The thumbnail version:

• Many small businesses manage inventory badly
• Poorly-managed inventory costs money
• Your accountant can help set your shop on the right inventory-management track

The full version:

Follow this plan and you’ll save money on your inventory management.

Big businesses pay a lot of attention to Inventory management. There’s a reason for that. It’s a potential cash drain if not managed properly.

Unfortunately, many small businesses (screen shops included) do not manage inventory well. Old never-to-be-used-again ink, dated chemicals, mesh in counts never used, unsold Tees, and a million other things we could name. They all represent cash lying dormant and possibly eventually disappearing.

You accountant can help you set up a system to track your inventory, value it, and give you regular reports. You can supplement a good record system with a simple but effective set of procedures for the physical management of your inventory. And you can establish a mindset that emphasizes effective inventory management in the shop. This will all help make your shop more efficient and cost-effective.

Time to start saving some money?

The thumbnail version:

• We’re in a new COVID-19 and, therefore, online world.
• A well-designed and informative website is essential
• Many shops try to do a website on the cheap
• You get what you pay for

The full version:  

Is this how visitors react to your website?

I came across and article by Marshall Atkinson on the increasing importance of websites in a COVID-19 and increasingly online marketplace.

One passage in particular caught my eye because he articulated succinctly something that has puzzled me too for a long time: “Personally, I find it almost laughable that some shops will drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on production equipment, but skimp and try to find the cheapest nerdy neighbor kid to build out the functionality of their website. Remember this, you get what you pay for.”

The article offers some great priorities such as: better aesthetics; better call to action; more clarity; better tools; more follow up; and the ability to work on a phone.

This website topic might be sounding a bit repetitive to you by now, but that’s because it is a vitally important one.

How’s your shop’s site? Is it built for the online economy?

The thumbnail version:

• Not every potential customer is a good customer
• Customers are not created equal
• Define your ideal customer
• Only aim for the ideal customers

The full version:

Take your business to my competitor!

The T-shirt printing business is tough. But this doesn’t mean that you embrace every potential new customer that comes through the door.

Customers are not created equal. Some are not worth having. Some are too small for the effort they require. Some are impossibly difficult. Some don’t pay promptly. Some don’t pay at all. And so on, and so on, and so on.

So how to handle this? Well, first of all, define your ideal customer and then do some checking. Which of your products or services do they want? What quantities do they order? Will you be able to delight them? What will the profit margin on their work be? Will they pay promptly? Will they be a repeat customer?

These are some of the attributes you’re looking for. Now, no customer is perfect, but why wouldn’t you turn down up front the ones you’re only going to to end up firing after they’ve caused you headaches and cost you money? Turning down a potential customer is counter-intuitive for sure, but being discerning is smart business.

The thumbnail version:

• Activism spawned a T-shirt retail business
• Another aspect to the story is the power of niche marketing

The full version: 

I see a niche!

The obvious message in the article on the Shopify feed was meant to be about how one woman’s search for a specific type of Tee launched a successful business. It grew rapidly from the living room of an apartment in Washington DC to two retail stores, one in Washington and the other in Philadelphia.

Here’s how the story of the activist-based T-shirt company, The Outrage, began . . . “Around the same time, she was looking to buy herself a feminist T-shirt, ideally from a company owned by women and with an ethical supply chain and production practices. ‘Once you learn about that,’ she says, ‘you can’t unlearn it.’ But she came up short. So Rebecca spent months in libraries and coffee shops building what would become The Outrage, launching an online store at the height of the 2016 presidential election.” It launched and orders started pouring in.

So this was intended as a story about activism, but for us, it’s interesting for another reason. It demonstrates how business success can flow from spotting an under-serviced niche market. The T-shirt market is very crowded, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still niche markets to be explored. It could pay handsomely for a shop owner willing to do the searching.

The thumbnail version:

• Most small businesses neglect their websites
• Speed of response is critical
• There are ways to improve speed of response

The full version:

Ensure that your website a joy to visit.

Most small businesses tend to neglect their websites once they’re launched. This may result in your site discouraging rather than encouraging potential customers.

