69 – E-Commerce Success with Elizabeth Schowachert

Laura

0:04
Hi, this is Laura Lee Griffin.

Nikki

0:06
And this is Nikki May with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting in your own way and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:15
We are artists who believe strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:29
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

Laura

0:39
Today, we’re speaking with Elizabeth Schowachert, a mixed-media artist based in Montana with a passion for travel, ink and encaustic painting, and who creates insanely cool brushes and tools for artists. Elizabeth, welcome to the Startist Society.

Elizabeth

0:57
Thank you so much, Laura and Nikki, I’m so happy to be here.

Nikki

1:00
We’re so excited to have you here. And we want to get you started the way we start everybody out; we want to hear your Startist story. I know that like Laura and myself, you have a background in the corporate world. And that you were doing both side by side for quite a while. And in the last – well you’ll have to tell us how many years – you’ve been able to leave the corporate world behind and become a full time artist.

Elizabeth

1:26
Thank goodness for that. But yes, I spent 23+ years working for major corporations and at positions at the executive level towards the last 10 years of my career, in product and brand development. And I worked with customers in the US and also overseas. My last job I was working for the largest retailer in Taiwan as the Executive Vice President of marketing and product design. And prior to that I was a VP for Michaels running design, QA, QC and brand development. So it was a lot of years, and I moved eight times in 16 years, including overseas. So it was a lot of moving and a lot of change. And it was pretty exciting for the first 12 to 15 of those years for sure.

Nikki

2:25
So I know you and I became acquainted for the first time, I don’t remember how many years ago, through the encaustic world, but you were still working, you were working for the company based out of Taiwan and we did a little bit of work together for that company.

Elizabeth

2:40
That’s right.

Nikki

2:41
Yeah. So tell me, were you doing art then? Well, I know you were, because we met through encaustic. But have you always been an artist? Or is it something that you started to get away from the corporate world? How did those work together?

Elizabeth

2:54
Well, I’ve always been drawing and doing some sort of painting or art, even since we were very young. We come from an artistic family with people that were painters and educators. And art was always an important part of our lives. But I really didn’t know that I could be an artist or should be an artist until it was later in life. And I spent probably a good 10 years pining after wanting to do it full time when I was still working. And as my career sort of, developed into that mature phase, when you’re supposed to be super excited about going to work and running big teams and doing a big corporate job, I just was starting to really dislike my life, at least my career life. So…

Nikki

3:47
I can 100% relate to that after a decade with IBM.

Elizabeth

3:53
Yes, absolutely.

Nikki

3:56
So how did you manage balancing the two, juggling the two?

Elizabeth

4:01
Well, if you ask my partner, she would say that I didn’t balance it for a long time because I worked 12 hours a day. And then on the weekends, I would get up like at 5am and get up into the to the studio so that I could paint for maybe five hours on the weekends. And then, go to work during the week and just dream about painting and making things and wishing that I could do that. It’s not not to say that there was no joy in my work, but it just didn’t feel it was missing. I was missing something. It just felt like it was not satisfying to me and I did not feel fulfilled. And I knew really deep down I needed to make a change, but it’s a very difficult change to move into an art career when you have an established Oh yeah, I mean, I have two kids in the house and you have to pay the bills.

Nikki

4:58
I know that your partner also is an artist, she does ceramics. And so was she doing that full time while you were working the corporate job? Or did she also have a job job?

Elizabeth

5:13
She’s an RN.

Nikki

Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.

Elizabeth

She’s always worked part time wherever we’ve lived, but she was the primary caretaker for our kids. I have a son and daughter. They’re both pretty much grown up now or trying to grow up.

Nikki

5:30
We’re all still trying to, or maybe trying not to.

Elizabeth

5:35
Yeah, sure. She still does some work, but is definitely doing pottery on a more full time basis. And that’s a piece of our business that we’re still working on developing, for sure.

Nikki

5:47
Yeah, actually, I’d love to hear more about that. Because the collaborations that you two do together are just beautiful. I held up that tumbler I got from you guys that I’m drinking from. And I know that so she does beautiful ceramics. And then you paint them.

Elizabeth

6:06
Yeah. And it’s really wild. Because I’ve always been an abstract artist, and I don’t have an art degree. So I am not academically trained. And I didn’t really know that I could paint as well as I can. And it’s kind of funny, how you can kind of discover things. And she’s been making pottery now for probably about six or seven years. And I don’t know how I started painting on the pots, but I just remember wanting to try, I was like, Oh, that looks cool. I want to try that. You know, put some underglaze on.

Nikki

6:44
You’ve done some beautiful work on her pots. I just showed Laura, I think yesterday, a beautiful big plate with a dragon on it. Then this, this cup that I have has dragonflies. So clearly, you can do more than just abstract. I mean, your abstract work is also beautiful, but what you’re doing together is beautiful, too. And so that’s one part of your business, but tell us all the other things you do, because I know you do a wide variety of things.

Elizabeth

7:14
Well, lately, it feels like all I do is make brushes 24/7. Because it’s just been so busy. And like most people, I don’t have enough time to do some of my more creative work that I’d like to do. But it’s funny because you can never predict where life will take you. And if if someone had told me that I was going to be really making a living, making Sumi style contemporary brushes, and silicone tools, and inventing mark making tools and things like that, I would have been like, Yeah, I’m not gonna do that. But hey, that’s where life has taken me.

Nikki

7:58
I want you to share with us how that got started?

Elizabeth

8:01
Well, I spent a lot of time in Asia, traveling for work, doing sourcing, really, since 2000, I’ve been traveling to China. And especially when I was working in Taiwan for four years, I was there for 10 days every three to four weeks. And I really got to know the city and the people and the culture. And I got interested in the calligraphy painting and just the sort of art practices and the philosophy of a lot of the Asian art practices. And what happened really is that I was working with one of my favorite brushes, and I knew exactly what it was going to do. And I was like, I just need to mix it up. So I made a brush. And I made this really sort of beautiful little painting. And I thought, Oh, that was really cool. And then I started, I don’t even know how I began, but I just started making brushes. And I’m a good problem solver and I’m very good at design. Yeah, I’ve always been that way. I mean, even in my corporate life, that’s something I was always really good at was just problem solving and figuring out how to fix things. And that’s how my mind works. And I just sort of started and I had created this website and it was completely wrong. I mean, I was selling all this sort of Asian stuff and I’ve completely rebranded it over the last, I think now it’s been six years.

