How to Get What You Deserve

As blog consultants job is as much about listening as it is advising. A complaint people often grumble about is why do some people find it easy to get exposure, while other people have far better work but get overlooked.

It’s the same in all walks of life.

Some people naturally attract attention, even when there are seemingly more deserving recipients.

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about art, blogs or careers.

My Dad and I will most weeks find ourselves stood outside shops with the bags waiting while my Mum and wife go into each shop. At a certain mall there is an “art” stand. Dad has the same conversation each time …

“Look, that’s another one of those awful pictures sold. You can’t tell me that is art.”

“They obviously like it, Dad.”

“It doesn’t even look like anything, it’s just some lines squiggled onto canvas.”

To compound matters for him, at his favorite framers at another location, other, in his opinion, more deserving pictures get overlooked.

Lesson 1: Give people what they want not what you want them to buy

My Dad is of the old school where pictures should look like something familiar, abstract leaves him cold. He doesn’t understand that people today might like to have squiggles on their wall, particularly if it matches their decor scheme, much more than some sheep grazing in a field.

The misunderstanding is that everyone has the same concept of art (they don’t) or that there is somehow a necessity for a painting to be bought as art (it doesn’t).

Mall Guy is selling squiggles in the hundreds because he worked out what people wanted and gave it to them. He doesn’t care if they light their fires with it or use it to line the cat litter tray. Art doesn’t really enter into the equation.

If you are precious about your work, and won’t bend even a little to please others, don’t be disappointed if there is only you that likes it.

Lesson 2: Be where people are buying

Mall Guy has another advantage over Mr Frame Maker. As the name suggests, Mall Guy is smack in the path of hundreds of shoppers daily. Let me just emphasize this; Hundreds of Shoppers.

Mr Frame Maker is out in the middle of nowhere at a heritage center that has been built out of a converted mill. During the week the only people to visit are 9 year old kids on field trips and the elderly tea dance ladies. Not prime art-buying market. At weekends the place is overrun with dog shows, steam train enthusiast events and other such events. Again, not people beating a path to the artists door. Should anyone venture into the frame making shop it will likely be to kill some time. I imagine the only way he makes his rent is through his Yellow Pages ad and mail order.

You might have the most wonderful work in the world, but if nobody knows about it, and you don’t present it precisely when they are in the mood to buy, then don’t be surprised when your prospects beat a path to some other persons door and not yours.

Summary

While I talk here about art, it counts for everything you do.

You can either stick to your principles, your fixed idea of what people should think, want, behave, need. Or you can find out what people want, how they want it and how to reach them, and follow those learnings.

Either way, you will get what you deserve, just not necessarily what you want.