Designers Poll: Are you more or less likely to extend credit to clients?

Slashed marketing budgets and sidelined projects have left a lot of creative folks chasing fewer dollars. Bigger agencies often adjust their terms to accommodate clients. But what about the smaller shops and freelancers? Are they more or less willing to stick out their necks by extending credit terms?

If you’ve been at it long enough, eventually you end up with brilliant projects, coupled with unpaid invoices.— Chris Gatewood [1]

What insights can you share? We’d really like to have your comments.

[1] Good Riddance to Deadbeat Clients by Chris Gatewood

Evaluating customer service before you experience it

Many online printers claim “superior” print quality, customer service, and turnaround times. Print quality is easy to evaluate. We can request samples. Turnaround times are usually stated, so those are easy enough to compare.

However, customer service is unknown till after we’ve done business with any company, not just a printer. Horror stories are plentiful. To designers who manage the printing of their client’s important marketing projects, customer service is not something to be taken lightly.

If you have no previous experience with a vendor, how do you determine how valid his customer service claims and guarantees are? All else being equal, what is the deciding factor that would most influence you to take a chance with a untried vendor for the first time?

Please take our poll. But your comments will be appreciated even more since they offer the clearest insights. Every comment will receive a response.

Clever. But did it sell?

Two decades ago, bestselling marketing gurus Jack Trout and Al Ries wrote a book called “Bottom-Up Marketing.”[1] In it, they detailed the case of a small pickup manufacturer, Isuzu Motors, whose advertising spokesperson at the time was a character named Joe Isuzu,[2] a compulsive liar.

Television commercials and print detailed his outlandish claims regarding things he could do with his Isuzu pickup which always ended with a clever, though obviously transparent, means by which he accomplished the feat. For example: Joe claimed to have driven his Isuzu pickup to the top of Mt. Everest. How’d he do it? “Snow tires.”

The ads were clever, memorable, and were regularly discussed by nearly everyone with a TV. Joe Isuzu became synonymous with “big liar.” The campaign won a raft of advertising industry awards. As a result the agency who created the campaign, Della Femina McNamee Inc., prospered, as did actor David Leisure, who played the Joe character.

Isuzu didn’t fare as well. Their pickup truck sales were dismal.

By now, you’ve figured where this is headed. Cleverness and powerful graphics get our attention. They serve to overcome outside distractions. But without a clear marketing message as to how or why the product helps the customer improve their position, it’s nothing more than entertainment.

Let’s hear your comments.

——–

[1] Bottom-Up Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout, p. 157

[2] Wikipedia entry for Joe Isuzu

Seven tips for a better business card

Ever notice how sometimes, when introduced to strangers, we don’t quite get a person’s name correct? A well-designed business card can head off that awkward moment which could dampen the enthusiasm of a new relationship. It can also say a lot about the business. So care in its design is imperative.

We designers face an ongoing challenge. For us, creativity is like a permanent set of teenage hormones, causing us to sometimes forget that form follows function. So perhaps this piece will serve as a reminder.

This is written in the context that the reader is designing their own business card. But maybe you’re not a designer and simply must accept the business card your company provides. In that case, let’s weigh it against the following seven criteria.