MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Convetion, Exhibition)

Holding a watercolor painting exhibition is a primary way to let the public know of the painter’s name existence and quality of work.

There is no doubt the first exhibition is a great liberating experience. It is the culmination of a dream ambition and it is difficult to know this has at last been realized even when it is actually happening. The first gallery show is one that will never be forgotten. It is a wonderful feeling. The place is full and every one is chatting or calling to old friends across the gallery floor and raising their glasses in salute. Around the gallery walls the paintings properly lit for the first time in a bright warm indirect sensation of light. Family relatives are there smiling in reflected glory. Children are hiding between the legs of the packed grown-ups. Background Mozart is being played to add class to the proceedings and soften up potential buyers.

A rather distinguished looking person from the establishment has consented to commend the work of the painter to the wider public and is standing glass in hand ready to open the show having already let it be known which painting they would like to accept as a gift from the gallery. The sounds of laughter and enjoyment gradually rise and red stickers appear on some of the paintings as the gallery owner seizes the opportunity of the moment to make sales during the flurry of excitement.

A spoon rattles a wineglass and eventually the gallery comes to order. The gallery owner welcomes everyone and introduces the painter and then asks the distinguished visitor to open the show.

The distinguished visitor nods then smiles looks round the room to make sure the audience is quiet and still before beginning the address:

‘It gives me great pleasure to see you all here this evening at this first exhibition and show of watercolor paintings by a new rising star to our painting community. As you can see the walls are covered this evening by top class work carried out with assurance care and dedication by the painter. I have already spoken to the many experienced painters here and they all confirm the merit in the work. Watercolors are a difficult medium in which to paint. I know this from my own experience as I too paint in watercolors but I admit I am almost inclined to regret the addition of another competent worker to our lists who makes my own efforts look even more vacuous than even I thought they were[laughter] but seriously we are here to congratulate and support our painter with our best wishes many sales and hope for much success in the future. I am honored to declare this exhibition well and truly open!’ Loud applause follows with some cheering from the family.

If the painter decides to reply we may get ‘ Thank you for your very generous introduction and best wishes – I will try to live up to them in the future. I would like to thank especially my spouse [good on yer Bill]and all those in my family who have supported me and wish to thank especially all of you here tonight who have come out despite the dreadful rain to help make this evening a success. While I am here I would like to invite you to my next show one year from now. Thank you very much again.’

Next you will probably conduct the distinguished visitor around the gallery walls and point to the red sticker on the painting the distinguished person admired so much and please to accept as a free gift. The distinguished visitor laughs loud and accepts with surprise at the generosity of the gift and promises to ‘treasure the painting for ever with many thanks.’

The opening show continues as gradually people drift away with their congratulations until closing time.

Now the world has finally opened up at last – ‘and about time too!’ you think.

In spite of everything the work may not sell. If this is so this must not be taken a rejection of the work nor of its quality. The work may indeed be awful. On the other hand it may be good but not what the public wants hanging up in the living room just in case the neighbors take fright and feel they must uproot and go and live elsewhere. Some painters repulse buyers with wrong attitude or they exhibit to the wrong audience. Other painters over-sell their stuff without finding out what the client is interested in. Some viewers never buy but never miss an opening of a show.

To exhibit means to show. It is better to think of an exhibition as a show.

Start with a small show in a school hall as part of an annual festival of sorts and a place to get to know the ropes of exhibiting. The goal is to network to make friends with leaders in the community and with those visitors who simply like to look at paintings.

Discuss watercolor painting with all who show interest in the subject. It is amazing how a visitor will immediately assume how expert your work is and say how they always wished they had the talent to paint and have an exhibition of their own.

Start with a show of 10 paintings on a variety of different subjects to show the extent of your virtuosity. The purpose of this is to see which subject type appeals most to both yourself and visitors. Make a note of the time spent by visitors on each painting and note if they are men women or children. Speak to all of your visitors and introduce yourself as the painter. Discuss painting but most of all listen.

When you exhibit your paintings you actually open your inner self to others. Public interest in psychology is high and visitors feel free to draw the most outrageous conclusions about your hidden views preferences and upbringing. Some will analyze the meaning of your choice of color and others will draw political conclusions from details in the paintings as if they were runes cast in some sort of fortune-telling ritual. Interest and knowledge of esoteric subjects too is high and this interest adds to unexpected range of questions about you.

Most painters are probably flattered by this attention but others perhaps – not so much. I am urging you to be careful – you may be concerned. Some painters know or feel this is happening but are not troubled. Other painters may hold back and fear this invasion into their privacy and let their work become inhibited as a result. A painting reveals more about us that any other thing. There is nothing we can do about this – but beware.

Size of paintings at exhibitions is very important. Select and show only half full-size pictures with subjects that mount in the horizontal frame. Arrange the pictures in a single level straight row so that an imaginary line runs across the paintings a third of the way up the side of the picture at eyelevel.

Try spacing the pictures with half the length of the pictures between them. This spacing may be affected by the variation in tone of the pictures. Hang the paintings so they are equidistant apart.

