Welcome to The Affluent Artist

Hi, I’m glad you are here!

I’m Rick DiBiasio, author and professional speaker, and since we are getting so many new visitors to the Affluent Artist, I wanted to take a minute to help define this space for you. The Affluent Artist began as a book based on my career of helping creative people become financially successful and has grown into a life’s mission. After 25 years as an entrepreneur and “Wall Street Guy” I realized that I was a round peg in a square hole and I had created a business based around creative people, who, like me, were trying to reconcile their creative and business sides.

The journey has taken some unexpected turns, like who knew I’d become something of an expert on small business and social media! 18,000 Twitter followers later, and after over 20,000 visitors to this page, I’ve figured out ways for small businesses to use Web 2.0 to gain advantages that they may not even realize they have. I realized that having a blog with content that people look forward to reading is a Huge business advantage, and it can work for almost any business.

I’ve learned that creatives are really in need of help when it comes to business and success principals. Things like setting goals, taking daily action and having Mastermind Groups are some of my most popular posts. Selling your work? Look, Willie Loman is dead, take it from a guy who has been in sales for 30 years, people buy in a completely different manner than they have before. The role of somebody selling something has changed completely too. Sales people have to learn how to build relationships and use their own creativity to survive in what Seth Godin calls, “The post advertising age.”

People, it turns out, like to get to know you before they do business with you, just like they always have. Only now, thanks to media like YouTube, blogs and Facebook, they can get to know you from all over the world. So, some of my posts here are about me expressing myself, sharing things that strike me funny, things that annoy me and even, sometimes, things that hurt. In a way, I’m running a very personal magazine here, designed to help you get to know me, make you chuckle and, with the Grace of God, learn something to help you.

So, I hope you’ll hang around, or even better, hit the “Subscribe” button. If you are someone who is in charge of hiring speakers, I have several pages designed to help you better understand what I do. I love to speak to groups of entrepreneurs and business owners (I am one!), college students about making it in the real world by allowing money and business principals into their creative life and anyone who has to sell something, I’ve dubbed my sales training:  “Creative Sales”.

Thanks and remember, “God loves creative people, that’s his line of work too!”