From: HotlineCy@aol.com
Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 14:22:01 -0400
Hotline Newsletter #18
May 30, 1996
Business Cards - Headaches or a major profit center
and Attending a trade show
Most small commercial and quick printers consider business cards a necessary evil. It can,
however, be an outstanding profit center and can do much to give you a great deal of exposure.
You can easily develop a niche market where your customers are your best salespersons.
You don't often hear someone say, Wow! What a great invoice you have. But it is quite common for one
business person to compliment another on a great looking business card. If that person passes out
1,000 cards per year and you have 100 other customers just like him that you have designed a really great card
for, that is a lot of exposure. It won't take long for the word to get around that if you want a really effective
business card, see The Printer.
Too many of us simply pull out a catalog and let the customer select from
a collection of boilerplate cards - plugging in his own information and
logo.
Why not take a little more time, find out a little more about the customer's company and business,
and design a card that has his or his businesses personality? If your expertise isn't in design, work out
an arrangement with a local artist. You can often find excellent artists in your local
high school, college or university. I worked out a similar deal with a local college student where I paid
her $25 for a couple of pencil sketches for the customer to select from and the final black and white copy.
This would add $35 to $45 to the sale.
Rather than putting together a sample book of the same kind of business cards one sees over and over
again, put together one using really unique cards...cards that will be remembered and not thrown away.
Some examples are wooden, plastic, pressure sensitive, metal, magnetic, photo, leather, hologram, diecut,
braille, cards with beveled edges, clear, 3-D, pop-up, talking, flashing, thermochromatic, etc.
A while back I had a logger come into my shop and told me he wanted 500 of the cheapest business card
you have. I pulled out my trusty business card catalog and opened it to the page with the economy cards.
I then pulled out my sample book of unique cards and pointed to one that was printed on real wood - pine.
500 of the economy cards were $29.95. 500 of the wooden cards were $120. It didn't take him a heartbeat to
decide that he had to have the wooden card. Over the next few months several other loggers came into the
shop wanting to order our wooden business card. I wonder where they heard about us?
The best place to pick up samples and ideas are at trade shows - which we will talk about in a moment. If
you have a copy of the Hotline database, ABFP and ADBFP, search through the business card vendors
for those who produce unique cards and ask them for samples. Look for truly unusual paper stocks such as
ones that have flowers or seeds molded into them, stock made from unusual material, etc. When you find
something unusual, think about who you can sell it to. If nothing comes to mind immediately, put it in your
sample book for future reference.
Business cards can become a very attractive profit center.
Attending a Trade Show...
Since the season for trade shows is upon us, perhaps now is a time to think about how you should
prepare for a trade show.
If the trade show is in your hometown, you don't have a lot of cost in a
ttending. However, if you are like the 40% of the attenders who have to travel to the show, you will have an out- of-pocket cost. To minimize the
cost and maximize the effectiveness of the show, you need to take an hour
or so to prepare for the show.
First of all, contact the show promoter for an exhibitor list, seminar schedule and show guide. You will
want to take a look at the seminars offered and make your reservations for the seminars you wish to attend. Seminars are not
normally planned during hours that the trade exhibits are opened so you don't have to plan around that. However, you do want to take a
look at the exhibitor list and the floorplan. Make a wish list. If you would like to have a new piece of bindery equipment, mark every
exhibitor that is exhibiting bindery equipment on your floorplan. Do the same thing for everything else
on your wish list. These are your priorities. Start at the first aisle and as you walk down the aisles, scan
each exhibit for something that might hit your hot button. If you see something interesting, mark it on
your floorplan to come back to later. Spend your time with your priorities. Once you have checked out
all of your priorities, go back to those other booths you marked on your floorplan.
You certainly want to pick up product literature on everything that interests you, but the most important thing is to pick
up a business card from those companies you are interested in. When you get back to your shop you may well find that you are
overwhelmed with your bags full of product literature. But if you pick up a business card from each vendor that hits that hot
button and make a note on the back of that card as to what it was that interested you, and put that card in your pocket rather than
in your bag, you will not have to call Helene's Hotline to ask, I saw such and such at such and such a show and I need to
get in touch with them now!
I also like to carry along a little pocket rubber stamp with my name, address, phone and fax number and email address. These are
available at a very economical price from Roanoake Stamp & Stencil. Contact Tom Kirchner
at 800-542-7454. I will use this to stamp on sample or product literature requests. I also carry a supply
of business cards but the rubber stamp works better for me.
If you are one who likes to collect as much literature as is possible at a trade show, you might want to consider getting one
of the fold-up 2-wheelers and bring along an empty 20# bond paper carton. That's a heck of a lot easier than
carrying several shopping bags. If you fill the box, simply take it to your car and empty it or leave it in the
hatcheck room.
Trade shows are an incredible resource for profits if you really work them. In the some 37 years
I have been in this business I have been to several hundred trade shows and even the smallest show I have
benefitted from. Make your attendance a profit making experience. Keep in mind that at an average trade
show only some 20% of your competitors will attend. I love those odds.
The House of Gutenberg
Cy Stapleton
Box 151107
Lufkin, TX 75915-1107
(409) 637-7475
Fax (409) 637-1480
Email - hotlinecy@aol.com
Thursday, June 13, 1996 4:55:43 PM
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