before we get started today I wanted to talk to you about two things the first
one is before I started this podcast it was a blog now back in May 2017 I
started my comic blog that you see every day that I post on the site just
recently the first four months have been released as a paperback book you can
read about it from day one May first the day that we found out that my wife was
diagnosed with breast cancer the book is a collection of those daily posts from
May through August of 2017 so if you're interested go to americanbandito.com/book
that's americanbandito.com/book it's also available
on Amazon and in the comiXology app and also I wanted to tell you about sticker
mule now sticker mule is a place where you can upload your artwork and get
stickers and buttons and more printed with your logo on it it's where I get my
American Bandito stickers made but right now if you go to americanbandito.com/stickermule
click on the link sign up for sticker mule and you get $10
towards your first order so go to americanbandito.com/stickermule
and get $10 towards the stickers of your own logo or whatever you have shipping
is also free americanbandito.com/stickermule now here's the show. I'm Tom
Ray and this is American Bandito. One of the things you have to do as an artist
is something I hate but it's pretty important writing your bio telling
people what you do and how you do it it's just so hard to define it's just
who you really are me I'm the kind of guy that writes it
puts it out there and then see if it works or else I'll hesitate and never
show anyone I'll just keep on second-guessing it this podcast for
instance when I reached out to people I rewrote my concept almost every time I
spoke with someone I eventually came up with what I was doing as I did it a
Minimum Viable Product or what I like to call the day after test like do I still
like it the next day or did people seem to respond to it
so what do you do when you have something you want people to come check
out like these local shops do and how do you promote something like that and on
top of that where do you find the people to tell them about it that leads to my
question this week how do you tell your story and promote it when people ask
what you do you need to tell them something how do you explain to them
that it's more than just what they think it is off the top of their head
Demetrius says that the Yellow Rose gallery is more than just a gallery and
Micah says even the gallery part of it is a little untraditional we only don't
just concentrate on artworks we had a guest speaker which his name is Robert
Brewhouse and he's a motivational speaker
depending on the type of events that we're doing we want to tailor it to that
events plus we also do sport spoken word artists they don't sup but then we also
have our DJs and music so again we're really trying to give an art gallery a
different feel than any other art gallery in Madison Wisconsin or in the
United States in essence we want to stand out so we are always open-minded
to different types of ideas that again that is going to help people understand
the importance of art and culture we don't post like unnecessary restrictions
on people's artwork doesn't have to be framed it doesn't have to follow all
those restrictions like other art galleries some of the artists that I've
talked to have actually mentioned how the worst part of what they have to do
is finding frames for things one guy who just said I'm not handy and I was like I
hear you man training is expensive yeah a lot of artists could spend their money
and more important things so when people say they would like to do
something here to submit things it's really just the membership for the
community present their stuff and then you're like great bring it on over
mm-hmm do you know what the fee is right now uh right now we are charging $20 a
month you are considered to be a member of the yellow bows gallery I mean you
don't have to be an artist to be a part of the Yellow Rose gallery you can still
be a member of the Yellow Rose gallery and help us out you know and still pay
$5.00 on this to be a member is the membership mainly entitle or like the
old saying does membership have benefits membership has benefits yeah the
membership votes people onto the board of directors oh how many people are on
the board that's a good question I think eight MIA
from stone fence thinks that being a store specifically for artists helps get
the word around I fortunately haven't had to get the word out there too much I
think they like that we are more artist based you know I really want them to
succeed with their with their artwork here and I think that they like that
it's more of a give-and-take rather than hang your stuff on the wall and I'm
gonna take 75% of it if it's else so I think that they do like it's a good
relationship and because I used to do art and I know what it's like to be on
the other end I'd like that you also add the experience of you know
how much it might go for then you would suggest that two just because they're
putting their stuff out there and this is what it's worth and you know like why
no people who buy it for Madison is not Chicago or New York you know people get
friends whispering in their ears like you could sell that for thousands of
dollars not here no you hate to tell somebody that but you also want it to
sell for them here's a question who came up with the logo my neighbor really and
my best friend sandy it was just something she said how about this or you
ads I came to her and I said sandy I need a logo and so we gonna she came up
with some ideas and we brainstormed and landed on this which in hindsight is
funny I don't know if you've ever seen that Portlandia I've seen some of it but
now they'll put a bird on it so had to hear that a lot but I kind of loved it
so Laura says that the story of anthology is about its sisters and what
Madison teaches people as a community I guess we always kind of start with the
story of the two sisters and you know we're essentially lifelong Addison
residents we moved here when I was a baby it's just it's like really
intertwined with the city you know our family wasn't like rolling in money when
