You would do well to follow the patterns of successful businesses and see what the trends are (they all have invested big bucks into market analysis) before randomly deciding to increase or decrease something as complex as pricing.

As the economy rolls on, all businesses are faced with decisions that were not in a long range business plan! Even the big boys are struggling to make sense of changing customer needs and have had to come up with creative and innovative marketing ideas to stay afloat.

If you read our advice on creating and artist’s business plan and think “but I just want to be an artist” or “so and so’s online advice seems easier”, then you are buying into the fantasy world that non-working artists are promoting and will have to make some intelligent choices .

At the end of the year, most people are in dual modes of looking back at how their business did over the past year and looking forward to what can be improved in the New Year. It’s probably time to blow the dust off your old business plan and see what’s missing.

It is telling that the most often asked question in our art marketing seminars is “How do I price my work?” The artists who ask, regardless of what they just heard from me in the seminar, are searching for an easy, magical formula for instant success. And top of their list is the thought ” skip the rest-just tell me how to price my art so I can sell”

Can’t accept a compliment gracefully? What we learned about dismissing or negating a compliment was that you are essentially telling the person giving you the compliment is that “his/her tastes are not very good.” Think about that and it will make sense!

Parents and schools today are turning out a whole generation of whiny, dependent child/adults , thanks, in part, to their 24/7 hovering and dumbed down, federally funded education systems.

So don’t hyperventilate over the multitude of online social sites. Handle only what you can handle. After all, at some point you have to find the time to create your art!

Know your organizational weaknesses and make a decision to overcome them because if you do not, then every show will become an ordeal……very often it is not the work that is the biggest issue but how we are seeing it and handling it!.

……..I would love to hear the story of the artist whose career rocketed to success because he or she donated a work to a charity auction and this act alone tipped the first domino toward an avalanche of success coming his or her way. This narrative is always implied. I’ve never seen it happen.