Ego and Advertising Do Not Mix
By Lance Winslow
So often when small-business people design their advertising or their glossy three full-color brochures they do way too much bragging. It is if they are trying to impress themselves with all of their achievements. Your potential customers are probably not concerned about how great you are, but rather what you can do for them.
There are ways to tell your customer of all the great things that you have done in a way that also tells them why this is good for them. For instance, if your company is a family-owned business and it has been in business since 1965 that is a good thing. But what your customer really wants to know is that you do business the old-fashioned way, you do which you say you were going to do and you have built a reputation for quality and service. And therefore the customer can see the benefit to them.
After setting up franchises in 23 states and several hundred cities I had noticed that our competition often tried brag on their flyers and brochures about how many trucks they had or how large the company was. In fact, they often made her company looked 10 times the size actually was. Many times their customers would tell us they wanted to do business with us because we were a local company and small-business.
Actually we were a franchise in 23 states. Apparently their potential customers felt as if they were too big and great to do business with and they felt that it might cost a lot of money. Indeed, the truth was that our prices were higher and we were a much bigger company. So, you can see the problems that arise when you embellish yourself in your brochures simply for the sake of ego.