Content, graphics, and overall attractiveness are of course important, but assuming you have those taken care of, speed of response is just is critical. This is not only because of the user experience aspect but also because search engines will rank slow websites lower.

Melinda Emerson, the SmallBizLady, has three good tips:

1. Enable caching. This allows your website to load faster on follow-up visits.
2. Remove hog plug-ins and add-ons. You may have too many and some may be real resource hogs. get rid of them if you can
3. Optimize and reduce the size of your images. large images can affect your website speed. Do a ,little research on how to optimize images.

Your website is a critical part of your business. Keep it up to date and finely tuned.

The thumbnail version:

• Being heard nowadays is difficult among all the advertising noise
• Customer referrals are effective and cost efficient
• You have to give customers reason to market for you
• There are statistics to support this

The full version:

Advertising nowadays, especially through social media is, as Seth Godin has apparently noted, a bit like firing off flares during a hurricane in the Atlantic and expecting to be noticed. In other words, mostly a waste of time and effort.

So don’t neglect an old tried-and-tested method of marketing—customer referrals. It’s cost-free and targeted. It’s much more like shooting fish in a barrel than firing off flares in the Atlantic.

The key is to produce work and service that wows customers, that gets them excited about your shop. Once they have a reason to talk about your shop to other potential customers, there’s no shame in asking them to do just that. You have to ask though because it may not occur to them that your really need them to do that.

Bottom line—give them a reason to tell others and then ask them to do so. It works because it’s human nature to share when you have a positive experience to relate. You remember the old hair cleanser advertisement?: “Two people told two people, who told two people, who told two people, who told two people . . .”

It snowballs.

Here are some recent supporting statistics from spotio.com: 

Salespeople who actively seek out and exploit referrals earn 4 to 5 times more than those who don’t.

– 84% of buyers now kick off their buying process with a referral

– 92% of buyers trust referrals from people they know.

– 91% of customers say they’d give referrals. Only 11% of salespeople ask for referrals.

– Companies with formalized referral programs experience 86% more revenue growth over the past two years when compared to the rest.

– The lifetime value of referred customers is on average 16% higher than that of non-referred customers.

The thumbnail version:

• Online fraud is more prolific than ever
• Becoming a victim can destroy your business
• The key is vigilance

The full version:

They’re everywhere (this is Richard the rat).

Judging by recent articles and reports, online fraud attempts have become more intense during the pandemic. It’s hard to pin down why this is, but as the currently popular phrase has it, it is what it is. As a business owner or employee, your main concern is not falling for it.

Some attempts are laughably easy to spot, such as this one just received, “Hello, this is richard hurt, I will like to know if you do screen printing and can i know if you are the owner or manager and do you accept credit card payment?” But some are cleverly disguised with proper grammar and spelling, and sometimes legitimately-looking logos and links.

One defense against this kind of thing is vigilance. If your staff are constantly reminded to be wary of unsolicited inquiries and to do extensive legitimacy checks, the chances of being victimized by an online rat will be minimized. Unfortunately, in today’s world we have to constantly be on guard. Trust your instincts; if you smell a rat . . .

The thumbnail version:

• Customers can be unreasonably impatient
• Catering to their impatience can win return business
• Waiting can annoy an impatient customer
• Production planning avoids waiting

The full version:

Besides the fact that an order held up waiting for artwork, one or more essential supplies, or a production bottleneck, is an inefficient way to run a shop, a delayed order is no way to impress a customer or ensure repeat business.

A happy customer is a return customer.

Customers are often unreasonable in their delivery demands, but that’s just a reflection of the type of society we live in nowadays. Remember the one-hour photo printing services? There was hardly ever a good reason for wanting photos printed in an hour when all one was going to do was look through them and then put them in a drawer and forget them. But that’s the kind of unreasonable impatience a lot of customers have.

So, as annoying as it can be, you have no choice but to deliver when (if not sooner) than expected. This is why orders have to be planned to ensure that there are no production and delivery delays. There must be no waiting for any of the elements of production: artwork, screens, shirts, ink, staff, etc.

On or before-time delivery can go a long way to impressing an impatient customer.

