One of the things I have learned in my time doing marketing for different companies is that if you don’t have a plan for your attack, you might as well just lock the doors and give all your money to your competitor. This plan doesn’t have to be a Pulitzer prize winning coffee table document that takes thousands of dollars to produce, but it does have to be something that is in writing and carefully thought out. Again this doesn’t have to be a formal marketing plan with all the big words and things most small businesses don’t understand, but it does have to make sense to you and it does require a little hard work and effort.

So you ask why is this “marketing plan” so important and why should I put in the time to do it? Most small businesses have just one entrepreneur or at best a few people involved in the business who are already doing everything needed just to keep the business afloat. One of the best sayings I have heard about being an entrepreneur/small business owner is that “they have the freedom to work all 24 hours of the day and most usually get close”. So again why add extra work to these already overworked people for something that most see as a waste of time? Well first off, let’s make sure we are clear about what we are talking about.

Most of us think of a marketing plan as a complicated document with excessive amounts of analysis, budgeting, and over the top reviews of all things business. This is not the document I am talking about. Yes, these types of Marketing Plans can be valuable; especially within large companies where there are abundant resources available and one must convince many of the higher-ups that the dollars required for marketing are justifiable. But for the small business owner, we are already intimately involved in the industry, know our competitors pretty well (most-likely we used to work for them), and probably don’t have much money to pump into marketing anyway. But, the fact that there may be meager dollars allotted for marketing is exactly why we need a plan.

We need to simply put down on paper what we know about our industry, what we know about our products, what we know about our competitors, and then a quick plan of how we will utilize the small amount of marketing money we have to maximize every cent of it. So, really, most of us already have a marketing plan in our head, in notes scattered about, or maybe even in emails written to customers and colleagues. However, it is critical that we organize this information and spend time not just thinking about it all, but also put it in writing so that all of that scattered information can all be in one place. So for the small business owner/team, the most important part of a marketing plan is the actual act of writing the document. This is more about brain storming and less about the document itself. Former President Eisenhower sums it up well; “I have always found planning to be indispensable, but plans to be all but useless.”

So hopefully you are now starting to see that you don’t have to spend weeks and weeks creating a full blown Fortune 500 ready marketing plan full of Situational Analysis, Macro environmental PEST analysis, and other things that just don’t matter in a small business environment.

Now, one analysis that probably sounds all big and fancy, but is actually just what we reviewed above (and in my opinion, is the basis for all small business marketing plans) is the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). SWOT can be broken down like this; who you are (strengths and weaknesses), what your selling points are (opportunities), and who your competition is (threats). This process, along with identifying your target market and your goals for reaching them, give you what you need for a good marketing plan. You can be as detailed as you like or skip parts all together; it is just a good exercise to go through in order to initiate the thought process regarding how you want to promote your company. This gives you a road map to follow when creating promotions, advertising, making cold calls, and applying other marketing strategies ~ all so that your company has a brand (now you’re probably thinking Nike Swoosh, but I actually mean a brand as in this is what we do best and this is how we want people to think about the company). Having a brand is having the same look and feel no matter what medium your customers are seeing your company through. You want to insure that you are not wasting your time on things you don’t need to do and your company is putting forth the best image possible at all times. This little plan can be done in less than a day if you really want to sit down and make it happen. It doesn’t have to be pretty or even clear to anyone but you.

So now hopefully you’re starting to think that this whole marketing plan thing might just be a good idea… But, I’m guessing that there are still some skeptics out there. However, I will continue to insist that this is something all small businesses must do because most small businesses not only lack a marketing plan but a business plan (or any plan at all). These small business owners/teams may know their products and their industry, but without a plan of attach, it will be nearly impossible to truly convey their vision to the rest of the world. The other drawback to having no plan is there is nothing to test, nothing to change, and nothing to track. I assure you that, when time and resources are limited, unwritten plans and ideas in heads start falling through cracks. If every things good, then maybe having a written marketing plan is overkill. But, when the market changes and/or as your sales start to slip then your marketing plan matters very much. Your plan is the guide that will get you through all the times (good and bad) in your business life. It serves as a reminder of what you did that works (which is why you actually do need this plan even in good times) and doesn’t, timelines and costs; and helps keep you (and your customers) focused on what is special and critical about your product. And, it also helps you think about the best ways to get in front of the customers you want to reach with little to no budget.

