Real Estate Farming

The great majority of my career in promotional products, I've worked with Real Estate agents and brokers on farming products. For those of you who do not work in Real Estate, all you need to know is that if you receive cards and pens and calendars on your front door periodically, you are in a real estate agent's "farm". They're sowing the seeds and growing their business, slowly but surely.

For those of you in real estate, you know of course that farming is just one part of your overall branding and relationship marketing efforts. There are ways to keep in touch with new clients, old clients, and so on.


Please call me to discuss your farming programs. I can help sort out which products, either seasonal or otherwise, fit within your budgets for your farms.

This next couple weeks, if you have not done so already, we are wrapping up orders for professional baseball schedule magnets.

Sports schedule magnets, by far, have brought to my clients the highest level of response from their own prospects and clients. If you give them a Reds Schedule in Cincinnati area, this summer they will call and ask when the Bengals Schedule is coming. Trust me.

This post is a little late to the game, so to speak. NOW is the time to order the baseball schedules if you are interested in getting them out right at the beginning of the regular season.

Depending on where you are, you may interested in PGA Tour schedules or NASCAR cup racing schedules, too.

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... So Can We Look At Your Branding Now?

Most promotional products websites are slick online search engines. A few paragraphs about "What we do" and - poof - suddenly you the consumer are supposed to start finding your own products. Sound about right??

Now, why the heck should you be expected to trawl through search engines in the first place? You come to those of us who call ourselves professionals for a little guidance and expertise.

Please, let us not play games with your brand image...

If you simply want to browse a catalog, no problem, I have one. And it is proprietary, not one of those generic magazine things you get from the door-knockers.

I can send you the hardcopy in the mail, or drop it by anytime, or you can look at the page-by-page online version RIGHT HERE.

However, WAIT, before you go... I must tell you, I'm dying to give you a little personal guidance. I'm free. Really. And I'm an expert. Really.

Just recently I passed the 20-year mark in the promotional products industry. That's almost ... ridiculous. Who spends twenty years around imprinted products and merchandising programs?

But back to my point: I have seen some winning ideas, and I have seen some losers.

Mostly what I have seen for 20 years are products being pushed as "ideas", when really we need to start with the idea and then build to the product, and to its distribution, our tracking of its effectiveness, and so on.

Please call me, either before or after checking out my catalog. Yes, it is full of products, but then, I'm full of ideas.

No games... unless, of course, a nice logo game device like the one shown above is what you're looking for.

I'll be glad to give you a good listen, and then a couple of ideas.

1-888-795-8299.
Don Sheffler

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Things You Don't Need

I don't need anything. Neither do you. Neither does your client.

This is true 99% of the time.

You don't need a logo pen. Don't need a stapler or a highlighter. Don't need a logo coffee mug or a mug warmer, a coaster, a clock or a frame or a calendar. You don't need a calculator. You don't need a pizza cutter or a barbeque set, you don't need a pair of sunglasses, and you certainly don't need an LED light on your key chain. You don't even need a key chain, for Pete's sake.

Most of the time.

It's just that when you'd like to have any of those things, you want them handy. You want them now. You want them there for when you actually do need them.



This is why we (business people) should love to give logo branded items to our clients and our prospects (regular people).

What we (business people) really need, is to be in touch with our clients and prospects at the right time and in the right way. Logo products are tools for building those relationships. They help to put us in the position of filling needs when they arise.

Just something I'm thinking about as I lift a sip of coffee to my lips - coffee in a logo mug from a local church committee - and then set it back down on the mug warmer that's been sitting on my desk for the last 3 years with the logo of a local electronics company.

I don't need these things really, but I sure appreciate having them here.

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Way To Go, Bob

Not... that it's... really... funny....

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