The thumbnail version:

• The Tee business is tough, particularly now
• You must have an “elevator pitch”
• You can reduce your elevator pitch to a single sentence (the silver bullet)
• That single sentence can give a listener the chills

The full version:

We all know about the “elevator pitch” which holds that you should be able to describe your business well enough in the length of an elevator ride to entice someone to want to consider doing business with you.

A lot has been written over the years about how to do this effectively. However, recently Neil Gordon, writing for Entrepreneur.com, introduced the concept of what he calls the silver bullet of an elevator pitch. It’s an article worth the few minutes it takes to read. You can find it here.

When you’re promoting your screen shop to someone who could be a potential customer, what do you tell them? “I print T-shirts”? I hope not because while it may be true, it’s hardly compelling and, besides, so do a whole lot of other shops so why do business with yours?

Gordon’s article will give you some ideas on how to come up with a single sentence designed to give the listener, as he puts it, the “chills.”

You’re in tough against competitors all hurting in this pandemic market. This is just another way to help give you the edge.

The thumbnail version:

• “Followers” can just be a vanity metric
• “Followers” don’t necessarily mean potential business
• A current example demonstrates
• Two quotes to note

The full version:

In the post of the 6th of this month the pros and cons of media marketing were mentioned along with a warning about being misled by vanity metrics such as number of “followers”, “friends”, “connections” etc.

Here is an example of why those metrics are referred to as “vanity metrics” and why they can be misleading for a small business owner hoping to focus a marketing effort on social media (as encouraged by many so-called social media marketing “experts”).

Shortly after the outbreak of the current COVID-19 pandemic, a doctor in Ontario who happens to have a well-followed Instagram channel in which she regularly posts plant-based recipes, decided to compile an e-book of her more popular and exotic recipes. The 50-recipe e-book was priced at $25 with all proceeds going to the Canadian Foodbank to help them with the increased demand resulting from the impact of the pandemic.

The project was co-sponsored by a womens’ health organization that actively promoted the project to its 70,000 Instagram followers. They hoped to raise $30,000. It seemed like a reasonable target for a great recipe book for a great cause. It would mean that all they needed was 1,200 sales or only 1 in 58 (less than 2%) of the 70,000 followers.

In the end they raised $8,500. That’s 340 sales or 1 sale per 205 followers—a far cry from the hoped for 1 sale per 58 followers. The conclusion? The number of followers is a meaningless metric in indicating potential sales. To repeat what BJ Mendelson wrote in his book, Social Media is Bullshit: “The only metric that matters for small businesses, artists and entrepreneurs is sales. If you’re not making money, you can’t keep on doing what you’re doing.”

Let’s have one more comment on this topic of social media marketing from Alex Lieberman, CEO of Morning Brew: “The best marketers don’t just understand Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. The best marketers understand anthropology, sociology, and psychology.”

You have a lot to think about before following the herd into social media marketing and neglecting more traditional marketing methods.

The thumbnail version:

• Rejects cost money
• There’s a quick calculation to bring the cost of rejects into perspective
• Everyone in the shop must work to avoid rejects

The full version:

Don’t even tell me there are more rejects!

It should be a mantra: “Rejects are bad!” Any number of mistakes and oversights can result in a reject. It’s important to be reminded of this whether you’re a new sole-operator or an owner of a large shop.

If the reject rate is not watched carefully it can become costly. Do the math . . . what is your margin on an impression on customer-supplied shirts? (Let’s call this A). Now, what is the cost of replacing the customer’s rejected shirt plus the cost of making the impression? (Let’s call this B). Now divide B by A. This tells you how many impressions you have to do just to get back to break-even after incurring a rejection. You can’t make money when you’re working for nothing to pay for rejects.

Even if you can fix a mistake with a spot-remover gun, that’s time and chemical cost incurred.

And that’s just the money side of it. What about the embarrassment of having to admit to a customer that you’ve messed up a bunch of their shirts? What will too much of this do to your shop’s reputation?

Rejects are bad! Instill it in everyone in your shop from the person that takes the order, to the artist, to the screen person, to the printer, to everyone.

