How to sell art

@Molly Renner wrote that she painted one-of-a-kind oils and wasn't interested in making prints. This was my reply, " Yes, your artwork is one-of-a-kind, and you don't make prints, but not everyone who loves your work can afford it, plus there is a real limit to how many pieces you can produce. If you have some prints or small limited editions, you're appealing to a much larger group, and, most importantly, your work ends up being seen by a vastly bigger audience. Prints are a sales magnet. I can tell you from personal experience that artists who offer prints make much, much more money than those who don't. Take Thomas Kinkade, one of my least favorite artists in the world. His limited editions sold in the millions, and he made millions in the process. I still can't figure out why!

Wouldn't you rather sell a box of greeting cards with your images than give out 'pretty business cards', most of which get thrown in the trash? Think about it."

The business side of having prints

Let's say, for example, that your original works sell for $2,000, and you also have limited-edition prints that you will sell for between $100 and $200 each (5%-10% of the price of an original). Each limited edition is 100 pieces. If you sell out the entire edition, you'll make $10,000 to $20,000 from that edition. Lots of people can splash out $100-$200 on a print. You only have to print one of each and put that on display. Then you take orders and print on demand, so you haven't risked much at all, but your potential revenue is massively greater. Having limited editions also makes the originals more desirable and more valuable.

Do you remember Bev Dolittle? She painted camouflage pieces of Indians with ponies that merged perfectly with the background. She did one 'open edition' where orders had to be placed by a certain date. I'm not sure of the exact numbers or price point, but I do know they printed around 250,000 of them, and they weren't that cheap. By the time she did that, she was not only famous but also had an astronomical collector base.

Just sayin!

#artsales

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/mental-health-benefit-striking-conversations-132211752.htmlIt

It is a very interesting article and worth taking the time to read.

One of the key takeaways for me is "introverts and extroverts alike feel better when they act like extroverts." It goes on to say, "Maybe introverts would be more exhausted after acting extroverted? It turns out that everyone gets tired after being social, the same way everyone gets tired after going for a run."

Research conducted with a group of over 30,000 people found that "people are happier when they are more social. Even if they consider themselves introverts. Even if they fear that reaching out to another person will be embarrassing."

As I said in an earlier post, I am very extroverted and outgoing, but that's only when I'm around people. When I'm solo, I'm completely the opposite. I faked it until I made it. Now it's my more natural state. You may disagree, but I think being an extrovert when you're selling will help you make more sales than staying introverted. Try it, and let me know what you think.

#artsales

One of the key things to be successful in sales is simply taking your time to make them. We all live in a busy world where there is a sense of immediacy, a rush to get things done, but in sales, the opposite is true. If your customer feels rushed, they will rush to leave.

Here's an interesting analogy. I am a very keen chess player, and play several games every day. But there are two Michael's who play. One is the Michael who just wants to play fast games, and the other is the Michael who still plays quickly, but thinks about every move. Guess which Michael wins most of his games?

The answer is obvious, but when I play the slower game, I am one of the stronger players at the club, and I've beaten almost everybody there. However, when I play super fast, it is like they're playing with an idiot. What is the actual difference? It's about 10 seconds per move, but that small amount of time makes an astronomical difference.

It is the same in sales. You're not going anywhere, so give the customer an excuse to hang out with you. Don't forget that you're not only making a sale, but you're also building a relationship with somebody who loves your work and may well buy more pieces down the line.

#artsales

Arty responded with such an insightful comment that it is worth reposting as is so that everybody here sees it.

"The breath analogy is perfect for this. Silence in a sales conversation feels like it lasts ten times longer than it actually does, which is exactly why it works. The buyer's brain needs that space to talk themselves INTO the piece, and every word the seller adds during that pause gives them something to push back against instead. One practical drill that helps: next time you're on the phone with anyone (not even a sales call), after they finish a sentence, count to five in your head before you respond. Do it for a week. You'll be shocked at how fast your comfort with silence builds, and how much more the other person shares when you leave the room for it."

