With the mass of information that we all receive in today’s world, from social media, TV, radio, newspaper, etc., do you find it harder and harder to figure out what is real and what is hype? I know I do. With all the media’s competing for your attention each outlet has to do something to attract you. It seems the number one tool they use it to add some hype or sensationalism.

Let’s take the recent winter storm that rolled through St. Louis. I know certain parts of the area were hit harder than others, and the part where I’m at was not hit very hard at all. If you read some of the local newspapers or watched the local news, you would have thought the world was going to freeze over and we were all going to be popsicles in the matter of days. Here is a funny spoof on our local news coverage of what was warmly referred to as Snowpocalypse 2011. (Please read at your own risk – there is some foul language in it so be prepared if you are easily offended.)

Yes, we did have a winter storm. Yes some people were affected more than others, but the world did not end. The problem is that people were freaked out, things shut down that probably didn’t need to shut down and there was a run on the milk and bread at the grocery store for no apparent reason. It was all because the news stations wanted to get our attention. I guess it was good for the grocery stores, but was it good for the everyday citizen that is now going to have to throw out bad milk and bread they bought when they didn’t really need it?

The thing is, this happens in business too. We run out and buy the milk and bread and cutter and screen printing press because we were hyped into it, not because it is the best decision for our business.

While our industry is slow to catch into social media, some of our colleagues are using it very extensively. I think that is great, but again, how do we sort the hype from the information that we can really use. For example here are 2 posts from the same company. Let’s see if we can see the hype (some info changed to protect the not so innocent):

“Last day for #FREE ground freight on all #{insertproductnamehere}! This special will not be extended!!” Posted on January 31^st.

“Free shipping on orders over $299 for the month of February. Order online with promo code…” Posted on February 1^st

So where is the hype? Well if you missed it that is understandable as the context of who the posts are from are helpful. I don’t want to call anyone out, so I’ll just explain. The hype is that the first posts says the special will not be extended, but the second post does just that, it extend the promo for a full month as all the {insertproductnamehere} they sell are over $299. So if you bought the {insertproductnamehere} on January 31^st to get the free shipping, even though your company was not ready to make that investment, then you bought the hype.

Let me give you another example. For some reason we all want to buy that product that does everything or has multiple function regardless of what the functions are. Now I can see the logic to it from some respects, but let me be the devil’s advocate. In our industry the print and cut machine seems to be a hot item that lots of people are talking about, but why? Is the product cheaper that buying 2 separate machines that will do the same thing? NO (it is about $1,000 more expensive actually). Is the product faster that having 2 separate machines running? NO (it is actually slower because you have to wait for one function to be complete before you can do the other, and you have to wait for the ink to dry). The only real reason I can come up with is the fact that the area you need to operate the equipment would be smaller than having 2 separate machine. But what happens if your printer goes down, will your cutter still work? Not if you have the print and cut machine. But I don’t think we think about those things. We just believe the hype and we have to have that multifunction machine.

Are you still unsure whether you are believing the hype or not? Well let me give you one more example. This one is from a while back and it is pretty buried now because I think the hype was uncovered. At one point a respected member of our industry was promoting what seemed to be the next great thing. There were tweets, blogs, forum discussions and videos from the experts. Our industries’ association even “pimped” it in their webinar about hot trends for 2011. I imagine they were selling this special product as fast as they could ship it, but then the hype started to be revealed. The fact that it was just a normal product they already sold, just applied with a different technique started to come to light. Then the issues with why that technique was not used in the first place started to come up and now you have to really search to find anything on it anymore. This wasn’t more than 4 months ago and now you can’t even get a sample of that “new” hot product. No explanation on their site they just buried the hype.

Hopefully that opens your eyes a little and makes you think before you make that impulse buy or before you retweet that news story, or tell a friend about needing to run to Walmart to prepare for the next Snowpocalypse.

