Podcasting Badass: Podcast Tips & Mindset Tricks For Success & Monetization

Visual Branding Podcasts and Graphic Design Tips ft. Alliance Print Services

• Steve Bennet-Martin • Season 1 • Episode 27

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In today’s episode, Steve sits down with Missy and April from Alliance Print Services to explore the crucial role of visual branding in podcasting and beyond. They discuss how effective logo design and professional printing can elevate your brand, common pitfalls to avoid, and tips for ensuring your visual elements make a lasting impression. Whether you're a podcaster needing eye-catching artwork or a business owner aiming to enhance your branding, this conversation offers valuable insights.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Professional Logo Design Matters:
    • Missy and April emphasize the importance of professionally designed logos that translate well into print.
    • They discuss common issues with DIY designs and how their skilled graphic designer can help create versatile, high-quality logos.
  2. Understanding Color Consistency:
    • They explain the challenges of matching digital colors to print and the significance of Pantone Matching System (PMS) colors.
    • Flexibility is key when exact color matches aren't possible due to different printing processes and materials.
  3. Simplicity is Key in Design:
    • Intricate details may not reproduce well in certain printing techniques.
    • They advise focusing on clean, bold designs for clarity and impact across various mediums.
  4. Innovative Promotional Products:
    • The duo shares unique ideas like branded beach balls, cooler bags, and rack cards with detachable business cards.
    • Choosing the right promotional items can leave a memorable impression on clients and customers.
  5. Evolving with Printing Technology:
    • April reflects on advancements from traditional methods to modern digital presses.
    • They highlight new services like laser engraving and dye sublimation to meet diverse client needs.

What's Next?

Visit www.sobersteve.com for more information on Steve’s Podcast Launch Program and his Branding and Business Bootcamp for Badasses suffering from PodPhobia.

Connect with Alliance Print Services!

Enhance your branding with Missy and April's expertise. Reach out to Alliance Print Services for personalized solutions to bring your visual branding to life.

Keep listening to Podcasting Badass for more expert insights and tips to become a true badass in the podcasting world!

Hey there it's sober steve the podcast guy here with a, another episode of podcasting. Bad-ass. I am so excited to share this interview. I did last month. With Missy and April from Alliance print services, they are wonderful people and what I loved about my conversation with them is taking what they do for a living, which is helping people turn their brands into really eye-catching engaging wowing products. And would it be like turning that into a podcast about branding? So with that, enjoy the episode.

Steve:

Hey there, it's Sober Steve here with Missy and April from Alliance Print Services. Welcome to the show.

Missy:

Hi, thank you.

Steve:

Yes. And I had the pleasure of meeting you, Missy, at Let's Connect, Braid in Tin, with the networking events and learned a little bit about what you do. So why don't you both introduce yourselves to the listeners and viewers of who you are and what you do?

April:

Okay, great. I am the owner of Alliance Print Services. My name is April Pyle, and I, in my marketing career, am known as the Princess, hence the tiara on my head. We've been in printing since 1982. My dad was the original owner.

Steve:

Wow, I love that.

Missy:

And my name is Missy, and April is my aunt. So we are truly family owned and operated in downtown Bradenton we're a full service commercial print shop.

Steve:

Yeah, and I love what you do and I definitely imagine having printed microphones with my little logo on it once I do my redesign. So I can't wait to work with you. I approached you actually about this topic in this episode, but have you ever considered podcasting before, either personally about something you love or professionally?

Missy:

No, but I am definitely a consumer. I love a podcast. I listen all the time in my car when I don't have my little one with me.

Steve:

We love a good murder podcast.

April:

Beat that.

Steve:

Excellent. The reason why I mentioned to you is because one of the ideas that I'm going to be going over. With new clients creating their podcasts as part of his creating their visual brand, creating their logos and cover art and things like that. And I'm sure that visual branding plays a role in kind of what you do every day with having to print these people's logos. Would you agree?

