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“Selling” Your Business

Making the Visual Pitch

It can take a long time to impress people with your words alone. How many times have you heard someone say something like, "I talked myself blue in the face, but FINALLY I made the sale!" You have to be speaking of something that interests them, talking on the same level as they talk, and zeroing in on the exact piece of information they're looking for (whether they tell you what that is, or not.) So you just keep talking -- keep trying to reach them -- keep searching for the right "button" to push. And if you're good at it, you will -- eventually.

But with a "visual pitch," you get one chance and one chance only. They're going to click on to your web site and they're going to love it, hate it, or be totally indifferent to it -- and whatever they feel, that's the impression they will have of your business from then on.

The same is true for business cards. I remember the first time someone handed me a business card on colored paper -- it was lime green. My initial reaction was that it looked like something a child had made with construction paper. Since then, I've seen them in neon yellow, hot pink, orange -- and each time I find myself totally "under-whelmed" by the professionalism of the person who actually dared to hand them out to anyone. (No hate mail, please! I'm sorry, but those colors do not represent a business person well.) Neon colors are bright and fun -- but they need to be confined to children's toys and beach umbrellas -- or at very most, to a company that maybe sells gags or fun stuff -- (even then, I would be totally unimpressed, but at least could see the logic -- sort of.)

We've come a long way in our ideas of "proper" since this woman's day; but good taste and good sense never go out of style. People still seek out "quality" in the products and services they buy. Take the time to create a proper and timeless image for your business.

Fonts are definitely up there with colors on the "first impression" scale. On a web site of course, there's always the need to keep things fairly simple and straight forward -- easy to read while scrolling, easy to navigate, quick to load, and viewable on a majority of browsers. You don't want to get too carried away with any form of design. So your entire design -- including the font you use -- should be constructed with that in mind. If you decide to use an Old English Scroll font -- confine it to the headlines. Can you imagine how difficult that would be to read in blocks of text? And if you want to use an elaborate font for headlines on your site -- OK -- but use a little logic in the font you choose. If you're creating a site (or print materials) to advise people on financial issues, you don't want to use a cute little font like Crazy Legs or something equally "fun" in its style. You don't have to use Times Roman necessarily, but stick to something with a traditional, professional style -- people want to feel secure and comfortable when making financial decisions. Now if your business is involved with kids or pets, or entertainment -- almost anything goes (except those lime colored business cards!) -- the cuter the better -- because "fun" and "cute" are what you're selling.

Whatever decisions you make concerning the visual impression you make on prospective customers, remember this -- fair or not, people still judge books by their covers!

Carol Daly is the owner of The Creative Enterprises Network, a networking community site for home-based and small businesses online.


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