Parts from my 'talk' on selling your Art

There are ---- different types of artists
Starting from the beginner, fun- hobbyist artist, painting with friends or a person who likes to create things.
Then you have the ‘club’ artist, who paints for a couple of exhibitions a year provided that he/she gets accepted to exhibit. Usually these artists are very good at what they do. But they lack commercial exposure.
We also have the artists who become teachers, whom without them none of us could become ‘artists’. I have great respect for the artist teachers. I for one cannot teach, you need to have a special gift to be able to do this for a living.
Teaching art and demonstrating your technique are two different things.
A very good subject for debating this point but we are not going to do this today.
Then there is the prolific artist who needs to sell direct to the public or through a dealer/agent and be able to make a living out of his/her art.
And finally we have the artists who made a name for themselves and have ‘arrived’ in the art world. We are going to leave these artists alone for now. This category of artists is for another day too.
We all have to start form somewhere.
Today I will concentrate on the prolific artist. A lot of artists say that selling their art is the hardest thing to do.
Art is a luxury item many people cannot afford but when someone finds an artwork that speaks to him/her they will find a way to acquire it.
At the end of 2011, I took stock of my paintings, (I do this every year) I had 34 paintings left in my studio and as always I had 3 on the go. I created 78 paintings of various sizes last year and I sold 90 paintings of various sizes since last January of which 76 were from 1011 the rest where paintings done in previous years.
Usually I paint a lot more but I was fortunate enough to have been commissioned to paint 8 very big paintings last year which took a lot of my time.
Every year I have some paintings left over that I will sell at a later date and I think, the oldest paintings I have are two from 2007. This is how it goes always have a few paintings that just don’t sell, they always come back in the studio.
I will tell you later on how to solve this overstock of paintings.
Today I will give you a few pointers on how you can get started in selling more art by marketing yourself better.
Marketing tools for selling your art directly to the public.
The most important point to remember is to be professional on how you conduct your sales. Start off on the right foot! From the first word of ‘hello’ you start interacting with the viewer of your work, this moment is the most critical, make sure you project the right attitude to impress your potential client be confident and friendly. Avoid engaging in conversation that will draw the clients’ attention and interest away from the objective of buying your painting!
The same applies to Art fairs, exhibitions and galleries.
And treat your art as a business.Tool #1) Be organized and ready for sales.Always include your business card and a brochure or even a simple pamphlet, with your sales.
Your card or brochure should have maximum information of what your art is all about and show or inform the client what your style is.
Also if you undertake commissions.
It is very important to let people know exactly what you can do. Have space for extra information or notes.
And better yet have a notebook at the ready to write down extra information for the interested viewer, like your address for a visit to your studio, or a visit to show some of your art at a more convenient time.
The viewers address for you to take your work to his/her house in order to suggest the right painting for their wall space. This is a winner every time!
You have to be more flexible in order to get more sales.
You need to do a lot of traveling, make it easy for your client to acquire the art work, make them feel as special as the art work they will buy from you.
Have an invoice book with maximum info at the top, your name and telephone numbers or have a printed label stack at the back of the artwork with your details.
Name - telephone & mobile – e-mail address and web site address if you have one.
The same info of the client should be on the invoice too.
Your invoice should have detailed information about the artwork: medium, size and description or catalog number if you have a catalog of your work, it will serve as providence for the painting. So when we are dead and famous our kids can cash in the big money!!
Also it is very important to bubble wrap the sold painting or if it is a small one put in a bag too. It is a small thing to do but it has a very big impact on the buyer. It demonstrates that the artwork is precious and should be treated with great care.
It will make them proud to have a painting of yours and they will show it off at every opportunity to their friends and also they will make a note of mentioning your name, parts of your CV and achievements.
What better advertising than this do you need!
