The other day, I was driving down a street in an industrial section of town. There were many family owned type businesses of various types. Each one had a history whether they were producing parts for tractors, or selling ball bearings or other mechanical moving parts. Most of the buildings were old cement brick buildings, nondescript with large flat walls, pretty much blank. It was in an area where there wasn’t a lot of graffiti, the buildings all looked in good shape, but they were bland, and had no personality. Okay so let’s talk about this because I also have a friend who paints murals.
Often, those who are professional artists and painters have a tough time making money. It’s a lonely and thankless job, even though they have a passion for producing great artwork. One way to make money in this business is to paint murals on the sides of buildings. It’s very easy to go and get a businessperson to pay you to paint such a mural. All you have to do is take the history of their company on a timeline and paint the picture of 1000 words of the progression of their family business. These are not as hard to sell as you might think.
First, it makes sense to go in and talk to them and ask them if they are interested, get them to allow you to do a few sketches, ask them what they think, modify those sketches slightly, looking at old photographs of perhaps their original delivery trucks, or perhaps their grandparents who started the business. Maybe a picture of some of the larger accounts they have, and the types of products, parts, or hardware they produce. All of this can be put onto the side of a building rather nicely from left to right as a progression of time.
Interestingly enough, once you do one, you’ll probably end up doing the whole street and all of those businesses’ suppliers and vendors as well. That has been the experience of my friend who paints murals for a living now, because as soon as he did one, all those businesses’ customers and people they did business with complemented them.
Those customers of his became an excellent referral sources, remember business people understand referrals, and if you tell them you want more business, treat them right, give them a fair price, and do an excellent job, your business will grow from there. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it because you don’t have to be a starving artist.
