I know. You are thinking, huh? What is "the Upsell"?
According to Wikipedia, Upselling is a sales technique whereby a seller induces the customer to purchase more expensive items, upgrades or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale. In other words, it's offering your customer more options. And it is very effective in closing a sale. Yesterday I spent three hours adding an option to the abstract paintings on my website titled "You might also like ...". In the photo above you can see there are four additional paintings listed on the page on my website featuring the painting "Free Flow". By offering similar paintings, I can appeal to a potential buyers interest by offering a choice, rather than an "either or" option. If you can give a customer the option to chose a painting from many, rather than decide to buy or not to buy, then you have a much higher likelihood to close a sale. My "upsell" offers the potential customer additional paintings to purchase on every page of my website. I selected the additional paintings based primarily on color and design. Adding a feature like this will be included in my webinARTs online website building class which will be released in the next few weeks. I love this!
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I have very little patience for hackers that seem to enjoy stealing your passwords, credit card numbers and personal information. A few days ago I was on Instagram and I got a notice my password needed to be changed. Apparently they had detected some unusual activity.
I did what I was told (and did it in the right/safe way) only to find out the next morning my ability to comment had been turned off due to offensive comments from my account. Instagram indicated it would be about a week before it would be resolved. Are you kidding me? I have spent so much time trying to develop my business on Instagram and now I am told someone was leaving offensive comments pretending to me. OMG. At first I freaked out. But a few minutes later I relaxed. (It could just be my a-fib medicine kicking in. Haha.) There is nothing I can do about it. I have done everything I am supposed to do to keep my passwords safe. I am sure it is going to be just fine. Apparently it's just bad luck. I have very little patience for bad luck too. This painting is the last in a series of three in this color palette. I love them!
Yesterday I mentioned in my blog post some suggestions of things you might want to identify about your customers. The sooner you get a better understanding of your customers the sooner you can put yourself in their shoes. You need to start thinking like your customers think. You need to figure out where they go to buy their art. And you need to figure where they "hang out" because there are other potential customers out there who are just like them. You need to try to be one step ahead of your customer so that you can always try to be where they might be looking for art. And you need to be able to anticipate when they might be ready to make a purchase. Suppose your customers are a group of interior designers. Or maybe you have identified them as "gallery owners". Do you see how this thinking can help you? Now you need to get your art in front of your customers all of the time. All of the time. One of the tasks I take very seriously is finding new customers. In fact I think this needs to be a very high priority for any artist who wants to grow their business.
So what do I mean by "finding new customers"? It's really easy to sit around and do what every other artist is doing. Post your paintings on your website. Talk about them on your blog. Post photos of your paintings on Facebook. And sit back and wait for sales. And wait. Don't get me wrong. If you are doing the three things listed above then you are probably selling. But if you really want to expand your art sales then you need to ALSO be actively finding new customers. And new customers are not defined as everyone on social media who buys art. New customers are a small group of people that you have identified as the best buyers of your art. They have been identified as potential customers because you have already carefully studied all of the characteristics about your existing customers. Right? Probably not. So before I continue this conversation on tomorrow's blog post you need do a little research. Look at your client list from 2015 and answer the following questions: 1. What is the male/female breakdown of your clients? 2. What are their types of employment? 3. What type of art was purchased? Subject matter, medium, etc. (For example, of the total paintings sold, what percentage were still life, landscapes, etc.? Is there one subject matter that was most popular? 4. Do any of your clients have similar jobs or interests? Do they belong to the same types of organizations? 5. In examining this group, do you recall any reasons they shared as to why they bought your art? Take some notes and I will tell you tomorrow what else you need to do to identify your "new customers". I have mentioned many times that one of my most favorite things to do is to teach artists how to paint with a palette knife. This year I am teaching six abstract and six traditional palette knife classes. Since it's the beginning of a new year it is time to overhaul my workshop daily schedules, my handouts and the master demo list for my workshops! Just a few things to do this month ...
I have two palette knife abstract painting workshops in February. One is in the Carriage House in South Pasadena (February 17 - 19) and the other one is at our Beach House in Ventura (February 29 - March 2). I love painting abstracts (you probably already figured that out this month) and can't wait for my workshops. Why? Because this year I am also teaching my students how to paint abstract commissions. How am I going to do that? It's a bit of role playing. On the final day of the workshop each artist will be presented with a design board from a "fictitious client" featuring details and photos of an interior room. The design board will include pictures, colors and fabric samples. Each artist will then learn how to paint "prototypes" of abstracts and put together a presentation of their ideas to the class (as if they are presenting to a client). That means I need to create 15 - 20 boards that include photos of a room, paint chips and fabric samples. (So if you have any great upholstery fabric samples please send my way. And I am not kidding!) I think it will be a very fun project. And while I am doing that I will also work on revising my workshop daily plans and handouts. Oh goodie. I mentioned in my blog yesterday that I love 95% of my job. The other 5%? Not so much.
