Focus on your products' value when marketing your business and services

Kellene Bishop, president, Beehive Commercial Lending

As published in Scotsman Guide's Residential Edition, June 2007.

There is a lot to be learned from the days when people "took their wares to market."

Our wares often are intangible items, such as a service or an ability, that are marketable commodities. We look to sell them just about anywhere we can.

Where do you market your wares now? What products and services do you offer to your clients? Where are you peddling these products?

We have more to offer in this industry than the average consumer would dare to imagine. The industry as a whole has bombarded the market with residential loan information. But with limited quality information, many potential clients have no idea what kind of products and financing assistance they can get. If we more accurately "peddled" our wares, aka our lending products, perhaps our businesses would blossom.

Peddling vs. marketing

The word peddling has taken on a negative identity, but its basic definition and the intention behind it is not negative. Peddling means to deal, seek and disseminate that which is valuable.

I believe that many marketing and advertising techniques leave out the value aspect. If you do not value what you are selling or marketing, then you can't sell it.

How often do you meet business-owners, brokers, appraisers and processors who have no zeal or confidence in their jobs or in the products they offer? Perhaps because they do not value what they are selling or providing, their attitudes and the way they market themselves leave much to be desired.

If you value your services, take pride in your job and embrace what you do, then you must show it in how and where you market your business. Sometimes in our ambition to rise to the top, we will put our name where it doesn't belong. This does not distinguish our company or us. Rather, it lends an air of desperation to our advertising and marketing.

Peddling is different than marketing. Marketing is the process or technique of promoting, selling and distributing a product or service. But I'm not encouraging straight marketing. We see marketing all around us.

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