Shoshka, Alden & DoN have had many spirited conversations about how to sell art.  DoN‘s background is business-to-business sales and many of the sales techniques don’t translate to the world of art sales which blends from faceless to face-to-face to artist worship.  DoN finds it frustrating that several of the “free art galleries” on South Street have disappeared, is it because of poor sales effort or lack of interest from the public?  DoN thinks it’s a little of both; as a Sales Manager, DoN assigned quotas for selling particular services – is it enough to simply gallery sit and let visitors come & go?  Or should the artist, who already is struggling with identity crises, be responsible for “selling” the work, too?  Suppose the gallery sitter had a sales quota?  Or a lead generation goal?  A little sales training would go a long way:

Sales Stages

The foundations of most modern sales techniques lie in five stages of action. These began in the 1950’s and include:

1. Attention: You have to get the attention of your prospect through some advertising or prospecting method.
2. Interest: Build their interest by using an emotional appeal such as how good they will look to their boss when they make this deal that will save the company thousands of dollars!
3. Desire: Build their desire for your product by showing them its features and letting them sample or test-drive it.
4. Conviction: Increase their desire for your product by statistically proving the worth of your product. Compare it to its competitors. Use testimonials from happy customers.
5. Action: Encourage the prospect to act. This is your closing. Ask for the order. If they object, address their objections. There are then many variations of closing techniques that can help get the business.

There is a plethora of closing techniques that range from hard sell to soft sell and everything in-between. Some of these include:

• A Direct Close – Simply ask for the order when you are sure your prospect is ready.
• A Deal/Concession Close – Using this closing technique gives the prospect the feeling that they are making a smart choice and saving money (or getting more value). Use it with phrases like “Order today and I can add this other module for only 10 percent more.”
• A Time-Driven Close – This one works well with statements like, “prices are going up next week, so you should go ahead a let me place your order today.”
• Trial Offer – You can let the prospect use the product at no risk for a trial period. This works well if you’re selling products that make people’s lives easier. They aren’t likely to want to give it back if it has saved them a lot of time and effort during the trial period. On the other hand, if they haven’t had the experience with the product you told them they would then you probably won’t get another chance

Many of these sales techniques found at HowStuffWorks.com translate to selling art, if one can change the sales-persons emotional connection to the art into a quantifiable commodity that can be expressed to potential buyers then maybe more art would sell and sustain art businesses.

DoN currently has 25 photographs that are for sale in several venues in the Philadelphia area.  This weekend (12/27/09) is the closing of the Da Vinci Art Alliance‘s Under $200.00 show; DoN created three new images for the show which are priced under $130.00, to encourage sales, DoN is offering any one of the three framed prints for $95.00, the gallery receives a 15% commission

DoN Brewer, Urban Glyph, digital photograph, inkjet print @ DaVinci Art Alliance, Winter 2009.

DoN Brewer, Red Zone, digital photograph, inkjet print   This is one of DoN‘s favorites, the framed print has a silver liner mat which works great with the chrome of the image.

DoN Brewer, Autumn, digital photograph, framed inkjet print, 16×20″ available @ Da Vinci Art Alliance’s Under $200.00 show.

DoN Brewer, Urban Glyph & Red Zone, digital photographs, inkjet print, 16 x 20″, framed @ Da Vinci Art Alliance Under $200.00 Show – special end of show reduced sale price $95.00!  The gallery gets a 15% commission.