How to Sell Your Art Archives - Page 3 of 14 - Art Marketing with Eric Rhoads

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 113

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads answers the questions: “Should you hire a marketing specialist?” and “How can you implement TikTok as a marketing tool?”

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 113 >

Click here to listen to the Art Marketing Minute!

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, art magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads:
Amandine, my producer is going to ask the first question.

Amandine:
The first question is from Deb Price Kennedy from Centerville, Massachusetts. Should I hire a marketing specialist?

Eric Rhoads:
Should I hire a marketing specialist? Thank you Amandine, you know, should I buy a new car? Should I drink a coke at dinner? You know that? I mean, there’s got to be more to the question. So I don’t need to be critical, Deb, but it’s impossible to answer that question. Because I don’t have any data points. And one thing that you will learn, or you might learn if you really get good at marketing is that everything is about data points, right? Because you have data points that inform your decisions. You know, in my world, it’s like, how many people opened up an email? And how many people read that email and clicked on something, those are data points, and you are always comparing one against the other trying to better yourself and get those data points. I don’t know why you would be asking the question. So I’m going to assume a couple of things. But I don’t know what your situation is. And that’s why I can’t answer it for you exactly. But let’s, let’s say for instance, that you’re an artist, and you’re making $10,000 a year and I tend to use round round numbers just to make it easy. And your goal is to get to $20,000. Well, when you think about it, that’s doubling your business. That’s a pretty big deal. Most people can’t figure out how to double their business in one year. I’ve tried that many times, I’ve had a chance to do it a couple of times. So it’s not exactly easy. But you have to ask yourself, if Let’s assume I could go from 10,000 a year to $20,000 a year, how much would I pay to go to $20,000? A year? But you know, if I’m at 10, and I go to 20? How much would I pay to get there? Because that’s kind of how a marketer thinks now I would I would be looking at that and saying, Would I be willing to pay 10,000 to get 10,000? And most people go, Well, that’s stupid. Why would you do that? And the reason is, let’s say, for 10, last 10 years, I’ve been doing 10,000 a year. And next year, I do 20, but it costs me 10,000 To get that 20. But that’s okay, I’m still at the 10,000 I had, but now my baseline if I do 20,000 Every year for the next 10 years, I’ve paid 10,000 to get myself to a $20,000 range. And it might be worthwhile. And that’s where an advisor can help you now, most of us look for metrics that are not quite that extreme. So we might look and say hey, to get 10,000 would I pay 10% of that? Absolutely. Would I pay? 20%? Absolutely. Would I pay 50%? Maybe not as absolutely, but it depends on you. And of course it depends on your costs and cost of delivering these paintings and all the other things that do that but you’d be ahead of the game. And if I paid 10 grand to get to 20,000 and another 10 grand to get to 30,000 and another 10 grand to get to 40,000 if there was a way to do it, I would probably do it because then you’re getting your baseline hire. Now, I might say what am I willing to pay for that 10 grand increase. And it depends, you know, depends on it as the advice Good advice isn’t cheap. Now I charge $5,500 an hour for consulting. I try not to do it very much. And that’s why I charged $5,500 an hour because I don’t have an hour very often. But it’s time now for me to raise my rates. Because now that I’m in demand, I have to get my rates up. Because when you’re in demand, you have to get your rates up. I had a watch company it was Seiko actually hired me as a consultant for them on a tech project because I did that for a while. And they actually paid me enough money that they bought me a whole new house from that money. But the amount of money which seemed like a lot of money to me, to them, it was like, Hey, he he 20 XStar business, it’s certainly worth doing that. So that’s the way you want to look at it is what am I willing to pay? And but the first thing you’ve got to start, you got to backup because you’re way ahead of yourself. The first thing is, like, what is my target outcome? Where do I want to be? Because target outcome makes makes a huge difference. Now, there’s a lot of bogus, fraudulent HYPEE art marketing and marketing advice out there. And a lot of it is just complete nonsense. In my in my particular case, I hope it’s not nonsense, but most of it, I’ve learned by doing it, and I made a lot of stupid and expensive mistakes learning it. But there are two answers to any problem. What are those two answers? It’s two resources, you can either have the resource of time, or you can have the resource of money. If you’re busy, like I tend to be, I don’t have any time. But I have plenty of money. If I spend money to solve a problem, then I’m ahead of the game. Because if I don’t have to spend three months solving that problem, or six months or a year, then I’m ahead of the game, right. So a lot of us don’t have money. And so what we do have is we have time, you can oftentimes if you don’t have the money, you oftentimes have the time, you could spend time. So like I try to master things all the time, I want to learn things, I’m always taking courses, sometimes they’re courses that have nothing to do with anything I’m doing just because I want to learn it. But if I want to master something that I put aside some time, it might be a month, it might be three months, it might be three years. But I think anybody can master anything within about two years. And you know, if you focus all your time and energy on that, if you want to focus your time and energy on growing your business, then you can do that yourself, you don’t need somebody else to do it. And I think anybody can change their trajectory in life or their trajectory in business. In about 90 days, if you stop to think about it, you come up with a plan and you implement it, you can get there in a very quick amount of time now. I read like a madman, I buy courses, I buy lots of courses, I probably spent five or $7,000 on courses. You know, I have I people out there that buy a video from time to time to improve as a painter, I have other people who buy every one that I put out there, and to see the difference that they’re making in you know, in their work, because they’re studying, they’re really serious about it. So you can become an expert. The other thing you got to keep in mind is what was true in marketing a year ago isn’t even true today. Some of it is there are some principles that never change. But there are things that are changing fast and to be a pro, you have to invest your time to stay ahead of it. Now, why do I say that if you’re going to hire an expert, let them do it. The problem is that you need to be able to manage the person or people that you are having advise you, and they’re gonna see right through you if you don’t know what you’re doing, and they’re gonna tell you things that that some are gonna be honest, some are gonna be dishonest, some just don’t know. And so you have to learn the process. So you need to learn it yourself, no matter what you may not have to get the depth of knowledge that they know, but you need to know enough to ask the right questions and drive them in the right direction. Now I have lots of people who work for me, I have lots of people who are experts, some are employees, some are freelancers, some are agencies, but I got to know their business pretty well. Because I got to be able to stay on top of them and owning any business, a small art business included. You got to know these things. And so an expert might help you. But you got to know enough about it. You can’t just you can delegate but you can’t advocate you got to stay involved in the process. So the other thing is that really you gotta go back to the root of all of this room. Remember, anytime you want to do anything, you need to start with what is the end in mind, it’s real easy to say, well, I want to hire an expert. Why do you want to hire an expert? What do you want to achieve? How much money do you want to make? What else is important other than money? What is it about reputation? Or what is it about your pricing? Or what is it about getting into better galleries? You know, these things matter to they’re not always directly about the money? And so first, you got to start with, what do I want to accomplish? What’s my timeline to get there? How much is it worth it to me? If I spend this money and it doesn’t work? Am I bankrupt? Am I out of money? What if this expert isn’t any good, I hired an ad agency, no names, I hired an ad agency. In another country, they were supposed to be one of the best in the world, everybody was raving about them. I wrote them a very, very big check for a project that I was doing. And they completely bombed, they completely failed. I was completely disappointed because I really wanted to work. And, you know, sometimes these things happen, you know, they didn’t have any experience in the thing I was trying to do. But they believed that their system would work for that they were wrong. I was wrong. So anyway, that’s, that’s the long and short of it, you got to kind of know where you’re going first, and then what you want to accomplish. So that’s a long answer to a short question Amandine, what’s next?

Amandine:
The second question is from Gabriel from Lake St. Louis, Missouri, how to implement TikTok as a marketing tool.

Eric Rhoads:
How do I implement TikTok as a marketing tool? Well, Gabriel, you’ve stated this correctly, you see all things that involves tactics are tools. And using tiktok as a marketing is a tool, right? using Instagram as a tool, using a magazine as a tool using a website is a tool. Those are all tools, they’re tactics. And if you were working on your car, let’s assume you had some mechanical skill, which I don’t have much of, you don’t use a hammer to loosen a bolt. Why? Well, first off, you’re going to ruin the bolt, you might break the bolt, you need the right tool, right. So you need, you need somebody who’s going to hand you the right tool, or you need to go find the right tool, the right socket, or whatever. So imagine if you’re watching trends, and you’re watching and everybody out there in the world is using hammers to repair their cars. And it’s like everybody’s doing it, I got to do it. Why? Because everybody’s doing it. That’s kind of how we think it’s very seductive. You want to do what everybody else is doing. So you start using a hammer, even though you don’t need a hammer. The point being that you got to know what you need, we get seduced by things like TikTok and social media and Instagram and reels and all the fun stuff. Because we see these YouTube stars making millions and you see tik tok stars making millions, you know, because they’re just dancing. And they do it all the time. And what we don’t see is that these kids are spending 810 hours a day sometimes, you know, seven days a week writing, recording, creating their reels, and we don’t see the struggle that they had to get there. And some of them didn’t have a struggle. You know, what Mr. Beast does on YouTube takes a lot of time and a lot of writing and a lot of planning a lot of people to pull it off and a lot of money. But he makes it look easy. But it’s not easy guarantee that so a habit that we all have is to get seduced by shiny objects, like tik tok. But first you got to ask yourself, what needs to happen. It’s kind of like what I was talking about before goes back to the idea of goals. What do I need to accomplish? What are my goals? What do I want TikTok? Or Snapchat or Instagram to do for me? And are they the right or the wrong tools to get the job done? Just you know, marketing, we all tend to go for what everybody else is doing. Remember, got milk and everybody started copying got milk. That whole campaign did not move the needle on milk sales. And everybody thinks it did. So they started doing you know, got pizza. The whole campaign was developed because they wanted to make the Board of Directors feel like they were doing something to move the needle, but it didn’t work. And yet everybody copied it was unique. It was fun. Don’t copy until you know why the copying what you know what you’re copying because there’s more to it. Now, I have lots of big Instagram sites. Some of them have hundreds and 1000s of followers. It’s taken me a long time to get there. It’s taken a lot of effort. You know my personal page is only about 17,000. My plein air mag pages 120,000. My realism today pages 205,000. But my Tik Tok is still under 1000. You know, even though I’m getting 30 40,000 views, I’m not getting followers. But none of that matters unless you have a specific purpose. I have a specific purpose, I have a specific plan. I monitor metrics for very specific reason. But you got to keep in mind that you know, when you see somebody that’s got 100,000 followers, you go to I need 100,000 followers, do you really? Why? What are you going to do with it? How are you going to turn it into money? Otherwise, it’s just vanity metrics. Getting followers on social media is cool. But unless you’re accomplishing a very specific purpose from that, and it might be branding, it might be awareness, it might be actual physical money, it might be finding ways to get email addresses, you know, there’s a lot of different things you can do. But you need to understand it first. So you need what I call a conversion plan. How do you get them to buy? Just getting out on Tiktok? isn’t enough? You need to know what you know, what is the process? Now, you can easily do this on social media easily. It’s It’s simple. It’s not easy, right? I guess it’s simply do it on social media. But it does require a plan. And it requires a lot of work. Now, people don’t usually give you money until you ask for the order. So if you’re going to say I want to make money selling paintings on TikTok, you got to figure out how to make it work, how to get him to the right place, how to make them come to you to a place where they can buy your painting, right. So there’s a whole lot to that. But to answer your question, if you have put the time aside daily, you come up with a compelling content, and you start putting it out there. If it’s good, it builds and Tiktok and Instagram and others have an algorithm, if they start seeing a lot of heat and a lot of activity, they’re going to put it more front more people in front of it, because they want them to click on it too, because that increases their metrics. And so you know, you just got to get it out there. And there’s lots of courses about how to sell on Instagram and Tiktok. And I bought one of them once and it was kind of useless. And by the way, it’s constantly changing. But you know, it’s about frequency. It’s about posting frequently. I post daily on Tik Tok, which are cuts from my art school live daily on YouTube. And we just cut them into 32nd reels or one minute reels. And then we put them up there and we put them everywhere we, we repurpose them on Facebook, we repurpose them on Instagram and so on. We put them out on you know, everything LinkedIn, et cetera. So, but if I were going to do it, right, for TikTok, if I had the time, I would do custom content specifically for TikTok with a very specific purpose in mind. That’s not important to me right now. But that might be what you should do. Now, the other thing is, there’s a very big possibility. This is gonna sound crazy, but there’s a big possibility TikTok is gonna go away. How? Why? Because the US government’s trying to shut it down because it’s sucking data from people, including you. And it’s all going to China. I don’t want to get into political discussions. I don’t even understand it. But there’s an awful lot of talk about shutting it down. There was talk before it didn’t happen. Part of it got sold, supposedly, but data’s still going in. So TikTok may not be the answer. And by the way, you know, I mean, if you look back at MySpace, it was like the hottest thing and then it went away, it can happen now maybe less likely to happen with something that’s strong, but you know, there’s gonna always be something that’ll replace it. There’s always new shiny objects, the new social media, there’s some new ones that are coming out that are right around the corner. So define what you want to achieve. get exact detail as possible about what you want to achieve, what you stand for what you want to be known for. And then once your strategy is determined, then you go to tactics. TikTok is a tactic.

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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-20T11:09:45-05:00January 6th, 2023|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 112

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads discusses NFTs and social media platforms, and answers questions about how to know if your work is ready to sell and how you can use art competitions to market your art.

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 112 >

Click here to listen to the Art Marketing Minute!

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, art magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads
In the art marketing minute, my goal is to answer your marketing questions. And almost all the questions we ever asked come from you once in a while. We don’t have one and we have to make one up but very rarely. But it has happened. So I’m just being honest here. You can send your questions to me, [email protected] or you can email or you can actually there’s a way you can go to artmarketing.com/questions And you can actually record a video. I don’t think anybody’s ever done that. But you could be the first and we’d like that. My producer Amandine is going to read the questions and then I’m going to answer.

Amandine
Eric the first question is from Marla Brenner from Madison, Wisconsin. What is an NFT? How might it help the future of art marketing? How might hurt have been approached on mine from a buyer wanting to purchase an NFT of my work? Does it make sense that he may be the future of sales of original traditionally produced art?