So what don't I like? That's easy. Organizing my expenses. Getting dried acrylic paint off of my hands. Gathering data to file income taxes. Shipping paintings. Waiting for my online class videos to upload. Cleaning out my inbox. Finding paint on my favorite clothes. And yes. I love the other 95%. A ton. I know you are cracking up right now. Here I am writing a post about why I like my boss and yet I am my own boss. Huh?
I work for myself and I have the best job in the world. I work really hard but I enjoy what I do about 95% of the time. (If you want to know what the other 5% is then read tomorrow's blog post.) I think I probably work a little too much (especially in the evenings) so I am trying to put away my computer and cell phone after 7:00pm. I am working hard on this. Being my own boss has huge advantages. I attend very few company meetings and don't have to spend any time focusing on HR, employee issues or setting company policies. I get to take as much vacation as I want and my hours are extremely flexible. I never have to call in sick and I have a very short commute. Twenty-one steps to be exact. I am a pretty upbeat person and although I work by myself fortunately I am disciplined enough to get all of my work done. I take on way too many projects but I like it. My job is never boring and there is always something to do. Always. Most importantly I don't let myself feel guilty if I decide to take an afternoon or day off. I just remind myself I deserve it. I have always believed that we only get one chance to enjoy each day. So everyday I have fun, honor the important things (my family) and do the best job I can. So go have a great day. Enjoy. Shedding is a term that you all need to know about. It's something my friend Mary Liz and I use all of the time. So what is shedding?
Shedding is that thing you do when you are running out of time and can't get everything done. It's a legit way to cross off things on your list that aren't going to happen. It's ok to decide that there are things that you just can't get done. Just shed them off your list. Don't do them and don't worry about it. Of course there are some things you can't shed. But there are just as many that you can. One of the things I have tried to do with my art business is pay attention. I listen to my customers, I notice trends and I am constantly trying to fix things. Sometimes the way everybody else is doing it sometimes doesn't work for me.
I have noticed a common issue I have been having with my abstract paintings. I frequently hear the comment "I wish it was bigger" or "I wish it was a different size" or "Does it come in a different size?". Until today there hasn't been a good solution for this recurring problem. For the next few weeks I have decided to paint small prototypes of abstract paintings. The painting seen above is actually only about 8" x 8" and it is painted on canvas paper. I am offering to paint the original abstract in the size to be chosen by the buyer. Only one painting will be made from the prototype and the prototype is not for sale. I got this idea from the eleven small paintings I created for the client who I painted the very large triptych abstract. If you recall from my earlier blog post I painted small abstract paintings on paper for the client to choose from. I am now adding to that portfolio in a sense. Hopefully the "wrong size" issue will also be solved! What do you think? Every week I get emails inquiring as to how I organize my photos. Two weeks ago my co-host Debra Huse and I shared on the Artists Helping Artists show ways artists can organize their photos. If you missed the show you might want to listen to it here.
Just so you know, for about a year I have known it was time to get my own photos better organized. I am a Mac girl so my experience has been with the apple products for at least the last ten years. I have spent hours and hours attending training and One-on-One sessions at the Apple Store here in Pasadena. But one problem always plagued me. Why couldn't I easily share my photos between my three computers in iPhoto? For over a year the folks at the Apple Store have said, "it's coming". So when the Mac upgrade El Capitan was released with the highly touted new Photos software I thought the answer to my problems was here. Unfortunately that was not the case. To make a long story short, my 50,000 photos on my laptop were contained in an iPhoto file that was about 250 gigabytes. Yep, 250 gigabytes. That is a very large file. In order for El Capitan to transfer all of my files from iPhoto to Photos I needed a lot more available storage on my computer. So I pulled out my two terabyte hard drive and figured out how to copy the file and reload it on my desktop (not laptop). So I am now uploading all 50,000 photos to the cloud so I will soon be able to access all of my photos from any of my computers. The only problem? The Apple technician estimated it will take a week for the files to upload. Today is day fifteen of the upload and there are still 1,000 photos left to upload. And so much for making a long story short. Sorry. Once the photos are uploaded then I will be ready to move a lot of photos in to folders. I had a lot of "events" (in iPhoto) which are now "folders" (in Photos) with titles such as flowers, boats, still life, ventura, beaches, etc. All of these folders are inspirational photos I have taken over the years that will make great paintings one day. But I also have a lot of photos filed by date and those all need to go into categorized folders. Ugh. Once the folders are all set then I will finalize my back-up options. I have a one terabyte Time Machine back up which backs up everyday. I also have my hard drive back up will probably be stored someplace off site just to be safe. Finally, the cloud is my last back up. I think four copies of my file of 50,000 photos is safe! This is all giving me a headache. I hope I haven't caused the same for any of you. It's time to organize your photos. You need to make sure they are accessible, organized (i.e. easy to find) and safely "backed-up". It's important. |
Leslie
Mom. Wife. Artist. Marketer. Teacher. Radio Show Host. Archives
July 2017
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