9/13/2014

You Sell Yourself!

Many years ago (somewhere when I was working at ABC - American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. back in the 1970's) - when I was first creating my photography business (it all was starting in my mind back then) I began asking any and all of the salespeople that I could find - get a hold of or grab off the streets of Manhattan or wherever I had to be -

what is the secret to selling?

Time after time - no matter who it was that I asked and no matter what business they were in that they were a salesperson for the answer came back to precisely - exactly and always without change - the same exact three words -

You Sell Yourself!

After many many many many hours of thinking about these three words placed in that one unforgettable statement it hit me that after many years of thinking about what image I might place on a picture business card (I actually came from an era where plain words printed on a white card was the standard accepted business card) I made the bold choice to create a "Self Portrait" - (perhaps now one of the most widely personally distributed "selfies" in the world - and go for it - printing an entire batch of the minimum at the time of 3,000 full color business cards with my "Self Portrait" picture on the entire one side of a 2 1/4" X 3 1/2" picture business card which I immediately (but admittedly shyly) began one at a time to hand out in the streets of New York (Manhattan mostly) and to date I have now given out over 3.8 million of these business cards and I am certainly never ever ever going to stop doing this -

because do you know what?

these business cards are not only my main source of contacting and obtaining people who are interested in my work and who call me for what they want - when they wanted no matter how much time has passed from when I first gave them the card to that first point in time when they do call -

but these business cards with my "Self Portrait" on them - literally expressing those three words that I heard so many great sales people pass on to me when I asked the question of what is the secret to selling -

but each and every one of those cards - now sometimes post cards as well - and whatever sites that have this image on them now - each one is one of my salespeople doing what it use that they are supposed to be doing for me -

Selling me to everyone that see them!

So now I would like to take a moment to remember each and every one of those individuals who shared this knowledge powerfully packed in that most short - concise and unchanging statement with its greatest of all knowledge - to thank them from the bottom of my heart with the greatest of intensity and to pass on this greatest of all sales secrets to you right now -

You Sell Yourself!

take that and run with it for the rest of your life - no matter what job - work - business - position - non-profit - anything and everything that you are doing in life - apply this to whatever it is that you are doing in life - and you will never go wrong - you will never ever be without work -

just remember -

You Sell Yourself!

thank you!

Walter

Grand Guiding Force

                                                   

                          5-2-2011BABCDEFGHIJ

But then some Divine Guiding Force puts it on a Path

Human Folly

                                4-25-2011FABCDE


And it is a queer human folly that drives us on this way

Discussions about the Future in the Art World and in General

no matter what is said here or elsewhere in real life of virtual life here on LinkedIn or Facebook or twitter - nothing dictates what will be done by artists or the general public in the future and nothing can -

and what I mean by that is that no matter how much the artists of yesteryear bashed the photographer and what they were doing when they called the work - art - nothing changed the course of history actually incorporating photography into the world of art - and nothing will dictate what will be accepted art eventually in the future - 

my point is specifically that there will be surprising developments and experiments and people pushing boundaries all in the name of art and the concept of art will continue to expand -no matter what a purist wishes to happen to preserve the concept of this high art and that low art - 

writing with words is an art - and this is definitely a good arena to develop that art - "

Marketing - still nothing compares in power and value to my "Doubling Project" of handing out my Business Cards In the streets of Manhattan -

I did see an e-mail promotion which showed the results of a study that face to face is the most effective marketing still no matter what - even more effective than the e-mail marketing that they were promoting - so how could anyone go wrong until they try and make a success at what I am talking about - it is not easy - by no means - and although it sounds like - well a piece of cake for me to do - in the beginning I was - believe it or not - really really really shy - and although I had photographed people who had become famous and were in the acting and modeling profession - it was a totally different thing to go ahead - make such a business card back then (1992 was the start) go out in the streets of Manhattan and begin handing out those cards - and do you know what - in some ways it is still not easy and it takes me in a sense to pretty much force myself to do it - sort of like creates this over aggressiveness - but the things that I have learned - the people I have met - the connections that have come and the jobs that I have gotten - well they are all worth it - every last 1.2 cent card that I have handed out - in fact even people who have thrown the card right in the street have helped - since in one specific case another person picked up the card and hired me to photograph his son playing the viola - 

and then there was the lady who saw the card that was left on the edge of a public garbage container at Rockefeller Center - came running after me to ask me if I did weddings and who eventually hired me for her wedding - - and she was living in California at the time - just visiting her fiancé and well she was one of the body guards for the governor or California at the time - 

believe me - there is no other way that I could have possibly every connected with the people that I have connected with so I am sorry -but to me this is still the most powerful - effective and by far the most cost effective means of marketing anything - and I am still in business since 1976 to prove that - 

and in addition - in relation to my art images - the last count on my images in my galleries - when the counter was still available shows that I had received a total of over 10 million image views with sometimes over 36,000 image views in one single day - and that occurred on numerous days - 

A Story About the Coming Future of Art

now Anthony - I am wondering if you have that same exclamation when you hear of the latest and the greatest prices that some of the current auctions are giving up for the works that are coming to block -(or however it is referred to) :

http://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-world-report-card-thursday-may-15-2014-20195?utm_campaign=artnetnews&utm_source=051514daily&utm_medium=email

from one perspective I can certainly understand your response - like who does he think he is - (and I would like to mention Richard that I am not sure what are these reproductions of and what do the hand embellishments look like - two very important points) but from the perspective of the future (and this goes for all artists living today creating substantial bodies of work both in volume and in quality) there is something that I would like to address -

and that is -

each artist has a virtual monopoly on the pieces that they create given to them by the fact that they each own all of the copyrights to the work that they create -

great - now do we understand that part?

that means that I can - if I so choose to - create as many or as little in number of copies of that original as I so choose and charge whatever I want for that copy - *(this is moving into a commercial realm which is the way things have to go --- in this world to make any sense of this) - but whether I made only one of something or ten or one hundred or thousands or millions or even perhaps billions - there will most likely (this part is a little speculative) be someway for the folks of the future (FOF) to find some way right or wrong - to capitalize on what you - I all of is have created - (people keep getting smarter and smarter - this we know for a fact) plus new and better tools continue to be created to do one thing or other)

anyway - the person who intelligently (somewhere else on LinkedIn I posted a video about creating a theory of the brain where the intelligence of mankind is defined as being able to predict the future - keep that in your mind for future reference) looks at the past creators of art - and how much most of them were compensated for the works that they produced that are at the same time commanding millions of dollars at auction (this might very well be including Van Gogh as well) and say - is there a way for me to even gain a fraction of this grand scheme of bolstered worth while I am still here on this earth and scrambling around to pay the credit card bills and the debts that I have?

now enter the fact that there are a few folks with a few billions to splash or drop or throw or seep over towards his or her corner and well he makes a deal with them - in some very legal fashion - for them to take all of his current and future work off his hands for a modest sum and perhaps a few dollars flowing in constantly so that he or she does not have to concern themselves with how much a stick of butter costs or can I afford a drink of Coca Cola and so that no he or she can continue on creating and well not feel that they are being ripped off by the good FOF (folks of the future) when they do eventually figure out a way to capitalize and capitalize big on the work that is now being created with very meager means - 

now don't you think my fellow friends - that this type of story is a much better one for us to live with than the current - how can I possibly get some person to purchase one or two pieces at high enough prices so that I can live and sleep and well not wear too many rags out in the world? 

Antony - how true is what I am rambling on about here?