On Starting An Art Consulting Business

Alan Bamberger

•

Published: April 17th, 2022

save

Alan Bamberger

Founder, ArtBusiness.com

Founders

Employees

ArtBusiness.com

artbusiness.com

from San Francisco, California, USA

started March 1980

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

social media tool-icon

Instagram

Twitter

Discover what books Alan recommends to grow your business!

Want more updates on ArtBusiness.com? Check out these stories:

My name is Alan Bamberger and I currently run the website artbusiness. I’m a fine art appraiser, consultant, advisor, writer, and author. But my story starts way before that, beginning in the mid-1970s when I realized I had a genuine interest in old stuff aka the antique, collectible, and vintage varieties.

To put it briefly, between then and now my businesses have included buying and selling vintage clothing, older art, rare books on the fine and decorative arts, and whatever else old I could make a little money on. In the meantime, I’ve written hundreds of articles and columns about how the art business works, had a nationally syndicated column about art and the art business, and written three books on buying and collecting original art.

Today, I mainly focus on consulting and advising clients on any matters involving art. For people who own or inherit art, I advise on buying, selling, donating, or transacting in other ways, and when necessary, perform appraisals for insurance purposes, donation, estate purposes, dispute resolution, and more.

For artists, I advise on all art and career matters including organizing and presenting their art, pricing, selling, showing, establishing online profiles, advancing in their careers, approaching galleries or other art venues for possible shows, and much more. As I like to put it, I help people with their difficult-to-solve art problems.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

As I look back on my career, I never really came up with any ideas. Rather the ideas came up to me. One of the most important aspects of everything I’ve done in my life has to do with paying attention to whatever opportunities or adventures came my way, whether I know anything about them or not. I figured that if it presents itself to me, it’s worth my attention. Though I grew up with a traditional college education and always thought I’d be employed in traditional ways, it didn’t take me long to figure out there was far more to life than conventionality and expectations of others. All it takes is a little courage, ambition, and of course paying attention. The rest seems to flow naturally from there.

Pretty much everything I’ve ever done to make a living in my life has been the result of chance occurrences. But taking advantage involves way more than just the occurrences themselves. The hard part is that once you realize there’s money to be made, you have to get good enough at making it to be successful. And that involves learning, or for me, teaching myself new things.

For example, I remember being on a business trip where I was done for the day and decided to go looking around town. I walked into a secondhand store and in a back room, saw a beat-up old painting leaning against a wall. Looking at it, I remember a conversation with a restorer who repairs old art where he told me that if I ever see a painting that looks nice, even if it’s in bad shape, to go ahead and buy it (assuming it’s not too expensive of course). Well, this one hardly cost a thing. I bought it, took it to the restorer, and he told me that even in the condition it was in, it was worth much more than I had paid for it.

So I made good money on that one and figured if one old painting is sitting around like that, there must be more. But to find and buy them with any regularity (and make money at it), I essentially had to teach myself the art business. Having enough money from other ventures coming in to cover my living expenses, I gave myself six months to learn about art. And I did. Within a short period, I was traveling the country looking for art and finding plenty of it. The learning part is always the hardest and requires the most discipline, but I love learning new things, I love new challenges, and I love finding undiscovered treasures in unexpected places.

Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.

Manufacturing products? Well, I’d have to call that writing articles, columns and books. Just like with pretty much everything else in my life, I had to teach myself the profession because I’d never taken a writing course in my life. It took months to get even slightly good, but I stuck with it and did. I meet all kinds of people with knowledge to share who fantasize about writing. For you, I’ll give you the basic plan.

Decide what you want to write about and then start writing everything you can about it. Forget about spelling, grammar, and even making sense of it all. You’ll have plenty of time for that later. I call this initial process “barfing it up” or in other words, harvesting enough raw materials from the recesses of your mind to organize into something compelling that makes sense (and that other people want to read about).
Next comes organization. Take all the disjointed ideas and start arranging them into a logical order. Again, don’t worry about paragraphs, grammar, spelling, structure, etc.
Once you have your basic order, now start weaving them into a story, into paragraphs, into a format that begins to make sense. Here’s the hard part-- if you’re like most writers, at some point during this process, it’s possible to get discouraged. Turning this mess into a finished piece takes time, focus, and sometimes even pain. But let me tell you the happy ending in advance. If you spend enough time on it, the writing begins to make sense. And from that point on, whatever you’re writing will take on a life of its own and practically write itself.

Describe the process of launching the business.

The main business I’ve launched is my website, artbusiness.com. In the mid-1990s, people began telling me about this thing called the Internet where I could essentially have access to the entire world. So I followed the same old process I always do. I bought some books on the Worldwide Web and taught myself enough to get started and do what I had to do to set up shop. I bought the domain artbusiness.com around 1996 (the Internet was so young that the domain was just sitting around having never been previously sold).

I figured I’d use it to pitch writing ideas to publications like newspapers, magazines, publishers, and the like. Before, I would have to mail or fax the materials; the www was far easier. I could just send people to the website to have them read my writings. Well, it wasn’t long before I realized that tons of people were discovering and reading the writing as well. So I immediately started posting all kinds of articles I had previously written to see how people responded. And respond they did.

Before I knew it, my articles were getting many thousands of views (and often much more), and the site was getting popular. I started getting emails, phone calls, and requests from readers for help with their art issues. And that’s when I got the idea to hang out with my shingle as a consultant, advisor, and appraiser. I put together a list of services I was able to provide, posted them on the site, the money gradually started trickling in, and today I make my living working with artists, collectors, and others from around the world, all from the comfort of my computer.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

This is an easy one. Content content content. The more writing I write, the more information I provide, and the more business I get. I provide it all for free but there’s a method to giving it away. All that content becomes my resume, a resume that increases all the time. Way too many people hide good content from others and in so doing, rob themselves of fans, followers, and most importantly $$$ that good content is capable of generating.

In combination with content, I post new articles and other writings regularly on social (FB, IG, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the ones that work for me). Those posts drive plenty of traffic to my site. Again, with little or no advertising. My only advertising is the consistent quality and content that readers repeatedly see. That’s how I stay in their consciousness. Keep in mind that plenty of people out there are perfectly fine with them taking everything I give and never engaging my professional services, but the way I see it if what I do helps them to be better at what they do, I take pride in that. Like I’m fond of saying-- I’m gonna get you the information you need one way or another, whether you pay for it or not.

And one last thing-- at least in my experience, search engines LOVE good content. They love it so much that they rank it high on search results. This is another reason that giving quality content away free generates income in the end. Be stingy with good content and search engines will be stingy with rankings. As for paying for SEO, all the $$$ in the world can’t make mediocre content better. And even if it does rank high as a result of paying for it, if readers can’t get anything useful out of it, or if they perceive it as simply a money-making venture, they’ll move on.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

As you might have guessed by now, I’ve been around for quite a while. So I’m not quite as much of a driver as I used to be, content to work with individuals who appreciate what I do. I post all the nice things clients say about my services ( artbusiness.com/testimonials.html ) and leave it at that.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Yes. Generosity pays. Give to the world and the world will return the favor.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Nothing but my website and socials. Does the trick for me.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

I read loads about art. From way too many sources to list here. If it sounds good, I read it. If it turns out not to be as good as it sounds, I move on. I’m open to everything. I do myself a huge disservice by focusing on certain knowledge sources and ignoring others. Anyone can say something brilliant at any time. Like I said earlier, keep your eyes and ears open. You never know where the next great adventure in your life is coming from.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

The same old stuff I always say. Dedication, commitment, setting a schedule and sticking to it, learning your craft, minimizing the competition by mastering specialized skills, and work work work.