Do you have a long term vision about your career?Most artists tend to focus on an individual painting.An exhibition is a collection of their paintings.But what if the focus is on the exhibition, as one of a series of exhibitions?Then there's a different mind-set.There are other ways to leverage major career momentum too.But you still need sales and marketing strategies.You can't turn an art business into a successful career overnight.You just can't skip the fundamental steps needed for a solid business.You've got to be patient too!Even if you do things right, you can't do them all concurrently.That means there is no short cut to success.A professional artist is not merely a painter - that is what makes an artist.You are also in business, or have a career, or in a profession.Money is a measure of how well you do.It's not the motivation, that's your desire to follow your dream.But it does say something about how well you've followed the dream.It also makes achieving your dream more feasible.It's unlikely better income leads to better work.But it leads to a better lifestyle.You can live in a garret in poverty or have whatever lifestyle you'd like.Either way your work will remain of much the same standard.Often artists assume the artwork sells itself.People fall in love with the work.Marketing is a matter of putting people in front of paintings (exhibition).Instead of blaming your painting for a failure to sell question the marketing.Was there a failure to influence people's opinion in relation to your paintings?Possibly there was a failure to find out what opinions were held to start with?But you have to earn money so YOU need to master marketing!Most artists think very little about marketing.They hand it over to someone else hoping they know what to do.But many of those people do NOT know what to do.Most people do not have a clue about most things they buy!When you shop for anything how specific is your 'decision-making' criteria?How expert are you in areas like law, bedding, accountancy, or real estate?Probably not much at all and therein is an extraordinary opportunity.Most potential buyers do not have highly sophisticated buying criteria.They have an idea what the prospective purchase could do for them.They might even know what they paid in the past and that's about it!That means you can re-set the buying criteria for your entire market.Most people come to buying situations (your art) with flexible buying criteria.Can you make your works their most logical choice?And at the same time provide the best financial result for you.All this without changing what you paint!Hire out your works instead of selling them!