Remember and Inspire.

We all know when we've been funneled, don't we?

I'm so over it and over the next few months, I'd like to share a few suggestions for how to find some great art instruction I've found that actually IS free.

If you don't know what a sales funnel is, it  basically helps you sift through tons of people to get to the ones who will actually pay for your product or service. Everyone uses it even if they don't realize it. It's a legitimate tool, if used with integrity. Remember, though, there are real people behind those funnels. The honest ones are just using it to find their right audience.

But then there are the ones who make false claims and have little respect for those who choose not to take action. 

Here's an example of the wrong kind, based on trends I've noticed lately:

They start with an offer for a free how-to course, loaded with content that will catapult your art career to six-digits almost instantly, so they claim. It could be how to use Instagram, how to sell more art, how to compose and sell an art instruction course....etc.

We are skeptical, but we click the learn more button because it said "FREE."

Then we find out that the only thing free about it is the opportunity to listen to an hour long webinar sales pitch for a $485 full length course. All the webinar does is lay out the table of contents for the course. It doesn't actually give anything real that we can implement. Or if it does, the advice is miniscule. It's like leaving a penny tip at a restaurant, hardly worth the time and energy it takes to pick it up.

I could have spent that hour in the studio.

And just about the time we get fed up and start to click away, we get a pop-up saying it's been discounted...for a limited time of course. If we act now we can get all that value-packed content for four easy payments of just $99, plus a whole slew of bonuses.

And who knows? There might actually be some great stuff in that course. I've taken some paid classes online and found them quite useful. I'm willing to invest in my art career if I think it's worth it, and if the person selling it will just be honest with me at the outset.

I just don't care for the whole bait-and-switch thing. And I've come to recognize when I'm being dishonorably funneled.

Will the content you receive help you make tons of $$$? Maybe. Again, if you are willing to sacrifice your studio time to sift through the hour-long webinars or pages and pages of reasons why you can't afford not to. Not me. I'm done!

I just want to paint. I sell what I paint so I can pay my bills, so I can keep on painting. It's really that simple. 

So the burning question is, are there people out there who share their expertise for free?

Yes, there are...lots of them in fact.

While they do also offer paid content, their free stuff is pretty awesome. And truth be told, if and when I want to go deeper, I'd rather get my instruction from someone who has already proven to me that their stuff is gold, so they don't NEED to spam my inbox with multiple versions of the same sales pitch.

So here's my first top pick FREE resource.

His name is Chris Fornataro and his Youtube moniker is "Paint Coach." His content is quite useful for self-taught artists as he has scads of free videos that actually teach something useful on a wide variety of topics. He gets right to the point, stays focused, and I've never once gotten a spammy email from him. Does he offer more in-depth paid stuff? Of COURSE! That's only fair. He's a great teacher and he has the right to be paid for that. But he offers such meaty free stuff that you'll know soon enough whether his paid content will be worth it to you.

Here's one of my favorites: Click on "How To Make Oil Painting Less Frustrating."   

Enjoy!  

What kind of free resources would be useful to you? Leave a comment and let me know.