Nikki

9:35
And yeah, I kind of remember for a while were you were selling things that you had purchased overseas?

Elizabeth

9:42
Exactly. Yeah. It was helping pay for my art supplies and stuff.

Nikki

9:48
I get it. Whatever helps. We’ve got to pay for those art supplies.

Elizabeth

9:52
Yeah, and plus, by nature I’m just like a little business-y person, I think, yeah, make money doing this. And, um, and then I don’t know, it just morphed into what it is today. Obviously, it’s not just random. I mean, I decided to rebrand and I realized what I needed to do. But when I first started, I didn’t have such a clear path.

Nikki

10:16
So you started making your own brushes because you were bored with the ones you found out there? And how did that grow?

Elizabeth

10:26
Well, I started making brushes. And then artists started talking to me about, oh, I want one of those, will you make me one? And so I realized that, first of all, I was good at it. You know? I mean, I could do it.

Nikki

10:37
But they’re so beautiful.

Elizabeth

10:40
Thank you. Well, they’ve gotten so much better.

Nikki

10:43
I have to get my paws on one. And the only reason I haven’t yet is because they’re all so amazing I can’t decide.

Elizabeth

10:51
And they’re all different sizes.

Laura

10:52
I think that’s cool, cause you’ve made some really large ones as well as small ones that I see.

Elizabeth

10:56
Oh yeah, so the business now just is really kind of segmented into. I tried to kind of focus on developing my Sumi brushes, and really making really solid functional tools. And I think the key to anything is, you know, having that clarity of purpose and, and understanding what it is that you need to do, and then recognizing those opportunities that come along and taking advantage of them. So, you know, for me, it was recognizing, oh, there’s demand for this. It’s pretty niche-y, I like doing it. And so I just started, and there was no rulebook, nobody to show me. I just sort of started doing it. And yeah, and you figure it out as you go along? Because you figure out what, what works or what doesn’t work, or Yeah, exactly. And even like, working on the website, just figuring out how to put the website together, and how to do the product pages, and how to do the descriptions and how to set everything up. And, you know, it’s taken me a while, but I’m really proud of my website and proud of what I’ve been able to do with it for someone that has, you know, zero training in that and isn’t really technically savvy, I’m just sort of. But my background does help with that, for sure.

Nikki

12:16
Well, I would say clearly, with your corporate background and the art, like Laura and myself, you’re both left brain and right brain…

Elizabeth

12:24
For sure. I mean, I love and I used to really like analytics a lot, because I always wanted to figure out the story, you know, what is it telling you, and I understand also how to look at analytics. And you know, not that I have time to do it now. But But I know enough to know what I need to do and to look at results and to, you know, make good decisions about my business. And especially, and I think to just the branding, understanding that piece, and really working on that in a very specific way, even with my big long name that’s unruly, and spell.

Nikki

13:07
And by the way, I have to admit, because I like to tell on myself on this podcast, I have known you, I mean, we haven’t met in person, but I’ve known you for I don’t know, how many years, do you know how many years? 10 years maybe. And I had to ask you today before we got on how to pronounce your last name.

Laura

13:30
So for everybody to know it’s s c h o w a c h e r t?

Elizabeth

13:36
Yes.

Laura

13:37
So that you can find the website.

Nikki

13:39
You don’t have to remember that because we will link to it in the show notes. Okay, but let’s get back, let’s get back to your story. So did you start making the brushes before you ended the corporate career? Or is or is that what made you able to do it?

Elizabeth

13:57
I started making brushes before and I also started teaching workshops and doing a lot of art related business stuff prior to leaving my corporate job and my last corporate job I left with a layoff so that was kind of like a forced leave.

Nikki

14:14
Ah, did you get a decent severance package?

Elizabeth

14:18
I got an okay severance package.

Nikki

14:21
Excellent. That doesn’t hurt at all.

Elizabeth

14:22
Yeah. But, uh, you know, and I thought what I was gonna do was do consulting, because I just really, really couldn’t stand the idea of working for another big retailer or corporation, right, which would really, you know, involve moving my family again, and my son was going to be like a junior in high school. And so I embarked on this whole idea of creating this consulting business but then I found I had all this time and I really started working really hard on my art business. Nice. That’s way more fun. And it really, it really just started to kind of take off. And I sort of realized that, oh, well, maybe I can make this work. And it was always our plan once my son graduated from high school to move to Montana, and to downsize and everything. So, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t tell him exactly what I was doing. And I probably should. But I just really started focusing on it. And it just really started coming together. But I have to say that there’s so many things involved in this other than just working on the website. I mean, for the last 10 years, I had been working on my social media presence, on Instagram, Facebook, and I started to really work on Pinterest, then, because I saw that as a way, and those things really sort of set the foundation for being able to do a standalone website, because you have to have traffic.

Nikki

16:02
Right? Having a beautiful website that nobody knows about, it doesn’t do you any good.

Elizabeth

16:06
Exactly. And so I had been doing all this stuff this whole time. And that really allowed me to start to really, you know, drive that business a lot more and really start to create something more meaningful.

Nikki

16:23
Well, the other thing that you’ve also been doing alongside that is you have a YouTube channel.

Elizabeth

16:29
Well, yeah, I have a YouTube channel. And I mean, I do get traffic from YouTube, it’s really interesting. And YouTube, when people come to my store from YouTube, it’s I have a good conversion rate for that. So I kind of did a lot of it when I was doing more encaustic painting, and then I sort of did less of it. And I’ve recently started to add more videos, again to YouTube, because I realized that it is a good traffic generator. But also it works really well for me, when I want to add an item and have a demo, it works really great just to do a snippet and put that in there. And so it’s right there. And if the customer wants to see their brush in action, then they just can hit that snippet. It’s on YouTube, and they can see it and so

Laura

17:11
So you basically embed the video on your website where the product is.

Elizabeth

17:14
Yes. And YouTube makes that really easy. And you can even do it privately. But I just do it public. Because what the heck I mean, I’ll get why not? Yeah. And they’re really, they’re really short videos, they’re not real fancy, I do have a good setup.