So, start putting your thoughts down on paper so that you can give your company its best shot at success while at the same time make working 24 hours a day worthwhile and not just a very time consuming (and financially draining) hobby.

For more information, please contact Aaron Montgomery

When you need new business there are may different approaches. The most important are those ways that get orders quickly with the least purchasing resistance possible. Without a doubt, the fastest way to get more business is to look at your existing customer base and see if you can sell them more. There are a variety of ways of doing this. Two of  the fastest  are to bundles and programs.

Bundles are where you group two or more items together at a significant discount. The idea is to create an irresistible offer where your customer would be crazy not to take it up. We see this in informercials all the time. You know, “Call in the next two minutes and we’ll double the offer,” or they include two or three additional complementary items along with the original product. Examples for us would be to combine hats and tees or perhaps hoodie sweatshirts and tees.

Programs are timed delivery of product. This  works  best when you have customers who’re using up a lot of shirts and are too busy to place a regular order with you. You can set them up on a once a month, every two months,  every 3 months or whatever is appropriate for them. You give them a cumulative discount for the privilege of automatically delivering goods to them. For instance, you may give them a 144 price break but fill in the orders at 48 pieces.

These approaches work great until you’ve gone to the well too many times. Then what? The next best place is to resurrect customers who’ve left you for one reason or another. I don’t know why businesses are so scared of this. Perhaps they think if a customer’s left, they don’t like you. In most cases that’s simply not true.

People leave for all kinds of reasons. Your main contact may have left the organization and there’s someone new that doesn’t know you. Perhaps their needs changed and they no longer required your services. Perhaps there was some internal disturbance that caused you to fall between the cracks. Most likely, your customer simply got too busy and time slipped by. Before you know it, it’s been a couple of years since they’ve done anything.

To make matters worse, when you’re busy, you don’t seem to notice them falling off. It’s only when times get slow and you start to look back that you see how much business has gone away. This is called attrition. It’s the easiest and fastest way to get orders in, after you’ve exhausted your currently active accounts.

Get out your total customer list. If you can by most recent order. You can now go down the list and find everyone who hasn’t called you in say,  6 months. Get on the phone and call them. Simply ask if there’s anything wrong? Tell them you’ve noticed they haven’t ordered recently and you wanted to make sure you haven’t done something to offend them.

If something isn’t right or if you’ve upset them in some way, you’ll learn about it right now and you can correct the problem. Make sure you sincerely thank them for their frankness and directness in letting you know where things when off track.

By the way, this is something the OWNER should do. If an employee did something you want to know about it. You can use the owner-to-owner approach and get them to level with you. It’s tough to listen to, but it’s also a big part of making your business better.

If everything is ok and you haven’t mistepped, your customer will find themselves in the position of having to respond. You may very possibly end up with an order on the spot. This is especially true if you give them a “welcome back” incentive of some kind.

If you have mistepped, it will give you an opportunity to fix it once and for all. This is one of the biggests gifts your customers can give you, even though it isn’t an easy thing to do. I have seen relationships actually strengthened when an upset customer felt you listened to them and took action to make the situation better.

Even if they don’t have an order for you right now, take the opportunity to ask if they know anyone who they could recommend  you to who could benefit from your services. If you can get 1 – 3 names from each of the people you talk to, you’ll have a great running start toward new business.

Remember, business is built on relationships. The closer you are to your customers and clients, the more business you’ll get. It’s when you start drifting away that you begin to lose business. As I’ve said earlier, this happens when we get busy and neglect the contact. Try reactivating your old accounts as I’ve described. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at what develops.

