Need some business advice

[Bartc]

On your business card how do you title yourself? "Painter"? "Paintings"? "Artist"? What do you use? And to you give direct access via your phone and email, or do you direct only to a website so that you can moderate the communications?

 

[Hostajunkie]

Every selling artist that I know has created a separate email account that is dedicated to their art-related sales and pursuits, so that it can be listed publicly. Beyond that, I usually see the artist's personality reflected in their card, as well as the type of sales they're targeting. Those who are an open book in real life seem to include their phone number without concern. Yes to listing any websites and storefronts you sell at --- though that list could get really long for some people. lol!

 

[ZenDruid]

I print my own cards for every one of my endeavors as artist, photographer, espionage agent, conflict negotiator, etc. I only give my email address and link to my website because I don't want callers or visitors at inconvenient times. If you're running a public studio, that's different. I also put a photo of my work on the face of the card and use the back of the card for detailed description of what I do. I use an old version of Printshop.

 

[bethany]

I put my name "artist & teacher" - portrait commissions welcome. A tiny photo slice of a portrait in the top corner. Address, phone, email, website. Because I have some white space on in- I also use it as a tag for the paintings where I can write the title/medium/price on the card and attach it to the painting.
That reminds me- I am almost out of cards. Time to re-order.

 

[Bongo]

I title myself as a "painter". I list my email, website, and phone number. The phone number is a Google Voice number that I only use for Studiobongo.

 

[Bartc]

Some good suggestions here, folks. Thank you.

Next question is: How do you sell your work, that is, do you have a fully fleshed out online store vs. just a pic/price/contact format? How do you collect payment?

 

[Artyczar]

Coming to the conversation a little late. But my biz cards are printed on the backs of cereal boxes and were letterpressed. When I did my name change, I upcycled them with stickers and rubber stamps. I don't have a title as to what I do, but the easel image is a giveaway. I do have my phone number on them, but I only hand them to people I want to have that. It also has my email and website.

For taking payment, in person, I use Square (or cash...or check). On my site, I only take PayPal. I don't have Stripe integrated on my site, but many people do, or something like it, like Shopify.

 

[Bartc]

Coming to the conversation a little late. But my biz cards are printed on the backs of cereal boxes and were letterpressed. When I did my name change, I upcycled them with stickers and rubber stamps. I don't have a title as to what I do, but the easel image is a giveaway. I do have my phone number on them, but I only hand them to people I want to have that. It also has my email and website.

View attachment 30416

For taking payment, in person, I use Square (or cash...or check). On my site, I only take PayPal. I don't have Stripe integrated on my site, but many people do, or something like it, like Shopify.

Thanks, Ayin. Love your pluck! You have your own style and it's a kick. BTW, your advice here (not the unique biz card stock) seems to match what I'm finding in researching my more advanced compadres. So I'm likely to take this route too.

If I may, take a look at my evolving website. C&C welcome. bartsart.weebly.com

Was thinking of upgrading subscriptions so that everything would work through my consistent moniker "Barts Art Gallery" and bartsartgallery.com. Part of the motivation was integrating my managing various sites and hopefully generating traffic. The other part was the advice to ditch the Weebly footers and subdomain, but nobody seems all that incensed by that. What do you think?

 

[Artyczar]

Hi Bart. It's great that (if) you purchased "bartsartgallery.com" as it's better to have your own domain name rather than the subdomain on Weebly. But I'm not sure if you were asking me what I think of your site, or if you should get rid of the Weebly footers and subdomain URL.

My advice to artists (that are trying to be professional) will always be to have their own professional website and domain name. No ads of any kind. These are things one must pay for. It's just a work expense--part of the job, like art supplies. My opinion.

It's not impossible to get away with having a website on a free service, or even a cheap service, but I'm not sure if you can integrate commerce on a free site.

I usually recommend Squarespace because it's the absolute best buy at 300-400 per year, and it includes everything with an easy learning curve. That's really a price that cannot be beaten when some people pay thousands of dollars just to have someone design a site for them, plus hosting, plus the domain, plus the SSL (secure socket layer), commerce integration, a store with inventory tracking, mailing list integration, and easy-to-use templates to design a professional-looking site, and most important, SEO (search engine optimization)--which brings in the traffic to your site, otherwise no one knows you exist.

If you did all that separately, you'd pay up the nose. I don't work for Squarespace, by the way. I just recommend it to most artists because most artists don't have much money, and that's dirt cheap. I wish I paid $400 a month for all my website expenses. You don't want to know what I pay (or would pay if I didn't have connections), but I have a lot of advanced bells and whistles going on that the human eye can't necessarily see on the backend. Just having a dedicated server is $100 a month alone. My site is not built on any templates. It's coded from scratch because of its design and the database--many thousands of hours of work have been put into it.

I digress. I'm just saying, if you want easy, Squarespace is great. You can have a clean, professional website up in a matter of a couple of days (with some time spent). It's not too difficult at all.

 

[KreativeK]

Here is mine showing both sides with local phone # not showing but for the area code. I don't identify myself at all as this or that as the artwork on reverse speaks for itself.

Payments are taken on ArtSpan using various options and on Daily Paintworks that uses Stripe, PayPal, etc. Most sales are via DPW and from my Facebook page where I take cash, checks, MO's, or use Square, Venmo or PayPal.

 

[Bongo]

here's mine _

 

[Bartc]

Here is mine showing both sides with local phone # not showing but for the area code. I don't identify myself at all as this or that as the artwork on reverse speaks for itself.