Nikki

17:28
They’re exactly what you need. Because you make these beautiful brushes that, you know, you look at. And there’s some small ones and big ones and fat ones and skinny ones. And there’s hard bristles and soft bristles. Exactly what do with these beautiful brushes. And so just a few, even just a few seconds of showing how to use the brush makes you want to buy that brush.

Elizabeth

17:51
Well, yeah. And it also just really shows what they can do and the diversity of the different mark making. And it’s funny because so many people asked me, oh, I could never use that brush. I could never paint with that brush. But they’re all totally functional art tools. Nothing that I make is just to be pretty. I mean, there’s a few brushes that I made, they are pretty Yeah, but because it is, to me an artistic practice, you know, I mean, yeah, I would get so bored, if I just, you know, turned out a bunch of tools that had no personality to write. So, for me, I’m constantly striving to improve the function of the brush, to improve the way that I make them to be efficient, but also to just enhance the visual interest and to take the time to work with the materials and kind of do what I want with them to a certain degree.

So the brushes that you make today, are they primarily for like Sumi e drawing ink brushes, or were in caustic? Or how can people utilize the brushes? They’re

really well, they can be utilized in a lot of different ways. And one of the things that I mentioned, I think earlier was just recognizing opportunities for business expansion. So one of the things I realized early on, I had taken a course with Paula Roland for encaustic monotype because I really love and caustic monotype. But there’s no tools. I mean, we’re using all this stuff from you know, the bake store hardware store. Yeah. So I recognized right away that there was an opportunity and I started working with silicone and thinking, Okay, how could I make these tools and the first tools I started making were pretty primitive. They were cool looking. They weren’t, but I’ve really refined that and I’ve developed like a bunch of different really functional tools that create a lot of very interesting mark making and allow for a lot more representational or specific type of mark making on cost. monotype but they also work with acrylic, any kind of gel mediums they work with, I mean really cold, anything that is going to be moving across the surface and a reductive way, as long as it’s not too thick and gooey, you know, it has to have like some some printmaking ink and stuff like that for traditional printmaking doesn’t work very well for some of the tools, but

Nikki

20:23
right, it’s too thick. 

Elizabeth

20:24
Yeah, but for the most part, they, they just do a lot of really interesting type of mark making. And of course, that allowed me I mean, every time I do this, I have this kind of burst of also just artistic creativity and using the tool, looking at what it can do and taking advantage of that. But so I developed a big line of encaustic monotype and printmaking tools. I also recognized for cold wax that there really wasn’t a lot of tools. And so I developed specific brushes for cold wax and

Nikki

20:56
you also work with cold wax yourself.

Elizabeth

20:59
I don’t. I mean, I don’t really.  What I did was I just bought cold wax. And I just played around with experimentation. And I also know what it is, you know, I’ve seen it, I’ve taken a cold wax workshop, I know how the material works. So I know kind of what is needed to do it. And then I also sent brushes to Rebecca Crowell and I heard of us, and you know, to give me feedback, and I do that quite a bit. Actually, I do send product too. So like, Paula Roland has a lot of my tools and stuff that I’ve given her to use in her workshops.

Nikki

21:33
which is a perfect way to test your products to grow your you know, your audience exposure.

Elizabeth

21:44
Yeah, to get more exposure. And so I took advantage of those two opportunities. And then with regard to my brushes, certainly ink is a good go to but right, you know, depending on the type of bristle hair, whether it’s coarse, not coarse. If it’s deer, I mean, all of those type of bristles will work with different media. And it really just depends on what you’re doing, how thick it is, what the coarser stiffnesses of the hair. But people my customers work with all different kinds of material. And I mean, I’ve sold 1000s of brushes, so

Nikki

22:19
yeah, and they’re all individually handmade by your hands,

Elizabeth

22:24
every single one.

LAURA

Yeah, that’s amazing.

Nikki

22:26
Well, I think it’s a brilliant product for you. Because A), you get to solve a problem of not finding brushes that excite you. So you get to make your own brushes for you to use in your own art be. The brush itself is a beautiful piece of art. And then you also get to provide other people with beautiful tools that they can use. So I mean, there’s just so many facets to it, that I think it’s beautiful. Lots of win-win happening there.

Elizabeth

22:55

Yeah, and one of the things I really enjoy doing is working with artists, and commissioning specific brushes for their art practice that they want or need. So I do that.

Nikki

23:11
That’s what I need to do.

Elizabeth

23:13
And it’s like so good. Somebody will say, Well, I really want something to be able to do X, Y and Z. And you know, I’ll come up with a design for it and make it and, and I also make, you know, very large, Sumi style brushes that you know, you couldn’t find anywhere. Right? I mean, just this just this Christmas in the last month I’ve sold for and you know, they’re big,

Nikki

23:37
really large ones. I mean, I think I saw a picture of you holding one that looked like a broom. Almost. It was so big.

Elizabeth

23:43
I sold four brushes that size. Amazing.

Nikki

23:48
I love to see what people are producing with those. 

Elizabeth

23:51
Yeah, I mean, some people – like one of them was for a guy for his wife to hang up in our studio as a Christmas present. I don’t know that that one will be used. But yeah, that’s always exciting to me to work with an artist. And it’s funny because I’m much less excited to work on a commission if I’m doing a painting. I really don’t enjoy that. But when I’m making art tools, I actually really do enjoy the process of designing the tool to the specification of the artist. And figuring out how to make it you know,

LAURA

it’s because you’re solving a problem. And you said that you’re a problem solver. So it’s almost like a puzzle that you get to figure out how to get that product exactly the way they want it. You know,

Nikki

24:32
You get to use all parts of your brain. 

