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Join Easiway at the Texsource Open House
Easiway will be exhibiting at the 6th Annual Texsource Trade Show & Open House this Thursday & Friday (May 17 & 18) map. Tim Chaffman from Easiway will answering questions and demonstrating Easiway products. Texsource will also be raffling an Easiway dip tank system. There will be over 30 representatives from screen supply & equipment manufacturers attending for demonstrations, information and answering your questions. Texsource will be serving food, offering door prizes and a full range of classes.
Admission is FREE but registration is required.
Some of the classes offered:
All Over Printing
CorelDraw. This is a premium class @$49.95 per person and space is extremely limited, reserve early.
White Ink Printing
Automatic Screen Printing
Discharge Printing
Choosing the Correct Emulsion
Proper Screen Cleaning
Reflective Inks
Heat Transfer Techniques
Sublimation Techniques
There will be Automatic screen printing machines, digital printers, sublimation equipment, embroidery equipment and screen cleaning equipment & dip tanks. If you are within driving range of Kings Mountain, NC (just south of Charlotte) meet and greet other printers, talk to suppliers and enjoy some good food with the staff of Texsource.
Review Your Business Card – 7 Ideas For Greater Sales Impact
Screen printers live on the visual quality of their screen print work. Surprisingly most do not spend time on the quality of their business card. 7 ideas for greater sales impact:
1. Is your logo so complicated that someone who does not knows you does not or cannot relate to the logo, or simply does not understand it? Survey a few people that do not know you and ask them what they see. Clever logos that do not communicate are not for you…even if your child did design it!
2. Check your font types and limit them to two, maximum. One font type, excluding the logo communicates better.
3. Make your email address large enough to read. It is no longer an after thought. To make strings of email letters easier to read increase the spacing. This is especially important when ‘ i ‘ & ‘ l ‘ are together like, ‘william’ or ‘phillip’. You can read it, but can a stranger read it?
4. If you have a web site you regularly update and that visually showcases your work place it prominently on your card. Again pay close attention to letter spacing so people new to your company can read it.
5. When you can afford it, die cut shapes, clear coats or heavier card stocks are very eye catching and effective.
6. Does your card tell some one what you do? A line or two like: ‘Fast, reliable screen printed garments & uniforms’ will also sell for you after the card is given away.
7. Arguably the space most debated is the back of the business card. Some believe that leaving this side open for notes is better. Progressive companies see the back side as more real estate to sell your company services.
Just because the business card design has been with you for several years does not mean it isn’t time to review your business card design to create a greater sales impact.
Production Peaks and Valleys
The scourge of every screen print shop is the constant peaks in production with more work than seems humanly possible and the valleys of low production. It’s the nature of the screen printing beast. Every managerial text book will encourage laying employees off, quickly in valley times and re-hiring and training new employees when business returns. The skill sets of screen printing do not lend to quick and easy training, so most screen printers hang on to employees, probably too long.
Flatten the production mountain by spreading production from peak times into slow times. Simple answer to a complicated problem to which every screen print shop owner will respond,, “My business is different.” Start first with your sales department by pre-booking orders from regular customers. Even with incentives this will even production schedules. Generic brands sold by major retailers, are packaged in the slower periods of production by the sourcing manufacturers. Tell your valued customers that you have special offers in your two slowest months of production. Also, if you have a regular repeat customer, print ahead and deliver later. The downside is that you tie up inventory dollars, but this is versus lay-offs with unemployment claims and re-training new employees.
Even in custom screen shops, where turnaround is more immediate, two possible options are:
First, review all orders from the previous year. Focus on customers who ordered in peak times. Offer a discount or special if they will place an order during better times for you (just like generic products). When selling to other business owners, they can appreciate your dilemma and possibly accommodate you.
With new customers focus promotions and advertising concentrated to your slower times. For sports teams, create specials for acting early. Get your uniforms early and beat the rush!
All businesses have unique circumstances, but the problems are all basically the same. Reviewing this problem, as you review past sales orders will provide insight to reducing over-time or the cycle of hiring and firing employees with all the problems that creates.
Printwear Show in Dallas
Attending shows is a great investment in your business’ future. It is the best way to keep from losing contact with industry trends. Your customers will gravitate to trend setters.
The Printwear Dallas show will be May 10 thru 12 at the Dallas Convention Center. The Printwear show is brought to you by the NBM (National Business Media Group). The Printwear shows are an informative combination of markets; combining sign, apparel, trophy & awards. As screen shops become more digital, and digital shops see the versatility of screen printing, markets are merging.
