Question: I won several awards for the quality of my work. However, I have not been able to leverage these into sales. What am I doing wrong?
Answer:
Well, awards and sales are not directly related. Awards make you famous, marketing makes you wealthy. The question is which one are you interested in. Fame or fortune? And no, you can’t have both, at least not at the same time. When students ask me ‘how do I become rich and famous?‘ my standard answer is ‘try getting rich first and see if that does it.‘ In other words, fame isn’t necessary. The problem with artists and photographers is that most believe that fame will lead to sales and fortune. So they do all they can think of to get recognized: awards, connections, kudos, impressive work, constant push for a higher print and image quality and so on. Nothing wrong with that, except that if the goal is to make money, that’s not how you do it. Here’s how it works:
If you improve the quality of your work you will –Drum Roll– make better work.
If you improve the quality of your marketing you will — Drum Roll– make better sales.
Now of course one can say: but getting awards is marketing! Unfortunately, it’s not. Gettting awards is working towards becoming famous, not working towards getting wealthier and making sales. Awards are not marketing.
To be continued with your questions. Just ask in the comments section below
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Alain Briot