Eric Rhoads
Well, so the NFT thing is really interesting phenomena. We did an article on NF Ts and in one of my publications, and one of my editors had written that he thought it was a fad. And I quickly wrote him back and I said, I’m gonna change that line, because this is not a fad, this is something that’s going to last and it’s it’s gaining steam, and it’s something we need to embrace and, and, and, and truly it is really the case. Nf ts a lot of confusion about it to a lot of people, and especially people who are not what I call digital natives. If you’re a digital native, you’re someone who grew up everything was digital, everything was you know, on your phone on your music was digital, people like me are not digital natives. You know, we grew up with books and records and, and those kinds of things. And so when you’re a digital native NFT makes a whole lot more sense than when you’re not a digital native NF T stands for a non fungible token. And essentially, in the world of what’s called blockchain, which is a it’s the same technology that is used for for cryptocurrency and NFT really is kind of a child of cryptocurrency, it means that no one can steal it, at that it has to be replicated, it’s replicated every like nine seconds across 100 million different computers, and there’s just no way anybody can steal it in theory. And so, it is morphing into a lot of things it started out as a digital, only digital, you know, the the original NFT images were something that somebody had created digitally. And when you get an NFT on that digital image, even though it may have been reproduced, you know, millions of times you have the NFT means you have the original the only one it cannot be it may be duplicated. But you have proof that it’s the only one you have NFT is essentially almost like a What could I say it’s almost like a What’s the term I’m looking for, you know, a title on a house, it’s kind of like if you had a title on a on an image. And that title can never be stolen from you, but it can be sold. And what’s wonderful about NFT, that is not true. Typically with paintings is in the NFT world, when you set up your first NFT, you can set it up so that you always get a percentage of the sale, no matter what and you get to set the percentage. Of course, the higher up, you set it, it might discourage other people. And anyone who has owned the NFT in the past can also set to get a percentage, but you got to be conservative about that. Because you know, at some point somebody wants to make money on it too. And they can’t because everybody else owns it. But what’s nice about it is if you created NFT, and you say okay, for ever, anytime this NF T is going to be sold, I’m going to make, let’s say 5% on it. And so, oftentimes NF Ts, if they’re making money, if they’re good, NF Ts, they’re sold 2030 4050 100 times and sometimes in NFT can start out for under a couple $100 and go to you know, we’ve seen stories of, of, you know, millions of dollars. Those are rare. It’s, you know, there are lots of NF T’s out there that have never sold that have never been successful. But the way to do it is basically you go to what’s called an NF T exchange. Now, you can Google NF T exchanges, there’s tons of them, there’s open C there’s xe there’s crypto punks, there’s referable super rare, I like wearable, for some reason, I don’t know why. But you’ve got to look and see if you see something that fits what you do, because the audiences tend to buy you know, like there’s a there’s an NF T site that’s kind of devoted to sports related things. So you’re probably not a place for you. And I’m sure there’s NFT exchanges devoted to you know, more traditional art and more modern art, etc. So you just have to google them. Basically, you go in there, you pay a small fee, I don’t know what it is 1020 bucks, and you create your NFT and you put all your registry information, and you upload the image of that, and then it goes into the exchange and if you’re lucky, it will sell and if you’re really good at marketing, you’ll figure out how to promote it to help it sell. Giving people a link to where They can find it. So I think it’s very exciting. I haven’t done a lot with it personally. But I do think it’s something that I will do a lot with when I just find the time. And it’s not likely to be going away, you know, there’s a NFT has been wounded a little bit, because at the current time of this broadcast, there has been, you know, the Bitcoin thing is, has had a lot of problems, there’s been some fraud, and so on. And so a lot of people had a Bitcoin and a lot of the crypto are going down. But that doesn’t mean it goes down forever. I don’t give advice here, you have to figure that stuff out on your own. But I suspect that all of those things will continue and continue to be strong, because they’re really appealing to a digital generation. And now you have a digital generation that has money. So they will buy NF T’s. And so the you know, the big thing is how do you tie an NF T with a traditional painting. And you know, you can do an image of that traditional painting nfts can be more than an intimate, you know, that can be, you know, a video or it could be a process of creating the painting kind of a thing. But ultimately, it’s the NFT that’s going to sell that you can design things were in theory so that the painting, and the NFT have to sell together. But really, the painting is not necessarily in the exchange. I may have that wrong, but I don’t see how that’s done. But maybe it can be done. We’ll have to look into that. Anyway, I hope that helps. I probably confused everybody. I’m a little confused about some of myself. Next question, Amandine.

Amandine
The next question is from Lorenzo Chavez from Parker, Colorado. What is the most effective social media platform for art marketing?

Eric Rhoads
And sales? Is the question. Okay, so, Lorenzo, that question and I don’t mean to insult you, but I’m gonna. Alright. Alright. So that question is like saying, What’s the most effective magazine to advertise in? That’s broad, or what’s the most effective TV network or to watch or, you know, that’s broad social media is broad, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, tik, Tok, Snapchat, you know, everything, you know, there are broad audiences. And most of these now, you know, they typically they start out as, as mediums for for younger people. You know, Facebook started out as something for younger people, once, once my generation started coming on, they’re like, Sia, bye, bye. We don’t want to be a part of you. And then they moved over to do other things, they moved over to Instagram. And then we all went to Instagram, and they’re like, we’re leaving, we’re going to Snapchat, you know, so, and Tik Tok, and so on. So what happens is you get these bubbles. And then when the, the older generations come on, the kids end up going somewhere else. But you know, they’re all very broad. And each of them has its attributes, each of them can be very effective for you in different ways. So it’s not so much about which one is a better advertising medium. They’re all really, really great advertising mediums. It’s more about how are you going to use them? And what is what is the strategy. So what I tell people is a social media is not an advertising solution. I know that sounds weird. And by the way, I spend, I can’t even say the amount of money but I will tell you that it’s a very large number, very large. I spent a lot of money in social media, but and I’ve wasted a lot of money on social media. But I also have learned what works. But you know what, I had to go to experts, I had to find people who were I have had several different ad agencies, some of which I still employ. And these people who spend their lives and it really know what works and what doesn’t work. And the the methodology and the trends change every single week, because each one of these social media changes something there’s something new, you know, when Apple changed their technology so that you couldn’t be tracked and you couldn’t retarget people that just killed a lot of social media advertising. So you have to be constantly evolving and trying to learn what it is. But let’s back up. You know, the the question may be how do I make money with social media? But really, the question is, how do I make money advertising? And maybe the question back that up further is just how do I make money as an artist? And so that’s the place to start. It’s not necessarily about medium. It’s, you know, you could say, well, how do I make money? You in Fine Art connoisseur magazine or plein air magazine, that’s not the place to start, the place to start is what do I want to accomplish? What are my goals? What is my budget? What percentage of my sales Am I willing to give up now in, in most businesses, you’re a business, if you’re selling artwork, and most businesses, depending on the nature of the business, there is an allocation towards marketing. So in the makeup business, because it’s such a high margin business, you know, they it’s clay, right, colored clay. And so basically, you know, the cost to make, you know, some makeup, for some expensive company, really, the biggest cost is the jar, right? The clay that’s in the glob that’s inside isn’t very expensive. So they can spend tons of money branding, and hiring movie stars and doing all this stuff, to drive interest in their glob, and they’re still going to make a lot of money on it, their margins, as we say, are going to be really high. But if you are, you know, if you’re in a business where you only make 1%, on what you’re selling, you can’t spend as much advertising. So you have to ask yourself, all right, assuming I let’s say it’s paintings, and I’ve just written an article about this, it’s gonna get posted somewhere soon. I think it’s going to be posted on the oil painters of America newsletter in December. But it’s kind of about, you know, how you budget this stuff. But basically, the way to start is, what are your goals? What what is my strategy, you know, once I knew my goals, if let’s say I made a goal that I’m going to make $100,000 This year, and I have to, you know, have that $100 $100,000 I, if I meet that goal, I’m going to make X amount of profit, meaning after all my expenses, I’m going to put money in the bank after my taxes and put money in the bank. And based on that, how much of that are you willing to give up? To get more business? Because really, that’s what advertising is, right? It’s how much am I willing to give up? And so most companies have a range between 5% and 20, or 25%, for marketing, and some some even higher than that, depending again, like on the margins, so you want to be thinking about how much am I willing to give up? And here’s a clue, the person this is going to see seem really obtuse. The person who spends the most money, the person who outspends their competitors, wins. And and so the way I look at things is I say, How much money am I willing to spend to get a sale? And what is the lifetime value of the person who buys. So if let’s say, you come and buy something from me one time for 10 bucks. And then over the course of the next three years, you spend another 60 bucks, total of 70 bucks, your lifetime value is 70 bucks, right? So I then say, Okay, what am I willing to spend to get your 70 bucks, and I might say, Well, I’m willing to spend 20% was $14. So I’ll spend $14 on ads to attract you. And I lose money on the first sale, but that’s okay, because you’re likely to make a second purchase, and then I’ll break even on the second one, and then maybe make some money on you in the future. That’s kind of how it’s done. That’s how you think about it. So you’re asked yourself, based on my current track record, how many paintings do I sell a year? And let’s say you sold 10? At 1000 bucks. That’s easy math, that’s 10,000 bucks. How much are you willing to spend of that? 10,000 bucks to get that 10,000 bucks? Is it 1000? Is it 500? Is it 2000? Is it 5000? Because the more you spend, the more people you attract, the more people you bring in, the more you have the ability to sell, but it all boils down to budget, your goals and then developing a strategy. And the strategy then is okay, how am I you know, what am I going to sell? How am I going to present myself what’s my messaging going to be? And then tactic is the very last thing you do and social media is a tactic. Advertising is a tactic whether you’re advertising and fine art connoisseur or plein air somewhere else. Whether you’re doing social media ads, it’s a tactic. You need to know all that stuff and do your homework first. The last thing you want to do Facebook and Instagram will pop up these things that say do you want to boost this you had? You had 2300 People watch this. Do you want to boost it? Click here spend 10 bucks, and they’re going to put it out in front of a bunch of other people. That’s not effective. Typically, it’s not and by the way, it’s very expensive to do it that way doesn’t seem like much, but there are much more effective ways to do it. And that’s about getting into and knowing and understanding how social media works. It’s a very effective medium when you do it right. But anything is effective when you do it. Right. And in this world, not everything is about social media, you think it is because you spend all your time there. But not everybody does. And not everybody’s going to see you. And if you’re focusing, you’re saying, Well, I have, you know, 1000 followers, I have 10,000 followers, or I have 100,000 followers. You know, are those followers people who are going to buy your artwork? And the answer is, some are, some are not. And so, you know, or are those 1000 followers, people are going to go to my workshops, some are, some are not. So what you really want to do is focus on who am I building my audience? What is my purpose? Most of us have all of our friends, you know, I have a lot of artists friends, but are those people who are buying paintings? While some artists are buying paintings? There’s no question about that a lot of them are, but you have to ask yourself what is going to work effectively? Anyway, that’s today’s art 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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-15T14:05:07-05:00December 30th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 111

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads answers the questions: “How do you know when your art is good enough to sell?” and “How does entering art contests help one’s career?”

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 111 >

Click here to listen to the Art Marketing Minute!

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, art magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Amandine 44:11
The first question is from John Roberts from Oklahoma City. How do you know when your art is good enough to sell?

Eric Rhoads 44:20
Well, John, thank you so much. And I love Oklahoma City. I’ve been there many times. I’ve got great stories, but I won’t get into them right now. I think one of two things happens, John, either you’re feeling your artwork is better than it is. Or you’re feeling it’s not good enough. I go through those moments. I have moments when I’m feeling like wow, I really think I aced it. I really think I did a great job on that. And then you have other moments like you know, I can’t even paint I’m not sure. And so you know the question about whether or not you’re ready for prime time You know, that’s a that’s kind of a loaded question. I remember a friend of mine out in California, Carol, Carol was working with her mentor and her mentor, you know, for many years and her mentor said, You’re not ready yet, you’re not ready yet, you’re not ready yet. And I looked at our work, and I said, I think you’re ready. And so she went out, immediately got a gallery immediately started selling work, and it was selling successfully. Her mentor was looking at it from a different perspective, which was, you know, you can be better. And by the way, you could, you can be better, you’re always going to be better, you’re always going to be growing. And, and you’re not always going to be completely satisfied with your work, I walked into my art gallery, one of three that I’m in, and this woman who worked with the art gallery has kind of given me a tour of my walls, and, and I saw a painting that I had done years and years earlier. And I cringed, right. So I thought, well, that, that doesn’t really live up to anything I do anymore. And I really probably should, you know, burn it. But I didn’t say anything, thankfully, and, and the woman said, This is my favorite painting in the entire gallery. And as a matter of fact, I’m making payments to own it. And I was like, wow. And that really said something to me. And I think it’s an important thing. And that is that no matter what your journey is in art, there are people who are going to come along on the journey, no matter where you are now, maybe if you’re doing, you know, sixth grade quality art, and you’re just really not not doing very well. You know, maybe that’s not quite ready yet. Although we’ve all seen art that makes us feel like that. I think that, you know, the best way to find out is to ask and what do you mean? What do I mean by that? Well, I like to have a panel of people who are trusted experts, you know, if you ask your mother or your father, or your brothers or sisters or your best friends, they’re going to tell you how wonderful you are because they love you. But how do you get somebody to tell you how horrible you are? Now, you don’t want to hear that. But that’s the reality, you need to hear if that’s the case. And the reason you want to have multiple people to ask is because I have three out of four say are wonderful, and one out of four says you You’re awful, then, you know, go go with your instincts on that, you know, somebody, again, may think well, you need to be developed to the level I am. Well, they might not be. So what I would do is first off, I’d say to myself, am I going to sell locally? You know, if I grow up in let’s say it’s Indianapolis, if I’m in Indianapolis, you know, how good do I need to be to be in Indianapolis? Well, I think you got to be pretty good to be in Indianapolis, my my take on it, but I would say I’m going to ask some local people. So I would call a gallery owner. And by the way, or, or curator, I would call somebody who is within the range of what you do. You know, if you’re a modern art painter, and you call somebody who does traditional realism, they’re probably not going to respond well to what you do. So call somebody who’s an expert in modern art, if you’re a traditional painters call somebody who’s a traditional expert. So locally, you know, call a couple of galleries, call curator call a couple of artists and say to them, and I mean this sincerely, and you have to be willing to do this to say to him, Listen, I need some help, I need to understand where I am. And I need some perspective, because I can’t see it myself. And I’d be willing to pay you for half an hour or an hour of your time, if you’d be willing to look at some of my paintings and give me some feedback on whether I’m ready. And if I’m not what do I need to hear. And by the way, I give you permission not to say anything nice. This is not about hearing compliments, I truly want to know where the problems lie, because you can’t see him. Or maybe you can but one, one way to see him is to put your paintings away for a year and then look at him a year later, sometimes you can see him, but I would do that if you’re going national if your goal is to be nationally recognized or worldwide recognized, then go for some people who are outside of that local market as well. And get some feedback from them. Because you know, depending on the level of what the local person is, is seeing, you know, somebody who’s at a national level might see things differently because there may be seeing a lot more artists a lot more work. And so find out from an expert, you know, how do you feel and remember to give them permission to be negative because you’re not trying to get compliments. As a matter of fact, just just rule that out say I don’t want any compliments. You don’t have to say anything nice, tell me what, what’s good or tell me what’s right, what’s wrong. And and that way I know how to improve and then Once you find that out, then you got to figure out, okay, how do I get there? How do I improve? How do I push through this? And you can figure that out. That’s something. The other thing that I would say, is be careful not to call on galleries that you want a foot in the door. In other words, don’t say, Don’t do this pretend thing of, hey, I want you to look at my work, I’m willing to pay you to look at it in hopes that they’ll say, Hey, would you come into my gallery, don’t even go to any galleries that you hope to get into? Because I think that that could backfire on you. And I don’t want you to do that. So that’s just one thing. Another thing is, I learned a really interesting lesson. Because as I went through my painting journey, there were people who said things to me, like, Oh, pretty colors, or Oh, interesting. approach or interesting composition, or, wow, that that tree really is nice, you know, and they’re kind of hesitating, you know, they’re looking for something nice to say. And, you know, we all want to have our compliments. But you know, you’re hearing that hesitation, or you’re hearing they’re not giving you what you would believe are genuine comments, it probably means there’s a problem. And the problem is something you can’t see. And so, you know, you’re trying to get around that problem. But what, what I noticed is, I had picked out a very prominent painter, and spent a lot of time with this painter and said, You know, I really need you to help me work on some stuff. Because I had done that I knew I knew where some of my weaknesses were. And I worked with this painter, and then I kind of stuck to just figuring this stuff out for a year or something. After about a year, I was getting unsolicited compliments that were not pretty colors. But wow, that’s, you know, that’s really a spectacular painting. Who did that? Well, I did it that’s like, oh, wow, I didn’t expect that. You know, there’s so you know, you want to look for things like that. So keep an eye out. And that will help you. Okay, Aberdeen, what’s our next question?