This edition of my blog is most likely more of a rant than anything, but the morale of the story is hopefully something every small business understands and takes to heart. Companies are complaining on a massive scale about how bad business is, but I wonder how much of it is self-induced? Think about who the major complainers are. The airline industry, American car companies, big banks, etc. These companies also tend to have the worst grades when it comes to customer service. They put a ton of lip service to it, but it is just that, lip service.

I decided to write this blog after a couple of incidents with the companies I do business with. They seem to have an incredible ability to make it difficult to take my money. I won’t name names, not because I want to protect these companies, but because until I find other vendors, I need to protect my sources. Here are two examples – and  my summary of the moral of the story.

Incident #1:
This is unfortunately just one example from a specific company, but this happens to me often. I submitted a purchase order with specific instructions and payment details, since no one is willing to give terms anymore. The order is processed apparently, but no confirmation or verification is ever sent. Several days later, the package shows up at my door, and it is missing two of the items I needed for my customers. No note in the package about a back order, it just wasn’t on the packing slip. I contact my “sales rep” (I use the term loosely, as this guy seems to be a sales killer), and after several emails I finally get a response that the product was on back order and he would check with his buyer. A week goes by and I hear nothing back; so after several more emails, I finally get a similar response that he knows nothing. All the while I am trying to keep my customer informed with what little information I have. I finally end up just buying the products retail and losing money so my customer doesn’t have to suffer the same fate. It has now been two more weeks and still not a word from this company.

Moral of the Story:
The moral of the story is communication! In today’s world with all of us on email, it is not hard to update your customers as the sales process occurs. Anyone in sales should have some sort of a smart phone, and a quick note updating your customer should not be a big deal. How about a quick order confirmation once you receive a PO? How about a note letting someone know you are out of something? How about a follow-up to let someone know you actually care about their business, but you just can’t get that product out? Just communicate with your customers. I’m a one-man show and usually get over 100 emails a day, but I try to make sure I get at least some info back to people before the day is over. If it is an unresolved issue, I flag the email for future follow-up. It is not hard, but it takes someone willing to put in a little effort to make a living.

Incident #2:
On a Tuesday I sent a note to a vendor and included my “sales rep” (again using the term loosely), the general orders email address and my technical contact. My email asked a specific question about whether or not I could buy something and if so how much would it cost and when could I get it. I got a note back from the person at the general orders email address stating that I could get it, and that I could have it instantly at a certain price. I quickly took this happy news to my customer, secured the order with a payment and placed a PO to the vendor the same day. I told my customer it would ship on Friday, as I expected the package to arrive at my facility on Thursday. Friday rolled around, and the package had not arrived yet. Again without any order confirmation or any communication, I had to contact the vendor myself to try to get some tracking. This is when I got a note back from the general orders department that the order could actually not be processed and that someone else would contact me. Now in the four days since my original email, I had not once heard a thing from my “sales rep.” So now in a panic – as I was risking breaking promises to my customer – I tried to contact people to find out what was going on. Finally I was able to reach my “sales rep,” and late Friday afternoon I was told he was busy so that is why he never got back to me. When I asked about the email from his company saying they could fill the order, he asked me to forward it to him so he could check into it. He then said he would get back to me – and guess what happened? Exactly! I had to contact him on Monday. In the meantime I had to contact my customer and work something out with them. Fortunately the customer was nice and willing to be patient for a few days while I tried to sort out the problem. Finally I ended up finding another vendor and gave them my money instead. On top of all of it, the orders person got in trouble and blames me for it. So now I get even worse service from this company, all because they screwed up. Can’t wait to find a new vendor!

