April Tip Sheet

pricing
Start Selling Bespoke Wallpaper

Looking to add a new profit center? One high-potential area to grow your business is customized wallpaper and printed “wall murals.” Sure, the large majority of customers will buy the peel-and-stick wallpaper that’s all the rage from major retailers like Target, but digital printing opens the door for so much more. Use your social media feed to promote your services and projects, and purchase classified advertising aimed at interior designers and private clients to show off your one-of-a-kind “bespoke” solutions.

pricing
Make Sure to Wrap Wisely

One of the quickest ways to lose money in vehicle wrapping is by setting your fees incorrectly, says Matt Richart, co-owner of Digital EFX Wraps in Louisville, Kentucky. When quoting for a job, be sure to ask yourself the following questions: How much film will you actually use? How much ink and laminate will be utilized? How much waste will you have after the vehicle wrap is printed? These questions are very important to any wrapper, especially one new to this industry. You can be an expert wrapper, but if you aren’t pricing your work properly, you could suffer serious consequences that could jeopardize your business.

Ask the right questions before pricing your vehicle wrap work. Image courtesy of Digital EFX Wraps.

MARKETING
Totally Avoid these Bad Words

For years we’ve been crusading against weasel words – those phrases and sentence-fillers that, according to Seth Godin, marketer, make it easy for people to ignore your marketing message. The words on Godin’s list include actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, and finally.

COMMUNICATION
Keep Emails Short

A bracing email policy to live by, from Tim Ferriss, is to limit all email responses to five sentences or less. The rationale, as explained in his weekly bulletin, is that it “forces me to be concise, to choose only the essentials of what I want to say, and limits the time I spend replying to email. Keep them short, but powerful.”

CLIENTELING
A Slice of Good Will

Now is a great time to show you care about your customers. What better way to do that than with pizza, Scott McKain, the CEO of Distinctive Presentations, told the AGS Virtual Conclave. How exactly? He recommends that once a week, you make a list of 10 of your top 50 customers, find out their pizza preferences, and send them a pizza. “It’s $10 to say we care about you more than your business,” he says.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Wait 10 Minutes

When it’s difficult to deny yourself that social media scroll, donut, or new coat, tell yourself to instead wait just 10 minutes before you give in. This “mini” delay in gratification will help you build more self-control over time, says Kelly McGonigal in her book “The Willpower Instinct.” “Ten minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but with more practice, 10 minutes can turn into 20, 30, or 60 minutes, and soon you might be able to put off gratification for as long as you want.”

PRODUCTIVITY
Do Breaks Better

The most important thing to understand about breaks is they’re not a deviation from performance; they are part of performance, says Dan Pink in his latest business best-seller, “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.” “And the most restorative breaks are social rather than solo, outside not inside, moving instead of stationary, and fully detached rather than semi-detached.”

CREATIVITY
Dare to Suck

Here’s a perfect theme for a weekly video meeting with your staff: Dare To Suck. The idea, courtesy of Aerosmith front man, Steven Tyler, is every member of the band would have to come to the meeting and present an idea they thought was probably terrible. “And nine times out of 10, the idea is actually terrible,” Tyler told a “MasterClass.” “But one time out of 10, you get ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady’ or ‘Love in an Elevator.’” The brilliance of the idea is that it takes the fear out of the creative process.