Amandine 52:08
The next question is from Christine, from Denmark, Iowa. How does entering contests help? They’re not cheap. So are they really?

Eric Rhoads 52:22
Well, the first thing you got to get over Christine is, is that, you know, competitions are quote, unquote, not cheap. You know, there is you got to ask yourself, Why am I entering a competition. And I have some very specific thoughts about that. And of course, I have the plein air salon competition. So I understand it pretty deeply. And I’ve been a judge, and many of other competitions, including the art renewal center competition. And I will tell you this, that there are good competitions, and there are not so good competitions, some competitions are just about getting your money. And you want to look at the quality of artwork that are that are getting picked and winning. And ask yourself, you know, is this something that’s living up to the quality that I like, and you know, if it is great, go for it. But you know, you can check it out, talk to people see what they like, and so on. The other thing is, the most important reason to enter a competition has nothing to do with winning the competition. Now, that probably sounds odd, but it’s about your head, it’s about your mindset. It’s about putting yourself out there. You see, if you’re an amateur artist, and you’re deciding to start working towards selling your paintings, or getting noticed or marketing yourself, then you have to have a different mindset. And that mindset changes everything, right? Because if you’re suddenly you’re about to upload a painting that you’ve done, knowing you’re going to be judged by a famous judge or gallery owner or something, and knowing that you’re going to be competing with some pretty darn good artists. Now you’re looking at that painting. It’s kind of like you never noticed the stuff in your own house until you have a visitor and then all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, I need to paint that wall. It’s got dirt on it, right? So it’s the same kind of approach. Once you feel and figure out that you’re putting yourself into the game, you’re going to treat your art differently, you’re going to try harder, you’re going to work to push yourself more, and that’s going to have a positive impact. That is a great reason. The first time I entered an art competition. That’s exactly what happened to me. There was like three or four weeks to enter and I was getting ready to upload it and then I started thinking about it thought, you know, this isn’t really there yet. And I worked on it for three or four weeks intensely until I got there. I didn’t even win an award. I didn’t get an acknowledgment, nothing happened. But I could see the positive impact on myself. Now, that’s one reason that you want to do it. And you want to kind of get yourself into a what I would call a professional mindset. Now, not everybody enters because they’re professional, you know, sometimes it’s nice to know that you’re that other people like your work or that other people appreciate your work, or that somebody who knows Art likes your work, even if you’re an amateur, that’s a beautiful thing. And that’s worth going for as well, because we all need recognition. But, you know, you say that, that entering a competition is expensive. But if you think about it, you know, most competitions are 30 or 40 bucks to enter. That’s a lot of money, I get it. But what if you became a finalist, and you got listed on some of the promotion, and maybe there was a page showing all the finalists and your work is seen and your name has seen that you’re buying basically an ad, that’s probably worth 1000s of dollars for 30 or 40 bucks. And even if you enter 20 times to get to that point, you’re probably still ahead of the game. And because because of that happens, and the more you enter, the better you’re likely to get, the better you’re likely to push yourself. So that’s another thing now. Also, as a marketer, and teaching marketing, there is the marketing aspect, right? If you’re looking for recognition from let’s say, a gallery, and let you want to get invited into a gallery, if if you could pay any amount of money, let’s say there was a top gallerist. And you were like, I wish I pay 100 bucks, I’d pay 1000 bucks to get that gallerist to look at my paintings, right? Because what if he or she likes it? And what if they pull me into the gallery that could change everything in my life? Right? So you know, you ask yourself, what would you pay for that? And so what happens is, I can’t speak for all competitions, but most competitions have relatively prominent people, curators, editors, gallery owners, top artists, and what would you pay to have that top artists notice your painting. And we have for instance, we always try to get a lot of, of gallery owners and gallery curators and museum curators. And we have had many, many situations where they’re judging a painting. And by the way, they don’t know the names and ever see the names. They’re judging a painting and they fall in love with a painting. And they you know, maybe they make it a finalist or something, maybe it makes it all the way to the end, maybe it doesn’t, but they’re paying attention. And I’ve heard from a number of artists who have entered our plein air salon who’ve said, hey, you know, that judge called me and invited me into their gallery or they called me and said, Hey, do you mind if I introduce you to so and so because I think your work is really good. And when you enter multiple paintings, then they get the impact of a body of work galleries love a body of work, and they’re gonna want something that shows that you’re consistent, you know, you can have one good painting and 20 bad ones. They don’t want that. So if they’re seeing, you know, I judged the aarC competition recently, and I saw several paintings from one particular artist and somehow I could tell it was the same artist. I didn’t know the name. But it was like, wow, this person is consistent and they’re good. I’m going to pay attention once the idol is names are announced. So I can do a feature on that artists in the magazine because I thought, well, this is great. And so that kind of thing happens. So this is gallery recognition. It could be publicity and other things. But you know, prizes and money are wonderful covers of magazines are wonderful. You know, if you enter the plein air salon, and you when you get $15,000 all cash, not pretend cash, but all cash meaning pretend cash is a lot of people will say, Well, we’re gonna give you $15,000 where the value and that’s just a bunch of stuff you don’t care about, but $15,000 in cash, and then you get the cover of plein air magazine? Well, you’re on the cover of a magazine being seen by hundreds of 1000s of people in bookstores and newsstands and all these subscribers and all that that’s a big deal. And I mean, that’s a big, big deal. There are artists who are prominent artists who have strived their whole life to be on a cover of magazine never done it and you get the cover of magazine that’s worth the effort. So, you know, the idea is about instant exposure. You can you know, I teach marketing and marketing is something that is a process that you got to do over and over and over again. But you can have explosive moments that will skyrocket a career. And one of those things explosive moments is winning something, I can tell you that there are many people who were unknown nationally, maybe known locally, who won our plein air salon, who became instant celebrities who all of a sudden, the minute they win, you know, we’re putting their magazine, their picture in the magazine on the website, you’re putting it everywhere. And all of a sudden they’re getting known in their painting is getting known. And all of a sudden, they’re getting calls from Art Gallery, say, hey, hey, we’d like to have you in our art gallery. They’re getting calls from somebody who’s doing shows, I remember one artist said, you know, the first thing that happened is I got called and invited to be a judge me a judge, I’ve never been a judge. And so there’s a lot of value to that. And, you know, it’s great if you win, but it’s, it’s and when you win, when you become a finalist, even in one category, like we have 20 categories. So if you if you were a finalist in the sunset category, and maybe there aren’t a lot of entries there, you know, you’re gonna get noticed, and you’re gonna have something to talk about something to put on your resume, something to forward to your list and your friends and put on social media. All of that is, is career building and marketing. And so, you know, it’s, it’s really not about winning, winning is really sweet. But what’s sweeter than winning, is building a career that is going to last a lifetime. And that’s why you do it. And that’s why we have hundreds of people who enter 5678 paintings every single time. And they will sometimes enter those same paintings, five competitions in a row, because one judge didn’t pick them, but another judge did pick them or another one after that, pick them and we’ve seen this happen. So you know, every judge has different things that they like. So anyway, I hope that you understand that this isn’t about the prize. This is about the journey. Anyway, that is today’s art marketing minute.

Announcer 1:02:00
This has been the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads. You can learn more at artmarketing.com.

Eric Rhoads 1:02:08
Christmas is coming. Put out a hit that you’d love to go to the plein air convention in Denver in May. PleinAirconvention.com and or watercolorlive.com In January, or a subscription to plein air magazine. And by the way, if you’re a plein air painter and you’re listening to this, you really should have plein air magazine, just saying, you know, and by the way, if you get the digital edition, especially those you overseas, you know, we got 103 countries listening to this, if you’re overseas, you don’t want to wait for the mail. I’ve had people in Australia say You know, it takes six weeks to get here to get the digital. And that way, you get 30% more content that’s not in the print magazine. By the way, if you’ve not seen my blog, where I talked about art and life and lots of other things, it’s called Sunday coffee, you can find it at coffeewitheric.com. Also, I’m on the air daily on the air or on the internet daily anyway, on Facebook, and YouTube. My show is called Art School live. And there are hundreds of artists who demonstrations and talks and things like that we’ve done it every day since COVID. We did seven days a week for seven months now or five days a week we continue we’ve got hundreds of them. The entire archive is at YouTube and you should go to YouTube. Look for art school live, search, search for it and then subscribe and hit the little bell so you’re notified when we go live. And of course, if you don’t mind to follow Eric Rhoads at Facebook and Instagram. That would be cool. My name is Eric Rhoads. I’m the publisher and founder of plein air magazine. Thank you for your time today. Remember, it’s a great big world out there. Go paint it. We’ll see you soon. Bye bye.

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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-20T11:57:38-05:00December 19th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 110

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads answers the questions: “How I should manage my reputation online and in person?” and “Without going through a gallery, how do I sell and unload artwork currently in storage?”

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 110 >

Click here to listen to this Art Marketing Minute

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, art magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads:

Oh in the marketing minute I was sleeping there in the marketing minute I answer your art marketing questions. You can upload your video [email protected]/questions or you can email me [email protected]. Amandine, our producer, what is the first question?

Amandine 49:48
The first question is from Jen Wendling from Syracuse, New York. I am a new artist. I’m just starting to put my work out there. I’ve sold some pieces. What is your recommendation for new artists? And do you have any advice on how I should manage my reputation online? And?

