Interview with Trisha Craig
In this episode, we will uncover 3 keys:
- Shifting from Starving Artist to Successful Entrepreneur
- The Power of Relationships in Marketing
- Overcoming the Fear of Visibility
A Podcast Transcription
Episode 22: Interview with heart-centered Marketing Expert – Trisha Craig
Intro
Odiva Vasell: (00:00)
Hello, hello, hello, fempreneurs! I’m Odiva, your host, and I am very excited to have a fantastic entrepreneur here today to talk to us a little bit about her business and also her business mission. Her name is Trisha Craig, so I will let her just give you a brief introduction of who she is and tell us a little bit of how she came up with this business idea. All right, Trisha, go ahead.
Shifting from Starving Artist to Successful Entrepreneur
Trisha Craig: (00:41)
Fantastic, thank you so much. You’re so spectacular, and I’m so excited to be here. I love fempreneur. I’ve never used that word before, so I’m loving that. It’s really fantastic, and your women that follow you, they’re amazing people doing so many cool things. So this is really fun. I’m really excited. So thank you. So, the short story maybe is that I am actually a classically trained flutist and conductor. I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was a kid. I’ve had very few real jobs. As a teenager, I taught flute lessons and did things like that. I’ve owned a music school; I’ve done lots of things. But during COVID, when all of my colleagues had to stop teaching online and when all of the amazing artists whose work I collect, I’m an avid art fan, when they could no longer do the things that we do, there were no more concerts, there were no more art galleries, there were no more shows. All of my colleagues, I found them saying, “Ugh, well, now I can’t work.” I didn’t realize how limited they were in their business side. Even with Zoom—I mean, now we joke about Zoom; everybody knows Zoom—but I have been using Zoom for flute lessons for a while because here in New Hampshire, we have snow days. For some reason, it seems to be a blizzard on every Monday in the winter, and that is my big teaching day. So, years before COVID, I started using Zoom for snow days so that I wouldn’t lose all of my income every time it snowed. So when COVID hit, I started just a business group that I was just trying to help my friends, really. I was teaching them one by one, “Here’s how to use Zoom,” and they didn’t know how to do PayPal, and they didn’t know how to do all these basic things. So I was just jumping in and helping them. Then I realized that they didn’t know anything really about marketing and how to get your word out there. I don’t know how I didn’t realize that they didn’t know this, but I started helping them. The next thing I know, the group started having people in it that were like, “Could I hire you to teach me? Could I hire you?” So, I turned it into a business. I had a coaching business prior to COVID; I was coaching music students on how to get into college and how to use their musical training to get into college. That was going pretty well until COVID, and all of a sudden, people didn’t even know if they’d go to college the next year, so that died. All I did was I took all of my business plans for that coaching business, and I flipped it to creative people. I haven’t looked back. I have the best clients, and I work with creative ones—it’s artists and photographers and musicians and writers and composers and all kinds of potters. I love pottery. I’ve discovered that we, as creative ones, were taught to be starving artists, and it’s something that we were taught, and I believe that it’s something that we don’t have to embody, that we can change that. So my clients are doing great selling their work and developing a fan base. It’s all about building relationships, isn’t it?
Odiva Vasell: (04:15)
Well, that is great. Like when I first saw your Facebook page, Creatives as Entrepreneurs, and I thought, “Wow, this is a brilliant mission.” Especially the colorful—that’s the first thing that really attracted me when I saw your page. It’s so colorful and inviting. This is a niche market that people have not tapped into. It’s interesting that you said that you were teaching piano because my background is English teaching. Oh, flute! All right. Yeah, my background is English teaching, and I started doing online in 2016.
Trisha Craig: (04:57)
There, yeah.
Odiva Vasell: (04:58)
At the time, people said, “No, you can’t do that. In order to learn, you have to be face to face.” So many people told me when I started my business that it couldn’t be done. I’m an avid techy, and I played around. I knew Zoom and I knew several other platforms. I played around with all these platforms for years. And then when the market hit, like COVID, everybody was on, and everybody was using the word “Zoom.” I use another platform as well and for payments and all of these things. They became part of the culture, and it was just so interesting to be ready for that, right?
