Marketability
And in short, according to a variety of cases, I can contrive
various and endless means of offense and defense. . . . In time of
peace I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal
of any other in architecture and the composition of buildings,
public and private; and in guiding water from one place
to another. . . . I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay,
and also I can do in painting whatever may be done,
as well as any other, be he whom he may.
—Leonardo da Vinci (from a résumé he sent to the Duke of Milan)
I love this quote. We all share a huge admiration for the great Leonardo da Vinci, partly because his work resonates so well with each one of us individually, and partly because his work is so universal. He appeals to our sense of beauty, and he challenges our highest aspirations. He is the epitome of the artist/engineer, two worlds coming together. He is the operational definition of the Renaissance Man. He is right brain and left brain working together to explain and expand our consciousness. To many of us, he is the ideal intersection of design and technology, so far ahead of his time that he helps to define our own.
It is unimaginable to think of him having to explain himself and his work, let alone conceive of him sending a curriculum vitae to the Duke of Milan in order to get a job. But the truth of the matter is that all of us, no matter how brilliant or ahead of our times, have to effectively market ourselves if we want to keep doing what we want to do. It’s a fact of life now, as it was in da Vinci’s time. Leonardo was not only a genius at creating great works of art and visionary technologies; he was able to put together one heck of a résumé letter. Let’s take a closer look at the composition of the letter.
First of all, he understood what was relevant to his potential benefactor. He did his homework and discerned that power and the display of that power were the things the Duke sought most dearly. Regardless of what Leonardo thought about his own talents, he fashioned a letter that appealed to the Duke’s self-perception. “I can contrive various and endless means of offense and defense” was a great way to get the attention of a man with a powerful military force at the crossroads of the known world. If Leonardo could gain access to the Duke’s military budget by creating not merely the latest but “various and endless” contraptions of war, he could tap into a great reservoir of wealth.
Next, Leonardo introduced the idea that he could also create architecture in time of peace, thereby ensuring the Duke’s legacy of financing great edifices of lasting importance—buildings, bridges, and aqueducts that would stand as memorials to his generosity for generations to come.
But Leonardo didn’t stop there. He moved on to the most basic of motivators, the Duke’s ego, by proposing that, if hired, he could sculpt glorious statues, which (“Can ya see it now?”) would powerfully grace the piazzas in front of the magnificent buildings, a testimony to the Duke’s mighty and benevolent nature.
And, almost as an afterthought, Leonardo pitches in that last casual line, as if to say, “Oh, by the way, Duke, old boy, I can also paint as well as any other painter.” It is added as a little portion of humility just to temper the tone of the letter. It speaks to Leonardo’s willingness to be a principal participant in the Duke’s plans; he is selfassured but not arrogant, and he understands the expectations of his potential patron.
It is a beautifully engineered piece of prose, and one which I use in my classes to point out that it doesn’t matter how talented you are, you still have to let people know about your work to have it become known and ultimately accepted. We all have to promote ourselves. We cannot wait around to be discovered. We have to allow others the opportunity to think they discovered us—even if your name is Leonardo da Vinci.
The Conventional Approach to Promotion
What is the best way to go about the process of marketing ourselves and our work? This is probably one of the questions I am asked most frequently by artists who are eager to uplift their careers. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, many of those artists learned—or rather acquired—a method for promoting themselves that has proven to be more detrimental than helpful to expanding their opportunities. For the sake of discussion, let’s call this method the “conventional” promotion approach.
It involves the artist doing an extensive review of what is currently referred to as the style of the day, the thing that is currently in and apparently selling. This could be some technologically driven method, an approach to color (remember infrared, and cross-processing?), or even a mood (how about the vacant stare of disenchanted youth as a favorite subject matter?). Each style starts out as innovative—somebody took a chance—and is eventually embraced as the “new thing,” until it inevitably becomes ubiquitous, cliché, and saturates the visual marketplace. A friend and fellow instructor of mine, creative director Mel Sant, recently said, “Just think of it. It wasn’t that long ago that we were all smudging Polaroids.”
Once photographers adopt that style, they then save up their money, or mortgage all they have to buy the largest mailing list known to mankind, along with a massive amount of stamps and envelopes, and eventually they send out examples of their “new” work to anyone with an address. The hope is for a possible shooting assignment to come from this expensive and labor-intensive mass-marketing approach. Then, finally, the photographers sit and wait by the phone for that special someone to call. And, they sit, and they sit, and sit.