Eric Rhoads 50:08
You know, that’s a really great question. It’s very astute of you to ask that question. Because if you’re just kind of starting, and nobody really knows who you are, um, some people do, obviously, you have, there’s an old quote, right, the old quote is, you never have a second chance to make a first impression. And so many artists start out and hurt their careers by making really silly mistakes, reputation, mistakes, marketing mistakes, and I’m not just trying to hock my book, but you need to read my book, make more money selling your art, that’s a really good place to start. But let’s just talk about that in case you don’t read it. By the way, I’ve got a great blog at artmarketing.com, too. So what I would recommend you’re brand new, you first off want to say, Okay, what do I want out of my career? What is my grand vision, now, I don’t know what age you are, Jen. But I’m going to pretend you’re 25. Okay. And I’m going to pretend you have a 50 year career ahead of you. And if you plant the right seeds now, and continue working the system, you’re going to be able to be by the time you’re relatively, you know, not terribly old. If you do it, right, let’s say five or seven years from now, you could be considered a very important artist, and 1015 years from now, you could be considered a master artist, and then ride that wave for the rest of your career. Now, you got to have the chops, I’m not going to talk about the chops, you’re gonna have to figure out how to get the chops, how to be a good painter, et cetera. That’s a whole nother animal. And I know CW is going to have talked about that a little bit. So I think the first thing to understand is, you know, what are my goals? What is my five year, three year, two year one year goal? What do I need to do? What and I would start out, in spite of the fact you want to do some big dreaming? And where do you ultimately want to be all of that stuff, setting those goals is important, I think what you want to do is start out by saying, Okay, how do I get what I need in your one. Now, if you’re working another job, what I highly recommend is not quitting your job, but I highly recommend is paint and figure out a way to get to the same level of income that you’re at in your job. And once you get to the same level of income, prove it for another year. And once you’ve proven it for another year, then you can quit your job, or you can phase out of your job because you get this overlap. And that’s a really great way to do it, because it takes some of the risk out of it. And that’s that can be nerve racking, because you quit your job, you don’t have any income, you’re under a lot of stress. Unless you’ve got savings, a lot of us don’t. So I think that’s one of the things you want to do. And I have a whole video series just about that one particular topic, somewhere, I don’t know where it is, but we can find anyway, the idea here is you got to, you know, everything you do isn’t going to go perfect. And you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. And mistakes are important because you grow from mistakes. And it’s better to make mistakes when you still have an income. Because once you’re relying on your income, if you make those mistakes, you’re going to be harder, more costly. So I would recommend that that procedure, but where you’re going to start is you got to start building a collector base people who are interested in your work, you got to start building a database of people who have expressed interest in your work. And a database of people have expressed interest in your workshop, you got to build the right kind of website. And most people do websites wrong. There’s a whole whole chapter on that. And and you need to look for ways that you can get frequently in front of people in a tasteful way so that they’re going to see your artwork and a lot of people do that with newsletters and I have a whole section on newsletters because most people do newsletters completely wrong. And you know, they make it all about them and nobody cares about you. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend you, but they don’t even know you yet. Why would they want to read your newsletter unless you do something in your newsletter that is really interesting to them. So look for look for something, they care about that good about them and then pepper it with the stuff about you and it’s gonna it’s gonna go much better. The idea is you want to build your own media and when you build your own media, that means you get them on your list. And that way you can talk to him through email, etc. Now, there’s a whole social media marketing thing you know, and that’s very important, more important than ever, but it’s not everything. And if you are of the generation that has grown up with only social media, you’re going to assume that nothing else exists. And I have a mentor that I actually have paid a lot of money to, to teach me a lot about marketing. And one of the things he says is, if you’re only digital, you only have half of a business. And what he means by that is, there are other ways to generate income, you know, a gallery is not digital, you might be advertising a gallery on Instagram, or Facebook, or they might be advertising you. But that’s not where you reach everybody, there are certain people who have money, who are not looking at your Instagram or your Facebook, and you’ll never figure out how to reach them all. And so what you want to do is ask yourself, Where is the money? Where How can I stand in the river where the money is flowing? So where what are the rivers where money is flowing? Well, art shows as a river where money is flowing, you know, you’ve got 10 shows, you know, in your local community, you know, if you’re, if you’re up for it, if you’re good enough, you know, you have these art shows, like the LA art show, Palm Beach art show Baltimore, you know, those kinds of things, where you can buy a booth, they’re expensive, but they’re probably worth it. You have art magazines, like my fine art connoisseur, you know, all these billionaires who read it and buy art, I want to advertise your tells me it gets $80,000 Average sales from each ad, but that’s a cumulative effort. And also he sells, you know, $500,000 paintings. So you know, you got to try a lot of different things, and you got to stick with it, because you’re in it for the game, the long haul. And what typically happens when people are first learning marketing, they like, oh, I tried that didn’t work, I’ll go somewhere else. And then I’ll I tried that it didn’t work, I’ll go somewhere else and keep doing that. And you just burn out everything, when if you stick with something, and you just keep building on it, you build momentum over a long period of time. So that’s kind of a first piece of that. The second thing is about reputation. Now, reputation matters more than you can possibly imagine. If you make the wrong moves early, you are getting yourself in trouble. Okay, so let’s just assume that, you know, you get, you get invited into this gallery, and you haven’t done your homework. And it turns out the gallery has a bad reputation. And they’re taking advantage of people and they’re not paying their bills, and they’re not paying their artists and you know, everything is going wrong with them, you get tainted by their reputation. On the other hand, if you got invited into like one of the top galleries a super important, you know, high high reputation, they know that they only select the best, that’s a booster to your reputation. And there’s a middle ground, you’re gonna know you’re gonna have to go into that middle ground before you go into the high ground, typically, not always. But you want to ask yourself, you know, can I be patient? Can I take my time to get invited into the right places? I have whole whole chapters and videos on getting invited into art galleries, but and getting invited as the answer you don’t want to call on him. Sorry, don’t do it. There’s a whole reason. And that basically, is you’re going to annoy them and they don’t want to be annoyed. So get yourself thinking about your reputation. What what is my brand look like? Am I elegant? And my cheap in my colorful, you know, what is the brand? What do you want to stand for watch branding, don’t copy branding, because people come up with branding concepts and strategies because they have a specific thing in mind. That may not be what you think it is. But try to figure out you know, who has been buying my paintings? What can I understand about them? What do they like about them? What is the story behind them? Write stories for every painting? I I think this is really critically important story stick. And 50% of the people who look at your paintings in a gallery environment, are not the kind of people who can get it. You know, 50% are like, Oh, I get it and 50% need to be told how to get it seems crazy. That’s just human nature. Right? You get it? I get it, but you know, somebody who’s a particular type of person, they’re not going to get it. So think in terms of that and then start building you know, I, I think you know, it’s I like the idea of dominating a particular magazine to dominate it for five or 10 years. I have one artist who was broke bankrupt, hardly had any money and decided to advertise in one of my magazines. I think it was fine art connoisseur and just the bought what she could buy, which was a quarter page or half page or something in every single issue, never skipping it. And it was hard. And I said, Look, you know, after the first year, you’re going to feel a little nervous about this, because you’re spending this money and you’re not really feeling the result. But you got to build your brand and your reputation. And after, after that, all of a sudden, you know, invites started coming in to be judges and to do galleries and to do shows, and you know, stuff like that. And things started selling and moving. And then better galleries came on board after a few years, and she was able to get rid of the crummy galleries. And you know, it just was like, elevating up and has stuck with it for 10 years, and it has put this person into superstar status. Now, you got to be able to paint or draw or sculpt or whatever it is you do photography. So keep that in mind. But it’s a long game, and you got to play the long game if you want to succeed. Well, also, I should mention that, you know, there is no difference between your personal reputation and your business reputation. I had a gallery owner, I’ve told the story a few times, gallery owner and a major, big city, big gallery, important gallery fired, fired an artist, because the artists kept posting pictures of, of the crazy stuff that he was involved with, in you know, you know, partying and stuff like that. And now you could probably tell yourself a story. Well, you know, that’s the reputation I want. But the gallery got complaints about it, one lady wanted to, it turned her off so much, she wanted to get a refund on her painting because she didn’t like what the artist was standing for. So you got to keep that stuff in mind. I have another artist friend who’s very prominent, and he insists on sharing his political opinions on social media. And no matter what you think, and no matter how much you want to stand for what you stand for, which is fine. But just know, if you do that. You’re going to make 50% of the people hate you. Sorry, it’s the truth. They’re not going to be able to overcome that. And you know, you’ve seen this. I mean, you’ve seen people who have boycotted companies, because they got political, and they just, you know, these companies shouldn’t be getting political. I don’t want to get polluted. Anyway, that’s about online reputation.

Amandine 1:02:42
The second question is from Deseret homes, Sharon Lee, from Washington, my art galleries all closed during COVID. I’m not interested in gallery hunting or hanging in short shows anymore. How do I sell and unload artwork or lean storage?

Eric Rhoads 1:03:01
All right, well, so I’m gonna get a little down on you here. Desert free, no offense intended. But it sounds like you’ve given up look, in the world of business. And if you’re selling paintings, you’re in the world of business, your small business, whether you like it or not. And in the world of business, you’re gonna get your gut kicked in, you’re gonna get your teeth kicked in, you’re gonna lose paintings. I had 12 pieces in a gallery out west, the gallery went bankrupt. I never got my paintings back. Luckily, by some stroke of luck, I was at a party, I met a guy I talked to him, he says, Oh, we’ve been looking for you, my sister owned this gallery. And we’ve been we’ve gave up looking for you, but we have all your stuff. And they sent back in 10 years, 12 years later, miracle, but for years, I thought I’d been burned, you’re gonna get burned. It’s part of doing business. You don’t like it? I don’t like it. But it’s part of doing business. And if you give up and say, Well, I’m not gonna go into any galleries, because all my galleries closed during COVID. Guess what, not all the galleries did close. There are great galleries out there that are thriving, not just surviving. And there’s a lot of other things that you should be doing. So if you’re giving up on galleries, if you’re giving up on shows, don’t give up. Now, if you decide you want to give up because you just don’t want to put up with it anymore. I get it. That’s fine. You might be at a stage in your life where you just don’t want to do that kind of work. But the reality is, if you’re gonna sell artwork, you got to do the work. And it’s a pretty much full time job. I always say, if you’re marketing your own art, you got to spend 20% of your time which is roughly you know, two hours a day or one day a week out of your five day week to work on marketing your art, you know, it’s just you got to work it you got to be talking to people you got to be selling Listen, you gotta be marketing and putting shows together, you know, all this stuff, I mean, it’s just all part of it, if you don’t do it, you’re not going to get the results you want, the more you’re willing to put into it. And in the early stages of your career, you put all that time and effort into it, and then you don’t have to do as much still got to do it. You can’t completely disappear. But if you keep, keep it alive, keep the train running, you’re gonna have a big impact. But how do you sell and in this case, she says unload artwork, currently in storage well, okay, so if you want to just unload everything, let’s, let’s say, you’re not going to pay it anymore, you’re not going to try to market your art anymore, you just want to unload everything? Well, you know, there’s a lot of things, you can do a garage sale, I know it sounds silly, you can do an art sale, like a garage sale, you can do Facebook marketplace, if you want, you can place some ads, or local ads, depending on the prices and how many paintings you can play some local ads, you know, in the local media, newspaper, websites, whatever, you know, if you have something here in Austin, we have the East Austin studio tours, you can participate in that, you know, get space in one of those studios, with somebody else, pay them for a little of their time, or whatever, put your work in there, and they get big crowds through you can sell that way. You know, you can try to sell it online, and, you know, put together a website with all the stuff that you’re offering. If you’re trying to get rid of it, then it’s all about price, right? Because if if you’re willing to dip price, you’re gonna get rid of things much faster. If you’re not willing, then you’re going to it’s going to take longer, you can still do it, but it’s going to take longer. I think that the real question is, how do I sell artwork, if I don’t want to do shows and being a gallery, and that becomes pretty much a self marketing strategy. That means you’re promoting online, you’re promoting on social media, you have a very specific strategy for social media. And you also are promoting in other places, because as I’ve said before, stand in the river where the money is flowing, right? So get into art shows, but you don’t want to do art shows I get that. But where can you stand where the money is flowing? Well, you know, I’ve got art magazines that have rich, rich, wealthy collectors who love art. And so that’s a concentrated audience of people who are going to buy paintings proven to buy paintings. So you know, you’ve got to get known there, build your brand, you know, that kind of thing. And those things matter over time. Now, if you are Deseret, you’re kind of like done with this, you’re at the end of your career, you just don’t want the paintings around anymore, you’re not going to paint anymore, I would, I’d probably just go to somebody locally who’s already set up, maybe it’s an art gallery, and just say, Listen, get rid of these, I need a minimum of, you know, X number of dollars for each of these, or, you know, I’ll sell you the whole bunch for X number of dollars, and let it become their problem. And they might have a big sale. Or maybe you can get somebody, if you have a list in you have people who have collected your art in the past, to a studio sale, you know, I’m retiring, and I’m getting rid of everything. And this is your big opportunity. And by the way, these paintings are going to be more valuable than ever, because I’m not going to pay it anymore. Right? So, and you need a story. Everybody needs a story. Now my rule is the story has to be true. You can’t lie. But you need a story. You know, I’ve decided to stop painting. You know, I made a great career and I had a lot of fun, but I’ve decided to focus on travel. You know, so I’m going to sell out all my inventory or you know, maybe you have a health issue and you can say I’ve developed a health issue. And my hands aren’t going to be steady for much longer. You know, you can come up with some story, but it’s got to be a true story. You can expand on it. You can enhance it. But don’t lie. Don’t lie. That’s important. Okay, that is today’s art 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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-20T15:45:42-05:00December 19th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 109
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 109

Art Marketing Minute Podcast

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 109

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads addresses how to know whether or not a buyer is honest, and how to prepare for your first plein air painting competition.

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 109 >

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, art magazine publisher, Eric Rhoads.

Eric Rhoads 1:04:23
My goal here at the Art marketing minute is to answer your questions so that this is more about you and what you need and what you want. You can upload a question at art marketing.com/questions or you can email me [email protected] And I love to get your questions. My producer, Amandine from France always reads the questions Amandine, what do we got?

Amandine 1:04:48
So the first question is from Sophia from Miami, Florida. Your art marketing advice is great. A problem I have is the offers received on Instagram have been from buyers that want to pay by Check, do not want to pay for my website where I feel more secure. I should one know whether or not a buyer is honest and not a scam. I don’t want you to sales, but I don’t want to be giving my home address or personal info to strangers. Through my website, credit cards and PayPal are accepted.

Eric Rhoads 1:05:19
All right, well, I think that’s a really great thing. First off, you should know, Sofia, that there’s a massive scam that is going around, and I get emails about once twice a month. They’re always different people always different names, but they always say the same thing. They say, Hey, I was looking at your website, I love your artwork. And my anniversary is coming up and I thought I’d buy a painting for my wife. It’s a surprise. And I’d like to buy that from you. Can you reach out to me and contact me and we’ll work it out. So the way that scam works, the way I understand it, I may have it wrong First off, they they oftentimes send you a check. And sometimes that check is just not a legitimate check. But they want you to ship that painting. So the first thing to think about is it’s probably a scam. If it feels like a scam, it’s probably a scam. Secondly, is if they’re paying by cheque, you want to make sure that you go to the bank and and that you hammer that check. In other words, you get cashed beforehand. And you also need to find out from the bank. What happens if they the cheque ends up not being good. You know, does it come back on you? What is what does that work? I think the scam is that they actually send you a check, you actually cashed the check, and they send you a check for too much money. And then you end up going wait a minute, you sent too much money and then you send a check back somehow. And I’m not exactly sure how it works. But what I do whenever I get these, I forward them to the FBI, there’s a email you can forward them to FBI probably doesn’t have time to look into it. But they’ve got their own issues. But But I think you want to just kind of probably avoid those things. Now there, there are going to be things that come through that are real. You know, the trick is, if you’re selling on Instagram or Facebook, you might get a private message. And the question is, is it real and and I’m sure the scammer is going to figure out how to do it through those. My guess is, you know, the best thing is, if you don’t want to accept checks, just don’t accept them. And if you’re going to lose the sale, okay, that’s okay. If you want to accept checks, then maybe get a Pio box and nobody knows your address, or have it mailed to a friend or you know, something like that. But I think the the thing you got to figure out is how to get that cash, check that cash in hand that check cashed before you ever send off the painting and make sure of course, you’re collecting your shipping and handling costs and everything else like that. Now, the reality is, we sell a lot of paintings in a lot of different ways. Now, I’ll tell you a quick story. I was in a big show in Annapolis in a gallery there. And it was from our Cuba trip and I sold quite a few paintings in that trip. But I didn’t sell them all. Well, this, this collector reached out to me and he said, You know, I was at the show, I bought a couple paintings of yours. But I would like to see what else you’ve got from Cuba. And so I sent him pictures of what I had from Cuba. And he said, Okay, I’d like to buy that one. And so we worked out a transaction, and I don’t remember how we how he paid for it. But so I I sent it to him. And I know I remember when I sent it to him, I enclosed a little note, and I enclosed actual photos. Remember those actual photos of the other paintings. And I said, because you bought one before and because you bought this one, I will give you one of these two or either of these two at a at a 20% discount, just let me know he ended up buying a boat. And that was pretty cool. Now this can happen in any situation. But I look at things I always say look, I have someone who’s interested in me, I have a buyer, how can I turn that buyer into a collector and so you’re always looking at ways and you know when you oftentimes will go someplace and they’ll say hey, because you bought this will give you this at a discount there that’s called an upsell and they’re trying to get you to spend more money and they’re figuring Well, you know, it’s better to give them a discount now than to hope that they’ll come back and pay full price and so that’s kind of the methodology behind it. So you might want to think about how you do something like that. Now you ask about payment. You know I I like to have PayPal. When possible Apple Pay when possible. Lots of alternatives. There’s a bunch of places now pay pal for instance, you can buy it and then you can make payments and those payments. You don’t have to wait for them to collect them. You know you get your money up front, but PayPal collects the money. And even if they don’t pay, that’s pay pals problem or somebody else’s problem. So, you know, there’s you can do Venmo there’s a lot of different things you can do. But, you know, make it easy for people, you know, and there are people out there we have, you know, we have paint tube.tv And we still have some people who insist on paying by cheque. So we have our system, what I explained to you, and and we just double check that, you know, and and do we get burned very rarely, very rarely. But you know, once in a while you do so be very careful about that. Anyway, good question. You know, even though it’s not specifically a marketing tactic, you know, in terms of bringing people in the door, really, all of these things about business are important. And they’re important because you’ve got to make sure that your business is running smoothly. And my wife was telling me a story about she took our car into the car dealer the other day, and for some repair, and she said it was effortless. You know, she walked in, they handed her the keys to the to the loaner. She walked back in, they handed her the keys. I mean, there was no paperwork, there was nothing. They had all that figured out in advance. And that’s wonderful. I called a client the other day, my doctor actually I called my doctor and I wanted my prescription renewed. And I didn’t even have to give my name. They knew me because my phone number popped something up on the spirit string and on the screen, and they said, are you still on this? This percentage and this prescription? I said, Yes. They said, Okay, just click the button. I’ll renew it. It is going to this pharmacy, right. Yeah. Okay, Ahmed. And what’s our next question?