I want an adult “Onesie” flesh-colored thin-fabric T-shirt that body-hugs like a second skin and starts at the bottom of my feet, wraps around each leg and goes all the way up to my shoulders. I want a hot pair of thigh-high black leather boots printed on the feet and legs portion of the garment, a show of black lace printed above the boots, black lycra short-shorts printed on the appropriate area and the top part can stay a “little white T-Shirt” that is printed with “Daddy’s Girl” in red glitter. Oh, and sew a leather bottom on the soles of the feet please because I don’t intend on having to wear another single stitch of clothing with this garment.

“Mmmmmmmm……” I hear you thinking. You can probably see the visual right now. If so, then consider that being a screen printer doesn’t always mean that you print for others. I’m not talking about becoming a manufacturer of the garment in the first paragraph or going after the celebrity market with this outlandish idea but rather that you explore the possibility that you can address a niche market, one you have an interest in or knowledge of and create and market your own line for that market.

Consider the possibilities. You have the capabilities of resourcing the garment(s) and other pintables, the ability to design the artwork and the ability to print the design. But let’s put first things first and look at how you might create your own line.

Basics 1: Find a Niche Market
I’ve actually had two clothing lines and neither was difficult to develop. One was a ladies fashion halter top company where I designed the garments and took them from pattern to cut & sew and finally sales. The sales part was easy in those days……..I had a “boutique” every weekend at the flea market. They were a hot item and I had a lot of repeat customers. I would love to have had the chance to market them online but it didn’t exist in those days.

Years later I developed a clothing line that fit right into the niche category. It was for animal lovers – mostly cats and dogs – mostly T-Shirts and fashion tops. The designs were years ahead of their time with spot-color foils throughout the design and rhinestone placement. I hired artists to do what I wanted, developed the processes needed to produce the work, bought goods I knew women would love and printed away. I ended up in all of the big pet catalogs like RC Steele and sold to pet stores nationwide.

How did I do it? Just like most people do but perhaps a bit easier because I knew how to screen print. The basic steps are pretty easy. While not necessary for every potential clothing line entrepreneur I did create a “brand” name that became recognizable. The products I sold under the “brand” became my “line.”

Basics 2: Create a Brand
If you think creating your own line is something you are tuned into then you might want to create a Brand name. Pantene® is a brand and the name associates a lot of quality products with it. Within this brand there is your product line. A brand can be something simple like a word or perhaps a symbol (think logo.)

The free Wikipedia Encyclopedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand has a great article on what brands and branding are all about. One interesting excerpt says “Modern value-creation branding-and-advertising campaigns are highly successful at inducing consumers to pay, for example, 50 dollars for a T-shirt that cost a mere 50 cents to make…” Of course the economy has changed a bit since that was written.

Basics 3: Research the Brand
Let’s say you live in Hawaii, California or Florida and you want to create a line of shirts involving the ocean. You can envision a nice line of T-Shirts and other imprintables immediately with this idea – marine life, bikini’s, eco system, sand, surfing, etc.

Perhaps you are seriously entering into producing your own line. If so you will want to consider trademarking your brand.

Let’s say you want to call your brand “Water Babies.” While you can put a ™ on your brand without filing a trademark, you better be sure you are not impinging on anyone else’s trademark. (You may not use the registered mark ® however unless your trademark is actually registered.) You can research the availability of a trademark yourself by going to uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm and on the right side click “search.” Click on “new user form” and enter “water babies” in the search field. You will find several “water babies” trademarks. Some will be dead and others live. Check them out and you will see that at least one of them is related to T-Shirts and it is live. Odds are you would be violating someone’s trademark….better keep on searching.

You can file for a trademark online at uspto.gov/teas/index.html and the cost is $275 to $325, but as you will see it is really complicated, the results are not guaranteed and you will not get a refund if your item cannot be trademarked. Should you want to apply for a trademark it would be wise to have an attorney take care of it.

Basics 3 : Create a Line
For this article let’s say that “Water Babies” trademark was available. The brand name is often not used in a design but let’s say you are going to use it here and the design is “Nothing Makes Me Happier than Looking at My Water Babies”

Copyright laws do not require that you notice the work (meaning printing the ©symbol or equivalent wording) to be protected under copyright law. But should someone rip off your work and you sue them you would lose your chances at triple-damages and other beneficial claims. Whether or not you pursue the formalities of copyrighting your work will depend on your own assessment. If you do want to you can research copyright availability at copyright.gov/records/. Click “Search the Catalog.” If there aren’t any results on this it might be available. You haven’t done as exhaustive a search as a Copyright attorney will do so again you should have an attorney do the search.

