3 Ways To Improve Your Art Sales

Text version: 3 Ways To Improve Your Art Sales

If you mainly read online you have seeen these types of articles "5 Best Recipes for Summer Grilling", "6 ways to identify a real friend", "10 steps to financial success" and so on. So, I thought I would give it a whirl today with 3 ways to improve your art sales. First thing you have to acknowledge is that my "magic" formula of improving art sales" is not going to lead to immediate success but I want to touch on some basics that many artists always overlook when dreaming about sales. I guess we should start with "0" just like where a computer starts counting, so you will get 4 ways to increase your artwork sales. You may say I already know all this or you are just going to turn it off because you don't want to hear it - "I am wasting your time". Either way, do take the few minutes it takes to go over this material and let it sink in. You are not going to change your life and run out and buy a Land Rover tomorrow but it should be in the back of your mind for the next few days - for you to think how you can take these suggestions to heart and how you can successfully incorporate them into your hectic world and your daily artistic life.



0 - DON'T EXPECT SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT ALL FOR YOU
I believe this is the most important step in becoming a successful artist. I have preached this countless times before -- you simply cannot rely on someone else to do it all for you and just sit in your studio and paint, sculpt or shoot photos on Mount Everest. This is part of realizing that the art world is not here to do all the work for you or that popular artist myth - once I am in a gallery I can spend all my time to paint in my studio. NO, you are the driving force of your own success and by taking this positive approach your sales will improve, not tomorrow but down the road. Once you have embraced this change with your new found positive attitude and throw all your ideas and our expert advice behind it - guess what? You will succeed in a world where 100,000 other artists are competing against you. You are way ahead of most of the crowd once you have realized and accepted this "not so pleasant" concept. You need to lessen your time creating your artistic product but take your creativity and channel it towards how you will be more successful.



1. ORGANIZE YOUR STUFF
OMG, how boring is it going to get now? What do you mean by organizing my stuff? Do you even have an inventory, Hephaestus forbid a current inventory, of your artwork? Did you upload recent works to your artist portfolio at absolutearts.com? Nah, I bet you just parked a few images online at a few websites and hope for sales. Ok, truth is - you will sell more if you get organized. ORGANIZE - ORGANIZE - ORGANIZE! If you organize your work and make the information accessible you won't be going - oh, I think I have a drawing like that in my studio, let me look - or - oh, I did a painting of owls but I don't know where it is. You think anyone seriously interested in purchasing your art is going to take you seriously and wait for you to figure out if you still have the work or go somewhere else and find another work? If you organize and upload ALL your works to your artist portfolio you can just say, yes, it's online and check it out here, give them your artist portfolio address and you are ready to go for a sale. Not only is the client going to see the one work they were looking for but they will see all the other ones and that increases the prospect for a sale exponentially.

Still not a believer? What about - you are going to spend 4 hours a week collecting and entering new contact emails and potential client information into a database instead of not even collecting everyone's name and email address? You think they will appear from nowhere and someone else is going to do it for you? You know it will lead to more sales if you do a little here and a little there, in other words get organized and even do a little scheduling. Yikes! That's a lot to ask for on a weekend, right?

How about you are going to get organized and figure out what local exhibitions there are going to be in the next quarter and how many of these shows are applicable to you. The more you show the more your work gets out there the more you will sell, period! But, if you just sit in the studio and don't show your work offline and actively online you are going to reverse the uptick in sales and probably have none at all. Remember, with your new found positive attitude you are going to jump right into the sea of opportunity!



2. ALWAYS PRICE YOUR ARTWORK
Too many artists won't even take the time, or are afraid to price their own artwork. If you have confidence that you are going to sell your work, then you will need to price your art or it won't sell. Honestly, nobody is going to sit around and wait for you to price your work or get back to them with a price. Many are too afraid to ask because they don't want to be embarrassed that they can't afford the piece they like. So, if you price it - there is a much, much higher chance for a sale! Remember, instant communication, social media and your artist portfolio here will make it much more likely for you to have a sale, but if there is no price available clients click away quicker than you can say $2,500. If you don't know how to price your work, then login to your artist portfolio and go to the help section. There is a link to "How to price my artwork" with a long, detailed, and exclusive discussion with indepth information on how to price your work. The more accurate the price for your type of art and quality of art the more likely it will sell!



3. GO TO GALLERY OPENINGS AND ART FAIRS
Why should I go to gallery openings if my work is not even shown there? Here is the main reason: You will meet new clients and learn a lot! At gallery openings there are always potential clients hanging around and if you go regularly you will meet them and what do you think that will do? It will increase your sales a lot more than just sitting in the studio of binge watching Netflix shows. Not only will you find new clients but you can also observe how the gallery employees interact with their clients and how they handle sales. Although, many sales don't happen on opening night and you may not see them all the time, but you will get an understanding of how they work with potential clients, how they approach potential clients, and how they represent themselves to their clientele. Then, take a careful look at how the artist/s that are being showcased handle themselves. See, they are very well dressed and appear really professional, right? That's you next time you go to an opening, don't overdress but definitely don't underdress. You need to be professional and people will judge you as professional. Listen to how these artists speak to their clients and visitors at the opening and listen to what they say. Try to remember their body language, their tone, their choice of words and then take it all in and figure out how your "spiel" works in comparison to their's.

And of course you should UPGRADE at absolutearts.com and take advantage of expert advise, blogs, podcasts and videos. Yes, I know you probably don't want to hear it when I tell you to pay up and invest the worth of a cup of coffee every month towards your artistic career and to upgrade your artist portfolio. These 4 tips are just the tip of the iceberg of how to improve your artist life. If you take the first advice to heart and channel your positive energy towards change and take our advice and upgrade we will help you and you will get there!

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