we grew up and so there was a lot of the art that we received was from the
community you know it was from UW extension classes it was from the
Madison School in community rec it was from the bookmobile
you know the art hard all of those things those were the underpinnings of
our creativity and so for us it's about being in this community and representing
it to the people who are coming and visiting and then also giving back
working in this community and giving back so you grew up in Madison what side
of town West Side west side I think that being downtown has had like a modest
moderating effect being on either side I know I have people from any side of town
like yeah I never get downtown and it's like equally inaccessible to everyone
but it's equal I like that it's kind of a meeting place
so when we first started out we had a blog and so I was writing quite a lot on
that the store really lends itself to the visual component book of Instagram
and of Facebook so that's been you know most successful for us but that's one of
the benefits of being location and so like you're not having to work as hard
to say to people come on over here come down you know like they're already here
I do some ads occasionally yeah we have like a really small advertising budget
but we do have Sarah says 1/1000 is trying to make people think differently
about what they want to do make things a bit more personal instead of the same
old thing being from a marketing background that I see a lot of people
just try to straight out a lot of people just don't know how to promote their
business and I think the trends that we're seeing now is that people get
bombarded with marketing so much and just constant over stimulation from
imagery and marketing and promotion and brands and everything every day that
people are really seeking true reconnection and they're really seeking
to support brands that feel aligned with their values so it's important to me
that we really have Ally on why we're doing this and then I I can be grounded
by that on a regular basis so like when I'm just sitting there typing and I
figure out how I'm going to post an Instagram and I get burnt out you can
really sense it I often and I coached a lot of our members this way too like
when we do some of our branding workshops it's like you got to know why
you're doing this because there's 50 million different people doing the same
exact thing and there is a reason why you're doing this there's a reason why
you chose it it's not just to make jewelry it's not just to make a knife
there's something about that process that speaks to you there's something
about this that matters to you and should matter to the world and so that's
really how I try to tell the story of 1/1000 is that we're not just trying to
put more crap out into the world we're actually trying to get people to consume
different we're trying to get people to be
conscious about what they fill their houses with we're trying to get people
to be conscious about what they're doing with their careers like if you want to
do something different if you want to make something with your own hands and
try to sustain your family off of that that's something you can try to do and
we're also trying to which is I think one of the biggest challenges is to
create this local economy that also supports that as much as they support
the local food system I think this whole handcrafted movement is very aligned
with that and we're trying to get people to understand that like filling your
house with things that are made with stories is a really special thing and it
it creates a place that makes you feel more connected versus disconnected and
it's so much more fun to like bring people in your house and be like the
mike where did you get that like I found those coolest thing from this person or
oh I made that you know like getting people to be more connected versus just
mindlessly consuming that's a tough one for me because I collect toys do some
media outreach to some success and influence our outreaches another key
thing I am starting to shift my efforts a lot more into email marketing versus
social media because you know social media is often the thing that most of us
use for marketing these days but it's not the best asset that you have because
you don't own it you don't even actually have anyone's contact information and
you're at you're beholden to however the algorithms change or are but the
platform changes so it's a good reminder for me who's like a marketer I'm like oh
my gosh what did I use to do when I didn't primarily market through social
media Mike oh yeah I sent postcards like we do events for marketing - those can
be time intensive but I think it's a good time to go back to some of the
traditional stuff
Leigha and Rebecca from booth 121 say staying true to their roots as people
who used to be on the other side of consignment is how they connect with
local creators I think the fact that I have been in their shoes I have had my
things and consignment shops before I had the storefront we want to keep the
consignment rate at a reasonable rate which is and I can tell you this we do
65 percent of the vendor sales they get that we keep 35 which is very very fair
and the only reason we came to that agreement is because I knew that it
wasn't fair to take 50% of an artist hard work the other thing to keep in
mind is when the artist is getting last by putting it into a store they feel
like they have to and they do have to charge more to get that value out of it
well you get to that point where if you're charging too much no one's gonna
buy it so it makes more sense for us to do the 6535 split and have a better
response to the items that are here and we listen to our vendors - and we try to
keep everything really fair not bring in vendors that are doing the same item or
jewelry there's tons of jewelry makers out there you know we put a stop on
taking on any more of them a long time ago because we we knew if we
oversaturated no one's would sell so we try to keep all of that in mind they
know we're real we're not gonna bullshit them and we have a really awesome
