Beauty Salon on Boundary Road
Armed with a load of flyers and a nice shirt, I spent the day dropping into shops and small businesses to offer them some free promotional space at BLANK gallery. But it's always harder than you think to offer something for free.
My quest was to invite local businesses and organisations to utilise the gallery space and to convince them to hold some kind of workshop or demonstration for the public to see what they do first hand and possibly learn some new skills. From this, we hope they'll gain some new customers.
When trying to explain whats on offer, it was easy for it to all sound a bit strange. Free advertising space and workshops in an art gallery that won't be an exhibition but is an event thats part of HOUSE Contemporary Art Festival.
So my year spent working as a sales man for British Gas going door-to-door came back to me as I hit the streets with unique selling points and convincing scripts going round in my head.
BUSINESSES/ORGANISATIONS GET:
- A free space to advertise and promote your products and services to a wide-ranging public.
- An opportunity to hold workshops or demonstrations so people can see first hand what you enabling you to gain trust and future trade. Show off your skills and gain some attention from festival goers and the local community.
- The event will be advertised as part of HOUSE festival in a brochure thats distributed across the SE of England and on the festival website.
- We hope to gain some press attention from the event and you could be featured as a part of this.
Southdown Fine Arts Ltd
My first port of call strangely enough was a place that almost took me back to having an exhibition, in the traditional sense of the word. Southdown Fine Arts Ltd is a framing shop run by John who is a real specialist with over 30 years experience. His warm and friendly responses totally disarmed my sales aproach and I relaxed into gentle chit-chat mode, ready to accept any offers of tea and biscuits. He was aware of BLANK gallery and studios but had never visited and was interested in the idea but was unsure of doing a workshop/demo. The equipment needed to do framing is far too big to transport from his shop. He did used to teach at an adult education college so has experience and the idea is not totally alien to him. He has developed his own techniques for framing rare signed football shirts as they seem to be in big demand these days. He agreed to have a think and come to BLANK on a Sat 10th Aril for a meeting day I am organising.
We had a great chat about the area and he told me about a traders association that covered Boundry Road and gave me a newsletter. He also pointed me towards St Lukes Studio across the road where an artist paints large boards depicting certain saints and then employs sign writers to add the required text before they are sold on to churches. Directly opposite is a laundrette, John suggested I try them but then said, but how would they run a workshop? I left and had a think about that as I walked on. Trouser pressing demo? Basic washing machine maintenance workshop?
Sussex Computer Centre
About doors up was Sussex Computer Centre where I had learnt from John that the owner was a represtative of the traders association. Here I met Baha Hadad who really wanted to talk business and I changed back into sales mode as he asked, what's in it for me? He seemed interested but wary of the workshop/demo idea so I suggested a basic PC maintenance workshop. He said he'd think about it and come along to a meeting day at BLANK on Sat April 10th. Perhaps he is in danger of losing customers if he teaches them how to fix things themselves? But then on the other hand by giving a little freebie away you can gain a customers trust. Baha showed me the BCS Traders website that he made himself. They say:
"The core object of the association for now and in the future is to promote Portslade shopping area to customers and visitors alike with the aim to encourage and attract more customers to shop locally."
He thought it best that I contact the Chairman directly in order to see if he might be able to help and spread the word of my opportunity. He said I would find him at the Whistlestop Inn as he is the landlord. This was fantastic, I was on my way to meeting someone who could be the key to communicating to all the local businesses in a short space of time.
Whistlestop Inn
Mr Money
The Chairman was Duncan Money and I asked the barmaid if he was around, she called him on a mobile and he appeared a few minutes later. I felt I had built confidence in gaining interest in my offer and hit him with it. But Mr Money wasn't so sure about it and felt that a lot businesses would not gain anything from an arts festival crowd. He did point me in the direction of a toy shop and a crystals and healing shop he thought the offer would suit.
Kids Dreams
I was a bit dissapointed in my failure to get the Chairman on board and felt it was probably my stumbling description that put him off. So I walked down the road to Kids Dreams and browsed through some games and models before approaching Gary, who turned out to be very interested in the idea. He welcomed the opportunity to promote his shop but it also turns out that he runs a local gaming group that play a variety of fantasy games such as Games Workshop games i.e. War Hammer. He runs the group from the basement of his shop and the group has been growing in numbers, last session there were 38 gamers from the age of 12 up to 60. Gary suggested they come and set up a big game in the gallery and possibly have a model painting workshop.
Dog grooming products at Waggie Tails
Travelling further down Boundary Road I came across the very interesting Waggie Tails shop and met Rebecca who runs the business. She has recently moved the shop from another area and so is still settling into her new position and welcomed the opportunity. She plans to hold some kind of dog grooming demo. It's easy to get some dog models at short notice apparently and hopefully people can bring their own dogs in to join the event.
Posted fylers to Annas Barbershop, Off the Fence Trust, a pet shop, a couple of restaurants, Stone Cafe, and many more shops. Will follow up with a phone call in the next few days.
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