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The Pawnshop Chronicles: Street Wisdom for the Business World by Jack E Rossin Chapter 8 Fit Your Message on a Sign There was no shortage of signage in the pawnshop windows. We had small signs on every item in both of our windows. In the summer when we placed merchandise in the vestibule, each piece had a sign. There were hundreds of signs. Some of them simply conveyed the item and its price. Emerson radio $12.95. Others extended the pawnshop’s unique brand of marketing. The sign on a new suit read Brand New $39.95. The sign was strategically placed on the jacket of the suit. If we lured a customer in we would then try to sell him the pants separately for an additional $39.95, claiming that the price (and sign) was only for the jacket. Then there was a whole family of Laidnear signs. Laidnear was how we would describe merchandise to give it more authenticity. Instead of referring to black vinyl coats as imitation leather coats, which didn’t sound very appealing, we called them Laidnear Leather Coats. The closest they ever got to the real thing was when they were laid near a real leather coat. Our Laidnear silk ties were highly flammable. And, our Laidnear solid gold jewelry could turn green right before your eyes. Around Christmas time a man came in to buy a drum set that was advertised in the window as Drums $49.95. Unfortunately, I waited on him. Unfortunate because the game we played with drum sets was to tell the customer that $49.95 included just three of the five pieces in the set. The other two pieces were $20 each, and the stands that held the drums were $4 each. Cymbals were extra, too. I was never very good at executing this kind of deception. But, I did my duty and explained the pricing as my bosses instructed. The customer went ballistic. After calling me every awful name he could think of he tried to strangle me. He literally tried to grab my neck because he was so mad at me. Nate jumped in between us and sent me upstairs while the customer cooled down. It was just another day in the pawnshop. Signage was one of the experiences in the store that had a lot to do with me becoming interested in marketing. I had a certain facility for signs and I had lots of ideas about how to make the signs better. I added color and flair to our signs. I changed the price-and-item copy approach to a benefit-oriented style about each item. What attracted me so much to signs was the amount of compression and thought that was required. I had to reduce a whole selling concept into two or three words. The signs became marketing pieces. They told a story. They conveyed consumer benefits. They were reflective of the store’s positioning. Squeezing the essential marketing message into just a few words is a valuable exercise even if you have to write a 20-page document. It requires that you understand whom you’re talking to and what will motivate them to take action. Signs have a body language that conveys more about the item they are promoting than even the words do. If I were selling a high quality one-carat diamond engagement ring and used a large sign and splashy type and words to promote it, it would devalue the ring. If I used a small card with an elegant typeface and lots of white space it would increase the perception of quality. Conversely, using a small card with elegant type to sell a $3.95 second-hand toaster is incongruous. Signage at the pawnshop must have had a significant impact on me. Today, 30 years after I made my last sign for Nate, I still doodle constantly on the margins of my notepaper drawing signs. One last personal note. Last summer my daughter Lizzy had a job in a deli making sandwiches. She was most proud of taking on a project to redesign the menu board. Using lots of colored pens, she redrew the deli’s offering with interesting type treatments and great descriptions for each sandwich. I guess the scion doesn’t fall far from the sign-maker. You probably don’t need to make signs in your business. But the lessons of making signs are valuable. Reduce your message to simple, key thoughts. Remember that the vehicle that delivers your message is as important as the message itself. Keep the communications in harmony with that which you are marketing. It’s not quantity. It’s intelligent compression. Jack Rossin is a marketing consultant who specializes in Presentation Skill Training. For more information how he could make your team present more dramatically and more successfully, visit his web site at www.jackerossin.com or call 617-527-0265. To Chapter Nine
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