Amandine 1:11:35
Our next question is from Trey from McMinnville, Tennessee. Can you share helpful hints on mentally preparing for your first plein air painting competition, how to let go of insecurity and fear of not being good enough?

Eric Rhoads 1:11:50
Well, I know Trey, Trey is a doctor and he’s a plein air painter, and he’s been studying a lot with Bill Davidson, they become great friends. As a matter of fact, he’s good friend of mine. He’s become a really good painter. And because I’ve been watching him study relentlessly, so you probably have nothing to be worried about Trey. But here’s, here’s what I think. When we first started creating videos, the first one we did was Max Ginsberg, the great artist in New York. Max at the time was in his 80s, maybe early 90s, I think in his 80s. And Max said to me, I’m a little nervous. And I said, Well, that’s understandable. You know, you’re on camera, you got lights, all this other stuff. And he says, Well, I’ve been practicing for five days. He said, I said, Max, you’ve been painting for 65 years. Why do you need to practice for five days? He said, Well, within a couple of days, you lose your hand eye coordination. He said you got to practice all the time, he says, but I wanted this to be good. So I kept I practice portraits five days in a row to make sure and I practice talking. So I’m gonna make sure that I had my act together. Trey, I think the best advice I can say to you is your confidence comes from being prepared and being practiced. I know plein air painters, if they’re going to an event, let’s say they’re going to the Laguna plein air, they may go to Laguna two or three days before the event starts and scope out where they’re going to paint and find those locations and paint smaller paintings of them are maybe same size and they paint them one or two times just to make sure they know the landscape and they feel good at it and it gives them confidence. And it’s a great way to make sure that you’re practiced well rehearsed. You know, if you stop a couple of days, when I go to my my event in the Adirondacks paint the Adirondacks. And I usually haven’t painted for a week or two, sometimes longer. And when I first started out first couple of days, you know I’m really making a lot of mistakes and but after By the third day, I’m rocking it and all the things that you know, I have to remember I’m remembering and that’s the value of practicing right before you come in. You know, even if you’re practicing at home, just practice it’ll give you a confidence now, nervousness is actually a good thing. All the research says nervousness is beautiful. Now fear and anxiety, not beautiful. But nervousness is okay because nervousness makes you grow. It makes you want to get better. It helps you It forces you to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And when you get out of your comfort zone. That’s where the real growth occurs. Now, let’s talk about the you didn’t ask this question. But I think this is something to think about. If you’re an artist who is doing a tent show an art show where there’s a lot of tents, or you’re at an outdoor art show or you’re in an art show in a auditorium for Christmas or something. Or you know, you’re at a plein air paint out. Here’s some things that you can do. First off, if you’re at plein air paint outs, they all have rules and there’s certain things you you have to do. There’s a lot of stuff going around about people who are breaking those rules. And everybody knows who they are, you know, and I’ve even been asked to do articles and been given names. Now, I would never do that to somebody. But there are people who abuse the systems. And so for instance, there’s up there a couple of people who went to plein air paint outs. And as you know, at plein air paint outs, they stamp the back of your canvas. So it you can prove it was painted, they’re not pre painted. And a couple of artists actually glued those panels over another panel and put them in a frame that they had pre painted, and tried to get away with it, but got caught. And so they’ve been asked never to attend another event. And by the way, they tell everybody else, and then those people say that I’m not hire, I’m not bringing this person in. So your reputation is everything. So don’t do stuff like that don’t play games, like that’s just not worth it. The other thing is pricing is really important. And there are people who go into these events, and they they look around and they say, Okay, I’m going to price my stuff at half of what everybody else does. And they get all the sales and nobody else gets any sales. And then you know, it’s good for you. But the reality is, you’ve destroyed your reputation, you got to be part of the team. And so be careful about stuff like that. But in terms of when you’re at an event, here’s what I look at, first off, I’m at an event, and I have, let’s say 5000 people coming through the event. And there’s, you know, 3040 50 painters, there are booths or otherwise, and how do I get them to pay attention to me, because I’ve got to stop them in their tracks, like long enough to get them to pay attention, because you know, you’re walking through an art show, and you’re just kind of your eyes are darting around, and then something grabs your attention, and you stop. And you look now at that point, then the point at which they stop and look, you need some kind of an engagement mechanism, what is an engagement mechanism, the goal is you’ve got to get them to go deeper, right, you either want to get them inside your booth, you want to have a chance to talk to him, or you want to figure out how to get them to contact you or to get their email information, there are a lot of different ways you can do that. Now, I used to teach people how to do tradeshow booths, because I was expert at that. And a simple trick is I would put a bowl of wrapped candy, with a little sciences free help yourself. And I put it inside the booth at the back of the booth, but you could see it from the front. And people would walk in, and they take a piece of candy. Now there’s a thing called the law of reciprocity. And it’s kind of like well, now they feel a little obligated to pretend to be interested and you get a chance to talk to him for a minute. And sometimes just that one minute is an opportunity to kind of switch them and get them to think about something or get them interested. So, you know, look for little things like that. Now, how do you get people? How do you stop traffic? Well, in a plein air show, it’s about being different, you know, if everybody else is doing the same kind of painting, what can you do? That’s not the same kind of painting. And so you know, that’s why a lot of the people who are doing more abstract, more colorful, more different approaches at plein air events, like lawn brow or or Laurie Putnam and so on. I don’t think Laurie does those events anymore. But I think the idea is that they really stand out. And so that helps them get attention. So what can you do to stand out another thing, it’s an old gallery trick, but it’s very effective. A galleries know that if you have a great big painting that you see through the window, it really grabs attention, and then draws them in. So can you can you do a great big painting and hang that up? And yeah, you know, the bigger paintings are more expensive, and they may or may not sell. But the idea is you want to draw people to your booth. And so if you have a really great big painting of, of, you know, the town that you’re in, first off, somebody’s probably gonna buy it. But secondly, it’ll draw people in. So use something to draw people in. Now, if you’re at a tent show, you can’t do stuff like this at a plein air event. But if you’re at a tent show, you could have something outside of your tent to grab people’s attention. You know, maybe it’s a giant skeleton was something that dressed in a funny way with a funny sign. Maybe it’s something that people want to get their picture taken in front of for Instagram or Facebook. And you want to make sure that your signage is in there. So it’ll be seen when they’re getting their picture. And that’ll help you virally. But it also, you know, it also gives them your name. And if your paintings are kind of in that picture, and they take a picture and maybe they saw you at the 10th show and they walked on and they don’t remember your name which happens all the time. Now they go through their photos to go oh, there’s Eric Rhoads i That’s the guy that had that painting and you know now they go to your Instagram and now they figure out how to reach you direct message you etc. So there are a lot of techniques about stopping traffic. So look for something to put on your booth. The other thing that’s really a great idea is put you know, I first up I like big signage. That’s above people’s heads that gets people’s attention and get a QR code on there and give them an incentive. Right. So, you know, get my, my free book of all my paintings, just scan this QR code, they scan the QR code, they put their email in, you send them the Book of your paintings automatically, but now you’ve got their email address, so you can mark it to them, they may or may not be interested, there’s a whole chapter on that in my book, where you can kind of go into that kind of thing. Now, once you get their email addresses, there’s, you know, there’s a process and you want to be respectful of them. But you can get it through, you get their email addresses through a QR code, you can get them through a visitor book, which is kind of old school, you can do a drawing, where they can win something painting or you know, a prize or print or something. And the best way for the drawing is just a QR code, you know, when this painting, scan here, and now you’re getting their email address, and you know, you give away a $50 print, it’s not a big deal, and you get their their name and email, if you live in that town, and you’re marketing to that town, it’s always a good thing. But even if you’re, if you’re, you know, looking for a way to get to plein air collectors, you know, throw a QR code with a message in a frame and put it up with your paintings if you’re allowed. And that’s a really good way now, how do I get people to buy if I’m in a live environment? The first thing I want to say is I don’t like manipulation. You know, in the old days, car dealers, they’re manipulative people, I don’t like that. There is training that teaches us some things you can do to engage people. And you know, you’ve got to get them out of their, their, you know, I’m not interested mode. And so it’s not manipulation, it’s engagement. The first thing is never be dishonest, you’ve got to tell the truth all the time. The second thing is always ask questions. If somebody comes up to you and talks to you, for a minute, have three or four questions in your mind that you can ask people, and and just, you know, just to get them to keep them there longer, the more they talk to you the more chance you have of selling them. And you know, because they’re always like, guard up, I’m not interested. And so you just say, you know, hey, do you have? Do you have any original paintings in your house? And they’ll say, Well, no, I never had one. And then you can say, you know, say something about that, and then ask another question, and so on. But you know, some people are intimidated by original paintings. And so you can, you can talk about that a little bit. But it’s you can kind of guide them in, but ask questions. The second thing is, you can look for ways to create what’s called scarcity. And what is called urgency. So scarcity and urgency, like, you know, somebody’s looking at a painting. Now, don’t say this, if it’s not true, but if somebody’s looking at a painting, you can go, you know, you’re the third person today who’s been interested in that painting, you know, a lot of people have said, they might come back, I don’t know if they will or not. But it’s kind of interesting that at something about this painting is really resonating with people, it’s subtle, you don’t have to say you better buy it. Now, you don’t have to say that. They’re like, Oh, maybe if I want this, I better grab it. You don’t have to say anything more, it just want to plant a seed. Or you can say, hey, if you like that, if you want to hold it to make sure nobody else takes it, if you’re while you look through the show, I can take a you know, a $50 deposit or something, and then you can come back for it. But I can only hold it for 30 minutes, because I don’t want to lose the sale. But you know, that might be enough to pull them back, they’re going to at least come back for their money. Another thing you can do is find ways to talk about your credibility or show that people have interest in you. And that is, you know, it’s funny thing about that painting, I painted that painting. And the great art historian John stern came by here the other day and and he said this about the painting now all of a sudden, you’re building the credibility of you and credibility of the painting. And if you look for ways you can build your credibility when you’re having a dialogue with them without being braggy. You know, I you know, I’m modestly you can say, you know, I’m really excited because, you know, plein air magazine just did this article about me. And I think that’s really, you know, it seems like ever since then my paintings have been selling to more collectors, you know, things like that will give you credibility. Now, we all have to, you know, we’re a little uncomfortable with those things. And you have to decide what you’re comfortable with. Again, I don’t want you being false or lying or manipulating. In terms of scarcity, you can make it scarce, you know, a way to make it Scarce is you know, and again, tell the truth, but you can say hey, you know, it’s funny, my wife told me that if this painting doesn’t sell that we’re going to keep it in our personal collections because she thinks it’s one of the best I’ve ever done. Well, that could backfire. They might say, well, you should sell it to your wife, but you might also they might say well, you know, maybe this is good or you might look for other ways to make it scarce. Like you know, I’ve sold all my paintings to this last one. I’ve got this myself. My shows are selling out like crazy. I don’t know what’s going on. Um, but I’m really happy about it. And boom, you know, or I mean, you know, these are the the last two or something. And then you know, look for credibility builders like putting up the ribbons if you want an award or putting up a large copy of an article of you and plein air magazine or something that will help. Anyway, I hope these have been helpful to you. That’s today’s art marketing minute.

Announcer 1:25:22
This has been the marketing minute with Eric Rhoads. You can learn more at artmarketing.com.

Eric Rhoads 1:25:30
All right. Well, you guys have been very patient. I hope you have a really terrific day. Get out there keep plein air painting. Join me at the plein air convention is going to be a lot of fun. Join me at watercolor live, that’s going to be a lot of fun. And subscribe to plein air magazine.com, you’ve got to have that, I should mention that. We also have an event coming up that’s called plein air live, which is going to be happening in March. And so we’ll be talking more about that in the future. If you’ve not seen my blog called Sunday coffee, I do it every week. And it’s kind of fun for me to write about things that aren’t always about art, but are kind of the things the lessons I try to teach my kids and, you know, we’ve had, you know, a huge number of people pick it up. last number I heard was something like 150 200,000 people reading it. I don’t know if it’s true. But I don’t know why anybody would want to read my stuff that many people would want to read my stuff, but I’m honored is kind of neat. I’m on daily on Facebook, and it’s called Art School alive. And now a new thing you can do on YouTube. It’s on YouTube and Facebook, you go to YouTube and just put in at Eric Rhoads. It’ll find my channel there. You can also look for art school live. And then you can subscribe on YouTube and hit the notification button. It’ll notify you when I go live. And of course, if you follow me on Facebook on Eric Rhodes publisher, or Eric Rhoads, my personal page, then you’ll get notified when I go live as well. But we’re there every day and we’re interviewing artists and most of those artists are doing demonstrations. And so that’s kind of a good way to learn. It’s kind of like in some ways better than art school because you’re getting you know, a lot of information packed tunes in that short space. You don’t have to wait forever. Okay, that’s a lot going on. I’m Eric Rhoades, publisher of plein air magazine. We thank you for reading it and thank you for your time today. Remember, it is a big world out there. Go paint it. We’ll see you soon. Bye bye.