Elizabeth

24:36
Yes, exactly. But yeah, so the business has really evolved over the years. And as I said, what I do probably well is just recognize those opportunities as they come and just really pursue them. That’s fantastic. Yeah, and I think my background in branding, I mean, I understand how to do it and that For example, I remember when I first started, I was working with Bonnie Liebowitz in Dallas, who I love Bonnie. Yeah, she’s wonderful. And she runs in caustic studio where I’ve taught many times and still do teach. And we were having a one on one session. And I told her yeah, I’m going to call my website, IES studios, and she said, Hmm, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I mean, who’s Yes. And who’s studio? And she? I said, Yeah, but my name is Elizabeth Schowachert. And she said, Okay, well, great. There’s not going to be very many people with that name. And it’s perfect. Can’t argue with that. And so I just embraced it. And I thought, Okay, well, then, that’s what I’m going to do. And thank goodness, I didn’t waste my time with IES studios, and just, you know, got that figured out quick. And, in fact, you know, I mean, as I was thinking about this whole interview, that’s one of the things that was so helpful to me to spend time with her in the very beginning to just really understand some of the basic stuff that, you know, I needed to do to get off onto the right foot in terms of starting a website. And, of course, I you know, you start and restart and navigate things and realize you have to take, you know, make course corrections and all those things, but Right, but it does definitely help to, to get that input from someone that has that experience. For sure.

LAURA

Yeah, and Bonnie’s fantastic. I know her really well as well.

Elizabeth

Yeah.

Nikki

26:33
So talk to us a little bit about – okay, we’ve gone all into the brushes, which is amazing. But talk to us about how you combine that aspect of your business with your own art. So I I’ve seen a lot lately, looking at your social media, it’s mostly the brushes, but I also see some beautiful artwork on ceramics sneak in, and some encaustic monotypes. So how do you juggle slash balance your own art now with the brush making? Well,

Elizabeth

27:08
you know, I think it really depends on the time of year, like right now, I’ve been doing nothing pretty much but making brushes 24/7 for the last month and a half holiday time. Yep. And, you know, I’m an E commerce. That’s what I do. And yeah, absolutely take advantage of the time of year, and you have to be ready for it. But like with anything, I don’t have as much time to create art as I would like, I really think it’s not just a time thing, too, it’s a mental thing. You have to be in the right mental space to really focus. And if you’re, if you’re going to do more than just, you know, play around making mama monotypes. Or, you know, a lot of times what will happen for me, especially with monotypes, is I make a new tool. And then I have this big, I think I mentioned this, but a big burst of creativity around that tool and what I can do with it. And then I move on to something else. And maybe the next tool comes along, or if I have a day where I can just say okay, I’m going to set up my my or maybe I’m teaching because I do zoom classes for teaching monotype encaustic painting and also for semi painting. And if I have the set up, I usually try to do some creative exercise with that setup as it’s done. So that, you know, when I move on to something else, then you know, but I haven’t really been painting as much in caustic in the last few years is just more cumbersome to do. Yeah, and

Nikki

28:42
you need more time. Exactly. You can’t fit it into the little bits and pieces of time that you have as easily as you can like just ink painting and write.

Elizabeth

28:51
But I really do enjoy doing a lot of work on ceramics, I love painting dragons, and I like I love doing. I’ve been doing a lot of trout, and you know, kind of the stuff up here in Montana. And so I really enjoy that creative process that gives me that sort of more artistic outlet. Right? And, you know, my brushes are an artistic process because Oh absolutely, it’s all the things that go together. Although it’s a very functional product, so but you know, I’m experimenting all the time because I would get so bored if all I was doing all the time was just by rote you know, making another blade tool or

Nikki

29:34
Yeah, the exact same brush size and shape over and over. Yeah,

Elizabeth

29:38
I just couldn’t do it. I mean, I would take the joy out of it. And it is a joy for me. I mean, I think about it, even when I’m busy and I was a couple days ago I was like Kim I’m I’m burned out like I I have had enough of this Christmas but, but then I realized You know, just had a good sleep, wake up the next day and I feel refreshed. And I’m back at it again. And I just, you know, I just love it. So long winded way to answer your question is that I don’t have the time for more of the artistic expression in outside of brushes that I would like, right. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Because the demand that that I have in, in this part of my business is really high. And I really also really enjoy it. And it’s one of those funny things, you know, sometimes we start with something like really working with encaustic. And then making that shift to something else can feel weird. Like, can I really do this? Is this okay? And

Nikki

30:52
I know that feeling well.

Elizabeth

30:54
Yeah. But it is it is hard to make those switches and then some people don’t recognize maybe that it is an art practice still, you know, right, brush maker? Is that an art practice? I mean, most of my customers do appreciate it. But it’s certainly not like a flat painting, you know, it’s much different. 

Nikki

31:14
but I get that too, even with my move in the last couple years from doing encaustic mostly to doing digital art. So you know, all the stuff that I’ve been doing lately has been on my iPad, and everybody’s like, you know, well, are you going to get back to your “real” art?

LAURA

31:31
Yes, people think it’s fake art.

Elizabeth

I think we have to be careful not to let other people define. Yeah, we are what we are, you know,

Nikki

31:41
I do sometimes feel like I’m cheating on encaustic. Yeah.

Elizabeth

31:47
I was funny, because I got out my encaustic stuff. And we have a little gallery in big fork that I have my work. And, you know, I did some paintings of the lake, because where we live is so beautiful. It’s so beautiful. Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing. It’s like waking up in a postcard every day. And I don’t know why you would have left Dallas.

Nikki

32:12
Or how many times have I sent you a message saying I’m so sorry, you have to live in that ugly place.

Elizabeth

32:19
I know. It’s fantastic. And so you know, I feel very inspired by that. So I can also see where my art is going to go. Like, I have some things rolling around in my head. And I don’t know about you guys. But the way it works for me, especially when it comes to visual art, is it rolls around in my head, it’s there. And it’s I’m tossing and turning it and I’m thinking about it, and I have the vision and then I just have to start work on getting it out. So I know that that desire is there. And I’m certainly bubbling, yeah, it’s going to bubble it’s going to bubble up. And you know, also at different parts of the year, it’s going to be much quieter for me probably starting in February. So you know, then I’ll have some time. And I can spend some time doing some different kinds of art. And that’s what I’ll do is is sort of shift some of my energy to those that part of my art practice. But you know, when you run an e commerce Store or a business, it’s demanding, I don’t have any help I do everything. You wear all the hats. Yes. And sometimes, you know, some better than others, because I’m not an expert and all this stuff. But I also don’t want to pay somebody to do it for me.

Nikki

33:34
I was just gonna ask if you’ve thought about getting an assistant to help with some of the some of them may be more repetitive things about making brushes.