You can file a copyright electronically for $35 at copyright.gov/ and click on “Electronic Copyright Office.” There is a really good explanation of how to copyright your work at copyright.gov/fls/fl115.html and click on Circular 40A – it does a nice job of simplifying the whole thing.

Basics 4: Market the Line
Marketing can make your line successful. With e-branding and internet marketing your marketing cost is considerably lower than in the “old days” of catalogs, bulk mailings and magazine advertising.

Of course you will market your shirts online but choose a specific market to approach and develop your brand heavily. There are a lot of resources for online marketing such as Google Adwords, YouTube, etc. In resourcing for this article I found a lot of sites selling narrow niche T-Shirts. Some sites and lines appealed to me and a lot did not. I visited one company’s website because I liked the name of their brand…it was cool. I went to the site and looked at their line. It was bad. It wasn’t artwork that I liked but also the designs were so varied in technique and style that no one could ever point to it and say that’s a “water babies” (brand name disguised to hide the real brand identity.)

With a narrow niche line it might be necessary to start a marketing campaign by placing small classified ads in that markets magazines that direct them to your website. If you can afford a little more then placing a small display ad with a photo of your best T-Shirt and directing them to your site will get you started in a bigger way.

The internet has become the biggest marketing tool in the history of mankind but it is still a new frontier with a skillset of its own, and that is a topic that requires an article of its own …….. And only after lots and lots of research. You can get some insight and good idea starters though from an online article at
www.nbm.com. From there you can start your own research into online marketing.

Get Going
You’re not getting any younger and the world is moving faster and faster all the time so what have you got to lose by giving it a try? Your line might be an ugly disaster or it might become a hit. Does the outcome matter as much as the journey? I think the journey is all that really matters to an entrepreneur.

If you should happen to develop that outlandish little item mentioned at the beginning of this article please let me know……I would like to buy one….oh not for me of course…….for a friend.

Pat Fresener
www.howtopublishing.com
“the best things in life are free”

(Nothing in this article is intended nor should be interpreted as legal advice. An attorney should always be consulted in legal matters. All trademarks acknowledged)

The  industry has been through economic fluctuations in the past. We’ve  seen ups and downs based in the general economy. We’ve also see the disruptive impact of new and emerging technologies. Those of us who’ve been around for a while can remember some really rough times back in the late  70’s when t shirts were on allocation from the mills and they were often sold out. Distributors were few and far between and the price of preNAFTA shirts was actually higher than we can buy them today thirty years later.

Generally we’ve had it pretty good for the last six or seven years. With the exception of post 9/11, the economy was robust and there was pretty much plenty of work to go around for those willing to put some time and effort into their business.

Now times have changed and almost everyone I know and talk to are challenged with a serious impact to their business.  I want to make it clear I’m not talking about the parttime one man shop or the Mom & Pop who work out of their home or garage. With businesses who have total annual sales of less than $100,000, there’s still a pretty good amount of work that can be found simply by word of mouth and past customers.

It’s the companies with 5 or more employees and revenues above $250,000 who are struggling. It seems business has just evaporated. Recently I was looking at last year’s sales numbers and over a 6 week time frame over 80% of the business we were doing is gone. Customers have gone out of busines, events have been cancelled, corporate promotions axed, and whole segments (eg construction companies and contractors,) have been pretty much wiped out. So what can you do to pick up the pace.

Right off it’s important to realize it’s not the same game. The rules have changed. What was driving business before may not drive it today. If you relied solely on what came through the door on it’s own, you’re going to be in a rough spot. There simply isn’t the same traffic we had before. For the first time, many are having to do real marketing, and it’s trial by fire. That means, it’s gotta work the first time or you may not be around if the situation doesn’t change.

