146: Marketing Less to Sell more

Right after World War I, military plane builders scrambled to find a new market for their products. While some looked for ways to adapt warplanes for civilian use, Gianni Caproni set about designing the largest commercial plane ever. The famous biplane engineer’s ambitious vision was the Transeareo (also called the Caproni Ca.60), a floating plane capable of carrying up to 100 passengers.

To carry its unprecedented cargo, Caproni designed the plane with not one, not two, but nine pair of wings. No, really. I guess the math makes sense: “If two sets of wings lift X kilograms, then nine sets of wings should be able to lift four and a half times that weight.”

Sadly, though, the design didn’t make sense. On its second demonstration and first real attempt at flight, the flying Erector Set crashed onto Lake Maggiore in Italy. (You can see pictures of the carnage here.)

I can relate to Caproni. Yesterday was the thirteenth anniversary of Biplane Productions opening for business. During the first few years, I thought the way to get profitable in a hurry was to promise as many services as possible. My company brochure was an 8-page catalog with lots of small print filled with insecure words. I even ran this embarrassing ad in Auctioneer. It was immature, shoddy, and poorly proofed. I tried to do a bunch of things “good enough” rather than focus on doing one or two things well.

I made a lot of mistakes. At least two big, reliable accounts crashed and burned within the first few years.

Fast forward a decade. I don’t run ads in Auctioneer. I don’t have a company brochure. I don’t have a booth at trade shows, and I don’t promote a wide range of services in any medium or environment. I’m generating far more business each year with glacial rate changes and next to no advertising.

How? The same way I tell university seniors and young entrepreneurs to build their businesses: find both a proficiency and an underserved niche that benefits from that proficiency. Then dive full force almost exclusively into that fishing hole.

One interesting thing about the Transaereo: it was designed without a rudder. Caproni thought that the pitot could create the same steering input by varying the action of the three columns of wings. I find a lot of small businesses like Biplane Productions used to be: rudderless, grabbing any updraft it can and taking it where it leads. For me, though, that led to an unstable, unsustainable flight. The business slowly gained altitude, but it was a fight.

Now, I focus on two things: print design & industry education. With that focus, it has been getting easier to estimate time and costs. I’ve been getting faster and faster at the same tasks, which has allowed me to give myself a raise without changing my rates. My “past & present client” list has been consistently growing. Specialization has given the impression of expertise, and people hire experts—especially the ones teaching their marketing classes.

Auctioneers ask me regularly how to grow their seller base. One of the main things I recommend is focusing on a narrower range of asset categories and/or geographic service areas. It’s impossible to specialize in five or eight types of auctions, but I see auctioneers claiming that all the time. Even if you do other services or sell different assets, you don’t have to market them all. I still write press releases, post auctions on listing sites, and help companies with social media. I just don’t market those and other services, because they dilute my brand.

One of my good friends flies Boeing 777’s for United Airlines. He told me that his international flights leave the ground, weighing more than half a million pounds. He said that some 747’s leave the ground, weighing roughly 750,000 pounds. Both of those international jetliners carry way more than 100 passengers, and both have only one pair of wings. Granted, those two wings are much bigger than the Transaereo’s contraptions. The power is more concentrated and efficient—something aeronautical engineers figured out well before the jet engine, even before the second World War.

We should follow their lead into “less is more.” Let’s be jetliners instead of lumbering origami. Let’s concentrate our brands. Let’s look like experts. Let’s stop telling people we can auction just about anything.

Then, let’s watch our brands and revenues soar to 30,000 feet!

12: Accelerating Between the Jersey Walls

I regularly get asked by college students and young designers how to build a profitable design firm. (I’ve been told that Biplane Productions is an anomaly for my age and the current market.) Success can’t be encapsulated in an easy proverb or single piece of advice, but I tell them all the same thing: find your niche, learn it inside and out, become the best vendor in that arena.

It’s not just designers. The other day, a (very successful) auctioneer told me that he wished he wasn’t answering the phones but getting the kind of auctions he wants. I’ve given the same advice to brand new auction entrepreneurs and auctioneers whose careers span longer than my life: develop your niche, and get your auction brand synonymous with what you sell.

People shop specialists, from mechanics to doctors to retail stores. Specialists generate larger margins; their narrow but deep experience gives their recommendations more credence and their value more worth. That’s why Best Buy can charge more for the same big screen TV brands that Sam’s Club sells, why people buy more engagement rings from mall jewelry stores than pawn shops or even Wal-Mart.

It’s counterintuitive, though, on the flip side of the transaction. It doesn’t make sense that you could do more business by working only one segment of available business. If I hadn’t seen it in Biplane, I may not have come to believe it. Over 90% of my revenue now comes from auction companies, most of them real estate specialists. I’ve found efficiencies, predictable transaction patterns, and a moderate intuition I didn’t have when I designed for anyone who called.

It doesn’t have to be cold turkey or absolute. Auction what you love to sell, what makes you money. But your marketing materials (web site, brochures, proposals, etc.) should emphasize only one or two—maybe three, if similar—area(s) of specialty. It simplifies your brand message, which makes it easier to remember and easier for clients to recommend to their peers.

Brand simplification will move you from “the auctioneer” to the marketer that knows how to sell [x] better than anyone. When you’re “the only” or “one of few,” you’ll find less competition and less effort spent justifying your commission.
[tip]

I don’t know how many Christians I’ve met trying to set the world on fire for Jesus through mass efforts like passing out tracts in crowded areas, street preaching, and televangelism. They reach somebody, probably more than one somebody. I just don’t know if that’s the most efficient use of a Christian’s personal outreach energy.

I’ve found that the personal connection carries more weight and long term ramifications than a pamphlet on a gas station toilet or the echoes of a street preacher’s megaphone.

Jesus talked to crowds, but the crowds were fickle—even later crucified him. The fishermen who became martyrs and the Pharisees who left their comfort zones met Jesus personally. He took the time to know them, to walk with them—to spend dinner at Zaccheus’ house.

That’s more risky. It’s not easy. But we’re called to fish for followers like Jesus did. He didn’t need paper or microphones, and he didn’t appear to everyone in his generation—despite his ability to do so. He impacted the sphere of influence available to him.

Are we?