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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-12T14:24:00-05:00December 12th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|1 Comment

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 108
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Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 108

Art Marketing Minute Podcast

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 108

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads addresses how to gain broader recognition if you live in a small town, and how to put together an art portfolio.

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 108 >

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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 1:04:05
So the whole goal of the marketing minute is to help you help you learn if you’re somebody who wants to sell your artwork, if you there’s no pressure to do that, but if that’s something you want to do, my goal in the marketing minute is to help you do that. We also have the marketing minute podcast, which is the exact same content as this. It’s just we carve it out as a separate podcast for people who don’t want to listen to a plein air podcast why they wouldn’t want to I can’t possibly ever imagine. If you have questions, you can send me a video to a video question, artmarketing.com questions or you can just email me [email protected] And we have a really terrific blog called Artmarketing.com And that’s a really great place to go if you want ideas on some techniques and things a lot of the stuff that’s in my book is there. A lot A lot of the stuff that I wrote there got into my book. There’s a lot of stuff that’s not. So, Amandine, my producer from France is going to read the first question. But first Amandine, where in France are you from?

Amandine 1:05:12
I’m from the Champagne region. An hour and a half east from Paris.

Eric Rhoads 1:05:18
Okay, good to know. All right. Okay, here we go.

Amandine 1:05:22
So the first question is from Edwin Amelia Kentaur from Costa Rica. Even though I studied in the Florence Academy of Art many years ago, I’m living in a country with a tiny, tiny art scene and very few collectors, what would be your advice to gaining recognition in more important places or countries, when you’re stuck in a tiny country like this one with not many possibilities?

Eric Rhoads 1:05:51
Well, that’s a loaded question. There’s a lot to unpack here. First, congrats on going to the Florence Academy, one of my favorite art schools. I would go there if I could. But right now, yeah, putting kids through college. I think the first thing that I just want to say to you and I don’t mean to be disparaging by any stretch, but you might be telling yourself a story. That’s not true. This is something that we all do. I do it. We all do it. We make assumptions about things. And we need to test those assumptions and find out if they’re true. First off, you said you live in a small country, you’re in Costa Rica, Costa Rica is a small country compared to the United States. But what do we have in Costa Rica? We have First off, there’s 1000s, probably 10s of 1000s of expats who have homes there, some of them are pretty big homes. And what do they have inside those homes, walls, empty walls. And when you move into a house in Costa Rica from America first, for example, which might be fun, I’ve never been to Costa Rica, but I’m going to visit you down there. So you don’t want to drag all your stuff from your home in Texas or your home in Florida, you’re going to try to get something that feels local, right? So you’re going to buy local furniture, you’re gonna buy local paintings. And just because you’re telling yourself there’s not much of an art scene, doesn’t mean you can’t sell paintings there. And that’s, by the way, true of other places other than Costa Rica, you know, you live in a country, a country is filled with a lot of people, people who own businesses, people who have great jobs, people who work in medical centers, or legal centers, or courtrooms or, you know, I mean, there are a lot of a fluent people in every country and every city, every town, even the smallest little hole, Buck towns in the middle of nowhere, have some regular folks. And then there are some folks who have a little extra to spend, sometimes a lot of extra to spend, you know, you go into, you think you’re going into a small town in the middle of Texas, and you find out these people own oil wells, or have oil rights, that are getting checks. They call it mailbox money. Mailbox, money might be you know enough to buy 30 of your paintings. So be careful about the stories that you tell yourself that that’s the first thing to do. Secondly, is okay, let’s assume it is true. First off, how many paintings do you produce in a year? And assuming that you sold 100% of your paintings, which very few people do, but some do? How many paintings Do you really need to sell? Let’s just say that you’re really extremely productive. And you paint 60 paintings a year? All right, how many people do you need to buy 60 paintings 60 people or less, because oftentimes, people will buy two paintings. So if you got if sold two paintings, to everybody bought a painting, you only need 30 people, some people buy for six paintings, some people want to become your collectors. And so you can sell in a lot of situations. Now. Let’s just take the local example for a second. Let’s say you’re in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there aren’t a lot of wealthy people around maybe there are a few. And by the way, people people buy paintings they’re not they don’t have to be wealthy to buy paintings just depends on the cost of your paintings, right? So you might want to think about this. You need to make yourself a local icon. You need to say okay, how do I become known in my community? As an excellent artist, Rose Frantzen did this she lives in a small town. A coca was Makoto Makoto, small town in the Midwest, she went out and she decided to do a project where she was going to paint 50 or 60, or 100 or 150 of the local people in her town, and do a show out of it. And I don’t know if she pre arranged this or it happened afterwards. But she ended up in the National Portrait Gallery with the show, but she went out to local people and they came to her studio and she spent a day or two painting them and she get to know him, she got to know everybody. And she said to me, that she’s now known everywhere she goes into the grocery store, people know her. She’s the known local artist, I guarantee as she’s selling paintings, locally, she’s also nationally known so she’s selling paintings nationally. My friend Diane Leifheit, who lives in Saranac Lake, New York, at least now part of the year, she did the same thing, she started painting, a lot of local people did a show, that’s a great way you want to look for something you can do that will get you publicity, get the local paper, local media, local websites to write about you, you want to look for ways that you can get known get your name known, get yourself known, get your work known. I think charity events are a great way to do that. One of the things I talked about in my book, one of many is that you can a lot of paint, a lot of artists will contact me and they’ll say I don’t want to get people are always calling me and saying give me a painting for a charity auction. I don’t want to do it, because I can’t deduct it. That’s foolish, do it, do it. Because why? If it’s a charity auction, if there are the 50 or 100, most prominent people in your town there, if you can figure out how to get them to feature you on their postcard feature you on their website, make sure they hold up your painting, make sure they have you stand up and introduce you, then what happens is that you’re starting to develop your local celebrity, they see you at this charity, and the next charity and the next charity, all of a sudden, you’re a big deal. And now everybody knows who you are. And then you know, you have your local studio sale at Christmas and maybe another time a year and you do a show at the local restaurant or a local courthouse, you know, things like that, you’re gonna get known. And that’s how it works. And you can do that. And you can sell paintings in a lot of small places, and I have friends who do it, you can do it too. Now, if for some reason, you just don’t believe me, and you don’t think local is going to work for you, then you’ve got to go regional. And regional is just doing the same thing. Except maybe you live in an area that is a small piece of a bigger area, maybe it’s a whole state. You know, if you live in a small town, and let’s say Indiana, where I grew up, if that small towns not enough, and by the way it is but if it’s not enough, then you expand to the region, you know, the Northeast region or the southeast region, or maybe you expand to the whole state. You know, my friend, Rick Wilson, has become known as a pretty famous painter in all of Indiana. And why did he become famous, because he launched a project where he was going to do one painting in every county in Indiana, and then do a show at the statehouse and then do a book and that kind of a thing. And he got a lot of publicity all sudden, everybody wanted him because he got all this publicity. And so that’s the kind of thing you can do. Now, if you want, you can go for another country, or another state, right? So if you lived in the United States, and you don’t feel like the people in your state are going to buy your art and maybe they won’t because your art is a little different art or different level of sophistication or maybe it’s got to be maybe it’s really expensive. So then, you know, you work on getting a gallery. We’re going to talk about that in a minute. And then you get known in another area you there are a lot of people like yourself, who are painting in and sending paintings to other places. I met a young artist in Cuba, his fabulous artist. And he said to me I’m in galleries and you know, Lisbon, Spain and or Portugal and and Madrid and you know, he started naming all these, these countries where he was sending paintings to and so the key is getting representation in those places, finding people that want your work and again, we’ll talk about that in a second. And the other thing is, you know the world today is blended. The world today is all about everything right? It’s online, it’s offline, it’s in person, it’s, you know, it’s everything. So you don’t have, you can sit in a little town that has 30 people, and ship paintings all around the world and sell them online. And that can be very effective. Now, there’s techniques for doing that. It’s not always just about showing up online and posting things and say, hey, buy my paintings a lot more to that we don’t have time to get into that, um, that’s probably a day or two of teaching. But you can do that too. So you know, you can put your put your things on Instagram, and Facebook, and Snapchat and Twitter and you know, everything that that’s out there. And you know, there’s online auctions, there’s all kinds of things you can do. So you’ve just got, you just got to quit telling yourself stories, you can do this. And you can be successful, you can be as successful as you choose to be, but it starts here, in between your ears, so that you are telling yourself the right story and believing. And by the way, you know, right now, a lot of people are asking me a lot of questions about the economy, and can I sell paintings in the economy and inflation and all that nonsense? The answer is yes, of course. You know, I know people who this economy isn’t hurting as much as it’s hurting you or me. Right? I know people who, instead of maybe they’re not going to buy a $500,000 painting, maybe they’ll only spend 300,000 on a painting. Right? There’s always people with money. You just got to you got to figure out how to target them. Talk about that. The second okay, Aberdeen, what’s our next question?

Amandine 1:16:42
Next question is from Betty McLean Henderson from West Helena, Arkansas. Eric, how should oil painters put together a portfolio to present?

Eric Rhoads 1:16:57
Okay, how should oil painters put together portfolio to present the galleries Betty? Getting into galleries is kind of like baseball, or football. Right? You’re if you’re getting into galleries, you’re in the big leagues now. Right now, maybe you start out in the minor leagues. But even getting into the minor leagues isn’t easy, right? So you got the you know, the galleries are professionals. They want to be treated professionally, they have ways that they do business. And it’s very important to understand that a gallery is a business, and what is the most important thing to a gallery business. And that is that they are selling enough paintings, to pay for the lights and pay for the employees and pay for all the expenses and pay the exorbitant rent if they have rent and make a profit. That’s their goal. And so what are they going to do, they’re gonna pick the artists who have a track record. Because it when you pick a new artist who has no track record, and you’re taking up 5% of your wall space, that could be generating money. Remember it shelf space, and wall space is really important. So if you’re, you know, like, if you’re in a Kroger, Coca Cola will pay extra money to be on that end aisle space. That’s how much you know, visibility is. So a gallery a good gallery will look at every painting that’s hanging and ask if that’s taking up real estate and other painting would be better off to sell. And so they’re looking at you from the standpoint of Will you sell? Is this too risky? Is this person have consistent enough work? Do they have a good body of work? There’s a lot of other things like that. So you’re talking about preparing a portfolio, don’t waste your time. That’s my opinion. Don’t waste your time, because they don’t want to hear from you. I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear that. And I’m sure there are exceptions to that rule. But galleries don’t want to hear from you why I had a gallery owner tell me that he said I get roughly 2000 2000 pieces of mail every single year, from artists who are soliciting send me pictures of their works. I said what do you do with them? He said I don’t even open them. I peek into it. Make sure it’s not something else. And I throw them away. I said, Well, yeah, but these people have gone to all this trouble. He says, you know, if I spent five minutes with each one of those times 2000 I’d be losing money. And he said, and I get another 5000 emails and I have to have somebody clutter. declutter my email before he even gets my email. He says, If I have to sit there and delete 5000 emails a year, it’s costing me money. He said and then they call you and they waste your time and he’s And I, you know, people call me and they said, I’d like to be in your gallery and you say, what kind of work do you do? And they say, Well, I’m a, I’m a modern artist, he said, did you bother to look at my website? I don’t sell modern art, you know, so he doesn’t even take the calls. So they don’t want to hear from you. So if that’s the case, how do you get into their gallery? Well, there’s a whole chapter on that in my book, but let’s touch on a couple of key points. First off, think about fishing, you’re dropping a line in the water, you’ve got bait at the end of that line. And what you’ve got to do is to get them to bite on your bait, and then reel them in. But if you’re, if you’re just, you know what, think about throwing bait in the water without a line on it, you’re just throwing bait out there, you’re sending out your portfolio, you’re sending out all this nonsense, and they’re not even seeing it, right. Or maybe they’re maybe you’re throwing the bait not in the water, you’re throwing it in the grass. But the idea is you want to get invited in. So how do you do that? How do you get invite in? And well, you got to figure out how to make them look at your work without making them think that you’re trying to make them look at your work. Other exceptions to this. But galleries typically invite people in, they typically reject people that are just soliciting, because the majority of them aren’t very good. That’s it’s a fact it’s true. I know you don’t want to hear that. But where do they ask yourself these questions? Where does the gallery owner or the person making those decisions? Where do they spend their time? With whom do they spend their time? What is the most important thing to them? I think having something to sell and also protecting their brand and their reputation. They don’t want to be known for having crummy paintings. What’s in it for them always ask this question? What’s in it for them? And what is your bait? Well, there’s a lot of things you can come up with strategy. We could go in through 30 things right now. But it might be something as simple as you know, you follow the gallery owner on social media, and they make they post something, you make a smart comment, you say, you know, it’s really interesting that you say that about this John Singer Sargent painting, because I was researching this. And here’s what I learned. And you do that enough times, they’re gonna go, Hmm, I wonder who this Eric Rhoads cat is, right? And so but here’s what you don’t do. You don’t troll them. You don’t get out there and say, hey, you know, why don’t you look at my portfolio, come to my web page, or come to my FaceBook page or my my Instagram, you don’t say that. Because that’s just our Troy. So, you know, smart comments. And don’t do it all the time. Because if you’re doing it all the time, you’re gonna become obvious. So just, you know, once every couple of months, maybe say something. And then at some point, they’re going to be curious and going, I wonder who this person is. And they click on the Eric Rhoads icon and they look at your work, now. They’re looking at your work. And it better be good. And here’s what happens. A lot of artists post everything, they put it on their websites, they put it on their Instagram, they post things that are not complete, you know, this is in progress. But if somebody’s coming on there, and they’re checking you out, and they’re not taking time to pay attention to your captions, they’re just kind of floating through what’s on the on the photos, or the video, then, if you’re putting things that are not your best out there, you’re getting judged, because what is the gallery want, they want a body of work that is consistent and high quality. And so if you’re putting out things that are not consistent and high quality, you’re gonna hurt yourself. The other thing is, don’t put your dog vomit pictures on there that you know, your head in the toilet. When you’re at a party or you know, you’re you’re walking around in a bikini, or whatever, because the stuff that it looked for, ask yourself, what happens if somebody looks at this, and I’m going to turn them off. And don’t put your political views on there, because you will lose half of the people. And so avoid that stuff. That stuff and you’re like, Well, I have an artist friend who’s like, I don’t care. I’m gonna say my political views. I said, let’s find where you’re gonna lose half of your people. I don’t care if I lose them. I still need to say my views. That’s fine, if that’s who you want to be. I don’t have a problem with that. But just keep in mind if this is important to you. And you know that artists, by the way is so big that maybe it doesn’t matter. But be careful about that. Be careful what you’re putting out there. And next thing is you want to get invited in right? You see you are more powerful. Not that we’re in a power game here, but you’re more powerful if you get invited in rather than being 1000s of needy artists trying begging to get in. So who do you know that knows them? A good place to start is to look at the website, look at the artists, is there anybody out there? You know, if you know him, you call them. And you say, hey, I want to talk to you about XYZ gallery. But you don’t. I mean, it’s a best friend, somebody you really know, you can be completely forthright with them on that. But you know, sometimes you can’t. So you might just say, hey, you know, what do you know about XYZ gallery? And they’ll say, Well, you know, I don’t know. Why do you ask? So well, let me ask you this. Do you like dealing with them? Yeah, I do. Do they pay their bills on time? Do they give you your commission checks? Yeah, they do? Do they promote you? Yeah, they do? Well, then they’ll say, Well, why do you ask so well, I’m kind of thinking about targeting one or two galleries, because I’m going to add a couple more. But I’m really doing my research and my homework before I figure out who I’m going to target. And then that artists will say, Well, if you, you know, if you think you might want to get into that gallery, I’d be happy to make an introduction, or I’d be happy to tell them about you. And sometimes they won’t say that. And sometimes it’s too soon. And sometimes if you don’t know the artists, well, they won’t say it. And by the way, they may not respect your work and might not say it, so don’t necessarily expect it. You got to take these things slow. You know, you got to plan. It’s like a chess game, you got to play in 30 months in advance. And I you know, I’m not about playing games, I like to be as forthright as I can be. But you know, you don’t call up somebody met at a party last night and say, by the way, we loan me $100 It take it slow, right? You get to know them, they become friends. You know, once they trust you, you call them and say hey, would you loan me 100 bucks, though, like, yeah, if I can sure I’ll loan it to you. So be careful about that. And make sure your work is the best it can be. Don’t put the half cooked stuff on there. And this will help you. It’ll give you it will help you ultimately. Okay, that’s the art 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 artists 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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-07T11:29:19-05:00December 5th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Sleazy, Slimy, and Coldhearted
Gallery
Sleazy, Slimy, and Coldhearted

