People often overlook the impact that the details in their marketing can have in their business. On one hand you have the micro-managing OCD business owner who inspects every brochure with a magnifying glass before it leaves the door and on the other hand is someone who leaves their business card design to a free service like vista print.
Somewhere between the two extremes lies a good balance, but if I had to choose one over the other I would pick the micro-managing OCD owner every time. Why? Because while they might not get as much done due to their obsessive nature, they will eventually get some bigger clients who understand and appreciate their attention to detail and are willing to pay for it.
A Little Back Story
I used to work a creative director for a real estate company that had over a hundred and twenty agents working for them. It was an interesting job as Realtors come in all shapes and sizes of personality.
There was more than one instance where an estate agent would come into my office with a set of notes of things to change on a brochure I had made for them. A few hours later their brochure would be “perfect” and I had to pretend not to be disgusted with their choices as they completely ruined the design with their notes.
While I didn’t see eye to eye with the owners of the company on everything, one thing that I will give them credit for was that they insisted that everything from brochures to listing proposals to business cards looked a step above the competition.
Re-Thinking the Business Card
Instead of printing normal sized business cards, the owners opted to go with an oversized card that was about 1.5X the width and height of a normal business card. They also chose to go with a heavy card stock that was about twice as thick as a normal card.
The cards weren’t cheap, but their large size allowed us to put the agent’s face on the card in an elegant way and actually have enough space to get all their information onto the card without having to be reduced to a tiny little point size that most people would strain to read. The design wasn’t something I came up with – that was the previous designers, and I didn’t touch it because I thought they were great.
How the Cards Landed a 28 Million Dollar Listing
One of the estate agents in the company had a listing presentation planned for a celebrity who owned a home that was on the market for just over 28 million dollars. The house was listed with another agent at the time and wasn’t getting any offers so the owner was looking to make a change. One of our agents was lucky enough to book a listing presentation to show how she would approach selling the home and try to win the listing.
We spent quite a bit of time putting together an outstanding listing presentation. If my memory serves me it was over thirty pages long and went over her past success as an agent, the company’s pedigree and we even had an entire section on marketing initiatives we had developed for high-end homes.
Armed with the presentation she stormed off to the meeting and handed the homeowner her over-sized business card before even walking into the house. The owner of the home looked at the business card and smiled. He told her that her business card was nicer than any of the marketing the current agent produced for his home and that he was ready to sign with her. He didn’t need to see the listing presentation, he was ready to make the switch.
Timing + Preparedness
Obviously, the business card wouldn’t have worked on the home-owner if they didn’t already have a bad taste in their mouth from a lazy agent who was phoning in the marketing on his property but in this case it was all she needed to win the listing.
Being prepared with A-level marketing materials (even if it’s just your business card) can literally mean the difference between winning a new client or scratching your head wondering why your business isn’t growing.
Is your marketing worth 28 million dollars?
If you suffer from branding inconsistencies or feel like your print and digital marketing materials can use a boost, please be sure to book a free 30 minute strategy session over the phone with us so we can evaluate where we see room for growth in your business.