The thumbnail version:

• The CFIB says there is growing anger among Canadian small business owners
• They’re petitioning the government online on behalf of small business owners and want you to participate

The full version:

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business wants all small business owners to log on and sign their petition to the Federal Government asking for what small businesses need to recover from the impact of COVID-19.

The CFIB says that there is growing anger among Canadian small business owners because many are slipping through the cracks between the various assistance programs. They estimate that 158,000 small businesses (1 in 7) will have to close unless something is done to help them.

They’re aiming for 20,000 signatures and currently have just over 7,000. The petition on the CFIB website details what they are asking for.

You can participate at www.cfib.ca/covidpetition

The thumbnail version:

• The virus is having an impact on mental health
• We have no idea when society and business will get back to “normal”
• This can affect you and your staff members
• Don’t hesitate to consult a healthcare professional

The full version:

Reports are now beginning to appear about the negative impact of the virus on mental health—that of small business owners in particular. These are tough times and we have no idea yet when this may get back to “normal”; consider New Zealand that appeared to have it beaten and then after over 100 days without any cases they had to suddenly shut down  Auckland again. And the worst part is that as of now, they don’t know where the new outbreak came from.

This isn’t a good sign for the rest of us in jurisdictions that still don’t have the original outbreak under control. It turns out that we cannot now assume that once we get this outbreak under control it won’t happen all over again. Also, medical experts are warning that the much-anticipated vaccine may not be the answer we’re hoping for.

As this thing drags on, persistent discouragement and anxiety can evolve into mental health issues—yours and that of your staff members.

I don’t mean to shock anyone, but this is a serious matter so I’m quoting from the Healthcare Professional chapter in my book, Characters Who Can Make Or Break Your Small Business, as a means of persuading you to consult with a healthcare professional if you perceive a need (you’ll know if you do): “My own experience with business-related stress, the suicide deaths of three small business associates, and the near suicide death of another all underscored the necessity to include a healthcare professional as a character in this book. In the context of this chapter, ‘healthcare professional’ includes any healthcare professional appropriate to the malady . . .”

The thumbnail version:

• COVID-19 has forced Imprint’s show to go virtual
• Interest from buyers and exhibitors is enthusiastic
• The show is offering a number of interesting features

The full version:

Attending a show without leaving your desk

In under a month on September 9th and 10th, The Virtual Imprint Canada Show will take place—a first for Canada (if you don’t count the trial run in July).

According to a notice from the organizers, there are already 1,100 registered buyers and 60+ exhibitors. The focus is on the latest product introductions for Fall 2020.

This virtual show  will feature the following:

• Industry-wide group text chat “Cappuccino bar”
• Individual exhibitor sales “Welcome to Our Booth” sales video
• Exhibitor booth live text chat
• Seminars/buyer education
• Exclusive show specials
• Hundreds of new products
• Unlimited videos

You can find out more at: http://imprintcanada.com/

“Likes” or sales?

The thumbnail version:

• There are pros and cons to consider before marketing on social media
• There are two very important metrics to keep in mind
• You could be wasting time and money by following the herd

The full version:

Nowadays there seems to be an article every other day with headlines like this: “Social Media Marketing Strategies during COVID-19.” That’s one point of view. Then there’s another such as expressed in the book by BJ Mendelson, Social Media Is Bullshit.

Somewhere between the position that all small businesses should be marketing via social media and the position that they shouldn’t, potentially lies a middle position. That position holds that social media marketing may be somewhat successful for some types of businesses. The key is to establish whether yours is one of those types of businesses; establish whether the cost and time justifies the sales it generates. This is not easy to establish, but establish it you must or your business could end up proving Medelson’s premise.

Social media advocates like to talk about “awareness”, “profile”, and “relationships” in a way that implies they’re good for business, but can seldom demonstrate that they do actually turn into business in sufficient volume to justify the effort. You can’t take “awareness” to the bank. This is a modern-day digital version of the old conundrum in traditional advertising—how does a small business measure the cost/benefit ratio of an advertising campaign? Does “awareness” turn into cash?