Moral of the Story:
Again, this seems to come down to communication, but also the fact that people just don’t seem to care about their customers’ businesses. I’m not sure if I’m a small customer or not (In 4 months, I have spent over $10,000 with this company), but in today’s economy, ever little bit helps. We work hard to get customers and then let people within our company or even ourselves make the customers feel like you don’t really give a damn about their business. I have even asked this “sales rep” if he cared about my business and got no response. Maybe they don’t, and they know they currently have me locked in because I don’t have another source for their products. But you know what my #1 priority is right now!? Finding an alternative source! Don’t say you care (or in this case, I just assume they do because their A/R department really seems to care about my sending checks) and then blow people off. If the business is not really worth it to you, then just say so. I would happily part ways – and not do everything in my power to try to steal all their market shares once I find a new vendor. It is okay to say you can’t take someone’s money and in the end you will have happier customers and non-customers.

Well, thanks for letting me rant. I think I feel better and maybe you readers will stop to think about the level of service you really provide your customers. I would love to hear some of your horror stories in the comments section, so I know I’m not alone and that it is not just me who is hard to work with.

As Twitter continues to grow and I continue to use it and follow new people, I have come across a few things that kind of bug me. I am sure others have things that bug them too (and I’m sure some of my followers have things they don’t like about me). Here are the three main things that bug me on twitter. I would love to see your pet peeves in the comments section.

1) Continual Sales Posts: There are a few people that I follow on my business Twitter that some days I wonder why. They really don’t seem to bring anything to the table as far as information; it is basically one ad for their company after another. On top of it some of them seem to also have a huge ego with posts like “we are the best screen printer.” To me Twitter is a community where people can find like minded folks and connect. Yes it can and should be used to promote your products and services, but it also should be used to share ideas, discuss hot topics and just to plain get to know someone.

2) Non-Re-tweetable Posts: OK, So re-tweetable might not be a word, but one thing is for sure, re-tweeting is becoming a large part of the Twitter world. To re-tweet is to take someone’s post and resend it to all of your followers. It normally starts with RT @{User Name of Person who posted original item}. This is normally used for reposting someone’s announcement or information that you found useful that you think your followers also might want to know about. I typically re-tweet post about coupon codes or sales etc. It is the nice thing to do and it also allows you to be the connector between people that might no necessarily be connected already. The problem occurs when someone posts something that is too long to re-tweet. When you post something that you want someone to RT (re-tweet), remember that you must be far enough under the 140 character limit to then include RT_@{your user name}. So for example if I post a coupon code for a sale, I would make sure that my post is no longer than 125 characters long because RT @GDSProducts is 15 characters long. With most of the Twitter programs that I use re-tweeting is very easy. Just a touch of a button, but if your post is too long, then I have to manually edit it. I have started to just pass on those, especially if it is just a sales/advertisement post. Am I being too anal?

3) Copy Cat User Names: In all of the people that I am now following (598 as of the writing of this blog) I have run across some that either just repost the same thing as another user name or don’t actually share any information other than re-tweets of the parent user name. I wake up in morning to about 200 to 300 tweets on a normal day and duplicate posts just annoy me.

I really hate un-following people as I know it is depressing when people un-follow me (Can you tell I am a little too wrapped up in Twitter?). Does anyone follow me? If so what do I do that annoys you? What are some things that annoy you about your Twitter experience?

First off let me start by saying I am far from being an expert on Social Networking. I am a bit of an addict, but expert, not at all. I do consider myself to be somewhat web savvy, and spend a considerable amount of my time online or at the minimum surfing the web, or checking Twitter and Facebook on my Blackberry Bold. But I learn something new about social networking every day. I just want to give you guys a little history about my social networking ride to date. This is a 2 part blog so stay tuned for the next Blog about getting onto Twitter.

I first got involved years ago in the social networking realm with Plaxo. This was a cool online app that let me keep my Outlook contacts up to date. It would tell me when people’s birthdays were, and allowed me from time to time to requested updated addresses etc. If my contact was a member of Plaxo too it would automatically update my address book when they made changes and vice versa. So my trek into social networking was born. I mean for all real purposes social networking is just a way of tracking friends and family digitally, right?

