Why can't I just switch from indirect to direct sales a few years down the road?

You can’t just hop between tunnels two or three years in. If you spend years going down the indirect route—relying on galleries, shows, and marketplaces—you’ll have built nothing for a direct business. You won’t have an email list, a following, marketing skills, or a proven system. If you decide later that you need to go direct, you have to go all the way back to the beginning and start from day one, because building a direct business requires time to learn the skills and grow your audience. That’s why the decision to build direct from the start is the most important upfront decision for your business. Choose your fork in the road carefully.

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Asked by general teaching · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2020-06-18