Your Business Lesson -- Turn a Charity request into a sale, link to Maria Brophy post

This post is a link to advice we all need! Another artist posted this link .. and I'm cross posting here because these are great tips on how to handle inquiries for free/donated art.

I'm all for charity .. and if there are situations where artists want to donate their work, that's great. However, too often artists are asked to donate, but don't realize there are good options to handle these inquiries that can result in actual sales .. not just that over-rated promise of "great publicity."

Artists have bills to pay ... families to feed ... other job deadlines to meet ... and "great publicity" doesn't cut it when it comes to those responsibilities.

Before you donate any art .. make sure you understand the VALUE in your kindness. We all need deposits in the karma bank.... but cash flow helps with that process too.

This link is from the website "Maria Brophy -- Art Business Consultant."
Here's a photo of Maria from the website..

As mentioned above, I only know about Maria Brophy via a cross-post from an artist. However, the website and posts impressed me enough to add here to a list of resources.

If anyone has dealt with her directly and has some feedback, please note in the comments to this post.

I love the idea that there are places like this on the web for artists to learn inter-personal business skills. The scripts Maria proposes help empower artists.. and just as importantly.. help EDUCATE future clients.

Artists -- your time and talent is your livelihood. Respect it and protect it.

Maria's post from June 14, 2015 is titled:

How to Turn a Charity Request for Free Art into a PAID SALE

Read the full post here:
http://mariabrophy.com/business-of-art/how-to-turn-a-charity-request-for-free-art-into-a-paid-sale.html

Here's an excerpt from Maria's post...

GIVING IS GOOD; DO IT MINDFULLY

I  know of one professional artist who has given so much of his work away, he can no longer afford a car or properly provide for his own son.  It breaks my heart to see an artist believe they are being generous, yet their own children suffer!

It doesn’t have to be this way.

In this post I’ll share my thoughts on:

1. Why giving Money is better than giving Art
2. How the promise of “Promoting your Art” is bogus
3. WHY a charity will PAY you even if they want it for free
4. How to get paid for Art for a charity Auction or Illustration/Design
5. SCRIPTS – 2 examples of my personal scripts for handling charity requests

If you implement these strategies, you’ll increase your sales by turning “Free into Paid” opportunities, AND you’ll still be that generous, loving person that you want to be.