The “Passion First” Marketing Approach
Now contrast that method with what I believe to be at the heart and soul of marketing as it applies to creative entrepreneurs. I call it the “Passion First” marketing approach. The first thing you have to remember is that the conventional marketing approach may be relevant for generic consumer commodities like toothpaste and laundry detergent, but it is hardly appropriate for products which are the manifestations of a unique and personal vision. What makes your vision one that clients want is its individuality, its ability to call attention to itself, to cause a potential customer to take notice of it and ultimately consider buying the product. First and foremost, your “Passion First” marketing approach must express your one-of-a-kind passion, your personal vision, your singular interpretation and execution, not your ability to replicate.
Here’s Step One. We start by asking the fundamental question, “What do you LOVE to shoot?” I don’t mean, what do you like to shoot, I mean LOVE to shoot. For example, when you wake up in the morning, and you say, “Today is a great day because today I get to shoot __________!” What is it that you fill in the blank with? (We will get more deeply into this later on.) That’s what I am talking about. By fantasizing that you don’t have anything holding you back, what would be the greatest possible shooting day you could imagine? If you are having a hard time imagining it, close your eyes and visualize yourself waking up tomorrow morning and asking yourself that question. That is where our process begins. As always it starts with passion. Once you have defined that thing that is uniquely motivating to you, passion opens the door for you. And it does not have to be one thing; that would lead to “pigeon holing,” a horrible condition. You can have several things you are passionate about, but you must focus on one thing at a time. By focusing, you can identify your potential clientele much more easily.
Step Two is “Who NEEDS what I LOVE to shoot?” This is an important step because it begins the process of identifying those who share your passion. If they share your passion, it will be easier to get their attention and hold it until the right job comes along. There are so many things that have to come together at the right time for you to be picked. Why not make it easy on yourself and your potential client to see each other as mutually beneficial?
Narrowing the Field
Step Three is “What is the SMALLEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE who NEED what I LOVE to shoot?” You may be asking, the smallest? Why the smallest? The answer is that in the creative arts, you are dealing with a unique set of circumstances: 1) you have to penetrate the market where your work will be best received; 2) establish yourself in that market; and 3) have your name passed around as an important part of that market’s needs, i.e. word-of-mouth advertising. Then, as you build on your reputation, you will be asked to do more extensive work by people who trust you and can recommend you to other potential clients. While everyone else is looking to make an immediate big splash in an already oversaturated marketplace, you are steadily building your reputation, giving yourself a solid foundation reinforced by your ability to perform. That builds staying power. That builds a circle of like-minded individuals who believe in you. That builds a career.
The beauty of this three-step approach is that it is simple, it is elegant, and, best of all, it works. I have seen very talented people who did not enjoy or want to deal with the complexities of marketing fall by the wayside and go on to other fields. It was tragic to see, but they felt that the marketplace was a place they did not feel comfortable in, and they did not want to compete in it. I have found others who did not like it but were fortunate enough to find someone they trusted and who shared their passion and could deal with it in their place. And then there are the artists who love the competition and the thrill of making it all come together. Like it or not, the marketplace is something you have to deal with. You always have to promote yourself and your work. And you have to do it all the time. In short, as a client once said, “Life’s a pitch.”
One thing you will see in this book is that the professionals I spoke with all approached the issues of marketing in their own unique way. Some hate it, some love it, some put up with it, many feel they don’t do enough, or aren’t very good at it—but they have all dealt with it in their own way.
Ryszard Horowitz reinforced this when he said, “On marketing, I believe in PR. I don’t believe that you should kill yourself for it, but it’s important to get your work out. I have been lucky, having lots and lots of my work published. In the past I paid for it, I bought advertising here and there, but again if somebody asked me what works, I say I don’t know. It adds up; it’s accumulative. You can buy yourself into particular situations but it is never long lasting.”
Nowadays, among other media, a Web site is a necessity. A veteran like Jay Maisel realizes the importance of getting the word out. “It doesn’t matter how well known you are or what you have to literally sell something, you have to go out and sell it. So, I am trying the Internet.”
Generally speaking, I advise my clients to specialize, especially those who are looking to reinvigorate their careers. That way, they will be seen as the artist that can provide a specific solution and get hired for an assignment. Once they get in the door with a client, they can expand on that specialty and prove that they can do more. If you start out as a generalist, it is harder to separate yourself from the crowd.
Eric Meola had a different approach to this topic. He had this to say: “I used to send out a lot of self promotion. I still believe in that very much, but now I send out a few very specific pieces to fewer people. I’ve never specialized in one area of photography—I like portraiture as much as I like landscapes. Everyone says you have to specialize, to find a niche; to me that’s the best way to limit your exposure to clients, to cut out 90 percent of your market. A lot of projects involve many different areas of photography, but essentially people come to you for your way of looking at things, and that’s what I always tried to deliver.” Eric has proved that he is able to shoot anything over a period of many years. Perhaps that, along with his strong classic imagery, are his niche in the marketplace.
