Sell What You Market!

Some things have interesting timing. Yesterday I tweeted simply to say that I was working on some branding for Calvary Baptist Church where I work. My friend Josh Puckett saw the tweet and replied to it. He sent me an article about branding. The article basically said that the era of graphic branding has somewhat passed as people are starting to realize that a fancy brand doesn’t necessarily mean a good product. I say this not at all to diminish the importance of a quality graphic brand, but instead to show the importance of backing that brand with a quality product. (The article Josh sent me can be read here.)

So here’s where the timing comes in… Over the past week or so, I’ve been working with a local printing company that will remain nameless, to get some print items made for our church. This company markets themselves not necessarily with a good graphics package, but with the fact that they employ professionally trained printers, and have the highest quality equipment along with very reasonable pricing. That led me to choose this company…

I now regret that choice. Why? Horrible customer service. It’s been over two weeks now since the files were delivered and I still haven’t even received a date on when they’ll be done. Grant it, I wouldn’t have worked with “professionally trained” people, and the “highest quality equipment,” but I could have gone a couple miles up the road and walked out with this same print job about half an hour after walking in the doors for the first time.

Sorry, this is somewhat of rant, but what fueled me to post this was the email I received today from the company after asking, once again, the status of our job. They simply said, mind you this is after over two weeks of waiting on a relatively small job, “Sorry for the delayed response. I’m absolutely swamped. Let me check with employees name and get back to you on this.” You mean, after over two weeks you still have to check with another guy and get back to me about when my prints will be ready?! I could’ve ordered these much cheeper online and had them by now. These prints need to go out in a mailing last week!

Anyway, all this to say. Please! If you’re going to market yourself as being good at something, don’t let down. You’ll lose business if you do.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. What’s important to you when searching for a product or service?

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