Sign, Sign - Everywhere a Sign...

Depending on how old you are different singers are running through your head, but nevertheless we all know the general idea.

As I was driving around our market area over the last few days I paid particular attention to signs - and a few things I want you to remember when doing your business.

Before I pick on anyone, however, I want to remind you how important signs are to our business. Our internal market statistics show signs as one of the top 3 factors driving sales, and the NAR reports that 29% of people surveyed are living in their current house because they saw a sign.

Alright, back to my tour of the market. Friday I was driving to an event in western Montgomery County. As I was driving, I kept looking at the Coldwell Banker signs, trying to learn who the players are in our new territory (and seeing how many of them were ours). Imagine my surprise when I saw a Coldwell Banker Landis Homesale Services sign! That company has been out of business since the beginning of the year! Obviously it makes it hard for us to explain the transition from CB Diamond to CB Hearthside when we haven't even told the market that CB Diamond took over Homesale Services...

So, that was my first view. Later that same weekend (at about 7:00 at night) I was driving to the store when I passed one of our central Bucks offices. As I always do, I looked into the parking lot to see who was there. Nobody was there, and since it was late evening I didn't think anything of it....until I saw the "office open" sign sitting two feet from the highway. Ugh. We work so hard to get clients to walk in to our office, and here we don't have the decency to tell them when we aren't there. Hopefully nobody showed up looking for our top-tier real estate services before the office opened up the next morning.

Of course none of these will ever compare with the sign I saw with the rider made out of construction paper and marker - heaven knows this set our company in just the right light.

Just keep in mind the image your signs provide to the marketplace, and what you can do about it. If you see something, point it out to your colleague, your manager, the marketing folks. you wouldn't let your fellow agents go to a networking event wearing a Coldwell Banker shirt and no pants would you? Take that mental picture with you the next time you think about your signs.