[TheForge] marketing

[Cindy and James]

   It  depends  on  who  (whom ??) you choose to market to.  Bill Epps is
   often  quoted, "If it sells for $25 or less and looks good in a double
   wide..."   There is nothing wrong with that market if that is what you
   choose.  I have given up most small items and basic starting price for
   ANYTHING is $1000 and it goes up fast from there.  It is all about how
   and  to  whom you market yourself, the quality of work that you can do
   as  well as the scale or size of work you are capable of turning out..
   Lots  of  guys  and  gals  go to festivals and whatnot, do demos, sell
   little  stuff  and  occasionally something large dollar-wise.  It is a
   weekend  hobby  for them and interesting for the walkers-around at the
   event to see.  Perfectly legitimate.
   But  I  tried  that  and  got  the grief Andy talks about below.  If I
   priced  something  at $50, they wanted $30.  So I quit doing demos and
   quit  making  things specifically to sell in my shop, but I do have an
   open  house  2  or 3 times a year for the public to come in and browse
   around  (photos  of  work  done  and  works in progress, and there are
   always  experiments  on how to do this or that that accumulate), and I
   tell  them now that I am a commission only shop, and my price range as
   stated  above  if  they ask.  Sometimes they have to "think about it",
   which  they  should if money is an object with them.  Buying something
   expensive  should  not  be an impulse buy for people without unlimited
   funds.   But  there  are people who have "unlimited funds", and we (my
   wife  and  I)  have chosen to target that market.  It takes a while to
   work into, and we have to sometimes work with 3rd parties and pay them
   a commission or finders fee, but usually they get their money from the
   client  in  other  ways  and  the  client  is happy that they provided
   another  source  for original artwork (ironwork in this case) that was
   not  originally  known  to them, i.e. another option.  If we do a good
   job,  that  person  who  referred  us also gets a feather in their cap
   because they "found us".
   Another  thing,  most people "want something" but very few know "what"
   they  want  when  it comes to art or design.  If you can incorporate a
   designer  (female  artist with a flair for design) into your business,
   your head will start to spin!
   Here's  something  else  to think about.  If someone is building a new
   home  in an exclusive area, chances are the home will cost $400 to who
   knows  what  per square foot.  Do the math.  A railing or set of light
   fixtures,  window  panels,  wine  doors,  etc.  costing  them $5000 to
   $50,000  each  or  in  total may be significant but it is minor at the
   same  time  for  homes  costing from $1.5 to $10 million.  And if done
   right  it  sets the home apart from the next big home down the street.
   People  who  can  afford  a  multi-million  dollar home want to be set
   apart.    In  the  Dallas-Ft  Worth  area  there  are  roughly  70,000
   households  with  net  worth  exceeding  well over $1,000,000 and that
   number  will  grow  by 45,000 in the next 5 years.  (Source of info, D
   Magazine.)   If 10 percent of those 115,000 wealthy households decided
   to  spend  $25,000 on some sort of ironwork or other type of art, that
   would  be  11,500 commissions or purchases X $25,000 = $287 Million in
   gross sales.
   I'm  not saying that will happen or that I will be a part of that, but
   my  point  is  that  the MARKET is there!  And in every major city and
   every  small  town, there are folks with money.  I would rather target
   10  clients  at  $1000 each than try to sell 500 clients something for
   $20 each.
   Sort  of  long,  but  that's  how I view the situation.  Everybody has
   their version.
   James Allcorn
   Paris, TX
   Andy wrote:
   And  this  goes  right  to  the point I've been making for the past 25
   years:  people  love and want art, but they do not want to pay for it.
   Art  is  not  really  essential in any immediate sense.  If you do not
   have  art  you will not die the way you would if you didn't have water
   or food.  Art is just one of those back burner things in most peoples'
   lives.  We live in a time when depictions of Elvis on black velvet are
   at  the  budget  limits  of many folks.  Even better-to-do folks often
   have  to choose between a decent piece of art and the next installment
   in their child's $150K college edumacation.  When pitted against these
   more  basic  and more immediate needs, the art will almost always lose
   out.
   Then  there  are  those  with the mindset that an artist's time is not
   worth  that  much  -  after  all,  it's  ONLY  art.   Add  to that the
   tremendous general ignorance of people that has come about as a result
   of  the  technologies  that  have  brought  us  so  many mass produced
   miracles.   For  the  most part, people have not the first clue of the
   difficulties  in manufacturing art.  Honest to God, many seem to think
   Jed  Clampett  pulls Picasos out of his ass every Wednesday morning at
   10:00 as if he were a laying hen.
   Trying  to sell fine art to a world that is ignorant of such things is
   like  trying  to  teach  a pig to sing.  I'm sure you know the rest of
   that story.