Helping Shops Succeed
Bob Dylan said it best. The times they are a changin’. As people, we are the accumulation of our experiences. In this industry, I sure have had many wonderful examples of that. My career in the decorated apparel industry began by accident. I was looking for a way to pay for architecture graduate school so…
Boom! In a business context, what does that word mean to you? Gigantic explosion of new business? Disintegration, as chunks of your sales channels and market share fly away in a cloud of smoke? Boom! This article is a just a pondering “What if?”. It is for planning purposes only. These days everyone is a…
Repetitive motion. That two word phrase defines the decorated apparel industry. Regardless if you are a screen-printer, embroiderer, or digital print shop, your workers repeat the same task all day. Yet, most shops don’t spend much time training the staff how to do things properly from an ergonomic point of view. In any task, there’s…
Not so many years ago, our industry operated with simpler tools. Squeegees and ink. Needles and thread. Maybe a whiteboard or spreadsheet for scheduling. Remember when you used to plaster parking lots with flyers for your shop? That was caveman social media. These days things are far more complicated. Whether you are the “one-man band”…
Here’s lies poor Rocky. Once upon a time he ran a Garment (Fur) Decoration Shop (Tree) for all the other animals in his area. He used to have a good business and made a lot of acorns over the years. Rocky wasn’t comfortable with change, as he always liked to do things “his…
I was out running through the neighborhood the other day at my usual old guy pace, (i.e. SLOW) when it occurred to me that the leaves from the trees that were scattered on the ground are just like companies’ Social Media Marketing effort. Your customer’s social media feed is so saturated with posts, that unless your share…
What is one of the number one growth area in the decorated apparel industry? Performance and Athleisure wear. The good news is that your shop can benefit directly from this boom by decorating on these trendier tech apparel blanks. Maybe you already are, and that’s great. There is better margin in them too; as they…
Pessimist. Optimist. Realist. If you had to characterize your business personality into one of these three types, which would you choose? Did you pick one? Why do I ask? Well, I stumbled on a fantastic quote the other day that I thought would make a great focus for an article. Have you read this before?…
How many times has an order or something gone wrong in your shop and you thought to yourself, “Hey, we are better than this! How did that happen?” This type of situation reminds me of that old Ben Franklin parable: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost, For…
