's a small condo complex. so that sounds
but also rewarding because everyone's gonna be coming with a wallet with your name on it. Yes. Okay, interesting. And then some people will be coming just to celebrate with me, but I also have a lot of small items that are available that are like $35 and, you know, but I have salon -style walls with my artwork all over. don't even have... I did five new paintings for my solo show. I sold one of them.
of the new ones. my wall space is pretty, it's full. So I would love to clear more space on the wall. And I have two paintings that are stacked against the wall because I don't have anywhere to put them. So yeah, so it's like a joint thing to celebrate my great news and also to get my work in front
people I know or new people or combination thereof. And yeah. I've never. So this sounds dumb, but I didn't know that was an option to just host an open studio at your own place as not part of some other ongoing event. So that's inspiring. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's you know, I've been a member of studios at different places through.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (14:21.324)
my life, so, and sometimes I've had independent studios and sometimes I've been in like where there's other artists and in the ones where there have been other artists, like I was in Ybor Art Colony, which I don't think that space exists anymore, but it was art studios for a long time and we would do open studios like quarterly where all the artists, know, so it would be more like a group thing and there's some even things like that in my area where they do.
But anyway, I'm excited. so I want to create that to be really fun and successful. So I just, made a little list, open studio. have to make, I started the flyer in Canva, but I need to finish that. And then like send it out, who I'm going to email it to. And I was thinking to just make it invitation only. And then yesterday I was like, why?
I just post it on Facebook too and Instagram and who knows who I'll reach. Are you gonna shoot like a little video of yourself like? Yeah, I can do that. Yeah, actually I get I get the most watches when I video. Yeah. So yes, good. Thank you. Good point. So I will do that. So this year, so I live in the historic Kenwood Artis Enclave and every year we have a thing called the Studio Tour.
So you're familiar with it? I am, because I've been invited. I've gone to Jen Richardson's place and Yael. I know a few people. But I haven't specifically been to that because I don't know, is it on a Saturday, a Sunday? It's both Saturday and a Sunday. So this year, me, Jen Richardson, and Summer Elaine Hu are the committee members for the 2025 iteration. And we're changing a lot of things.
We changed the name to the Tour of the Arts because you're not really touring people's studios so much because now there's so many artists, we're doing like two or three artists per location. So that way it's also more friendly to the people who are renting in the neighborhood because there's so many condos now and it doesn't seem fair to make it just be like property owners. That feels very racist. So we're making it friendlier for the people who maybe can't have people visit those tours. Anyway, so we're making a Tour of the Arts and one thing I'm doing too as part, as like a promo for
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (16:46.53)
is all the people who sign up who want it. I'm filming like a little five minute documentary of them just talking about their art as I show off art around their studio. And once I get a bank of those videos together, Jan Richardson was the first one I filmed, we're gonna be scheduling those to launch on a weekly basis leading up to the event to hopefully get more people excited to participate in it. And we're gonna be a lot more money into social media ads through like Reddit and Facebook.
So, related to that. At some point I can show you the videos that I've made so far with couple of the artists just to see if you'd want me to do something like that for you. I don't know if it would be helpful, but as you can see I use this. The lapel mics. I actually just got some little lapel mics that I got as well because I did some freelances.
Instagram live stuff for Creative Pinellas last year. they have those sound -reducing mics, and I was like, I have to get me some of those, because they're so cool. Yeah, this has like a little yellow button on it that does the background noise reduction. But I also do post -processing through Adobe Audition anyways. groovy.
way more technology than I do. Well, so I actually applied to the SPAA artist grant this year for more equipment to make my podcast more mobile. Because I'm going to be hosting a panel at the Tampa Bay Coffee and Arts Festival. that's in October. So that kind of made sense. I could request equipment to allow me to do like a PA as well as a live mixing board and a second set of these so I can have four people all linked up to lapel mics.
on the PA that also outputs to the recorder. So that'll be fun. That is groovy. as far as what I'm gonna be working on in the next few weeks, I've got the Christmas tarot deck that I'm working on with my wife. So the next thing I need to put together is I've got like 10 cards done now and I kind of started to develop the brand identity for it so I need to create
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (18:58.662)
a branding sheet, so I'm consistent on the fonts and the colors I'm using for all marketing materials related to that. I'm gonna build that, and with that, I'm gonna start building out the BaccarKid pre -launch page, so I can start collecting leads to go into the Kickstarter project. So that's my immediate thing there. Then I think I'm also gonna be starting...
