I’m falling in love with AnnMarie Garden’s Market Days as a seller.  3 hours, done by noon before the heat.  Good enough sales and lots of list building because people are ready to stop and chat.  Two more this year:  September and October (1st Saturdays, if you’re local).

This past weekend for fun I decided to do some marketing research.  Nothing like live research.

If you’ve taken my course Sell Your Art, Keep Your Soul, or one of the folks who purchased my more recent single module offerings (in this case, Module 3:  Pricing Your Art), you know that my argument is that you should price your art to support your goal; that the price isn’t what stops people from buying.  Getting them to stop at all is what keeps them from buying (Module 4:  Packaging and Presentation).  Knowing where you should sell is covered in Module 5:  16+ Venues for Selling Your Art.

As a further test of my thesis, I hung a hand lettered sign right in the middle of my jewelry this past weekend (not small either):  “Ask for Your Free Gift!”  I had 50 free gifts to give away.  I gave away 8.  And of those, 1 I gave a hint to and 2 overheard the hint.  So basically 5 people out of easily 100+ actually asked.  And past research tells me that if I had made that sign on the computer – no one would have even read it!

And I sold a very nice necklace to one of them.  Which made my sales for the day.  Because I got them to stop and chat.  And I signed up up 9 folks on my mailing list, 3 of whom are interested in learning to make torsos (that’s a great return on the day!).  And met one person who remembers my being featured in Southern Maryland This Is Living magazine for my public art – she’s interested in a commission for her home.  Nice ego boost as that article was years back and she kept a copy and recognized my name!  Shows are great!

Live research is great.  And this isn’t just for artists.  How many times has any one of us assumed we knew the answer before we asked?  How many times do we read more into something that is stated simply and clearly?  How often do we let our internal story lines get in the way of something we could really enjoy if we could get the head hamster to be quiet for 5 minutes?  How much do we lose by not paying attention and then following up on curiosity?

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:

We don’t see things as they are.  We see tham as we are.  Anias Nin