Thursday, July 22, 2010, 11:00pm CDT | Modified: July 22, 2010, 11:00 PM

The money in Monet

by Tanya Rutledge

• Email
• Reprints
• RSS Feeds
• Share
• Comments

Art consultants Jennifer Brener Seay and Debbie Goldgar had just experienced the busiest and most tiring year of their professional lives when they knew it was time to start over with a fresh canvas.

Goldgar and Seay, the mother-and-daughter owners of Art + Artisans Consulting Inc., spent the first few years in business together calling on every potential customer they came across to offer their services as commercial artwork consultants.

But after Seay — whose office is in East Austin, while her mother works in Houston — heard a speaker at a networking event in 2005, she realized the then-2-year-old company could use some fine-tuning and a narrower focus.

“We were taking on any and every project,” Seay said. “We felt overwhelmed, and … we needed someone to help us focus on the market we were best suited for.”

The partners hired the consultant whom Seay heard that night — Daniel Diener of Business Success Center in Austin — to evaluate their business, and they made some major changes.

They moved away from smaller projects, which they were happy to take in their early days but which drained time and resources from their fledgling enterprise. The company also expanded from servicing typical office buildings to include senior living facilities, higher education buildings, health care facilities and even spas. Art + Artisans also works closely with architectural and design firms on client projects.

“We became focused on what our target market was, and what we were really selling,” Goldgar said. “Buying art … projects a certain image and can be a very powerful branding tool, setting the tone for a business. But only certain businesses get that or want that.”

Goldgar said the company’s move to diversify its client base paid off at the end of 2008, when “the spigot just turned off overnight” on new construction of corporate office projects due to the economic downturn.

On the other hand, Goldgar and Seay saw an increase in projects for existing spaces as landlords started giving office tenants concessions to keep them from moving to cheaper space that became plentiful. Goldgar said many tenants accepted the concession money and spent it on art to help brand their spaces.

“We were diversified enough by the time the downturn hit that, although we did feel it, we came through it just fine,” Goldgar said.

Some of the company’s major art installations were handled for clients that included the Texas State University School of Nursing in Round Rock and Ernst & Young LLP in Dallas.

Diener said that although Goldgar and Seay initially found his suggestions, which also included guidance on overhauling business policies and procedures, “overwhelming,” they understood that they needed to make changes.

“It can be challenging in companies with partners, particularly if they are related, to make sure they have the same goals, which are sometimes understated,” Diener said. “In their case, they were very scattered. They were going after any client that sounded like they might buy something. So we sat down and figured out what they really wanted to do and where they wanted to go.”

Diener said the partners struggled initially with letting some clients go.

“There is a fear there in doing that, and it was an agonizing decision between them,” he said. “But they reached a consensus that that was best for their business, and then we were really able to refine their focus and move the company to a new level.”

While Goldgar and Seay attend as many art events as possible to stay plugged into the art community, they prefer to spend their time networking in organizations that are not associated with art. For example, Goldgar is a member of the International Facility Management Association, and Seay has in the past been active with the Commercial Real Estate Women Network in Austin.

The women said they also learned a lesson in time management early on when they used trade shows as a marketing tool. They didn’t see much return on their investment, so they eventually shifted strategy.

Their strategy seems to be working. Art + Artisans’ 2009 gross receipts were $642,000, up from $462,000 in 2008.

“We learned that we would be better off taking that money that we spent on trade shows and putting it toward joining an organization,” Seay said. “We could get more out of it that way.”

Art + Artisans Consulting Inc.

What it does: Guides clients through the art buying process, from research through procurement and installation

Owners: Debbie Goldgar and Jennifer Brener Seay

Locations: East Austin and Houston

2008 gross receipts: $462,000

2009 gross receipts: $642,000

Website: www.artandartisans.com