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Upgrading to First Class
07.22.07

I had a client remind me this morning that I didn't win any awards for him this year at the National Auctioneers Association annual advertising contest. Truth is, I typically only win awards for a fraction of my regular clients each year. It's a fickle, unpredictable process; but I've been fortunate to have won multiple NAA plaques for my auctioneers every year I've been in the business.

I can't and don't guarantee awards, but I can relay to you common traits of winning pieces—both of my clients and others. Most of these require a larger advertising budget or percentage of one, but you don't have to break the bank to make it look like you did.

Phix Photos Phirst.
Photos sell a piece more than its design does. In fact, the best designs sneak invisibly behind the photos. Template pieces from the National Auction Group have won the big real estate brochure award the past two years—outsides almost identical, with swapped high quality photos being the only noticeable difference.

Multiple large auction companies have photographers on staff or on speed dial. If that's too rich for your blood, splurge on a digital camera capable of at least eight megapixels (allows clear, full-bleed pictures for horizontal covers). If that, too, is out of the picture, take more pictures from more angles—and take them in good light on blue-sky days. Take additional pictures of real estate at night, at dusk, at dawn. Stage equipment and personal property so there's no other machines or sale items in the background. Don't try to get a lot of pictures into the brochure. Too many photos distract from the few that sell the sizzle. (Put the full gallery on your web site.)

Bigger is Better.
The bigger the brochure, the more of an impact it makes. Two thirds of my winning NAA entries this year contained twelve or more pages. The winning real estate brochures are almost always at least six pages. There's more canvas to display captivating images and professional design. There's more content to capture and hold attention.

Put on the Ritz.
Your most expensive upgrade may be premium print effects. The most popular of these right now is UV coating, a process in which a liquid chemical is applied in darkness to the paper and then flashed with UV light to harden to a shiny shell. Aqueous coating packs less of an expense and delivers less of a sheen than UV; likewise varnish behind aqueous. A paper thickness upgrade to cover weight (hard) paper requires higher postage and printing costs (to be mailed flat), but its rigidity makes it stand out from the rest of the viewer's mail. Metallic and neon inks prove easy additions that cost about the same as varnish coating. Embossing, die cutting, and metallic foil stamping require the most production time and a large budget hit. Most of these add-ons require at least an extra day of production—some as much as a week or two more than a typical print run.

Broaden Your Horizons.
One change that will rarely cost you more and could actually cost you as much as a third less is to rotate the orientation of the piece. Landscape fronts can take advantage of horizontal images for greatest visual impact. Most of my recent winning pieces were formatted this way.

Bend it Like Beckham.
Depending on the size of a piece, you can often change where the folds fall without incurring additional cost. Off-center folds allow you to carry front images to the inside and surprise the reader. Contest judges like gate folds (pieces that open in the middle with the folds on the outside), maybe due to the degree of difficulty and the extra production time (and costs) inherent in the finished product.

While I'd rather spend sellers' advertising dollars by incorporating more media rather than fancier direct mail pieces, sometimes your property and/or company may need to look award-winning to get it sold. On the right year, with the right judges, that need fulfilled could reward you with some shiny hardware for your office walls, too.

I used to get more excited about the awards I won for people. They were and still are in some ways my awards. They offer a validation of my talent and conceptual approach, a validation I have at times unhealthily craved, almost needed—to prove success to myself and to others.

I still want my clients and prospects to associate me with awards, which theoretically requires that I continue winning them. But I'm slowly weaning myself of the personal attachment.

I don't know if it's the law of diminishing returns or something bigger, but big plaques from small ponds have taken a back seat to revenue. I'm battling less with my clients over design concepts. I'm letting them tell me how to design their stuff. As an obedient designer, my annual award counts have waned as my income has grown. My product still trumps their respective competitors' junk mail. They're still convinced of the value of my services. Awards have become cherries on top of our auction success.

I'm finding enduring satisfaction more and more—not in an arbitrary judge's opinion—but in the moment when a client says, "I trust you. Do your thing," or, "Our customers love your stuff. Prospects and buyers say they know us by your brochures."

At the same time, I'm battling to motivate all my actions less for heaven's tangible rewards (which I will lay back at Christ's feet, anyway) and more for the inherent accomplishment in hearing Jesus say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."