The Customer Focus Series

A picture’s worth a thousand words.

Don’t write a novel—just get a logo! It really is true that a picture is worth 1,000 words.

One day, I decided to get a handmade, custom-painted street sign with beautiful green lettering that said, NOLAN PAINTING, plus the words “Free Estimates” and our phone number. With permission, I placed the sign in front of a Villanova basketball coach’s (the late Rollie Massimino) house. I was so proud.

Next day, the sign was gone. I was beside myself! I couldn’t believe it! A $160 investment gone up in smoke. I drove up and down the block thinking kids may have pulled the sign and pitched it somewhere. Nothing. I gave up.

Years later, I was at a competitor’s office and spotted that same sign on his wall! That SOB. I pulled it off. Now it hangs in my hallway.

Despite that infuriating episode, signs and trucks are the most prominent way contractors are seen in the marketplace. Company names are printed in block or script letters with phone numbers and other marketing language.

They squeeze a list of services, a website, and lots of additional info on a 24-inch sign!

I did, too, at first. Yet, I knew I needed a better way to stand out amongst all the signs. So I decided we needed a logo. I asked a couple of creative folks to put together some sample logos for Nolan Painting. The green paint swish jumped off the page! For the last 30 years, the Nolan Painting logo is what people remember when they drive by a house with our sign or pass one of my trucks. It’s a simple logo and a website. That’s it. The best logos are easy to recognize. Nobody writes phone numbers down anymore.

Get a logo.

At events, I’ll say that I run Nolan Painting, and people nod as if maybe they recognize the name.

Then, I hand them a business card with our logo, and they instantly recognize my company.

I have wondered why other contractors don’t use clear logos that are easy to see when driving past one of their jobs at 50 miles an hour. It’s hard to read a name at that speed and even harder to remember, but recognizing a logo is cake. I remember putting the logo on the sides of my vans and seeing them from a half mile away. They were so big! I wondered if I was overdoing it. In retrospect, I realize you can’t overdo it.

Build muscle by getting a logo. See you next week.