For many service businesses, their sign, their truck lettering and their business card are their primary advertising—maybe their only advertising. Rich Dombey, Rich Designs Inc., Hillsborough, New Jersey, says the place to start the sales process for many such clients is the business card.
“I do a lot of work for small landscape and building contractors who come to me to get their vehicles lettered,” says Rich. “I start, though, with the business card design. I explain that we need an effective design to start with, and that let’s me shift the focus to the logo design first.
“Trying to get paid for the logo design after the truck is done doesn’t work. I tried that. I did a complete turnaround. Rather than selling the cards as an add-on after the vehicle was sold, now I start with the business card. It works great.”
With the emphasis shifted to the design, Rich comes up with a layout and gives a price for the design and full-color business cards. Then he moves on to pricing the vehicles. The business cards are also a great source of additional sales when clients call to reorder cards in the future.
“The cards look like little signs and customers really like that. Most like having something coordinated with their truck or sign, too—rather than a generic-looking business card.”
Most of the business cards Rich designs are double-sided. A list of services or bullet points of benefits usually goes on the back. He finds that when you hand someone a card that is glossy on both sides, they instinctively turn it over to see the other side. That gives him another opportunity to get his client’s message out, and it makes a good first impression.
But the best thing is that it lets you sell the design up front—rather than doing a great design on someone’s sign or truck and having them call to say, “Can you e-mail me the file of the design you did on my truck?” At that point, it’s very hard to get paid for the design.
