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Building your brand is a constant and continuous process, and it’s key to make sure that you are surounded with great talent so that you stay on the leading edge versus your competition.

One business tool and piece of markeitng collateral I have been planning for some time is a new business card – a referral card infact.  This is more than a business card and details of my 8 step business development and branding programme and a call to action outlining where people can go to access free business development resources from my business.

I have a number of designers in my team – one for my high end work and one for web work and information products.  However this was a project I wanted to manage the level of investment in as I want to test the materials.

So last Friday I had the day clear to create the copy and design my own draft layout for the referral card.

I then headed down into town as I knew there were two digital print shops close to each other.

Yes I know I am an advocate of litho printing not digital printing, but I decided to ‘go digital’ to manage my investment for this trial.

The first printers I went to could not help as the designer was not available until the following week.

Well I was determined to move this project forward so I went to the next printers Snap, where I met Siobhan, a really personable and knowledgeable person on their reception desk.

No question I asked was too much – I was pricing several projects and even though I did not speak to a designer, Siobhan’s expertise and the fact that I had left them with a disk with all my original art work, I was confident and excited when I left them.

True to Siobhan’s word, the first mock up came through on Tuesday morning from their senior designer Gill.  It was not as sharp as I was looking for and there were a number of changes I needed to make.

Note : even though your designer has great talent, as the business leader or your organisation, you should have a clear vision for the design of your marketing materials which means you have to do your homework and research.

I got on the phone to Gill and went through the amendments and explained how ‘hot’ I needed the cards to look.  In addition I threw in a curve ball as  had just been invited to a networking event where I wanted to showcase my cards – or at least trial them out the next day.

Gill had not seen the concept of a referral card before, but she quickly grasped what I was looking for and as for 24 hour delivery, that would be no problem.

She turned around an alternative design for me to take a look at and by the close of the day we were ready to go to print.

I am now looking forward to test marketing my referral card in the weeks ahead and if it works, I’ll be sharing the idea with my clients.  If it doesn’t, I’ll refine it until it does!

I am thrilled to have met Siobhan and Gill and delighted to have them in my success team.

So what’s the moral to this tale:

• have you got a great reception team who know how to handle a client when they call you or come to your door – otherwise you could be turning your back on a potentially great long term relationship with an ideal client?
• do your team deliver against the promises you make to your clients?

You can be sure that I’ll be recommending my local Snap printers to others based on what they’ve delivered for my business in th last week – they’ve just recruited me as one of their unpaid sales force and a brand ambassador through their delivery and customer service!