Diversification Brings Profits Some distributors stick with the same product mix. But Mark Holm, owner of Indigo Communications, Folsom, Calif., focuses his energy each month on selling a new product such as plastic cards, commercial printing, direct mail and security documents. Once he settles on a product, Holm targets industries that benefit from it, and the company has built an assortment of clients in diverse markets. The strategy has paid off—in its first year, Indigo posted $250,000 in sales. Holm, a former UARCO and Standard Register employee, wants to reach $1 million in sales next year. Recently, Holm's broad capabilities helped him win promotional products business. The client made smoothies—yogurt-based fruit drinks—at Guna Juice, Elk Grove, Calif. The client bought the operation from his former employer and decided to redo the store's image. He first called on Holm to provide a new logo. Holm's graphic designer redesigned the previous type-based logo (the name of the business) with a new image featuring a bamboo background, three neon colors and a font that resembles bamboo sticks. "The customer loved it," Holm says, "and people are asking him, 'Where did you get that?'" The client gave Holm another challenge: "The thing he needed the most was a gift certificate," Holm says, because gift certificates account for 30 percent of the store's gross sales. "He had no experience with printing whatsoever, so he totally relied on me to come up with a solution." The client was concerned most about cost-effectiveness, Holm says, so Indigo Communications offered 8 1/2 x 11-inch, 2-color certificates printed on colored check stock to match the company's new logo. The certificates are of the same denomination and, to deter duplication, are numbered consecutively. The stacks of certificates are held together by staples instead of perfect binding, because the stubs' appearance is unimportant, Holm says; what matters is the certificate customers take away. Holm's expertise with the logo and gift certificate translated into promotional product sales for the client's grand reopening. Indigo Communications supplied embroidered shirts, aprons and visors for the employees' uniforms and logoed Frisbee, pen and balloon giveaways. Thanks to Holm's early success for the client and his penchant for offering numerous products, "[the client] got people in uniform, a brand new image and stuff to give away."