April:

Absolutely. We do everything from the very get go from concept, we design logos. We have the most fabulous. Graphic designer that's been with our family over 30 years, and she draws in vector, which is a skill that people just don't have anymore. So anything from start to finish of. Someone's concept when they walk in the front door. We help them with that. And we help them achieve that.

Steve:

I love that. So what would you say are some of the biggest obstacles that your new customers are facing when they find you that they need help with?

Missy:

Logo redesign essentially. Because there are so many awesome apps. that help the regular person be creative and have input into a design, but sometimes those don't translate well to print on paper. We at least have the capability to help fix where they might've gone wrong a little bit.

April:

So when we get their art and they have something that they need help fixing that they can't quite do. We send it to our designer maybe they've captured a PNG, like a screen grab from something and placed it in a document and you can tell. And that's where our phenomenal designer, comes into play and helps us, fix and make their art truly professional, a lot of it is people using Canva and just not having quite yet the skill they do great, per se, but not quite up to the skill level that they really need for finished production art.

Steve:

Yeah, no, and I can completely agree. And there are times where I'm trying to, whether it be in Canva, trying to get something to do something where the technology is just not there yet, the biggest fights that I have in my life nowadays aren't with humans. It's with my chat GPT assistant, like trying to create pictures in art because talking it out, making like workout plans, work plans, brainstorming content. Oh, that's great for the moment. I say make this picture. It gets really wonky really quickly. So I understand the importance of there's certain things that you can do. With technology and there's certain things you can't. So I love how you can help the people that they can't do it themselves. So with that, as you are now like helping people with their branding and their redesigns, how have you seen logos, like what works and what doesn't change over the years? Cause as the princess of your area for so long, I'm sure that there have been some fads and changes.

April:

Oh my gosh. Do you not realize how old I am? I literally have seen from PasteUp making lines of type and having to use a waxer and paste them on a board and then shoot them with a camera. To get either a negative or a positive version of that, what we're trying to do. I just can't even tell you the things that I've seen is just huge and broad, right? But now, everything is just so streamlined from concept to shooting straight back to our digital machine and printing off a finished brochure, and totally skipping the negatives and the stripping and the plating that you need to go to press for large runs, there's still that. And we still do big projects like that, but also too, the digital press is truly our friend now. And huge part of everybody's life per se, yeah I've seen it all.

Steve:

Yeah I'm sure you have. And I know that I'm very big with all my clients, especially business owners and entrepreneurs who are podcasting or that I'm working with is to, if they have a brand or a logo or something like that, they should have an idea of what the color is and not just have it be like blue or red, but they should have in a document somewhere, the color code. They should know what font it is. Are there any other types of things like that, that you find most people don't have when they come to you that they should know?

April:

Also one thing that we have a lot of problem with is people that have a website or they have their art for a website. Art for a website is not final production art on paper. They want to give us a lot of information that they would need for a website and colors. on the screen of their computer, but they got to remember that we're on paper. And I have an old fashioned PMS book, and it's got a thousand different ink mixes in there. And if we know that, if we know our PMS, what the final color is supposed to be, then we can do our best to make it work. Digitally match that or if we're on press, we can mix the ink and we can truly match that PMS on an envelope, a letterhead, a business card, and one thing that people don't understand is when they're talking about the full marketing scheme of everything that they need, which that's us, we do everything here, but when you're talking different processes and different substrates, And you're trying to brand yourself, right? All these different processes. Sometimes it's a little hard to get that perfect color as far as going to the digital, straight to mixed ink that's going on a press, or a banner that's coming off a different printer. It's an art. That's what people don't understand sometimes things don't translate from the large printer to a mixed ink in the back, so there is got to be some give and take in their color.

Missy:

Branding

April:

guys. The branding guidelines of color,

Steve:

Yeah, definitely a whole layer of things that I would never know about branding had I not been printing for as long as you have. So I love with all this information that you have, when people come to you, or if they're wondering whether or not their logo or brand needs a redesign, what are some of the big don'ts that like people have in their logos where you would see their logo and say, Oh, you might need to call me or we should talk about a redesign.

