I\u2019m always a bit worried by cultural stereotypes, trying to define people by nation or class always seems a bit \u2018them and us\u2019 to me. However, if there was ever a truth about me it\u2019s that I am hopelessly English middle class when it comes to talking about money. I am overcoming this by blog therapy as those of you who read my blogs will have seen. I can be very brave behind a keyboard. This time it\u2019s about discounts and cutting prices.<\/p>\n
I do occasionally get asked to cut my prices by potential clients and this is an interesting one. Thanks to my absolute Englishness about haggling, I get all squirmy. Well, my toes hidden in shoes do: never, ever squirm visibly in front of the client. Below are my thoughts; not just or for those of us who also a) listen, however intermittently, to the Archers and b) like marmite (no really, knife from the jar, like it), but for all who struggle with being upfront about money with clients.<\/p>\n
My best advice here is to think long and hard about this before you get into the situation and make your decisions in advance. Bit like writing \u2018I do not want a rubbish time share apartment in Marbella\u2019 on your hand in indelible ink before going to collect your amazing free gift, this gives you rules to follow which will save you getting flustered on top of the toe squirming.<\/p>\n
My decision is to not give discounts on the whole. My work is priced very fairly for the labour and skill involved and it is priced the same wherever it sells, so that the client never has to worry they are losing out. I would also point out that for every one person who wants \u2018a deal\u2019 there are lots of people, including those who collect, who never have asked for or expected a discount. If those lovely people don\u2019t get a deal, why should a stranger get a better price? What I will do, and to me this is one of the most pleasurable things about being an artist, is to occasionally give away a print. This takes people by surprise and I get to choose who gets one and what sort of print they get.<\/p>\n
Rules, of course, are made to be broken, but I try never to be hassled into breaking mine. I will give a discount of 10% very occasionally for someone buying more than one expensive print if I think there is good reason, taking the loss on the frame and not the print. I also agree to allow galleries a bit of \u2018wiggle\u2019 room as they have to be a judge of when it is prudent to discount work slightly, though not across a sale of work by several artists where the only winner is the gallery.<\/p>\n
My final comment is that the sort of people who hassle you for discounts on the \u2018oh but we love your work and will buy lots more\u2019 card almost never do. If they are an exception to this truth, regrettably there\u2019s another disagreeable truth about them: they will always want a \u2018deal\u2019 on the basis that they are now your \u2018special\u2019 clients.<\/p>\n
This is only my take on discounts. You may embrace a whole other system. The big point here is that you make the rules about your work and you\u2019re allowed to do that. It may mean ignoring every fibre in your cultural soul, but firmness about pricing is best.<\/p>\n
(Remember you can always have a nice hot cup of tea to soothe your nerves after they\u2019ve gone)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Being hard nosed about prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,51,58,32,33,35,50,34],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-genres","tag-money","tag-pricing-work","tag-print","tag-printmaking","tag-selling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}