As per my previous posting, I have been to a day's session in Southend Uni's Ilab thinktank, along with 11 other artists. We spent the day doing business studies stuff. I was impressed with the setting and the positive attitude of the hosts, but can't honestly say that I shall find it easy to become any richer on the back of the experience. We looked into 'businessy' things like:
'who sets the price- buyer or seller?'
'who is your ideal customer?'
'what benefits are you offering in your produce?' or 'what sets you apart?'
'what are your customer's requirements?'
'who are your enemies?' (who's the competition- a concept I find quite horrid, because other makers in my field and related fields help to make exhibitions and events more appealing to draw a larger audience, and I find that low attendance is the true enemy of both interest in, and sales of my work. You need a 'critical mass' of viewers to make it all work.
Now, what I would have liked to have discovered were better ways to: present my work,
light my work,
display my work,
approach galleries,
get an agent
etc.
So if anyone would like to run a day like that, why not get in touch with the Business Hub at Southend on Sea University and make an offer. Also please comment on what other areas you think would be of help in making more money from creative work.
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Interesting feedback Richard. Sounds like some of the things that they have run in Wales - some of them have more inane and insipid than others but mostly about the same sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteMy personal interests rest with things that don't require these approaches at all. I am much more fascinated in how to capitalise on skills and expertise, creating a variety of products which target different groups of customers creating a variety of income streams which themselves act as promotional tools for one's own real work - the icon of creativity enabling one to follow one's real passion in creating beautiful and interesting things.
Having been in the world of arts for a number of years, I realised that there is a very definite flaw in the plan of making works of art to sell. You put your heart and soul into a piece - you sell it and then it is gone. Once it is gone, you have to put your heart and soul into another piece to make sure that the income keeps coming in. It then becomes about the money to pay for the food and the roof and not about the creativity.
I believe that there are many ways around this - all it takes is an application of that same creativity to solve a different problem. One of the reasons why I am setting up a mastermind group to tackle such issues.