general thoughtsmarketing and branding

in sales, incertitude

There we are again: Monday, Monday, and a new week, fresh and untouched before us. Today I have a scan for you, an scanned bug, about 1 cm long from head to the tip of the wings, found dead outside, and scanned, with 10500 pixels x 10500 pixels. This results in something like 650 MB. For the blog I am reducing the size to 300  pixels but some of its beautiful features are hopefully still visible. I love, love, love this metallic transparent colors.

Regular visitors  of this blog know that from time to time I scan things, like Kiwis, chicken or flowers. Actually, the raw chicken scan is kind of… well: Special. Two scanned and super decorative motives, a cut kiwi and a cut strawberry,  found their way onto 120 cmx120 cm large canvas, printed in super high quality, framed and sit in the shop of Pascal, the bookshop where all Tauer Perfumes started. There they sit on the wall and folks who want to buy them could do so. Don’t ask me for the price: I do not know, as this is Pascal’s job. The pictures look super realistic and printed on linen canvas they have quite an artistic touch.So far, they did not sell. Nope. Although a lot of people ask about them: who made the pictures and what the story is behind them? Although the scans are liked a lot, they are not sold.

Anyhow: so far no sales there. Pascal and me discussed the “why”. We came to the conclusion that the format is just too large. Some potential clients said so, too. “Where to hang these pictures?”, that’s what it boils down to. Maybe. In sales and war, there is always a fog of incertitude. I will, if I find a moment of peace and time and feel like it, create another picture or two, starting with a scan and print them in something like A3 (or in between A3 and A4). I have a few cool scans and the only thing  I need to do there: Get rid of the dust particles and enhance the scans with photoshop.

The reason why I mention this: It is yet another good example of how we can all come up with great ideas and love what we do and forget that our potential buyers see things differently. If asked beforehand, they would not mention it. If asked to buy later, they don’t.  It is true for every market. You never know whether your potential customers will buy, until you have your product in the store. Asking beforehand does not always help. That’s why a lot of products (also perfumes) fail in the market. You never know. I find this super thrilling. So…. I am really curious whether we will see sales of the pictures if we adjust the size. Now, making these scanned image based pictures is not really a new business venture, not a serious one, but more a hobby, a distraction and joyful playing. But one fine day, I might decide otherwise. You never know…It would be cool to at least cover my expenses for the scanner.

And yes: I got so much great feedback and helpful comments over the last few days on the brochure state of works! Thank you so much. These comments and shared reflections and ideas helped me a lot. Thank you!