Trisha Craig: (05:41)
Yeah, I was right. I was ready for that just out of desperation. Thank goodness for blizzards. That made me ready. But it’s interesting what you said about people saying that it couldn’t work because when I first started doing it with my flute students, well before COVID, there were several who were like, “Oh, I don’t like it. It’s uncomfortable. I’m not sure I want to do it that way.” And I’m like, “Well, this is how your flute lesson is going to be if there’s a snow day.” So when COVID hit, everybody was right into it. It was funny because my students, who range from six to retirees, were all already comfortable. So when things shut down, that very first week that we couldn’t meet in person, I said, “No problem. We’ll just do what we always do, and we’ll just be online for a couple of weeks. No big deal.” But it was a lot more than a couple of weeks. I didn’t miss anything. I didn’t miss anything. So it’s interesting because now, probably, you have a lot of clients that you can work with online too, and they don’t argue about it or they don’t wonder about it anymore. It works just…
Odiva Vasell: (06:52)
Yeah, yeah, because that was the dream for me. A little bit about me: I love traveling, so I’ve lived in five different continents, and I wanted to keep traveling while working. I did not want to be dependent on, let’s say, the company in that particular country because what happens with that is, you know, you’re in a country, with my experience, you don’t speak the language. You’re really dependent on these, and things can go, this person and things can go wrong. So I wanted that financial freedom, and that is what I preached to women entrepreneurs. This is a way to get financial freedom. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
Trisha Craig: (07:37)
And physical freedom, right? I live part-time. If you know New Hampshire, we have 17 miles of beach on the seacoast over there, and I live part-time at the beach and part-time in the mountains. So I’m in the mountains right now. Or I could have been at home at the beach. I could be in either location. It works out just fine because we have this connection right here. I think it’s a great tool. I love it, and I do all my coaching. I would say 99% of my coaching now, I do via Zoom. I do it online, and it makes it possible for me to have clients in Great Britain and Canada and all across the U.S. They don’t all have to be right here in New England or, more specifically, within driving distance of where I am in New Hampshire. It makes it possible for more people to have more success. I think it’s fun.
Odiva Vasell: (08:34)
So this is a great business idea that you came up with out of necessity. Your friends kind of needed to get on the bandwagon, needed to keep promoting their businesses. Artists needed to keep promoting their businesses without being face to face. I think that’s an old concept, but it’s also kind of a new concept for people to realize that as an artist, you can really be promoting yourself and getting your work out there beyond the art gallery.
The Power of Relationships in Marketing
Trisha Craig: (09:16)
Exactly, yeah. Yeah, you don’t have to be dependent on a venue or on, I call them gatekeepers, right? The person who books the art gallery or the person who books the concert venue or whatever it is. You can have more control. You can book your own events, and you can do—I mean, it doesn’t even have to be huge. I’ve helped artists, visual artists, sell one piece of art. You can sell it one at a time, just person to person. It’s about a relationship. So if you don’t have to be in a gallery, if somebody wants the artwork, you can have a system for having them buy it, and you just ship it to them. It’s doable. And one of my clients the other day was all excited because she shipped out her first piece of artwork to someone she had never met before. She was all excited because the reach was working. It really can be possible, and you don’t have to be dependent on the gallery or the shop.
Odiva Vasell: (10:15)
And do you dabble in art yourself? I’m terrible with that, but tell me about you.
Trisha Craig: (10:22)
I don’t. I’m just—I do some stitching, you know, just for fun. I do stitching.
Odiva Vasell: (10:32)
But you have a good eye because the things that you are putting out for your marketing materials, these are so beautiful.