Business, Sales

Sleazy, Slimy, and Coldhearted

A message about art marketing from Eric Rhoads

I used to cringe when anyone suggested I go into sales.

To me, a salesman was sleazy, slimy, coldhearted, and filled with lies.

I did not want to become that, and that’s why I resisted sales for many years.

Then one day a mentor pointed something out…

When your doctor is recommending surgery, she is selling. But you don’t look at it as selling, you look at it as prescribing.

A fresh way to look at selling is serving.

You and I buy hundreds of things in our lifetime that we did not know we needed, yet turn out to be some of the best things we ever bought.

I resisted a dishwasher when I was first married. Washing by hand is easy, and fun. But someone talked me into a dishwasher, and now I’d never want to live without one.

Was the person who sold that to me being sleazy, slimy, or coldhearted?

Of course not.

They offered a service, walked me through the benefits, listened to my issues, answered my questions, and helped me realize how much I really needed it.

I’m living in the greatest house ever. I did not want it, because of the price. But once the benefits were pointed out, I bought it, and it was one of the best decisions of my life. It’s brought years of joy and has been even more perfect.

Was the real estate agent being sleazy?

Many artists are resistant to the idea of selling their work because they cannot self-identify with the idea of being a seller.

The reality is that 99% of people selling something are simply trying to help people find products and services that they know will help them. Sometimes they have to help people see the light.

Selling is serving.

Perhaps 1% of the people selling fit the mold of high-pressure, obnoxious, sleazy, slimy, and coldhearted.

Sometimes people need some help making decisions. Pointing out the joy and benefits of buying your painting is not evil. Some people just need a nudge.

As I look back, I can think of a few paintings I wish I had bought, but fear got in my way because of the amount of money. I now wish those people had nudged me a little more, made it easy to see the benefits.

One painting I almost bought for $1,400 recently sold for $150,000. I’m wishing I had been talked into it. And though I never get talked into something I truly don’t want, I often allow myself to get talked into something I want. Sometimes I need a nudge.

Selling isn’t evil. Selling is serving. If you’re doing your job, you’re helping others see the benefit of owning your artwork.

Eric

PS: Remarkably, the entire auditorium will be filled at 6:30 in the morning when I offer three mornings of Art Marketing Boot Camp at the upcoming Plein Air Convention. Each year is different content designed to give you the latest ideas and techniques to sell artwork. I’ll see you there.

Yes, I’d like to attend the Plein Air Convention and the bonus Art Marketing Boot Camp sessions.

By bconnolly|2022-04-06T13:27:47-04:00April 6th, 2022|Business, Sales|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 107
Gallery
Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 107

Art Marketing Minute Podcast

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 107

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads answers the questions: “How do you negotiate an art show?” And, “How long does it take to know if my website updates are working?”

Have a question about how to sell your art? Ask Eric at artmarketing.com/questions.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 107 >

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
Okay, well the art marketing minute is all about answering your questions you can upload, you can shoot a video and upload it or and send it to us or you can go to our artmarketing.com/questions and you can automatically shoot a video there and send your video questions in or email to be [email protected]. And we try to answer questions for you. So already what is our first question today?

Amandine
My first question is from Joanna. So it says how would you go about negotiating a weekend show with a neighborhood association or apartment complex. I live in a complex in a high end neighborhood with lots of well to do folks. And I’m thinking of working with the apartment management to get a show in the lobby for a weekend. I’m trying to envision a successful negotiation with a win win for them and me and don’t know how to script the conversation, what questions to ask what I should expect for rejections, etc? And how to confidently go in and ask for a great deal.

Eric Rhoads
Well, Joanna, that is a terrific question. And I’ve got a lot of different answers. You may not like some of them. The first question you always want to ask yourself when you’re dealing with anything to do with marketing or a show or otherwise, is what are my expectations? What do I want to get out of this? Why do I even want to do this, you have a reason in the back of your head? Why you want to do this show in this apartment building and, and you know, maybe there’s a subconscious level thought about well be kind of nice to be seen by my neighbors. So they know that I’m this terrific artist. Or maybe you’re saying well, I just want to sell more art. But you want to make sure that you have a very specific goal in mind with everything that you do. I try for instance, if I’m going to do anything, I asked myself, What if I could only accomplish one thing? What is the one thing that I want to accomplish? So for instance, if I’m on I’m interviewed on somebody else’s podcast, then I’m going to try to promote one particular thing I might talk about a lot of things, but let’s say I want to get their email addresses or something, then that’s the one thing so you’re doing a show. And if you do a show at your apartment complex, I don’t know if this has got 5000 people or 10,000 people or 200 people or 50 people, you say it’s high end, but it seems to me to be narrow. Now I don’t want to burst your bubble, but it does sound narrow. And so when when you’re talking about something narrow, you might be limiting your prospects. Now you might be telling yourself our heads play an awful lot of a role in what we do. You might be telling yourself Well, I’ll start here, get a little experience here and try it with the apartment complex before I do anything more. And that’s okay. But make sure you first stops, okay, what do I want to accomplish? If if you say I want to make this about selling paintings, then that’s fine. Now, when now let’s take your goal to the next step, if you want to sell paintings, how many paintings Do you want to sell? What will you continue to be? What will you consider to be a success? You know, anytime you do a show, there is a huge amount of effort and work that’s involved in that show. And, you know, framing and time and everything else. And so you’re going to have a minimum amount of expense that you’re going to have to cover. And so you know, you might say to yourself, Okay, I have to make a minimum of $2,000. Or maybe it’s a minimum of $5,000. If you go in understanding what that looks like, you’re gonna have a lot more success that way. Because you have to, you know, what, if you do the show, and, and you don’t sell anything, well, that’s very possible. But if you if you know that you’ve got a nut, you’ve got to hit let’s say, you know that my minimum is going to be $5,000, then you’re going to work like crazy to make sure that you hit that $5,000 mark, you know, things aren’t selling, you might start discounting or you mark smart, you know, cutting deals or, or something to try to draw people back to you to get them in. Now, the downside of an apartment building thing is, maybe people want to do it, maybe they don’t, it depends on the nature, if your apartment building does stuff like that, if they have community aspect, it’d be nice to have a cocktail party, show your paintings and so on. But you may or may, if it’s an apartment building, it’s a narrow amount of people, and you may not be able to get as much success there. On the other hand, if you were to do the same thing for a month, in a popular restaurant in town, you might get 10 times as many people or 100 times as many people volume, you know, and if you do it at the country club, or you do at a high end restaurant where you know, people have money, then you increase your odds, you always want to look for how can I get the biggest possible audience, it’s good to have targeted audiences, but big audiences within targets are always nice. And so start there. In terms your question about negotiating with the apartment complex? The first question you have to ask is what’s in it for them? Why would they possibly do this? Is this something that they care about? While they may have something in their head about? Well, we want to do things so that people in the apartment complex think that they’re doing things for them. So it’s a good place to live? They’re going to want to renew their leases. So maybe they do cocktail parties, maybe they do gatherings? Maybe they do little things like this. And so in that case, that’s the reason that’s why they want to do it. But there may be, there may be other things they might be looking at to say, Why should we bother? What’s in it for us? Well, you might say, Okay, well, will I give up some of the income, you know, if I give up 10, or 20, or 50%, to them for housing the show for you, you would have to do that at an art gallery. And so why not do it? In a case like that, now, that amount of money may not be, you know, if it’s a big apartment complex, it’s only going to result in a few $1,000. To them, they may not care, but trying to understand that. And now when you have your meeting, first off, what I would suggest you do is you put together a little bit of a presentation, not a big one of the three or four slides on your iPad, and you say, Listen, you know, I want to show you what I have in mind, here’s some samples of my artwork. This is kind of what I have in mind, this is what I want to do, this is why it’s going to benefit you. And then then rehearse that a few times. And when you get together with them, what you want to do is start out the dialogue and start instead of starting pitching, asking them say listen, you know, I’m a local artist, I’ve got an idea, I’m gonna pitch you, but what are the most important things to you for this apartment complex? What do you need the most and, and they might say, you know, our biggest problem is getting people to renew their leases. Or they might say, you know, our biggest problem is, nobody feels connected. When they tell you these things, then you can lift them out in your conversation and repeat them back to them. So, you know, one of the reasons I designed the search show is because you’re going to make people feel more connected, when they make they feel more connected, they know their neighbors, they’re going to be less likely to want to leave, they’re going to want to be more likely to renew their leases. You didn’t have to build that into your presentation. But now that you’ve asked the question up front, you now know what’s important to them. So then build that into your presentation. In terms of getting yourself ready expecting rejections while you know you’re going to get rejections. It’s not a big deal. It’s a part of life. Just ask him those questions and then you know, you’re not going to have confidence because confidence is something that we all we all lack. In some cases, just go in there and be brave and just say Hey, I want to meet with you and they’re not going to bite. If they don’t want to meet, they’re going to tell you they don’t want to meet. And then you know, you can always follow up with an email, say, well, here’s my eat idea. But if you can get it in person, or at least on a zoom call, you’re going to be better off. So think in terms of what is my objective? What do I want to sell? What are they gonna want out of it? And then, you know, why would they possibly do this? What’s in it for them? Now, just get out there and do it. I think that’s the most important thing. Now the next question comes from David Wood. Amandine, what’s the question?

Amandine
The question is, how long can I expect to wait to see whether the design of a website is working in bringing traffic and sales? I notice, a lot of visitors don’t really go beyond beyond the first page. My website includes both art for sale and teaching art. I feel it is a well organized and interesting sites. Also, is it a good idea to have items in the online shop that have sold?

