While at the Atlantic City ISS show at the Ink Kitchen booth we met some folks from Spectrum Works. They are a decorating shop dedicated to helping folks with autism help themselves. They seemed like great folks doing some good work. You can find out more about them at their website http://spectrumworks.org/ In their own words:…
I was recently talking to friend in the industry about offering custom printing vs. contract printing vs. doing both. My thoughts on this matter have been consistent for the past ten years: choose one or the other, not both. I do not recommend offering both for specific reasons, i.e: the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise when you…
HanesBrands is purchasing Knights Apparel, a company which mostly serves the college bookstore market. It sounds like a good deal for HanesBrands and I can’t see how it will have any effect on the average screen printer or embroidery company. You can read about it in the Wall Street Journal or here is the HanesBrands press release…
If you’re like me, you dread the thought of the slow season. For most printers the first quarter of the year is painfully slow. Your hard earned gains from the prior year seem to evaporate and you hope you can hang in there to see the busy season return. You are dying to get to the…
It isn’t often that our first commercial screenprinting jobs are documented. Usually we get into this business in a sort sideways move. We help somebody out or make shirts for ourselves and never really think it will turn into a business. Somehow lo and behold eventually we end up finding ourselves in the business. I…
My friend Gaylen has a phrase that I go to at least a couple times a week. He says, “pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered.” That is some good homespun wisdom. If you want customers long term, you don’t want to overcharge them. Somebody gives you fifty percent of your business and if you…
Tom and I have been praised more than a few times for admitting mistakes we made in our shops on mis-prints, and the like. This is a tougher admission I make to you today. I had someone embezzle from my business. They stole $80,000 from my business and it happened at a time when…
While so many of us are consumed with the technical side of our craft it’s easy to lose sight of the business side. If you haven’t noticed, the industry is changing. Checkout InkMonk
From our pal Brett Bowden of Printed Threads: As the leader of a growing company, I feel like it is necessary to be around other business owners at my level as well as mentors that can help me get to the next. Whenever I meet with a new “mentor” I always hear the question, “What…
The headline reads: “This Guy Cited His Christian Faith in Refusing to Make T-Shirts Advertising a Gay Pride Parade — and Now His Company Is Being Punished” You can read the article here. I have little interest in the specifics of this story but it did make me think of the inevitable point in every screen-printer’s career…