Trisha Craig: (10:40)
Thank you. I just love art and I collect art. I have all my jewelry is handmade. This was by a New Hampshire artist. This was by a New Hampshire artist. These were by New Hampshire artists, and I have handmade pottery. I have to be around handmade, beautiful things all the time. That was part of what got me started too is that I have a pretty good art collection. I have relationships with these artists and understanding that those relationships turn into sales, and acknowledging that. So when they were saying, “Now I can’t sell my work,” I was like, “No, you still have relationships with people. You could still sell a piece. You could sell a piece to me. All you have to do is show it to me and explain it and have this ongoing conversation.” When I look around at my art collection, most of it is at the beach, but when I look around, there are repeat artists. I have several pieces by this one dude that makes mugs. I have several pieces of jewelry by the same artist because you buy one and you get to know the artist and you get to know their work. Now there’s a relationship, and that relationship is what turns into a business. It doesn’t have to be icky sales stuff. It’s getting to know each other and literally, for me, when I’m teaching marketing, it’s about relationships, education, and when my story and your story overlap. Where our stories overlap, that’s where the business happens. That’s everything I teach right there is that you build a relationship, you educate them about what you do, and then you know who they are. You know who you are, and those stories overlap, and suddenly you can sell things.
Odiva Vasell: (10:48)
Relationship, education, and stories. That’s brilliant. Stories that overlap. Okay, relatable stories. That is awesome. I’m wondering, with these artists, how do they build relationships? The artists that you work with, how do they build a relationship with people that they don’t know?
Trisha Craig: (13:09)
So, I like to start my clients—most of my many clients are real beginners when it comes to marketing. I like to start them off, believe it or not.
Odiva Vasell: (13:28)
I feel like a real beginner, no matter how much I learn. There is so much, oh yeah, more factors and people.
Trisha Craig: (13:28)
Yeah, and you know what? That’s the good thing about my clients is that we, as musicians and artists, we’ve been in learning mode since we were kids, right? We’ve been in training, and we’ve been critiqued a million times. They’re easy to teach once they’re in that mode. So that’s kind of fun because they’re used to being critiqued and those kinds of things. But for me, I start my clients with a Facebook business page, honestly, and I teach them how to interact with their people on a Facebook business page. So that’s where we start. Even before we set that up, I have these worksheets that I take them through these projects where we really delve into who are you. I know you talk about this with your women and who are you to be authentically you and to know who that is and to own it. You have to be you, and there are plenty of people out there who need you. So it’s okay to be who you are. I’ve heard you say you don’t want to try to be somebody else. You don’t want to try to be what you think people want.
Odiva Vasell: (14:31)
Uniqueness is my favorite word, and I find that when I’m working with women, so many of the things that they think are their flaws are basically what makes them and their brand beautiful. That is what people are looking for, that relatableness.
Trisha Craig: (14:51)
Yeah. For my art clients, well, and my musician, all my artists, a lot of them are afraid to show anything other than the polished, finished work. Some of the best posts that go the furthest are not even just work in progress but the mess, right? I love art and to see what it means to have to do a woodblock print and to see how you use the tool or to see how the ink gets all over everything else. That’s fascinating to me, right? Because now I’m like, “Oh, I understand that art form even more.” Now when I look at my woodblock prints that I have framed, I’m even more excited because there isn’t ink all over the place and there isn’t wood shavings and all that stuff. You understand the background. One of my clients recently posted this wonderful picture. She kind of dared herself to do it of her easel and the way that she stores her supplies next to the easel. The easel has paint all over it, and it was not a glamorous photo. It was just this big wooden easel with this place for hanging, and there were these buckets on the side with paintbrushes that were all painty. It was there, and she did a post about how do you store your tools. It was about tools. People loved it because it was like into the secret world of the artist, and we don’t realize that the polished piece isn’t the point. This whole process is what fascinates people. So when you let them in to see who you are and what goes on behind the scenes, and I think back to when I lived in a condo and I would practice my flute, and I’d be doing these wretched sounds, and this neighbor would say, “I always love hearing you practice.” I was like, “Oh, really? You should hear me really play.” But what he loved was hearing this process, hearing me try and back up and try and back up. He said that he would sit—we were over on Marsh—and he would sit at the marsh, and he would just sort of listen to The Struggle almost or listen to the process. It was fascinating to him, and we don’t think about that. We think that we can only show the parts that people won’t be critical of. One of my clients recently posted a painting that she decided to trash. She’s like, “Well, this did not work the way I wanted to, and this is why I’m going to trash it.” People liked it because it was cool. You’re not just talented, which I hate that word, but you’re working at it, and…
Odiva Vasell: (18:08)
That’s the key word: appreciation. Like pottery, I didn’t know when I was a kid. I didn’t know where pottery came from. And then, one thing, we had this pottery class, and I’m a very good techie. I can do everything on the computer, but when I have to hand stuff, boy, I made some really crooked, funky-looking thing that was supposed to be a mug. But I wouldn’t dare ask anybody to drink out of it. After that, you start looking at pottery, and you’re thinking, “Wow, how did they do that?”