network of artists and vendors who know each other like now we have a bunch that
are really good friends mm-hmm so like no you have to send this person over
there get you know check her out so we have a lot of vendors that are
sending other artists our way not as much anymore we think we got a lot of
them we kind of went fishing but so we're also dealing with like this group
of friends that have known each other and work together and it would also
connected a lot of people with yes great yeah that we support a lot of the local
craft shows by sponsoring their events
you space is really we use I still haven't learned about like Instagram and
snapchat and all that there's something with my aging mind that can't can't
learn it but we will eventually it shortly after we started Facebook's you
had to pay to have more people see your post so that kind of hit us hard and we
had to start sticking money into advertising but we did that last holiday
season which really spread the word when we when we opened two years ago but the
Facebook page had three thousand followers which I thought was like
awesome now we're up to over 11,000 so the word is definitely getting out and I
think the uniqueness of our items the word about this really helped Tammy from
hatch arthouse just listens to what people tell her they want to see and
what they need a hatch arthouse is it's a local business that caters to the
neighborhood as well as the emerging artists and we have an emphasis on
reusing and upcycling materials but that's not you don't solely have to have
your work but you'll see that a lot of the work is on reused items like I can't
net door or something yeah hazel general store is local on a larger scale with
all USA vendors and small-batch artisans and we have an emphasis on vendors that
give back as well and know that I think of it how did you come up with the name
hazel we know the story behind hatch well I wanted it to be a general store
so we knew that part and then I just really wanted a name that sounded well
with you know with hatch I mean they're gonna be like sister stores so okay I
just I love the name is not a family name but it is I just thought it went
well is kind of an old-school name that's making
it come back so it also sounded a lot like a modern-day general store where
general stores used to go to a general store to buy burlap and horse feed where
now you can go to the general store to buy a baby shower gift and greeting card
so yeah I just thought it was kind of one of those names that went well with
hatch and that they would look and sound great together I feel like out of that
explanation you should at least have one bag of horse feed here somebody in the
neighborhood has a horse let me know I'll see what I can do all right well
that find us through Instagram or Facebook and I do have an online store
for hazel but it would be really difficult to have an online store for a
hash since it's mostly original work so I'd say a lot of word-of-mouth and we've
been lucky enough to have some good press and whenever something like that
happens it's just a godsend it's just awesome because it it'll reach another
group of people that may not have known we were here all right are you using an
online cart system we use Shopify you are using Shopify okay I like that one
those are good Anastasia owes all of her popularity for confection eek to people
who just simply talk about what she does on Facebook and by trying to stay in
contact with those people once they go to her shop we are completely Facebook
driven all right social media driven and it's pretty much always been that way
and relative mouth yeah yeah we do collect emails for people who don't like
social media and so we'll do we try not to bug people on email and so we send
out the sneak-peek information and then we alert people when if we're doing
anything special here through email but otherwise we hand out a market card and
it lists all the dates that were open for the year so people know ahead of
time we give those out at the beginning at the end of every year for the next
and then it's it's word-of-mouth and mainly Facebook and its customers
that love it here so they gather a bunch of their friends and bring them it's
remarkable what the customers have done to help us keep going I think you were
telling me that somehow my event showed up on your page know what so what it was
is on our Facebook page there's a way that you can do audience insights and it
will say the people that liked your page also like this and yours was one of them
that's one that showed up as one of the markets in town that people liked that's
how I'm finding these places I'm talking to him like I want to talk to places
that the people are interested in so that was one of the reasons why I wanted
to talk to you and also because I was just like what's this place this is
awesome what is this place we'll get calls on the phone and say I'm just on
Airport Road and I want to make sure you're inside the airplane Tammy says
that she also owes the popularity of Bohemian bobble to word of mouth her own
I think I talk a lot well that's perfect for this yeah I think when somebody
comes into my booth I'm pretty good at chatting them up and not in a aggressive
way but I like to talk about my work and I like I just like connecting with
people so I think that has given me a huge edge jewelry is the jewelry world
is pretty competitive especially at the level that I'm at which is like I'm not
a metalsmith or silversmith I'm not in all the fine art shows I'm just doing
the street festivals and the pop-ups and whatever and there's a lot of us out
there doing making jewelry so I think one of the things that's made me
successful is that my customers keep coming back and I think part of it is
because I strike up a relationship with them and I'm always doing something new
like every time you come see me there'll be something new a new type of design or
a new item last time I don't like to pay to
advertise no I don't know if it works and I don't want to spend the money to
find out I mean I will boost posts on Facebook so I'll spend money to do that
I'll spend money to get Flyers printed and things like that but I don't