So here are a few things to ask yourself.

1. How do new customers find  you?
2. What makes you different and better than the competition?
3. What are you bringing to the table that others aren’t.
4. What are you offering that makes you a compelling choice, clearly above the competition.
5. What are the reasons why your customers want to do business with you?

I hope you don’t respond with “I’ve got the best price.” That’s a game you can’t win and you shouldn’t even be playing. While there are times when you want to be the low cost provider, it positions you in the riskiest, lowest profit place you can be. Worse yet,  you can almost count on having to replace that business when the customer finds another printer who’s cheaper than you.

The key thing I’m after right now is how to find your voice. By this I mean, how can you be seen and heard above all the others out there. Being a great printer isn’t enough. Being technical and producing a product is only a part of it. There are tons of other companies out there who can do a reasonably good job. To the untrained and unknowledgeable customer, you may not be seen as anything more than more or less expensive than the other guy.

Think about it. Think about why you do business with the companies you choose. What makes them different to the point where you’re willing to write a check for their goods and services. Then, think about how your business compares to that. Are you taking advantage of the same buying mechanism? How can you change it up so you are?

I’ll be writing more on this over the next few days. In the meantime, Follow Me on Twitter @markcoudray.

Do you know when you’ve lost a customer? How many have you let slip away this year? If you’re like most of us in this business, you’ll only find out indirectly. It may be when you call to inquire why they haven’t ordered recently.  Or worse, you may see them around town wearing their shirt that you didn’t produce.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

Let’s face it, we’re all way too busy with our own day-to-day work schedules to really pay attention to our customers. It’s more common than not to leave it up to them to call us when they’re ready to buy. This is very inefficient and dangerous to our business health.

By the time we’re aware they haven’t ordered recently it’s usually about twice as long as it should have been, maybe longer. This is a really important point. What happens is, we’re not at the right place at the right time when the customer IS ready to order. If by unlucky chance, someone else walks in selling decorated apparel, well, we miss out on the sale opportunity. Worse yet, we may have permanently lost the customer. At the very least it’ll be some time before they’re ready to order again.

The solution to all this is some simple automation. There are dozens of contact management software packages starting as low as $29.00 that will allow you to preschedule a follow-up with your client.If you’re on a PC you can use Outlook. On a MAC Entourage or iCal.

Make it a habit of entering some follow-up dates on the calendar as soon as the client places an order. The first should be about 3-4 days after you deliver the job. You want to make sure everything is good and  they’re totally happy. Then another one about 8 weeks later to see how they’re doing on inventory or if they have any other needs. You can also use this second contact to ask for a referral if they don’t need anything from you.  Ask them when you should follow-up if they’re not ready to order and  schedule the third date.

Everyday when you come in, the first thing you should do is check your calendar to see who you’ll be calling today. This approach accomplishes a couple of things. First, it keeps you in the mind of your customer so they’re less likely to stray. Secondly, it reinforces your interest and concern for them and this helps to build loyalty too. Third, you can dramatically increase the likelihood of getting multiple orders over the course of the year. You’re helping them to remember it’s time to reorder.

One of the common problems I hear all the time from t shirt decorators is “my customers don’t take us seriously.” In general, the public sees apparel decorators as “just another t shirt guy.” We must be recognized as the premiere  authority in our market or niche. Our credentials must be unchallenged. Our technical ability recognized  by the marketplace. Our reputation must go beyond our local market/niche to encompass everything about how our product is used.  But how do we accomplish this?

We want people to recognize the opportunity to access  our skill set locally and to feel welcome in doing so. Part of accomplishing this involves how we address  risk or guarantee.  I know of very few printers who express a policy on guarantees. Yet, when you talk to any PTA mom in charge of buying shirts for the school, it’s the number one concern.

They want to make sure they are making the right decision ingoing with you and they don’t want to be embarassed by making a mistake. We want our clients to know they’re welcome and that the business they do with us will be a positive “experience” they can talk about and pass on to others.

Jay Abraham calls this “Preeminence.” We want to encompass everything about what we do and how we do it. We’re here to exceed the expectations of how our clients use our products and delight them with the final outcome.

