A vast majority of students attending my seminars don't come with a personal brochure ready to pass out to the other attendees. A number of attendees pass out business cards, which is good, but a professional appearing personal brochure would go a lot further towards attracting referral business.

One of the main benefits from attending seminars (especially those held out of town) is building referral contacts. One of the best ways of doing this is to pass out a personal brochure outlining your services and qualifications. I'm surprised that more sales associates don't take advantage of this fact, especially since it's so easy to prepare a great brochure using Microsoft Publisher.

Publisher (which might already be on your computer, since it's loaded on to many new computers as part of Microsoft Office) makes it possible for you to do "spot" printing of brochures. In other words, you don't have to pay a lot of money to a professional design company to have a large run of brochures done. Instead, you can do a few brochures to take to a seminar and personalize them for the attendees, you can do a few designed for a particular open house, or you can do one for many other specialized marketing purposes.

Publisher is an easy-to-use desktop publishing program that contains "templates," pre-designed forms not only for brochures but also for business cards, postcards, flyers, newsletters, invitation cards, greeting cards, calendars, certificates and more. To design a business card, for example, you choose one of the 22 business card formats, then a color scheme from among 63 different color schemes. When you complete these two steps, you have a professional looking business card ready to customize. You can then place your text, photo(s) and logo on the card. If you wish, you can choose to print something on the back of the card.

The procedure is as easy for brochures and for other forms of printed materials. If applicable, you can choose to have a reply card automatically placed on your brochure or flyer, and there are many more easy-to-use features for many the forms.

Here are just a few ideas for marketing with materials you can create in Publisher:

Instead of run-of-the-mill, mass-produced Christmas calendars, do what Allen F. Hainge CyberStar(tm) Roger Lautt of Chicago does. He has an assistant go by the houses owned by folks in his Sphere of Influence and take a digital photo of the home. He then prints up a yearly calendar in Publisher with their home displayed prominently. And...he prints it on "canvass paper," available in many office supply stores. You'd have to see it to believe the high quality results....amazing! One thing's for sure: the folks don't throw the calendars away!

Use the same idea to print dynamite calendars to distribute in your geographical farm area.

Many of the CyberStars(tm) use Publisher to print small runs of business cards. They will, for example, print special business cards to pass out at an open house. Their agent information is on the front, and a photo or photos of the home, plus information on the home are on the back.

A student in one of my seminars uses Publisher to print "business cards" for the young children of the folks whose home she hopes to list. At the beginning of her marketing presentation, she gives each child a stack of their business cards. She tells each child that he or she is a Very Special Marketing Assistant and that he or she can help her as she works to sell the home. The child's photo and honorary title are on the front of the card, and a photo of the home is on the back, along with the agent's contact number. NOTE: Don't print the address or phone number of the child on the card for obvious security reasons.

As suggested above, why not print a personal brochure to pass out at seminars you attend? Include your "brags" and referral information. Maybe include a prepaid reply panel so that the receiving agent can send you information on his or her market area.

Print up a supply of brochures for open houses, brochures that feature information on the house. Include a reply panel in the brochure, something you can do with one click in Publisher.

These are just a few ideas I've seen done using Publisher. You can think of more, but whatever you do, consider using this valuable tool to increase your marketing effectiveness.

Note: Don't forget the three elements necessary for great looking printed output:

• A high resolution digital camera or scanner
• A high resolution color inkjet printer
• "Coated" paper (whether standard 8.5x11 or business card stock) available in office supply stores.

Published: July 1, 1999

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Allen F. Hainge is a nationally known real estate technology speaker and author with a difference: he builds his seminars and articles around concrete, practical experiences he learns from his CyberStars(tm), a group of top agents nationwide who use today's technology to dominate their marketplace. He is the author of "Dominate! Capturing Your Market With Today's Technology." Allen's seminar schedule and offerings may be found www.afhseminars.com. Subscribe to Allen's Newsletter by Clicking Here