Mistake No.6

Creating The Wrong Message About You

We’ve all heard the expression that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. The fact is though that many small business owners are too hung up about spending money and end up creating a marketing image that looks homemade.

If you want to attract business, everything about your company needs to create the right impression. I’m talking about your letterheads, business cards, printing everything
that your customers or potential customers are going to use to decide whether or not you are worthy of their business. I can perhaps best illustrate this with a story. A few years ago I was attending an exhibition and I spotted an odd looking man in one of the tiniest exhibition stands that I have ever seen. In fact, it looked more like a broom cupboard. (He probably got it cheap-it’s certainly looked like it!) So being curious, I walked over to the exhibition stand then spoke to the man who was dressed with a suit and bow tie. I asked him to tell me about his business and he revealed that he was in fact a management consultant and handed me one of his business cards. The moment that he did, what little credibility that he had was instantly dissolved.

The business card that he handed me was printed straight from his ink jet printer on what looked like reasonable quality toilet paper. To make matters worse, the ink jet printer that he had used to print the business cards was running low on ink for the ‘ card’ that I received.
So the message that he was putting out was that he couldn’t afford a full sized exhibition stand and neither could he afford to pay for any business cards to be printed. What a waste of time. Would you hire him as a management consultant in your business?

- Keith Banfield