Ask most estate agents about marketing and they’ll talk about RightMove.co.uk, advertising in papers and putting up a board outside your house. Of course, they’re talking about the marketing of your house – at least that’s what they’d have you believe. The fact is that a newspaper advert is practically useless when it comes to selling a house but what it does do is market the estate agency. The same is true of the board outside your house – this increases the agent’s brand awareness in the neighbourhood as well as having the minor spin-off of alerting anyone randomly driving around a neighbourhood (rather than using RightMove) that you’re for sale.

An estate agent’s job is, first and foremost, to sell himself/herself to house sellers rather than buyers. They are in a competitive marketplace and if they don’t secure new commissions, they go out of business. In most cases they secure these jobs based on factors that include their percentage fee (excluding VAT of course) and the impression they create when they turn up to talk to the seller. It’s next to impossible to get figures from an estate agent that will tell you how effective they are at selling.

We’re in the process of buying a house in Waterlooville on the South Coast. Given that we currently live in Milton Keynes, we’ve been forced to cram lots of viewings into each visit. One of the estate agents impressed us with her knowledge of the area but neither of the houses she had to show us was suitable. Even once this was apparent, she was happy to give us lots of local knowledge about good areas, schools etc. Now, most estate agents, once they realise they’re not going to get a sale, will instantly lose interest and usher you out of the house. This is what made this particular estate agent a “purple cow” in her field (excuse the pun) – by spending time with her an unusual level of trust was created, something I’m not used to with estate agents at all.

As it happened, another house came on the market and it turned out to be one of ours. This is the house we’re going to move into (hopefully) shortly. Did we choose it because it was one of hers? Nope -we chose it because it was the right house. Who will we choose to market the house when, in a couple of years, we move again? If we choose to sell through an estate agent, it’ll be her – more or less irrespective of the commission.

Trust is an incredibly valuable resource in processes that are notoriously stressful. In many cases, indeed, the market is stressful because trust is so rare.

How much would you pay for:

• an estate agent
• a car mechanic
• a plumber
• a builder
• a solicitor
• a web developer/designer

…you could trust? Making trust part of your business by showing integrity, honesty and transparency at all times might be the single most important aspect of your marketing strategy. Of course it must be real and that can sometimes be painful (eg admitting that you’re not the right person for a specific job) but, particularly in processes where people feel vulnerable, being the one they can trust can pay off time and time again.

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Chris Cardell is a marketing consultant. Four years or so ago I paid a considerable sum to be part of a series of teleseminars aimed at helping improve my business’s profits largely through better marketing. I’m not a massive fan of his particular style which I find somewhat arrogant and a little too smooooth for my taste but I do think the training I received was worthwhile and useful.

I distinctly remember one phone call in which he said something like “who do you think decided that Paul McKenna was the UK’s ‘leading’ hypnotist? He did!” and much of what Cardell says has to be seen against that background. However, having said all that, when you strip it all down his training is useful and worthwhile.

I was less than surprised when I read on Duncan Bannatyne’s Twitter feed about action that had been taken by a third party regarding a mailing Cardell had sent out. You can see a full account on the SEOCreative blog.

This was certainly clever in that it succeeded in fooling a number of people into thinking it was a personal recommendation. So it satisfied the first requirement of good direct mail in that it got the “prospect’s” attention. However, the ultimate purpose of marketing is to secure sales and I can’t believe that many people would have gone through the entire process of buying whatever he was selling without realising that it was a fake letter. And as soon as they realise this, they’re going to have one of two reactions:

1. He’s a fraud and I won’t trust him with my money
2. That’s clever, I want to learn how to fool people too!

I can’t imagine that either of these responses is the desired one surely? The net result is that any faith I have in Cardell has now been destroyed: if his company is prepared to resort to such misleading tactics (indeed, the Advertising Standards Authority agree it was misleading) then I don’t feel I can trust him at all to be straight with me. I still get benefit out of the materials I purchased from him a few years back but nothing would persuade me to buy from him again. Another customer lost.

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I found myself with an hour to kill last night while the wife was in the bath and, for want of any other choice, turned to Channel 4′s “How the Other Half Live“. This series is about contrasting the life stories and lifestyles of people at the top of the financial heap and those at the bottom. In this case, the story was introduced by the children: two rich kids (8 and 13 I think) and the 8 year old daughter of a single mum.

I consider myself pretty liberal, but if you wrote down the story of this single mum (a “traveller” who brought up her child in a series of caravans and, even, a horse box) I would have written her off as a waster. However, this “waster”, determined to give her daughter a better future, took and passed a law degree (she got a first) but, due in part to the competition for places and in part to the fact that she didn’t go to a private school or have the right father, can’t get a placement as an apprentice and therefore cannot become a barrister.

The rich family was founded upon the success of a marketer – they live in a home in the Cotswolds with 7 acres (I think) and dozens of rooms. Their kids go to private school and, all in all, live in a bubble that doesn’t expose themselves to real life at all. The child of the single mother, on the other hand, lived in a small house and shopped in charity shops. Her mum was hampered by debts (some built up during her degree studies) and their future looked pretty hopeless.

It’s not my place to pass judgement on any of the people involved in this. There is some irony in the fact that the marketer himself left school with no qualifications and one of the moments of realisation in a programme full of such moments was when his 13 year old son realised that his teachers were wrong when they said “get an education and you will succeed” because, clearly, this hadn’t worked for the single mum (as an aside, it’ll probably be the fact that he went to private school that will secure him a good job rather than his academic success).

To their credit, the rich family ended up sponsoring the single mum to help her deal with her initial financial challenges and seemed intent on forming a long-term relationship. Part of the benefit from this is that their children will, hopefully, better appreciate “how the other half lives” (although, to be frank, sending them to the local comprehensive would have done the trick!).

This all left me reeling. As a businessman, my eye is on the bottom line at all times. Every job, potential job or project is evaluated for its potential to generate profit. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I do not live a palatial life but I became rather ashamed at my ambitions to, in time, move into a bigger house and realised that this was about competing rather than about what I actually needed (or even what would be good for me). I vicariously appreciated the satisfaction and joy the rich family will have experienced in helping someone to achieve her potential. And this got me thinking – what can I do in my businesses to achieve the same? I certainly don’t have a £9 million to spend but I needed to find a way to contribute.

I have some ideas: including creating specific “charitable cause” products alongside our existing product range on MakingYourOwnCandles.co.uk, and the idea is that we’ll support 2 or 3 small charities (chosen by our customers) with a specific amount per product sale. It won’t be huge amounts of money (which is why we want to support smaller charities) but by doing it this way, we can make our contribution as part of the normal running of the business. And the benefit to the business? A cynic might suggest it improves our public image and marketing but that’s not what this is about. It’s about doing something good – contributing to society in more ways than just paying our taxes.

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