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Seeds For Thought
Establishing Your Own Network
As you read the stories in this course, and look for common threads, you will find that the success of the characters is often attributable in part to their association with mentors.Mentors are people experienced in life and business and who are willing to keep you pointed in the right direction with pragmatic advice based on their experiences. There are two types of mentors that you should cultivate: personal and business. Personal mentors can be: your friends, colleagues, relatives, clergy persons, coaches, neighbors, social workers or even parole officers. These are people who genuinely and unselfishly want to see you succeed. They may like you in particular or they may simply be good people who would help anyone. Either way, these mentors are people to whom you can turn with personal problems and moral dilemmas. "How can I diplomatically fire my worthless brother-in-law?" "How should I handle an employee-in-crisis who may be dipping into the till?" "How can I explain to my spouse that I have to work every weekend?" Your personal mentors may not know a thing about your business but they can lend a sympathetic ear and offer common sense alternatives to life's personal problems. On the other hand, business mentors are people associated with your field of endeavor who genuinely and unselfishly want to see you succeed. They may be retirees, suppliers, business brokers, manufacturer's reps, customers, association executives, attorneys, accountants, real estate agents, or current non-competing business owners. They can offer you specific advice on specific business-related issues and advice on solving specific related problems. The value of working with mentors cannot be exaggerated. The mentors you find and cultivate will often prove to be your most valued resources. It doesn't matter whether you are buying, selling, starting or managing a small business or franchise. A mentor's experienced assistance can literally make the difference between success and failure. While business consultants may charge several hundred dollars per day or even per hour for their very general advice, your mentors will generally volunteer very specific advice.
You would think that having a few mentors on your side would be a no-brainer. Then how come mentoring isn't more common? It could be ego, or laziness or stupidity. Here are three small business owners who probably won't succeed. 1. Arnold is arrogant.2. Ed is lazy.3. Ashley isn't too bright.Don't be arrogant.Don't be lazy.Don't be stupid.How do you find mentors? The U.S. government through the Small Business Administration (S.B.A.) has a program called SCORE (Society of Retired Executives). These are dedicated volunteers who want to help you. You can hire consultants for hundreds of dollars a day or you can call SCORE for free. You don't want to be arrogant, lazy or stupid; make the call and find out if they have a good match for you. SCORE is a great program but you should also be looking for mentors on your own. How? You start asking. Remember that the average person knows about 250 other people on a first name basis. And, one contact that you make will lead to another contact, which will lead to a third contact, and the process continues. This is called networking. You know the guy who knows the guy who knows the guy. You start to fill up your contact management software program with the names of people who can help your business to succeed. You may be working in sole proprietorship but, with mentors, you really aren't alone, you have your mentors as your staff of experts. If you are having trouble finding mentors, you might want to re-evaluate your business plan. If you can't find anyone who knows anything about skunk farming, there may be a reason for that. If you can't find anyone who thinks that selling pantyhose with the shoes attached is a good idea, there may be a reason for that also. The more mainstream your business concept, the more likely you will be to find mentors and eventual success. And, there are many reasons for that. To be successful in business, you can't live your life stuck on transmit. Life is a two way street. In working with mentors you should be constantly mindful of their needs. The goals of your mentors may be purely altruistic. That is, that they give to you unselfishly and seek nothing in return. However, more realistically, it may be possible for you to give something significant back to them. The Lopez Goff GallerySome art galleries are run as "at-home" operations with the art displayed on the walls of the home serving as the gallery walls. To separate home and business hours, work at home gallery owners usually add the legend, "By Appointment Only," to their advertisements and business cards. In other words, the at-home galleries are not open to the public except by appointment. Through her six-month part-time planning process, Ana will use this at-home strategy. The local jiffy printing shop offers a "business starter" package of 500 printed business cards, 100 letterhead stationery and envelopes for $179.00. Since image is very important to her type of business, Ana opts to upgrade from the basic business starter package to a high-grade paper and card stock and raised print engraving.
