What is the 'two trains, two tracks' concept for building an art business?

Your art business consists of two trains running on separate tracks, both requiring equal attention and having no brakes. The first train is your craft—your artistic talent, what you create, your time in the studio or field, improving your skills, exploring subject matter and materials. The second train is marketing—your ability to promote and sell your work, get better at social media, email marketing, and all forms of outreach. Both trains need constant forward momentum. Sometimes one goes faster, sometimes one feels derailed, but that’s normal. Your job is to keep both moving forward. If you’re working on anything that doesn’t move one of these two trains forward, you’re likely working on the wrong thing and your business isn’t growing. You can focus on one at a time or work on both simultaneously, but both require equal dedication and practice.

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Asked by general teaching point · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2023-07-19