Reading Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW QUADRANT by Robert Kiyosaki. One thing that stood out to me was that most people buy emotionally instead of rationally.

This is something every marketing professional will tell you. And being in sales the last 4 years I would say he is absolutely right.

I want to show you how to connect with your customers and sell them your creativity. Creating some emotional ties in to your brand or product will help people buy your comic books, T-shirts, buttons, narrative artwork, design, logos, or paintings.

I know of very little people who don’t buy with their emotions. They will later rationalize it to justify the expense. This is why most grocery stores have the milk at the back of the stores, and candy bars in the checkout aisle.

Most people think they are rational. Go to the store, get the milk. But then buy emotionally. “This candy looks tasty. And I forgot I need 2 other things that I passed on the way to the back of the store.” 

There are a few classes of people though, who can see through most marketing hype and buy rationally instead. It is a little surprising that artists would be this type of people, yet we I’ve noticed we are. We don’t like gimmicks. We want people to “shoot straight” with us. That’s why I’m sharing this with you and being very open about it. We want to see a way our artwork can be sold and make people happy.

From a very early age, I’ve always been tight with money, because my family never had any. My parents worked hard. We had food. We had clothes. We had necessary items, but not too much frivolities. I am pretty adept at tuning out commercials, only buying what I need. Only buying what I can afford–living in my means. If I go to get milk. I only get milk. This is a beneficial lifestyle to some degree.

I worked since I was 14. Rarely spent money. By the time I was out of high school, I was able to save $12,000 working as a busboy on weekends and a little paper route. This let me buy a year for the Joe Kubert School.  I was also able to work and pay for 4 years of college with no student loans. There was a splurge to buy a Nintendo, which I can still see how no person would be able to survive in the ’80s without one so I justified this as a rational purchase. (So, I’m not entirely rational) 

From my intimate workings with artists over the last 14 years, I think most us are more rationally minded than emotionally minded. We put up blockers to the ads, and we invest in things that will help us promote our artwork. I think this comes from our hard work ethic. We worked hard for our money, we don’t want to waste it. Plus, we may not have much discretionary funds. I think it’s a little ironic, that people who are so emotionally creative to put their passion into their work are so rational when it comes to money, but we are who we are.

We are hard-working people who will invest in bettering ourselves and our artwork. We’ll invest our time and money into things that really matter–our families, our artwork, our education, our tools, our messaging, our marketing, our convention booths, and our friends.

With over 10 million artists on the planet, I’m sure there’s some of us that fit into the loose and free category, maybe some of the younger ones, but overall, I’m glad to see we are so rational when it comes to money and our investments. It means we value important things.

One thing to take away from this, is that most people are not like us. Just about any group we’ll go to out of the artist circles, we’ll find people calling us a little…different. They call us a little “out there”.

So when you go to sell your artistic services to others, don’t forget to add the “flair”. Add the “bling”. Add the “awesomeness”. Pitch the “flavor”. They want us to. MOST PEOPLE BUY ON EMOTION, so ARTISTS MUST SELL EMOTION. A painting, a comic book, a design–selling emotion is our whole business. We can touch people with a single image so deeply they’ll cry. One image can make them laugh. A story can be told in a way in which the viewer will remember it forever.

What important emotional elements would you talk about your own creations? Does the creation speak loudly enough on its own?

I’ll encourage you when you’re doing your own marketing and your own branding and your own creations, search for ways in which you can add emotional messaging around your product. How will the end-user react when they have bought your product? What feelings will come up after they have your artwork in their living room, or when they read your comic book or narrative art novel?

They’ll never be able to experience the love, joy, peace, fulfillment, encouragement, entertainment, happiness OVER and OVER and OVER again unless they buy your product—they may never even be able to experience it once.

Encourage your customer, love your customer, make them smile, energize them, excite them, embrace them, give them EVERY OPPORTUNITY to say “YES” to buying your product and saying “YES” to you. You’ll have the strongest connection that’s worth more than money. You’ll be bonded for life–and isn’t that what we’re creating artwork for in the first place–to touch people’s hearts and minds?