Educate + Explore

After doing what we do for a couple decades now, we've amassed quite a bit of knowledge when it comes to design, marketing, and doing better business. The purpose of the JVM blog is to share this knowledge with small business owners and entrepreneurs. If you have a request for a particular topic or would like to be a guest author, please get in contact.

Think DIY logo generators are a good idea?

You may wonder how a professional designer would even know there is such a thing as DIY logo generators. It’s kind of like how you know snakes exist. They’re out there, hiding under rocks and such and you know if you go messing with them there’s a chance you’ll get bit.

Actually, I found out about this latest design atrocity via social media channels. Someone actually shared a link to a new logo generator site [...]

Read This Post

How to Rock Your Small Business Holiday Marketing

It’s never a good idea to put off the holiday marketing plans for your small business. Large companies have been on it since September (and planning it all year), but there’s still time to come up with some great ideas that will help your small business stand out this holiday season.

Here’s some quick tips to help your business rock the holidays this year, even if you haven’t had a lot of time to plan.

#1 Don’t Jump [...]

Read This Post

Are you putting your contracting business at risk?

Business is good. You’re getting enough service calls to stay busy. You still don’t have a website or other supportive online marketing, but right now you’re too busy doing the work to think about that.

This is a very common scenario for tradespeople who have their own small business. It’s easy to get lulled into thinking the phone will just keep ringing. However, trades like electricians, plumbers, tile installers, etc. are competitive businesses. [...]

Read This Post

7 Ways Trade Shows Can Boost Your Small Business

Over the years, many of our clients have attended industry trade shows. The client feedback on their experiences does indicate that, for the most part, trade shows can be very beneficial for a small business.

So, how can having a booth at a trade show boost your small business?

By attending a trade show, you’ll be able to directly interact with your target audience and potential customers.

You’ll have full control over what you display at [...]

Read This Post

Guidelines For Being a Great Design Client

You may be looking to have someone build your first website or you may have hired a designer before, but were left a little in the dark during the whole process. Here at JV Media Design (JVM Design) we’ve spent many years helping clients through the process and educating potential clients as to how they can be a part of ensuring a successful website design or redesign project.

A key thing to remember, is that [...]

Read This Post

Your small business website: It’s not about what you like best.

Over the years, I’ve worked with a wide variety of small service-based businesses. Before actually working with them, I would say that an average of about 80% of those businesses initially misunderstand the fact that their business website should not be created for them personally.