Note from Cory: from time to time I get pitched guest posts for things that are completely out of alignment with what works in the Fine Art world. In many instances I reject those posts because they’re not relevant. Sometimes, however, a post like this one comes along. Pay What You Will pricing is controversial, and few people in the high-end art world have tried it – but Tom makes a great case here for experimenting with PWYW. I’d recommend giving it a thorough read-through.

Before I get started, a quick disclaimer:

What I’m about to tell you is unconventional.

It’s probably contrary to what you’ve been taught your whole life.

And it may make you feel uncomfortable…

Because of that, many people won’t like these techniques.  I get that.  And you’ll get no hard feelings from me.

But for the few who have the guts to try these techniques, I promise you this: not only will you absolutely destroy your prior sales and revenue numbers, you’ll impact and delight your customers like never before…

IF you do it right.

And I’m going to show you how.

But first, a little background on how I got started sharing my work and making a profit.

My First Experiment With Giving Away My Art (and making a profit)

I started publishing (writing publicly) online toward the end of 2012.

I started with a small, simple blog and I wrote to one person: me.

I never thought it would go anywhere.  I figured the blog space was already supersaturated with people writing on creativity, business, and marketing.  On more than one occasion I felt unoriginal – like a fraud.

I kept writing, though, because it wasn’t for other people – it was for me.

Surprisingly, people started noticing. More surprisingly, people started subscribing.

They wanted to hear from me.

In February of 2013, after writing dozens of free essays for my blog, producing a free podcast, and writing and giving away a book and several guides (all free), I was finally ready for something more than thanks and praise from readers – I wanted REAL validation.

Of course, real validation only occurs with an exchange of money (anybody will take a free sample – but how many people buy the whole Frappuccino?).

This meant I would have to charge for my new book…

But I didn’t want to charge.

Not because I didn’t see value in what I was doing (I did), nor because I was too scared to charge (okay, a little bit), but because I believe in helping those who don’t have the means to help themselves.

The last thing I wanted to do was charge money and neglect the few (but infinitely important) people who couldn’t afford it.

I was at a crossroads.

What do I do?

Give it away for free and never receive validation for my work (nor make a living from my art), or charge and get validation for my work (but at the expense of those who can’t afford it)…

Results From a Pay What You Want Offer

In the end, I decided to do both:

I gave my book away AND I accepted payments.

But I never put a minimum on it, nor did I force people to pay up in some other way, shape or form.

If they wanted it, they could download my book for free.  Or they could contribute to my creative work (anything from buying me a cup of coffee to treating me to a nice steak dinner).

Truth be told: I didn’t expect to make more than a few pity-dollars from this offer.

So what ended up happening?

With a subscriber list of 166 happy readers, I made almost $500 in the first month.

From a book that I gave away for free.

And Another…100 More Examples

I know what you’re thinking:

But that’s just one example.  And I’m a [pick one: high end painter / illustrator / artist / designer], no way this will work for me…

I thought the same thing after my initial results.

It had to be an anomaly.  No way this stuff works like on a broader scale, otherwise more people would use it.

So I started researching…

And I discovered hundreds of successful Pay What You Want offers (from artists to game makers to restaurants) that were making WAY more than I ever did, like:

• Zac Gorman, artist and illustrator who’s Pay What You Want Magical Game Time Volume 1 made him thousands
• Bridge Hotel’s Pay What You Want Karma Keg that brings in 10-25% more than their fixed-price kegs
• Larian Studios PWYW video game compilation experiment that backfired — and brought in more money than they ever expected
• Humble Bundle that raises millions for charity and for video game publishers through their PWYW video game bundles
• Joost van Dongen’s hobby project Proun that brought in over $20,000 using Pay What You Want pricing
• Chris Bennet’s Dock Cafe in Belfast that’s run entirely on an honesty-box system
• Libboo, Zoho, Propellerhead and BinaryNow — all software companies that use or have tried Pay What You Want to sell their products
• Perlin Winery in Germany that’s run entirely on PWYW…for the past 10 years
• Little Bay restaurant in London that’s made 20% more revenue using Pay What You Want than their fixed price menu
• And many, many more…

Clearly, Pay What You Want works (for physical and digital products and services).

The question is: how?

And what does a high end artist need to do specifically to make Pay What You Want bring in more revenue than a premium, fixed-price?

The answer is all about your pitch:

The 6 Step Perfect Pitch Framework

In my book The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, I analyzed what hundreds of successful Pay What You Want offering have in common, and synthesized that data into an easy to follow, step-by-step framework, what I call The 6 Step Perfect Pitch Framework.

While this is the general framework you need to use to successfully sell something as Pay What You Want, if you’re trying to sell high-end art, there are specific techniques you should use that will dramatically increase your revenue, reach, and impact, which I’ll explain below.

Step 1: Clarify Your Offer

Sounds simple and it is.

Although simple isn’t always easy.

