The best way is the old adage – It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know, (but most of us don’t have friends or family who own art galleries and exhibitions spaces).
We all start by renting space, (I’ve certainly have since college!), be it craft tables in shows, or joining others to rent a space to exhibit, but it’s usually the renters of that space that make the profit. What we really aspire to is acceptance and representation by those in the trade.
Gallery owners know what they can sell, what they can make money from and what the price point is, they get hundreds of emails every day from prospective artists trying to get their work in, we’re all just very small fish in a very big pond.
Ultimately, work will sell itself.