One of the  goals of Preeminence is to create a story that goes along with the experience. The easier we can make it to tell our story, the more word-of-mouth referrals we receive. This is important because a referral comes to us with a different expectation and a different mindset than someone off the street who doesn’t know us or what we do. Those individuals require much more time and effort for us to prove we’re who we say we are and that we’ll do what we say we’ll do.

A second major goal of Preeminence is the role of authority. If you’re truly an expert, your aim is to completely educate and position yourself as the sole provider of the goods and services your customer is looking for. As such, you have an OBLIGATION to completely inform and educate your customer.  You want to become the trusted advisor. In the process, you’ll automatically establish yourself as different from all the  price cutting, low balling, fly-by-night competitors who’re continually starting up and closing down.

The role of education is all about just one thing, education. This isn’t some hidden sales pitch. The commercial focus is minimal to nonexistant. Our entire goal is simple to build confidence in our position as an expert in the market at what we do.

If you want clients that refer you, you’ve got to make sure you do everything humanly possible to create an experience worth referring others to. If your customers aren’t  impressed enough with your service to where they’d want to use you again, then they certainly aren’t going to refer you to other people. What most businesses miss is the “Wow Factor.” A business transaction that exceeds what they were expecting.

If you don’t know how to create this Wow Factor, don’t be concerned. You can start small and build on it.  I recently read an interesting piece by Dan Sullivan, founder of The Strategic Coach Inc. in Toronto, Ontario Canada.  Dan is reknowned for his business intellect and knowledge. He’s identified four habits he calls the “Referability Habits.” If you want your  business to generate referrals, you need to start by  following  these four simple habits:

1) Do what you say you’re going to do.

2) Finish what you start.

3) Deliver on time.

4) Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’

Regardless of how good your product or service is,  how great your employees are, how honest you are,  how highly skilled and trained you are — if you break just one of these referability habits you ‘ll have dropped the ball. When you break one, you’re saying to your clients, employees, and to everyone you associate with that you don’t respect them and you’re undependable. If your customers and clients are annoyed with you, there’s no way they’ll ever refer you to others.

I don’t know about you but the summer months have slowed in recent years.  The end of July is soon upon us then the Dog Days of August. It used to be the summer was our busiest time of the year. No longer. It’s not just the economy either. The middle of the summer is when everyone is either on vacation, thinking about vacation, or can’t get an answer because their superior is on vacation. It’s maddening.

The decision making process is slow enough as it is. But here are a few things you can do to speed up the process to get a decision made.

Add a sense of urgency/scarcity to the equation. There are lots of ways to do this. The trick is to make sure the urgency applies to your client and not you. In other words, your client doesn’t care that you have open press time and need the business now. He does care that this deadline in August 3 and he might not get his stuff because you have another big order already booked for the last week of July.

Find out what’s important to them. Is there an event involved? Is there any other time constraint? What kind of an incentive can you provide to do the work sooner? Get creative. If you are slow in the art department, give them a credit toward upgrading their art if they commit now. Think of the incentive as business development for the future.

Make sure you have all your ducks in a row. This means you understand all the steps necessary to getting the job done. If you’re doing corporate work, does a Purchase Order have to come from the Purchasing department? How long does that take? When you know all the steps, you  can ofen  shorten or eliminate some of them. This often means doing things in parallel instead of sequentially (one right after the other.)
Some of our slow times are our own fault for not doing our homework. When you consider the business/sales development cycle, there are things we can do to speed it up. Everyday you do shorten means more dollars in your pocket.

This article should be titled “If you can’t make a sale you only have a hobbie.”

Create a Plan and Set Goals TODAY!

True! If you can’t make a sale then you are just having a lot of fun with your hobby. I hear time and time again that “things are slow” or “there are too many screeners out there.” Both statements are probably TRUE. Things are slow (for you) and yes there are a lot of screeners – BUT there are a lot of screeners who have a great hobby! There are also a LOT of screeners who have a GREAT business because they know that the SALE is everything.