A gallery creates a market for your paintings. Do not stay with a particular gallery until you have tried the others. I am not able to change galleries – I have to remain loyal. I would only change my present gallery if I were not welcome there. Find your gallery and stay with it or change gallery regularly to suit your mood.

Gallery fees and all the expenses when added up will probably absorb a third of your total sales. Your expenses as a percentage of gross sales will probably drop as sales grow because expenses will remain more or less static.

Use an accountant’s format to record all transactions stated with a final balance struck. No working out what you owe and what is owed to you on the back of an envelope.

Be present in the gallery as long as you can. Do not try to sell the pictures – instead – let clients buy.
If you are one for hard selling make it appear otherwise. If not let the gallery owner or manager do the selling. The gallery owner will not allow you to drive frequent clients away by crude selling.

Keep your own record of each picture displayed and price shown. Price stickers placed on the glass take time to add and later remove but the gallery will decide what is best – it is their call.

Take date recorded photographs of each gallery wall for record purposes and of each individual picture displayed. Also record the gallery and date on the back of the prints.

Remember suspension hanging systems are always used in galleries. Displays in schools or church halls have no such facility so make display arrangements well in advance to prevent being caught out.

Gallery lighting should be designed to show the painting at the correct lumen intensity without giving glass reflections into the viewers’ eye. If the eye is at any angle above 45 degrees to any part of the glass there will be no reflection.

Photo non-reflecting light diffusing glass must not be used as it collects light from a wider angle then focuses it and actually increases light exposure. Thus more light will enter the pigment than with ordinary glass. Gallery exhibition lighting standards are normally designed to be color correct so that the colors in the paintings are true.

Normal picture grade glass is free from distortion caused by thickness variation.

It is a good idea to find out if your pictures show well in gallery lighting. The color strength of your paintings may not be as strong as you think. Carry out a test to see if you need to make tonal adjustments to your paintings otherwise they may appear to be too weal.

When transporting your watercolor paintings prop them vertically on edge in the back seat of your car but on a shock-absorbing surface such as medium firm foam. Only you should move your pictures – do not rely on others. Place your pictures face to face and move them in pairs. This makes them easy to carry and helps to avoid damage to frames.

Use your car safety belts or Velcro straps to secure them against damage from hard braking.

This is the last article in the WC 1-10 series and covers vital matters connected with watercolor painting but not to the actual Technique of painting itself. The next series will be about laying down washes. It will be strictly about the Technique of Watercolor Painting. The first will be under the code number will be WW01.

My very best wishes.

John Blenkin is a retired architect and is now a watercolor painter and article writer. His interests are wide covering both technical and philosophical subjects. He also writes online articles on the technique of watercolor painting.

http://www.freefolios.com/

foka@spidernet.com.cy

How would you describe meetings you have attended in the past? Last Tuesday, I was facilitating a workshop on how to lead better meetings, and to start things off, I asked the group that very question. The answers that they provided were very similar to answers that I have received from hundreds of workshop participants over the last ten years.

The first two responses were

“Meetings are looooooooooong,” and
“Meetings are BOW-ring (this workshop was actually held in my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas – thus the Texas twang.)”

Those two responses almost always come up when I ask the question. Others that also come up a lot are: Wastes of time, non-productive, confrontational, inefficient, repetitive, and a number of other negative descriptions. Every once in a while, I get a response like positive, informative, or necessary, but usually the other participants gang-up against the person very quickly.

Most people believe that meetings are necessary evils, and in many cases, they are. But one of the most important things we can remember about meetings is to NOT have one unless the meeting is absolutely necessary. When your employees and coworkers are in staff meetings, they are not producing. Nothing is ever produced until after the meeting is over. Some one of my first pieces of advice to people who want to make meetings more effective is to have fewer of them.

About five years ago, I made this statement in a class, and a young lady in the front row raised her hand and said, “That sounds really good, but my whole job description involves going to meetings.” I was intrigued, so I asked her to tell me more. She was a personal assistant to a manager of a Fortune 500 company, and she was hired by her boss to attend the meetings that he could not attend himself because there were not enough hours in the day. After class, she and I sat down and identified 32-hours of wasted meeting time that she was participating in every week. These were meetings that neither she nor her boss was actually needed for, but that one of them attended every week. Over the next year, this one person increased productivity of her team by over 200%. Granted, this is an extreme case, but there are probably hours in each of our weeks that are wasted by ineffective meetings.

The tips below are strategies that I have collected over the years from class members who swear by their effectiveness. I hope they work for you as well.

1) Have an Agenda: Outline ahead of time what points will be covered in the meeting. Write it out, and distribute it to participants ahead of time. This will help avoid the “chasing of rabbits,” and help participants be more prepared for the meeting.

2) Follow the Agenda: This sounds very elementary, but you’d be surprised by the number of people who take the time to create an agenda, and then totally disregard the agenda during the meeting.

3) Limit the Agenda to Three Points or Less: Ask yourself, “What are the three most important things we need to cover in the meeting?” Limit the agenda to these three points. The rest of the things you wanted to cover, by definition, weren’t really that important anyway, so why waste everyone’s time?

