Reach out, and let us know what award you would like to create!
Author: Brian Hartwell
Team Building
Posted onBuilding a team consists of a great many activities, but I would like to highlight a simple and subtle way of creating a sense of unity and shared purpose by creating a “uniform” for your organization.
The first 2 steps for team building is putting together a successful team.
1. Choose your people wisely.
2. Unite your team emotionally and in purpose.
In athletics, we accomplish team building and unification with a uniform. Note the commonality of the prefix ‘uni?’ And that is the first step the getting everybody to work for a common goal. In professional sports, players are traded and have often been opponents before they are teammates. The uniform becomes a bond that joins these varied players together.
Beyond athletics, uniforms are required when an organization’s staff is working with the public. Contractors and service providers need to be identified as a member of the team, as opposed to another customer. Uniforms are present from fast food restaurants, grocery stores, airlines, and first responders.
Corporate Team Building
In the corporate world, uniforms are not typically required on a daily basis, but there are times when a uniform is beneficial. Public marketing events are effective times to use matching shirts with an embroidered corporate brand, golf outings or other public relations events can also benefit from the identification of individuals who belong to a particular organization.
In the non-profit or fundraising sphere, like walk-a-thons, teams often dress in similar t-shirts to show unity in purpose. Many times these teams are subsets of corporate fundraising arms. The printed t-shirt not only shows unity of purpose at that particular event, but will also serve as a reminder of a good deed done when worn after the event has long past.
Sometimes when on-boarding new employees, one of the first gifts a corporation will often give is a printed shirt with the company brand or slogan. This handing out of a uniform is the first signal to the new hire, that this person is now part of the team. That purposes have merged. The individual will then wear the shirt around town, or in the office signaling to all who see her, that she is part of your organization.
Printed or embroidered apparel like shirts, hats or jackets are a key component to building community and teamwork within an organization. If custom decorated apparel is not part of your team building program, you really need to examine how it might help unify and strengthen the bonds of your people with one another and the organization at large.
Stay away from buying/selling commodities.
Posted onNo, this isn’t about trading pork bellies…. or rice.
This is my philosophy for how I help my clients.
Quite often I have people asking me to quote on an item available from a brand vendor or other company. Okay, I can do that, but secretly I wonder and they have already selected the vendor they wish to purchase from and I am just the 3rd bid to make sure they are getting a good price, or perhaps using my quote to negotiate a better price. I know that in such situations I can’t give them any value other than just a lower price than my competitor because obviously somebody else has already done the work helping them select a product. I prefer to help people who call me, find the product that actually meets their needs, in all the relevant aspects of function, design, price, and deliverability.
I’ve always admired people who sell intangible items like financial services, because they have to be very good at figuring out the real needs, hopes, desires of their clients. That takes an interview, or some skillful fact finding. I admire and therefore I do my best to emulate.
I really don’t care what you buy from me, as long as that product meets your needs perfectly. I believe this approach is more conducive to a long term customer relationship. I find that if you find out what people want, and give it to them they will value my services more than if I just give them what is easiest for me.
How do I do it? I figure out what they are trying to accomplish. Simple as that. You need (X) product for this event, and you want it to be (G). It needs to be in (T) price range and easily ship-able, or make such and such an impression. It will be given to these types of people, and they need to like it because of (K). Oh, and it needs to be delivered by XX/XX/XXXX.
Once I have all that information, I can give you the best product for your needs, and you will probably learn a little bit about all the options I know about that you don’t.
Experts don’t have all the answers from the get go, but they know how to correctly diagnose a problem, and once the diagnosis is correct, the answer is often plain as day. As a sales person, the idea is to become an expert. On that road to expertdom you need to ask all the pertinent questions actually solve your prospect’s problem. They will appreciate you taking the time. Trust me.
This is what I hope to do for you. Figure out the best product for you event, and I will walk you through the process to find that one thing that will be a complete success, that you didn’t even know existed.
Custom Printed T-Shirts
Posted onThe T-shirt has long been one of the most effective marketing pieces available.
If you are a well-known brand, people will even pay you to wear your logo on a shirt. People love wearing shirts that advertise the brands they love.
Help them love your brand, by giving away tees. We have you covered.
We have printed shirts for major corporate events like trade shows giveaways, company picnics and other promotional events. We have also supplied printed shirts to schools, manufacturing companies, janitorial services, construction companies and other organizations wanting to promote their brand.
The Paradox of Choice
Posted onHave you heard of the paradox of choice? Have you watched the video?
If not, watch it here.
After watching the video, you must decide what it will mean in your life and business. I say you have to figure out how to make every question you face a YES or NO question rather than a multiple choice question.