Trisha Craig: (18:40)
Even a piece that I have right here, when I hold it, someone’s thumb, someone’s thumb makes this. The artist’s thumb did that. You know, so it feels like I’m connected to a human too. I love that about it. Knowing the behind-the-scenes things, even just learning things about the kiln or the glazes or just all that stuff makes it so much more exciting when you see the pot, when you see the mug. I’ve had potters say to me that they get really frustrated because someone would say to them, “Why should I spend $30 on that mug when I can buy a set of four at a box store for $20? Why should I do that?”
Odiva Vasell: (19:25)
I see. I’m starting to get it. I can feel your love for the artwork. You are surrounded by humans, surrounded yourself within human energy, beautiful imperfections, your jewelry, everything.
Trisha Craig: (19:43)
Yeah. Thank you. So for that person, I say, “Well, that’s a gift.” When they say, “I don’t know why I should spend that money when I can get a cheap mug,” they’re telling you what you need to do for marketing. They need to learn what the difference is. They need to learn all the things you were just talking about. You tried to make a mug, and you’re like, “No one could drink out of it.” To see all these processes and to see how the kiln works and to see how the clay comes from and to see the mud on the floor or to see the raccoon pit or any of these things, you see that stuff, and then you’re like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” Little by little, your audience switches from wanting that set of four for $20 to, “I’d like to have one of those, and I like that specific glaze they work in. I’m going to wait for that.” That’s what it’s about, educating part and connecting with the humanity on the other side of the screen.
Odiva Vasell: (20:42)
Wow.
Trisha Craig: (20:43)
It’s fun.
Odiva Vasell: (20:44)
Tell me a little about what are the things, the type of things that these artists struggle with the most. It sounds like you’ve changed their mindset about connecting with people. It doesn’t have to be in the rain. I see a lot of people in the rain at the market. They could still do it online. Would technology be also one of the things that they kind of struggle with? You said you help them with PayPal and payments.
Trisha Craig: (21:14)
Honestly, I think, and this holds true for all of my clients, including those in the performing arts, believe it or not, I think the number one thing that they struggle with is being seen. You would not believe how many of my brilliant musician clients and brilliant musician colleagues who don’t want to post a video of themselves playing because they have master’s degrees and teach at major universities, and they don’t want someone to judge it. Or the artists who are like, “Well, I don’t look good on camera.” Okay, well, your hands can be on camera or you don’t have to be there yourself, but to have one decent photo of you doing something with the paintbrushes or even from the back of you so that you’re a real person. You don’t have to be Miss America. You can just be real, and then people have a human to connect with. Visual artists are often a little bit more on the introverted scale, not always, of course, but a lot of them are just like, “Just let me be in a different room and do my thing.” So getting them to be willing to kind of be seen or to even have a voice in their marketing, that’s a challenge. I’m shocked by how many performing artists are uncomfortable putting themselves out there in a way that people could perhaps judge their work.
Odiva Vasell: (22:50)
I see that that’s profound, as in some ways, shocking. But I get it because we have been conditioned in society and even on many forms of social media. We are seeing perfection, body perfection. You know, everything is added. Of course, they have a huge team of people to do that. But it’s very rare that you just see the normal humans showing up, showing their crap, showing their business. And let’s say it’s a performing artist, and they’re used to being critiqued in that, on that stage. You know, it’s like you cannot make any mistakes on that stage, so they’re taking that into their business. Ah, I see.
