Selling and marketing are skills.
Which means they can be learned. If you want to make money from your creative work, to have an impact with your writing, the things you make, you’ll need to investing time and energy into improving these skills.
Making marketing, selling, networking and audience-building a regular part of our work routines is the only way to end that familiar freelance feast-or-famine cycle. Or to turn your side-hustle into real income.
We all have limiting beliefs around self-promotion.
The stories we tell ourselves keep us safe — but also keep us small. They protect us from risk, rejection, doing difficult things. But they also stop us having the impact you could, earning a good living from our creative work, sharing what we’ve made with a wider audience, helping more people with the services we offer.
As a coach working with creative professionals, here are the eight objections I hear most. And how to change the thinking behind them.
1. “Selling is manipulative and sleazy”
It doesn’t have to be. See it as connecting, instead. You’re sharing your story, your process, why you do what you do, why you’re passionate about it.
When you express yourself with honest and authenticity, you tend to attract your tribe, the people who really get you and feel the same. When you let others into your world, you allow them to enjoy it too!
That’s how you build an audience, how you find the 1000 true fans who will allow you to make a living from your work.
See it less about closing an immediate sale, more about building lasting relationships. You’re finding the people who are genuinely interested in what you do, then sharing what you have to offer.
2. “Successful people don’t have to sell themselves.”
But they do. All the time.
- A-list actors don’t go on talk shows to talk about their new film, or turn up at the premieres wearing a photogenic gown just for fun. It’s in their contract.
- World-class artists are expected to give lectures and talks, appear at the opening of their exhibitions, have dinner with curators and collectors.
- Musicians on stadium tours still have the backstage meet-and-greets with sponsors and sales reps, the endless interviews and the two-minute appearances on local radio shows that often involve crawling through traffic for hours.
- Best-selling authors have to negotiate an exhausting round of book signings, literary festivals and trade events.
Whether you’re George Clooney or JK Rowling, Jeff Koons or Adele, everyone has to sell their creative work. Indeed, many of the successful creatives I work with talk about not having time to make new work, because of the endless promotional demands.
Marketing and selling is just part of the job. So get used to it – then get good at it.
3. “I don’t want to be pushy.”
The photographer, publisher, podcaster and all-round lovely human David DuChemin suggests a reframe around this. You’re not pushing your work onto people. You’re extending an invitation.
It’s less about begging strangers to buy your stuff, more about building relationships with your ideal clients then saying,“I made this for you. Do you want to know more?”
4. “I hate pestering people.”
Like many of us, I work from home. So my day is often interrupted by phone calls from people reading from a set script, demanding to be put through to “the owner of the business”.
I didn’t ask them to call. I don’t want them to call. And whatever it is they are selling, there’s no way I’ll buy it from them.
But then there are the people I’ve invited in. The welcome guests.
This week, for instance, I got an email from an author I’ve been following for a while. He sends out regular newsletters full of interesting information about creative process. He has a new book out soon, and was asking his audience to pre-order it.
I clicked and paid immediately, because I’ve grown to like and trust him over the time I’ve been on his mailing list, and I’m pretty sure I’ll find his book useful. I’ve also got lots of value from the content he’s given me already, so I want to support him.
Can you see the difference here? And how liberating it might be to target your content, to focus on serving the people who are already interested in what you offer, rather than bothering strangers?
5. “No one likes a show-off.”
Many of us were trained from childhood to be seen and not heard, or taught not to draw too much attention. So showing your work and talking about it can feel like bragging, boasting, attention-grabbing and generally being too big for your boots, as my mum would say.
But it doesn’t have to be all about you. Try to shift your mindset towards serving your clients or audience.
You make beautiful or interesting things. You offer services that could help your clients and customers. So be proud of what you do, even if you know it can be improved.
Talk to your clients or audience, and really listen to the language they use: see what your clients’ problems are, how fans talk about your work. Hear the questions people ask again and again (then find clear ways to answer them).
Get curious. Listen more than you speak. It’s all useful data. It might even be fun!
6. “My agent/manager/gallery/publisher/label should do this for me.”
Obviously, it’s easier with a team. But rarely perfect. You have to lead, to take the initiative. And it will be you doing the interviews, performing onstage, doing talks about your work, representing what you do – so it’s worth learning to do it well.
The work doesn’t end when you sign that contract, or get the representation you’ve longed for. It’s just beginning.
If they like your work, the first thing most gatekeepers will do is look at your social media, your website, your public profile to see how good you are at connecting with your audience, telling your story, selling your creative work. They’re usually looking for creatives they can actively partner with, not passive babies who need everything done for them.
7. “I’m not good enough yet.”
Unless you’re putting a gun to their head, people will only book you or buy your work if they want to. And who are you to say they’re wrong?
Wait until your website is exactly as you want it, your marketing message is totally clear, and your work finally lives up to your own impossibly high standards — and you’ll die broke. In fact no one will even appreciate your perfect work, because you didn’t allow them to see the process, the struggles that got you there, let alone be part of that journey.
Of course you’re going to improve, if you keep on making your art, honing your craft. Your later work might well be much better than what you’re making now.
But those lucky people who bought early works by now-revered artists, first editions of rare books, early singles from a band who later became huge? They aren’t complaining. They were there at the start. And of course that flawed early work becomes more valuable, as you get recognition.
8. “I’ve tried. No one wants to buy my work.”
This was from an artist I was coaching, who had put hundreds of drawings and paintings on social media, gaining followers and likes but no sales.
So I went over her feeds. In two years, I found just a handful of times when she’d actually told her followers that her art was for sale, priced it and made it clear how to buy it.
You have to ask. You have to make clear offers. And make it as easy as possible for people to buy your work, or book your services.
Once the artist did this consistently, her followers turned into fans, and her art started to sell. She also started getting queries from shops and galleries, because it was clear she was an active, professional artist who was interested in selling creative work.
So start selling your creative work. Now.
Just choose a marketing activity to try, and do it. Imperfectly. But regularly. You can improve as you go.
Share generously. Tell stories about your work. Show your studio, your process, your world. Invite people in, then keep in touch and turn them into true fans. Experiment, and find ways of doing this that feel right and authentic for you. Then do them — regularly.
Make it obvious how people can buy your work, your service, or otherwise support you. Find partners: approach retailers, galleries, venues. Upload your work to platforms that sell the kind of work you make. Make regular offers. Ask.
Connect with your audience.
Answer questions. Hear what’s stopping people buying, and then address those objections. (A potter I worked with dramatically increased her sales, for instance, by making a simple video showing how carefully she packed her creations before shipping them.)
If you don’t have the knowledge you need, Google it. Find a teacher whose style suits you and your work. From setting up a free mailing list to uploading your visual designs to Patternbank or Spoonflower, from selling work to independent retailers to speaking in public with confidence: there are people who can show you the way. You just have to look for them.
Make it easy. Make it fun.
Don’t try everything at once. Choose one strategy then test it, consistently, for 90 days. See what happens, how you feel about it, what results you get. Then assess, and adjust accordingly.
If you’re keen to make a living from your creativity, or want to upgrade your existing business, I have a FREE 10-day course to help. Ten emails, each discussing a different aspect of growing your creative business. Sign up here, and get day 1 immediately.
What do you think?