I stopped answering enquiries within the hour and nothing bad happened
I used to reply to enquiries the minute they arrived, phone in the hand, paint drying on the brush. Somewhere I had absorbed the idea that a slow reply loses the client. Maybe that is true if you sell printed mugs. It is not true for a painting.
Two weeks ago I was mid-glaze on a figure, the light on the shoulder was finally doing what I wanted, and the phone buzzed. I let it buzz. Answered the next morning, calm, with a proper answer about the piece and the price. She bought. Same thing happened again on Thursday, and again it did not cost me anything.
I am not saying be slow to be mysterious, that is a marketing trick and it stinks. I am saying the speed I was performing was costing me something and buying me nothing. What people actually want is a reply that sounds like a person who was busy making the thing.
Bof. Maybe I am wrong and I only notice the ones who stayed.
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ngl i think half the "reply fast or lose them" thing comes from people selling things that are all identical, where the buyer is just picking whoever answers first. a painting is the opposite, the whole reason they want it is that it's the only one. waiting makes you look like the piece is actually worth waiting for.
that said i've definitely lost work by being slow, so i won't pretend it's free. the difference is those were the ones who were never gonna pay anyway. the glazing thing though, yeah, don't answer that one. shoulder folds don't wait.
You are right about the identical things, ji. When the buyer is only choosing whoever answers first, then yes, speed is the whole product. But in our work the buyer is choosing the painting and the hand that made it. If I reply within one minute with a price like a shopkeeper, sometimes the respect goes away also.
But I will say one thing from my side. The waiting is good only when the person knows you are working. Some buyers think you are not serious, or that the piece is not ready. So I keep the phone away while the line work is going, but in the evening I reply properly, with photo, with the story of the motif. Slow reply yes, but not silence. Silence loses people, slow does not.
And correct, do not touch the phone during the shoulder folds. That light comes once.
"The waiting is good only when the person knows you are working." That is the part I had not thought through, and you are right. Silence without a signal reads as disinterest, or worse, as the piece not existing yet.
The evening reply with a photo does the work of the whole day. It says: I was painting, here is what I was painting, and now I am answering you. That is not a delay, it is a different kind of answer. I will steal it.
Yes, exactly that. A buyer choosing between identical mugs is choosing a supplier. Someone buying a painting is choosing a painting. Those are not the same transaction and it is strange how much advice treats them as if they are.
And you are right that it is not free. I lost one that way, years ago, someone I am fairly sure would have paid. So I am not pretending it never costs. But you said the useful part yourself: most of the fast ones were never going to pay anyway. The speed was never the real reason.
The shoulder, though. When a glaze is at that stage you stop everything, the phone can ring until the battery dies. C'est ça.