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Casual Articles - Would You Like Fries with That? Is Your Graphic Designer Just an Order Taker
You’ve read about the importance of being courageous, rebellious and imaginative. These are all vital ingredients in an effective advertising campaign. However, they must be tempered with the most important ingredient of all—strategy.As long as the advertising industry has been in existence there has been debate about whether advertising is art or commerce. Quite frankly, this kind of divisive argument is a waste of time and has only helped to diminish what little respect the industry has earned through the years. Besides, the answer is simple. Advertising is the art of commerce.It can’t be pure art because pure art won’t engage the consumer on behalf of the brand. Art can certainly get people’s attention, but it rarely causes them to take act
Keep in mind, if a designer could really help business owners choose the right projects that yield the highest return on investment, do you think they’d be
Over the years, the gift basket has become an increasingly popular gift. A gift basket looks nice, is practical, and can be customized to the individual. At the same time, corporate gifts have also become increasingly popular. They are a way to show appreciation to clients while also solidifying the business relationship. With those two trends, it is only natural that the corporate gift basket has become very popular gift and business tool.When deciding on any corporate gift, it is important the you know what you wish to achieve with that gift. You should probably take into account how much the client means to your company, what you will likely get from giving the gift, and how much it will cost you. When you purchase or put together a corporate gift
Here’s the inside scoop on hired graphic designers that aren’t experts in marketing (and most of them aren’t): they’re not involved or concerned in whether the design project makes sense for you, if it will be financially worth it, or what kind of positive results you should expect from the design project. The majority of graphic designers are order takers: you tell them what you want created, and they design it. Now your project may be a success or failure, but regrettably, the artist isn’t as much concerned with this - you paid for a design and that’s what you received.
As a business owner spending hard earned money, you can see this poses a serious problem. If you’re like 95% of business owners out there, you don’t know if the marketing design project is going to work for you or not - it’s a gamble, a crapshoot. Wouldn’t it make sense to have someone on your team that can help you select design and marketing projects that will give you the greatest return on your investment rather than an order taker?
Case Study – A Real Life Example: A client and a good friend of mine was solicited by a “marketing expert/design firm” a few months before we met. My now client was sold a costly marketing plan package that read more like a bad book report than anything of value. Within this report the “expert” highly recommended the client invest a boat load of money on full color brochures, promotional flyers and coupons, “the brochure is marketing collateral that is essential…the brochure acts as a piece of marketing material that can be left behind to potential customers…”
As I read these “would you like fries with that” recommendations, I almost fell out of my chair, “Wait a minute! Before we start spending all of this money on design and printing, shouldn’t we first analyze how these projects will affect the client?”
Before breaking open the piggy bank I suggested that the client take a step back and look at what result these investments will really bring in. Here’s what we came up with: these marketing materials are not effective for the business the client’s in, the client is a high-end vendor so coupons will not support the high-end image, and the client gets business from personal interaction with prospects (within the 30 seconds a personal connection is made with a prospect). Bottom line here is this: the recommendations would have certainly helped out the marketing/design firm, the grateful client avoided over $5,000 in costs that would have done nothing to grow the business. Why is this important to avoid order takers? You don’t want to waste money, plain and simple. Unless you’re an expert in marketing, and you know what will work and won’t work, you have to find someone who can help you understand what design projects are worth investing in and which ones aren’t. You wouldn’t hire a mechanic that knew less about cars that you, so why would you hire someone to help you get more customers that knows less than you? Instead of guessing or hoping the project will give you a good return on your investment, wouldn’t it be great to know that BEFORE you spend money on it? You make sure your car has enough gas in the tank before you take a trip – make sure your next marketing project has enough in it’s tank to where you want to get to as well. How can you tell if you have an order taker, and how can you protect yourself? If you suspect you’ve hired an order taker, ask her/him these questions. If the questions are not answered to your satisfaction – run like heck, and hire an expert who can help you!
- Can you provide me with any direction or wisdom as to why my project may or may not work for you?
- What should I be aware of before I have a project like this designed?
- Can you help me understand how this project is going to be used so I get the best return out of it, and how it should fit into my marketing strategy?
- How will you evaluate your success on my project: by the results I get or if you designed something visually interesting?
- Can you provide any past examples of projects that have worked out well for other your other clients? Can you explain why you got the results they did?
