Day 21: In Praise of the Middle Man

Let's hear it for the middle man!  Recently I had an experience which made me realize how important the middle man is.  In our world, you always hear how cutting the middle man out can increase profits. But at what extreme will we go to cut the middle man out?

Buying items from a middle man helps us more fully focus on our own art.  We are always deciding how to use our time. Should we weave our own cloth, make our own paints, build our own canvases?  Do I make my own sculpting tools or buy them?  As artists, making every product we use would leave no time for making art.  The middle man saves us time.

A middle man in sales can often create a wider audience that we ourselves couldn't reach. So artists use sites like Etsy or Ebay to reach a wider market.  Antiques get consigned to auctioneers, who then can reach a wider group of people.  Sometimes at the auction, a dealer buys the item.  Then they list the item on Rubylane. So yes, it's another layer of middle man.  But a wider audience and opportunity as well. The middle man/men gets a cut, yes, but then again the wider market might mean higher prices than if you set up a table at the local craft show.

So....let's celebrate the middle man!  The middle man does what s/he is good at, giving us more opportunity to focus on what WE are good at.  

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~ Dixie Redmond