Here’s the scene. Your shop has been in business for years in the decorated apparel industry.
Things feel ok. Orders are coming in. Shirts are getting printed. The embroidery machines are humming. There is a lot going on.
But lately, profit feels a bit thin. The stress level is at an all-time high. Decisions and planning feel a lot harder than they should. And every week there seems to be a new fire to put out. There never seems to be enough time to step back and think. The shop continues to grind away, but doesn’t seem to get any closer to the promise of more profitable work.
This isn’t a hustle problem. It is a clarity problem.
Working harder doesn’t fix unclear priorities. Automating chaos doesn’t make things run more smoothly. Adding more tools or another embedded software doesn’t solve confusion.
Staying “busy” only hides the real issue.
Here’s a fact: the shops that feel calm, focused, and profitable are not doing more. Instead, they are clearer about what matters most and what they can ignore. This is what this article is about.
Clarity is not a big vision statement mounted on a wall. Those get ignored daily.
The clarity that I’m talking about is knowing, with confidence, what deserves your time, your money, and your attention. It is about laser beam-like focus.
When clarity is missing, everything starts to feel urgent. Maybe out of control a little bit.
So, what exactly is the correct type of clarity for a business in the decorated apparel industry?
Let’s get to it!
Clarity Is Not Abstract. It’s Operational
So why do you feel so stuck these days? Do you have a nagging feeling that things could be better? Let’s lean in here and see what we can find.
First Things First
In this industry, clarity isn’t a feeling. It isn’t a mindset. It certainly isn’t a motivational poster on the wall.
As someone with decades of experience in the decorated apparel industry, I can wholeheartedly tell you that clarity shows up in how the shop actually runs each day.
When clarity is present, decisions feel steady. People know what to do next without being told. Sales are aligned with the business’s skill set and capabilities. Customers don’t see the shop as a vendor; they see it as a true partner in their success. Guardrails, KPIs, data, and standard operating procedures exist to keep things on track and profitable.
When all or any of that is missing, everything can feel loud and out of place. Like a fast-moving train starting to uncouple and head off the tracks. If you do the work, you can usually trace back to a few very specific places where clarity has broken down.
To me, these seem to exist in five persistent areas. Over the years, I’ve made mistakes, talked with people, and had countless opportunities to learn what makes things work best in a shop.
Here are some things I’ve learned:
One: Clarity on the Customer
Frankly, I think this might be the most important. Many shops founder when they try to sell to “anyone” without a clear message for “someone.”
Clarity is in knowing who you want to serve, and why they will value what you do.
For master-level shops, they know which customers move the needle and which ones drain time and energy. This is why they have guardrails, such as higher minimums for quantity or dollar amount. Or why they focus on certain customer types, such as hospitals, fashion brands, music, or other niches.
I know a shop that only sells headwear, and unless you are spending $50,000 a month with them, they’re not a good fit as a partner. This doesn’t mean they are being rude or unhelpful. It means they are being intentional.
Without clarity, every customer feels urgent. Every request, no matter how ridiculous, feels important. Lacking guardrails, the shop bends to whoever yells the loudest, instead of building toward what is best.
Homework: Create an “Ideal Customer Profile” to help you narrow your choices on who you want as a customer. Beyond their basic facts, list their annual spend, profit margin, need, and why you are the best fit for them. Do your research.
Two: Clarity On “Yes”
Shops with clarity are selective. On purpose.
They know not every order is good. That not every customer is worth chasing. And that not every idea deserves action at this moment.
Saying “No” protects the shop, the team, and the focus on what really matters.
As an example, I remember an order many years ago that one of the salespeople closed. Thousands of four-color process-screenprinted, customer-provided, oversized white T-shirts. Each shirt had to have a price tag attached, placed on a hanger, and placed inside a dry-cleaning bag. Yes, a dry cleaning bag.
The print was the easy part. The job was sold without any time studies, research, or the production team’s input on how to handle it, to get it to ship on time.
It was for a very large client and came with significant pressure, as it was a high-visibility order. The job lost money before we even started the post-production work. We had to cannibalize work teams to deploy with an all-hands-on-deck crunch to get it out on time. We achieved our goal; the client was happy. However, we lost thousands of dollars and had numerous other orders ship late due to this one order.
You can’t be a custom solution for everyone’s problems. Know what you do well, and stick to it.
Homework: Just like you can’t order pizza at a Chick-fil-A, what are you willing to give up to make your business a streamlined and more profitable one? What is the best fit for you and your customers to be in alignment for the outcome that works for everyone? What happens if you go off the path and take something that just doesn’t quite work?