- Are my business growth and financial goals for this project realistic?
- If you were me, would you invest in this project, WHY or WHY NOT?
Keep in mind, if a designer could really help business owners choose the right projects that yield the highest return on investment, do you think they’d be c
The typical life cycle of a bookkeeper’s clientele is rather simple. A bookkeeper just setting up shop on their own will take any clients they can get in order to get started. At this stage, any income is good income. As time goes by and referrals grow, a bookkeeper who’s good at what he does will have more and more clients knocking on the door. There’s a limit to how much any one person can do, and most bookkeepers are one-person shops. As the workload increases, which it will for good bookkeepers, earlier clients may be discarded if they don’t meet the new standards, as the bookkeeper looks for clients who are 1) profitable, 2) easy or easier to work with, 3) able to pay within terms, and 4) reliably consistent.It’s simply how businesses operate, e
As a business owner spending hard earned money, you can see this poses a serious problem. If you’re like 95% of business owners out there, you don’t know if the marketing design project is going to work for you or not - it’s a gamble, a crapshoot. Wouldn’t it make sense to have someone on your team that can help you select design and marketing projects that will give you the greatest return on your investment rather than an order taker?
Case Study – A Real Life Example: A client and a good friend of mine was solicited by a “marketing expert/design firm” a few months before we met. My now client was sold a costly marketing plan package that read more like a bad book report than anything of value. Within this report the “expert” highly recommended the client invest a boat load of money on full color brochures, promotional flyers and coupons, “the brochure is marketing collateral that is essential…the brochure acts as a piece of marketing material that can be left behind to potential customers…”
As I read these “would you like fries with that” recommendations, I almost fell out of my chair, “Wait a minute! Before we start spending all of this money on design and printing, shouldn’t we first analyze how these projects will affect the client?”
Before breaking open the piggy bank I suggested that the client take a step back and look at what result these investments will really bring in. Here’s what we came up with: these marketing materials are not effective for the business the client’s in, the client is a high-end vendor so coupons will not support the high-end image, and the client gets business from personal interaction with prospects (within the 30 seconds a personal connection is made with a prospect). Bottom line here is this: the recommendations would have certainly helped out the marketing/design firm, the grateful client avoided over $5,000 in costs that would have done nothing to grow the business. Why is this important to avoid order takers? You don’t want to waste money, plain and simple. Unless you’re an expert in marketing, and you know what will work and won’t work, you have to find someone who can help you understand what design projects are worth investing in and which ones aren’t. You wouldn’t hire a mechanic that knew less about cars that you, so why would you hire someone to help you get more customers that knows less than you? Instead of guessing or hoping the project will give you a good return on your investment, wouldn’t it be great to know that BEFORE you spend money on it? You make sure your car has enough gas in the tank before you take a trip – make sure your next marketing project has enough in it’s tank to where you want to get to as well. How can you tell if you have an order taker, and how can you protect yourself? If you suspect you’ve hired an order taker, ask her/him these questions. If the questions are not answered to your satisfaction – run like heck, and hire an expert who can help you!
- Can you provide me with any direction or wisdom as to why my project may or may not work for you?
- What should I be aware of before I have a project like this designed?
- Can you help me understand how this project is going to be used so I get the best return out of it, and how it should fit into my marketing strategy?
- How will you evaluate your success on my project: by the results I get or if you designed something visually interesting?
- Can you provide any past examples of projects that have worked out well for other your other clients? Can you explain why you got the results they did?
- Are my business growth and financial goals for this project realistic?
- If you were me, would you invest in this project, WHY or WHY NOT?
Keep in mind, if a designer could really help business owners choose the right projects that yield the highest return on investment, do you think they’d be
The cleaning chemicals your janitorial company uses every day come in various forms: ready-to-use, concentrated, and dilution control systems. Cleaning companies are using dilution control systems more and more every day. They see the value in having a system that not only mixes what they need for a specific job or building, but also mixes the chemical in the right dilution every time. This "proper mixing" not only saves money, but helps to ensure better cleaning results as the chemicals are always mixed correctly.Dilution control systems have improved over the past few years and are now compact, easy to install and use, and some even have special features so you can easily fill buckets or auto scrubbers with whatever chemical you are mixing.
As I read these “would you like fries with that” recommendations, I almost fell out of my chair, “Wait a minute! Before we start spending all of this money on design and printing, shouldn’t we first analyze how these projects will affect the client?”
