I spent most of last weekend setting up and manning my jewellery stand at the J'adore jewellery show. It is a lot of work preparing and then showing jewellery at these sort of big events, especially if you are doing it on your own. I really enjoyed it though, and appreciate the productivity that a deadline encourages. The best thing is meeting other jewellers and new and old customers, I definitely like the interaction part of selling, if not totally in my comfort zone with the selling itself! Here are two pieces of advice have really stayed with me regarding selling, they might chime with you if you sell your own art and don't find it a breeze to self promote.
Webb, who I have come to really rate for top notch advice, told me once to concentrate more on telling the story behind my work rather than plain old 'selling' per se, and that really helped shift the sense of flogging my work to explaining it to people which is so much more pleasant and interesting and probably successful! Thanks for that Webb. The other bit of advice was from a designer from Denmark called
Sidsel Dorph-Jensen, who was interviewed by The Design Trust about the subject of how to sell your own work, and she said in order to detach from the overly personal reaction to sales (or failure to sell), it is helpful to approach selling events as your own business detective, on a mission to discover what works or doesn't work for people about your pieces, who your ideal customers are and what they like/where they hang out/what their preferences are in jewellery/social media etc etc. All this makes the dreaded 'sales pitch', into a much more interesting, investigative interaction, and has helped me have a less personal ("why is she just walking past my stuuuuufffff???"), into a useful selling and information gathering opportunity.
I think this is worth remembering because successful selling at these events is partly a straightforward numbers game, laced with a sprinkling of luck! Footfall is all, and the luck part is whether that footfall includes many or few people that will respond warmly to your work above and beyond that on other stands and are ready in their frame of mind and purse to make a purchase on the day. Poor footfall usually means poor sales, and sadly the footfall at J'adore was really disappointing, but I was lucky that my rings hit the spot with enough visitors to make it worth while me attending from a financial point of view. These were the rings that seemed to go down well, little puddles of the lightest green amethyst, in silver dish settings.
One customer chose to stack hers with a few extra silver bands, and it looked great. I am really enjoying creating all sorts of rings with bands that can be stacked and mixed and matched to change the look completely.
I had to use all my powers of restraint not buy from
Anna K Baldwin's stand straight opposite mine - such lovely, tactile, restrained pieces - right up my alley!
The only downside about doing these fairs is how shocking I feel for a few hours afterwards, I seem to come down off the high of the event into a heap of exhaustion and even nausea - anyone else doing fairs get this, doesn't feel very healthy?:/
Anyway, today I took it easy, sorting out a few orders, walking the dog along the river's edge and baking
this toffee apple and pear crumble. It is the perfect autumnal comfort food - warming, fruity, and sweetly aromatic with the addition of a bit of ginger. And here is my killer tip for crumbles - make far too much crumble topping and freeze bagfuls to chuck on top stewed fruit for instant pudding heaven and domestic goddess points aplenty for no extra effort.
Wishing you all a happy week full of autumn comforts!
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