Voiceover 1 (selected close-ups of train)

Every year, thousands of people come from all over the world to ride the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. To many, it is like stepping back in time.

Here in the southwest corner of Colorado, about 45 miles north of Durango, is the small town of Silverton. I’m Joyce Callanan. During the past 30 years, I’ve returned many times to this special place because of its beauty and its history.

This railroad was built in 1881 to haul supplies up to the miners in Silverton, and to ship the refined silver back down to Durango. The train played an important role in the development of this area, and continues to contribute to the local economy as the major tourist attraction.

Many fortunes have been won and lost in this town, and if we look and listen carefully, we may discover something valuable that can be applied to our own business.

Voiceover 2 (train pulling out)

For thousands of years, people have searched for better ways to communicate. Information technology has come a long way, and today, most of our customers know Command Design & Graphics for the broad range of professional web site development services we offer.

For more than five years, Command Design & Graphics has been helping customers grow their business through state-of-the-art web sites. Our work begins with an assessment of business needs and a competitive analysis.

Our web services include complete site implementation, with domain name availability and registration, copy writing, image scanning, page layout and artwork design, and the programming of navigation and interactive features. Each site is custom designed to suit the needs and taste of each individual customer.

We provide turnkey site hosting on high-speed Internet servers with redundant backups, and offer complete content updating services to keep site information current.

Then we go a step further, supporting site promotion with proper meta tags, search engine registrations, creation and distribution of press releases, and negotiation of online banner advertising.

Command Design also provides turnkey services for the design and production of supportive materials, including brochures, posters and booklets.

Voiceover 3 (entering San Juan NF)

In this part of Colorado, the mountains are full of holes that were dug out of the solid rock by people looking for silver. Here, as in mining districts throughout the world, people did their prospecting with a pick and a shovel. Although everyone believed they would soon hit "the mother load," most folks went home broke and disappointed. Only those who did their prospecting in the right locations would became rich.

Then as now, prospecting is a critical part of business success. Today, as in years gone by, sending letters and making personal sales calls are among the most popular methods for introducing potential customers to your business.

While a business letter is fairly inexpensive and can be distributed widely, a letter lacks the personality of a sales call.

On the other hand, while there are many advantages to personal sales calls, this method of prospecting can be very expensive, particularly if your prospects are out of town. Sales calls also require a scheduling commitment from both parties. With the demands of today’s downsized workforce, getting a prospect to "take" a meeting can often be as difficult as closing the sale.

At Command Design, we believe the Compact Disc, which is also called a CD-ROM, offers your business the ideal solution for reaching a happy medium between the cost effectiveness of a letter and the personality of a sales call.

The "tracks" on this CD-ROM are digital tracks that contain information. Squeezed into a thin layer of plastic are millions of tiny bits and bytes of digital coding that is capable of delivering a huge variety of data. The Compact Disc is capable of holding a wide variety of digital information, including documents, photographs, catalogs, web pages, PowerPoint presentations, audio and video.

The presentation you are watching was recorded with a digital video camera, edited on a Computer Workstation, and output as an M-PEG-1 file, a popular format for Compact Disc multi-media. In this format, a CD-ROM is capable of holding more than one-hour of stereo audio and full motion video.

While few business people have a videocassette player at their desk, most folks in modern offices today have access to a computer that is capable of playing a multimedia presentation from a Compact Disc.

An ever-growing number of organizations are learning about this technology and reaping the benefits of personalized sales presentations that are produced in multimedia format.

About two years ago, Command Design launched its WebcastAV division to specialize in multimedia presentations that can be streamed across the Internet from a web site. Customers were so delighted with the flexibility and affordability of this medium that they soon discovered the added benefits of personalized multi-media delivered on Compact Disc.

As a presentation medium, the CD-ROM is an ideal solution for an impactful sales message to a select group of customers and prospects. Few businesses can afford to buy television time, but with Compact Disc, producing and distributing custom info-mercials is becoming a reality for a growing number of companies.

Command Design offers complete, end-to-end, turnkey project management for CD-ROM programs. Our staff can assist you with every phase of your project, from scripting to distribution.

For example, some organizations have hired Command Design to videotape their sales conferences and customer seminars so that they can share their expertise with an audience that goes beyond those who could attend the event in person.

We have videotaped presenters who hire themselves out as speakers for civic groups, technical seminars and sales meetings. We have even produced projects that were distributed to the United States Congress by groups lobbying for favorable legislation.

Think about your our business. Do you have a story to tell? Have you ever given a great media interview that you wish you could share with your customers? Do you have a unique product or service that needs some further explanation to be fully appreciated?

The Compact Disc can hold a lot of information in a very small package that can be as educational as it is entertaining. A CD-ROM provides customers and prospects with an opportunity to listen to your sales pitch when they have time, and gives them a chance to revisit the information several times until they are ready to buy.

At Command Design, the Compact Disc is affordable to duplicate in small quantities, is durable and easy to mail, and makes a great handout for trade shows.

Think about the possibilities as you explore this disc. And when you look at your complementary 2003 Command Design & Graphics mouse pad, remember that you have a ticket to ride the digital "tracks in time" every day.