David Heimer: Now, correct me if I’m wrong, I remember you telling me about when you worked for, I think was AABC in the Dallas area and you guys did some really unique stuff with the color and the branding of your company with respect to the vehicles. Is that right?

Bob Viering: Yes. So this is back before there were any truck wraps or easy way to change the look of a truck besides vinyl lettering. But we haven’t had red trucks and from what I remember, it was kind of an accident that we ended up with red trucks originally, but we decided that they were pretty noticeable when we start having people tell us that. And so we just kept getting more red trucks, so red trucks became our thing. Most of them are just a small Toyota pickup with the big red box on the back and our logo and phone number and company name on the side. Well, as anybody who’s ever created a vehicle and made it look distinctive, you start hearing that we see your trucks all over the place. Well, that happened to us, of course. So we ran with that, we decided well, if they see our trucks all over the place, let’s go ahead and make that part of our marketing and so we did.

And so, we became the company with the little red trucks. Our website was called littleredtrucks.com. When we answered the phone, we would say, thank you for calling AABC, the company with the little red trucks, how may we help you? And the red trucks appeared on every piece of stationery, every envelope, every ad we did had the red truck in it. It just became our mark. And so, people knew the red trucks, when you talk about the company with red trucks, they were talking about us.

David Heimer: Very nice. What do you think makes for a good truck wrap now? Now we can do stuff that is a lot more sophisticated than you could do when you were just doing the little red trucks, what makes them distinctive and good?

Bob Viering: Well, I think that the number one thing is that it’s got to be something that stands out. So you have to look at what’s in your market already and make sure it’s not something that’s the same. If somebody came into our market when we were at AABC and came out with a red truck, it probably wouldn’t have done much good.

David Heimer: Well it helped you actually.

Bob Viering: Yes. In fact, we had some people that did come up with red trucks, but they didn’t last long, typically. So it’s got to be different. It’s got to be unique. It’s got to make sure that it expresses who you are and what you do, of course. If you’ve got a USP of some kind, a unique selling proposition, or some kind of promise that’s distinct and unique, that would be great to add to the truck too. But above all, it’s got to be eye-catching. It’s got to be clean-looking, not overdone. There are certain rules you want to follow as to how the logo should look, rather than what the lettering should be or what you need to put on there, a phone number, or a website. So there are some things that would be specific that you want to pay attention to. But for the most part, the number one thing is to make sure it stands out from everybody else.

David Heimer: Make it big, bold, and beautiful, I guess is what you’re saying.

Bob Viering: Yes, so don’t be afraid to be a little different. A lot of us are not flamboyant in our daily life. Most of us. But in this case, it’s good to be flamboyant and do something that’s going to make you really stand out among the crowd.

David Heimer: So, I have a picture of these, it was at a Home Depot parking lot and there were these two contractors’ vehicles next to each other. One of them was red, white, and blue, pretty tasteful; the truck was admittedly a little bit old but still red, white, and blue. A pretty common thing that we see in the HVAC industry, {inaudible 06:07} red for heat, blue for cold; red, white, and blue because it’s patriotic; all of this stuff next to it was this bright pink van. I mean hot neon pink and it was a plumbing company. I want to say it was Pete’s Plumbing or something like that and it didn’t have any fancy lettering on the side. The whole van, bright neon pink and then it just had black letters on the side that said the name of the company. That was it. And I was really struck by that because all the ones that are sort of tasteful, it was generic.

Bob Viering: It is. I know.

David Heimer: The other one was frankly, a little on the garish side, right? But it’s the one I remember. I actually cannot remember the name of the other company and this one really stood out. So at the time, I thought to myself, you know, tasteful might not be good. Garish might be good. What do you think?

Bob Viering: Garish sounds negative, but there are times when garish works. It’s all about getting somebody’s attention. So obviously, you want it to be consistent with your brand in other ways. There could be companies that just wouldn’t work for whatever reason. But if you’ve got nothing else going for you and you have no other way to stand out, then choosing a truck that just is painted like a hippie van from the 60s, maybe that’s what you need to do. {cross talk 07:32}

Whatever it takes, man, you got to get business, you’ve got to do something to stand out. There’s a reason that people can’t remember white vans that they see driving around, the standard white van is because they don’t stand out and people have told us they’re going to remember you because they see you in the neighborhood and they recognize this memorable truck you’ve got. So you’ve got to do that. You have to come up with something with style. Some look different, unique, and gives them a reason to call you.

