My studio partner, Jeff White (Radiant Imagery) outside of his painting career loves to fish. One day at the studio he told me that he had a great new invention that he wanted to develop. I asked him what it was and he said that he was developing a new way to fix broken fishing poles. He was showing me the process of putting in a tapered piece of round metal dowel in between the two broken pieces. He must of spent all day trying to work this fix out. Nothing really worked until when he said to me. I am going up to Woodland, WA. I asked him what the hell was he going to do up in that little rural town.

He said, "There is a fishing pole company (Lamiglas) up there that I need to go visit." Well, if you are in the fishing industry this is a very respectable fishing pole company. Jeff came back a couple hours later with a huge smile on his face. I asked him, "What are you smiling about?" He said, "I will never buy another pole from anyone else, they replaced the broken tips without any questions. They are warrantied for life." Lamiglas made Jeff a partner for life. Smart company. Smart marketing!

© 2010 Michael Johnson - Inkspot Graphics. All rights reserved.

My wife and I went to a poker game last Friday night with some of the other parents from our daughter's school. There are lots of hor devours and wine flowing. One of the parents, Sharon, told us that in her school they promote Positive Reinforcement with the kids. When one of the poker players let slip a negative comment she would say "It takes four positives to erase one negative!" We were all laughing and pointing out how many negative comments were made.

But you know it is sad that in our culture we have been grown accustomed to learning via negative language. I am constantly challenged to make sure what I say around my wife and daughter because of my past conditioning. I know that if we emphasis this in our business model we would find ourselves surrounded with more of the clients that we want to work around.

Take a moment today to make an effort to give a positive to someone you love, a colleague from work or best yet - one of your clients! Please give me your best one. I found another blog that has a follow-up with this same subject (Toastie's Blog).

How I love a challenge!

I was approached by a new client to design a brochure to be used for a trade show. Unfortunately, they needed a quick turnaround (start to printed completion in two weeks). They had someone else finishing up on the AquaFewUSA website and the files that they had were all low resolution. When designing for any part of a business it is always best to have a consistent look with ALL marketing.

My challenge was to come up with something attractive and convey their message in a very quick overview. This type of industry is never very glamourous. After doing some research on the company, their competitors and their latest product for assisting companies with removing bacteria and food borne illness. I got a photograph of their new machinery and did some color correction/photo manipulations. Spent a couple of hours going though food industry stock photography. I presented the company owner, Carl of AquaFewUSA three down and dirty comps for the cover of the 17" x 11" to be folded down to 8.5" x 11".

I recommended that they print a low run of of digital prints (250) so that they could make changes and print a bigger run in the future. Digital printing has gotten so much better than five years ago, it is amazing. They liked the the blue cover with the different wordage that was associated with the food processing industry.

The copy that they provided me with was very technical and me being the visual artist had the challenge of making a happy medium with both. I am a strong believer in breaking a lot of information like this down in chunks (compartmentalization) for easier readability on the consumer's part.

After about 4-5 revisions, my client was very happy and got a lot of positive comments while down at the Las Vegas Food Processing Trade Show.

I met a client of mine last week at a local restaurant, Milo's City Cafe on SE Broadway in Portland, OR. About about halfway through our breakfast Bruce jumped up and said "I have to show you something. He bolted up from the table and ran out to his car. I thought, "This should be pretty good if he had enough energy to show me something". He ran back in and threw down a very nice (oversized) brochure called "The Where to Eat Guide". Bruce said, I have been going through this guide and going to their recommended restaurants. This is great, it gives you pricing, local, reviews and a portion of their menu." TheEatGuide.com

I was really impressed with everything about it. When I got back to the office I went to their website and requested a copy of the guide and asked if I could give them a write-up in my blog.

Then next day I got an email from the owner, John H. and said that he would be in town the following week and would like to meet. Now, I was really impressed that John would take the time to meet with me because of my interest in his publication.

I asked him how I would recognize him and John said, "You will recognize me because of my brand".  Again, it peaked my marketing curiosity.

I walked into Milo's and saw John because of his logo embroidered on his shirt and coat (very tastefully done). I wished I would have had my camera to take his photo. John is very personable and has alot of energy. From a business perspective he has worked the process all the way through from print, marketing, sales, distribution and web. He is currently in Oregon, California, Idaho and Hawaii. He is looking to expand in other cities and markets. Super nice guy. I want him on my MasterMind group! I probably talked his head off with all my questions. . .we were at the restaurant for 1-1/2 hours.

They have a Facebook page. There you can leave comments or recommendations about local restaurants that they have in their guidebook. Plus contests and give-aways.

Great guy, I would have no problem recommending him or his guide. He even gave me a $20 gift certificate (great marketing promotional product of a bill-like certificate) from the downtown restaurant, BluePlate Lunch Counter and Soda Fountain.

I have a client, National Builders Hardware, that wanted me to design an ad for them in this new magazine. 1859 is a nice coffee table magazine that is published in Bend, OR.

This is the ad that I created for NBH.

It is very professional magazine with some quality photos. They were very happy with my clean layout that promoted one of their vendors. It is very nice to be appreciated by your clients. That is one of my requirements for my "Perfect Client". . . someone that can appreciate your knowledge of wisdom in your specialized area of expertise.

It reminded me of my experience of working with another local company producing the Zupan's magazine "Fresh Ideas".

They (have since) brought producing the magazine in-house and renamed it "Indulge". I loved working on that job. Yes, it had some of it's frustrations. We had a YOUNG (and insecure) executive editor that made our lives miserable but my friend, Bernadette and I worked through it all and learned something about ourselves. Sometimes it really doesn't matter how much they pay you (1) is it morally right for you and (2) how much abuse do you want to take from your clients (no matter how desperate you are for work). Do you have any good stories?

My mother would say, "There is always a reason!" I love that saying.

© 2010 Michael Johnson - Inkspot Graphics. All rights reserved.