On Messages

My business partner and I have been hard at work getting everything set up. We want to present ourselves very professionally and set apart what we are able to do for our sellers and buyers from other operations and other investors in the area.  We feel that a web presence, a cohesive marketing message, and a lot of the details that many other real estate investors pass up on is the way to go about that.  To your left you'll see our logo.  We're pretty proud of it.  We worked with a graphic designer, presented our image of ourselves and a few ideas.  After a healthy back and forth this was the final product.  We feel it evokes everything important about our image that we want to convey.

Our original design idea was a pair of gloves.  The designer we worked with shot us 6 very radically different ideas and a championship belt jumped out as exactly the right thing.  Another round of feedback and we landed on what you see.  It was worth paying for this for the logo alone, even if we incorporate it in a clumsy manner.  A logo is something many other investors in the area will not have.  Many of the individuals who get into investing of any sort think of themselves as just that: Individuals.  We are an organization.  More importantly those who do business with us will also understand that even if they only ever see me -- we are a company that values the way it looks.  This gives an edge.  If you get the same financial offer, will you take it from the guy who scrawls it on a napkin, or the one who uses a company letterhead on a typed proposal?

Are you just bragging on yourself, here, or what?

Well...  A little.  But mostly I'm interested in explaining the importance of marketing, branding, image, etc.  We have a business name.  We have a logo.  We have a website (currently under development with another designer and soon to be released).

We didn't get tied to a single idea.  We came up with a lot.  We sat and brainstormed potential business names.  The first idea we had was UnReal Estate.  So we plugged it into a browser to see if that URL was taken.  It was.  We kept working on it until we came up with something that not only spoke to us as individual, but had an imagery we could leverage, as well as a website we could purchase a domain name for.  This might not be important to you and your business... But our main goal is to be more professional than our competition.  It's how we expect to set ourselves apart.

On top of a website we also did a lot of brainstorming of phone numbers.  A few posts ago I talked about registering Google Voice numbers to give you a custom vanity phone number for free.  Here's the list of what we've registered and are putting to use in our Pittsburgh area (724 and 412 are local area codes.  330 is northern ohio, which many people in the area also know).

724-315-7866 / 724-315-SUMO

412-407-3422 / 412-40-REHAB

330-227-4735 / 330-CASH-SELL

802-432-8993 / 802-HEAVYWEIGHT

They are all evocative and easy to remember.  The local phone numbers are important because many individuals like to know they are dealing with someone locally.  The 802 number just made us giddy when we were able to register it.

Why do you need 4 phone numbers?

Strictly; we don't.  It's a good idea, though.  Doing a custom ad campaign for your radio ads?  Want to answer your phone and have your voice mail respond directly to what was said?  Putting out bandit signs in a certain neighborhood for only one particular property?  Want your buyers and your sellers to call different numbers?  Every one of those choices and more are legitimate.  We'll likely end up using more than just four.  Once we get moving along an 800 number will probably be worth the investment.  If there's a single thing that says to me "professional" it's an 800 number.

Catchy Stuff

Heavyweight Real Estate gives some mental images and marketing ideas, too.  Tie-ins with local wrestling or boxing matches and possible sponsorships are a possibility.  Using phrases like "in your corner", "knockout", and "on the ropes" in our marketing messages are a must.  That my partner's grandfather was an amateur boxer many decades ago also gives us a strong family feeling for those who value that in their business partnerships.

We're very pleased with how our image is coming together.  Any zingers you've thought of for your own (or someone else's) business?  How important is it to you to see those little professional touches like a vanity number when choosing someone to do business with?