Your sales person has met with the prospect and asked all the right questions. They took great photos of the entire project and provided detailed dimensional photos (with the tape measure in the photo, yea!). They matched wall colors, provided site plans, researched the sign code and determined what is allowed and where it can be located. They even obtained a digital copy of the prospect’s logo in PDF form along with some examples of print advertising they have ran in the past. (Reviewing examples of their print media and marketing materials can provide insight into the style and creativeness of their visual identity.) Last but not least, they found out how loud the sizzle needs to be; they have answers to questions that will unlock the prospect’s emotional buying triggers.

A professional-looking layout will do more to help your salesperson close the sale than price or delivery date.

You have all the parts and pieces, notes, details, facts and figures necessary to jump in and start designing. So now what do you do? How do you start the creative process? At this point you and your sales person should have formed a basic concept of what this sign is going to look like and what materials will be used. A few more questions need to be considered before you decide what creative path to take.

• How confident does the salesperson feel about landing this job?
• Is this prospect someone who is shopping the entire field, taking bids from every sign company that’s willing to come up with an idea and price?
• Is this prospect looking for the sign company with the one “best” idea, or are they looking for a sign company that presents multiple concepts to mix and match?

Presentation Designs and Detail Drawings: Building value into your design ideas
There seems to be two distinct camps when it comes to creating a drawing for a proposal. Some sign companies like to lay down several flashy concepts without a lot of detail to see what the prospect will bite on. Some prefer to make one strong presentation that captures the client’s wants and needs. There are no rights or wrongs with either process; it’s really based on what your salesperson thinks the prospect will respond to favorably. When it comes to conceptual design ideas, I try to keep my time short on these “foot in the door” concept presentations. It’s all about getting the prospect’s attention with a great placement drawing. In these scenarios, your goal is to get the prospect narrowed down to a design concept you can build upon in as few drawings as possible. You can have fun with this step of the process, but always remember that the client might just love your idea, and you have to be able to build the sign within their budget. This can be a real slippery slope for beginning designers.

First and foremost, take a little extra time to provide a professional format to showcase your work. I believe any idea worth presenting to a prospect is worthy of a title block, basic dimensions, scale reference, drawing number, date, basic call-outs and a little fluff to make it look like you spent some time on it. This will also keep everyone on the same page when it comes to estimating and production capabilities.

We all have seen drawings from sign companies where it is obvious they just wanted to get something on paper for the appointment (similar to the one I created for the illustration above) and sad to say I, too, have been guilty of this in the past. Presenting your ideas in this fashion removes all elements of value from your proposal. In comparison, a professional-looking layout (left) will do more to help your salesperson close the sale than price or delivery date. If you were the prospect and saw both of these drawings side-by-side, which one would most accurately represent a professionally run sign company? The designs you provide your salespeople to present are a reflection of how your company operates. Maintaining a professional image is crucial in today’s competitive market.

It’s not a huge leap to go from a simple design to a professional layout; it just takes some planning, creativity and a little extra time. Many of the graphic “pizzazz” elements can be saved into a folder as you design them and simply dropped into each future design. Sky, grass, people, fabrication details and even brick and stone examples can be re-used time-and-time again with a little modification and a color change or two. The extra half-hour or so you spend on your designs will come back to you in the form of larger sales, easier sales and fewer estimation/fabrication conflicts.

I know of one sign company that takes the extra step of dry mounting their 11" x 17" presentation drawings onto black foamcore before showing them to the prospect. (1/2 of a 20" x 30" sheet leaves a nice border around the sheet and room for pasting a business card in the lower corner). In this way, they are telling the prospect, “We are serious about earning your business on this project, and we want to be your sign company.”

Professional-looking drawings also make your sales person’s job much easier if the prospect wants to make changes but isn’t willing to make a commitment. The salesperson has more leverage in getting a commitment prior to making changes with a formal drawing. The more your designs appear to have a monetary value the better.

Here’s a question: Why do we in the sign industry give away our design time? I know it’s all factored into the cost of the sign, but I have always wondered how this practice was established? When so many other industries won’t push the mouse even an inch without an up-front agreement on design fees, we in the sign industry give away free design time like it was candy at a parade (don’t get me started).

The Single-Design Presentation: Hit them with your best shot right from the start.
I like the challenge of this process, as it forces everyone to be a little keener in the information gathering, research and design process. Do I hit a home run every time? No way. However, I have found that with the right information from the salesperson, I usually end up close enough that minor modifications are an easy fix that do not affect the estimating too drastically. Once I have determined the direction I am going, I turn on the afterburners and start the process of creating a drawing and placement illustration that allows the prospect to see what the sign would actually look like in real life.

In one instance, the client expressed her desires for a sign with a long read for visibility from the highway. She told us about her business, her image, her company and the type of clientele she was trying to attract to her store. She also wanted the sign design to be useable as a logo for increased visual recognition. Following the design interview, I spent a few hours with the sign company owner, and we discussed his ideas for a corner wrap cabinet sign. It was already 4 p.m., and the prospect wanted to come back in the morning. Yikes! I rolled up my sleeves and went to work. I prepared a fully detailed drawing showing install specifications and material call-outs in an 11" x 17" format and focused my efforts on the placement drawing. I knew that being an interior designer, she would respond favorably to a realistic placement illustration (see images at left).

The prospect walked into the sign company office the next day, looked at the design sitting on the desk, smiled big, asked a few questions, signed the proposal and handed over a deposit. Now that’s what I’m talking about! The easier you make it for the prospect to say, “yes,” the more often they will.

No matter how you slice it, we are in the image, identity and advertising businesses all rolled into one. If we want our clients to hire us to help them with their image, we better have presentations that do the same for our image.