NBM publishes Printwear, Sign & Digital Graphics, and Awards & Engraving magazines that are available at no cost for businesses in either print or digital formats. If you cannot attend, sign up for one of these great trade publications. The Printwear show also offers over 30 classes presented by industry professionals with ‘real world’ experiences. They are great for employee training. Nothing beats seeing hands-on demonstrations like these classes offer. Classes start on May 9 and run thru May 12. For a complete listing of class topics: http://thenbmshow.com/dallas-2012/schedule .
Easiway will be represented by our very own Steve Nelson and he will be doing demonstrations and answering your question in the Texsource Texas booth #209. Easiway will also be represented by McBee Supply in booth #423.
Leadership and Design – 5 Tips
Does your company lead or follow? Custom screen printers are always responding to an array of customer requests. If your company seems to always be responding to every whim and idea from customers, chances are your art costs are also rising. Rising at a time that customers are trying to reduce what they pay for screen printed apparel. Leading your customers will let your company ‘get in front of the parade’ by leading customers with art and style suggestions.
1. Regularly change displays in your office, show rooms, store window and any area that customers will see your best work.
2. Frequently update your home page and sample section of your web page.
3. It is common sense, but is frequently over-looked, keep your sales staff armed with your best and latest samples.
4. Customers rarely request art styles that they have not seen in other places. Make time to view work by other firms. This can be done by a stroll through the mall, reading trade magazines or viewing web sites. Wherever your inspiration is, do it regularly and frequently.
5. Leading customers is not just in the art room. Show customers new colors and color combinations, hot font styles and variations of designs on dark and light garment styles.
Leadership in your sales room will give your customers better art and in any cases protect customers from themselves. When you print really bad artwork it is also a reflection of your business. Design leadership will also help your art department, so that each design is not a custom adventure each order. Leadership is most importantly, is frequently and continually updating your business site, web site and sales people with the latest samples and garment styles. When customers see that you have done quality work for companies they recognize, your credibility increases.
Positive Psychology and Authentic Happiness
Dr. Martin Seligman, of the University of Pennsylvania, is a world renowned researcher in Positive Psychology. Dr. Seligman began his career testing and researching the concepts of ‘learned helplessness’ but that lead him to the modern concept of Positive Psychology and ultimately to many books, seminars and resources for ‘authentic happiness’. Psychology had been focusing on behaviors and ‘what can go wrong’ and their diagnosis, while Dr. Seligman identified that throughout time and other world cultures core character strengths emerged and were common across cultures. These core positive strengths he has shown can be learned, coached and cultivated. They were identified as: wisdom/knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance & transcendence.
Dr. Seligman’s core concepts of the ‘good life’ are:
1) Positive emotion. These can be ‘tuned’ by the self discovery of writing notes at bedtime each day of things and events that went well and why.
2) Engagement. Selectively using your strengths to perform routine tasks.
3) Relationships. Complex and in many forms.
4) Meaning. Belonging and serving something bigger than yourself.
5) Achievement. Determination counts for more than knowledge.
Through this research Dr. Seligman has authored many books and hosts a great resource site at the University of Pennsylvania called Authentic Happiness http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx which has many on line testing tools that are great no cost tools in the very interesting concepts of learning and enhancing happiness. These many tools are great for employee/management exploring Positive Psychology for happier individuals in happier work environments. Try a few and see the that happiness can be developed through your core strengths. Learned Optimism is Dr.Seligman’s latest best selling book. A evaluation from that book is hosted at Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/class/msande271/onlinetools/LearnedOpt.html . Take a moment and see if Positive Psychology has a place for you and business.
DAX Show – Chicagoland
Screen printers, embroiders, digital printers or anyone thinking of starting a business should know the DAX Show http://www.daxshow.com/index.php?shownumber=27 returns to Chicago April 27 & 28. The show is conveniently located in the Chicagoland city of Tinley Park at the Tinley Park Convention Center (located right on I-80).
The DAX show offers all attendees discounts and samples that will easily pay for your trip to the show. Meet manufacturers and suppliers to get the latest trends or simply answer your specific questions. Easiway will be represented by T & J Printing Supply http://www.tandjprintingsupply.com/ . Stop by and meet Syd Tabor and his staff in Booth 314, for the latest screen & digital trends.
Admission to the DAX Show is is $5.
DAX offers a great seminar package of 18 seminars taught by top industry writers, consultants and speakers. The seminars are affordably priced at $35 each or $125 for a complete seminar pass to any of the seminars you wish to attend. These seminars were created specifically to address the challenges garment decorators are facing in today’s changing economy. All the DAX Shows have a very interactive feel, and they encourage attendees to lunch and meet with other business owners.