Trisha Craig: (23:37)
Yeah, yeah. And it’s sad because it’s not true. It’s not true. You know, if you get online and say, “All right, I’m working on this, you know, I’m working on this A2 today.” Okay, now you know that there’s a process, and nobody’s going to be like, “See, you’re a bad flutist.” And if they are, they’re just a jerk. But most people are going to be like, “Oh, cool. I’m not the only one who struggles. Oh, cool. When you perform, you sound amazing.” And that’s where it came from. It actually is part of the education, and it’s actually part of the relationship building that is so important, and it makes you a real human. Like no one, we see all these perfections, and no one can relate to that. But when you see, you know, my client’s easel with the paint all over it, you’re like, “Oh, look, her studio. It’s like you’re seeing into the secret world, and there’s… it’s kind of messy, and you’re like, ‘Oh, thank you. Oh, thank God. Thank goodness,’ like right.” And so it makes you really much more human, and it’s easier to have a relationship with that person. Um, and it’s easier to be impressed by their final product when you know that they have struggled to get that product to you, you know.
Odiva Vasell: (24:57)
And something you said that just kind of makes me aware, even for those people who are business coaches, like some people that I work with, they’re trying to get to such a high level before they advertise their product or service. But we don’t, as humans, we don’t always want to work with somebody that is at such a high level of experience because they may not be able to explain it to you on, you know, a beginner level. So more people that are out there, it’s the world of abundance. There is no taking somebody else’s clients. The more people that are out there that are helping people who they connect with, this is beautiful. I love to see some more of this art.
Trisha Craig: (25:48)
I know. And a lot of people think that I have to have all of my ducks in a row before I even try to do marketing like you’re talking about. So it doesn’t really matter what your business is. Mine happens to be creative people or people who think outside the box and don’t feel comfortable, like I do have some clients who are not visual artists, but they really aren’t comfortable with that black and white businessy stuff. And so they like to do things in a more artsy thinking way and…
Odiva Vasell: (26:16)
Other levels.
Overcoming the Fear of Visibility
Trisha Craig: (26:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they, those are, I think it’s awesome. So but a lot of them still will be like, “Okay, I don’t want to try email marketing until I have a whole email series set up.” And I’m like, “Well, you don’t know if that will work, so you have to learn by doing. Like you have to get to know your audience a little bit before you like, what if you spent the next month building this huge email campaign, and then it just falls on dead ears? What if you do one at a time and see what your audience is relating to, right? Yeah, yeah. Same with your Instagram account, same with your Facebook page. You know, I had a client whom I adore. I love my clients. They’re, I love them. But this woman, she was going to do a weekly post on her, on her page, and she would not start posting them until she had created 52 because she wanted one for every week already set up so that she knew what she was, she wanted clarity. She had to have all 52 set up. And I was like, I think that’s a procrastination technique. I think you’re afraid. I think there’s some fear going on here. And wouldn’t it be better if you could do three, three weeks’ worth or one and see what the reaction is? Because what if you make 52, and it’s the wrong vibe, and you have to go back and redo them? Don’t make 52 before you post one. Like, you could start with one. It’s okay. So that fear, that perfection thing, that’s another thing that I think everyone is afraid, a little bit afraid, you know, to.
Odiva Vasell: (27:57)
Yeah. And it comes up again time and time again. And then you realize like no matter what your business is, it’s going to evolve over time. But you really have to like put something out there and then connect with the client and then one by one and get the feedback to build it. That’s brilliant.
Trisha Craig: (28:17)
Yeah, getting over the fear. I heard someone, I think it’s, I think he’s called the rap preacher. I can’t remember his name, but…
Odiva Vasell: (28:25)
I heard, yeah, yeah, I know him.
Trisha Craig: (28:28)
I can’t think of his name.
Odiva Vasell: (28:30)
His name, oh my goodness. (Eric Thomas)
Trisha Craig: (28:33)
I don’t, but I heard I watched one of his videos, and I was like smitten. But he’s one of the things he said was change fear to Faith. Like instead of feeling fear, call it faith and do the thing, you know? And I think we can learn a lot from that. And I learned it early on in creatives as entrepreneurs because I was working with a business coach, and I was in a group with her with some other people. And I was hesitating to put creatives as entrepreneurs out there. I was feeling a little bit of an identity crisis. I’ve always been a flutist and a conductor, and I went to music school for 22 years and all these things, and I’m like, what would people think? And she’s like, they’ll think that you’re doing something new, that you’ve evolved, that it’s just trying to convince me. So I made the Facebook Banner for my personal page that kind of announces my new thing, and it wasn’t pretty. It was, but I made it. And so she’s like, well, you made it, but I don’t see it. I was like, I just can’t post it. I just couldn’t put it out there. And she, she was like, you have to post it right now. And I was like, I’m just not ready. I don’t know what people will think. And she’s like, what will they think? That nothing’s going to go wrong. Just post it. And she’s like, in fact, I’m going to go around to the other people in the group and come back to you. And while I’m doing that, you’re going to post it right. So during this group coaching, I was like, and everybody’s like, yeah, yeah, Trish, go post that thing. So I went on Facebook, and I posted my Facebook cover on my personal page that announced creatives as entrepreneurs. And I put it there. And do you know what happened?