Work on the Package

If, in fact, “things are slow” and “there are too many screeners” then you must act now to get out of your negative slump and empower yourself to get into marketing and selling mode.

First, you need a plan or goals. The first item on your plan should be to upgrade your package. This means to develop a comprehensive and easy-to-understand price list. Buy a generic catalog and have your logo printed on it. Get a toll-free number (they are real cheap). Build a simple website. You can get a Website Tonight for $5.00 per month! Improve your letterhead and business cards. Get away from one-color printing on white paper.You can get full-color cards for $29.95 (or less) from Vista Print.

Develop Short-Term Goals

Make 20 Calls Per Day

O.K., you need sales NOW to help pay the rent. Since “things are slow” you have lots of time to spend letting your fingers do the walking. Set a goal of making 20 phone calls per day to prospective customers. Don’t start off with large companies. They will take too long to make a decision and will not pay right away. Work local companies. Where do you get the names? It’s easy. Look in the newspaper. If they are advertising then they know the value of getting their name out.

Here’s how it goes. Just pick up the phone and ask to speak to “the person who orders employee uniforms and shirts or who orders promotional products.” Yes, some people will be nasty and hang up on you. Perseverance pays off. If you make 100 calls (in less than a week), and you get two or three good leads that turn into orders then things won’t be so slow.

Now, you have the leads and they say “can we see some samples?” or “can you print just one shirt so we can see how it looks?” Remember, things are slow, so why not take the time to personally drive out there and get a copy of their logo – or better yet have then fax you copy that you can do a quick trace of it (if it’s good enough) and print a shirt or two. You’ve got the time.

Read the New Business Listings

When we moved our business from Scottsdale to Tempe, AZ (suburb of Phoenix). We had to get a City of Tempe business license. Over the next few months I received over 100 pieces of mail welcoming me to Tempe and offering discounts on products and introducing local companies. I even got an offer for a free trial subscription to INC. Magazine. Do you really think that INC. Magazine actually pays someone to read the new business listings in my local paper? YES.

I decided to track down the listing and looked in my back issue of the Phoenix Business Journal. There it was – over 30 new companies “moved” to Tempe – and I was one of them.

Sounds like work. Make over 20 calls per day and mail the package to 30 new businesses per month. No one said owning your own business was easy.

Read “the News”

Do you read the newspaper? Do you see those little two inch articles about grand openings, special events, local promotions, people who make the news. These are all candidates for a letter (personal is very nice) telling about your company. Yes, another 50 packages a month out the door. Maybe one or two will fall into the right hands. Things won’t be so slow.

Set Medium and Long Range Goals

Market Today for Tomorrow

I preach this over and over. You have to market today for tomorrow’s business! I like to tell the story that years ago I was called a Piranha by a local screener. I was always just one step ahead of him. Actually, I was months and years ahead of him. He thought you got the big account by asking for it a few weeks before they needed the shirts. I knew that you had to get there months before!

Contact Major Corporations

Along with your 20 normal phone calls, add 5 per day to major corporations. Ask to talk to Human Resources about employee products. Ask what Ad Agency do they use for promotional products. Find out when the annual company picnic and Christmas Party is. Find out how you need to get approved as a vendor. Talk with Purchasing about anything they may need. These will NOT be overnight sales. These things take lots of time and follow up. They will probably want to see samples with their logo on them – for free. Yes, we can do it. Things are a little slow.

Contact the Convention or Tourism Bureau

In Arizona, the Office of Tourism publishes a quarterly book listing all of the special events going on for the NEXT SIX MONTHS! The Visitors and Convention Bureau does the same thing. If you want to know what’s happening in the near and not-so-near future you just look in one of these books. It’s amazing. They even give the phone number and contact name! These things are a goldmine of contacts for special event shirts.

Contact the Chamber of Commerce

A few years ago a former student stopped by to say hi and told me he had just done his third order for the local chamber of commerce and was now bidding on a job for 1500 shirts with them. I asked him how he got in with them and he told me exactly what I wanted to hear. He picked up the phone and called!