Tool #2) Understand your collectors needs.They will come back and buy more paintings and possibly will become collectors of your work. Explain your work but let the client find his/her connection to the art, don’t spoil it for them, if the client starts telling you what he sees or feels about the artwork let them talk. This is a very important point to keep in mind. Some artists are too quick to correct the viewer resulting in embarrassing the potential buyer and loose a good sale. By letting them talk you get to understand what he/she likes in a painting and you can sagest more art works in the future.
Usually a collector will buy at least 4-5 paintings from the same artist before they move on to another artist. So make sure you give them the best service and the best price you can.
Learn to bargain without offending the client or degrading the value of your art.
Try to persuade undecided viewers into buying the painting they like.
Example: Say the art work price is R2000 and you had it at home for a number of months maybe a year, It is an indication that it is a difficult subject or composition to sell. Or maybe it is the color palette that was used. In front of you now you have an interested buyer that loves the painting but the price is beyond what he had in mind or can afford.
Make it possible to come to an agreement that will benefit both you and the buyer.
Offer a discount of 15% that will drop the price to R1700. Already a number that looks good on the calculator or on paper R300 is a considerable mount of money. If the buyer is still uncomfortable with the new price ask him/her what price they have in mind, they might tell you half the asking price, Be nice about it and tell them the most you can do for them is another R200. That is a discount of 25%. Don’t see it as a loss on your part. It is a sale and at a good price for the client and for yourself. You selling a painting you had for a long time and the buyer will consider the discount more favorably.
For your newer paintings and specially ones that are real master pieces (you will know that from the respond you will have from others) I suggest you start with a 15% discount (for difficult customers) and take it down to 20% is you really have to get the sale. You must always build in the first 15% into the price of your paintings, you either give the 15% discount to the customer or gain 15% extra on the sale. Everybody wins and your buyer is happy.
　
Tool #3 - Get yourself into a selling mode in order to realize your goals.Get out there and sell your art and mostly your name, it is more important to sell your name first, the art will follow!
How many times you have seen an artwork in a gallery or exhibition and say to yourself….this is terrible….not the best for the caliber of this well known artist. And the price is exorbitant just because he/she is a well-known artist!
Collectors will not buy from a totally unknown artist, they buy for investment purposes, unless it is a young up-coming university graduate and they take a chance on the said artist.
On the other hand if your name is very well advertised in all the right places it will ring a bell.
Go to galleries maybe they will not give you a second look at first, eventually they will look!
I had many people telling me they heard of me in Port Elizabeth or they have seen a painting of mine in a gallery window in Cape Town or so & so has a painting of yours in their home and want to acquire a painting themselves or they commission me to do a painting for them. And these people come to me without having set eyes on me before, but they all happen to see my name or heard of me by chance. Word of mouth is also the strongest advertisement tool you can have.
In the new Internet era we are living, the best ‘word of mouth’ advertisement you can have is ‘social media’ blocking, tweeting, fb and others.
Now days all collectors have to do is ‘Google’ my name and find my contact details and contact me.
This is where a web site comes in handy,
I get over 1000 hits a month on my web site. I had many commissions and numerous inquiries about paintings through my web site.
It pays to have a web site only if you are a prolific painter. If you paint for fun and hardly do 10 paintings a year don’t go to the expense of creating one unless you have the knowledge to create one for yourself by yourself.
Another cost is the hosting monthly or yearly fee and updates.
It all depends if you manage it yourself or it is managed by the hosting company. Unfortunately here in South Africa the costs are still very high.

Tool #4 - Apply the 5 P’s of basic marketing principals>>>the rest to follow<<<.

Art Quotations

Art depends upon men dedicated to Nature!  As art then needed nature for its development, Nature now needs art to help it survive.

by Francis Bacon - artist and philosopher

Talk on selling Art

My talk on selling Art directly to the public is comming along.
I have enough information for half an hour. I need to expand on some particular points like pricing your art accourding to  S.A.'s collectors buying power and exhibiting the art in the right places.  Two out of the 5 P's of marketing principals.