Lisa Call

I currently have 2 full priced offers for my house, both from well qualified buyers, both received about 24 hours after my house went on the market, in what is supposedly is a very depressed buyers market.

Many people are amazed I pulled this off. How can I have people bidding up the price of my house in this economic climate? Here’s how I did it (and how I plan on achieving the dream of becoming a self supporting artist).

1. Listen to the Experts

I told my real estate agent what I wanted - to sell my house quickly and for a fair price although money was not as important as this being an effortless process. I told her my house was to sell in 2 weeks or less after it went on the market. Her advice was to fix everything, stage the house and to price it low (but not too low).

I pre-inspected my house and fixed everything, basically if it seemed worn or broken I made it like new again. Then I staged the house. Although I didn’t do it her way - I fired her stager, who wanted to turn my house into something it isn’t. It didn’t fit my vision or values. So I staged it my way - I’ve never staged a house before but how hard is it to toss out half my stuff and hang a few curtains? I then priced the house at the low end of what houses similar to mine were selling.

Her advice was absolutely accurate. Experts are experts for a reason. They are good to listen to but it’s never worth sacrificing ones values to do what they say. I was able to follow my agent’s advice and still feel good about my choices.

As I’ve been working on setting up my art business I’ve been looking to the experts, like Alyson Stanfield, to find out how to go about making this dream a reality. These types of people have a lot of good advice that is worth listening to.

2. Start with Quality

My house is an amazing house. It’s in one of the best neighborhoods in Parker because it’s not a cookie cutter neighborhood. We have large lots (I’m on a cul-de-sac). Plus my house is just fabulously beautiful with a perfect floor plan. I knew all those things when I bought the house, which is partly why I bought it, so it would be easier to sell later.

I know my textile paintings are extremely high quality. I’ve spent years perfecting my technique and my artistic vision. I know what I’m selling is superior quality, which makes it much easier to sell. I truly believe in the value of my art.

3. Visualize Success

Every day I said my house would sell in 2 weeks or less. I journaled about it. I constantly told my agent this would happen. I joked about it. I thought about it. I became very very clear as to exactly what I wanted and I visualized what that might look and feel like.

I am doing the same for my art business. I’m getting very clear as to what I want and I am thinking about how that feels and what it looks like. I talk about it often and journal about it. I keep the dream alive every day.

4. Take Action

All the thinking in the world wasn’t going to get my house on the market. I held a picture in my mind of what my house would look like when it sold quickly and I took action on making my house look exactly like my vision every single day for 2 months.

It was a huge amount of work but with my Getting Things Done lists and focused concentrated effort I was able to pull it all together. I coordinated dozens of contractors giving me estimates and 7 or 8 coming and doing the work in addition to doing a lot of the work myself. It made my head spin some days but I kept the vision of my house clear in my mind and just kept on working.

I know this is exactly the type of effort I need to get my art business off the ground. It’s hard work, fortunately it’s all work I enjoy (way more than having my hardwood floors refinished) so I’m really looking forward to it. I have a clear vision in my mind what my life will be like after I quit the day job and I’m doing everything I can to make it reality.

Doing things gets things done.

Moving Sale Update

I’ve been intending to create a list of all of my available artwork so I can post what’s part of my moving sale so you don’t have to guess in case you are interested in a piece. My plan is to do this on friday. Tomorrow I am going to go find a house to buy so I have somewhere to live after I sell this one.

Shaded Walk    ©2007 Stephen Carl
Reprinted with permission from the artist

Artist Breakthrough Program

The last 4 weeks I’ve been participating in the Alyson Stanfield’s online Artist Breakthrough Program.

Today is the last day, the last phone call. Time to evaluate how things went.

So to start here are the goals I stated for the month:

1. I work 5 or more hours a week in my studio making art.
2. I complete the rewrite of my website and blog and go live with them by May 12, 2008.
3. I update my resume to include jurors for all juried shows.
4. I create a complete resume for my personal use with every show in my career listed. This list also includes a list of which pieces were included in each of these shows.
5. I design a portfolio package to send to galleries (the package does not have to be complete but I identify all the parts and the format of the package)
6. I start a list of potential galleries to contact for representation. The list has 30 or more galleries listed.

In addition to the above, I was also working on getting my house ready to put on the market. Cleaning, packing, hiring contractors, yard work, etc.

How Did I do?

1. I worked in my studio 19 hours over the 4 weeks - very close to the my original goal.
2. Nope - the website is coming along nicely but it needs more work.
3. Didn’t even start
4. Didn’t even start
5. Didn’t even start
6. I have between 15-20 galleries on my list with contact info.

In addition I got a lot done on prepping my house. This weekend I completed the last of the decluttering, and have done a bunch of packing, cleaning and yardwork. I’m almost done getting contractors lined up to do the big stuff (paint, carpet, refinish hardwood, etc). This was a larger job than anticipated, getting estimates, rescheduling, etc, etc. I’m certainly learning a lot about how to deal with these guys (number one tip - don’t have expectations about getting anything done soon).

How Do I Feel About It?

I’m super happy with how things went. I probably stayed focused about 70-80% of the time I had available to "do stuff", which is a lot more than normal. Although I didn’t complete everything on my original list I didn’t really think I’d get it all done so that’s fine (more on this later).

I knew I’d be super busy, not just because of all I had going but also because my kids were with me almost the entire month since I didn’t get to see while they were in Europe for 3 months. Not every weekend was as crazy as the one I outlined in this post, but we were still busy. Staying this focused for a sustained period of time, with my kids at home, was probably a first so I’m very happy about that.

