In my life, the two women I’ve spent the most time around are my mom and my wife.
They both love to cook. They both own sewing machines.
They both love Martha Stewart.
They love Martha Stewart because they’ve learned from her. They trust her. They buy her books and her products because they feel loyal to her.
They love Martha Stewart kind of like I love Lynda Barry.
* * *
A year ago I was sitting in a craft store here in Austin. I sat and doodled and ate cupcakes and watched my wife and all these women crafting, teaching each other, helping each other. There was such a sense of inclusiveness. It was as if everyone was saying to each other, “Yes! You can do this! We can do this! Join the club!”
Not long after that, I was watching a profile of Rachel Ray on TV. The folks who knew Rachel seemed to suggest that her success was not necessarily attributed to her abilities as a cook, but rather to her attitude and energy she projected to her viewers. The number one thing she was giving them was encouragement. She wasn’t just teaching them, she was saying, “You can do this!”
I started surfing some of the craft blogs my wife loves to read. It was a total revelation: by sharing and teaching, these women gained readers and loyal fans, and then sold their wares on Etsy and in books to those loyal fans.
And I realized: if artists want to learn a good business model, they should look to the craft community.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one thinking this way. Jason Fried, the founder of the software company 37 Signals (they have a terrific blog), when he gives a talk, he often claims that chefs are the best business entrepreneurs, because they know that sharing leads to more sales. He suggests that businesses emulate famous chefs. My friend Tim Walker summarized this bit in his notes on Fried’s 2008 SXSW session:
Fried notes that the famous big-name chefs (Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, et al.) SHARE a lot. Here are these big experts who are authorities in their field, and yet they’re sharing everything they know. Along the way they collect money from willing customers/users who buy their cookbooks, eat at their restaurants, buy their sauces at the grocery store, etc. Fried says you should figure out what it is YOU do that you can share with everybody else.
(I saw the same idea pop up in my friend Mike Rohde‘s sketchnotes of a Fried talk.)
What Fried said in a recent talk was: Figure out your what’s cooking show. Figure out what’s your cookbook.
Figure out how to be your own Martha Stewart!
Teachers also can be really great about sharing ideas and resources. My friend Vicki made this great website ( http://tinyurl.com/fordvi ) where she compiled all these lesson plans about contemporary Native American artists. The site has lesson plans, power points and examples of student work that was created when she piloted the lessons in her school. Everything is free and everything can be downloaded.
It inspired me to do my own website for a unit I’m working on for my school called Making Visual Narratives. Same idea as Vicki, only about sequential art. ( http://www.makingvisualnarratives.com )
I like this idea. Chefs kind of have it made if you think about it. Everyone wants to know how to cook and it’s the ones like me who are sometimes so hopeless at it, but keep trying anyway, that keep these guys in business. I would get a cook book and try to make maybe two recipes and a few months later it would be sitting on my bookshelf covered in dust. Plus, there are so many recipes to learn, a chef’s sharing could go on endlessly. It reminds me of when I was a little kid and people told me knowledge was power.
@grant thanks for those links. in my experience, there isn’t a huge difference between someone who shares something with you and a teacher. in fact, my best teachers were/are just cool folks who say, “oh you like that? go read this.”
@krystal i would think that it is the chefs that really help their readers/viewers that probably sell the most books. as far as having it made, i dunno…i’ll bet that most chefs are so sick of cooking that they never cook at home, like this guy.
We are at the BEACH! Just made chocolate chip cookies and cleaned shells (one good smell and one bad).As educators we enjoyed the comments and as usual got a kick out of your sketches of you as a chef. Wish you were here to share the ocean and the cookies.
Have a good week, y’all! :-*
Interesting, I’ve seen this work before. People seem to swarm around generous and ethusiastic people like bees to honey.