View attachment 30448
Payments are taken on ArtSpan using various options and on Daily Paintworks that uses Stripe, PayPal, etc. Most sales are via DPW and from my Facebook page where I take cash, checks, MO's, or use Square, Venmo or PayPal.

I like this, Kay. I assume the reason you don't title yourself is that your company name and tagline do that for you, even more than just the painting side of the card. And I do love the tagline! Chutzpah. I note that you do use the artspan.com subdomain; does anyone care about that?

 

[Bartc]

here's mine _
View attachment 30462

Love it! And your tagline says all it needs to.

 

[Bartc]

Hi Bart. It's great that (if) you purchased "bartsartgallery.com" as it's better to have your own domain name rather than the subdomain on Weebly. But I'm not sure if you were asking me what I think of your site, or if you should get rid of the Weebly footers and subdomain URL.

No objections to advice on or reaction to my admittedly primitive website. You have to start somewhere. I'm learning.

 

[Bongo]

Thanks Bart - I find business cards something of an anachronism today. I used to leave them lying around everywhere, in lobbies, waiting rooms, library books, etc. but it occurred to me I'm probably pissing off more people than I'm attracting. I find that when I'm doing plein air if someone shows some casual interest in my work, and I hand them a business card, I can see the expression change on their face as they interpret it as a friendly conversation turning into a sales pitch (even though that's not my intention). They are after all "business" cards - so I only give them out in conversation if asked for.

Bart:
No objections to advice on or reaction to my admittedly primitive website

You have a very strong body of work. And most importantly - from a sales point of view - there is consistency across your work - palette, subject, treatment - all of which culminates into a distinct style.

Some things you might consider - I think the statement on the homepage oversells. Speaking of gateways, and portals, doors of wonder and mystery, etc.... less is more.

I personally like to read details about the artist on the 'about' page, but I'm an outlier, I think most only want a brief background statement at most. Since this is your personal website I think it's important that you write in the first person. IF you want to keep it in the 3rd person then you have to give an attribution -- we need to know who is saying all this stuff about you, or do you just have a mouse in your pocket?

I don't find the Weebly site objectionable, since they only run a small ad at the bottom of the page - not like back-in-the-day when commercial sites ran banners everywhere -- but Ayin's advice is still valid and something you should be working towards.

You can have your domain name point to your Weebly site. So you only need to put bartsartgallery.com on your business card, and people only have to type bartsartgallery.com in the browser -- and they will automatically, seamlessly, be directed to the Weebly site.

 

[Bartc]

You have a very strong body of work. And most importantly - from a sales point of view - there is consistency across your work - palette, subject, treatment - all of which culminates into a distinct style.

Some things you might consider - I think the statement on the homepage oversells. Speaking of gateways, and portals, doors of wonder and mystery, etc.... less is more.

I personally like to read details about the artist on the 'about' page, but I'm an outlier, I think most only want a brief background statement at most. Since this is your personal website I think it's important that you write in the first person. IF you want to keep it in the 3rd person then you have to give an attribution -- we need to know who is saying all this stuff about you, or do you just have a mouse in your pocket?

You can have your domain name point to your Weebly site. So you only need to put bartsartgallery.com on your business card, and people only have to type bartsartgallery.com in the browser -- and they will automatically, seamlessly, be directed to the Weebly site.

Thanks for all that, Bongo. Appreciate the compliments on style.

Funny, but I had that statement in first person and then received advice never to do other than third person. I prefer 1st, to be honest.

I know there's a bit of whatever in the Portals blurb. I find a lot of artists use that, so imitated the idea. It's what I would put on a sign on an exhibition, so figured I might as well use it there. People do seem to want some sort of psychological connection to the artist, something inspirational beyond the bio stuff. That's all it's intended to be.

Weebly does allow the personal domain redirection, but you have to get up a couple of levels of subscription for that. I found the same on my domain host too. Right now not sure I need to go with a subscription just for that purpose alone. In observing and conversing with my colleagues who do sell around here, I don't see any of them using a higher level of "store" function; they avoid it. Avoiding it myself allows me to skip the subscription. So it's a matter of expense starting out with no clue as to whether it's worth it.

Ayin is in a different class than me. Ayin has tons of sales experience and a clientele built up over the years. Were I to even get a glimmer of that, I would jump up a couple of levels of website/hosting/store formats as suggested. I'm not there yet.

 

[KreativeK]

I like this, Kay. I assume the reason you don't title yourself is that your company name and tagline do that for you, even more than just the painting side of the card. And I do love the tagline! Chutzpah. I note that you do use the artspan.com subdomain; does anyone care about that?

Yes, people do care as some are trying to get prints made. ArtSpan does a fantastic job of printing and shipping.

 

[Bongo]

Your business card is CRAP!

Thing is there was a time before smartphones - when what he has to say about business cards rang true. He's crazy over the top but dead serious.

 

[Bartc]

Your business card is CRAP!

Thing is there was a time before smartphones - when what he has to say about business cards rang true. He's crazy over the top but dead serious.

And this guy should know because he's.... who?

 

[Artyczar]

OMG! That guy is hilarious!

Bart, I hope my advice wasn't too extreme. I don't think I'm really in some "other class." I'm doing the best I can like anyone, maybe I've just been doing it longer? But I don't know how long others have been doing it!

I don't have a commerce "store" on my site either. I have PayPal links only, which are free with your PayPal account. Otherwise, people can just email me, and we can work something out, like a check in the mail the old-fashioned way.

Statements are written in the first person and bios are typically written in the third, either by someone else or at least having them help you so it's not in your voice.