Contact the City

The City of Scottsdale (where I live) always sponsors events. Whether it be a rodeo, food festival, art gallery night, chili cookoff, mighty mud mania or just a street dance, they do it. They also make sure all of the Parks and Recreation employees and city employees wear printed shirts with the city emblem. Who prints them? Call your city and find out and ask if you can bid on these items.

Frankly, I could go on and on. The “Piranha” knows that marketing is just using common sense and lots of leg work to hunt out potential customers. They are there and a handful of “all those screens” get the majority of the business. Remember the 80/20 principle? 20% of the screeners do 80% of the printing. You want to be in the 20%!

The Salami Principle of Marketing
Anyone who has ever taken one of my classes has heard this. Marketing can be overwhelming.  You get bogged down with too many leads. Think of marketing as the salami. Just do “one slice per day.”  If 20 calls are too much then do five. Just do it and do it every day.

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?

I just returned from a much needed R&R break to Kentucky (new home of Mike Fresener and family).  Pat and I drove there (to deliver Mike’s wife’s car) and flew home and frankly it was an eye opener.  You read all of the doom and gloom and it is hard to not feel the pinch when unemployment is around 10% and more in some areas.  But, the one thing that was obvious – especially in small towns – is that people still buy printed shirts.

Since I live in the Phoenix metro area it is sometimes hard to remember there are hundreds of thousands of small communities that flourish even in these bad times.  Mike Fresener lives near a town of about 30,000 people but it is surrounded by small towns.  We spent a couple of days driving around to see the area and yes, people were selling and wearing printed shirts.  In fact, shirt commerce goes on because there are always events, fund raisers, family reunions and more.

The lake near Mike has a number of yearly festivals and on the day we left they had a huge blowout with fireworks, boating events and more.  And, they had lots of printed souvenir shirts.  The local gas station had a club selling shirts for fund raisers.  The marinas and bait shops all had shirts for the events and the area.  Nothing really changes.  Yes, maybe people spend less but they will always buy that souvenir.  For those who are feeling the pinch I say get out and network.  Make the cold calls.  Market and sell and don’t give up.

Don’t let the doom and gloom get you down.  In one of the last classes we did at U.S. Screen, one student was from a small town in Wisconsin and she said they never felt any recession and it was business as usual.

Call me a traditionalist.  I still love the smell of coffee in the morning and a good newspaper to get my day started.  As I was cutting my teeth on business I always thought businessmen who had a copy of the Wall Street Journal laying around were snobs.  It looked cool. But, the more I traveled the more I had time to read the free copies you often got when boarding a plane.

A few years ago I took out a subscription from a special offer and was surprised it could be delivered to my home. Every morning I go out and get two papers – the local Arizona Republic – and the Wall Street Journal.  The Republic is now half the size it use to be. The Business section which I use to read first was just four pages yesterday.

The Wall Street Journal is more than numbers and charts. If you haven’t read it lately you should pick one up. It has lifestyle articles (lots of info on wine!), great entrepreneurial stories and more. It seems to be one of the last standing papers with lots of news.

And, it gives you a global perspective on the economy. It reminds me of spending many hours in hotels in foreign countries watching Sky News or BBC.  It was a whole new look at the US from outside.

The Wall Street Journal also has a great website at www.wsj.com (for those who like the smell of coffee and the feel of a keyboard) that again is loaded with LOTS of business information and articles and no, they are not all for Fortune 500 companies. In fact, I typically tear out one article a day to use for ideas.

Today I learned about a restaurant website called Yelp.com.  It gets 22 million unique visitors per month!  I want to see how they do it.  I had never heard of it (I must get out more).

Tuesday, July 21, had a fantastic article called “Entrepreneurs Strive to Turn Buzz Into Loyalty.”  The lead paragraph talked about Threadless.com and things they had done using Twitter and Facebook to keep customers loyal. Right down my alley.

Another recent article was “Starting on a Shoestring” and since everyone loves Twitter, there was a nice article July 20 called “Contests and Giveaways Move to New Fast Terrain of Twitter.

They even have email newsletters and more.  Check it out and leave comments on this topic if you like.

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