One of the biggest strategies I would recommend to artists, or anyone, for success, is to underpromise and overdeliver. This is a strategy I adopted long ago, and it has never failed me. I firmly believe the reason I sometimes have success is because I go out of my way to ensure people don't just have a good experience, but a better than expected experience. That all starts with setting reasonable expectations, and then exceeding them.
This past week I had a substantial order from a business that could lead to more business, and that gave me an opportunity to put my strategy to action once again. Here are a few things I do and did.
I price my work based off of value, and I determine my value. I don't typically move a lot of volume, nor do I care to. I prefer quality over quantity. I provide people with a luxury product and experience. The way I price my art allows me a little wiggle room to negotiate or discount for sets when appropriate, giving me an opportunity to potentially satisfy customer requests, because almost everyone wants or asks for a discount. It's a fact of life.
Tied to the first thing, my price often factors in professional crating, shipping, and insurance domestically, sometimes even internationally. Shipping costs are something that can often kill an order. If my price doesn't include crating and shipping, I get a quote or estimate on the high side so that it always comes in under budget.
I pad my lead times for things like commissions and shipping. If I anticipate it will take one week realistically, I tell them three. For that business order this past week, I told them it could take two to three weeks for professional crating and shipping because I use a third party art handler and there are always variables. The package arrived in a week.
I include personalized thank you notes to show my appreciation.
I often include an extra gift or two in my packages. It could be stickers, a gift pack, maybe even a tiny extra piece on a large order or investment.
A philosophy and policy of underpromising and overdelivering will ensure that your customers leave good reviews, spread the word about you, and that they come back again and again. In a world where most fight to do the bare minimum, do a little extra. Go above and beyond. You'll be amazed how high it can take you. It's also so much easier to grow relationships than build new ones, but that's a topic for another day.
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About a week ago I shared some artist tips about underpromising and overdelivering after shipping out an order to a business and a couple collectors. This week, one of those first time collectors came back around and bough not one, not two, but three more paintings! They were not expecting to be back this soon and were not expecting to invest as much as they did either time, but here we are. They even ended up leaving me an extra tip on top of all of that! This is what happens when you really take care of people and go above and beyond to create a memorable experience. Take care of your collectors, and they will take care of you ❤️