David Heimer: So you touched on this, tell me about the problem with white vans in your neighborhood.

Bob Viering: White vans, obviously, as I said, they just don’t stand out. There’s another problem though, and this is something I’ve researched quite a bit because I learned that my kids were afraid of white vans. They had a genuine fear of white vans and I didn’t know why. If we were walking down the street and there was a white van parked on the side of the road, they didn’t want to go across the street and walk around it. There’s been one sitting in a parking lot across my dry cleaner for 15 years and they still don’t walk past that van. It’s never moved. I think they’re afraid something’s going to jump out of it and get them. And what it is, is this concept that they think they’re going to get kidnapped. They think kidnappers are driving around in white vans and grabbing kids. My kids are 18 and 12 now, I don’t think they really need to fear the white van, but they still do.

And I’ve asked this of lots and lots of people and they all say the same thing, it’s the abduction van, it’s the kidnapper’s van. And it kind of makes sense. If I was a kidnapper, I’d want a truck that didn’t stand out, right? So give me a white van because they don’t stand out, especially scarier ones that don’t have the windows on them like a lot of our service vans. So whether it’s got lettering or not white van you’re not just not being noticed, you’re actually scaring the children in the neighborhood you drive through.

David Heimer: Interesting. So let’s talk a little bit more about what might appear on the van. So one of the things I’ve heard is that it’s a mistake to put the logo just straight across, that it’s better to tilt it a little bit. What’s the idea behind that?

Bob Viering: Yes, so I am not a graphic designer. I’ve played one before in some of my past life, but I’m not a professional graphic designer. But I have read about graphic design quite a bit and that’s one of the things that come up now. I can’t remember the science behind it and why they say that a logo on an angle or company name on an angle is better than one that is written straight across. But there is some evidence to suggest that that’s true that an angled look catches the eye more or something like that. Whenever I’ve done that, it just seems like a better design. When I’m laying something out and trying to make it look good, it looks better when it’s on an angle, but apparently, there’s science behind it that says that’s something that’s going to help people notice you even more.

David Heimer: What about the phone number?

Bob Viering: The phone number, this is something that’s been talked about a lot lately, because now with websites being as important as they are, most people feel that putting the website on the side of the truck is more important than putting the phone number on, especially if you got a website that is easier to remember. So if you’ve got a website that is not easy to remember, or doesn’t flow, or easily gets confused with somebody else; I don’t know how it’s going to help you.

But in the case of AABC, for example, if I had an option today, I would have littleredtrucks.com on the side of my truck whenever I could and I wouldn’t even put the phone number on, probably. And back then, we used to put probably five phone numbers on the trucks because everyone had the impression that you had to have a local phone number, a number for the area you worked in; so we had numbers all over town. But phone numbers, even if they’re going to call you for a service call, you really don’t want to dial their phone while they’re driving anyway, so you don’t want to encourage them to do that. But the fact is, they’re not usually going to call you from their vehicle, they’re going to look you up or call you when they get home. So it’s easier for them to remember a website and it’s easier if that website has a unique, easy to recall name.

David Heimer: For a while, QR codes seemed to be incredibly popular. And I was seeing those on a lot of vehicles, but it seems like maybe sort of the same thing. Is a QR code really adding that much?

Bob Viering: It’s probably wasting space on a vehicle in most cases. QR codes still have some value, I kind of like them and I use them. But as far as being the main way to get a hold of you, I don’t think I would rely on it for that. I’d use it more along the lines of a daily special or something where if you had it on your truck, you can have it go to a specials page each day, so they can scan it and it can be a ‘scan our code for today’s special’. Maybe that’s something you might want to do, so people walking by {cross talk 11:55} you certainly don’t want to pull out your phone just to scan your truck while they’re driving down the highway to figure out how to get in touch with you. I wouldn’t rely on it for that.

David Heimer: Any mistakes that people make in vehicle wraps?

Bob Viering: One of the mistakes I see a lot is that they try to put too much on the truck, try to list all their services in all the places they serve, kind of like what we did in the old {inaudible 12:15}. We want to have all our phone numbers like I said, all our cities we service, all the different appliances that we worked on, and all the different air conditioners we worked on; and it’s just too much.

