Lets talk about selling.

Whenever I say this to Artists I see that glazed look come over their eyes and I know that they are saying to themselves, I am an Artist, I am not a salesperson.

This is very true, but if you live by the brush, then you are going to have to sell your Art.

Yes you can use Galleries, dealers and online galleries but at some point of time you are going to have to stand in front of a stranger and sell your painting to them.

When you think about doing that it is scary?

So how do I get over the fear of selling?

You are having an exhibition very soon, everything is prepared, the paintings are hung, the Gallery is ready, now you have to get you ready.

If you approach this opening as I have to sell to people and you don’t want to sell then it is not going to be a very pleasant experience.

So what you will need to do is approach it as a time of meeting people and getting to know them, not selling to them.

You are there to welcome strangers and make them feel comfortable and enjoy the experience of looking at your work.

You are there to talk about your work and help the stranger to understand what you the Artist are wanting to say.

You are building relationships between your Art works and strangers, telling them how much you love them and what they mean to you and yes they are for sale.

You want to build a relationship between you and the stranger and hopefully a friendship will come out of it, you will exchange emails and phone numbers but at no time are you to be selling, because you are an Artist.

If after you have engaged them and they know more about you and you have told them the story of your painting and they love your painting and they decide to buy your painting, of course then you can help them with their purchase.

You see we have such a wrong view about selling, yes there are those pushy sales people who make you cringe but really great sales people build relationships and out of that comes a sale. The person buying your painting wants to know you and your story, they want to tell you their story because that’s what interests them the most and they want to know the story about your painting and why they should love it as much as you do, that’s what will bring on the sale.

Don’t sell build relationships.