start putting together some online ads for the plant board game that my wife and I made. Because we're kind of at a stage where we need to start promoting that too for the Kickstarter. So those are the two main projects I'm working on now. That's cool. Both kind of early phases on those, but different stages of the early phases. OK. So that's what I'll be updating you on, I guess. OK. Yeah. we meet. Yep. Yep. And then what can I provide for you for support in accomplishing?
what you need for those... Can proofread whatever stuff I put? Sure, sure. That works. I'd be happy to. It's always good to get another set of eyes. Might catch a letter backwards or a comma missing or something. That's awesome. And as you were talking, you made me realize, too, like, you know, there's a timeline for my open studio, which will be, I think, in, like, two weeks, right? Because it's August
So in addition to that, one of the things I want to be working on is creating other revenue generating opportunities. And one of the things I've had as an idea for a long, long time and just haven't executed is I have G -clay prints available, which are more high end. All right. How are you guys doing? Good. Yeah? Yeah. Any questions about anything?
Okay, okay, just check it. We were both in co -starters together two years ago. I did co -starters back in 2016 I think. Yeah, 15 or 16, something like that. Yeah, cool. So you guys know each other from that? We do. Yeah, and I'm recording this for my podcast. very cool.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (21:08.418)
Wonderful. Yeah. So now you're all you're. Yeah, we are. We're on Thank you, Susan. I want to take I've had some prints for sale at a friend of mine who has a framing shop and interesting. You know, I've sold a few, but but there are my G Clay prints and she wants them at a lower price than I have them on my website because then.
So what I want to do is have smaller prints made at Vista Print. Like Vista Print. yeah. I use them for business cards and stuff. Like that. They're less expensive. They're more like toasters, right? Than high -energy clay prints. So that I can give
And I'll probably do smaller, like a 9x12 or something. I had someone on my podcast recently, at one of the conventions, it was a board game convention, and part of it I was like filming little booth tours of a lot of the artists who were there. And one of them, he did the same thing. He's got two different levels of quality for prints available. And his cheaper ones, I think was like, I want to say like $30 for a 12x18, I think it was. So they were pretty big.
And he got those, and they're still really thick paper, but it wasn't G clay. So, anyways, I could go back to that video, find out, he said where he got them made. And I can probably connect to whoever that was. I'll just have to re -watch it. Yeah, I have a couple different sources. was thinking Vista Print, because I do business cards, and I've had postcards done there, and things like that.
but also another artist friend gave me who she uses, which I can't think of what they're called off the top of my head right now. I have the frame shop. Then there's a little place that I want to approach that's near my day job that I want to approach with prints. And I also have mini prints, which are like five by sevens. I already have those, but I need to order more. And I want to have a specific image that I don't have available made.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (23:13.934)
So last year I bought myself a Canon image pro 1000 which is a giant does up to 17 by 22 G clay printer.
So I've been making all my own prints and it's been quite a freeing experience. That's awesome. Have you thought about buying one? I haven't and I'm not sure where I'd put it. That was hard for me to find where to put it because it's a beast. I paid $1 The ink refill is $800. But... long does the ink last?
I don't have to say, because I bought the refill and like, one of you buy a printer that's got like half as much ink as it normally would. And what's nice is it's 12 different cartridges, so you can only, you only need to replace the ones that empty out. You don't have to replace them all at once. And since I bought it last year, I've probably made 70 prints, I would think, for me and for other people. And I've replaced all but three of the inks.
I think. So my guess is I'm probably at this rate probably looking at it's been half a year and that was half of it. So I really have no idea. right. Right. Yeah. But I'm feeling like if I'm printing a 12 by 18, which is kind of my most common big size, I'd sell those for 50. And I
I'm probably putting like maybe with the cost of paper and everything, maybe six to eight dollars in materials in there. So it's still way cheaper than if I were to get it professionally made. Unless I'm getting them professionally made in bulk. you're them made in bulk, then you're introducing all these other issues you have to deal with. But also as part of the tour of the arts thing, I've also been...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (25:10.486)
offering prints for local people in neighborhood and taking photos of their paintings and stuff to make prints so that they can be more prepared to make sales at that event. well, that's great. So if you need prints, I can try something out for if you're curious. Yeah. Thank you. No, I appreciate that. That's great. Yeah, because I have the framing shop, the little store, and then I have my friends who have a farm.
retreat center where they do plant medicine ceremonies. they used one of my images for the cover of a book that they published about ayahuasca. And my painting is about ayahuasca. I think I remember that painting. It's a tree and it's kind of like a woman in the tree. I remember that one.