4) Set a Time Limit: I would suggest setting the time limit for the meeting to be no longer than 30-minutes. In future meetings, shorten the time by five minutes until the time limit is 15-minutes or less. The leader of the meeting will become much more efficient, and the participants will become much more focused as well. When the time limit is up, end the meeting. You may not get to cover every single thing that you wanted to the first couple of time you try this, but within a short time, you will find that the major information points are being discussed and decisions are being made very efficiently.

5) Encourage Participation from Everyone, but don’t Force Them: Instead of going around the table and asking for opinions or input, just ask a question and let people volunteer their answers. There will be times during any meeting that each person will “phase out” (especially if it is a looooong and BOW-ring meeting.) If we call on every person, it wastes time, and puts people on the spot. Other ways of encouraging participation is to just ask a question, and after someone answers, say something like, “Good, let’s hear from someone else.” If there are people in your meeting who rarely speak, instead of calling on them directly, you might say something like, “I value the opinion of each of you, does anyone else have something to add.” Then, just look at the person you want to hear from. If he or she has something to say, he or she will say it if encouraged in this way. If he or she doesn’t, then you haven’t embarrassed the person.

Meetings can be a very powerful way to communicate and solve problems. In past workshops that I have facilitated, we have shown leaders how to identify the root-cause of a problem, come up with dozens of possible solutions, come to a consensus as group on the best possible solution, and create a written plan of action that is measurable in 15-minutes or less. Your meetings can be that efficient and that powerful too if you use these simple tips.

Doug Staneart is President of DM Staneart and Associates, http://www.buildingyourteam.com, leadership and team-building training. He can be reached by e-mail at doug@buildingyourteam.com or toll-free at 1-800-872-7830 x-100.

At one time there was little to distinguish between one credit card and another. About the only difference was the provider’s name, and how much credit they were willing to extend to you.

Nowadays all that has changed, of course. Fierce competition means that credit card issuers are falling over one another to offer you rewards and incentives, in a bid to get you to sign up with them rather than one of their rivals.

In this article I’ll be looking at the wide range of incentives on offer from credit card providers, and offering some advice on how best to choose between them. But before we get on to that, I must sound a note of caution.

If you are likely to leave a balance outstanding on your credit card, rewards should NOT be your first priority when deciding what card to apply for.

There are two main reasons for this. Most important, if you are paying interest on an outstanding balance, the cost of this will almost certainly outweigh the benefit of any rewards. And secondly, some card issuers only offer incentives if you clear your balance every month. If you are going to be leaving a balance on which interest is charged, therefore, your first priority should be to pick a card with a low APR (annual percentage rate) and/or a long interest-free introductory period.

If you are confident that you will be able to pay off your balance every month, you should certainly shop around for a card offering the rewards and incentives you want. Here are just a few examples of the kind of offers currently available…

Cashback – This is a very popular incentive. For every dollar you spend on your card, the card issuer will give you back some money, usually once a year. The amounts vary, but typically range from 0.5 to 2 per cent of total spending. There is often a cap on the total amount you can get back in a year.

Gas Discounts – With the price of gas seemingly going up every day, any way of getting a discount has to be worth considering. One card offering this type of reward is the Discover

Did you know there was a way to get more from the same eBay purchases you are already making? Same goes for the purchase of downloadable products through the ClickBank marketplace.

As you probably already know eBay can have some tremendous bargains. It makes clear economic sense to shop there – or at least evaluate the availability of the items you’re looking for and prevailing prices for those items so that you can compare. Similarly, ClickBank is great marketplace to pick-up all manner of digital product from e-books to software, from templates to code scripts.

What some people don’t know, however, is that you can get more out the same exact purchases you’re now making on eBay and ClickBank.

How?

Truth of the matter is some eBay/ ClickBank affiliates will give incentive bonuses if you shop through their affiliate sites. Everything is the same. The same search tools, the same auctions and offerings, the same eBay and ClickBank. The only thing different from the buyer’s point of view is that you link up to the eBay and ClickBank sites through an affiliate’s site.

This strategy is what I have done with my own eBay/ ClickBank site. The deal is deliciously simple. Buyers who buy through the site and then forward a copy of their e-mail receipt will receive a free download link to lots of great e-books, DVD’s, online videos and other goodies. All 100% free. Hence, buyers get more from the same purchases.

Can you apply this idea with your own affiliate sites? People do respond to incentives. If you try this, I do have one major caveat. Make sure that the bonuses you use are bona fide – read: not junk, not sales pieces, or “special reports.” You must provide genuine content.

Daniel Hall, is the owner of the successful eBay and ClickBank affiliate site, http://www.DealzORama.com where you’ll find great incentives to entice eBay and ClickBank buyers to use DealzORama.com to make all their eBay/ClickBank purchases. He offers hundreds of dollars in free bonuses when buyers forward their e-mail receipts and receive a download link with ton’s of FREE goodies which is constantly updated with new gifts.