Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jess Bean . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jess , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a fun one – what’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?
In my industry: Transparency about pricing and the ways you achieved success is the route to more success.
I will say more and more people are coming around to this idea every day, though.
In general: Artist should work for exposure or very little because it’s a passion job. Excuse me?? Passion just means I work harder than said passion. Passion should never equate less pay. That’s recipe for disaster and death of greatness in any profession.
Jess , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Well for the basics: I’m a female artist working mostly in murals. I got into this industry when I was 17 and a friend asked me to paint a mural in her bedroom over the weekend. That following week she showed the mural off to her boss who reached out to and hired me for 4 murals in their small business. After that I was hooked. I’ve always loved art and design and to be this was the perfect marriage of both.
On top of that, I got to see first hand how much people gravitate to art.
Murals have since been studied and shown to increase employee morale by upwards of 40%, increase walk in business by up to 50%, and even detour crime just by existing. Happy tears or big smiles with wide eyes and no words have since been my goal of every piece I make for a client.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
“Keep your head down and work hard.”
You can’t loan wolf your business forever.
It works for a while, but then the word of mouth marketing dries up. You have to reach out and connect with others in your profession. I am very introverted at times and this was HARD for me and still can be.
I spent the pandemic and some work derailing injuries to finally network and my career completely changed for the better. I look back on the level of knowledge I had before and after networking. It’s incredible. I’m so much more confident in every aspect of the business. Even the mundane but stressful tax season administrative work.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
I know the push currently is in social media. But I great lesson I learned is that social media is temporary. Accounts get hacked or even worse shut down. When this happens everything you built is gone.
However, email marketing is your forever. Send out newsletters. Mine are quarterly and every time I send it I get sales. I keep it quarterly because I know for me personally that too many emails from a business and I’m moving it to trash. The luster is lost. I like the idea of my email list being excited to see this rare email.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jbeanart.com
- Instagram: @jbeanart