I've worked out with my buddy Dom for years. There's normal Dom, and then there's the Dom who has a race coming up. Normal Dom shows up when I show up and does the same workout I do. Race Dom shows up thirty minutes early, goes for a run first, and then does our entire normal workout on top of it. Nothing changed about Dom. What changed is there's a race on the calendar.

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Q4 is that race. And it's the one you didn't realize I signed you up for. It starts October 1st, which is about two months out — and here's what most artists get wrong: mid-October isn't your launch. It's your deadline.

Nearly half of holiday shoppers say they start before Halloween. By the middle of October, 40% already know exactly what they're buying. The big retailers figured this out years ago — Best Buy's own press release last year announced they were "putting the creep in holiday creep" and kicking the season off on Halloween. This episode is the broad game plan for getting ready. The tactics come next, week by week, between now and October.

In this episode:

Normal Dom vs. Race Dom — and the small detail in that story that's really the whole instruction manual
Why the "Rule of 7" is marketing folklore with no study behind it, and the 1959 experiment that makes the point far better
Effective frequency explained as reps and sets: the same 13 ads crammed into 13 weeks spike and then collapse; spread across a year, they hold
The number that should worry you — by mid-October, 40% of shoppers already know exactly what they're buying
Attention arrives in October. Money arrives in December. Why that's better news for artists than it first sounds
Tell your story first, show your art second — and how that one reordering kills the "I don't have enough to post" problem for good
Three questions to answer before you get out of the car: can you transact, are you open for commissions, are you actually marketing
The Gallery Test pointed straight at December — what a real gallery does differently for the holidays, and the digital twin of every one of those moves
The Bathroom Art Sale — how naming the destination removes the friction that quietly kills art sales, and why "under the tree" works even better
Why commissions carry a hard deadline, and what that means for your October

This week's homework: answer three questions honestly. Is your website set up so a total stranger can buy without having to ask you a single question? Are you open for commissions? And are you actively marketing right now — not in October, right now? Whichever one you answered no to is where the next two months go.

Resources mentioned:

Art Storefronts — the storefront engine for working artists
Bankrate Holiday Spending Report — nearly half of shoppers start before Halloween
NRF Holiday Survey — when shoppers really start browsing and buying
Zielske, The Remembering and Forgetting of Advertising (1959) — the study behind the whole episode

Related episodes:

A Greek Warship, a Horse Named Sally — the full anatomy of a sale. Swap Mother's Day for Black Friday and run it
Art-Selling Holidays You're Sitting Out — the calendar as a forcing function
The Coffee Shop Test — why your social media is failing
The Gallery Test — should artists list prices on their website?
The Artist's Guide to Instagram Live — even if you hate being on camera

Here's the takeaway. You've been creating for a long time. Not enough people have seen your art. You want to sell it — and Q4 is the single best window all year long to do exactly that. So enjoy your summer, genuinely, by all means. Just keep it in the back of your head that Q4 is coming, and start putting the reps in now. Your art will thank you.

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