Let’s say you are going out to eat with a friend or loved one. You want Mexican, but don’t want to impose, so you ask the generic question of “Where do you want to eat?” Invariably, the answer is, ‘I don’t know, what do you want?’ That is because such an open ended question presents too many options to the other person.
A better question might be, do you want hamburgers or tacos? This narrows it down considerably, but still leaves another question.
Another more targeted question might be. “Do you wish to go to Hamburger Haven?” Then the answer is a definite Yes/No question. You will get either yes or no. If yes, you are done. If the answer is “no” then you can ask, “Do you not want hamburgers?” If the answer is no, then you can eliminate all hamburger restaurants. Then you respond, “How about tacos?” To which the answer is either yes or no. If the answer is yes, suggest a restaurant, if the answer is no, move on to Italian, or Chinese, or whatever, but eventually, by the process of elimination, you will arrive at the desired restaurant. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long, or the other person will now have a reference to go on, and the time to make a suggestion of their own.
This process will also work in the selection of your awards or apparel. Every question should be do you want this product? Yes/No. Do you want a glass award? Yes/no. Do you want an acrylic award? Yes/no. Do you want medals? Yes/no. etc.
What does this all mean? We are binary creatures. Give me 12 options and I don’t act, because I can’t decide, give me one option, and I can always say yes or no.
Now, this may seem difficult at first glance, but if you cultivate the idea in your own mind that all questions should be yes/no questions, your decision will be easy. People usually know what they want, they just have difficulty sorting it out because of the paradox of choice.
This is very important in a business such as ours, because we have thousands of solutions to every need. Choosing quickly is half the battle to getting the right product, in the right time frame.
Medals are Timeless
Posted on
From the Olympic games to youth sports. Medals are a true symbol of achievement. The classic gold, silver, bronze categories are instantly recognized as Champion, Runner-Up and 3rd Place.
Not all events are good for medals, but those that involve lots of winners are very good candidates for medals because as far as awards go, they are less expensive, yet recognized for their value.
If you have at least 4 weeks production time, consider creating a custom medallion in any shape you wish.
Events medals are good for. Corporate Games, Running events like Marathons, 10k, 5k and other athletically themed events.
Custom Framing
Posted on
This was a fun project. The recipients included persons who worked on the Knights Landing project, over 300 people. Each frame included a printed copy of the chip design, their name and an actual chip. We even engraved the Intel logo on all the chips before mounting them inside the shadowbox style frame. A beautiful way to recognize the efforts of all who put their heart and soul into this project.
Mementos that Matter
Posted onMany software companies in the Silicon Valley measure their success from release to release. Version 1.0 gets you started in the marketplace and each subsequent update is a milestone that confirms your viability in the marketplace. But as all enterprises know, it is not a single individual that creates successful products, but a whole crew of dedicated team members who have worked long hours and brain-bending hard on making the next version of your product the one that leaps ahead of the competition.
In Clint Eastwood’s movie Gran Torino, the prized possession of his character Walt Kowalski was a green 1972 Ford Gran Torino in which he had installed the steering column. This car was representative of his work at the Ford Motor Company. It was a symbol of pride, and was prized for what it represented to him. The movie revolves around this machine, and how it was representative of his life’s work and passion.
Every person in the work world loves to show off their work product. In my business this is often represented by a plaque or trophy of some sort. As nice as it is to receive an award for your work, the trophy is only a representation of the actual product. What we strive to do, is make the award as relevant as possible to the product your staff has worked on. The product should be a permanent reminder, a memento, of the product or company years down the road. With a glance, the memento should speak volumes about the giver and the work of the recipient. That is the most powerful recognition available.
One recent project centered around a company that makes anti-malware software, called Malwarebytes. This company has a great futuristic culture and has recently redesigned their hero robot. This robot represents their software’s defense against all the malware-bots in the internet galaxy. This mascot has been used as a symbol of the company’s work and is quickly becoming an icon that is memorable to all who see it. It is great branding, but more importantly, it is a symbol of their company’s mission.
So when we were asked to design a piece as a memento for all the staff that worked on their latest release we dug into their story and created a piece that had the hero robot literally in the center of the project. We started with drawings and designs moving to a full production piece. It was a crystal cube with 3D laser engraving in the middle, sand etched recognition of the release on the front, and the dark blue world of internet danger as a background.
We started by taking a look at the full rendering of the robot
And then we created a design around the robot.
Finally we produced a couple samples. We produced two variates, one with a background, and one without.
Which do you prefer?
Front View
Side View
