In the world of Real Estate, we're often left alone to ponder new and exciting ways to reach out to potential Buyers or Sellers and steal their attention in hopes to motivate them to move off dead center and hire our amazing services. When thinking about this yesterday, my Broker and I carried on a back and forth banter about some issues and he used a particular comparison that caught my ear - he referenced the Fuller Brush Man.
Back in a simpler day, when sales were really door to door and not phone to phone or Mac to PC... back when relationships initiated the invite and not a random Google search based off of SEO for business inquiries. Way back. Alfred C. Fuller built a trusted and iconic company after immigrating from Nova Scotia based around the principles of manufacturing and a trusted crew of door-to-door salesmen. His company manufactured various cleaning brushes and used a combination of some thick soled rubbers, doorbells and a demonstration case to persuade housewives and husbands alike to purchase his must-have cleaning tool. The household total purchase was usually under $6, but was only earned with the full show and effort, according to Fuller.
This also reminded me of the Burma Shave road signs my Dad used to tell me about. The mens shaving cream giant used billboards, in a series of one line rhymes, through the thirties, forties and fifties to cleverly advertise their product. Dad would tell me examples of the old signs and their genius quips and how he remembered chuckling at their varied messages. These series of five or six red signs along the side of the road would intrigue passing drivers of their story and punchline - the company quickly grew a large lead base by simply sticking some poles along Route 66 and beyond.
With so many misconceptions of the Real Estate industry and the services we Realtors provide for our amazing clients, it's hard to win the hearts of those that have been soured by outside experiences. And as Alfred Fuller noted, there is no other way to sell a product than to see it in action. To experience the marketing, to engage with the message and to be there, face-to-face with the concept.
My question, after much thinking, is whether we are getting lost in the transmission? Our cells, our laptops, our emails, our CMAs, our postcard and drip campaigns, our lead lines, our sign calls our digital selves...
Just for a breather, just for a little while - Wouldn't it be nice to go back to the way it was?
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