How to Get Help from Busy Experts - How to Sell Art Online

Each new person that signs up for our free Sell More Art Online email course gets a welcome email that says this:

“Now that you’re in, I have something I want to ask you: what are your biggest struggles with selling art?

I don’t mean “getting started.” You probably signed up for this mailing list because you’re struggling with selling art. Lots of artists are.

Let’s take it one level deeper: if you’re struggling to sell your art, what step do you need help with? What have you already tried that perhaps isn’t working?

Go ahead and hit reply to this email and let me know what you are struggling with right now. I read every email. I can’t promise that I can fix your problem, but if I can, I’ll get back to you. PLEASE NOTE: I get hundreds of emails every day. A one or two sentence response with a specific problem is much more likely to get a response than a long story.”

Less Effective Advice-Getting Questions

About half of the time, I get some great questions or problems from artists. The other half of the time, I get questions that are impossible to answer, or that make me wonder if this person has done any work on their own.

Here are some samples of some of the responses I get that are very difficult to answer:

“My problem is not getting enough exposure for my work.”

“Nobody wants to buy my art.”

“My problem is sales.”

While each of these is definitely a problem, they’re not a helpful response to someone who has offered to give you advice.

Ask Specific Questions That Show You Have Done the Work

Here are some questions I’ve received that have gotten helpful, specific feedback:

“I keep creating drawings that I get a lot of great feedback on (not the problem)…but I work a 50 hour per week job and don’t have hours and hours to dedicate figuring out how to sell my stuff. If I could have an easier way to do that it would be amazing. eBay has shown only to be a headache.”

This is a question I get a lot. It’s a specific problem that shows the artist has made some specific effort. I wrote a blog post to respond to this specific question. You can read it at How to Build an Art Business While Working a Day Job.

“I’m struggling with figuring out how to price my art prints. With shipping, I feel like I’m losing money.”

That’s another question I get a lot, and one that does have a pretty easy, specific answer. You can see the guest blog post Melissa Dinwiddie wrote about pricing here.

“I feel like I’ve done everything. eBay, Etsy, Facebook, Fine Art America, my own website and a bunch of other places. None of them have gotten much traction. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I don’t understand why other artists are selling in these places and I’m not.”

This one’s a little more vague, but reading between the lines, I can see that the problem is that the artist hasn’t really done their research to figure out where their audience is, and how other artists might be selling to that audience. Here are some tips on researching your online art market.

Why Short & Snappy is Better

In order to run my business and prioritize the artists that are paying me for coaching or courses, I have to limit my time on email. This means that I usually send artist queries a short response with a link to a blog post. The challenge for me, and for lots of busy people, is that I receive hundreds of emails every day.

I’ve spoken to thousands of artists about the challenges of selling art. Most of these problems are not new. I can usually point people to a specific blog post that will help them start solving their challenge. I love doing it.

Hopefully, you can see that this advice applies not just to me, but to any busy person. When I was a college student trying to figure out what I wanted to major in, and what kind of work I wanted to do when I graduated, I sought out busy people to ask them about their jobs all of the time.

I was able to speak to investment bankers, financial planners, actors, deans of colleges, engineers, and other people by sending them short emails like this:

Dear [name],

I’m a student at the University of Utah and I’m trying to figure out what I want to do when I graduate from college. I think your job is fascinating. I was wondering if you would be willing to spend 15 minutes chatting with me about your career? I know you are busy. Would X date and time or X date and time be available?

Thanks for your time,

Cory

Hopefully this helps you get what you need. I’d love to hear comments you might have about getting busy people to respond to you.

Comments

mandythompson says

October 9, 2014 at 1:48 PM

I think another reason why the specificity of the question matters is that it shows that you are doing your own work — you know exactly what the problem is and you aren’t asking that person to fix it, you’re just asking them to offer advice on how to proceed. I’m more inclined to advise proactive people than to spend an hour in a conversation with someone who is hoping I will do the work for them. Those types of questioners never stop asking for more, whereas the proactive problem-solver will take the advice and run with it. Those are the people I enjoy working with!

Less Effective Advice-Getting Questions

Ask Specific Questions That Show You Have Done the Work

Why Short & Snappy is Better

Comments

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