They know you’re a service company; they know that you work in their area because you’re in that area. Let them go to the website and get all the detailed information they need, but your trucks should, basically, just be a billboard for your company that says, this is where we are, this is what we do, call us or visit our website. And try not to put too much onto the truck, it just gets all garbled and hard to read. So that’s one thing. The fonts you use are another, a lot of people use script fonts that are harder to read or multiple colors that flash and make it hard to read. That can be a challenge. A web address that has multiple words in it like northdallasairconditioning.com is an okay website, but if it’s all written that way across the –

David Heimer: All lowercase.

Bob Viering: Yes, it’d be hard to read. So at least use capital letters on each word or change the color of each word within the URL, things like that. Doing it yourself may not be the best idea too if you’re going to design a truck, there are a lot of places that will design it for you. We do a lot of that at Service Nation Alliance, we have a team of graphic designers and they create truck wraps all day long and they’re really good at it. They know what should be included; what shouldn’t; what looks good; what doesn’t. So, getting a professional, you can just see the difference. Even if I did one with my limited experience in graphic design, I could come up with something pretty nice. But if we turn it over to somebody that has true graphic design talent, it’ll just make it that much better. So, I definitely recommend using a professional to design it for you.

David Heimer: Yes. Talking about, specifically, the people that are on our team, they just do beautiful work. I’m astounded at how beautiful it is. I marvel at it all the time. But it’s not just getting graphic design talent, having somebody that is knowledgeable about the industry and understands what needs to be communicated and how that’s communicated, what works and what doesn’t in our industry is important. It’s like some people hire a web designer to create their web page and the guy may do fantastic work. But if he doesn’t know your industry, it’s just not going to be as effective. I think the same thing probably applies here.

Bob Viering: Yes, that’s a great point. I think that’s absolutely true. Somebody who understands the industry has a better chance of getting it right.

David Heimer: When you think about van wraps across any industry –

Bob Viering: Let’s take it away from the wrap for a second. The van itself or the truck itself, you can make it different in other ways too that go beyond the wrap and it might be as simple as putting chrome wheels on your trucks. Cabrillo Plumbing did that. Every vehicle they have has shiny chrome wheels on it that just makes it look so much different than a service van. At one time, they had taxi cab lights on the trucks that light up on call. We’re ready, you know, whatever. So it was just something different, something that you can put a flashing light on, but don’t put whatever the cops use, of course, with something like that. It won’t hurt anything. Anything that’s going to make you stand out, I’m all for it.

David Heimer: You’ve seen restaurants or businesses that buy unused vans, they wrap it and then they park it at the edge of the parking lot as sort of a free billboard. I think that that speaks to the power of what a van will do for you. And that’s not even moving around, that’s just sitting at the edge of the parking lot for years sometimes. And so, I’ve wondered if some of the amazing and beautiful wraps that we’ve created for our members, I’ve often wondered if it would pay off for them to just go buy some used vans, wrap them, and just hire people to drive them around. Have you ever heard of that or know anybody that did that in our industry?

Bob Viering: I don’t know about buying a used van and doing it, but if you can determine if that’s going to be a valuable way to market yourself, then yes, it’s probably a good way to go about it. Because we do have contractors who will take vans that are in use right now and park them in other locations around the city, either places they’ve rented out; rented the spot from the gas station; or the corner store, they’ll do that. We have heard of one company who actually has their service meetings across town, so when they leave the meeting, for example, a breakfast meeting, they all head back to the shop in a long row of wrapped vans and this is something that will get somebody’s attention, right? It’s not like one truck.

David Heimer: It looks like a funeral processional, only more interesting.

Bob Viering: I was thinking more like a circus that came into my mind. Yes, that’s right that makes an impression, that’s something that stands out. But yes, if you have trucks that are just sitting there doing nothing, don’t let them sit there and do nothing in the back of your building, take them down the corner and park them somewhere. Have your employees drive them home if they’re on insurance, have them drive them home if they’re not already getting that much more exposure. They really are rolling billboards. And your customers have said, they want to know that you’re in their neighborhoods; they want to know that you’re a local company that they know they can call you. The more, the better.

David Heimer: All right, sounds good. Thank you for doing this, this is great stuff.

Bob Viering: All right, glad to help.

David Heimer: Thanks.

Outro: We’re always looking for good ideas and interviews for our podcast. If you have an idea or maybe you think you should be interviewed, just shoot an email to profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. That’s profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. If you think what we’re doing has any value, it would be very helpful if you would give us a great rating on iTunes. Thanks for your support. Hope to see you again soon. Bye.