When assessing the social media platforms as potential marketing resources for your shop, there are a couple of metrics to keep in mind:

1. Numbers of “likes”, “links”, “friends” or “followers” seldom correlate with sales made—they’re for the most part vanity metrics.
2.  As Mendelson writes: “The only metric that matters for small businesses, artists and entrepreneurs is sales. If you’re not making money, you can’t keep on doing what you’re doing.”

It’s tempting and easy to get caught up in the stampede into social media marketing, but depending upon the nature and circumstances of your business, you may want to take a different and more carefully considered path from the herd.

The thumbnail version:

• Nobody seems to know when post-COVID will be
• Signs point to a longer haul than we all anticipated and hoped for
• There are measures to take as part of planning
• “Change” is beginning to look like an essential planning ingredient

The full version:

The problem with trying to build your business plan for a post-COVID is that nobody seems to know when post-COVID will be or what it will look like. On the plus side New Zealand seems to have it under control and returning to “normal” (have you seen the packed rugby stadiums?) whereas, on the minus side, our neighbours to the south don’t seem to be even close to coping. And also worrisome is that parts of Europe are seeing an uptick in cases again.

Even here in Canada (with the exception of the Maritime provinces) we’re still seeing a few hundred cases and some deaths a day. So how the heck do you build a business plan with such uncertainty? Well, it’s hard and the best you can expect to do is keep your plan fluid and:

• Stay on top of developments by listening to informed opinions
• Stay in touch with your customers so that you know where they stand
• Stay in touch with suppliers to know where they stand
• Look for opportunities resulting from the virus (there are some, such as masks)
• Look for cost-saving opportunities (but don’t compromise your product quality)
• Keep a close eye on overhead expenses and cut where you can
• Keep a close eye on cash flow
• Be aware that your staff are having a hard time too so do what you can to help them
• Consult with experts such as your accountant, financial planners etc.
• Take care of your health (more about this in an upcoming post)

There’s no magic solution and the signs are that the pandemic is far from over (despite what some overly-optimistic writers, ‘experts’, and politicians may be saying), so plan accordingly.

It may be time to remind ourselves what Charles Darwin wrote:

Keisha Greaves was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy which she thought would mean the end of her career in fashion. She’d been a merchandiser for international fashion labels in major department stores.  But then, long story short, she plucked up courage and started her own fashion business designing and producing tees and other fashion items.

Her designs reflect her situation and deal with ‘disabled’ and ‘black lives matter’ topics. Now she’s focusing on producing a line of adaptive clothing for disabled people. Greaves’s range and full story can be seen on her website: www.girlschronicallyrock.com

Once in a while a story like this comes along to serve as an inspiration during tough times.

Afraid of COVID-19? Have I got a shirt for you!

An Australian activewear company has been fined $28,000 for incorrectly advertising their garments as “anti-virus activewear.” Implying that a garment can prevent Covid-19 is about as shady as one could get at this time.

We’ve had our share of shady activity in the Canadian industry such as, for instance, printing unlicensed Stanley Cup shirts or unauthorized brand-name garments, but (as far as we know) never have we had something like this that could create a false sense of security. A fake Stanley Cup or Hugo Boss shirt, as inappropriate as it may be, is not going to result in illness or death.

This is a black eye for the Australian industry. Let’s hope nothing like this happens in Canada during this ongoing time of a deadly virus.

Stanley’s customer, Garment Express of Calgary has taken the mask manufacturing and decorating opportunity we’ve been urging for months by producing a 100 percent Canadian-manufactured mask.

And not only that, they’ve also proved effective at spreading the word.

There may well be other Canadian printers making and printing masks but if they don’t have a way of letting the market know . . .

This is when the importance of an emailing list and a platform like Mail Chimp is obvious. It’s never too late to start building an emailing list.

As you probably know by now there’s been a gradual consolidation of ink brands under one roof over the past few years. We’re talking about the fact that all the most prominent brands that were previously competitors: Wiflex; Rutland; Union; QCM; Printop; and Zodiak; have all ended up under the PolyOne umbrella.

Well now there’s been a further development. PolyOne has acquired Clariant’s Masterbatch business for $1.44 billion. Not only that, but the name of the consolidated business has been changed too. PolyOne is no more. The new expanded business is now known as Avient.