Elizabeth

33:44
I’ve thought about it, but I just can’t bear the thought of like, okay, well, how are they going to treat my bamboo handle, like, I’m going to want it a certain way. And I’m also very good at it now, like I’m pretty fast and can make certain things pretty fast. So I’m not at the point of getting an assistant, I think where I if I was going to spend money on having help, it would be more on the tech side of, you know, helping set up more efficient Google ads and working to help me I want to set up my product pages differently so that the photographs, I have to take a lot of photographs, because you know, nobody’s gonna spend $229 on a brush. If there’s three pictures, right? I have to have a lot of pictures. And it kind of mucks up my site a little bit in the last few days I was looking at, Okay, is there an app I can get? You know, I’m on Shopify, by the way. So, and I would definitely highly recommend Shopify, for anybody that wants to start an e commerce Store. It’s a fantastic platform. It’s very intuitive. It’s easy to use. And if I would think that most people would be kind of doing these things sort of by themselves. You don’t want to be locked into somebody that has to go do everything for you. Because then it’s just too much time consuming. And you have to be able to do it yourself at least some of it, you know, yeah. Maybe not the initial setup, but just the ongoing maintenance. And, yeah, but I’m really starting to think of, you know, maybe trying to work with an agency on some of my advertising. It took me a really long time to start advertising with Google, but I am advertising now on search with Google and also with shopping, you know, because I really want to diversify my traffic and make sure that I have a good diverse base of traffic. That’s not all coming from one area. I think, for a long time, I was overly dependent on Pinterest. Mm hmm. And I don’t want to have that imbalance, kind of, you know,

and how do you do that? How do you even get started with things like the Google advertising? And, you know, do you test it out and see what tests best are like, how do you? How do you even go about doing that?

Well, I would say, starting an e commerce Store is a marathon, not a sprint. And it takes a long time to build to where, you know, you can run it and run it profitably, without, you know, spending a bazillion dollars on paid traffic. And so the real key is to have a lot of good organic traffic. And I think once you have good organic traffic, and you have a website that has all the backlinks that you need, and as you know, Google is going to look at it and say, Okay, this is a good website. And, you know, they have a blog they have, you know, I mean, I have 5000 backlinks on my, on my website with Google.

Nikki

36:41
That’s impressive.

Elizabeth

36:44
And a while ago, I didn’t even know what a backlink was. But I was listening to a podcast and he was talking about all the backlinks, I’m like, Oh, I gotta go check that

out. Okay, I’m fessing up. I don’t know what a backlink is. So you have to tell me what a backlink is? Well, I don’t even know

I think, probably Nikki could explain it better than me. I don’t even I don’t even totally understand it. But what I think it is, is like, when I pin on Pinterest, there’s a link that goes to my site. And when someone clicks on it, that’s like a link to my site that’s off of my site. So it backs into is that right?

Nikki

37:15
Well, so a backlink is a link that is from another external site to your site.

Elizabeth

37:21
Right. So that would work because it’s Pinterest. Yeah, yeah.

Nikki

37:24
Yeah. So yeah. So from Pinterest, or from a blog, or anybody that you’ve had review your site, or there’s all kinds of strange sites. Sometimes you can look at what these backlinks are through your analytics, and you can see who’s linking to you. And there’s all these sites, you’ve never heard of Exactly. Just their kind of directory sites. And you’re like, Well, how to do this website even find me? And I can’t tell you how they do that. But robots? I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, definitely, definitely. But, but yeah, the more External links to your site, which are, what backlinks are, the more, it kind of makes your site seem reputable?

Elizabeth

38:06
Exactly. And so Okay, um, you know, I think there’s a whole bunch of work that has to be done in advance, I see a lot of people that, you know, start sites, they’re like, Oh, I’m not getting any traffic. So I’m going to do an AD and AD is just not the way to go. Especially for handmade handmade, I think you really have to have organic traffic, although usually you have a better margin. So you can kind of support, you know, some marketing activities a little bit better, without too much worry. But it’s not sustainable, you have to have organic traffic. So my recommendation to anybody looking to doing this is to start developing those, as I mentioned before, you know, your social media. And also, Pinterest, I think is a really good, really, really good resource for visual artists, because it’s such a visual site, and that that type of content really works well. And it’s really done well for me.

Nikki

39:03
Pinterest is a great source of organic traffic. But then in terms of getting like, really high quality backlinks, you can like exactly what you do with sending your products to people who are known in that medium is great. Yeah, so sending your tools to Apollo, Roland and Rebecca and but also getting your site listed on well known sites, like oh, if you can have a Wikipedia article that links to you, or a popular magazine website now will like uppercase uppercase, yes,

Elizabeth

39:40
they just listed me like a month ago, I think or something like that. But you know, I have I’ve been in articles and the Kyoto Journal and you know, just some things like that, too. So especially for like you mentioned for Google, it’s really important that your site is operating and it’s it’s Got that type of stuff and you can work with them to they’ll do stuff for free and help you I’ve, I’ve worked with their support a number of different times to make sure that my tags were correct. And, you know, helping me set up ads correctly and things like that. But you just have to ask for the help and

Nikki

40:17
Note to self get a Google Ads person, yes. On the podcast, not someone who just runs Google ads for people. But someone from Google.

Elizabeth

40:27
Yeah, good. Yeah. That would be awesome.

Nikki

40:31
Google, are you listening.

Elizabeth

40:35
But there are a lot of free resources. I mean, the other thing that I do a lot of is just listen to podcasts, like I listened to a lot of marketing podcasts. And a lot of I listened to a Pinterest podcast to make, you know, when I was first starting Pinterest, I did exactly what they’ve said to do. And it worked, you know, worked really well. So, you know, I think it’s just really important to recognize that it’s a long process to really start to get a strong business developed online. And then obviously, just the marketing part of it, make sure that your branding is really solid, and consistent. Every single picture that I post for an item has my logo on it. And if it gets reposted then that logos there, and yeah, it’s just really important to have that and to make sure that you know, you have good visual content that your photographs are good. I mean, I try really hard to do good photographs. I don’t always succeed, with my lighting and stuff. But I really try and those things all make a difference too. And it’s being intentional with everything that you post, you know, being very intentional with, yeah, the brand that you’re putting out in the world. I try and also just consistency, you just have to do it. Like, you talk to people, I don’t really want to do it. And what if I post once every couple of weeks? Well, good luck with that, because it’s not gonna work,

Nikki

41:59
then maybe you’ll get a sale once every couple months.