In three days, with the stationery and the Dali print back from Sandy Bernstein, the Ana Lopez Gallery, "By Appointment Only," is ready to start business. She has a business shell from which to operate. However, before she can leave the security of her museum job, she needs inventory, art to sell, and a gallery, a real place from which to merchandise the art. Also, she needs a focus. Who will be her clients? What will they want to buy? What price range will they be able to afford? What can the gallery do to attract these clients? Ana decides her target should be the middle market, comprising the largest number of serious art buyers. The middle market buyers would include: yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) who view art as "in" and want to be "in" with the "in" crowd; art students and other artists willing to sacrifice to own quality art; beginning collectors in their thirties and forties who have met success and for whom art is an investment to diversify from other investments; corporate customers, office building and restaurant owners who want quality art to enhance environments but don't want to spend the world for the privilege, and interior decorators who design and buy for the wealthy, and who often expect commissions on both ends. The middle market is there and the niche is there. The focus for Ana will be to present a prestige image with affordable prices. There is a gap to be filled. At one end, are the prestige galleries selling the paintings of the old masters and the paintings of the contemporary "name" artists. And, at the other end, are the poster stores and museum shops selling uninspiring and unoriginal reproductions. The price range for the middle market Ana judges to be between $200 and $10,000, with the bulk of the sales inventory to be priced from $400 to $2,000. That's affordable original art. Within these price guidelines, Ana will be able to sell limited edition graphics done by contemporary "name" artists; paintings done by "soon to be name" artists and almost all of the work of almost every living sculptor, craftsperson, and photographer. After office hours, using her office computer as a word processor and Internet research tool, Ana sets herself a goal of sending twenty customized form letters a night. She writes to art wholesaling companies; large galleries representing "name" artists; artists' agents, ateliers and, in some cases, directly to artists. The focus question of the letter is simple, "How can the Ana Lopez Gallery represent your artist(s), at what price and under what terms?" Within two weeks, Ana's home mailbox is stuffed with the daily offerings. Here are the prices. Here as a dealer is what you pay. Here, as a dealer, is the suggested retail price, the client's price. Here are the volume discounts. Here are the terms. And, Sandy Bernstein was right. Very often the suggested retail price was 50%, 100% or 500% above the dealer's price. Ana's eyes opened to possibilities as she read. Buying wholesale art by mail wasn't that different from ordering from any mail order catalog: "Please fill in the form below and, specifying the edition, tell us how many original signed prints by Dali, Warhol, Nevelson, Hockney, Stella, Rauchenberg, Lichtenstein, Miró, you want. Call for availability and prices on Picasso, Chagall, Johns, Calder, O'Keeffe. If we don't have it, let us help you find it." 
Picasso at 50% off! But, of course, to dealers only, dealers like Ana with letterhead stationery. Art, it appeared, was much more a free trade commodity, than Ana had ever dreamed it to be.And the terms ... Send 20% payment with your order with the balance to be within 90 days of receipt. A 10% handling and restocking charge will be levied against all returned orders. All adjustments handled promptly. Ana reasoned, for example, that she could order a dealer's priced $1,500 Calder limited edition graphic that would retail for $4,000 and if the print didn't sell in three months, she could return it and owe only $150. In effect, she could rent the art she wanted to sell. The risk factor, or rental fee, was just 10%. Now, this was business. Ana speculated that if she sold just one Calder print a month, she'd almost match her museum salary, less expenses, of course. This was exciting. Ana called Sandy Bernstein and asked for a day-off luncheon meeting. Sandy was as ever, well, Sandy, "On your salary, darling, you'll probably have us lunching on fast food. Since we'll be talking business and maybe a little gossip, why don't you allow me and the I.R.S. to get us a table at Chez Marques? The Marques' soufflés will probably see me to an early grave but my will is weak." Sandy continued, "And, my dear, I want to know everything about the Raoul Divant show that the museum is planning. As I'm sure you know, I represented Divant, cared for the boy as I would a son and, then, without so much as a thank you, he left me for the Kittsberg Gallery. I felt quite the fool. I tell you, my dear, you won't miss me at the Divant show. I intend quite a performance of my own. Sandy at his backbiting best. There is a price to pay in this life for treason, you know." After a delicious two-hour meal and two hours of listening to Sandy's nefarious plans for revenge at the museum's Divant showing, Ana was finally able to turn the conversation to gallery operations. She briefed Sandy on her research and progress to date. Ana seemed to be living up to Sandy's expectations, "Yes, yes, my dear, you seem to be on the right track. But, you can't expect to seriously consider yourself an art dealer with a single owned Dali and a rented Calder. How will you finance your adventure? Where will your gallery be located? How will you pay the rent? No, no, my dear, you have much work left to do. And to whom have you spoken regarding showings, may I ask?" Ana answered, "Well, I spoke with