Odiva Vasell: (30:17)
What?
Trisha Craig: (30:18)
Nothing. Nothing happened. A lot of people were like, yay, that’s so cool. Oh, I can see you doing this day. But nobody was like, you’re an idiot or what do you, it was fine. It was fine. And you know, the Earth isn’t going to explode if you do your first Facebook post or if you do your first behind the scenes piece of artwork or your first attempt at just showing people what goes on when you’re doing your scale practice or whatever. And the world is not going to end. No one is sitting around waiting to judge you, really. It might feel that way, but you put your thing up, and you’re making squeaky sounds on the violin while you’re trying a new technique, whatever. And people are going to be like, huh, thank you.
Odiva Vasell: (31:00)
Thank you for this message. And to the women that I work with who are thinking that I have an accent or my English is not perfect or, you know, I’m from one culture, and maybe I’m presenting my business to another culture. This is what makes you human. And this is, yeah, it’s such a beautiful thing. So let’s, let’s…
Trisha Craig: (31:29)
Yeah, yeah, that’s what makes you real. And that’s where your story can overlap with someone else’s story. Perhaps your accent reminds them of their grandmother, or perhaps, perhaps it just sounds a little exotic, or perhaps it’s charming, or perhaps they don’t even notice. But I could tell you there’s a new flute repair guy in my area, and I need a new flute repair guy, and a lot of my students need a new flute repair guy. And he’s actually from Korea, and he’s got an accent, and his English is really good, but not quite a native speaker, right? And so far, so when I first read his text, and I had recruited, I used to work in the admission office for New England Conservatory for a long time, so I’m really good at accents, and I’m really good at deciphering grammar that’s not accurate. So when I was reading his Facebook, I mean, his website, I was smitten because you could tell he wrote it with a lot of thought, but it wasn’t quite a native speaker sounding, right? But that added charm for me. I was like, I love this guy. And then when you hear him speaking, he’s just so, it’s so endearing. And so far, every single student and every single parent who has talked to him, when they come back to me, they go, “Oh, he’s just so charming. It’s just so sweet. I love his accent.” So he might be sitting there going, “Oh, I don’t know if they like me because I have this accent,” but so far, every single one of us has been like, “Oh my gosh, he’s so amazing. He’s so brave to come here from another country and to start a business. I mean, we’re all smitten. And part of it is the charm of his accent and his English that’s not quite right.”
Odiva Vasell: (33:14)
So I’m going to make sure that everyone who watches this gets your lead magnet.
Trisha Craig: (33:21)
Oh, yeah.
Odiva Vasell: (33:23)
So of your Facebook page, you have put so much into it. You really nurturing your group with freebies and giveaways. Creatives as entrepreneurs. Yeah, everyone look for that link that I’m going to be posting because Trisha Craig is really heartfelt entrepreneur, and she’s really doing what she needs to do to get more art and beauty out in the world. And I just excited to you about this today.
Trisha Craig: (34:00)
Thank you.
Conclusion
We learned how to turn the struggle of working alone into a journey of mastering both creativity and business. Trisha shared important lessons about overcoming the fear of putting yourself out there, recognizing the role of relationships in marketing, and ditching the “starving artist” mindset. The big idea? Joining a supportive community of fellow creators is the remedy for feeling alone, providing a space where artistic passion meets smart business moves. So, whether you’re into painting or playing music, be yourself, make connections, and confidently step into the world of entrepreneurship—your canvas is waiting, and the world is ready for your special masterpiece.