I'm thinking of different one. is it yours? You're thinking of one of an actual woman in a tree? Or the tree is a woman? I think an actual woman. So that's probably my self -portrait, shakti. Pink dress? Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, that's more recent. But that could be. mean, essentially, a lot of my artwork now is infused with a lot of ayahuasca because I've
participating in that since 2016. But anyway, I've talked with them about having this one image, but maybe I could have more than one image. mean, maybe I'm not even thinking big enough, you know, because now I'm like, that one could be Ayahuasca too. But I don't have a... Anyway, I go into what I don't have, and I'm trying not to do that.
with my mind, right? Like creating new pathways. Yes, I can find a way. I will find a way. I'm creating new pathways in the brain. I'm always trying to figure out ways to get paid for the same image multiple times. Yes. So whether that be prints. And I guess because I'm a digital artist primarily, that's always my default. I don't have like a piece to sell. Yeah. So everything I do is it doesn't actually exist until it gets printed.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (27:20.67)
Which is a weird kind of feeling because like I put so much time into something but if it doesn't get printed did I actually do it? I know it's a weird thing to say but like it's not that it doesn't exist. It's just that I rediscover my love for it when it is printed. I guess it's probably a better way to put it. And it was, I mean, it's a different thing to be have your, you're in the screen creating it and then you have the tangible.
piece in front of you so I don't know, don't know, I'm assuming. it's also, so in the last couple years I've been diving a lot more into digital photography and that is a constant thing that comes up in my monthly photography meetings is like when is a photo good enough to get printed because it's not really, it doesn't feel like it's true photographic arts until it's printed. printed, right. Then it's just like why did you do it, you know? So that is constantly kind
I'm thinking when I'm editing photos, it's like this is a beautiful photo on my screen But how will it look when it's printed are the blacks too black or the whites too white and? All of those things would translate to that might look great on a screen, but it's not gonna look good on paper So that's something else to think of I don't know why I went into that tangent talking about getting multiple payments for things yeah, so Example is like I was talking with Pamela the tarot deck I'm working on now is a Christmas theme and I think the
the cards I've been coming up with would make wonderful Christmas cards. So I'm gonna sign up for her class on getting into like the card market. Not because I want to start like a whole new ongoing revenue stream, but because I want to have that as an option for the Kickstarter batch. Sure, sure, yeah. On top of that, I also want to make ornaments all with that same imagery and who knows what else, but
If I can create multiple products off of one image, I put the time into it once, but I can keep making more sales on it. I might want to do that too. September 17th, 6 .15 to 9. That program. All right. Well, I think we have eight minutes before our next class. Where are you headed to next? Probably, this is nice. mean, look at the view. You have your back to it, but it's like...
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (29:40.886)
The walk from that building to this building was delightful. was. The weather was wonderful. was a little warm, but it was lovely. mean, this is just such a nice setting. Well, tomorrow I'm going to be bringing pants and a sweater. Me too. That's what I said to my friend earlier that I said, my God, I definitely need to wear something warmer tomorrow. Well, thanks, Heather. We'll be messaging you next week.
and good luck at your next class. Okay, thanks.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (30:16.)
So I am in the car with my lovely wife Leslie who is taking me to the movie theaters like a child and I love it So I just thought this would be good opportunity to kind of debrief about the day tell her about what I learned in day one of my two -day seminar symposium Summit, I think summits the term there. All right so Let's see cool cold, dude, Pamela. So the first thing I went
Well no actually we started off with this like, it was a panel and it was four speakers. So the first one, she represents a charity that helps low income neighborhoods get broadband internet into their homes either by giving them devices or giving them stipends to pay for their internet which I thought was pretty cool. I guess the theme of the panel was art and technology.