The artist might think she doesn’t need to explain her offer – it’s a painting on canvas, what’s so hard about that?! – but that’s lazy thinking.

The artist, more than anyone, needs to explain what he or she is offering, and in terms that the happy customer can understand.

We know it’s a painting on canvas.  So what?  How does this painting change me, my world, or my feelings / emotions?

It might sound like common sense, but it’s important to consider when selling your art: you’re not selling something practical (art doesn’t do anything by itself), you’re selling an intangible (‘value’).  What is that value for the onlooker?

To help you clarify the offer for something like artwork, it helps to tell your personal story, how you created the art, etc.

Which leads into the next step…

Step 2: Show the Customer You’re Human

If you’re selling your art in person, this is easy.

Best advice: be personable and reach out to the prospective customer.  Get to know the person you’re selling to and tell them your story (see above and the reference to ‘clarifying the offer’).

Pay What You Want works way better in person than online, which means you have an advantage in person (the person can look you in the eyes and will be compelled to pay a high price).

What if you’re selling art online?

Same rules apply, but the tactics are different:

1. Add pictures and videos of yourself onto your site.

2. Talk about the tools you use and why you use them.

Tell us the number of hours you’ve put into each project. How long and hard you work to create the perfect brush stroke, etc.  More on this later (and why the story behind the art matters).

3. Write like you talk. 

Don’t get stuffy online.  Write passionately and casually.  Slang and lingo are fine if it’s you.

Whatever you do, don’t be stiff.

Step 3: Appeal to Idealism

Just because you’re offering your art as Pay What You Want doesn’t mean people will actually buy your stuff…

You still need to give us a REASON to pay.

The best way to do this is appeal to the customer’s / audience’s idealism:

1. Reference generosity, karma, good will, etc.

Sometimes just mentioning karma, generosity, or good-will will do the trick, but the more this idealism is a part of your story and your art, the better.

2. Talk about WHY you do what you do.

Be authentic, transparent, and show us your battle scars.  If you’ve been doing this for 10, 20 or 30 years, we want to hear it.

The blood, sweat, and tears you put into your art make a difference in how we value it.

And when we find out you’re offering your art as Pay What You Want because you believe in people, in art, and in the concept of ‘value is in the eye of the beholder’…guess what – we’ll pay generously.

Step 4: Anchor the Price

Anchoring the price means showing high prices of similar products (or variants of the same product) to get people ready and willing to pay a premium.

This is a psychological technique marketers have been using for years to sell us high priced things.

Apple IPads are a great example of this – they should be sold for a couple hundred dollars, but Apple sells them for 3 times this.  They do this by setting their highest price model at an extreme premium ($800-$900), which makes their lowest priced model ($400-$500) seem cheap.

But it’s not – it’s still ridiculously overpriced.

Putting a sign that says: “Choose Your Price!!” next to your art piece is inviting people to pay you less than you’re worth.

Putting a sign that says: “$5,125 Karma Pricing: Pay What it’s Worth to You” invites us to consider the intrinsic value of the art (and how generous you’re being for letting us decide).

The conversation is no longer a guessing game (what SHOULD I pay for this?), it becomes a question of value (I get to decide what this is worth to me and I see what it ought to be sold for…so what IS it worth to me?).

Note: Price anchoring is a technique you ought to be using whether you use PWYW or not.

Step 5: Steer the Customer to the Right Choice

Once you’ve hit all the other prerequisites mentioned above, you still need to help your customer reach the RIGHT choice.

Do you want someone taking your art for a quarter of what it cost in materials to create?

Absolutely not.

So you need to steer them to the right choice:

1. Tell us about the high-quality materials you use. 

Again, this comes down to story-telling (notice a trend?).  Tell us a story about the canvas, the brush, the wood, the clay, the stone, whatever.  Tell us about how this is the most premium stuff on the planet for the particular use you’re using it for.

This kind of detail (and passion) gives us a story to tell others when we show them the art we bought (and isn’t that the end goal for most people buying art – to show it off?).

2. Give us a rough estimate of how long you spent on this. 

Hours?  Days?  Months?  Years?  The more time we think you’ve spent on something, the more we value it.

3. Let us know what your artwork normally sells for. 

What is the average price people pay for your art?  The last few pieces of artwork you’ve sold, what is the average?  What is the highest someone paid for one of your pieces?

This gives us a frame of reference for what we ought to pay and directs us to the RIGHT choice.

Step 6 (BONUS STEP): Throw Charity Into the Mix

Simply put, if you add charity into a Pay What You Want offer, you’ll make more money.

It’s been proven in several psychology studies and there are dozens of businesses and artists that prove it on a daily basis (Humblebundle.com is a great example of this, and I’ve done the same thing with my business and arts journal, The Creative Entrepreneur).

People want to be generous.  You need to give them a reason to be generous.  Pay What You Want is a start…but when you throw charity into the mix – game over.