#artsales

I've come across many people with a compulsive need to be liked. They feel that they have to fill every silence with meaningless chatter, thinking that will make them more likable, but it comes across as desperation and insecurity. If they only understood that the way to be liked is to be interested in the people they meet and continually ask questions about who they are, where they live, what they do, what they are interested in, etc.

As salespeople, our main job is to ask questions. Those questions are leading directly to closing the sale. We ask questions to get the prospect talking and to help them visualize what it will be like to have a particular piece of art hanging on their wall, in their home or office. We ask them to buy, not directly, but indirectly by giving them a choice.

"Are you going to take it with you today, or would you like us to ship it?"

"Will you be paying cash or using a credit card?"

"Are you thinking of this for your office, or for your home?"

By asking questions, we are showing interest in that person, and they appreciate it because they get the opportunity to talk about themselves. It stops you from being a salesperson; it makes you a human being.

#artsales

How long can you hold your breath? I don't think I can hold it for more than a minute. Tom Cruise trained for months, and he can hold it for about 6 minutes, but I'm not Tom Cruise.

Why is it important? It's important because to survive in sales, you have to be able to hold your silence for as long as it takes. In yesterday's post on silence, I said, "Most people can't hold it for more than 5 minutes." I misspoke. I meant to say, "Most people can't hold it for more than a minute." Even a minute is difficult for many people. Like holding your breath, it takes training. Now you might say that most of us don't need to train for this, but I would argue that you're wrong. Holding the silence is a valuable skill that anybody can learn, but few people do. It's not only valuable in sales but also in life. Knowing when not to speak is as important as knowing when to speak.

To inject a little bit of humor here, I think it was Winston Churchill who said something along the lines of "Better to hold your tongue and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

The other important thing to take away from this post is that when you're speaking, you're not listening, and listening is the most important thing you can do. Many years ago, I came home from work, and my mother regaled me with something that had gone wrong for her that day. Because I'm a man, I immediately went into problem-solving mode and told her what she should have done. She said something then that I have never forgotten. "Listen, Buster, if I wanted advice, I would have asked for it. I just want some damn sympathy."

#artsales

... to get into a Gallery?

This is a question many artists struggle with. Am I good enough? Is my work sellable? Those questions, and others, can only be answered by Gallery Management. We, artists, are not objective enough. Sure, we think our work is great, but what do we know? We can't ask friends or family because, too often, they will answer with what they think we want to hear. I have no idea how many artists came into the galleries I worked at, saying, "Everybody tells me that my work is great." Then you look at it, and it is the worst, most amateurish work you've ever seen. What do you say? I used to tell the truth, even though I knew it would hurt, because the longer the delusion lasts, the harder it will be to deal with.

But, back to the original question. The answer is, your work has to be exceptional, and it has to be commercial enough for the Gallery to take a risk, and it is always a risk because display space is expensive. I've had to make judgment calls sometimes and tell an exceptionally talented artist, "I'm sorry, but no." I could have easily been wrong, and I'll never know.

A friend of mine was offered the chance to become the publisher of an artist who was painting scenes of San Francisco. He didn't think they were very good, and I agreed with him. He turned it down. That artist was Thomas Kinkade. Oops! Honestly, I hated his work. If somebody had given it to me, I would have given it back or donated it to a thrift shop, but we sold thousands of his limited edition prints. Customers would come in and buy 5 or 6 of them at a time.

If you get turned down by a gallery, though, don't be discouraged; it doesn't mean your work isn't any good. It just means that it might not work for that Gallery.

#artsales

@Malcolm Turcotte wrote, "When someone's standing in front of your work deciding, the worst thing you can do is fill the silence."

This is such an important concept in sales that not only is it worth repeating, but it warrants an entire post.

I know silence is uncomfortable. Most people aren't used to it, and they feel the need to break it. It's an urge, almost a compulsion, but if you, as the salesperson, break it, 9 times out of 10, you've lost the sale. The silence has to work for you and not the prospect.

