How do you negotiate to sell your art in a restaurant? What’s the best way to get local museums interested in your work? Eric Rhoads answers in this week’s Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

In the Art Marketing Minute Podcast, you’ll learn how to sell your art, how to market your paintings, and everything else you need to know in order to have a successful art career. Each episode answers questions from artists by host Eric Rhoads, author of “Make More Money Selling Your Art,” publisher of several art magazines and newsletters, and author of ArtMarketing.com.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 78 >

Submit Your Art Marketing Question:

What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.

FULL TRANSCRIPT of the Art Marketing Minute:
DISCLAIMER: The following is the output of a transcription from an audio recording of the Art Marketing Minute. Although the transcription is mostly correct, in some cases it is slightly inaccurate due to the recording and/or software transcription.

Announcer:
This is the Art Marketing Minute with Eric Rhoads, author of the Amazon best selling book, “Make More Money Selling Your Art.” In the marketing minute we answer your questions to help your art career brought to you by artmarketing.com, the place to go to learn more about marketing. Now, here’s your host, arts magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads:

I am working on another book and I’ll get that done one of these days but in the meantime, if you haven’t got my book, Hey, you know what to do. In the marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions you can email your questions to me [email protected] Steve from San Francisco in the Bay Area says I have recently been painting on the coast near a lodge and associated restaurant after linking the lodge on my Instagram post from the previous week and asking my permission to paint on the grounds. They remembered my Instagram posts later while painting the lodge manager came by and expressed interest in hanging my paintings in their cottages. How cool is that? So we set up a meeting and I’ll be bringing a dozen framed paintings to show her we briefly discussed a range of possibilities from purchase to commissions to hanging the paintings with sale signs and to the best of my knowledge the lodge and restaurant are not showing any other artists can you offer any negotiating arrangements and ways to parlay this opportunity? Well you know I’m not big on you know negotiation games. I think you know just kind of say what’s on your mind but you know hold back a little bit you know, you don’t have to put dump all your candy in the lobby so to speak. And decide the outcome that you most want you know there is a desirable outcome you could leverage this in a lot of ways you could you could make money from it, you could get more money from it by showing paintings you could do a lot of other things so do you want a bulk sale to the hotel? Do you want them to put your paintings in every room? Do you want to show in the hotel and if it’s in the hotel you want to show where do you want to in the lobby or in the rooms Well, if the if the rooms are going to see it but everybody can’t see every painting then you’re going to reduce your possibility of sales. I think so. I think you know you could do both but I would suggest that you try something like first off. Tell them that you will not hang paintings in rooms that are for sale because it’s too risky for damage or theft or otherwise. If they want them in their rooms then they could cut a deal for a bulk amount of paintings you know let’s say you’ve got 30 rooms and they want 30 paintings. You could do that or you know if they’re not going to go for that you might be able to say well we could do prints and you could cut a deal for prints and then you’ve still got the paintings you can sell.

And so that’s nice because you could give them giclee prints framed at a lower price. But asked him to do a lobby shore restaurant show for three four months and especially at the peak of their season. And people who see them in the room will also want prints or originals you want to sell prints in the gift shops. I sold paintings in the gift shop of a very high end Hotel in Lake Placid for many many years. And you know they sold and they sold well and they sold for a lot of money just because It’s a gift shop, you know, if it’s a high end hotel, somebody who’s paying a high price, they don’t seem to care. But people want to be able to buy on the spot, you know, you see art shows where it’s like, you see this painting and contact the artist and it’s like, No, I’m not going to contact the artist have had a couple of drinks, I don’t want to do that, you know, you might intend to you take a picture of, of the of the artist tag or something, by the way, make sure you put one of those little QR codes on your tag and say, take a picture of this with the painting and that way they remember the QR code comes up and they can contact your website. But I would rather they be able to say, you know, to purchase this painting, tag this tag into the store, and the gift shop and do it that way. Sell small paintings, they can throw in a suitcase, or a car for their their memory of their trip, also have a big monumental painting in the lobby for sale now don’t offer discounts unless they ask keep saying no on discounts. And at some point you may have to cave but I suggest that you, you know, if you buy 10 paintings, I’ll give you a discount of 10% of you by 20. I’ll give you a discount of 20%. You know, that kind of thing. If you want all the rooms, I’ll discount it by you know so much. But you start without discounting. Because why give money away? You might not have to. The next question comes from Ray Richardson in Kannapolis, North Carolina Who says I’m doing a lot of vehicle art trains, aircraft, boats, etc. And I’d like to approach museums with my work either for consignment or display in their gift shops. I talked to one but I’m not sure I went about it properly. What’s the best way to get local museums interested in my work? Should I just sell the original art to them? And allow them to resell? I don’t have prints made yet I prefer getting the original art in the shops. Is this a smart move? You know, Ray, there’s no right or wrong. I mean, you can you can go about this in any particular way. The idea here is, you’ve got to ask yourself why this is important to you, you know, is somebody going to a museum, going to go into the gift shop and spend a proper amount of money for a painting now they might or they might not. And it’s certainly worth testing. My goal is to test everything. So you could do you know, you could certainly do prints, people will buy prints, you know, people buy memories of something. What would be nice is to get a show in the museum if you could get a local museum to do a show and then put your work in there. And then keep your work in there. That would be kind of cool. But you know, ask yourself, you know, what is your goal? What What do you most want to do? Do you want to sell paintings? Do you want to get your paintings displayed, so other people will buy them in other venues? You know, ask yourself, What is your goal and then start with your goal in mind and then work towards that goal, whatever the goal is. But yeah, I mean, you know, you said you you don’t know if you went about it properly, you know, we’re gonna make mistakes. We all make mistakes, but, you know, make sure you’re calling back. You have a discussion with somebody, no, don’t, you know, let grass grow under that, you know, call him back, say, Hey, we had a discussion. I don’t know if it went well. Tell me what your thoughts were. And they’ll tell you I mean, you know, just don’t plan a games Be smart with them. And I think that will help. Anyway, that is the marketing minute.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artist to help your dreams actually come true. So if you want to submit questions, simply email [email protected]. And to learn more about marketing ideas, you can visit Artmarketing.com. Thanks for listening.

How to Submit Your Art Marketing Questions: What questions do you have about selling your art? Email Eric today at [email protected] (include your name and where you’re from) to hear your question answered on an upcoming Art Marketing Minute Podcast.