Over the past few months, My Little Salesman has been a construction site behind the scenes. But, no need to worry, we’ve been in the construction business for 61 years!
The project? The My Little Salesman logo.
The reason? To have the logo reflect My Little Salesman’s mission of "bringing buyers and sellers together" in the 21
st century.
The My Little Salesman Logo – the "Good," the "Bad," and the "Ugly"
Sounds scary, but a little self-irony has never harmed anyone.
Let’s start with the "Ugly".
When My Little Salesman was founded in 1958 and in the following years well into the 90’s, our logo was simply our name. It came in all different shapes, sizes, fonts, and colors. It would be written out long hand, shortened to “MLS”, stacked, placed inside a colored circle, or just dropped on the page. Whatever looked good on paper, on a sticker, on a sign, or on the side of a truck.
Here comes the "Bad".
In 1990, our company had grown so much that we now owned a printing company, a finance company, an auction marketing company, two horse magazines and a trucking electronics company. In 1994 we added twelve golf magazines to the mix.
“My Little Salesman” or “MLS” just wasn’t quite a good fit for all of our endeavors anymore. Thus a several new logos were born:
- The MLS corporate logo for use across all company owned operations
- The Heavy Equipment catalog logo, and
- The Truck and Trailer catalog logo
But wait, there’s more! We even had different colors for each of the logos and in 1999 we added yet a fourth logo and color scheme: the MLS Internet Media logo.
And finally the "Good".
In 2006, Jason Pierce took over the businesses from his father, who took his well-deserved retirement. Jason decided to concentrate on the My Little Salesman Heavy Equipment and Trucks & Trailers catalogs and Web services only and to part with the other remaining businesses under the MLS-umbrella.
Since then, the MLS-logo in a diamond was used for print as well as the online presence of My Little Salesman.
In 2014 we rolled out a major overhaul of our online equipment marketplace and we’ve been on a roll ever since, adding a toolbox of dealer technology solutions including inventory management, customer relationship management, and sales management systems, as well as online marketing and social media advertising solutions, all while facilitating and providing the best user experience for both buyers and sellers. Our online growth has been exponential since 2014 with over 5x more customers.
In order to reflect our modern and evolving approach to our mission of "bringing buyers and sellers together", we decided that it’s time to give our logo a little facelift as well.
The "New Logo".
There are three things we wanted to accomplish:
- A simple, clean-cut, recognizable logo, that makes our customers go “Yep, My Little Salesman.”
- A refined representation of My Little Salesman's mission statement of "providing tools and services to bring buyers and sellers of heavy equipment, trucks, and trailers together."
- A reflection of honesty, reliability, and trust - values My Little Salesman stands for.
The solution: our founding date, our name, and a handshake.
Our founding date.
The founding date in our logo is a reminder of our stability and dedication and that we’re:
- Old enough to remember the time when we sewed our catalogs together by hand,
- Strong enough to not only survive many recessions, but to actually thrive and grow as we were able to help customers when no one else could,
- Young enough to adapt to the present and the future of our industry.
Long story short: we’ve been too long in business to quit and we’re not going anywhere but forward.
Our name.
In our new logo, we emphasize the word “Salesman”. A good salesman has the ability to connect, build relationships, listen, understand, communicate, and partner with clients to find the exact fit they need.
My Little Salesman has been the trusted little salesman for those looking to acquire or sell trucks, trailers and heavy equipment for over 60 years.
The handshake.
With ever changing technology comes the need for a logo that can be as big as the side of a semi-trailer or as small as a button on a phone and still be recognizable. So, as for the visual for our logo, we thought we’d shake things up and go for a handshake.
The handshake has been used in our industry to “seal the deal” for decades and is a symbol of honesty, reliability, and trust, which are values My Little Salesman stands for.
Over the next few months, you’ll see our new logo rolled out to all My Little Salesman publications, communications, and experiences.
If you approve of our new logo, give us a handshake on
our Facebook post.