Elizabeth

42:03
I mean, it takes forever. I mean, Instagram has been trying to figure out how to get to, like, I’m at 5957 right now. So I just want to get the 6000 slog up, but you know, just oh my gosh, it just takes forever.

Nikki

42:24
At least you don’t need 10,000 anymore to put a link in your stories. I haven’t figured

Elizabeth

42:29
out how to do that yet. I have to look at I have to look it up. You guys mentioned it. And I was like, Oh, I gotta look at that. And I still haven’t been able to figure it out. But I will for sure.

Laura

42:41
I’m happy to show you later, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth

42:44
I know. It has to be pretty easy, but I just haven’t.

Nikki

42:47
Yeah, I haven’t gotten to that yet. So I have a little aside question. You were talking about how you have your logo on all your images. Talk to me about your logo. What is your mark represent?

Elizabeth

43:00
Oh, well, that my logo is it’s a Chinese chop. And it’s Elizabeth. That’s what it says. Okay, that’s an old Yeah, old style Mandarin. And I had the original chop. I’m a Chinese dragon. Zodiac dragon. So I had the chop made in Hong Kong, probably 18 years ago. Nice. And it has a nice really dragon carved into it. It’s really cool looking.

Nikki

43:25
I see it. I’m looking at it right now. And yes, show it on our show notes page for sure.

Elizabeth

43:29
Awesome. And I I was using it in my in classic paintings, because you know, you could heat it up. And it was just yeah, it looked cool. And I liked it. And I just decided to use it as my logo for my business. And it really does say

Elizabeth

I’ve had lots of people that speak Mandarin, say Elizabeth, so I know. But that’s that’s my job. I’ve it’s a registered trademark that I’ve registered and trademarked so nobody can take it from me. And oh, I use it on all my marketing content pretty much. And it’s just a really good way a good way to have a very consistent visual identifier for my work. And especially people steal my pictures and stuff like that. It’s very easy for me. I mean, I’ll be they can edit it out in Photoshop, but they’re gonna just do kind of a low brow steal. It’s easy for me to write to recognize that say that it’s yours. Yes. Please stop using that image. It’s not yours. So

Nikki

44:29
Yeah, definitely.

Laura

44:31
The other thing I love about this, this work like your logo and your experience with your career so far is how travel has kind of found its way through your career and into your art world. So you started off with your corporate career – you said you were in Taiwan and then you did some work in Europe. And I can see all those influences of your traveling now in this career you’ve built for yourself. 

Elizabeth

44:56
Well for sure, I mean, when I was younger, it was a dream of mind to travel. I wanted to go to Europe, I wanted to go to Asia, I wanted to go all these places. And gosh, I never thought I would, but I ended up. Gosh, I’ve been to almost, I lived in England. And I traveled all over Europe and Southeast Asia, and also broadly across the United States. So I, I love being in different cultures, I especially love the Asian culture, I love Taiwan, Taiwan is just a fantastic place to go and visit. And especially when you’re able to spend a lot of time in a place like that you really get to know it better. But I also lived in Malaysia as a child for almost four years. Oh, wow. And yeah, so I’ve always had an affinity for Asian culture. And that’s just sort of permeated my life. And I when I, when I worked in Asia, my the people that worked for me, they told me, they thought I had to be Asian in a past life. Could be because I liked it so much. And and I don’t know, I just had an affinity for the culture and the people. And it’s so true, these things permeate into what you do. And as we were just talking earlier, the place that I live now is permeating into what I do. There’s new materials, there’s new handles, there’s new Ferro material, I’m working with birch bark, I’m working with all this fabulous driftwood that we get out of the lake. And it just it has a way of integrating and my work has always been about connections, it’s always been about the connections in my life with people places. So I think that’s just a natural extension. Being able to be in different places and have those experiences and then connecting those back to the things that you do in your everyday life. I think that’s definitely something that’s part of who I am as an artist.

Laura

And I have the same experience because I’ve traveled to 40 countries, and every time I’ve been to one of those places, it infuses, you know, it kind of gets embedded in your mind, but it comes out in other places sometimes when you least expect it into your artwork and, and to me provides a lot of meaning and opening your eye to a world that’s completely different than your own. Absolutely. Which is exciting in such a cool thing. I think you also in Taiwan, you probably have found all the hidden cool art shops.

Elizabeth

Oh my gosh, I know where all the art shops are shops. I mean, the paper shops and the calligraphy shops. My favorite one has a whole huge downstairs area. That’s just paper, and books. And, you know, I still have paper that I use all the time that I bought when I was there. And I haven’t been back in two years. So it’s kind of like, I really do want to go back. I don’t ever want to make that flight again. But

Laura

48:05
I made that flight before.

Nikki

48:07
It makes it difficult to go back.

Elizabeth

48:09
I know. I you know, having done it so many times.

Nikki

48:13
I mean, how long is that flight

Elizabeth

48:17
20 some odd hours total. And and the last command worked for it was all domestic travel. And you know, I was an executive platinum for a long time a million mile flyer. Wow. But I lost my Platinum status. And they’ve changed all that. So I had to, you know, ride in the back in. Now I have no status. And I for so many years. I mean, you know, I worked traveling to oil, I was totally spoiled in the thought of getting on another flight in the back of the bus. I just, I don’t know, I just don’t even know if I could do it. But I miss it. And I want to be there again. And I want to be I want to go to the markets. I love all that sort of basic everyday things. In when I travel, those are the things I mean, obviously, if you’re in Europe, and you’re in Florence, I mean, you’re going to want to go to the museums and do all that stuff. But for me, I am a traveler. I like to stay in a place kind of a long time. I like to see what it’s like to live there. And just be part of that community for that short period of time.

Nikki

49:29
Yeah, and that’s how I like to travel too.

