A gallery in Dublin asked for my "reach" and I genuinely didn't know what to say
Had a meeting last Thursday with a gallery crowd up in Dublin. Nice people, real interest, they want six or seven pieces for an autumn show. Grand, I'm delighted.
Then one of them asks about my "reach." Not followers, like, but reach. Offline. And I sat there like a lad asked to spell a word he's never seen. Because what do you say. I sell at the Saturday market in Galway, I've about 400 people on the mailing list I keep on paper in a shoebox with stamps, and my best bit of marketing this year was a woman called Breda telling her sister. That's the reach. Breda's sister.
Ended up saying something about footfall and they wrote it down, so now I'm a man with footfall.
Genuinely though, does anyone else find that the language changes when you go up a level and you're suddenly meant to have a system for something you've been doing by hand for fifteen years. Half of me wants to go back to them and say look, the numbers are small and the prints sell and I'd rather that than a big number that doesn't.
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Breda's sister is a better metric than anything in a spreadsheet honestly. I sell at markets here in Valencia and the number of pieces that go out because someone's cousin saw it on a shelf is embarrassing for the whole concept of "reach."
But to be fair to them, galleries ask this because they're trying to guess if the show will pull a crowd, not to be snobs about it. "Reach" is just their clumsy word for that. You could tell them about the market footfall, the shoebox list, and then say the Breda thing out loud, because it's actually the most convincing part.
The cousin-on-a-shelf pipeline is real, but I'd not fully let them off the hook. Market footfall and a shoebox list are lovely things to say out loud, sure, but they're also the things you can't put in a funding application, and that's usually why the question gets asked in that shape. Half the time it's not snobbery, it's someone who has to justify the show to a board. Which is worth knowing before you answer, na? Give them the number they can repeat in a room you're not in.
Ah that's the bit I was missing, the board. I was sitting there thinking they were sizing me up when really they're the ones who have to go back and sell it to a room of people who've never heard of me. Different job entirely.
So what's the number then. Do I go back to them with "I printed 180 this year, 140 sold, here's the split between market and commission"? Or is it footfall-ish, "there's 2,000 people through that market on a Saturday and I'm the fella they stop at"? I'd rather hand them something they can actually say out loud than another story about Breda.
Valencia, the cousins are doing the heavy lifting there too so. And you're right, I was being a bit of a martyr about it. "Reach" is just their word for will anyone turn up, and fair enough, that's their neck on the line too.
The shoebox list goes down grand, it's the Breda line I'd want to get right. You can't say "Breda's sister" in a boardroom without sounding like you're at it. Might put it in writing instead of saying it, let it sit on the page where it looks like what it is.