This show is very well managed and DAX attendees return year after year because of the friendly hands-on approach. If you are within a a drive to the Chicago area the DAX show is a can’t miss event for quality garment decoration education, new product announcements, product demonstrations, save money with special offers and meeting the people & businesses you do business with on a regular basis. Say hello to Scott and the great people at DAX, too.
Printwear Show moves to Dallas, Texas
The Printwear Dallas show will be May 10 thru 12 at the Dallas Convention Center (Convention Center/Map link: http://www.dallasconventioncenter.com/ ). The Printwear shows are an interesting combination of markets in sign making, digital printing, apparel decorating, screen printing, engraving, sublimation, personalization & promotional products. The Printwear Show is produced & brought to you by the NBM (National Business Media Group) publishers of Awards & Engraving, Printwear and Sign & Digital Graphics magazines. The Printwear Show combines these three groups onto one show floor. The Printwear show offers insights into parallel markets that often use the same technologies providing your company with new ideas for marketing, technology and new business opportunities. Developments in one industry can directly effect another industry. The Printwear Show also offers an educational program consisting of 30 classes, 5 workshops, 3 industry panel discussions and many hands-on exhibit hall demos presented by industry professionals with ‘real world’ experiences. These are great for employee training. Classes start on May 9 and run thru May 12. For a complete listing of class topics and times go to the Printwear site at: http://thenbmshow.com/dallas-2012/schedule .
The Printwear show offers an excellent opportunity to learn from industry speakers, meet with suppliers, find products, introduce yourself to other business owners, and see the latest industry developments. Attending shows is a great investment in your business’ future and is one of the best ways to see industry trends, first.
Dallas also provides a great getaway weekend destination with hundreds of restaurants, events and sports events (the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks and FC Dallas will all be hosting games during the Printwear show dates). View the Visit Dallas site: http://www.visitdallas.com/ site for lodging deals.
The Best Kept iPhone Secret Revealed
One of the biggest mysteries for new iPhone owners is where is the owner manual? Digital legend has suggested that Apple has designed a devise they know you can’t ‘mess-up’ so they want you to just play with it until you know it on your terms. This seems more than possible since, if a manual was included who would actually read it before they began using their new iPhone? Come on, tell me you read the owners manual with your new Honda before you began to drive it. This theory seems reasonable since as any iPhone owner will tell you if things go wrong you can use the ‘cable man’ technique and simply turn the devise off and let it re-set. In extreme cases you can simply re-set the device in iTunes to get back to factory settings.
After you have owned an iPhone for a month or so and have shared tips with other iPhone owners, down loaded some iPhone tips apps you only have occasional iPhone questions. When you do, you seek other iPhone owners advice or just Google for an answer. With all of this said, it does not seem like Apple needs to spend money for an iPhone owners manual. Well sorry to burst the myth, but there is in fact an iPhone owners manual for thousands of questions and how-tos and it is hidden right on your iPhone. Go to the Safari icon>select Bookmarks (the open book icon at the bottom of the screen)>scroll to the bottom and the last entry will be iPhone User Guide. Select that and every question for every function on your iPhone you will ever need an answer for, is there right on your iPhone anytime you have a question. The digital myth is simply that. Enjoy your iPhone! Android users??? Not sure what you do for an owners manual.
Election Year Gold Rush For Screen Printers & Garment Decorators?
2012 is a big election year with races for President of the United States, 33 U.S. Senate seats, all 435 U.S. Representative seats, 11 state governorships and hundreds of other state, county, municipalities & school board seats up for grabs. This political season is big and different from any other because of Super PAC’s (Political Action Committees). The Super PAC’s have no limits on the amount of money that can be spent by an individual or business on any particular candidate. This is the first major election season to have Super PAC’s. Many screen printers will tell you this is ‘gold rush’ time for the their screen printing business. In years past campaign sales were large and not confined to one candidate or the other? Some have printed for both candidates in the same race. Now with Super PAC funding, signs, bumper stickers, shirts, polos, hats and ad speciality items will be sold in historic record high numbers.
In your sales planning research contact not only local candidate offices, but the Super PAC’s that will be supporting candidates you will be calling on. Super PAC money will probably effect apparel and ad speciality items even more than in years past, because funding has become more unlimited and will not be confined to mostly signs and bumper stickers.
One final but important note: Always, always, always get paid before or when you deliver your goods. Screen printers experienced in political work will tell you that even successful campaigns can take forever to pay you. While unsuccessful campaigns might never pay you. One of the more infamous cases of delayed political campaign payments was the 1968 Democratic presidential primary candidacy of Robert Kennedy. Not only did his candidacy ended tragically, the $5 million + campaign debt ($30 million in 2012 money) took many years to settle. So while there will be record spending for screen printers this election year it is important to get paid for your work on or before delivery.
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