B2B > Professional Services
We offer businesses an array of professional services that you do not traditionally obtain from a retail store. Scott's background is as an engineer, and while his project management skills are well suited to running a retail store, he also has extensive training and experience using a variety of high end software, such as desktop publishing, program development tools, and web design. We are able to combine this with our ability to buy in large quantities and find great, low cost suppliers to provide businesses the services they need, but don't have the time to do themselves or have the particular expertise or software to do themselves. Call or e-mail Scott if you are interested in finding out what we can do to help your business.
Desktop Publishing
Desktop publishing is a fancy way of saying we have the experience and tools to develop your "brochures," "rack cards," "business cards," "postcards," "bag stuffers," and any other promotional material you need. We use the most advanced software to ensure exact placement of the text and picture on a page. We also use advanced photo editing software to manipulate pictures and other graphics to ensure the graphics you use send precisely the message you want to convey to your customers. We use some of the best, and most affordable printers to give your finished product the professional look you deserve.
Click on one of the links, below, to open a new browser window and see examples of how we can help your business today:
- Our 2007 brochure is an excellent example of how a start-up company can convey the message they need. This brochure is "text heavy," in that it contains a lot of words and few pictures. This is often necessary when you need a brochure now, but do not have the store up and running sufficiently to "show off what you have" in pictures. The final product was in full color, printed on 80# gloss text paper. It looks as good as a photograph.
- We developed a rewards card for the Leesburg Downtown Business association. These cards tend to be "text heavy," but required us to create and manipulate an image of the LDBA logo. The final product was in full color on the face side, black and white on the back side, and printed on 100# gloss cover stock. It looks as good as a photograph.
Website Design and Maintenance
Having a presence on the web today is an absolute necessity, even for the smallest companies. You need a website, even if your web site tells customers little more than your location and store hours, provides a flavor of the products and services you offer, and provides contact information for immediate response. A website is the best and least expensive way to advertise yourself.
Most web hosting companies have a simple on-line tool you can use you generate basic websites. Many people are happy with this solution. We are not one of those people, for a number of reasons. On-line web development tools often add advertising or a search feature to your web site. Web-based design tools can also lead to undesirable results: having your unfinished website "live" and viewable by anyone; typographical and other errors; enlarged text that suddenly appears in the middle of a paragraph; pictures that either don't display at all or are improperly placed on the page, depending on what browser your customer is using; and the inability to support some basic web tools, such as Javascript. The fact is, your web site tells your customers a lot about you. If you want to convey a message that you are as good and as professional as, say, Amazon, then your web site needs to have the same feel as the big companies.
Why do people use these tools, if they are so awful? To build a great website, you need to buy web design, photo editing, and maybe even database manipulation software. You need to take time away from your core business to learn how to use the new software because, simply put, these programs are more sophisticated than your word processor. And finally, you need to create and maintain your website. That's a big commitment for a small company.
That's where we can help; you can stay focused on your core business. For about the same price as the cost of the web design software, we can build a professional looking one page website that gives you a presence on the web. For about the same price as the software and the training you need to use the software, we can build you a professional looking four page website that persuades your customers to contact you. And finally, for about the cost of the sales you lost by attending the training, we can maintain your web site by keeping it current. You save not only time and the distraction a website can cause, but also the cost of the all the other software needed to build a modern website.
Click on the links, below, to see some examples of the websites we design or maintain in a new browser window:
- Our website is an excellent example of what we can do. It was built from a blank page and, while it does not use every tool in our arsenal, it comes very close.
- We maintain the Leesburg Downtown Business Association's website. This website was developed by someone else. Our job was to clean up it up and keep it current.