What are the three main reasons artists don't succeed, and how do you fix them?

There are three critical mistakes artists make. First, they don’t have a website that looks like an art gallery — it needs to be clean and minimalist with the art as the focus. Second, they treat social media and marketing like an art machine gun instead of having genuine conversations and showing who they are as people. Third, they don’t market consistently all year — they keep closing the gallery doors instead of staying open. If you fix those three things, things start moving in the right direction. You need to mimic what works in the real world: have a gallery-like website, treat social media like a conversation you’d have at a gallery opening, and keep your marketing doors open consistently. These are fundamental principles that nobody teaches in art school or photography school.

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Asked by artists trying to understand why they’re not succeeding · Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-05-29