What do you do for samples? Do you make samples for individual customers?
Im not talking about Prefinish either.

The day of the sand job we ask the customer to be home for samples first thing in the morning (730am-8am) or on theyre lunch break.
we sand a spot about 9sqft with the big machine and hand sand with whatever our final cut on the floor will be (screen or sandpaper). We waterpop if the floor will be.
We show the customer a stain chart and ask them to pick 2-5 colors to see directly on theyre floor with 1 coat of poly.
In some cases we do the samples ahead of time if the customer will be out of town or cantleave work.

I still have some pre-made samples that I carry. They're on parquet block, and that shows the color variations of the stain on the different pieces in the block.

As soon as we've roughed off the place, we sand a stain sample area with 100, hand-screen it, and put on samples. I also water-treat part of the area, if that's an option the customer is considering.

I put down a coat of finish on top of the stain, and that's something I only started doing last year. (Thanks to Kevin or Paul for that idea--I read about it on this forum) If I've got time, I'll let the samples dry for a few hours, but it also works to just coat it immediately. The stain doesn't bleed out. A coat of finish really helps the customer to know what the final color is going to look like, and it keeps the sample from fading when it dries.

I used to dab the dried sample with paint thinner or water, and that worked to bring out the color, too. Putting down the finish works better, in my opinion, especially if the sample is sitting overnight.