Then I got onto MySpace. It was cool to connect with some old friends but it never really grabbed me. Then there was Facebook. I got hooked up on Facebook when I started as an assistant coach for a college volleyball team in Boston in the spring of 2008. We used Facebook as a recruiting tool. All the kids were on there and I found out at the time some of my friends were too. About the same time a friend of mine who is a Twitter expert (@amyblack) told me I should check it out. Life went on and my daily Facebook addiction took a hold. I found I interacted with my friends more on Facebook than in real life. This is because most of them don’t live in the same state and even if they did we were busy with jobs etc. All the while I maintained a Twitter account (@afm1374) but was never really active. Then along came Shaq (@the_real_shaq). I found him on Twitter early in his tweeting (The action of sending a twitter post) days and a number of other fun people to follow and got hooked. So now between Facebook and Twitter, I am constantly updating and checking things out.

As for the business side of things, the same thing applies. I have customers all over the world and honestly I have only met a select few face to face, but I need to keep up with them and hopefully they want to know what I’m doing. With that I started a Facebook Page for GDS and also added a Twitter account (@GDSProducts). This way I can keep up with my customers and they can get their hands on some great deals that I try to have for just Facebook and Twitter folks. Plus it allows us all a nice place to share things quickly about what is going on in our worlds. To me it is a good way to communicate without the inconvenience of interrupting someone with a phone call, and it is not the same email clutter that email blast are. This allows my customers to read and gather the information when they want it, not when I am shoving it down their throats.

I think that you will come to find out that Twitter is here to stay and to easily communicate with our customers; we must all learn to communicate on Twitter. No matter how big or small our business is. To follow in my next blog will be my tips and tricks for getting onto Twitter.

Thank you small businesses! With your help our economy is recovering, and most people I talk to are telling me their businesses are improving. One of the downsides for small businesses related to the slumping economy was a mass amount of layoff that left many very smart people without a job. Those people decided to go start their own small business. (This includes me?) With the larger amount of competitors out there, we cannot just rely on our ability to be nimble in changing time and our superior customer service as compared to the large companies; we must do more to set ourselves apart. I have compiled a short list of a few ideas I feel can help. I am also looking forward to reading all your ideas in the comments section.

1. Become a niche market – Many of our small businesses are sometimes cookie-cutters of other businesses or even our direct competitors. But what we forget is that we also have certain passions in our life. For example I am a passionate participant in the world of volleyball. I have done everything from coaching to managing to playing at all levels of the game. So for me, if I was a screen printer, I would certainly focus my niche on volleyball. I know their needs, and I would cater to that. I certainly would not turn other business away, but where is a better place to start a small business than dealing with people you might already know around something you love.

2. Don’t compete on price alone – Most failed businesses that I have seen in my day tend to be the ones that their only claim to fame is that they are the lowest price. The old saying “You get what you pay for.” is around for a reason, and people might go elsewhere for one or two jobs based on price but ultimately will come back if you provide something extra, like great customer service, prompt delivery, etc. Don’t be afraid to compete on price if you can make money doing it, but at the same time, give the customer some value outside of being the cheapest. Remember even in a down economy people are willing to pay a higher price for superior products and service. Think Starbucks – $5 for a cup of coffee that you could get for $1 at the local quickie mart!

3. Open your horizons – Okay, so this might seem to contradict point #1, but really it doesn’t. Don’t be afraid to jump to new markets. Most times, new customers are right in front of us, but we are so focused that we forget that. Let’s go back to me as the example. Let’s say I’m at the volleyball gym delivering some shirts, but in the same gym there is a youth basketball tournament going on. Why not approach them and see if you can help them. Then on your way home, you stop to get your car washed (because you live in AZ and the monsoons do nothing but make your car dirty). Why not quickly ask the manager at the car wash if you can compete for their apparel needs. Always have good professional business cards with you for these opportunities. (Bonus Tip: As a screener, make sure you print some nice tees with your logo and contact info on them that you can wear as often as possible. Remember a T-Shirt is actually a walking billboard!)

