How to pitch your work

Pitching your work and services shouldn’t have to be hard. The Rising team shares their tips for creating a successful pitch.

With the help of online shops and social media, it’s becoming increasingly easier to boost your revenue as an artist or creative practitioner. In one of our previous blog posts, ‘Are You A Young Artist? Here’s How To Get Noticed’  we share our top tips for positively promoting yourself and your work so that you can make your creative practice sustainable. However, one thing we rarely touch on is pitching – how to pitch your work and services to forge meaningful connections and boost sales. Whether you’ve got work that you want to sell to businesses, hotels or commissioners, pitching is a great skill to ensure that you can secure the bag and get your work out there. Here’s our top tips for making the perfect pitch.

Approach It Like a Creative Project

A common mistake that many artists make around pitching is seeing ‘pitching’ only in the traditional sense – as a skill that is only relevant in business or marketing professions. Because of this, artists often miss opportunities to deliver pitches that are creative and effective that boost their sales. In it’s most basic sense, pitching is about identifying a need and offering a solution. It doesn’t have to be you in a suit with a powerpoint presentation (although it can be).  As long as you have your key selling points included, there is flexibility and creative scope around how you deliver it. Some people may prefer to do it in person, but if speaking is not your thing, try and use visual aids to back-up your pitch – maybe a portfolio or a video. You’re a creative, so be creative. Make your pitch dynamic and personalised to your audience so that you stand out from the competition.

Know What’s Motivating Your Audience

It is important that you know who your audience are and what their motivations for purchasing your work or services are. Do your research. Who are you pitching to? What do they need? What are their problems? What is the best way to reach them? If you’re pitching to a potential client – maybe a design agency, or a commissioner, they’re going to be thinking about why you’re the best person for the job. What is it about your process or your approach that makes you stand out? How will your work perform and be received by their audiences? Whereas, if you’re pitching to a potential customer, who is after a piece for their home renovation, their motivations are likely to be much different and more focused on the design, the colours and the story behind your work. Think about your audience, identify their needs and craft a story that you can share with them, that not only provides a solution, but gives them a bit extra too!

Present Yourself As a Solution

Show your audience that you understand what their problems and needs are and explain how you are the answer. Even if your audience haven’t explicitly shared their needs with you or are even aware of their own needs – use this as an opportunity to demonstrate how you are sensitive and responsive to the needs of the market and those around you. Let’s face it, you’re probably not the only artist who has pitched their work to them, show those on the receiving end of your pitch that what you’re offering is unique and explain how you would add value to their existing business, organisation or personal collection. (N.B – this doesn’t necessarily have to be monetary value, this could be social value – e.g through supporting local business or environmental value due to your sustainable production or packaging methods etc.). Be sure to share testimonials from a few previous customers in your pitch, to not only demonstrate your versatility but also highlight your growing reputation as a talented, and credible artistic practitioner.

Present yourself as a solution!

Anticipate And Answer Key Questions

There may be some hard questions that you may be asked, but be strong and stay prepared. When you’re starting out, it might be difficult to demonstrate your experience or you may not have your portfolio the way you want it but do not let this deter you. When asked questions about pricing show that you can be flexible but firm. Justify your pricing with the cost of materials and your own time. Hard or off-putting questions are a good sign and show that your audience is engaged and interested what you have to offer.

Create an Elevator Pitch – and Memorise it

For those of you are not aware, an elevator pitch may just be one of the most useful pitching tools you will ever come across. It is the ability to sell yourself, you work and/or your services in approximately fifteen seconds. Imagine that you are in an elevator and CEO of an incredibly successful company that you want to work for walks in, you have roughly fifteen seconds to introduce yourself and what you do to them before they exit the elevator on their floor. Sounds intense – but it’s not that bad. Creating a good elevator pitch is incredibly useful for helping you define exactly who you are, what you do,  what you can offer and what your unique selling points are. If you’re stuck on how to make an elevator pitch, Kopy Writing Kourse have a really useful Elevator Pitch builder here. 

Close the deal

Although this seems like a really obvious one, you’ll be surprised how many people will deliver really great pitches and then forget to close the deal or follow up. Once you have delivered your pitch, close the deal – get the audience on your side by asking them what is it about your work that speaks to them. Give them a business card, a link to see your work or even some small sample merch that they can take away with them. Then after a day or so, send them a follow up email expressing that it was great meeting them and getting to chat through your work with them. Reiterate the pricing that you stated in your pitch, with a break down if required and let them know that you’re happy to answer any questions they may have. Make sure your pitch wasn’t in vain, establish a relationship with your audience and let them know that you are available for future projects, work or consultancy if need be.

And that’s it! Good luck – and if you want to practice your new pitch in front of a live audience then come along to one of our free monthly CritChat events.

The next one is Wednesday 27 Feb 2019 from 6-8pm, venue tbc.