Photographers need to find the promotion medium that best matches their interest, and then use that medium as a mechanism to promote their work. Barbara Bordnick had this insight to share when I asked how she marketed herself, and how her methods of promotion have changed: “It’s always been according to what I’ve been doing. Most of my promotion has come from editorial work. I have spent way too much money on sourcebooks and mailers, and the best advertising is editorial work or publishing books.”
Whereas Barbara utilizes editorial and book publishing, Bob Krist uses other traditional routes. “We do the old-fashioned things. We do a lot of direct-mail postcards. We do calendars every year. At this point, when you’ve been in business for about twenty-five years, with stock and stuff, we’re not doing so much outreach to new business as much as maintaining the old business. Enough new business comes along that we seem to be doing okay.”
One challenge to always having an ad in the sourcebooks and then suddenly not running ads at all is that some clients might think you have left the business altogether. Obviously this is detrimental in an industry where staying power is paramount. If you do decide to run an ad in one of those hefty books, make sure your work stands out from the rest. Art directors are always telling me that the books have a disturbing sameness to them, which seems to indicate that no one is doing anything innovative and daring. Of course, that is a double-edged sword, because the clients of those art directors may not allow them to use any innovative and daring work in their ads anyway.
Eric Meola: Fire Eater
Eric Meola: Promised Land
Another double-edged sword is the fact that the new technologies we employ to promote ourselves may be expedient and efficient, but they remove the human element. Ken Merfeld agreed and had this to say when I asked how he marketed himself: “Promo pieces, e-mails, and Web site referral. I think promotion methods are changing, or have changed. I think we are into the electronic world, and a few years ago I don’t think people had the time or the desire to look at a Web site or a CD that you would send them. And I still think there are a lot of people who would rather have something in their hand to look at or to show to people. But it seems more and more people ask you ‘Where’s your Web site?’ or ‘Can I look at your Web site?’ So I think the biggest change in marketing these days is to embrace the electronic way of sending images around.”
This aspect on Step Three of the “Passion First” marketing approach—What is the smallest number of customers I can have and still run a viable business?—is especially important for those who choose to be fine-art photographers. Ryszard Horowitz has managed to carve out a special place for himself and he shared this: “I found out that I was always the best source to get work. I am the last person really to suggest what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve been asked to participate in endless seminars about how to advertise, how to promote, what’s good, what’s bad. A lot of people give you formulas that work for them, and I never found any understanding of what makes things tick. I opened my studio in 1967, and I still don’t know anything about it.” [He chuckles.]
I countered with, “Well you must be doing something right. I mean how do people see your work? Do you show in galleries?”
Ryszard explained, “For the last number of years, I have been traveling all over the world. I’ve been exhibiting. My work hangs in many great museums throughout the world, virtually every place except in the States. I never had any museum work here, because you have this schism—advertising versus fine art.”
Jerry Uelsmann has long been recognized and respected by the fine-art photography world, and this was his contribution on the topic of marketing as it applied to his work: “At this point in my life, I’ve had enough publications and museum exhibits and things like that, and I have a profile so that people will occasionally track me down. But I still have galleries: I have a gallery in New York, and New Orleans, and Carmel, and Denver. As long as I have several galleries selling one or two prints a year, that’s helpful.”
I do not normally move in the fine-art photography world, so I decided to ask gallery owner David Fahey for his inside views on marketing:
One Marketing Goal: Many Ways to Achieve it
Again, there is no “one size fits all” answer to the question of how you market yourself and your work. What works for one person may be a waste of time and money to another. But there are some principals that you can employ that will help you to stay focused on your target market, and those principals must be passion driven. It all comes down to what do you truly love to create, who needs that type of work, and how do you get your work in front of the people who need what you love to do? The process is simple; the execution has to be uniquely yours.
Now more and more of the art directors and art buyers I talk to are relying on e-mail with hyperlinks to Web sites that have thumbnails of an artist’s work. Sure, they may see something they like on your mailer, but they may be wondering what else you are capable of doing. If you are fortunate enough to get a hold of an approved e-mail list, make sure you are respectful of the recipients and make your introduction short and to the point. Include one embedded image that you feel best shows your talent, and have a link to your Web page where you can have separate headings for the various types of work you shoot. This will give you the chance to show the commercial side of your work, as well as the fine art, or conceptual, or personal, or whatever other sides you wish to show.
Once your presentation is together, and your promotional materials are sent, and your Web site is up and running and full of current photographs that show the dimensions of your work, and you have your best smile on, then you are ready to take your show on the road. But how do you get started with your next career opportunity? What are some recommendations on getting in the door? In the next chapter we will take a look at making the connections that lead to new job opportunities that will enhance your new career choice.