So there really wasn't any art side to that, but still interesting. Second person, she, let me see, I her name, was Kristen Hemphill. She's part of the Florida Rama interactive thing over at, it's like a, I don't wanna say tourist attraction, but I guess that's what it is. It's kind of like a museum, but it's like a bunch of lights and stuff. Immersive experience. Immersive experience, yeah. Talking about,
Her presentation was about how you can program Arduinos and Raspberry Pis and stuff to make your art interactive, so that was kind of interesting. Then the third person was Beth Harrison, who is the Digital Experiences Director at the Dali Museum. She was talking about their history of using AI to create experiences at the Dali and wasn't the biggest fan of that.
but she was talking about how like they had this thing where people could describe what their dreams were and then it would generate a painting in the style of Salvador Dali and then mix that with six other peoples so like you'd end up with this big kind of thing and I didn't ask her this but I was wondering like who owns the IP on those things being generated is like the museum making money off of other people's dreams but anyways
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (32:36.022)
Or now does that platform have access to what they've created on? Yeah, that's true. And I guess if you're doing it in the style of another artist, that's pretty shady. But if you're doing it in the style of Dali and you are the Dali Museum, maybe it's okay because his estate's probably not going to sue you. But I don't know. Anyways. And then the last person who came up, she was fascinating to listen to, was Angela Dalton. She's part of
a venture capitalist investment firm that specializes in video games and experiential video games like Minecraft and Roblox. So games where it's about like having social interactions with people and not exactly about like gamifying something or winning something. And so like that's so her job is to like find the new games that will become a trend for young people as like the modern replacement of the mold.
So it was really cool listening to her. I'm going to try and catch her at some point tomorrow and chat with her more. So then we went to the first class thing I signed up for, which was with Pamela Joy Trout, who I had on my podcast many episodes ago. And she threw so much information in there about wholesaling in an hour and a half. She was blasting through slides, tons of information. If anyone wants to sign up for her classes, I highly recommend
But some of the things I learned was you can get income stream from blogging leasing grants and licensing I knew about like grants and licensing. That's a lot of work, but Blogging makes me want to see if maybe I can put some Google ad clicks into my blog make some money off of that She also mentioned when she does wholesale orders She always starts off with a minimum order of $100 to open the relationship for wholesale, but
any reorders have a lower window of $75. So I should look into that. She says the real success happens when your wholesale customers rebuy products from you, not from the initial. And that's definitely a case with FAIR too, since FAIR takes a cut on that first opening order, but not off of the subsequent reorders. As far as online retailers for wholesale pricing, FAIR, which is the one I've used in the past and we talked about on the episode with her, there is another one she mentioned called
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (34:57.902)
Creo 8, Handshake, IndyMe, Stockable. Those are all different wholesale based online retailers. I want to check out Handshake because there's no fees and you have to have a Shopify store, which I already have, so guess it integrates automatically with all that. We talked about scaling, finding ways that you can reduce costs in order to find profit in different areas.
funnel down what you're working on to make your business even more niche than you think it needs to be. When someone buys something from you in person, ask them why they're buying it so that you can try and lean into that niche. She shared work of a Clearwater artist, so I feel like we've probably seen her stuff online, I don't know if she was in Clearwater, who has a whole brand about retro Christmas cards. And she sells also retro Christmas villages, which I feel like we looked at online.
and they looked adorable. say we as in my wife and I who's quietly driving. She only like put a really quick glance on the screen of her pricing for greeting cards, but it looks like she's paying about 68 cents per card and retails in between two and $6. So with the Christmas tarot deck that Leslie and I are working on, we do want to do some greeting cards.
So she has a class specifically about marketing greeting cards. So I'm probably going to sign up for that to get more details on the pricing and whether or not we want to manufacture them ourselves or offload it or what. She also talked about the two categories of product images, lifestyle versus isolated. If you're trying to market towards retailers, they want isolated. You don't need lifestyle. Lifestyle images are good just for if you're selling directly to the consumer.
So let me see, was that all my notes for Pamela? Yes. no, there's a whole nother page. Create wholesale terms on websites. So yeah, I should have a page on my website that details how I receive payment, how I deal with returns for wholesales, back orders, minimum shipping, packaging, all of that so it's in writing and people can take a look at it before they reach out. She also creates a catalog.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (37:11.522)
via InDesign and then publishes it through publish online option in the menu thing for InDesign. So that if anyone is curious about wholesale, she could just send them that virtual PDF that's hosted online. So I definitely want to look into that. She also uses Instagram to find stores similar to hers or brands similar to hers and then follows them as well as follows all of their followers and then sees who the followers are following.
