Renee Vernon and Roe Anne White of the Santa Barbara salon.
 

You may receive these benefits from your Art Biz Connection salon:

Build your confidence with the emotional support of other artists and the challenge to do better work.

Hear about opportunities you never knew existed.

Find out about new art products being introduced into the market. 

Be supported in developing a complete marketing plan.

Build artist friendships that last a lifetime. 

Make contacts that lead to the next step on your career path. Connections are everything!

How It Works

All art marketing material is provided free of charge to the community salons. By using it, you agree that you will never charge anyone a fee for participating in your group. Any difficulties or questions about accessing materials should be handled by the salon leader.

There are nine salon meetings—one every other week.

Step 1:

Recruit a group of artists committed to selling their work, focusing on attaining goals, and helping each other. There should be a minimum of three in each salon (group)--each person committed to the 9 sessions and the success of the other members.

• Who should be in my salon?

• How can I recruit members for my salon?

• What can group members expect?

Step 2:

Hold your organizational meeting. Make sure everyone understands their commitment to the salon and to each other. Select a group leader (usually the organizer).

• Qualities and responsibilities of a group leader

• Handy-dandy signup sheet for members and addresses (PDF file)

Step 3:

Set up all nine meetings on your calendars. Meet every other week for the first eight sessions, and then a month later for the ninth session. This is important to do at the very beginning so that people can plan far in advance. The sessions are as follows:

1: Introduction
2: Set and Attain Goals
3: Define Your Art
4: Differentiate Yourself from Your Competition
5: Describe Your Collectors
6: Assess and Improve Your Exhibition and Sales Opportunities
7: Promote Yourself and Your Work
8: Create Good Habits
9: Follow Up

Step 4:

Members of the Oklahoma City salon, from left to right: Glenda Mullins, Pat Pearson, Ashley Desmond, Karoll Kyle-Folker

Register your salon (group). All members must register, with the leader registering through a separate link. 

• Leaders, register your salon here (please have all the required information)

• Group members, register here when you're ready to begin.

Step 5:

Download materials. All materials are provided as both PDF and Microsoft Word files. Please note that we cannot provide technical support for these free materials. If you have difficulties, please contact your group leader.  

• 

  Materials to download (you will be given a password after you register)

• Consider getting the book to enhance your marketing plans. Alyson's book I'd Rather Be in the Studio! The Artist's No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion is full of ideas that can help you complete your marketing plans. Order 5 and get a 6th one free for your salon members. Request coupon for this offer.

Step 6:

Attend meetings as promised, support each other and prosper.

• What will a typical meeting be like?

• Legal notice

Step 7:

Let me help you get free publicity! This is a great story for any media outlet! You'll find loads of information in the online media kit, but you should spiff it up with photos of yourself and your group. Here is a template as a Word document, to which you can add your own quotes. Feel free to alter in any way or make up your own. <Fill in the blanks look like this in both documents.> I suggest you send it via email, but only plain text and do not attach anything to your file. It is best if you can address the recipient by name. The more personal you make it, the better it will be. I very much appreciate your acknowledgement of Alyson B. Stanfield and ArtBizCoach.com for providing these free materials.

• Press Release (Word document - download and customize)

• Pitch letter (Word document - download and use to write your own)

Step 8:

Send me your group photo. I would love to add a photo of your group to this site or the Art Biz Blog. Email it to me at about 72-100 dpi or smaller than 300 x 400 pixels.