LAURA

49:32
Yeah, and I can say that one of my friends actually traveled with you to Taiwan. And she came when she came back she gave me a little treasure trove of like papers and brushes and now they weren’t one of your brushes, Elizabeth so is that cool? You have to talk to her but it was really really cool. Um, and also I don’t know where you get these but she Brought back, I felt like this large black piece of felt that you can work on. Yeah. And that is like one of my favorite art supplies that I own. I use it like every other day.

Nikki

50:09
What do you mean? What do you do with that?

Elizabeth

50:11
You paint on them because the traditional Asian Calligraphy is all done on a felted mat because you don’t want the end to pool underneath the paper, the papers are really fine, then papers that don’t have a sound that soaks through, the ink soaks through and then it soaks into the mat so that you don’t get you know, you get clean lines. And it’s they’re just really nice that I’m looking over to my right. And I have two of them sitting right on my table. But they are really, really nice. And those are the things that you can get there along with great, you know, brushes, and I love the paper you can buy you can just buy them the most beautiful handmade paper and it’s so good for encaustic monotype. I mean, it’s just nice smooth as butter. And I love working with it. But I do miss I do miss Taiwan. A great deal having spent, you know, three years of my life living there for half a month every month. I miss it. Wow. Yeah.

Nikki

51:10
Well, any day now we’re gonna have teleportation. So we’ll just get there instantly. Weren’t we promised that by now? With all the Sci Fi

Elizabeth

51:23
Yeah, beam me up, Scotty. Yeah,

Nikki

51:24
exactly. Exactly. Why don’t we have that yet? 

LAURA

51:27
Stargate? Does anybody know Stargate? Or am I the only geek in the room?

Nikki

51:31
You’re not the only geek in the room.

Elizabeth

51:33
And you’re aging yourself. I mean, I tried to watch that the other day. And I realized how old that show is. I was like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe we watched this before.

LAURA

51:44
I love Stargate.

Nikki 

Laura is the youngest one in this room. I believe. I might be the oldest.

Elizabeth

51:53
I think I think I beat you on that.

Nikki

51:56
I don’t know. Well, we’ll have to take that offline. Actually, I’m proud to admit, my birthday was two days ago.

Elizabeth

52:02
Happy birthday.

Nikki

52:03
54

Elizabeth

52:04
Well, I’m 56. I think let me think – no, I’m 57. So my birthday was November.

Nikki

52:10
You got a couple years on me, but not much. Just a couple.

LAURA

Well, we all look fabulous.

Elizabeth

52:17
I mean, you do and I hopefully I look okay, too.

Nikki

52:21
I said we

Elizabeth

52:25
we’re all fabulous. Even the young ones in the room? Absolutely. Absolutely. This has been fascinating learning how you, you know, got started without, you know, the art education. You’ve turned this into an amazing career you got into brush making, and you’ve done teaching, right? So yes, you said you teach zoom workshops. And I know that you teach at the Dallas and Kostik center as well. How did all that start?

Well, it started with Bonnie because, you know, she knew, you know, my background, I did a lot of presenting in front of big crowds and public speaking and things like that. And I’m fairly good at articulating how to do things. I’m good at like, sit you know, if I’m teaching a workshop of explaining how to do a certain mark or use the tools. So when I was first doing my encaustic painting, it was I developed a lot of different methods myself, because that’s who I am. That’s, that’s what I do. And there’s a lot of people that liked my work, and it was unique. And she asked me if I wanted to come teach and gave me kind of a shot at it and realized that I was good at it. And so for the last 10 years, we’ve been working together and every year I teach a monotype class that I teach using a lot of the silicone tools. And then I also teach an encaustic workshop. And then I teach in the flow, which is brush making ink and working large on paper. I’m going to also teach two workshops up here in Montana call for brush making, spending some time out in nature.

Nikki

54:05
And ooh, when are you doing that?

Elizabeth

54:07
I’m going to teach two workshops. One will be in the summer and one I want to do one in the fall, because the fall here is so freaking beautiful.

Nikki

54:17
Oh I bet

Elizabeth

54:18
Wasn’t Legends of the Fall film there.

It’s all filmed in Montana. Not in big flat, but it’s Yeah, close. So they’re legends of fall in Montana.

But it’s really, really beautiful and the lake. The Flathead lakes is the biggest lake west of the Great Lakes and it’s 35 miles around and 50 miles across and it is a super beautiful lake. Also they start to let the lake level go down a little bit in the winter. And it creates a beach and it’s just a really beautiful place to go combing for wood and be out in nature. There’s eagle nests and it’s just fabulous. So part of We’ll be doing a studio tour with me where I talk about the materials, and have everybody at my studio in the morning. And then we’ll go to the lake and walk down and look for materials and then spend, I still haven’t figured out exactly, it’ll be a three or four day, I think I’m going to try to do a four day. Nice. And so we do one day of making brushes. One day of really painting and using painting large, I’ll help bring large brushes for people to work on big huge sheets of paper. And then the last day, we really work on doing collage and mounting the work to panel. And so it’s a it’s a really fun three day workshop or four day workshop probably in July, and either late September or early October of 2022. All right,

Nikki

55:51
I’m signing up for one of those because my bus will be ready for me to start traveling by the end of April. Well, there you go. So I’m heading out there.

Elizabeth

56:03
I’m gonna have it set up on my website. So people can sign up for the classes at that time. I have a lot of people interested already. So I’m nice. And it’s such a beautiful destination. We’re only 45 minutes from Glacier National Park. Wow. Yeah, it’s a incredible place. There’s so much to do hiking. And I mean, I love to fish too. So if you like go fishing,

Nikki

56:28
I think you should have an extra optional add on day, that’s a fishing trip.

Elizabeth

56:32
We could I mean, you know, there’s so much you could do. Just take just going out on the lake, the lake is it’s one of the cleanest lakes in the United States, because Oh, wow, totally drains every two years, because there’s two huge rivers that flow right into it. So it’s clear glass, you know, it’s amazing. It’s really, really beautiful. So that’s, that’s my plan, I’ll still teach with Bonnie. And then I’ll do a couple workshops up here. And my goal actually before COVID was to start developing some teaching in different areas in the US different studios, but I never did it just because

Nikki

57:08
who wants to leave Montana? Because COVID.

