Business Beat: When Marketing Your Business, Details Count

If God is in the details, then there are a lot of businesses doomed to hell. Many new business owners spend more time trying to decide which shade of white to use for their letterhead than they do in creating their business plans or writing promotional materials.

You may have the best idea in the world, but if you surround that idea with misinformation, obvious mistakes and even slovenliness, people will overlook your idea. You'll have lost their trust, and you may not be able to regain it after that poor, first impression. I'm doing jazz hands for emphasis on that last line.

Years ago, I covered a trade show of inventors, showing their wares, in the hopes of bringing new ideas to market. Most were looking for investors. The venue was huge, and tables lined every corner of the place. In just walking through, I could almost separate which ideas America would vote into the next round, and which were doomed to be heckled at the judges' table.

In that latter group was a man who had "built a better mouse trap." He was marketing it to "housewifes," if you believed the big, white poster board sign he'd made.

The Inventors column I authored was for a national magazine which targeted small business start ups. It covered marketing, manufacturing, patent issues and general education for the inventor to get his dream one step closer to reality. To illustrate each article, I chose anywhere from one to three inventors and their products which covered whatever point I was trying to make.

When I attended the conference, I'd been doing the column for more than a year. The magazine, a major newsstand seller, was in California, and I'm in Maryland, so I didn't know right away what sort of impact my column had on an inventor's fledgling business. By the throng of people who physically followed me at that trade show, several into the bathroom, I learned quickly that I was a gatekeeper of sorts for their business. Several inventors confirmed it, telling me that to get a mention in that column could mean the difference between funding and no funding for the business.

Two decades later, that one booth with the mousetraps sticks out in my mind, but for all of the wrong reasons. The only way he could have made a worse impression was if he had been wearing a tie with blinking Christmas lights. And only because it was summer.

It's not about fanciness or spending a lot of money. Several of the displays I saw that day were quite elaborate, and the owners had obviously put a lot of money and time into developing promotional materials that fit the product. Just as many displays were quite plain, but the information was spot on, and the graphic look didn't clutter or confound.

One display featured an inventive scaffolding system that could be broken down easily. It was quite simple, letting the product speak for itself. Now in the mousetrap man's defense, building scaffolding makes a much bolder display naturally than a little box that on some occasions turns into a mouse trap. Still, it was obvious that they were confident enough in their product to let it rule the stage. Their written materials were not flowery, but were directed at guys like themselves who would be using their product. They wore simple t-shirts. It was clean, to the point, impressive because of the technical aspects which, too, were simple. That's always the genius of an invention---getting it to have that simple, "Yeah, why didn't I think of that" look.

They had taken the time to put together something that would be readable, along with a design that sold the idea in an understated way. Its simplicity screamed that the idea was strong enough to stand alone. They were the lone subject of one of my columns. That's a lot of free publicity for just having friends give the display a once over display and getting someone's cousin to take a look at the grammar and spelling of the written materials.

At the other end was the mousetrap calling in chunky, primary-red marker to "HOUSEWIFES." I'm just saying. Details, details, details. Twenty years later, and that's what sticks in my mind about this man's dream to invent the perfect mousetrap. Is that the kind of impression you want to make with your business?