Nailed It!

Inspired Ideas – You Gotta Love It!

Have you witnessed within yourself a spark of creative inspiration lately? Perhaps a game changer for your business or even your life?

Here’s a “middle of the night” idea that inspires. Simple, good cause, good timing and great fun. Peter and Andrea plan to get married this summer. How are they going to raise money, a modest amount by today’s standards, to fund their special day?

Cans, wedding cans to be exact. Peter has always been a recycler, melting down cans into ingots, and then accumulating them for a run to the local recycler. So Andrea comes up with the idea in the middle of the night to recycle cans, 400,000 of them, to raise just under $4,000 by the end of July, this year. As of this writing they’ve recycled the equivalent of 75% or 300,000 cans in just three weeks!

They put together a website, www.weddingcans.com where you can track their progress. Like to contribute but you’re in Cucamonga, California? No problem! They have PayPal. Take your cans to the local recycler, catch a latte on the way home, and send the rest thank you very much!

Their web site www.weddingcans.com has gone viral – international, local and national television; the Morning Show (CBS) last week, numerous radio interviews, emails from around the world. Alcoa donated the equivalent of 150,000 cans and said the coverage has been more effective to getting out the recycling message than years of marketing – a worthy investment!

So stay tuned and recycle. Hopefully they will have their special day, at a castle in northern Idaho as planned. Meanwhile we will continue to accumulate cans – Instant Sign Factory is one of the drop-off points – and watch Peter, who runs our digital press, leave daily with bags of loot.

So what is Peter’s take on all this new found fame? He says it’s a fun ride but in addition to financing their wedding, it’s all about the message, “recycle!”

Isn’t it great to see great ideas work? Don’t forget to check out their website.

Get inspired! Good selling!

Okay, many of your customers are off vacationing or these days – either gone physically or as you may notice, mentally, wishing they were somewhere else.  But businesses are still servicing people’s needs and services.

Get your name or brand in front of those customers actually using your services to reinforce awareness of your company and offerings. An easy and inexpensive way is to place decals on all products going to your customers – on the product, on the packaging, even on the invoices. You might even throw out a special or two to wick in some more sales this month.

Numerous “impressions”, big or small influence buying habits creating a subliminal awareness and even familiarity of your services – it’s important to be “out there” in the market. Decals are an effective way to bring attention to your business beyond the normal and more expensive mediums, like print and television ads.

Take advantage of our decal special this month and get your company out in the marketplace. Then check the results. You might be pleasantly surprised and pleased with the return on your investment!

Good Selling!

Don’t banners look like, well, banners? Well, yes and no. In most cases, up close, banners look temporary, like fabric! But from a distance they look permanent, like wood, metal etc, but cost substantially less. I have a customer who just now is replacing a 40’ banner they put up on their building twelve years ago. From the freeway it looked like a permanent sign.

But whether you like their appearance or not, they achieve their objective:

• Cost effective per square foot for maximum impressions
• High visual impact if designed properly
• Versatile color options, one to full color
• Quick turnaround

No matter the economy, but especially when extremely challenging, you need to take action fast when windows of opportunity appear – before they close! For example:

• Inventory reductions
• Seasonal market influences
• Time sensitive sales
• Sport and convention events
• Trade shows, etc.

Banners can help big time and not break your budget!

Continue reading…

First quarter review – yikes, are you kidding! It’s two weeks short of ending first quarter. It wasn’t too long ago that I was figuring out how to navigate the rocky shoals of this whole year.

Did the ground hog, or was it Adam Smith just see his shadow? Where do we look today for credible economic information – what can or should we expect? The consensus by those in the know or in the “should know”, including your local banker project slow recovery. Probably no discernable change to most of us until late this year or as late as 4th quarter 2010. It’s as your instincts suspected, a continuance of business “not as usual”.

We all need to review our business model even after we adjusted it late last year, and see if it still applies to this market. Shortly, you will have a three month history to weigh and analyze your situation – expenses, revenues, margins, etc. Chose a strategy that is realistic and tough. It’s always a nice problem to deal with increased production and hiring, but we should wait to see the “whites of their eyes” for the up tick in our business before we slip on those rose colored glasses. Continue Reading »

Good News! It’s a miracle! Got up this morning, looked into the mirror and realized most of us are still alive, though slightly bruised from fighting our way though most of the winter months. It’s like working out and using those muscles or marketing and operation tools we haven’t used in a long time – in some cases years. Sore yes, but after reading about how terrible it is from every form of media, you might think it was a foregone conclusion that our businesses were in the grave.

Spring is in sight. Days are longer, people are starting to go outdoors, and the phones are actually starting to ring a few times – certainly more than a few weeks ago. Can’t wait for the government or TARP to jumpstart our businesses or sales – of course we all know that, but had to be said.

Time to wick some of that Spring activity into February. We need to remind our current and prospective customers that it’s a good time to buy for future needs. Most manufacturers have capacity to fill before the spring activity starts to trickle in which means deals! Continue Reading »