Yesterday your boss put you in charge of all the collaterals for the trade show this summer. That means you’ll coordinate the printed brochures, the business card printing, the printed promotional product, and things neither of you have even begun to think about yet.
It’s a big responsibility and one that speaks highly of your capabilities. You smile as she tells you about it and enthusiastically take on the challenge but then you begin to think about what’s at stake:
- You have a budget you’ll need to adhere to. Last year’s went wildly over. You don’t want that again and neither does your boss.
- There were a lot of leads that came out of last year’s trade show. You need to at least match what they did last year.
- Your predecessor who handled all of this is no longer with your company so you have no one to ask about who they used or how the project was managed.
- You want to ensure you do a good job so that you look good and in turn your boss looks good in front of her boss.
And your boss just popped her head in and said she needs preliminary ideas and quotes two days from now for her meeting with her boss and she wants a chance to review them with you before the meeting.
“I need the quote for the printed brochures and the other stuff ASAP.”
Yikes!
You know you can go to an online promotional marketing company’s website and get numbers for her and that’s exactly what you do. You google “event items” and choose the top one. If they’re in the top spot, they must be good. Right?
Good maybe? Big, absolutely.
You check their online catalog. Find a stress ball in your price range. Price out printed business cards and brochures. Create a spreadsheet and you’re done with the better part of a day to spare.
Good news! Your boss loves your idea on everything. She gives you the green light. You feel like a rock star. You beat the clock and came in under budget.
Then you get back online and place your order for the printed brochures and the rest of the trade show materials. Feeling good, you run to get a coffee.
Online Orders are Simple
When you get back there’s a message on your voicemail from the promotional product company. They don’t do the stress ball in the quantity you need and there’s an upcharge because of the complexity of your 4-color company logo.
You call them back and decide to increase your order to meet their minimum. Why not? You had money in the budget. You agree to the upcharge as well. There’s still some wiggle room. Everything else with the order looks good. You’re impressed they can get it to you quicker than expected if you can provide the files for the brochures. No problem. You upload them to their site.
A week or so later, the company has delivered even faster than you thought possible. You tear open the box with all the excitement of a kid at Christmas.
Then you see it. A blurred logo on the balls. Worse than that, a typo on the top line of your printed brochures’ copy. You open up your original doc that you uploaded and sure enough, there it is. You gave them a file with an error in it.
You call the company back in a panic. You’re not happy, but really you’re terrified. Your boss is going to want to see these printed brochures. What can be done?
“You signed off on the proof.”
Those words echo in your head and you wonder how much longer you’ll have a job.
There are companies out there that never look at what’s being sent in. The responsibility is solely on the customer. “Your file, your fault” is their unspoken mantra.
We operate as a part of your marketing team at ThinkQuik. We double and triple check everything that’s given to us. Sometimes we catch critical errors and sometimes our clients will tell us it’s intentional, but either way they appreciate that we are invested in the process.
When selecting a promotional products vendor you want someone who’s on your team because everyone needs a little extra help.
Don’t be a victim to someone who doesn’t care about their product. Work with a team that knows not only is your name on the line, ours is too.
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