Further to the post last Thursday, the 23rd, about the non-delivery of my parcel and the atrocious customer service every small business could learn from, there's been a development. After much searching, I found a chat line for Amazon customer service. I explained...

I'm not sure how many times I've written about this or discussed it with business owners, but it keeps coming up—being accessible to your customers, especially the ones you've frustrated. And it's not just a small business problem, in fact, my experience (yet again)...

A VW dealership in North Carolina recently had to apologize to customers after stickers that included a racial slur were stuck on their cars after a service. It all happened because of a lack of security over in-house equipment such as a computer on which they...

I make a point of reading to keep up with developments in, not only the world-wide garment decorating industry, but also the fashion industry generally. What goes on in the greater fashion industry is bound to have an impact on textile screen printing sooner or later,...

The Imprint shows are coming up later this year in Canada and, as usual, I recommend attending shows, if not as an exhibitor, then certainly as an attendee. It's an essential part of keeping up to date on what's going on the industry. You can't keep up with the...

Some members of our industry are taking the plastic pollution problem seriously, others aren't. Those of us that are, need to keep informed on the topic, both the good work that is being done to address the problem as well as new aspects of the problem as they become...

As you might already know, March is fraud prevention month. If your bank is like mine, then you would likely have received at least one email about fraud awareness. And if you're like me, you'd be inclined to hit "delete" and move on. But we shouldn't do that. Online...

Yet another article about Direct To Garment printing popped up recently in my email. This one forecast a USD1.8201 billion DTG market by 2032. Based on my experience with the difficulties of forecasting, especially ten years out in an unsettled and unpredictable...

I recently had a discussion with a small business owner about a difficult customer. The situation had arrived at a point where the customer was no longer worth the stress they were causing. In situations like this, and given that it's impossible to tease your personal...

The fashion industry (of which we are a part) has a terrible reputation among environmentalists, and rightly so. It's a big topic so it's enormously popular among business journalists who love writing about "success stories" in the battle against, for instance, fast...

If you're going to prepare promotional material for your shop be aware that your credibility will be judged by it. For instance, if you draft an email or a pamphlet advertising your products and services it had better be well designed with eye-catching graphics,...

Customers don't want to be told what you can't do for them. What they want is to be told is how their problem is going to be solved. How you handle a customer's issue can determine whether or not you retain that customer. It comes down to positive versus negative...

Here's a follow-up to the previous post from the same writer, Adrian Dayton. You should re-think your business's participation in social media if it is preventing you from concentrating on more important things. It's a question of focus. Dayton makes the point that...

I was recently reading an article by a LinkedIn consultant who said that, when it's necessary, he advises clients to close their LinkedIn accounts. And he said that he does so when the client has nothing to gain from LinkedIn or when the time spent on the account...

Three years ago already, Adrienne Matei, writing for the Guardian, pointed out that glitter is "an environmental abomination." She explained how it is made from a combination of aluminum and plastic and is a microplastic. Microplastics have been found in Arctic ice,...

Going back to the book I mentioned in an earlier article, 101 Things I learned in Business School, there is some very good advice on running an organized business. It's about the fact that businesses have departments, even one-person businesses. Understanding this...

I've written about emergency and disaster planning before and will again in the future because it is important; I know this from personal experience. As I mentioned in the previous article, BDC has advice on all kinds of planning, including emergency and disaster...

So this is the time of the year when business owners are urged to plan. And there's no end to the types of plans. In my experience though, moist small businesses don't have the time (or probably the need) to plan to the degree of detail some of the plan-crazy business...

Over the holidays I came across 101 Things I learned in Business School by Michael W. Preis and Matthew Frederick. It's crammed with some useful ideas and concepts, much of it useful to small businesses such as the vast majority of textile screen printing shops in...

I was recently searching through a filing box of stuff I'd once thought worth keeping. And while much of it should have been dumped a long time ago, I found a single page with few words but a lot of wisdom. Since most textile screen shops in Canada are small...

The BDC recently published a paper with questions and answers relative to the outlook for small businesses for 2023. Some of the more pertinent ones are worth mentioning here as they could impact your planning as you look down the road. The question of a possible...

I've just received yet another email from Kornit listing five reasons why it's a good idea to spend almost CAD350,000 on their Avanalche HD6. Leaving aside the usual hype about how a switch to DTG will instantly and magically "create new product opportunities, open...

What immediately comes to mind when you hear "accountant"? Probably the stereotypical nit-picking, formally-attired, uncharismatic, image of a person we've all joked about at one time or another. For instance, what do you get when you cross an accountant with a jet...