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As the Executive Director of an arts center, a working illustrator and the spouse of a professional artist, I attend dozens of art sale events each year and have seen thousands of artists in all different media attempt to sell their work. Through those experiences, I’ve come to think of in-person art sales events as a series of blind dates, where your job is to get the customer to fall in love with you and your work.
Here are 6 tips for artists who are looking to sell their work at fairs, conventions or other in-person events.
1. Make The First Move: Stand Up and Say Hello to Everyone
I know, I know — you’re going to tell me you’re shy. You can’t stand for that long. You just don’t have a magnetic personality. Here’s the thing: None of those are good excuses if your goal is to sell art. If you want to signal that you have something of value, you need to be proactive and approachable. You need to be ready to take the first step with every person who passes by.
Your affability can be contagious and lead to far more interactions than if you’re sitting behind a table or inside your tent, waiting for someone to be interested and brave enough to come up to you on their own.
2. Show Your Interest: Ask Questions
Selling art is not a one-way street, where the customer does all the asking and the artist does all the answering. This needs to be a fluid process, where you build a relationship with your customer. Asking them basic getting-to-know-you questions can put your potential customers at ease, give them cues about what makes you an artist worth investing in, and help you direct them toward pieces that will most interest them.
Most potential customers just need an excuse to choose you over anyone else in the room. Showing interest in them is flattering, catalyzing and it’s good business.Here are questions that I have seen work well:
Have you seen my artwork before?
What has been your favorite thing at this event so far today?
What brought you to this event today?
3. Your Phone Is Not Your Friend
In our modern world, we tend to cling to our phones when things get awkward. If sales are slow, we pull out the phone for stimulus. If we have a bad interaction with someone, we text our friends. When we’re feeling insecure, we scroll our profile pages for reassurance. But when it comes to sales events, your phone is your worst enemy.
Anything that pulls you out of the moment signals to your customers that you don’t want to be there or that they’re not worth your time. No excuses: You should only use your phone as a tool for business. Use it to process sales. Use it to take pictures with your thrilled customers. Then put it away.
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4. Act As Though You’ve Just Fallen in Love
I received this bit of advice at an improv comedy workshop and it changed my life. The workshop was focused on how to build a rapport with the audience and the leader challenged us to harness the feeling you have just after you’ve started a great new relationship — that feeling of empowerment, where the world is a wonderful place and nothing can get you down and you can do no wrong because you know that someone wonderful loves you.
When you can harness and channel those feelings, you become magnetic and alluring. You can also become more generous, resilient and self-assured. You can get the whole world to fall in love with you, or at least with your art. A little harmless flirting and self-confidence can go a long way with potential customers, convincing them that you’re worth loving and making them happy that they met you.
5. Pick-up Lines: Come Up With a Good Answer to These Questions
How long did that take?
How did you get started as an artist?
You made all of this?!
I’ve heard many artists get exasperated after being asked these questions over and over again, but I try to remind artists that these are basically pick-up lines from your customers, who often don’t know where to begin talking to you. These questions signal interest in you and in your process. If you know that these questions are coming, start thinking of clever and fun ways to answer them to get you to the next level of your relationship with your customer. Help them see beyond the obvious and appreciate your genius and charm at a deeper level.
Remember: most people have little experience with art. They don’t always understand that you’ve been working your whole life to get your process where it is today. And, in a world full of AI, we all may need even more help understanding how art is made.
6. Don’t Let It Get You Down
If an in-person art sales event is like a series of blind dates, the odds are that not all are going to go well. Many are going to fizzle, while a few are going to be truly terrible. The key is not to let those ‘bad dates’ get to you. You’re not going to be a perfect fit for everyone on the planet, but you’re going to catch the eye of quite a few. You never know when that perfect person is going to come around the corner, so you always need to be prepared.
Just because an event is slow or the attendees aren’t a perfect match for you does not mean that you can’t make a sale or accomplish something to further your career. You can always glean insights that could help improve your sales technique, how you display your art or how you select which events to try next. You can also always make friends with other artists who might prove to be great ‘wingmen’ for you in the future.
Once you have explored these six techniques, you can refine your strategies for wooing your customers and lock in on your own brand of customer engagement. Hopefully, you’ll have lots of fun ‘first dates,’ some of which will turn into long-term relationships with patrons who come back for more year after year.
