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Your Business Identity

Dorothea and Francesca, 1898 By Cecilia Beaux The Art Institute of Chicago

At first blush, it might seem that your business identity is so basic that it shouldn't merit more than a sentence or two in passing. But it would be a mistake to underestimate how critical it is to your future and to your success as a commission portrait painter.

So what's in a name? The key to your next client being able to find you.

I have met more artists than I can remember (there's a hint) who think up catchy, cute and entirely forgettable business names for themselves. Here are some examples, and the number of results for each from this morning's search:

Fine Art Portraits (5,000,000)
Portraits by Barb (1,700,000)
Portraits by John (8,890,000)
Portraits in Oil (2,640,000)
Pastel Portraits (1,160,000)
Memories by Jane (4,300,000)
Portraits4U (879)

Well, you get the idea. While some business names might be well-suited as brain teasers fitting nicely on a license plate, a business identity for commission portrait artists is a serious question to answer, and one that is best tackled sooner than later.

Think through how you would theoretically go about locating an individual who is active in a field you know nothing about, when you don't know where he or she lives. The Yellow Pages might work, but only if you're in the same geographic region, and only if the individual decided to arrange a separate business phone or to invest in an ad.

Just to make our hunt a little easier, assume you are a non-artist looking for a portrait artist. Perhaps you know someone who belongs to a local art group. Maybe you'd call a nearby college or university—or perhaps a local gallery. And then MAYBE you'd be lucky enough stumble onto a lead that moves you in the direction of representational artists—but the odds are fairly high that you'll reach a lot of dead ends.

It's much more sensible to begin searching…the Internet! Reliance on the internet as the first avenue of exploration is increasing at an increasing rate. How easy is it to find you? Try searching for your name on Google.

In my "For Love or Money" course, I print out the first Google page for each of my students' names. The number of "hits" I've received for them have ranged from about 650 (for a very unusual name) to more than nine million. Nine million!. NO ONE will go through nine million names to find you. NO ONE. In fact, not many searchers will go through much more than the first or second page—about 8-10 cites per page.

If your name is very common—for example Jane Smith—think about adding your middle name—or maiden name—or your mother's maiden name—to your business name. One of my students whose first and last names were common, as well as being subject to multiple spellings, added a memorable maiden name, Valentine, as her middle name. Nearly impossible to forget. isn't it?

Whatever name you select, use it consistently in all of your business materials. Secure your domain name, even if you don't yet have a website.

It's my opinion that you should use at least your first and last names. The use of your name imparts a sense of confidence, professionalism, and uniqueness. A business name like "Pastels by Patti" carries the air of a hobbyist, a painter who plays with canvas on Sunday afternoon, and who should not be taken seriously as an artist. If you want to be paid serious money for your work, your clients need to see you as a serious professional.

I have had many artists ask me whether I considered using a first initial with last name so that others wouldn't identify me as female. "Chris" is gender-neutral, so specifically the question isn't relevant. But I do know of women landscape and figurative painters who use only a first initial with their last names. Their concerns are economic. However, commission portrait painting is not about anonymity. It is about your work as a painter, and about your working with clients.

And even the landscape artists will eventually want that one-woman show or the Artists' Magazine article, so anonymity is short lived for them, too.

It's important to decide now the name that you will use as a commission portrait painter, lest you end up with the same hodge-podge of different business cards, ever-changing marketing materials, as I did, all hopelessly out of date. I count myself as the worst example of all of this!

See you next time.

Copyright © 2006 by Chris Saper.

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