Eric Rhoads
Okay, well, that’s a really terrific question. Thank you for that, David Wood. So the one thing I want you guys to get out of your head is that a website is gonna make you rich, you know, I’ve had people contact me and say, you know, I’m going to build a website, and I’m going to, I’m going to do all these great things with a website, and I’m going to get all this traffic, and I’m going to sell all these paintings. It’s not the case. Now you need a website, I’m not suggesting you don’t, you don’t have to have a website these days, you can, you know, because of Facebook, and Instagram, and so on. They’re also important for you, but you should have a website, if you’re a professional artist, and you’re selling your work. But hear me out, the thing that is going to drive your website success, or your success with a website is not the website itself, yet, what’s going to drive success is how you drive people there. And imagine, and a lot of people won’t understand this reference, because it’s an old, old person’s reference, I suppose. But, you know, back when there were phone booths in the city of New York, phone booths, were actually on the corners, right? They had attached to it a phone book, which was about five or six inches thick, it was a big book, and every page had 2000 names on it. And you would flip through and you know, look under roads, and then find Eric Rhoads and then it would have my address and my phone number. And then you’d call the phone number. Well, I mean, having a website, you know, there are probably billions of websites today. And having a website is kind of like getting your name in the phone book, and nobody cares, it doesn’t matter. It only matters if they’re trying to find you. And the only reason they’re trying to find you is if you give them reason to try to find you. So your design of your website matters. And I will touch on that in a minute. But first off, think in terms of if I have a website, what am I going to do to get people there? How do I do that? Well, a lot of that is going to be through your advertising, through your direct mail, through your newsletter, through your promotions, through your social media, things like that. So you’ve got to have a strategy to drive people there. Now websites are all over the map, I went to a artists website the other day, and it looked like he hadn’t touched it for 30 years, it still said click to enter, which was kind of what they did in the early stages of the websites, you know, you want to you want to make sure you’re paying attention. I go to artists sites all the time, because I’m looking for artists for the magazines. And I visit artists sites, and they haven’t updated their their website and three years, they don’t have their current paintings on it, you know, the websites clunky it doesn’t work, right? You got to make sure all those things happen. You also have a single focus. Now you talked about wanting to sell art, but also wanting to sell workshops 80% of your workshop 80 Excuse me, 80% of your website needs to be focused on the thing that is most important to you. So if it’s selling art than 80% of your time, and focus needs to be about that, you know, you can have a little slide at the bottom that says you know, workshops also available. But you know, you’re talking about selling art. I have had so many conversations with my advertisers over the year one called me said You know, I’m I know I’m getting website visitors after I started advertising because I’m tracking the numbers, but nobody’s buying anything. And I said, What are you trying to sell? And she said, Well, I’m trying to sell commissioned portraiture. So I went to the website and I looked at it I couldn’t find anything about commission portraiture and then I knowing I’m looking for it I dig around. I finally after 10 minutes I find it and it’s buried. It’s hard to find and I said you know your advertising commission for portraiture, the first thing they should see on your website is commissioned portraiture. And if you’re, you know if you’re one of the two See if you’re advertising landscape, you want that landscape, not just a landscape, the one that’s advertised needs to show up for that month or two months on the front of your webpage. Even if it’s sold, you can say, you know, this painting is sold, but you click here to see three others that are similar to it, you want to focus on what matters most. Okay? So I think websites are really important. And they’re a great way to get names, and we all need names, websites are a great way to say, you know, I’m offering up a free ebook of the 100 best paintings I’ve ever done. Or if you’re promoting workshops, I’m offering up you know, 10 really great painting tips from me, the artists, and just click here to get this ebook, you’re getting their email address, then you can add them with their permission, you can add them to your newsletter list, now you have a way to reach out to them to talk to them to communicate with them. So you’re not waiting for them to come to your website. Websites need to be there, you need to drive people there. There are organizations that make websites that you can buy from anywhere or their organizations to make websites that are specifically for artists. And those are also good, and they have some programs they can use to drive people to websites, so they can help you a lot. But you want to make sure that you are focusing on what is my purpose, everything you always ask is What am i What is my purpose? What’s my primary focus? And how do I make sure that that focus is front and center in front of everybody? And then how am I going to drive people there? Now you ask another question, and that is about your online shop. Should you show things that are sold? You know, I think so. And I think there’s a psychology of it. If you see red dots, and it says sold, it says it’s called social proof. It’s what other people are doing. They’re buying from you, it shows other people are buying from you. So you know, if you have a few red dots on there that says oh, there’s sell like, I’d better pay attention and maybe find something I want before it’s sold. So I think it’s a good idea. Now, if most of them are red dots, and they’re getting in the way of putting the work up front, put them you know, put a few red dots on the page, and then move them to the back, you know, and so that every page has a few red dots, but go ahead and show those sold items. The other thing, by the way, is it’s okay to show your prices a lot of people say call for prices. But that’s I think is the biggest mistake in the world. Because, you know, those of us in this in this day and age, we don’t you know, we’re on a website, three o’clock in the morning, when we can’t sleep and you know, we might be in the mood to buy something. I buy stuff at three o’clock in the morning all the time. If I don’t know the price, and I can’t click on it to buy I’m not going to pick up the phone call. I mean, there are people who will but I’m not one of them. So I think you should focus on that. Anyway, I hope this has been helpful. That’s the marketing minute. I want to encourage you to submit your questions at art marketing comm slash questions. All right.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists 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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-14T16:50:51-05:00February 21st, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 106
Gallery
Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 106

Art Marketing Minute Podcast

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 106

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains how to prepare early and make your upcoming exhibition a success; and insights on finding solutions if your sales have slowed down, and sell more art.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 106 >

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:

In the marketing minute I try to answer your art marketing questions. And of course they’ve been submitted by you. Email your questions, [email protected]. Try to tell me where you’re from. I don’t use last names, usually. But I like to say where you’re from. This one’s from Bernie, in New Jersey. So Bernie says I’m working on a show that is coming up in about a year from now. It’s my first solo show. Congratulations, Bernie. That’s cool. And I want it to be a success. But I’m wondering what I can do now to make sure it’s a success. Any ideas? Birdie, sometimes the best things come from the best questions and you’re asking the right question, What can I do now you don’t want this to be a last minute thought to try to fix something that’s not happening at the last minute. It’s like holding a wedding. And then not sending out the invitations, right? I mean, you’re having an event, but if you build it, they won’t come you have to make sure they come you have to make sure that you really make people aware of it and talk about it all the time. And make sure that you’re repeating it all the time because people forget. And otherwise, if you don’t do that, it’s a waste of time and energy to do a show at all. So I would suggest a few things. First, you want to plant seeds early, I’d get some little cards, made up business cards about the show, have your information, hand them out, have a big thing that says Save the date, use one image from the show, and then hand them out all year a year in advance. You know, I’ve got a show coming up in a year and then every time you see somebody bring it up, it’s okay. They’ll think you’re a little bit annoying, but that’s okay. Now, you know, the other thing is you need impressions, you need several impressions, you see everything needs impressions, you’re planting seeds over and over and over again. So you know, email out have saved the date notice and maybe a graphic about the show in advance to your list. If you haven’t got a list, start building a list now and get collect business cards from people who might want to come and that way you can have continuous notices in front of them, talk about it in your newsletter talk about it and everything you do. Tell them to get it in their calendar. And then one thing you can do is you can automate the calendar so all they have to do is click on a link and it’ll drop it in their calendar forum. And that way it’s there, they’ve saved the date. Next, I’d hit up social media to talk about it at least twice a month for a year and more mentions 30 days before you want to really amplify before the event. And of course you can post teaser images but don’t show the whole thing you know Joshua rock recently did a show and he showed little pieces of images not the whole thing that way you wanted to come and see the show and see what they look like. I’d start by an ads a year in advance Now I wouldn’t necessarily play some a year in advance but get them bought you know you can buy ads on newsletters and sometimes you have to get those ads way in advance to get the dates you want. Also same thing with ads and magazines. Hit places that have art buying collectors you need like fine art connoisseur or even plein air that reaches the plein air collectors. And then remember that frequency sells people want things when they see it more repetition helps do it two to three times at least in issues before a show most people just buy one ad and they don’t get the results they want but if you buy an ad and then people go oh yeah, I should pay attention to that and then they buy another one and then you’re getting their notice and more likely to get them and you want the people who have the money which are the collectors typically more times they see it the more important they think it is. I’d also recommend, this is something nobody does but I would try to get a star guest you know if you know somebody or happened to you know when to be cool to say I’m going to have Brad Pitt from or who Jennifer Aniston or something like that for my ribbon cutting, everybody will come everybody will come they want to see him they want to get their picture taken with them. You know whatever you can do to draw people and if you have somebody that you know that would help you out or maybe you meet somebody or sometimes you can reach out I have friends who have actually purchased celebrities for events. You know they sometimes there are people who do it for five or $6,000 That’s a lot of money but you know it’s not a lot of money for some events and you know they’ll come to a charity event and you know that might be be Lister stars that aren’t famous anymore but were once famous and that’s okay you know get people to a show to help. You also want to get critical acclaim before a show that means you want to try to get reviews, get articles before the show so that people are talking about it people go in and see it beforehand and they see the work and you want them talking about it. The bottom line is talking about for your increased dimensions in the last 30 days as reminders mentioned in everywhere, your newsletter everything you do bring attention to it the last 30 days and then send out reminders the week of the day of the the day before even the evening of because people tend to have intend to come but they sometimes forget, get those reminders out to them. And it’s okay to say hey, do you mind if I send you some reminders? Most people say yes.

Next question comes from a meal or amo, I’m not sure what it is in Maine. Eric, one of my friends is a pretty famous artist who has always made a great living selling art, yet his sales have come to a stop last couple of years. He’s had a really rough couple of years. And he thinks it’s over. He thinks nobody’s buying art anymore. Is it over? Well, Emil, I don’t think it’s over at all. I as a matter of fact, I had dinner with an artist recently. And he told me the same thing happened to him. He racked his brain. And he was thinking, Well, you know, art just must not be selling because I’ve consistently sold art. And he started deciding that maybe he’s the problem, you know, he wanted to blame everybody else. You wanted to blame the galleries. He wanted to blame the art business, he wanted to blame the economy, while the economy’s good, he wanted to blame the presidential elections, you know, he wanted to blame everything. And then he realized, well, he needs to stop blaming everybody and just find a solution himself. And the conclusion he came to was that he’s been painting the same way in the same subjects forever. So he started playing and experimenting more, and he really made his paintings different. And he started having more fun, he was less bored, he was more energized. And it showed in his work. You see if you’re bored, it shows in your work. And if you’re doing the same thing you’ve always done, everybody’s like, well, he or she hasn’t done anything lately, that’s new and interesting. So out of the blue, he started selling everything, again, everything was selling because he was energizing his work. So don’t blame others don’t blame the economy, don’t blame the election, don’t blame the galleries. Now, I know people who this past year sold more art than they have in the history of their careers. And I know more gallery, I know galleries have done the same thing. I have others who told me they’re struggling, they haven’t sold anything and they think everything’s over. It’s not over, you have to take personal responsibility, you have to tell yourself, I’m going to do whatever it takes, as long as it’s ethical and legal. I’m going to do everything that it takes to make sure that I sell the amount of art that I need to sell, take personal responsibility. You know, if you have to fire a gallery, fire a gallery, get a new one, if you have to reinvent yourself, if you have to try new things, try new advertising, try different approaches. You got to have fun, you got to be out there, you got to be doing marketing, you got to message things. You know, a lot of artists are kind of stuck in the past, and they want to do things the way things have always been done yet. This is a new world, things are done differently today than they were five years ago, even 10 years or even one year ago in some ways. So get unstuck, get unstuck, shake everything up, and have some fun, and you’ll find it’ll make a big difference. Also, we forget that some of the things that we worked really hard on when we were starting our careers. You know we were doing lots more shows, we’re doing lots more energy, lots more promotion, we were talking to more people were out there, you know, banging on doors, and then we get money we get comfortable. We stopped doing all that stuff. Go back to the basics. What have you forgotten to do that you should be doing? You know, when when we’re marketing things, we get so close to it. Sometimes we forget to tell people things they need to know because we assume they know don’t assume anybody knows who you are. If you haven’t been selling work for a couple years, there’s a whole bunch of new collectors in the market who don’t know you exist even though you may have been famous.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists 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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-14T16:50:51-05:00February 14th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 105
Gallery
Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 105

Art Marketing Minute Podcast

Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 105

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.

In this Art Marketing Minute, Eric Rhoads explains the best way to approach and get representation from an art gallery; and whether or not you should list the price of your paintings on your website.

Listen to the Art Marketing Minute Podcast: Episode 105 >

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:

The marketing minute I try to answer your marketing questions and you can always email me [email protected]. Be sure to mention where you’re from your name and your town, right? Because sometimes they don’t like a couple of them I’ve got today. So here’s one from Fernando Mitchell. Misha Misha Lee, Fernando missionally. Sorry, Fernando. He asked, What’s the best way to approach and get representation from galleries? Well, the best thing to do is to put yourself in their shoes, any time you want to sell somebody on you or something, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine that you’re working in a gallery, you’re trying to get things done, you’re talking to customers and the phone rings or somebody walks in the door. And they says they say hi, I’m an artist, and I’d like to discuss getting into your gallery. Well, when you’re busy, it’s annoying. And I know you’re gonna say, well, it’s their job. Well, their job is to sell art. Their job is to find artists, but they have all the artists they want and need anyway. So they’re always looking for somebody a little extra good or something that’s unique. But they’re getting 50-60- 100 emails a week they’re getting unsolicited packages, I watched a gallery owner open and trash 50 packages while I was sitting there with him, people sending unsolicited packages about their work. And he just said, you know, I have to go through it. But I don’t read it. You know, it’s just too much. He said, I get twice as many emails as this. It’s really annoying. Most galleries are looking for artists who will sell and they’re solicitations from you are bothersome. So how do you get around that? Well, I have in my art Marketing Bootcamp series, a whole thing on how to get into galleries. But one of the s essential things is you want them to see you. And you want them to invite you in. For instance, I met with an artist this week who was in town shooting a video, he’s running ads in our magazine, fine art connoisseur, and he said to different galleries contacted him about representing him. Now, it didn’t happen immediately. Because they want to watch you they see your work, they say Oh, it’s good work. Let’s see what he puts in next time, or she puts in next time. And they watch you one gallery owner told me he was been watching a couple of artists over the course of a few years. And at some point as they develop and they get better, he might contact and put them into the gallery. So that’s one thing, it’s always better, if they call you it puts you in more of a position of power actually, and you want to be invited in being invited in is a lot better than kind of pushing your way in. So look for ways to get them to invite you. Now there’s a lot of ways to do that. For instance, you can get to know other artists who they know who maybe they can suggest you etc. They’re watching for your consistency, and the variety of things. And they’re looking at it sometimes for years. So be patient, but really understand that they’re evaluating you from the standpoint of will this sell, because if it’s not going to sell, they’re not going to sell it.

Here’s another question from David Cruz again, I don’t know what town David, shame on you got to tell me the town. Anyway, David says I have a question about selling art online. It seems that most artists websites don’t give prices for the work. But rather ask the potential buyer to inquire with the artist. Do you think it’s a good idea good strategy? Or is it better to clearly state the price on the website? Well, David, it’s a matter of philosophy. People want people to call why. So they have a chance to sell them to talk to them, maybe to get their name, maybe to justify the price. There’s an old philosophy. And that philosophy is whenever the price is mentioned, before value is established, you never get your price, you have to establish value. And that’s why people do this. Establishing value is building credibility by talking about your awards, your shows your collectability, maybe who collects you getting the fact that you’re already getting these high prices that establishes value. So you can understand why people want you to call. But this is an internet world. And quite frankly, you know, I’ll look at things and I’m sure you do too, in the middle of the night and you’re like I don’t want to have to call he always see you know, call for inquiry or you know, you have to fill out a form. I never do any of that stuff because I don’t want to do it. I just want to know what the price is. And so if somebody says call for price, I move on. Now again, it’s a philosophy but you’re probably losing for everyone that calls you’re probably losing 5050 that that won’t call. So if you’re selling online, I think you look for a chance to establish value right there where the painting is being seen. You know where you’re talking about the value of you as the artist And when they’re looking at your site, and some will buy online, I know a gallery who sold a $650,000 piece of sculpture to a foreign country. The person went online, put the saw the price didn’t negotiate, put their credit card in and it was shipped to him. Everything worked beautifully. So you obviously don’t want to ship it to make sure until you make sure the credit card is going to go through. But I think that you know, today in this world, you have to be willing to operate the way people want to operate.

Well, this has been the art marketing minute with me. Eric Rhoads. My goal in life is to eliminate the idea of the starving artists 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.

> Visit EricRhoads.com (Publisher of ArtMarketing.com) to learn about opportunities for artists and art collectors, including:

Art retreats
International art trips
Art conventions
Art workshops (in person and online)
And more!

By ericrhoads|2022-12-14T16:50:51-05:00February 7th, 2022|Art Marketing Minute Podcast|0 Comments