ACE Newsletter

Keeping Clients Happy

It's the artist's best scenario:  You've created, completed and been paid for  the art  commission by your client.  She is delighted, appreciative and cannot wait to display the artwork in her home. Then comes the artist's worst scenario: the phone call or email asking for changes in the commissioned piece.

What happened? Why would a client call the artist a month, 6 months, even years later and ask for changes?  Recently, on our marketing forum, an artist put that query forth  when the client asked her to make changes 4 YEARS after commissioning the original piece.  I knew that if the artist did not take control of the situation she would not only be struggling with an almost impossible task but destroying any chance of repeat commissions from the same client or the client's friends.   In the world of art, it is assumed that an artist can go back to a piece of art and change it.  But why would that even be necesssarry when the client was so pleased initially?

This artist is experiencing  a  common phenomena called the "THIRD PARTY SYNDROME" and it happens everywhere in the world of marketing.   It's not "buyer's remorse".  The client did not regret purchasing your piece of art.  It is what happens when a previously happy client is influenced by a self proclaimed "third party" expert who picks your art commission apart and offers "suggestions" and puts doubt into your client's mind. This is the same personality type who will always know where you could have purchased something cheaper and better. It could be a friend, a relative or a neighbor of the client  And this exasperating phenomena will continue to happen in your art career unless you take steps to stop it BEFORE it happens.How do you stop it? Learn to HANDLE AN OBJECTION BEFORE IT ARISES!  That sentence is the single most valuable sales tip I have learned in my long art career as a working artist!  It has changed the way that I do business with commissioned clients and continues to smooth the path to long term relationships with the same clients!   Handling an objection BEFORE it arises is a well known  sales technique.  I am sharing it with you because you will not learn this technique anywhere else in the art world!  Oh, artists complain about the third party suyndrome all the time but have not been able to solve it.  Until now!

So what do I do and say that puts ME in control of my artwork AND my clients and stops them from returning the art piece for changes that are not theirs?  When I finalyze a transaction and am handing over the artwork to my client, I say, with a professional attitude, smile and a laugh, something similar to:

"I am delighted that you love this piece!   Now I don't mind making any adjustments to it that you [and whomever else is paying] may like me to make within the next two weeks. After all, I'm working for YOU.  But I'll only make YOUR changes. (keep smiling) That's because there is someone, somewhere, within your family, in your neighborhood or a social group, who is not only a self proclaimed expert  but whose goal in life is to apparently make you unhappy with any decision or purchase that you have made..(there is always a BIG smile or laugh at  this by the client because someone has already come to mind!)..  DON'T give them that power!"

Do you see what I have done? I have HANDLED the OBJECTION before it has arisen.  When the negative person in my client's life becomes critical of my client's new art piece, in the back of her mind are MY words, warning her NOT to let that critical person have the power to make her unhappy.  I have saved myself untold hours of labor and exasperation.  But you know what else I have done? I have given my client  a much welcome psychological tool to challenge the negative individual in more areas than just my piece of commissioned artwork! I have given my client the power to fend off ALL the negative comments that she will be subjected to by the "expert."  And in doing so, both the client and I are the winners!


Warm regards,

Theresa