That’s the story we want to tell ourselves when we WILLINGLY pay for something we could get for less (or free).

Of course, it needs to be congruent with your original message (in the case of my business and arts journal for entrepreneurs, we actually fund entrepreneurs with a portion of all donations.  It’s a perfectly congruent charitable message).

And if you’re thinking using charity is just gaming the system…

Good!

I hope MORE people game the system.  The more people who add charity to the mix in what they’re offering, the better off we all are.

How to Test PWYW Pricing in a Small Way…

I know there will be a handful of people who are still skeptical about Pay What You Want pricing even after reading everything I’ve presented here.

And that’s okay – skepticism is good.

So for those truly skeptical people, I propose a simple experiment that will show you how powerful this technique is, while insuring against major loss.

I call it A/B split selling your audience.

Note: this only works for people who have built a relationship with their audience / customers / clients and who have REPEAT customers.

If you haven’t done either, better work on that first.

For those who have, here’s what you can do to test PWYW in a small way.

The next time you get commissioned for a work, or the next time someone comes to buy another piece of your artwork, instead of giving them an invoice or showing them the price, simply give them a blank invoice or receipt with the total number of hours you spent on it and itemized cost of every material you used (from paint brushes, to paint, to canvas, to whatever).

Then have a line that is empty that says price next to it (or something similar).

Give them this invoice or receipt and let your repeat customer decide what to pay you.

Why this works:

Have you ever felt the inclination to lower your price when someone asks “how much?”

That’s the same human nature that involuntarily compels us to INCREASE the price when someone asks us: “what’s it worth to you?”

Further, by doing this with a repeat customer, someone you’ve built rapport with already, who knows what the value of your art is, you’re almost certainly going to get a higher price than you would have originally charged.

And, in the small chance that you don’t, you can switch back to fixed-price invoicing for that client or customer (they’re clearly not very generous).

While this may seem like a trick, it’s not: it’s merely rewarding those who are generous with the opportunity to BE generous, while asking to be paid what you’re worth for those who aren’t as generously inclined.

At the end of the day, everybody in the transaction wins.

Results From People Selling Premium Products or Services Using PWYW

So what are the tangible results of doing all this?

One of the best examples is Matt Homan – a speaker, facilitator and consultant. The majority of his work is with lawyers and law firms (and also bigger corporations like Microsoft).

While Matt doesn’t sell art, he does sell something similarly intangible with his consulting.  Here’s how he handles customers (and his results):

In Matt’s own words:

“I always hated time sheets, and kept experimenting with ways to price my services that weren’t tied to the time it took me to provide them.”

That’s when Matt stumbled across Pay What You Want pricing (which he refers to as You Decide Invoicing):

“I always give clients the option to pay me what they think I’m worth at the conclusion of the engagement. I explain to them that once we’ve gotten to the pricing discussion, I trust them to treat me fairly. When they agree to my novel approach, they get my “You Decide” invoice that asks them to write in an amount for my fee and give me an explanation for why they paid what they did. And even when clients would rather pay me a quoted price, I still give them a money-back guarantee.”

Novel approach, but does it work?

“Since I’ve been doing this, my sense of the value I give my clients has increased. I’ve recognized that my clients don’t care about the time I spend working for them, but rather the results they get from working with me. Quantitatively, my income has doubled in the past year, because clients pay me more on my blank invoices than I would have charged them. I’ve also increased my per-engagement price (when I’m asked to give one). I now charge roughly three times what I would have quoted before my pricing experiment began.”

While not directly art related, Matt shows what’s possible with an open mind toward Pay What You Want pricing, and proves that sometimes PWYW pricing is the best technique to find out what your work (or art) is truly worth.

Generosity Pays

I know Pay What You Want is a scary thought.

So many artists struggle to get paid what they’re worth that the thought of removing price altogether will make some cringe (I’m sure some artists stopped reading after they saw the headline).

I’m not suggesting you discount your work.  And I’m not saying take a lower price than you believe you’re worth, either.

Those are losers games.

What I am saying is generosity pays.

And if you can figure out a way to harness the generosity of others, you’ll not only increase your revenue, you’ll increase your reach and impact because the people doing business with you can’t help but spread the word.

Generosity pays – and it spreads.

But it always starts with the generous act of one of the parties.

Maybe that should be you.

Edit from Cory: Check out Tom’s page that he put together just for TAA readers. Good stuff.

UPDATE: If you want a deeper explanation of PWYW pricing, with real-world examples from artists who are doing it, check out this free webinar that Tom and I put together.

* * *

Tom Morkes is an author, publisher and all around instigator.  He’s the author of 3 books including his most recent: The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, and he recently launched The Creative Entrepreneur – a donation-based business and arts journals for entrepreneurs, artisans and creative of all types.  If you’d like to connect, send him an email (tom {at} tommorkes.com) – he always responds.

The post How to Double Your Income by Giving Away Your Art for Free appeared first on The Abundant Artist.