4. Education – As a sales/marketing person (which should be your main function unless you have someone you can trust doing that), your main goal should be educating your customers. Become the expert and make sure you know exactly what your competition is doing. More often than not you lose jobs not because of a better sales job by the competition, but because the customer didn’t fully understand what they were getting into. Maybe the guy up the street is selling shirts for $3 each but doesn’t mention there are setup charges, screen charges, multiple color charges, etc. During the quoting process, make sure you ask the questions of the customers as if they are looking elsewhere and what the keys are to their selection process. It is not inappropriate to ask, and I think it shows your customer you care about winning their business.

5. Make Money! – This is most likely the most important part of being a successful small business, which seems a little obvious, but trust me I have seen firsthand what happens when you don’t have a good handle on if you are making money. You must have your goal to make money; otherwise you have a hobby, not a business. You have to know what your costs are, and you have to price your products accordingly. This means you must spend the time to make sure you are tracking your production, know exactly what your costs are (i.e., did you factor in shipping costs to you, the cost of accepting credit cards from customers, how much you pay in interest on your credit cards, etc.). Then you must know how much your time is worth. As a small business owner (i.e. entrepreneur), you have given yourself the right to work 24 hours a day, but that has to be worth something to you. So ask yourself, do you know how much you are really making? I suggest a shop management software (like FastManager) for any size shop and a good accounting program (like QuickBooks).

Hopefully those small tips give you something to build on, and mainly my goal was to get you thinking marketing. I can’t wait to read your comments and ideas.

So after writing the last blog post, it really got my creative juices flowing and more and more ideas came to mind. As I have been busy trying to put some of these ideas to work for my company, I thought it only right to share some more thoughts with you guys. If you take the time to read my stuff, the least I can do is provide something useful right?

Marketing without being a Fortune 500 – Many small businesses think that marketing is just a fancy thing that large companies do, spending millions on market research and massive advertising campaigns etc. The truth is that, for a small business, marketing is even more important as you have limited resources and very few customers to start with. As most of you will find out (or have discovered already) the actual printing/production part of garment decorating is easy compared to getting and finding customers. The sales cycle is just that, a cycle, and you must continue to market and sell to get new customers and to grow your business. The nice part about today’s world is that you can market and sell without having to spend a ton of money; you just have to put in the time and effort and have an effective plan.

To follow are a few more tips for marketing on a shoe-string budget.

Word of Mouth: One of the most effective tools for a small garment decorating company is to create word of mouth referrals. As a supply company I have many friends in the industry that I have meet along the way, and I understand that they are an invaluable resource for me. But despite all of our best efforts to help out friends, all of our daily lives make it hard to go out of your way for others all the time. To help eliminate this problem I have determined what my true profit margin is and have made a plan for rewarding my friends’ efforts at sending me business. Just set up an easy-to-track and clear plan. For ever customer one of my “friends” sends to me, I give them a certain small percentage commission. It is small and is not enough for someone to make a living off of, but it rewards them for their efforts and makes it easy for them to recommend me in the future. Also remember to refer customers to them in return (even if they don’t have a reciprocal system). It will all come back in the end!

Donate to Good Causes: We all have causes that are near and dear to us. We will most likely donate to those causes on a personal level anyway, so why not step it up a bit and make it a company donation and also take advantage of the potential advertising. As a garment decorator, donating shirts for an event is an ideal advertising method. The cost of producing the shirts is nominal and completely tax deductable. Make sure that your logo/brand is prominently displaced and make sure that you have some sort of contact info. All too often I see people making the mistake of not putting a phone number or website in their logo and people normally will not take the time to go hunting. Also take the opportunity to create a press release and interview the event coordinator. Local news outlets love those kinds of things. If the event is large enough in your area, why not invite people from the event and media to come watch you create the shirts and maybe have a little open house. All pretty much free advertising for donating a couple hundred shirts.

