Change!
Stanley's is changing the way they bring you useful industry, technical, and management information. Instead of this blog and a monthly email, there will be a Monday-morning "newsmail" with two items of information and a coupon special with which to kick off your...
A compromise between mixing ink in-house and a redundant ink inventory
There's an issue that plagues many a textile screen printing shop—a build-up of partial ink containers of colours not likely to be used too frequently, if ever again. And of course there is always a very good intention of searching the redundant ink shelves before...
Do you know what your competitors are up to?
In order to remain competitive, you need to know at all times what your competitors are up to. And in order to know that, you need to undertake a competitive analysis and then, having done that, update it from time to time. At least once a year is a good idea. So what...
Passwords
Passwords are an key element in personal and business online security. How you use them matters. Hacking is a constant threat and underestimating the expertise of hackers and the sophisticated tools they have, can be a costly mistake. No individual and no business...
Properly-tensioned screens
I once saw what was promoted as a training a video for textile screen printers. It was one of those videos that are more harmful than helpful and produced by someone who clearly had no business claiming to be an expert. In this instance the person was talking about...
The true cost of rejects
Rejects cost money and there's a quick and simple calculation to bring the cost of rejects into focus. Any number of mistakes and oversights can result in a reject. It's important to be reminded of this whether you're a new sole-operator or an owner of a large shop....
Delayed deliveries and impatient customers
Customers can be unreasonably impatient but catering to their impatience can win return business. On the other hand, not catering to their impatience can lose return business. And the key to meeting impatience (within reason, of course), is effective production...
What to ask yourself when choosing an emulsion
The emulsion you use for a particular job depends upon the ink and printing process. Here are ten questions to help determine the emulsion best suited to your purpose. They were originally prepared by Dave Dinning of Kiwo. Once you have considered your answers to...
Burnout
The message in this post is best served by being short and to the point. Per Harriet Ekperigin, VP Mental Health at GreenShield Health: "Entrepreneurs are often overworked. They are always navigating uncertainty and many become socially isolated. It's enough to cause...
Penny pinching is not smart business
Penny-pinching is not smart business. Generosity is smart business. I've quoted Jimmy Hickey of hugely successful Findlay Hats of Oregon before. It's worth hearing from him again: “Let's say we’re running a trade show and we run into someone who’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve...
Three ways a coach or a mentor can help your business
While their contribution can be similar, a coach and a mentor are noi the same thing. A coach is usually a paid-for service whereas a mentor is assumed to be an experienced no-charge contributor of advice. Both can make a huge difference to a business. Conceptually...
What is the Ansoff Matrix and how can it help expand your market share?
In 1957 H. Igor Ansoff devised a matrix to address four ways to grow a market share. There are four quadrants, each with product/market combinations for growth with varying risk profiles. There are detailed explanations of the Ansoff Matrix online but in overview the...
Customer complaint from a customer’s perspective
Customer complaints are part and parcel of running a print shop. You already know this. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that you aren’t frustrated by complaints when they occur, even when you ought to know better—when you know that the complaint is justified. I...
You may have glitter on the brain
By now we all know that the glitter we've been using for decades (and still use) in t-shirt prints, is a microplastic. And we also know that microplastics have become a huge ecological problem to the extent that we apparently each imbibe plastic to the equivalent of a...
Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters?
It can happen that when you’re printing with a low-bleed or bleed-resistant white on dark tees, you can end up with “ghost” images on the back of the garments. The usual assumption is that the print has somehow penetrated all the way through the tee to the back....
The tees you print and the war on fast fashion
A recent article in Print News, "Are consumers finally waking up to the realities of fast fashion?", might bother you as a Canadian textile screen printer because fast fashion is your bread and butter. Putting aside the ecological aspects of the credible...
Don’t overlook the importance of great customer service—these stats tell you why
I recently came across a report produced a few years ago by American Express. There's no reason to think that it's any less valid now than it was then. In fact, given the increasingly impatient and entitled nature of today's typical customer, these stats are likely...
Make sure employees fit your business plan
You need to define your business goals before hiring employees to help you achieve those goals. In other words, you need to hire the right people in the right positions.BDC published an excellent paper on this topic in which they listed four key considerations: Define...
Devastating fires! A reminder to be ready to claim after a disaster.
In the past few weeks we’ve had devastating fires all over the country. Businesses like yours have been lost. And, alarmingly, this appears to be happening with increasing frequency and ferociousness. In that regard, I’m repeating an updated 8-point disaster...
Are you venting?
How well do you vent your shop? It's an important question which can immediately be followed by another important question . . . even if you have a fancy venting system, how well are you maintaining it to ensure optimum performance? Venting is raised from time to...
Are you looking for cost savings in the wrong place?
When I've discuss money management and cost saving with screen printers, they've often reminded me of the story about the drunk crawling around under a street lamp outside a pub. A police officer turns up and asks him what he's doing. The drunk points down the road...
What kind of boss are you?
As with any small business, bosses of textile screen shops range from likeable to dislikeable. Where do you fit on the likeable-to-dislikeable scale? You might be wondering whether it matters where you fit on the likeable-dislikeable scale. The short answer is, yes....
Is your online presence up to date?
Have you had this experience? . . . You're planning on doing business with someone—maybe you're considering passing them some work or even buying their business —so the first thing you do is check them and their business out online. You're likely to take a look at...
Differentiate your shop with a label
Nowadays promoting your shop as sustainably responsible is a good business practice—provided, of course, that your shop actually is sustainably responsible. So, how to do it? Well, here's a suggestion for how you can do it with a label attached to every tee that...
Can an “offensive” tee damage your business?
It’s not difficult to offend some people (even unintentionally)—it’s just part of existing in a society. In most cases it blows over quickly and we all continue with the rest of our day. But sometimes it doesn’t blow over quickly, such as when a message on a T-shirt...
Employee management — What is progressive discipline?
Any business owner has at some time or other had to deal with employee performance or behaviour issues. It's never easy but it can be made easier and produce better results if it's handled according to a deliberate strep-by-step process. This is where "progressive...
After solving a customer issue
Shopify may not be everyone's idea of an ideal e-commerce website host, but they put out some pretty useful small business management guides. I recently came across one of their papers on customer service and one item in particular caught my eye. It's one of those...
Older posts are archived
For more than 10 years, this blog has been steaming along at the rate of two posts a week. This last post is here merely to explain that older posts are archived and that we only show three-month's worth of posts in order to keep the site current and limited to a...