Interviewers use silence as a weapon. They ask an innocuous question that can easily be answered with a yes or a no, and then they sit in silence while the interviewee starts to sweat. The question itself isn't important; it's what the interviewee says to break the silence. If they say nothing and simply wait for the interviewer to speak, they have won that round.

If you're in sales, you have to break the compulsion to break the silence, and it takes practice. One thing that might help is to teach yourself to think in silence before you answer any question. Practice making that period of thought longer and longer.

Remember this: "He who speaks first, loses."

How long should you hold the silence? The answer is simple: Until they break it.

How long could the silence last? Most people can't hold it for more than 5 minutes.

When you ask a closing question, what should you do? You STFU, and if you don't know what that means, ask your children.

#artsales

It's an uphill struggle, unfortunately. Most galleries will only take artists with some serious credentials (Exhibitions, awards, collectors of note), and then only on consignment, i.e., you get paid if they sell it. The salespeople have no say on what to bring in, so they can't help you.

With that said, here's what I'd do. I'd visit every gallery in my area, walk around them, looking for one where my art would fit in well. Then I'd spend some time in that gallery, stopping in every few days to browse. I'd let the salespeople know I was an artist, not a buyer, so they wouldn't waste their time trying to sell me something. I'd get to know the people there and talk to them when they're not busy. Eventually, somebody will ask me what type of art I do. Then I'd ask for permission to bring in my portfolio. When I did that, I'd give them time to look. If they like it, I'd ask if they could arrange for the owner/manager to take a look at it. It's a long, drawn-out process, but I might get lucky.

My staff knew when I would be interested in seeing an artist's work, so when one came in, and they were impressed, they would come to me. I'd almost always be willing to take some time then, but if not, I would ask the artist to come back on a specific date and time. If they were on time, I would spend 15 minutes with them looking at their art. If they were one minute late, I'd be too busy.

HTH. Good luck.

@Kristofer Corwin inspired this post. He said that in his work, he "sometimes waits three hours for the sky to do one specific thing, and most of those nights it never does."

I am not a patient person, generally. I'm very impatient on many occasions, but in sales, you have to develop patience. You need it because, much of the time, you are going to be waiting for a prospect to walk through the door. Then you have to be patient while they try to decide.

The first part of patience while waiting is easy to overcome. You do something else. I never get bored because I'm always doing something, and when I get tired of one thing, I jump to another. I'll go from writing code, to reading a book, to playing chess, to watching a movie, to writing, and then back to writing code - no particular order, no particular amount of time.

But when you're involved in a sale, you cannot show impatience, because you'll lose the customer forever. Think of the sale as a slow dance, a waltz. You can't just break off halfway through it because you forgot to make an important phone call. When you're in the dance, your whole attention should be on your partner; you're focused. Now, in the sale, you might break off every so often to give the customer a chance to breathe, but it's a deliberate decision, and you'll move back in very quickly because you don't want to lose the momentum.

So you need patience and focus, and large amounts of both.

#artsales

I had a thought, and I asked Arty what he thought of patience as a sales tool. His reply was very interesting, and is below:

Yes — patience can be a sales tool when it’s paired with confidence and consistency.

The basic idea is that not every sale is won by pushing harder. Sometimes the artist who stays calm, gives space, answers thoughtfully, and doesn’t radiate desperation comes across as more trustworthy and more collectible. That kind of patience helps buyers feel safe, and safety is part of what turns interest into a sale.

The important caveat: Patience is not passive waiting. It works when you’re still showing up, following up, and being consistent over time. In other words: don’t chase — but do remain present.

A simple way to use it in practice:

• Pause before overexplaining your work

• Let collectors ask questions

• If you need time, say, “Let me think about that and get back to you”

• Keep your pricing, presentation, and follow-up steady

So the sales version is: patient, not passive; calm, not vague; persistent, not pushy.