She also uses Yelp to find stores in different cities like gift shops in Austin, Texas. And then based on the Yelp reviews, she can easily see images, because Yelp will show those in the title of it. If any of them seem like it would make sense for her product, then she would reach out to those people. She also showed us examples of emails she sends to those stores, and she always sends at least three, and then continues to email them like every other month, because it might be a year before they finally reply and
She also has used chat GPT to find stores for her in different areas that are similar to her product line Where they might be interested in carrying her product line And let's see Okay, and that was it for the conversation with Pamela. It was amazing. There's a lot of good stuff in there Then we had our lunch break where I met with my accountability partner Who I actually recorded our conversation
You'll hear that. were randomly put together, but I already knew Heather from the co -starters class we did a few years ago. All right, and then after that, I did my second seminar, which was about creating your brand and value. The two speakers were Matthew McGee, the owner of the Freefall Theater Company. He was pretty cool. And then the other person was Cecilia Louisa, who's a painter and sculptor. And we...
talked about a few things. It was mostly just kind of like an open conversation. They didn't really provide all that much information. They're just kind of reacting to our questions. But one thing that definitely really stuck out with, stuck with me from that conversation was Matthew McGee has gotten way more success running Facebook ads promoting Freefall Theater as a brand rather than running ads promoting individual shows or plays they're putting on.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (39:39.156)
And so that's what we were talking about. It's like I only ever run ads when I have a specific project on Kickstarter. I don't ever run ads for just Chain Assembly the store, which maybe I should because if I'm promoting myself as an entity, that means I'm potentially I'm buying I'm buying buying the attention of someone who may make multiple purchases down the road. And they'll start to recognize your brand more often since it's your brand that you're putting out, not something specific.
Yes, absolutely. And that was also something we talked about too. It's like, the case of chain assembly, yeah, you could just, I guess I could drop out here. Well, it was wonderful. Thank you so much, Leslie, for recording this with me. Until next time. Bye.
So that brings me to the end of the event. I didn't record any audio on the second day of it, but we had a pretty interesting presentation with a few panelists related to being an advocate in the arts. So there wasn't anything that actually helps with your small business side, but it was still great seeing organizations out there that are doing really helpful things to the community.
a lot of them involved in the arts. Another part of that was, I believe there were eight organizations that all did short pitches on requesting a $5 ,000 reward from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. And all of us who attended this summit, we were able to vote on who got the money. So that was pretty fun. I put my vote towards the Museum of Motherhood, because I wanted to keep the money in the neighborhood.
I'm a big fan of Martha Joy Rose, who's a neighbor of mine and has created the Museum of Motherhood. The money did end up going to Studios at 620, which is still a wonderful organization that helps basically foster playwrights and live stage productions. But everyone else who did participate in the pitch still got a free $1 ,000 gift from the arts organization.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (41:50.104)
Would I do this event next year if they have it? If there are new classes and things that are more actionable, new workshops, then absolutely I would do it. I am also really happy with all the connections I made. There's a jeweler that I'm going to be reaching out to to get a piece made for my mother. I'm going to be taking another class with Joy, who again I talked about being one of the highlights of the event.
And I'm going to be reaching out to the educational coordinator for the St. Pete Arts Alliance to see if I can host some workshops about crowdfunding and fundraising through Kickstarter. One last thing I want to leave with you all is this marks the 50th episode of the podcast. On the podcast side, we've had just over thousand downloads. On the YouTube side, it has been ridiculous the amount of listens I've had there. So that's pretty impressive.
I just don't know if there's any easy way to interact with my YouTube listeners. So it is good to see that it's still kind of the early days of this podcast and I'm really looking forward to the future and the people that I'm going to have on it and the education that I am presenting to all my listeners. And I wouldn't be able to do without your continued follows on Spotify as well as your continued downloads.
And just every now and then I get a message from someone who says, hey, great episode. And that means the world to me. The easiest way you could support me, I'm not asking for money, but if you could review this five stars on whatever app it is you use to listen to podcasts, that'll help other people find the podcast. And if you do want to share this online with anyone, please let people know that you have been listening to Art for Profit's sake and it has been a help to
Don't give me bad reviews, that does not help me. But I also would like to hear from you. So anyone who has any questions or if you want to be on the show or have some helpful information you think you can share with the listeners, please reach out to me. I am nick at chainassembly .com. That's n -i -k at chainassembly .com. Or I believe there's also a comment box on each episode on Spotify. So feel free to comment on these episodes and I will respond to you
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (44:18.318)
So again, thank you so much for continuing to follow me along this journey, and here's to the next 50 episodes.
Outro
Chain Assembly: Art for profit sake is recorded through Riverside FM, distributed through Spotify for podcasters, and edited on Adobe Audition. The music is provided by Old Romans. If you learned anything useful or found this podcast helpful, please rate and review us five stars. If you want to learn more about me or my art, head over to ChainAssembly.com.