Before breaking open the piggy bank I suggested that the client take a step back and look at what result these investments will really bring in. Here’s what we came up with: these marketing materials are not effective for the business the client’s in, the client is a high-end vendor so coupons will not support the high-end image, and the client gets business from personal interaction with prospects (within the 30 seconds a personal connection is made with a prospect). Bottom line here is this: the recommendations would have certainly helped out the marketing/design firm, the grateful client avoided over $5,000 in costs that would have done nothing to grow the business. Why is this important to avoid order takers? You don’t want to waste money, plain and simple. Unless you’re an expert in marketing, and you know what will work and won’t work, you have to find someone who can help you understand what design projects are worth investing in and which ones aren’t. You wouldn’t hire a mechanic that knew less about cars that you, so why would you hire someone to help you get more customers that knows less than you? Instead of guessing or hoping the project will give you a good return on your investment, wouldn’t it be great to know that BEFORE you spend money on it? You make sure your car has enough gas in the tank before you take a trip – make sure your next marketing project has enough in it’s tank to where you want to get to as well. How can you tell if you have an order taker, and how can you protect yourself? If you suspect you’ve hired an order taker, ask her/him these questions. If the questions are not answered to your satisfaction – run like heck, and hire an expert who can help you!
- Can you provide me with any direction or wisdom as to why my project may or may not work for you?
- What should I be aware of before I have a project like this designed?
- Can you help me understand how this project is going to be used so I get the best return out of it, and how it should fit into my marketing strategy?
- How will you evaluate your success on my project: by the results I get or if you designed something visually interesting?
- Can you provide any past examples of projects that have worked out well for other your other clients? Can you explain why you got the results they did?
- Are my business growth and financial goals for this project realistic?
- If you were me, would you invest in this project, WHY or WHY NOT?
Keep in mind, if a designer could really help business owners choose the right projects that yield the highest return on investment, do you think they’d be
Myth 1- Hiring a copywriter is expensive Not true: Depends what you are selling, how many of it and what you negotiate on but that’s not the real issue. Sure, good to pro copywriters are expensive, sometimes they ask for 50% of the sales but consider this:If you put a dollar in a machine and get 3,4,5 or 10 dollars back how many times would you do it?If you said “I’d never do it” then you may want to go back to your 9-5 job, and not have anything to do with business.If you said “as much as is humanely possible”, then Ding Ding Ding! You won a million bucks (or more….). With that mindset, you’re bound to do well in business. An investment that pays back many times is a good investment.Myth 2- I can do it myself, copywriters don
- Can you provide me with any direction or wisdom as to why my project may or may not work for you?
- What should I be aware of before I have a project like this designed?
- Can you help me understand how this project is going to be used so I get the best return out of it, and how it should fit into my marketing strategy?
- How will you evaluate your success on my project: by the results I get or if you designed something visually interesting?
- Can you provide any past examples of projects that have worked out well for other your other clients? Can you explain why you got the results they did?
- Are my business growth and financial goals for this project realistic?
- If you were me, would you invest in this project, WHY or WHY NOT?
Keep in mind, if a designer could really help business owners choose the right projects that yield the highest return on investment, do you think they’d be
Here are a few tips for traveling with golf gear since there is no better time than a vacation to hit the links. Fertilizers used on many golf courses can trigger explosive trace-detection equipment. Before flying, be sure to clean off clubs. Also remember to pack clubs in a travel bag and consider leaving it unlocked.Vacations are also a great time to go scuba diving, catch some fish or go camping. Scuba tanks are not allowed on commercial airlines for safety reasons. Ship scuba tanks or consider renting a tank at your destination. Fishing tackle and sports gear - such as bats and lacrosse sticks - must be checked.Outdoor enthusiasts will pack sun tan lotion, bug repellent and other skin care products. Usually, it is fine to pack these items
Keep in mind, if a designer could really help business owners choose the right projects that yield the highest return on investment, do you think they’d be charging bargain prices or working at a quick copy place? No. Discount designers are always an option but you do get what you pay for – an order taker.
Business owners would probably pay someone good money who could help them invest in effective projects rather than waste money. So you have to ask yourself, if a designer is charging bargain prices, what’s the likelihood she/he will be an expert versus an order taker?
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