How do I find my first art buyers?
Stop searching for strangers. Your first buyers are already close.
Most founders start businesses by hustling. That’s not how you start a successful art business.
Reshu, a printmaker and MFA graduate from Delhi College of Art, is starting a business selling her work and teaching other artists her craft. She asked me for some advice.
I have the skills but I’m struggling to get my first paying students and my first art buyers. If you were starting from zero today, what would be the first three actions you’d focus on over the next 90 days?
@reshu_theartist
Reshu, I love how you want to bring your art to the world in two ways. You’ll impact people with your own work and the work of your students for generations to come! You’ve inspired me.
My advice works for both parts of your business, whether you’re selling art or art education. Because the reasons people buy art or invest in art skills have something in common. Both purchases happen because of shared values.
Model Entrepreneurs
When you decide to start a business, you might think it’s time to start hustling. If you know any entrepreneurs you probably see that hustle and think it’s how their successful. So maybe you should hustle too, right?
Get on all the platforms, start posting. Hope somebody notices.
Set up a booth at every art show you can. Fill your schedule.
Promote your work with price promotions so more people buy.
Try to convince strangers to buy.
All of that is based on the assumption that you don’t know your buyers, that you have to go find them out there in the big world, and that you have to convince people who don’t already want what you’re selling to buy it.
That might work for some businesses. But not for art businesses.
So if I was starting an art business today, here’s what my first 90-days would look like.
Start With You
Finding your first buyers starts with you.
Art is a values-based purchase. In two different ways:
People either value art and they buy it, or they don’t. That means there’s no reason to waste time trying to sell art to people who don’t buy it.
When people do buy art, they buy it because the work and the artist reflect the values they hold most dear. That means that before you can sell your art, you have to be able to describe what you and your work stand for.
You have to write your artist story, the spark, drive and message behind your work.
So if I was building an art business from zero, I’d start there. I’d write my story but I’d recognize that the words I choose to tell it are a hypothesis. I’d then test that hypothesis by using it to try to land my first customers over the first 90 days.
But I need to be clear about what I mean by “using” your story here. It’s not a video of you reciting it or an essay you write about it. It’s using pieces of your story in different ways. It shows up, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, in all of your marketing and all of your sales conversations. It shows up in your work. Think of it as sprinkling pieces of your story across the public-facing presentation of you as an artist.
Find Your First 5 Buyers
Once I have my story hypothesis, step two would be getting creative to find my first five buyers. And that’s easier for art businesses than other types.
Eventually you’ll sell art to strangers. But your first 5 buyers don’t have to be strangers.
Your first 5 buyers are critical because they allow you to build the second hypothesis about your business: your buyer profile. That profile includes details about who they are, why they buy your work, and where they go to find it.
Because you’re looking for people who already value art and already share the values reflected in your work, you can start with friends and family to build that profile. You can’t build a sizable business selling to the people closest to you. But you can build a profile by selling to them and you can use that profile to teach you how to sell to strangers later.
So if I were starting an art business from zero, step two would be selling my work to people I already know. I’d land my first five sales. Then I’d interview them after the sale to learn about them. Why did they buy my art? What did it give them? Where do they go to buy art? What goes into the decision to choose one artist over another?
I’d look for patterns in answers to those questions from my first five buyers. Then I’d use that information to profile what my future buyers will look like.
Use What You Learned
Your first five buyers teach you what’s next. They refine your story hypothesis by telling you which parts of your story resonated most and influenced their purchase. And they help you build a growth plan. They don’t just tell you how to sell your work. They tell you where to go to find other people like them.
That means your initial sales and marketing activities are focused. Instead of hustling, trying to be everywhere at once, you’re only showing up in the places you know your buyers shop for art. And with a message that you know gets them to choose your art.
So if I were starting an art business from zero, the rest of my first 90-days would be experimenting there. Connecting my refined story with my new knowledge about where to take it. Testing it with strangers, iterating again, and learning.
That’s how you go from zero customers to five customers to fifty. And how you build an art business from zero to a meaningful career.
My Advice
If you haven’t done it yet, write down your artist story. This might include three things:
The spark that drew you to printmaking in the first place.
The drive that keeps you creating.
The message you want your work to tell the world.
That story will get everything started for you.
