Guarding against Random Acts of Buying

Think about this…what’s the best way to insure against ran­dom acts of buy­ing? It hap­pens when you set up shop and wait for some­one to come strolling up to fon­dle your stuff and maybe even buy some­thing.  That is a ran­dom act of buying.…

Here’s a hint…

Don’t aim for one time sales! Go long, go for repeat sales get that buyer to so fall in love with you and your stuff that they trip all over them­selves to get their next dose of you. But wait…you aren’t a used car sales dirt­bag, you sell your own hand made stuff. So how do get a steady stream of repeat buy­ers with­out feel­ing like a dirtbag?

There are two things to learn here and they are related…

• one is about HOGs
• the other is about Karma.

Sooo… let’s go back to the ‘80s. Dur­ing that time Harley David­son was hav­ing prob­lems in fact their prob­lems were threat­en­ing their very exis­tence, as in there would be no Sons of Anar­chy today, if they hadn’t done something.

Among the things Harley-Davidson did, besides some rev­o­lu­tion­ary ways of involv­ing work­ers, was to  take a risk. Which iron­i­cally helped them re-invent their image. Because they had no money for adver­tis­ing, they were forced to try some­thing dif­fer­ent and that some­thing was all about community.

A gazil­lion dis­ci­ples and growing

They cre­ated char­tered clubs, and in the process planted the seeds of loy­alty that sprouted into Harley Owner Groups (HOGs). By cre­at­ing all sorts of para­pher­na­lia and other iden­ti­fy­ing doo­dads Harley turned their own­ers into disciples.

All those things with the Harley-Davidson name on them were not only adver­tis­ing they were also badges sig­ni­fy­ing that the wearer was an offi­cial HOG. All HOGs could rec­og­nize each other and the rest of the world could see them as dif­fer­ent and exclu­sive. In the blink of an eye a com­mu­nity was born, one that was eas­ily rec­og­niz­able, made up of peo­ple who reflected an image of tough inde­pen­dent rebel­lious bird flip­ping attitude.

It didn’t take long before doc­tors, lawyers and school teach­ers began sneak­ing out in their “cuts” (the leather vests with the club name on the back) to go hang out with each other and releas­ing their inner James Dean.

Soon…anybody who could plunk down the cash for a bike  could don their patch laden cuts and roar down the road with­out fear… hap­pily leav­ing the cube farm behind.

What goes around comes around

So… You ask, what the f&%k does this have to do with Karma? Well, Harley took care of its fans, they didn’t worry about whether it was the right thing to do, they couldn’t . And, they didn’t do it in a way that made their fans want to take an all day hot shower, either. They did it know­ing that, by build­ing a com­mu­nity,  and giv­ing to that com­mu­nity their efforts and invest­ment would come back a bazil­lion fold.

See…that’s where Karma comes in.

If you’re sit­ting in a field eat­ing worms because nobody likes your stuff maybe you need to take a les­son in Harley-Davidson’s ver­sion of Karma. Once a HOG always a HOG! HOG char­ters are fam­i­lies, they take care of each other and they go beyond loy­alty to Harley-Davidson for bring­ing them together.

How can you cre­ate your own HOG? By not being a Mid­west­ern tight wad about giv­ing, and instead real­ize that every­thing you give, is an invest­ment. Does that mean you have to give your stuff away? Not on your life! Harley didn’t give stuff away, in fact, they charged for the priv­i­lege of  being one of their evan­ge­lists. When they did give out SWAG they saw a major return that dwarfed the small change they shelled out for t-shirts and base­ball caps.

Pay it for­ward with good Karma

Cre­ate good Karma by hav­ing ways your buy­ers can proudly claim them­selves own­ers of your stuff. This is where those ben­e­fit exer­cises, we did a while back, help. If you solidly know the ben­e­fit of own­ing one of your mas­ter­pieces, it won’t be hard to find peo­ple who will want to col­lect more. And they would be all to happy to  have the honor of drink­ing their cof­fee from one of your mugs and telling their friends how much bet­ter their cof­fee tastes from  your mug.

Find what it is that would really make your buy­ers remem­ber you, be the pur­ple cow at the art fair or the gallery show. Have, a pre-show cof­fee, let your buy­ers min­gle and get to know each other while you set up…they won’t mind! Have cof­fee mugs with copies of your mas­ter­pieces on them and give them  out free to the first (pick a num­ber) folks who show up, and charge for all the oth­ers. While you’re at it,  make them col­lectible, you might be sur­prised at the result.

That lit­tle invest­ment is about both good Karma and build­ing a com­mu­nity of folks who would love an excuse to brag about you.

Send them your exclu­sive, elite, only for the cho­sen, mem­ber­ship newslet­ter which hap­pens to fea­ture other mem­bers as well. If you really want to give them a place to feel spe­cial,  set up an on-line forum, a place were they can chat amongst them­selves and brag about how much of your stuff they have.

So…sit down and start brain­storm­ing. What can you do that will bring those folks back time after time, brag­gin about own­ing your work to the string of friends hap­pily fol­low­ing behind?

A cou­ple of last things…

Remem­ber,

you are doing poten­tial buy­ers a favor by mak­ing it easy and fun to own your stuff and in the process they get to feel spe­cial. They know you care about them, because of who you are so they return the favor by buy­ing your stuff, get­ting their friends and their friend friends to also join in. They want you to be able to hap­pily sit in your stu­dio whistling away as you make more and more of your won­der­ful mas­ter­pieces for them to enjoy.

Remem­ber,

while your art teach­ers ranted about the sin of com­mer­cial­ism they had salaries or fat grants that kept them in their stu­dio to say noth­ing of a roof over their heads.

Remem­ber,

just because you make stuff to sell doesn’t mean you wreak of slime! Instead think of it as know­ing  how to dis­pense good Karma which will help raise the expec­ta­tions of every­one else out to enhance their lives with cool hand­made stuff bought from a human,  and made with love and care.

Take a les­son from Harley and form your own “owner group” and in the process thumb your nose at that art teacher…you have some­thing she doesn’t have: a liv­ing from your art.