I've always believed that when one door closes, another always opens. The trick is two-fold. Firstly, you have to notice the newly opened door, which means paying attention to what is going on around you. Secondly, you have to be willing to step through it, and that is where most people fail, because they're afraid of what might happen.

The parallel to sales is actually quite obvious. Each time you try to close the sale and you don't get a yes, a door has shut, but another one has opened for you to try again. You keep trying until the last door, with that prospect, has shut, but then somebody else walks in, and you start all over.

Letting frustration in is akin to a door closing, and you not wanting to step through another one. It means you've given in to fear, and that's no way to go through life.

#artsales #motivation

I mentioned in an earlier post that the average closing ratio is 1 in 5. This means you get four Noes for every Yes, and it boosts motivation by allocating 1/5 of the commission from the Yes to each No.

But now I want to suggest you take it further. A very famous sales trainer named Tom Hopkins had a number of sayings that started with the words, "I never see failure as failure but as an opportunity to..." It's been a long time since I knew Tom, and I can't remember what the sayings were, other than one: "an opportunity to develop a sense of humor." (It's always been my go-to and favorite).

But you have an opportunity to really learn something from the sales you didn't get. After the prospect has left, make notes on the interaction. Make them as accurate as possible. If you can remember the exact words used, write them down verbatim. Then think about what you said and what you did. Why didn't the sale close? Was it something you said or did? How many times did you close? What closes did you use? What responses did you get? Did they leave angry or happy? All of the above provide data points you can use to your advantage. Be honest in your evaluation, because that's the only way to learn. None of us is perfect, but we can strive for perfection.

I'm going to switch gears here for a minute or two. I've worked with many companies that spend enormous amounts of money collecting data, but never do anything with it. What they fail to understand is that the data they collect will tell them everything about their business, even to the point of revealing that they are focusing their efforts in the wrong places. Somebody said "Data is the new oil," and they were right.

#artsales #motivation

I love sharing knowledge, and I love the saying, "If we only knew what we don't know, then we'd know a lot more than we do." Over the years, I've noticed that many people hesitate to share their knowledge because they assume everyone already knows it. Some people will, for sure. Others knew it but had forgotten; I suspect the largest number are those who didn't know it. So share your knowledge; it may be incredibly valuable, and even if only one person benefits, that's enough. Don't hide your light under a bushel, and don't sell yourself short!

#artsales

There are different types of martial arts, and many different disciplines or styles. All of them involve a contest, which is exactly what happens when you are trying to make a sale.

But I want you to think about what type of martial art selling should be closest to.

Probably the most well-known martial art is Karate. It's conflict, hard, fast, and brutal. Used car salesmen are the practitioners.

Then there's Judo, or JuJitsu. Grab your opponent, and they grab you. Then you move around each trying to get the other off balance. Door-to-door salespeople use this style.

The final example is Aikido, which I've studied and which was popularized by Steven Seagal. Aikido is a defensive martial art. You use your opponent's energy against them. When they attack, you deflect or counter, but it's like Zen, like water flowing around a stone in the riverbed. It's never aggressive, only defensive, but it is extremely effective. It is the martial art that master salespeople use.

Just sayin!

#artsales

When you get your prospect talking, he is already emotionally involved, especially when you ask questions that he wants to answer. This is why you must never ask questions that can be answered with a "yes " or a "no". You must always ask open-ended questions, such as "What type of art have you collected so far?" BTW, you might not realize this, but note the end of the question, "so far?" Subliminally, that is planting the thought in his head that he's about to add to his collection. The longer the conversation, the better your chance of making the sale. When they have finished answering the question, you should ask another by first paraphrasing what they just told you, and then ask a question related to what they just said. You keep going until they say "yes" or "goodbye," and even then, you try to close. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I would say, "If you don't mind my asking, what made you decide not to get this piece that you so obviously love?"

#artsales

This might well be very obvious, but it is worth repeating. We can always find time to do the things we want to do. It is the things that we don't want to do that are hard to fit in.