Elizabeth

57:13
But now yeah, now it’s like, it’s so busy. And I’m thinking do I really want to travel, but I really enjoy teaching, it’s really enriching to spend time with artists and to work with people to show them how to make different things and to just really explore their own creativity. So I really enjoy that a lot, and will continue doing it for sure. And I also really liked doing zoom I, I have a really good setup. I have good lighting, you know, good microphone camera. And so it’s nice and clear. And I work with artists, and they can sit in their own home and spend time with them. And it’s been really great. And I really enjoy doing that.

Nikki

57:54
Yeah, Laura teaches that way too. Yeah,

Elizabeth

57:56
it’s really good in that part of my teaching has been growing in, I’ve been enjoying that a lot.

Nikki

58:05
Awesome. So I hate to do this, but it’s time to start thinking about wrapping up. So we have a couple questions we want to make sure that we get in. And the first one is what question should we have asked you that we didn’t?

Elizabeth

58:23
Um, well, I don’t know if there’s a should or, you know, the shouldn’t question but I think, but what

Nikki

58:28
what opportunity did we miss out on?

Elizabeth

58:31
Um, I think maybe just talking a little bit more about working on the website for those people that really want to try to branch out, get outside of Etsy and do their own thing. One of the key things I think I would ask is, what are those most important things to work on? If you want an E commerce site? And I had written on my notes, like that email list? Boy, you better get your email list together, don’t Oh, yeah, tell your email list, my email list is incredibly important. And, you know, the those types of things, I think that would be helpful for those folks that you know, want to get their business going. For sure.

Nikki

59:11
Yeah. And we actually are gonna, we’re planning a whole series on artists websites, and including email marketing in that. So definitely, we will we will add some of that.

Elizabeth

59:22
And just general marketing, like how do you market? Like, what is it that you do? And how do you generate traffic? Like, what are you specifically doing to generate traffic? Because without traffic, you have nothing, and you cannot pay for traffic? At least all of it? Right? You know, so I think that is really, really critical to is to, to crack that nut of just getting people interested in what you’re doing and coming to your site and what tools are available for that.

Yeah. And that kind of flows into our next question, which is what one piece of advice would you give to someone who’s just Getting Started,

I would say to just get started, like, start.

Nikki

1:00:05
That’s our main message. Yeah, sure.

Elizabeth

1:00:07
I mean, so many people get stuck. And just oh, if I do, I can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to make a website. I didn’t know how to use Shopify. In fact, just yesterday, I realized I had clicked a box in one of my promotions. And then my promotion didn’t work correctly. So I had to go and my customer, I was talking to them on the phone, and they’re like, oh, this didn’t work, right. And I was like, Oh, let me go look. And I just realized, oh, there’s just that I had to click that little thing. That’ll never happen again, a box. And I’ll never do it again. But I made that little mistake. But don’t be afraid of making mistakes, take risks and start. And it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know, there is podcasts on every single subject, you could even listen to your own podcast, you guys. Information, I listened to all of it. And I’m pretty well versed on a lot of these things. And I still, there’s just little snippets that you get, I don’t know if it was on your podcast or not. But the person who said, every time you sell something, or buy something off the internet, take that receipt that you get from that purchase, and stick it in a purchase folder on your email. And I was like, oh, gosh, that’s such a good idea for taxes, you know. And so it’s just one little thing that you can learn from it. But yeah, and listen to figure out if you don’t know what SEO is, and go listen to some podcasts on it and just proactively educate yourself and take those steps that you need. And there’s it you don’t have to pay, there’s very little that you actually have to pay for. There’s a lot of free resources. And, you know, like I said, just just start and take risks and put yourself out there and you’ll get better and you’ll figure it out over time. And then don’t be all over the place. Like try to pick a lane and stick to it.

LAURA

I’m not very good at picking a lane.

Nikki

1:01:58
All the lanes all the time.

Laura

1:02:05
Elizabeth, where can our listeners find you online?

Elizabeth

Well, they can find me at my website, which is elizabethschowachertart.com. That’s the one stop place you can go to find me. And I have all my contact information on there. And you sign up for my newsletter, I give all my subscribers special deals that everybody else doesn’t get.

Nikki

1:02:26
And I believe you are going to offer something special for our listeners who go to your website?

Elizabeth

1:02:32
I will offer all of your listeners a one time coupon of 20% off their purchase. And it’s STARTIST20. And for sure, I would love to do that for your listeners to your fabulous podcast.

Nikki

1:02:47
Thank you, Elizabeth, that is so so generous. And we will have a link to that in our show notes. So you can find it there. You don’t have to remember it.

Elizabeth

1:02:56
That’s fabulous. And they don’t have to try to spell my name.

Nikki

1:03:02
And they don’t have to try to spell your name. They don’t even have to try to say it.

Elizabeth

1:03:08
But you guys did great. So there’s no problem at all.

Nikki

1:03:12
Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so so much for being here. It’s been great. And I’m going to come take your class in in Montana.

Elizabeth

1:03:20
I would love that. And I really appreciate it. I know that art podcasts, the people listening to those podcasts, are my customers. And so one of my goals this year was to do a couple podcasts and I I reached out to several people and look what happened. You know,

Nikki

1:03:38
Look what happened.

Elizabeth

1:03:39
I got to be on your fabulous podcast. And I’m really happy about that. It’s been a pleasure.

Nikki

1:03:46
Awesome. But that’s also a great piece of advice is, don’t be afraid to ask for something

Elizabeth

1:03:51
Exactly. You have to ask. Nothing, nothing is going to just suddenly appear out of thin air and you know, suddenly all all the things in life are answered. I mean, it’s just a process and there’s lots of nos and then there’s a few yeses. And then there’s a lot of mistakes and have a terrible time writing content. And I mean, there’s so many things that I don’t do well, but you just have to keep plugging along and eventually things can come around especially if you’re really dedicated and enthusiastic about what you’re doing and you have passion and people see that and they reward that, for sure

Nikki

1:04:29
To learn more about Elizabeth and read today’s Startist Society shownotes go to startistsociety.com.

Elizabeth

1:04:36
And don’t forget, Elizabeth has generously offered our listeners a great discount. You can use the code STARTIST20 for a one time use coupon of 20% off anything in her shop.

Nikki

1:04:48
Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.