Three: Clarity on the Good
Clarity works in our industry when everyone knows what success looks like before work begins.
This is the alignment between your shop and your customer on quality, turnaround, and service. Do you have clarity from every team member on their roles and responsibilities, and does that expectation carry through to what the customer expects when they open the box and put on the shirt for the first time?
Anything blocking that? Time? Skill? Equipment? Technology? Maybe how they link together?
Your crew has to all be on the same page. Multiple people should be able to perform any task and produce the same result, in the same amount of time, and with the same priority.
Without clarity on what good looks like, correcting mistakes can feel overwhelmingly personal. I know a shop production manager who was fired because the shop kept running out of black ink. Because the shop lacked organization, particularly in purchasing, this senior member was let go. Ultimately, though, if the shop had a consistent inventory process for supplies, the shop owner might not have gotten angry enough to fire the guy.
Homework: In your shop, what isn’t working the way you’d like? Start by defining what “Good” looks like. This could be in terms of quality, time, cost, or effort. Get everyone on board. Ask for opinions, and find common ground. Turn that ambiguous challenge into a clearly defined process.
Four: Clarity on Time
Here’s some clarity for you: the most valuable resource in your business is time. Is this something you track?
Clarity here means outlining bottlenecks rather than blaming people. You work on understanding what steals focus or time every day. You don’t have to do things faster if you can eliminate something.
In your shop, how do you respect time? Is this something you are measuring? When you make time visible, you can start protecting it.
Time is also money. Let’s say your shop averages 30 screens set up per day. On average, it takes your team nine minutes per screen to set up. That’s 270 minutes a day (4.5 hours) setting up screens. If we value the shop rate at $300 per hour. That is $1,350 per day in non-revenue cost. Annualized by 261 work days, that is $352,350 worth of non-revenue valuable time.
But let’s say your team starts being more organized. You adopt preregistration techniques such as Tri-loc or PRU units, reducing your setup time to 5 minutes per screen. Here’s the math. 30 screens at 5 minutes each is now 150 minutes (2.5 hours) per day in setup. The same shop rate of $300 per hour is now only $750 a day. Annualized, that is $195,750. Far less than what was costing the shop before.
Even better, the shop has found 2.5 hours per day for production, which is an additional 652.5 hours per year the team can print. Imagine how much easier it would be to stay on time for your production schedule with an extra 2.5 hours every day? Profitable shops track their numbers.
Homework: What’s the biggest speedbump in your company? Where or what are you always waiting on? What’s the biggest boat anchor? Start measuring whatever that is. How long? How many? What’s the reason behind the challenge? When you measure something, you begin to understand it and can develop ideas for positive change. Work on things that move the needle.
Five: Clarity on Profit
One of the most shocking things I’ve discovered as a coach in this industry is the lack of clarity about how businesses actually make money.
Profit is not a dirty word.
What more shops need is clarity on which types of work generate the most revenue. It’s math. Which is why many people don’t understand their own business: most people hate math. The most profitable shops in this industry are very intentional about the clarity of their profits.
What works. What doesn’t work. What to attract. What to avoid.
I’m also sad to say that there are some industry companies that mislead businesses on understanding profit, as they focus on the wrong things…such as contribution margin, instead of understanding the relationship between costs and time.
Here are the facts why contribution margin doesn’t work for the decorated apparel industry: Contribution margin typically excludes labor because labor is often treated as a fixed or semi-fixed cost in traditional accounting models. That assumption works in stable, predictable environments, but it breaks down in production shops where labor hours, efficiency, rework, and downtime change daily. In apparel decorating, labor is treated as a variable cost, which is why the contribution margin does not reflect the true cost of doing the work.
As a result, contribution margin can look deceptively healthy while real profit disappears. It ignores daily fluctuations in labor, capacity, errors, and other factors that truly determine whether a job is profitable.
If you are any sort of operational professional in this industry, you know how the daily performance of your crew can make a huge difference to the bottom line. Yes, you should be measuring. But what you measure, and especially the labor cost associated with work, is crucial to understanding your true net profit.
Again, Start with Clarity
If your shop feels harder than it should, clarity is the first move. Not more hours. Not more tools. Not more hustle.
Clarity comes from slowing down, watching how work really happens, and talking with your team about what is working and what is not. When clarity shows up, decisions get easier, priorities stop shifting, and progress finally feels real.
Decide what you want for the future you envision.
Check Out My New Book!
It’s free. “2026 Thinking” was a research project where I interviewed 88 people in the decorated apparel industry about their thoughts on the year. You’ll learn insights into what people think, why they are thinking it, and their opinions on the industry and what might happen in 2026.