Give out Some Extra Items: Many times on orders customer get what they think they need, but might also not realize that the same image on the T-Shirt might be great on a sweatshirt, hats, towel etc. Especially if you have a direct to garment printer as well, these things can be invaluable. Make sure to find out what size the buyer is and then print a few extra items. Package these items separately, and include a nice note of thanks for the order and then a small sales pitch (one small paragraph tops) about your ability to also print these other items. You might even include a small discount on the other items if the customer orders in a certain amount of time after receiving this order.

Always Have Samples: Where ever you go, as a garment decorator, you will always run into a potential customer. Local restaurant, sporting event, school function etc. It is very important to be prepared for this impromptu sales call, so having plenty of good samples is a must. Make sure that when you are printing a piece that you are especially proud of you print plenty of extras to display in your shop and also keep with you. It is a good idea to check with the customer first, but more often than not the customer will be proud to have their piece as a “show off”. The other thing to remember is to include your logo/brand with contact details on the samples. Maybe someone likes the sample and you give it to them to win their business, well then you have more free advertising. Along with the samples, always have some promotional literature and a business card with you at all times…you never know when you might need them.

Act Big (even if you’re a one-man-show): People want to buy from someone they trust and feel is professional. This means that it is important to act big but still give your customers the feel of caring. The nice part is that with today’s technology, it is easy to act big without having to spend big. To me, the three most important things in making your company appear solid and professional are your voice mail message, your email address and your business card.

• Voice Mail/Phone -Most of us are not professional voice talents and our voice mail message might be a little awkward. Today you can find pools of professional voice talent online that that will record a short message for you for $15 to $30. You can then upload these digital voices to your answering service. For example I use my cell phone for most of my business and I have a FREE service called youmail.com for my voice mail. This service allows me to have different greetings for different phone numbers and even block unwanted calls. This way my family and friends get my normal message and all other numbers get my professionally recorded greeting. The same goes for answering your phone. Many times I have called some of my customers on numbers they have listed online as their business number and get a simple “Hello”? If I was calling to buy a shirt, I would think twice. It is not hard to answer your phone “Hello, thank you for calling XYZ Company, how many I assist you?”
• Email Address – As I scan through the list of customer emails that I have gathered over the years, I am shocked to see that 75% of them are a Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, (and the worst) AOL email address etc. Even worse than that is that many of them don’t even have anything to do with the company and are just a personal email. In today’s world with Blackberry’s and IPhones and constantly being on the web, email is a great communication tool. It allows you to contact someone without interrupting them with a phone call and give people the opportunity to exchange information after having some time to research their needs as opposed to having to shoot from the hip. And today, you can have a professional email address (i.e. yourname@youcompanyname.com) for pennies a day (See GoDaddy for example) and you can easily set-it up to route directly to your Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc. account. No need to change your pattern, just look more professional. Also, make sure that when writing an email, have a professional signature. Make sure your name, and contact details are on every email and that you email with a greeting and closing. You are not sending a note to your kids to clean the house; you are trying to win someone’s business.
• Business Cards – The fastest way for me to discount the professionalism of a company is to get one of those business cards that are printed out on a laser printer or inkjet that are flimsy with perforated edges. I typically throw those away and look to the next company to make my buying decision. Today you can get 250 business cards printed for less than $20 or even free if you are willing to let the company print their logo on the back. I suggest investing the $20 for a professional looking card without the logo but at the very minimum get the logo on the back. Go to places like iprint.com or vistaprint.com and see how easy it is to get REAL business cards.

Again, I love reading your ideas and feedback on these things. Working together as small businesses to achieve success, even it means sharing with your competitor, will always outweigh the feeling that we need to hoard our ideas. There is plenty to go around and we should be confident in our ability to service our customers and provide enough value that we don’t have to worry about sharing ideas. I can’t wait to read your ‘marketing on a shoe-string budget’ ideas. For questions or for more information please email aaron@garmentdecoratingsupply.com