The Mission Paradox Blog

Selling via Multiple Angles

Time for a story.  I hope you see the parallel between this and marketing/selling your art.

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So maybe a year or so ago, I went to a Chicago White Sox baseball game.  I bought the tickets online.

That online ticketing system fed me into a database.

Last week, I got a brochure from the White Sox selling season tickets.

It was a pretty nice brochure.  Because it was pretty nice I didn't throw it away.  Instead I just set in on a table and promptly forgot about it.

Yesterday morning my cell phone rings.  It's a sales rep from the White Sox.  She wants to make sure I have the brochure and answer any questions I have.  She leaves me a direct extension number so I can get to her personally.

Three hours later I checked my email, it was a email from the lady who called me, basically saying what she said on my voice mail.

Six hours later I arrive at home and notice the brochure on the table.  I'm thumbing through it now, remembering the nice experience I had at the game before and now considering buying a season ticket plan.

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Did you see that?

Did you see how the White Sox hit me with multiple impressions.  Brochure, follow up, another follow up?

Did you see how they used a person to make the follow up.  An actual person, with an actual phone number I could call if needed?

Did you see how their season brochure (like your season brochure) wasn't enough to sell me?

Did you see how if they hadn't followed up with me I would have forgotten about them?

Did you notice that I would have forgotten about them . . . despite the fact that I enjoy going to the ball game every once in a while?

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Alright, my point is thus . . .

I'm not the first guy to make this analogy, but marketing is a lot like weightlifting.  Basically the science behind weightlifting is that the first few reps do nothing but tire out your muscles, it's the last few reps you do that cause all the muscle growth to happen.

It's the same thing with marketing.

The first few marketing impressions you do, don't count.

So if all you do (for example) is send a postcard to your audience and don't follow up with plenty of email, blog or other reminders then it's like you never sent that postcard at all.

You have to be prepared to hammer your marketing message into people's heads.  And if you don't have a lot of money to make that happen, then you have to have a lot of effort and a lot of creativity.

But hey, you're in the arts, creativity and effort is something you have a ton of!

Right?

 

 

Finally getting started

At my day job I just finished marketing my fourth show.

It has been a challenge at times but we have had some real good outcomes.

Now I'm finally ready to implement my first major change, a new customer service program that (if it all works as planned) will help to redefine the relationship between the theatre and its patrons.

So you may be thinking, "Adam, you are just getting around to that?  What have you been doing all year?"

The answer is, gaining the status and skills I need to sell the idea of a new customer service program (and it's related costs and infrastructure changes) to the theatre.

Why did I need to take that time?   Seth explains:

"Selling ideas is a fundamentally different business than having ideas."

That's so true it's scary.  Got something else to say Seth?

"If you want to sell ideas to organizations, you need to invest heavily in the skills and status to do that."

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When I start at my day job, I began to laying out my plan to revamp customer service.

Nobody said, "That's a great idea, here's some money, go get started."

And really, why should they have?

Who was I?

Yeah, my title said Director of Marketing, but I hadn't actually achieved anything that would merit the organization making real changes just because I said it was a good idea.

I had to prove myself first, earn people's trust and gain some respect.  That's just how it is.

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Here's how all this relates to you.

As an artist, part of your job is to sell people on your ideas/artistic vision.

But before you try to sell those things, you have to honestly think about whether you have the skills, status and credibility you need to convince people to follow you.

If you don't that doesn't mean your idea is invalid, but it may mean that you need to take the time to built up your own reputation, demonstrate your own skill, etc. before you go pitching your big vision.

If you remember nothing else, remember this . . .

It doesn't matter how good, or "obviously" right, your idea is . . . people need to be convinced.

And a lot of times, when people are saying "I dont believe in your idea" what they are really saying is that they don't believe in YOU!