April:

Well, a lot of fine detail we did just have a business card that we really couldn't do. It had such fine lines and the finish process that he wanted. Which I don't know if it's a suede soft touch business card, it feels soft like suede and then they do a, yeah, they do a 3d raised, you can do like silver foil, gold foil or raised clear, right? But, it's like working with puff paint. You can't get all these little fine details with that and people don't understand that. So we had to. Basically tell the guy like what you're wanting is cool, but it's not realistic, you can't get a fine line with a puffy thermograved process. We had to either tell him we have to move what your final piece is gonna look like, or we have to reconstruct your logo so that it is more cohesive with what you're wanting.

Steve:

Yeah, that definitely I can see how that would happen on a larger scale because I, as I started learning how to do my little dangerous bit of graphic design, my tendency with everything like in life as an addict and recovery is like my default is more and then I have to like tone it back. So my first few designs is very much yeah. As intricate as you possibly can get as many details as I could fit on that eight and a half by 11 or as as on that Instagram square, I would put as much as I possibly could. And then be wondering why I was like hard on people's eyes are difficult to read or a little bit distracting. So I'm going to learn how to keep it simple. I am sure it's like something that works for logos as well as podcast artists is one thing that I talk with my clients about. Missy, as a True crime podcast listener. If you're looking for your next podcast, what about cover art for podcasts draws your attention visually as a listener?

Missy:

Oh, that's an interesting question. Yeah, if the branding should match maybe the name bright, colorful something to, That's appealing visually for sure.

Steve:

Yeah, no, but with logos that's what happens. April, I'm sure you've watched Netflix or Hulu or Disney plus or something at some point before. So similarly, like with those shows, like when you're picking out things, like what about cover art gets you to click on it?

April:

Yeah. When you're clicking, you're trying to get. Everything that's in that movie that you're going to watch, right? You're clicking through and you're like, Oh, I don't know what that's about, but it doesn't even look interesting. How do you even know that, right? You have to capture the interest of your listeners or your people visually, right? So yeah, I mean there's a lot. There's a lot that goes into designing and of course, we're not the designers we're the girls that do everything and produce everything And our designer is the lady that has all of that up here, When people are trying to have us create a logo we have to get her a road to go down I always tell everybody more information in an email for whatever you're trying to look. If you're trying to do a cover for something or a logo, give us even what you don't like, because if you don't like the color orange, we don't want to give you back three of the logos that have orange in it because you're not going to like it. And, so we have to help people tell those stories of what they're trying to get across to their consumer.

Steve:

Yeah, for sure, communication and like what you like and what you don't like are sometimes just as important as each other. So you have your wonderful designer who recreates these beautiful logos, or I'm sure if someone comes to you with the perfect logo, you can take it as is and print it on things. But the printing process itself, what would you say are some of the hot items to print like that are popular right now and really wow or leave an impression on people?

Missy:

I really like a rack card or if your business is neighborhood based lawn maintenance or something like that a door hanger. And that's something that you can have a photograph on you can list your services, you can do your logo, phone number, contact info, so I really like to offer that to clients. And we also have a really cool option of doing a rack card with a detachable business card at the bottom. It's, just a little bit more information to leave your client with.

Steve:

Yeah, I like that. And are there any products where if a client comes to you saying, I want a thousand pens, you'll say, Oh honey, you don't want pens or like you talk them out of, are there any items that people come to you saying they want that you recommend against because there's other better ways to advertise yourself with print that are,

April:

I don't know if there's anything that I steer people away from per se, because it really depends on. The event that they're going to and the attention that they're trying to capture at that event, I know that people love to give giveaways for instance, we just had a pool company come in and we did their business card. We helped them out with a little revision and their new client. And so they came into our lobby and they saw that, Oh my gosh, you have everything here. You do tumblers, you do shirts, you do banners where I was, showing them everything that we did. And I said, what you need is they wanted to leave behind. What's perfect, the beach ball with your brand on it. And then they leave a little cooler bag that's full of little tchotchkes, an SPF lip balm, a sunscreen, a koozie, and the little cooler. So they just loved the beach ball idea. And yeah, they came in for business cards and they left with ordering like five different things to leave behind once they build the pool. That's the kind of stuff that we help. I don't know if there's anything that I say Oh gosh, you don't want to do that. Per se, I don't know. I've never really thought about it.