On reflection, I think it might be because the internal enthusiasm creates the energy, and then we tell ourselves "This won't take long!" Of course, it takes much longer than we thought it would.

When I'm programming, I often find that the things I think are going to take a long time, are often the easiest, and the things that I think will be easy, are completely the opposite. Then we end up going down the rabbit hole. Still though, that time generally passes very quickly because we are focused on the task, not the time it is taking.

#artsales

Arty wanted me to practice responding to collectors' questions about one of my pieces. Here are the questions and answers it came up with.

5 collector questions you should be ready for

1) “What is this piece really about?”
Practice answer:
It’s about the push and pull between order and mischief. I start with a structured mandala form, but then I let the creatures take over a bit — so the piece becomes this conversation between discipline and playful chaos.

MY answer would be: "What do you think it's about?"

2) “Why do you keep returning to critters and faces?”
Practice answer:
Because faces give the pattern personality. I like that the work can be visually rhythmic and still feel alive, like the geometry has been inhabited by little beings with their own attitude.

MY answer would be: "Do they make you smile?"

3) “Is there symbolism here, or is it mostly decorative?”
Practice answer:
I’d say it’s both. The work is definitely meant to be decorative and visually energizing, but the symbolism lives in the balance: structure versus spontaneity, control versus surprise, order versus a little delightful nonsense.

MY answer would be: "Hmm, interesting question. What do you think?"

4) “How do you decide when a piece is finished?”
Practice answer:
That’s usually when it feels like any more would tip it from lively into crowded. I’m looking for that point where the pattern feels complete, but the eye still has room to wander.

MY answer would be: "I honestly don't know. Are there any pieces that you don't think look finished?"

5) “Why should someone collect this piece?”
Practice answer:
Because it has a strong visual identity and it rewards long looking. It can catch someone from across the room, but the details keep unfolding the closer you get — and that kind of layered presence is what makes a piece stay interesting over time.

MY answer would be: "Where are you thinking of putting it?"

A few confident follow-up lines you can use

• “I want the viewer to notice the structure first, and then slowly realize the structure has been gently hijacked.”

• “The precision is intentional, but so is the mischief.”

• “I like making work that feels playful at a distance and more intricate the longer you live with it.”

• “The goal is to create something that feels joyful, slightly strange, and hard to stop looking at.”

It's interesting, but I wouldn't answer any of them in the way that Arty suggests. What do you notice about my answers?

If you said, "He's not making statements; he's asking questions to get them to answer their own questions," you would be 100% correct. And that's the whole point. The more you can get the prospect talking and visualizing, the closer you are to closing the sale.

Here are the takeaways. The art should speak for itself. The goal is to sell, not to educate.

#artsales

I'm in the process of putting all of the posts from this community into an ebook called 'The Art of Selling Art' which will be available shortly. I'd love to hear which of the two cover designs you like best. Dark or Light. TIA.

In this post, I'm specifically referring to Meetups. A few years back, I moved to Las Vegas (for the 3rd time - please don't ask me why!) and decided to start a FileMaker User Group to share my knowledge of FileMaker. To my absolute delight, I had 67 people sign up in the first few days. I then scheduled the 1st meeting at my house. 5 people signed up; not great, but okay.

Not one person turned up; nobody even had the courtesy to send a "sorry, but I can't make it' message. I tried again. The same thing happened. It was then that I realized that all people were interested in doing was joining as many groups as they possibly could, so they could brag about how many groups they were members of. They had no genuine interest in any of them.

I canceled the group and have given up on Meetup. When I join any type of group now, it is because I am seriously interested in it and willing to spend time and energy on it. That's the way we should all be. Quality over quantity.

Let me know if you agree.

When I started this community, I had a few ideas for posts on the subject. In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined that I had so much material to share. There are now more than 80 posts covering all aspects of selling art. I'm currently compiling it into a book, which I'll publish in due course. Thanks to all who are reading, following, and especially commenting. You are all much appreciated.