Ep. 025 Respect yourself and your customers

Respect yourself and your customers

This week we are taking about respect, this is the one thing some artists can loose along their journey, is to respect themselves, their art and in the end, their customers. Never take this stuff for granted or get cavalier in the process. As an artist building their art business or client base, this is important to keep humble and to respect the opportunity to showcase your work.

QUOTE from Henry Ford
"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages."

You might be meeting people at a show that you're at an outdoor exhibit, a group gathering, museum show and the list goes on. It's always best to have somebody with you that can help fill the void if there are absences between folks approaching you, and I'll tell you that you're not the only one afraid out there, there are people that have come to see you who are equally intimidated and afraid to approach you. Find that happy medium and be there and take that leap to greet others and thank them for coming to your exhibit.

A lot of people have a fear that they are going to say the wrong thing or fumble up on words The truth of the matter is that these are your clients and customers and people who admire your work want to know you and talk to you, the real you.

Now there's a lot to be said about being humble and having respect for yourself and to have respect for your customers. I know a lot of us choke up when approached by a customer especially when the customer is approaching you so that they can let you know what wonderful art that you have and how it makes them feel. But you see them coming toward you and you start to feel panicky! 

They don't want to talk to some made up version of yourself, they don't want to talk to someone that's going to be cavalier or snotty or arrogant. Or maybe they do.....and if that is you, great, but I can pretty much wager to say that most of the folks that are listening to this podcast want to learn how to approach and talk to customers with others.

Be comfortable and be you be 100% you. If your thing is to wear beat up jeans and a T-shirt and if that's you. then that's great. If you like to dress up in your thing is to wear a top hat or dress like a mortician, then if that's your thing then embrace if, this is what people what they want to know that you're 100% genuine, there's been a lot of other artists who have all of these gimmicks with their art and they try to pride themselves on being so different. In my opinion, there's a very small percentage of people that really gravitate toward that but I can tell you if you want to be successful selling your own work then be as authentic of version of yourself as possible.

You might be meeting people at a show that you're at an outdoor exhibit, a group gathering, museum show and the list goes on. It's always best to have somebody with you that can help fill the void if there are absences between folks approaching you, and I'll tell you that you're not the only one afraid out there, there are people that have come to see you who are equally intimidated and afraid to approach you. Find that happy medium and be there and take that leap to greet others and thank them for attending your exhibit.

I have been doing this a long time, I owned my own art gallery for many many many years and there were times when a lot of familiar faces would come in but they would be often times a lot of new faces, your established customer base will totally understand if you need to break away and talk to others that are new to your work this is essential because you don't want to turn anyone off. I've been to enough art gatherings to where I am a fan of somebody's work and I found the arti

Support the Show.