Missy:

Anything that we would say would be a time constraint, they come in on Monday and they want a thousand pens on Friday

Steve:

so

April:

they got to remember that shipping is involved where we do that. The promo products. Although there are things that we can do with the laser, we can do a powder coated tumbler and laser their logo on that, and leather patches on baseball caps, leather patches on cooler bags we do wood burning here, so there's a lot of stuff that we can do here, but when you're talking about the bulk promo, that's outsourced and they have to remember that we have shipping involved and also they probably have a thousand other jobs that get out before your job.

Steve:

Yeah. I can definitely see the difference there.

April:

Yeah.

Steve:

And I love being that you can print or laser or work on literally almost anything. I'm sure you get to create all these amazing, wonderful things. What's the weirdest or strangest thing you've ever printed or marketed? Whether that's like a cool strange or like an odd strange, but what's the most unique?

April:

I thought about that too. I know we had like a condom matchbook cover. Yeah, condom and you opened it up. It looked like a matchbook, but it was a condom inside. So that, okay. That was a little kooky,

Steve:

but you opened the condom and was there like a funny, like matchbook, condom, pun associated with it?

April:

Yeah it had a cute cover and then you open it up and then the condom was wrapped on the inside, but it looked like a matchbook,

Steve:

oh, okay.

April:

that was a little crazy, yeah. A poker chip business card. Yeah, poker. Poker chip business card. Your business card on a poker chip,

Steve:

yeah,

April:

There's so much crazy stuff that we can do and get for people. And I literally tell everybody if you're thinking about putting your logo on anything, Call me first because I guarantee you that I'm going to be able to get it for you or at least I know who does it best in town. So I can refer a good business partner, to get that thing done. But even like logo golf balls back scratchers with a logo on it hot and cold packs that we've done for our good friends at Parkwood dental, a tooth shaped cold pack for your face just tons and tons of stuff. Water bottles, logoed and then too, you got to think about how are you going to hand this to your customer? So logoed bags of all sorts, paper, plastic we do tote bags just everything that you can think of,

Steve:

I love that. And I'm sure that my listeners will be like challenge accepted and come out with you with even more wild ideas, which I love. Who are some partners in adjacent industries who help you succeed that you can't imagine doing your job without?

April:

With us being like a one stop shop for marketing I guess I would say some of our products that are outsourced.

Missy:

Another marketing company that maybe doesn't have accessibility to actual printing. So another graphic designer that is just a standalone graphic designer and they want to come to us or refer their clients to us.

Steve:

Podcasters,

Missy:

companies, sign business. I know it's a similar field, but yeah, some sign companies don't necessarily have access to the Xerox copier digital machine that we do.

April:

In our industry every commercial print shop, has a little bit different equipment right down the road, right? So we have an aqueous coder. We take in other print shops, digital items, and then we put this beautiful high glossy varnish on their final product. So it looks upscale. So we do that for other people in our industry. And then we have a letter press and like door hangers. A lot of people don't have access to that in their own shop on premise. And so we do that for other local shops and crash numbering and stuff like that. I'd like to think of us like we're, yes, we are old school and we actually have a small press here that we, mix ink and put into. And we have letterpress and we have aqueous color that we can do for other people. But then we also are taking on the attitude of what else can we do? And keep here at the shop so that we're giving our customer a one stop shop, so that would be where Missy can tell you a little bit more about the laser products, that we've been working with that's new to us and dye sublimation.

Missy:

Yeah, so we do We have two lasers here. My husband actually started the laser engraving. He can engrave on metal, wood even silicone. I did a silicone, that's like a glass with a silicone wrapped tumbler. So we're always pivoting, trying to see what else we can do because, maybe people are moving away from paper, but they still want their logo on something. We got into dye sublimation, which is heat press. Your heat pressing ink into fabrics or ceramics so we can do coffee mugs and that is a full color process as well. The laser is not full color. You just get the metal that's under.