I got some really great ideas from other participants in the program for my website so I have more work to do than originally planned. I’m writing a custom plugin for wordpress to display my artwork images, as I couldn’t find anything out there that did what I wanted. I haven’t written code in a while so I’m excited.

What Did I Learn?

I set my goals higher than was realistic. I did this to keep myself motivated. But what I found as the weeks went on is that I wasn’t taking the goals quite seriously enough. I’d list 6 or 7 things to do in a day and only have time for 4 or maybe 5. So I set myself up from the start to not finish everything.

I think this is how I normally operate. It’s safe - because I know I never get everything done I fall back on that as the excuse every time to not do stuff. Eventually I start to think I don’t really need to finish things.

This month has shown me this is maybe not the most optimal way of doing stuff. I love my Getting Things Done project and tasks lists (from David Allen’s Book) as they are great at capturing the big picture. Yet this month I’ve found I need to get more specific, and more realistic, about what I am doing TODAY.

So in addition to my big lists, each morning I started to pick at most 3 things todo. The super most important things that absolutely have to get done. And I put my focus on getting those things done. At the end of the day it’s awesome to say I’ve completed them all.

Learning this new way of approaching my work was the best thing I got out of this class. Taking the time to think about how I get things done and to try some different approaches.

Where Does Blogging Fit In?

Obviously I stopped blogging about 1/2 way through the program. I’d find myself with an hour of time to work on my website or to write a blog post and more often than not I’d blog. So I decided to drop the goal to write and spent my free computer time on my website.

I don’t intend on making this a habit. Living my life at a pace where I don’t have time to blog is not okay with me. I love writing and I find it a great way to process information about my art and myself. So something else is going to have to give because I’m going to continue to blog 2 or 3 times a week throughout the process of selling my house.

One fun thing about this class was watching other artists work on their goals. Steve Carl (photographer - the above image is his work) had a goal of starting a blog and it’s been fun watching him and remembering back to when I started mine 3 years ago. I think he’s off to a great start. You can check it out here: Works by Steve Carl

What’s Next?

The other important thing I feel I learned is that trying to do 3 things at once (make art, build a website and get a house ready to put on the market) is too much. I think if I would have focused on just 1 thing at a time in the end I would have gotten more done.

Time to focus on the house and get it on the market. I’ll have a few moments here and there to do some art/art business work but at least 2 of the 3 must do items on my list each day are going to be house related. While I’m not excited about losing momentum on the website I think in the end this is the best choice. I’ve been feeling a bit too scattered the last few days not really making huge headway on any one thing.

I Need a Better System

I’ve tried various plans for organizing my office and files but they generally don’t work for me and instead of filing I start stacking papers and eventually it’s completely out of control with years of papers piled up around my office. The result is forgotten deadlines and missed opportunities.

I’m great at making lists but I tend to have several lists going on different scraps of paper and some online and they are never complete so my brain spends a lot of time trying to remember what I need to do. I’ve decided it’s time for a change. I couldn’t deal with the clutter anymore and I was tired of forgetting important things.

Getting Things Done

I’ve read several organization books in the past and none of them really worked for me. Until this month, I finally read David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

I love it.

It’s about writing everything down so you can forget about it and relax. Everything has a clear category (can you take action on it or can’t you) so everything is in an obvious place. It’s probably not for everyone as he’s got a flow chart for how to determine what to do with a piece of paper, but I’m finding it extremely helpful. Once I got going it’s not as complicated as it seemed when I read about it.

One of the things I love about it is he’s not selling a day timer or electronic gadget. He’s just explains his ideas and leaves the reader to implement it in a way that works for them.

I spent the first week of March (the week before my kids came home) organizing my office. Tossing out huge piles of papers and redoing my filing system.

• I now have a real world in box and my desktop is cleared.
• My email inbox is at 0 at the end of most days.
• I don’t have stacks of papers without a home.
• At a glance I know all the balls I have up in the air at any time and which ones need action.

Important but Not Urgent

As a result of identifying all the projects I was working on and the next steps I needed to do on them I’ve made some big progress in completing some of the projects. Projects that I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t tackled because they aren’t the most urgent things in my life.

As an example I knew I wanted to get some limbs cut off of a tree so my garden would get more light but it never made it onto a list as it was never urgent. With this system I wrote it down and in a few free minutes at work I found someone to do the work on craiglist and they came out that day and did the job.

It feels great to be making progress on more than just the things with a deadline this week.

Ready for the Big Breakthrough

I’m now in a position to tackle a really big project and bring it to completion - getting a professional portfolio pulled together along with a rewrite of my website as I’m ready to start looking for gallery representation.

This is a pretty big project and instead of going it alone I’ve signed up for Alyson Stanfield’s Artist Breakthrough Program (on the classes tab, it starts in April). After taking Christine Kane’s e-seminar I know the value in having outside support. And I love the amazing benefits of group energy. I’ll be holding myself accountable to completing these projects by working with a group and setting some deadlines.

I’m excited about getting this work finished and moving to the next level with my art career.

Blog Book Tour

Speaking of Alyson, I’m going to be hosting her on my blog on April 1 as part of her blog book tour. I love her new book I’d Rather Be in The Studio and I was excited for the opportunity to interview her for the book tour. Although I’ve read Alyson’s blog for years and attended a workshop with her I still learned quite a bit from her book. I definitely recommend it.