final thoughts

this is the last post on the buyers market classes. overall, i'm very glad i attended the classes and would recommend the classes to any artist looking to become more professional in their art. the classes and the info learned has been running through my head since we returned. there was definitely a discouraging note among the vendors at this show, "worst show ever, no sales",etc...
but again i'm glad i went.
i have also decided to make some drastic changes to my company. for example i raised my prices. i've decided to take my pride in my craft and price my goods in accordance. my goods are all individual and take time, knowledge and talent to make. it will be interesting to see what the response to the price change is. i think the reason i feel like i'm not making any money is because my goods are way under priced. i'm not wal-mart, so my goods should not look or be priced so!
i'm also working on some new designs and new products to add to company....which will be reveled on april 3.
be sure to check back to see whats new

buyers market pt. 2

on the second day of classes we learned about gallery relationships and pricing. both were very informative. i learned ways to get galleries to order from you, good ways to follow up, marketing tools. the pricing class was also great. i learned my prices will most likely change, upward. i learned many other things in this class, but that is definitely the main point that has implanted in my head.
in other news today, check out the visitors that have been chillin' in my backyard all day
(those are moose)
also today i've been working on getting photos taken and hopefully add more to my etsy store in the next few days. my goals are to post items daily- to get more traffic and make some sales!!i'm trying so new photos, just from the eyes up, not the whole face. what do you think?
tomorrow- my final thoughts on the buyers market

home sweet wyoming

last week corey and i visited phili, for the buyers market training classes.
(well, i was taking classes, corey just wondered the city)
ABI works with buyers market and the rosen group to help prepare artist for the jump into wholesale. my classes consisted of gallery relationships, wholesale 101, booth design, pricing, and many group panel discussions.
wholesale 101 and booth layout were both presented by bruce baker. he was a very dynamic and engaging speaker. i definitely got info from his classes which applied to both wholesale and retail.
his class also helped me to determine i'm not ready to move into wholesale yet. i feel i need more time refining my line and also expanding it. one point stressed by more than one speaker was to have a wholesale only line and a retail line, to prevent competition with the galleries. this is something i want to do before i attend a trade show.
the booth design class also had great info for my summer lineup of retail shows, which i just finished applying for. the line up (if excepted) is:
jackson hole art fair, july and august
sun valley
vail
boulder
park city
now i just need to find a way to get a little cash flow so to pay for the booth fees!!!
more on the buyers market tomorrow!!