Sideswiping Your Company Image
07.30.09

I've got a good buddy what pulled off some crazy stunts in his days before I met him and he met Jesus. One of the stories has never left my memory. His big Ford pickup truck had just endured a significant collision—big enough to collect an insurance check but not big enough to total the vehicle. Thankfully, the damage left no evidence on three of the four sides of the truck—thankfully for him, that is.

See, he wanted to trade the truck for a newer one—and keep the insurance money. So, when he visited the dealer to purchase the replacement, he parked the trade-in's damaged side tightly against the dealer's building. After driving off the lot with his new purchase, he received a call from the dealer. "Did you know this thing is severely damaged down one whole side," asked the salesman.

"Really? How'd that happen?" And now the legend continues.

Many auctioneers have washed and waxed brochures, garage-kept ads, and rust-free signs. Yet their content on listing web sites and sometimes even their own web site is a garbled dump of text from a Word® document. It's not formatted consistently—or at all. It's not organized. It doesn't flow in order of importance. It's incomplete or filled with errors that "we will get right, once we get the brochure approved." In attempt to show sellers they've started the marketing process, they "just throw something up there with the date for now." Depending on when a prospective buyer—or the seller—views the site, they might see very different presentations and different levels of professionalism.

If you want maximum value for your brand, when you try to trade it for transactions in the marketplace, you need to treat the Internet like you do other media.

A good start would include

• creating a style sheet similar to what you have for your print and sign media
• assigning only one or two people to manage uploads for a consistent workflow
• discovering and saving the HTML color numbers (a six-digit alphanumeric code) of your logo
• developing an information sheet that must be completed with all major information before initial posting

Good short cuts to consider include

• typing regularly-used formatting code items (like bold text, hyperlink, email link, bullet lists, etc.) into a document for copying and pasting
• using coded/formatted content from one web site to paste into the next
• collecting and saving links to community, collector, and/or government web sites related to the subject property

Consider going the extra mile by

• asking design vendors to color/contrast correct images before uploading to web sites (assuming they do this for your other media)
• avoiding the use of "auction" and other generic terms in headlines of auction calendar listings or listing sites
• breaking content into smaller chunks and line-item lists
• using ALL CAPS sparingly, if at all

Web sites are no longer the last resort or cheap add-on of the marketing mix. Treat them like the primary media they are, and the buying (and selling) public will find your content easier to absorb. The easier information can be assimilated, the more approachable you make your auction. You don't need me to tell you what that, in turn, will do for your income and brand.

Taking It Personally

Yesterday, I listened to a podcast by Joel Thomas (North Point Community Church), talking about wisdom. He boiled the pursuit of wisdom down to one key phrase: "You don't know what you don't know." The application was that we need people with access to our lives and the permission to speak biblical truth into them, to fill the gap of knowledge and perspective of our situations and spirits.

We can get some of this in a pew, similarly to how we would from a college class. But life transformation requires more intimate encounters with spiritual leaders, even if not from the highest leadership levels of our local churches.

We need authentic community where we vulnerably make ourselves available to the insight of others and the outside perspective on our blind spots. We need someone to tell us what we don't know—not just about God and the Bible but about ourselves. We can have three sides of our vehicle immaculate and still be a wreck; so we need to submit ourselves for close examination to maintain maximum value to the kingdom.

Photo used by permission with purchase from iStockPhoto.com

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