Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
There is a downside to dealing with "everything". I guess a lot depends on the type of customers you see or who find you. For my clientele, I only wish I could fire more people and prevent even more from knowing that I even have a shop. I just dont have the HOURS that it takes to deal with small orders of bus cards, t-shirts, flyers, brochures, color copies, and God knows what else. It usually takes an hour AT LEAST to deal with a 50-100.00 job, BEFORE I actually do the job or sub it out.
Time is money, so I'd rather define my niche more sharply and phase out the other odds and ends unless and until I have competent help to manage the csr duties and help out with the actual production.
You guys should thank God for timely, organized, well paying, serious customers, time wasters can put in a whole different world.
I have FINALLY grasped the concept that time is money. I used to spend alot of extra time giving customers free bells and whistles as part of their design but now I give the customer exactly what they ask for and charge accordingly. If I have to take half the day to deal with an order i'm going to charge for it.
There is a downside to dealing with "everything". I guess a lot depends on the type of customers you see or who find you. For my clientele, I only wish I could fire more people and prevent even more from knowing that I even have a shop. I just dont have the HOURS that it takes to deal with small orders of bus cards, t-shirts, flyers, brochures, color copies, and God knows what else. It usually takes an hour AT LEAST to deal with a 50-100.00 job, BEFORE I actually do the job or sub it out.
Time is money, so I'd rather define my niche more sharply and phase out the other odds and ends unless and until I have competent help to manage the csr duties and help out with the actual production.
You guys should thank God for timely, organized, well paying, serious customers, time wasters can put in a whole different world.
we dont do small business card orders either.. at all.. we only do larger orders.. like 1000 cards or more..
and yeah prolly only make 100.oo for it.. but it doenst take long to design them.. if it does need more time.. we charge design time on top of it..
we have done some reallllllly big orders for business cards and flyers tho.. where we have made 1,200 or more.
Same here, I actually do(don't do) over 100,000 items. I never turn down a job, there is a supplier out there for everything. As far as having the item for a deadline date, I always tell the customer that normal delivery is 10-14 business days + shipping but we cannot be responsible for late arrival of the product due to production or shipping delays. 99 percent of the time they go ahead with the order anyway. Why just last week I made a profit of 2000. on one order that took me a 1/2 hour to do, then a couple of days later I made 1500 on another one. this is all outsourced orders. When I add in all the other little orders of t-shirts, mugs, etc that I do in house it all adds up to a pretty good week.
There is a downside to dealing with "everything". I guess a lot depends on the type of customers you see or who find you. For my clientele, I only wish I could fire more people and prevent even more from knowing that I even have a shop. I just dont have the HOURS that it takes to deal with small orders of bus cards, t-shirts, flyers, brochures, color copies, and God knows what else. It usually takes an hour AT LEAST to deal with a 50-100.00 job, BEFORE I actually do the job or sub it out.
Time is money, so I'd rather define my niche more sharply and phase out the other odds and ends unless and until I have competent help to manage the csr duties and help out with the actual production.
You guys should thank God for timely, organized, well paying, serious customers, time wasters can put in a whole different world.
You have a good point. Years ago I was the production manager for a fairly good sized print shop and the owner kept adding services because he didn't want to turn away business. The problem became that we had to become an expert at everything and the overall quality of our production declined. Training time for new hires took months.
The solution is to outsource. I took over another shop that was struggling and one of the first things I did was sub the business cards to a vendor that did nothing but business cards. Show the customer a book, let them pick a design, fill out an order form and the whole thing takes very little of your time. If they want something custom then they pay for design time.
I subbed the oversize stuff to a local vendor who specialized in that. Banners were subbed. Large binding jobs were shipped to Atlanta, bound and shipped back for what it would have cost me in labor. The result was that within 3 months we went from red to green and within 6 months were setting sales records. Then the business changed owners and the new owner did everything possible to run the business into the ground. He didn't like me subbing out so many services but he cut my labor budget in half. I managed to stay profitable but sales went down, morale went down and I finally left vowing never to work for anyone else.
Can we network amongst ourselves? I don't do embroidery (much - have a one-needle Janome machine for "omg, I gotta have it now), but I do large format printing...
Can we network amongst ourselves? I don't do embroidery (much - have a one-needle Janome machine for "omg, I gotta have it now), but I do large format printing...
Yes in a way.. we can.. Im not sure about the exact rules for it. as to how we can let people know what we do.. so we need rodney to let us know.
But i know.. Ive used JPD from here for some hats..
And ive done stickers for several members here.. that have contacted me.. and some large format printing also.
Basically that is something that needs to be done either thru private messages or posting a referral requests in the referrals section of the forum. I'm pretty sure that is the only way you would be able to do this Hope this answers your question, and hope I'm right haha. Just kidding, i'm pretty sure I'm right.
yeah bobbie.. Its like if someone ask.. hey who can do this or that.. You can say.. I can.. I will.
But you cant..make post for the purpose of promoting it.
The rules basically are that if someone asks, you cant offer your services in the regular forum areas, but If they are asking in the referrals section, then you can absolutely offer them Like that one sue where earlier someone was looking for stickers and you were able to offer there, you just cant respond by offering them in the other forum areas or they get moved I try to get people to post there when I see them trying to ask in regular areas, and I think more are learning about how the referrals section works, so they check more often to see what work is available. I think its really great Rodney added that section because it gives an area where you are able to look for a service or find work when someone is looking. Before it was added there really wasnt anywhere for people to do this. Kudos to Rodney for making that available to the members here
What kind of jobs were these? How did you figure out your markup?
The first order was for 3000 printed silicone wristbands, the 2nd order was for 1500 antique gold medallions for a university.
For markup I do it several ways. If it is a repeat order that I get from the same customer every year (which happens alot) then I have a certain markup I use. If it is for a one time event I markup a little higher. Sometimes I use the suppliers suggested selling price as a guide as well.
The point is that you can make good money by taking orders & outsourcing them. Just make sure you tell the customer the production/delivery time. The suppliers all have standard & rush order times for their products.
Make them pay a rush charge. No need for you to bust your butt trying to get them out when they decide last minute that they are going to need something.
Exactly. That's what is nice about a cutter you can do onesies all day long just charge enough. At shows I do custom lettering (Whatever you want to say) For $20 a Tshirt
I primarily use my cutter and just moved out of my house into a storefront. I rented a small corner space in an old partner's store. I have been keeping track of the foot traffic and it is really light despite the fact it is on a heavily travelled street in town and has great exposure because it is on the corner of the block. I am thinking about adding an outside banner promoting my business products inside the store and devoting some money to radio ads.
I just got an order in for 6 shirts front and back two toned lettering but all the shirts have different lettering so I can't screen print the job. Luckily the job is just simple lettering so the weeding won't take forever but i'm going to use up a ton of vinyl.
It is quite clear I was not charging nearly enough for my one-off services. Fellow people in the heat transfer business that I know said the same thing to me about stop trying to give customers a break because it makes no sense to work so hard for so little especially when this is how I make a living.
Re: It amazes me... don't turn business away.. 
Hope this answers your question, and hope I'm right haha. 