It’s reported that Avient is a new word invented to reflect the company’s commitment to: ” . . . inspiring each other and the world to pursue and achieve our fullest potential.”

Avient put out a statement to say that the new company’s priorities include commitments to work place safety, being a great place to work, inclusion and diversity, leading in sustainability, investing in innovation, operating globally and serving locally, leveraging customer service as a differentiator, and promoting shareholder value.

Yes, it’s in the U.S., but it is in our industry and therefore  appropriate to point to as an example of why we all need to take local COVID-19 regulations (and just plain common sense) seriously at this time.

On the Los Angeles Apparel’s website you can find this commendable statement: “We are contrarians, deeply focused on sustainability and efficiency in order to advance the interests of our customers, our workers, our shareholders, the community, and the world.”

However, CNN has reported that the Los Angeles County Department of Health shut down Los Angeles Apparel last week and noted that: “Business owners and operators have a corporate, moral and social responsibility to their employees and their families to provide a safe work environment.” In other words, they disagree that Los Angeles Apparel was advancing the interests of its workers.

The problem? Over 300 positive COVID-19 tests and 4 deaths at the factory. Apparently the “non-compliant” cardboard barriers between workers didn’t cut it.

Is your shop complying with the federal, provincial, or local COVID-19 guidelines? Besides being the proper thing to do, you don’t want authorities turning up and shutting your shop down.

Ultimately it’s not what you see at first. . . It’s money.

There was once an occasion when I needed some way of demonstrating why it was important to always be aware of inventory (in this case inks and chemicals) sitting aging on a warehouse shelf. I needed to change a mindset.

This is what I did during a staff meeting . . . I fetched an old gallon container of plastisol ink from the warehouse (where it had been sitting for a couple of years) and placed it in the middle of the meeting room table. I asked if anyone could tell me what they saw. Judging by the puzzled expressions I’m sure some thought I’d lost my marbles. Then someone decided to play along and stated what seemed to be the obvious: “I see a dusty gallon bucket of ink.”

It gave me the perfect opening to make my point: “I see about $50.” I explained: “If on that spot on the shelf there were two twenties and a ten, would we leave it lying there year after year gathering dust? Of course not, because there are better things to do with money than leave it lying around. So see the bucket as $50, not just as a dusty bucket of ink.”

Take a stroll through your shop or warehouse. See how much “money” is lying around and can be put to better use. Change the mindset.

Online design-and-order sites such as this one from Canva—are they competition that traditional brick-and-mortar textile shops should be concerned about in this “new normal” or a concept to be copied?

“Create your own t-shirts

Bring your designs to life with Canva. Our new t-shirt templates allow you to print on both the front and back, so you can have some fun creating and wearing your design. Perfect for individuals who want unique t-shirts or for bringing teams together.

We’ve also improved the quality of the material, sizes and now use more eco-friendly inks, clothing, and ways of transporting your prints to you. Delivery is free as standard, so once you’ve designed your t-shirt, sit back and wait for your creation to turn up. We’ve made printing simple.”

In this COVID-19 “new normal” any potential business-boosting idea is worth considering. Could the concept grow into something bigger than a one-off shirt service? Is it a way to connect with large customers in the future?

Check it out at the Canva website: Click here.

You might not know this but the receipts printed out at cash registers, ATM machines, boarding passes, and other similar machines contains BPA (bisphenol), a carcinogen best known for being in some plastics and in the lining of some food cans. But this is not about BPA, it’s about how chemicals are handled in your shop.

Read this excerpt from Dr. Neal Barnard’s book, Your Body In Balance, and then answer the question at the end. It could make a difference to the health of everybody working in your shop.

“So the Harvard research team did a new study. They asked volunteers to print and handle cash register receipts over a two-hour period. If they wore gloves, nothing happened. There was no absorption of BPA. But when the volunteers handled receipts without gloves the BPA passed straight through their skin into their bloodstreams. Urine samples showed that BPA levels increased fivefold over the next four to twelve hours.”

Keep ink and chemicals off your skin.