Audrey Klein. She was part of a group showing at the museum last year and..." Sandy immediately interrupted at hearing this name, "Forget Klein. She is not an artist. What she was, was a twinkle in the eye of Simon Ross, your 20th Century Art curator." "But, Sandy..." Sandy raised his hand to stop her, "But, nothing. I said Klein is not an artist. Maybe she'd make a satisfactory artist's model, but, an artist herself, she is not. Ms. Klein totally flopped at your show and has been totally forgotten by the arts community except, perhaps, by you. Now, go on, and forget Ms. Klein. You will never sell a Klein. I will never sell a Klein. No one will ever sell a Klein. This is ridiculous. Go on, who else?" Ana added two more names, "David Buckley and Robert Shearson." Again, Sandy could be counted upon for a quick appraisal, "Shearson is nothing. Buckley may have promise if someone can keep him sober." Ana wanted to protest, "Sandy, how can you dismiss these people so quickly. I..." Sandy calmly explained as if to a poor naive know-nothing, "I, my dear girl, am a salesman. As crude as that may be and as cold as the world is, I must sell, sell, sell. There is no room for sentimentality in the art world. I display and promote art that sells. I nurture and support artists who sell. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes a parasite like Divant ..." "Sandy!" Sandy feigned an apology, "Yes, Divant is my obsession. Forgive me. What about Lucas Maron? Or, Dana Simms? Talk to them. Maron has talent but he is an egomaniac and our personalities clash. Perhaps, you can work with him. Dana Simms is a marvel, a wonderful girl with wonderful promise but unproductive. I represented Dana for three years and in that time she produced just 12 salable works. I was supporting her - the bills - I had to drop her. Now she's making dolls or some such nonsense. Get her back to the easel and you'll sell everything she paints. Now there are two good names." Sandy continued, changing the subject, "Now where is your gallery to be and don't tell me East Bank. Whatever the pirates charge, you must find a way to be on Sturgess Avenue." Ana was more cautious. "Sturgess Avenue rents start at $50 a square foot, Sandy. I don't even know if I can afford East Bank." Sandy's strong opinion was not long in coming. "Darling, don't say East Bank. East Bank isn't an art center. It's a throwback to the 60s, darling. Those East Bank people think they're avant garde. They are avant trash. They are nothing but 60s style hippies who don't know that the hippie/yippie thing has already been done. Graffiti painted garbage cans, old shoes glued together in a pyramid, neon telephones. Junk. We all should have gotten this nonsense out of our systems in the 60s. Warhol has gone to the Big Campbell Soup Can in the sky, darling." Ana listened as Sandy's lecture continued, "Don't ever expect to sell serious art in East Bank. East Bank is but one gallery fad to the next gallery fad to the next gallery fad to good-bye gallery. Name me one rich gallery owner in East Bank. Don't bother thinking; there are none. The only rich in East Bank are the pirates who own the buildings and triple the rent every year for the next round of gallery fad owners. No, my dear, wait for Sturgess Avenue or abandon your whole project. Either way, you'll thank Sandy. My dear, as you Spanish types say, 'De nada', we are kindred souls, you and I..." Even with Sandy's adamancy, Ana did not feel that she could rule out the art enclave of East Bank or even the shoe district, where a number of lofts were used as artist's home galleries. For the next month, whenever possible, Ana was either on the phone with real estate agents, at agent's offices, or touring potential gallery sites. She learned. To be on Sturgess Avenue, the city's premiere gallery street, would cost at least $35 a square foot which meant that even for a very small gallery of 1,000 square feet, the rent would be $35,000 a year plus utilities, plus common area charges, plus taxes, plus... On the East Bank, prospects were almost as grim. The rents started at $15 a foot with short-term leases and high annual escalations of the rent the norm. Sandy was right. In the shoe district, rents began at an affordable $6.00 a square foot but, again, problems. The smallest available spaces in the shoe district were 5,000 square feet and up, mostly up, which again, because of the amount of space which Ana would have to commit to, would put annual rent in the $30,000 plus range. To compound the problem of finding gallery space, Ana was also informed by several real estate brokers, that even if she found suitable space, the building owners might require three or more months rent in advance since Ana's was a new business. In other words, she might need $10,000 or more as upfront rent. Concurrent with her search for space, Ana was pursuing artists to represent, starting with Sandy's two picks, Lucas Maron and Dana Simms. As advertised, Lucas Maron was difficult. He would only consider solo shows in galleries where, at least for the run of his show, all other art was put to storage. Needless to say Maron had few showings. But, at least, Ana had the ground rules for a Maron showing. 
Dana Simms had given up painting for doll making. However, Simms viewed her works as sculpture. And, yes, she would be very interested in having her doll sculptures shown.In addition, Ana contacted eight other "to be discovered" artists who had had museum showings over the previous three years and, on a tentative basis, had negotiated contacts with each. Four of the artists referred her to agents, two seemed mildly interested and two, Alex Fern and Deborah Paget, genuinely interested. Lesson 13 ResourcesGo to Lesson Fourteen8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18Index
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