Comments on: Love for Your Collectors Starts with Empathy

By: Deborah Peters

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:32:27 +0000

Great post, you are so right!! the best sales’ experiences I’ve had were natural, exciting but more importantly I felt what the buyer wanted and then just made it easy for them to make the decision. It involved offering to cover the shipping, which was more than worth it!

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By: Patricia C Vener

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:06:34 +0000

In reply to Mckenna.

(I liked “Good uck” too.)
Thanks.

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By: Alyson Stanfield

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:12:30 +0000

In reply to Jen M..

I kinda liked “Good uck”.
🙂

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By: Jen M.

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:17:36 +0000

In reply to Jen M..

(Good luck! Don’t know what happened to my “L”! LOL!)

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By: Jen M.

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:16:58 +0000

In reply to Patricia C Vener.

Patrica, you’d be surprised!
I’m also painfully shy, even after having been in “The Biz” for a few years. I am very passionate about the things I make. I do it because I love it, and I find that when people take a genuine interest in my work, it energizes me, and I forget that I am shy!
Good uck!

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By: Fiona Purdy

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:27:33 +0000

McKenna – now you’re making me blush. I’ll be arriving at your house in Maui sometime tomorrow – wow if only that could be true, lol. You are so right I am in a very serious moment with my art, I feel I am on the verge of everything falling into place at last, after so many years of hard work. Your post resonated so deeply in me, it feels like the last piece of the puzzle that I’ve been searching for. THANK YOU so much for your offer, what a blessing, you are so very, very kind, and I will take you up on it. I will email you tomorrow.
Fiona
ps – thanks for your kind comments about my work!

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By: Mckenna

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:20:17 +0000

In reply to Fiona Purdy.

Fiona! You made me blush and smile and get teary-eyed. Thank-you for reporting this to me. It is really the goal for me. I want to share anything that will help you and others share your art with the world.
I do my workshop on occasion here on Maui. Come on over! LOL. But I am really considering doing something on-line and live. I just keep racing to my studio to fill orders and really have some timing issues. But email me directly mckenna AT lowerimpact dot com and I will add you to my current list of interested artists. It’s only 2 hrs long, but finding those 2 hrs and the time to coordinate everything is a daunting task with all the business coming in right now.
And I really want you to feel free to call me, too. You are in a very serious moment with your art. Just email me and we can set aside a time to chat for 20 or 30 mins and nail down more of the E’s. That’s the closest thing to my seminar that I can manage at the moment. As you are in such a hands-on moment with your art show, I can’t help but reach out like this. I am so glad that my words on this screen have already helped you with your sales. Take some notes – do some de-briefing of some scenarios and we can use your real examples and walk through some ideas and language to put in your future “sales brainstorms”.
And btw: I love your brainy and zany, quirky, and remarkable oeuvre. Your work is fun and unique. Hope you have the best show ever!
Mckenna
PS: the very last last line of my seminar is something you did instinctively and it is working well for you: “Whatever you focus on E X P A N D S!” Just keep focusing on love.

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By: Fiona Purdy

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:20:18 +0000

What a fabulous post McKenna. It came at the best possibly time for me. I am in the middle of a three month art show and I printed out this post (with comments) and read it first thing everyday before the show starts. It has helped me enormously and has resulted in sales for me. I cannot thank you enough! Do you still offer your workshop The E’s of Selling?

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By: Jana Botkin

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:38:43 +0000

In reply to Mckenna.

Great story and lesson, McKenna. Thank you for telling us that! And I suspect that Jack White learned much of his info from Dale Carnegie too. Their methods and yours are classic and timeless.

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By: Mckenna

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:27:57 +0000

I have recently learned of Jack White, but I have not read his materials. My “secret” is more about Dale Carnegie. I am old school I guess. As for having too much empathy? I think you might want to rethink…Perhaps you do not have enough and the story I will share should help sort this out.
If someone really doesn’t have enough money, you cannot change their income, but you still can influence their thinking about what money is and does for one’s life. Many years ago – in the mid-80’s, I was an art consultant in San Francisco and represented some very expensive art work. A secretary from a nearby building was doing her “once or twice a week” peek at our collection and walked in and stood motionless in front of a diptych of a newly acquired Miro aquatint – large -they took up just over 6 feet by 4 feet in the simple thin black frames. Sparse – almost no color – rare but unmistakable. Glorious. I was considering them myself.
I walked towards her (knowing that Miro was her favorite artist) and said, “Did we finally find your perfect piece?” She turned to me with tears in her eyes – wanting to know – and I told her, “$16,000 and we cannot sell them separately.” She looked back and spoke to the pieces, “You are what I see in my dreams. But I barely make that in a year.” She couldn’t take her eyes away. We stood for an eternity together drinking in these stunning pieces. She kept taking big breaths.
I began to “feel sorry” for her. BUT! She really really loved this work. She really really wanted this work. She – not some lawyer or banker who would stick these in some hallway – SHE! deserved this work. And so I asked a question that in some situations might seem crude, but it was the only thing I could do as a person who wanted to share the rainbow and fulfill the loving desires of another human being: “Do you have anything of value that you can sell?” She turned her head very slowly – with a new set of tears – and burst out into a huge smile and even bigger hug and said, “You are a genius. I have an old vintage car that was left to me by my Mother when she passed 6 months ago and all I do it move it from street to street to avoid getting tickets in my neighborhood. I know my Mother would love for me to sell it and own something I love.” The 10% deposit took two credit cards, but the car was sold in 2 weeks (She made more than she needed from that car!) and I delivered the Miro with a bottle of champagne. She had a small but lovely little flat and the work was stunning over her fireplace mantle.
She continued to come in every week. And she would blow me a kiss if I was with a client and hug me when I wasn’t. I still feel her love today.
Most importantly, she still feels my loving desire to help fulfill her dream every time she looks at those Miro aquatints.
Jana, you have lots of price ranges, so you really must let people own and not worry about the money they think they don’t have. No one goes broke because they buy a piece of art they cannot afford. They go broke in stages that you cannot control. If they really can’t afford it, they can’t own it, but we all buy things we love and then we “budget” and don’t buy or put off the purchase of the new TV or pair of shoes we know we don’t really need. We NEED art. We can be changed by art. We can have a better quality of life because of art. And we will have that art for the rest of our lives. It is not a necessity – but it is not a frivolous money drain.
WE need to be a part of that change for people. Find a price that works or offer payments. We owe it to the art, ourselves, and the collectors to be creative and unabashedly candid about money.
They will be grateful, I assure you.

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