Here’s the question . . .  If the skin is that porous and BPA passes into the bloodstream this easily, what is happening when ink and chemicals are handled in your shop without gloves?

It’s tough times now as print shops slowly get going again after the shut-downs and lock-downs. And “tough times” in the end is just a euphemism for “cash flow concerns.” And the first thing we do when faced with cash flow concerns is look for where we can cut costs. And where do we look? At the most visible items such as materials and consumables like inks, chemicals, and emulsions. That’s a mistake.

List everything that can be improved for cost savings. Make the changes.

It’s a mistake because there are not-so-visible items that can bring you greater cost savings without damaging your brand by compromising the quality of your work with cheaper materials.

Look in the print shop for inefficiencies. Are you investing in an inventory of dead ink by buying in quantities in excess of what you need and then never using those colours again? Why don’t you have a mixing system that does away with an inventory of excessive, dead ink? Staff time is expensive, so check to see if the shop is laid out to make the best use of staff time. Are your employees working efficiently and producing the maximum output possible in the time you are paying them for?

What about utilities? For example, are you managing your consumption of electricity? What about consumables such as cleaning chemicals? Are they being used efficiently or wastefully?

And don’t just look in the shop. What about the office? Are your routine processes for ordering, billing, paying, bookkeeping, and record keeping efficient? It’s easy for admin functions to lapse into time-wasting, paper-shuffling exercises. There may be more efficient and less costly ways of getting these tasks done.

The real cost savings don’t come from switching to lower-grade materials; that’s counter-productive. Pennies per print isn’t going to do it. With a little effort you’re bound to unearth significant cost savings when you start looking in the not-so-obvious areas.

List them. Do the math. Start with the most beneficial items. Make the changes.

Face mask . . . probably the most obvious place to have a corporate logo noticed.

Face masks are now being produced by applying logo transfers mostly for the corporate market. With current predictions leaning towards a long fight against Coronavirus, face masks are becoming a must-have item of apparel.

And the corporate market looks promising. It shouldn’t take much to convince a corporate PR department that face masks with their logo not only make sense for their employees but are also a great promotional item.

All you need in addition to your standard printing equipment is a heat press (cap presses apparently work well) and you’re in the mask heat transfer business.

Not many businesses can say that the Coronavirus pandemic has benefited them in any way, but this is one that can help textile decorators recover.

Roger Wambolt writing for Image Magazine discusses the AI-powered features in CorelDraw Graphics Suite 2020.

In addition to the various benefits that AI brings to the suite, Wambolt highlights the solution to one particular problem that plagues garment decorators—turning a low-res image into a high-quality, scalable, vector graphic file. And that’s not all; apparently a number of time-consuming, tedious tasks can now be accomplished much faster.

You can download a free trial of CorelDraw Graphics Suite 2020 for MAC or Windows at www.coredraw.com/images 

My 20-year-old Tee still going strong.

Coincidentally, while I’m reading a textile screen printer’s view in Images Magazine on what makes a great Tee and why working with great Tees is important to to him, I’m wearing my favourite Tee—a soft and comfortable grey Roots Tee with a simple (appropriately faded) pocket print that I’ve been wearing for over twenty years.

So naturally I begin to muse about why I instinctively love my old Roots Tee and how it has managed to last this long. The reason of course is that it’s the best-constructed, chunkiest, Tee I’ve ever owned; it’s quite different from the standard Tee nowadays made of fabric that seems thinner than tea bag paper.

Here’s what that printer, Louis Georgia of Essential Embroidery designs in the UK, had to say about his favourite Tee produced by Stanley/Stella Creator Tees: “We get the best quality prints using it. The weave is tight which means that you don’t really get any fibrillation, leaving a silky smooth final print. Plus, it is made from organic cotton and has great eco credentials. Most of our work is in the corporate market and large corporates love this tee because of its eco credentials and sound supply chain, not to mention being a great fashion fit.”

I’ve checked and, unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a supplier of Stanley/Stella Tees in Canada. But this shouldn’t deter you from searching out a similarly high-quality locally-produced garment for your shop as a way of differentiating from the competition.