Steve:

Yeah. No, I got it. So with that, if we were to then put all of this together with this like awesome work that you're doing and how I can help people and like with my listeners, they'll definitely be able to take this branding advice as they start their podcasts. But if you were to start a podcast of your own, do you see it being something where you would tell a short story from A to Z about what someone might need to know about branding? Or do you see it maybe being an ongoing discussion of Branding and printing in your industry as it grows and changes as well as like looking back on how it's changed over the decades.

Missy:

Yeah, I think it would be an ongoing like I was thinking about this as per your questionnaire and I think it would be an ongoing conversation. Look at this different machinery that we have. Look what it can do. Look at this different process. It's all about the print shop because it's, there's not many, there's not many print shops around. There's a handful between Sarasota and Bradenton

Steve:

to

Missy:

Tell a story about our shop.

Steve:

Yeah, no, I love that. And I see you agreeing April, I'm sure you have lots of stories to tell as looking back as well as looking ahead and giving your hot takes on trends. I can see there being like a lot of content that you can have there. So if you were to use it as part of your business, where do you see that being in terms of your client or listener journey, if someone were to listen to your show, I would guess the ideal result would be that they then have you redesign their logos or make their logos and print it on and all their products. Correct. Yeah.

April:

We could we have such a broad array of Stuff that we, things that we give to our clients as a finished product. I think that we have so many things that we could talk about and then look at this new product that we did and show people what we're doing every day. I can see that being of interest to people, because I'll tell you when they come in, what I do is I take them in the front and I show them what's up on the walls and on the shelves, and then I take them into my office where I have. Two shelves of all promo items that we've produced and also to some printing pieces. And then on the wall, I've got bags and a tablecloth. And then we have a retractable banner that we can set up and down for somebody to actually see. People like to see what they can choose from per se, right? Yeah.

Steve:

Visual.

April:

Yeah, exactly. So we have as much as we possibly can because we only have so much space, right? I love show and tell. So we bring people in and we, physically show them what we've done for other people. Everything that we do, we keep one, we put it up on the shelf and, hope that we can help somebody else get that product with their logo on it, so that they can market themselves and get their brand out.

Steve:

Yeah, and the beauty of podcasting today is that there is always the ability to have the visual elements as well because you are talking about a visual medium. So whether that be through also having it be a video podcast that they can watch the whole thing on YouTube or whether it be that whenever you take these highlights or clips where you're talking about a specific machine, you can overlay it with videos. of the machine for social media. There's so many different ways that you could blend the two together that I can see being really helpful. Now with the goal of having this be to help build your business what do you think would be Some ways you'd like to deliver that information to them. I always talk about different episode formats. It sounds like you would be very comfortable talking either like solo episodes or with each other, but pretty much you're not looking to talk with a different stranger each week. Would you agree?

April:

think that if we were to do something like that, I think it would be like our own in shop processes and what we're finding for our clients and then see how we're going to handle that marketing project for that particular customer. And we're constantly, I've been in industry since I was like 10 years old. Yeah. And I'm not going to tell you how old I am, I know. It's all right.

Steve:

I know better than to ask, but I can tell that you know your stuff. And it is very impressive.

April:

From a different t shirt, we've had to learn, we've had to branch out to, we're doing clothing, right? But you wouldn't believe all the stuff that entails all of these different materials and what doesn't work on what material and oh my gosh, we can't do that anymore because that's not working. This happens every day. It's not just something that is a cut and dry thing. We had it happen recently. We had to say oh gosh, we're not going to be able to do that process on this particular material anymore because the material. Makeup was changed. It's made in China and they changed the makeup of that material. So when we put it in the heat press, it burns and scalds. So every day we have to go around everything. It's like we have to keep moving and manipulating around everything, every day.

