I came to real estate from a career of nearly twenty years at Apple Computer.  Technology companies don't give you pensions, but you do come out with plenty of skills for dealing with a competitive market place.

While the high tech industry might bring to mind massive email campaigns and slick websites, some of the most effective marketing done by these companies is in the hand to hand combant on college campuses.

I like to think that I do a lot of creative marketing from over a dozen websites/blogs to postcards with area scenery.  I even manage have my photographs on the local weather station two or three times a week.

While all that certainly helps along with the flyers and magazines that I send out, I really felt like I was missing something.

I am not a shy person so striking up a conversation with someone is pretty easy, but what I wanted was something that would get people talking to me.  A few weeks ago I decided to order some tee-shirts.

When I did higher education marketing for Apple, a clever tee-shirt was one of our best weapons.  People would compete for the really good ones.

I wanted to come up with something that matched our area so I took some lines on an old tee-shirt and gave them my own spin.  These are lines on the back of the shirt, they obviously fit our beach area.  Of course I addeded the url of my main information website.

QUIT YOUR JOB
GET A TAN
FALL IN LOVE
NEVER LOOK BACK

On the front I put my new slogan, which also matches my feelings about our area

CARTERET COUNTY
A SECRET TO SHARE

So far I am very pleased with the results.  I have handed out a number of shirts to clients and friends.  I wore the tee-shirt to a Chamber of Commerce event and got lots of positive comments.

More importantly last night at a local restaurant, someone came up to me and started talking about the tee-shirt.  As we were leaving one of the waitresses also wanted to talk about the tee-shirt.

I have even taken to pointing out that the words on the tee-shirt are the path that I am following.  I even pointed out last night that my wrist watch tan line is long gone.

Whether it will lead to sales in the long run is hard to say, but my initial feeling is that in my particular situation and location, the tee-shirt is going to be a good way to make contact with more people.

If you want to try out tee shirt marketing I can highly recommend CustomInk.com.  They do a great job.  They were fast and the shirts look great and wear very well.

Beyond that I have also started experimenting with YouTube and with trying to connect back to my Canadian friends who I figure could use some of our sunshine and warm temperatures.

As I used to tell my sales team at Apple, "Leave no stone unturned." In this season when I seem to spend more time picking tomatoes and fishing than I do showing homes, I am willing to give some of my old high tech tools a try.

It is certainly better than watching the shrimp grow.