Are You Visible?

by Graham Denton

"Concerts don't sell out if nobody knows about them." That gem comes from a little book called Walk Like a Giant, Sell Like a Madman, written by Ralph R. Roberts with John Gallagher. Roberts is a Detroit real estate star--the jacket bills him modestly as "America's #1 Salesman"--and in spite of its razzmatazz style, the book is full of down-to-earth, sensible advice. The "concert" quip speaks to Roberts's conviction that, if you want customers to know about you, you've got to make yourself visible.

He takes this literally. You've never encountered a salesperson who is more committed to getting his face seen. Roberts is fond of distributing four-color brochures to everybody with a pulse--waitresses and toll-booth collectors included--and the brochures feature several variations on his favorite subject: photographs of himself.

His business card, too, has a beaming headshot, and Roberts is anything but shy about handing it out. He tells an anecdote about distributing cards at an Atlanta convention--this is a guy who sells residential property in Detroit--and making a sale, some time later, for a conventioneer's family. On a train ride to a Toronto ball game years ago, he succeeded in getting a card into every passenger's hand, and then he threw another 1000 cards to the fans at the game. "I am still getting business from that train ride," he claims, "more than twelve years later."

"Promoting yourself," Roberts says, "ought to come before promoting even your products or your firm." The picture on the card is only a part of that strategy. As his book's title indicates, he's a mass marketing madman. His monthly direct mail sweep may include 50,000 pieces--all of them, of course, with his picture on the brochure or letterhead. Ads, newspaper interviews, reprints, "thank you" stamps, greeting cards, mobile billboards--you name it and Ralph R. Roberts has probably tried it.

But it's got to be something the customer can read and associate with you. Forget about the pens and refrigerator magnets, he says. He has gotten a special kick, in fact, out of having some customers sign a sales agreement with a pen that has been left with them by a rival realtor.

The "look at me" hooplah aside, there's solid logic here. The more frequently your customers see you, the more they will recognize you. And people like to do business with people they recognize. That's why self-promotion, Roberts style, is good business sense. It's why he recommends that, if you pull in a $2000 commission, you should consider earmarking a few hundred dollars of that amount "to use toward something promotional that will work in your marketplace."

It's also why he maintains a promotional budget of 5 percent of his earnings. That's a lot, Roberts acknowledges, but like any other return of profits to the business, it should be seen as an investment, not an expense. You can apply the same principal, even if you're not at his level. His rule for beginners is a good one: "Start small, but start."

Because nobody's going to come to your concert if they don't know you're playing.