Steve:

Yeah, hearing all of that, just thinking about brainstorming, what a podcast could look like with what I teach my clients, something for you to think on and something for my listeners who listen to this can applying everything that we've talked about, or like I've gone over in these episodes about. The episode formats, I think that having solo episodes where you're talking about your experience is going to be the huge driving force of your show. I think that it sounds like having a mix of current modern like do's and don'ts, industry tips and tricks, having that be like one of your episode formats that you do if you're going to be printing, this is things you need to know, or if you're creating a logo, these are things you need to know. And I always like to have a couple different episode formats. You can also do episodes where you're going specifically into one machine, how it works, the details, the science, the, all the fun, nerdy techie stuff that like the branding people will all love. And that's going to be very helpful. And then I can imagine being in business for so long that you have clients that have worked with you for quite some time as well. I think that a great way to show yourselves as experts would also be occasionally, maybe once a month, having one of your longtime clients on about what their journey of working with you is like so that while it's them kind of talking about themselves, it's also talking to how awesome you've been helping them. So it could be a great way to kind from their perspective, what that relationship is like, because oftentimes, especially now at the days of AI and things like that, you don't always trust salespeople. And so if someone views you as a salesperson selling you something, they'll tend to question a little bit more than if you have someone else come on and say the same thing about you for you. So I think that would be a great way to also mix it up is like your solo episodes on like modern tips, tricks, trends, and then deep dives. And then The client journey episodes would be a great way to make an amazing badass branding show.

April:

Did. I love that. We did a little tiny thing where I did a pen and I put I stole this from the princess and then I would give them out and then I would come to people, Hey, send me a picture of you and your business with my holding my pen up. And then I say, look, Oh, I found another person who stole my pen. And then I do it a little hit on their business. This is so and they do flooring and blah, blah, blah, blah. I tell about their business. So we incorporated that one year and that was really fun, it was exciting to introduce other businesses, we weren't just talking about ourselves, but we were introducing other businesses to our customers and stuff. So that was an interesting little moment that we had that we were really proud of, yeah, no, that was posted on

Missy:

social media.

Steve:

People love getting involved. Like both like listeners that listen to podcasts, marketers and networkers that you work with. That's why people have been really enjoying like this opportunity that I'm offering to them. Cause it's whether you end up podcasting or not, it's going to be fun for you, it's fun for me, and then the listeners who hear it, get to see what it would like, review some materials and maybe learn something about themselves with what they need for branding or podcasting along the way. So we all win here. With this entire conversation about branding, visual branding and turning it into a podcast, what would you say are some of your biggest takeaways?

Missy:

I loved your idea of introducing a business partner or a client. If we were to do A podcast because honestly I didn't consider that, but I think it's awesome. A great idea for your coaching and

April:

yeah, I think that it put a thought in my head of, we have so many things here that we do such a variety of, I think that would be interesting for us to do a little video or podcast on the From start to end, of a product.

Steve:

Yeah, it definitely is a way to do it as well. Cause the same way we were talking about doing client journeys, you can do a product journey where you talk about over an episode or two here's how from the moment we start a product, here's how we finished it. So it can be a mix of product or any client journey episodes. I love it. All right. Thank you so much. If people wanted to find you, connect with you, work with you, give you all their business and printing, how would they do that?

April:

Give us a call or they can check out our website. They can email us, everybody that walks through the front door. We consider a custom order. So there is no, there's no like board. You can come in and look at the pricing or whatever. We just. We custom price everything and we work with the customer because that's too how we get those little moments that we pull out of people of they came in for a business card, but look at, I let, they left with a beach ball, a backpack, sunscreen,

Steve:

yeah. Those are not things that would have been recommended at a shopping cart checkout.

April:

It's just that personal connection. One thing that we strive for here is our customer service is number one, that's us where you're going to walk in here and we're going to help you find what you need. And we pride ourselves on customer service from start to beginning, delivery, whether that be, the final product being delivered, professional and courteous is what you're going to get out of Alliance print services.

Steve:

All right. Excellent. I'll put all of that in the show notes for listeners as well. Thank you so much, Miss C and April. It's been a pleasure.

April:

Thanks, Steve.