typically take out ads in papers or anything like that a lot so much of it
is word of mouth mm-hmm and I've been working that way for 20 years
Kyle calls pieces on Imagine to a furniture store first and then
elaborates what type of furniture store to expect when people just ask you what
I do I'd like I sell industrial modern
furniture and personal effects in accents things with an edge you know so
we're not like an antique store we have something to show you know we're not a
craft store but we have some crafts you know but it's all distinctive leaning
into the edgy steampunk neighborhood harsher maybe more masculine yeah you
know so like there's a business called cozy home in town they're over at Monona
Drive I'm like familiar and she's a consignment shop we know we send each
other customers because she's the soft side I'm the hard side okay all right so
when people have things they were a little too harsh for her she sends them
over here and vice versa if they have stuff that's too soft
we send them there I like that kind of I hate to use the word synergy because it
sounds so yes corporate like but that's what works what that doesn't mean she
won't keep some hard stuff over there and we do need soft stuff over here
desperately sometimes yeah you know but it has to fit it can't be grandma's
curio cabinet you know or anything like that when I
tell people about this place and I was wondering if you were gonna stay
steampunk or not cuz I didn't know if that would be the right thing to call it
I know that's a very specific style my answer is usually just oh it's this
really cool place well that's not descriptive enough no it's really a lot
of people use that term we lost our steampunk edge it was
supposed to be a lot more steampunk but furniture and furniture building became
so much of a consumption for me the steampunk takes effort yeah and you have
to find really really good artists and that's not cheap either and so you'll
see vestiges of some true steampunk over there but not let alone it being that
specific locally it's probably got to be hard to source as well I would imagine
right yeah
we didn't do anything at first we I did a soft opening I supposed to open you
know sometime in August or September you know two years ago and I got in here
July 10th and I just flipped the open sign and ever since then it's just been
insane I was supposed to not hire anybody for a year and I had to hire
somebody in two months and then in four months another person and now we're up
to like three employees and so that was going on for the first year and a half
and now we're finally doing a lot of paper advertising we did a advertising
blitz in the past three months and so we did it all the mailers that go
to everybody's house you know and anybody who moves in nude gets a card
cap times these magazines yeah that's tough so we did a lot of that and then
we're gonna cease that and then see what happens see if it did anything so we're
just gonna say no to virtually all paper advertising and then we're gonna shift
all our energy over into social media and then see what that's gonna do is so
we're in the middle of discovering what that means but word of mouth is really
the main thing yeah I like that strategy though yeah right still it's like
throwing down there and see what sticks
John likes the word of mouth created from the musical acts that he has
perform at mother fools coffeehouse the normal Facebook account we use Twitter
every day to put out our soup of the day one thing that I realized when we first
opened is that by booking diverse music in here
lots of people's friends learn about it you know yapple in the band you know so
that was something that when we first started we did a lot of the last couple
of years I haven't been doing shows us regularly and that's largely a function
of two things in 2008 when everything crashed what we
saw here is way less touring musicians at this level and I think it just was no
longer economically viable you know so we've kind of had a reduction in supply
and then the last couple years it's been way harder to stand up consistently than
it used to be you know so we're finally I think getting over that hurdle so I'm
gonna start scheduling more shows here and I know that that will help get the
word of mouth out you know cuz then wrt they're saying your name every couple
hours you know when they do the show round out its listen the awesomest you
know it's like I think that's a real key I think it's also good when artists have
receptions here we offer all the artists a chance at reception or about half of
them do when they do that it's great you know all sudden we're introducing
ourselves to a whole bunch of new people when their friends come yeah yes always
look at those sort of events as a real opportunity to just show people a good
time and hopefully they come back once a week or make it part of their routine or
a place that they bring out a ton of friends or I want one person out of
every show one audience member you just become a regular you know and then it
takes care of its own
when I started this show I was just using Facebook because I knew how to
advertise already and it was easy for me but I'm trying to branch out trying to
get out of my own comfort zone of protection that I've created from behind
my laptop I'm getting out meeting people one of the comic blog posts I do
recently was about how I was thinking about participating in a pop-up and
Tammy from Bohemia and bauble actually reached out to me when she saw it and
said that she'd help hook me up so we'll see where that goes
I'm thinking of hand making books out of my comic blog for that if you want to
know more about the things that I'm doing outside of this show and to keep
in touch you should sign up for my email list over at American Bandido dot-com
slash subscribe which is also where you can subscribe to the show while you're
there the music for the show is Bairam come and you can hear more of that at
American bandy TOCOM slash music next week I'll be asking another question
from this group of Madison creatives so until then so long
you
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