Busy day in Kalamazoo

Early crowd, as seen from my booth. The crowd got really thick a little later.

Western tack, anyone? They even had bling-y halters for draft horses!

Just got back from the Kalamazoo County 4-H tack sale, an annual event attended by I don’t know how many people, but it seemed like a thousand. I had a really good afternoon/evening in my booth, with lots of people stopping, talking, taking business cards.

A while back I was reading a column in one of my art magazines about how to sell your art in a craft or festival type event. The author is someone I have been reading for quite some time, and most of his advice has always seemed right on the money. One of the things he said was that to sell your art successfully in a booth-type venue, you MUST stand up! It’s so easy to just sit behind the table and wait for folks to show some interest, but I decided to try his method and see what happened.

Well, I’ve got to admit he was right. I sat down part of the time and stood up the rest. The times I was standing I had much more interaction with potential customers. After giving it a little thought, I came to the conclusion that when you are standing, you look attentive and ready to assist your customers. When you’re sitting, they get the impression that they would be interrupting you if they asked you a question. Even if you’re not doing anything to indicate that you don’t want to be bothered! There’s probably a better person-to-person connection if you’re at eye level with your customer, too. Lesson learned.