Selling our art

I regularly read artist Luann Udell’s blog – it’s witty, sometimes a bit sarcastic, but more often than not, very, very practical for those of us trying to be artists.

Lately she’s been blogging about creating good booth displays (and how to avoid bad booth displays) for the upper end art shows she tends to do. It’s been interesting, but a bit out of my league. However, yesterday she blogged about a recent visit to a small local craft fair (the kind I tend to do) and her observations in regards to how the booths were set up, how items were displayed, and how people acted in their booths.

She holds the stick pretty high since she is primarily familiar with "cream of the crop" expensive shows, but she points out many correctable omissions that I know I’m guilty of in my usual booth set up. Take signs for example. I usually print out a few price signs in a rush as I’m packing for a show, but rarely go beyond that. But why not go beyond that, and actually highlight your creation’s uniqueness, its usefulness… give your customer a reason to take a closer look at it. According to Luann, our signage needs to quickly tell “our story” for our customers. I know mine doesn’t.

She also briefly covers lighting, and display set up, but I especially loved her advice on how to talk to customers. Most customers go to a show prepared to buy something, but they need a bit of encouragement to buy… permission to buy, in a sense. We need to be able to talk about our creations intelligently – not in a pushy way, but in a way that conveys our love for our art, and allows them to love it too. I know this is easier said than done, but its definitely food for thought.

I know several of you are beginning to sell your work as well. Go check out Luann’s article, and hopefully we can all improve our booths and selling techniques this year.