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...
Preventing it from coming out in the wash
Look, we all know that no matter how many labels we hang or print on a T-shirt about washing in cool water with mild detergent on the gentle cycle, that tee is going to be tossed into the wash with the towels, socks, and dog's blanket, on the heavy cycle in hot...
The danger inherent in long hours
I realize that right now during the busy summer season you would prefer that your screen shop production staff not see this post—and you probably don't like the message implied by the headline either. However, there really is a danger inherent in long hours. Even...
“Forever chemicals” in outdoor clothing.
A recent article in the Guardian should alarm you, not just as a consumer, but as a printer who probably handles outdoor garments regularly in the shop. Ethical Consumer, a campaigning magazine, examined 27 companies that make outdoor clothing such as fleeces and...
Marketing your business to potential employees
A paper by BDC about how to hire and retain the best employees has a section on marketing your business to potential employees that, in my experience, can be helpful in solving an age-old problem—recruiting good employees. They broke it down into 6 key points: Tell...
Plastisol storage in the heat of summer.
I once read that it was a good idea to neither store plastisol ink near an exposed wall that faces the afternoon sun, nor to store it on a source of heat such as a flash cure unit or a dryer. I agree that this is good advice and quite easily carried out. But then the...
Wasted time and money adds no value
Efficient operating (also referred to as lean operating) is a big topic and important topic. I can't address the entire topic here but I can urge you to consider implementing three steps as part of running a lean operation. And the reason you'd want to run a lean...
Keep it simple and focused
I've noticed a number of article recently about the benefits of keeping things simple in businesses, particularly small businesses. This is not a new idea of course, but it's one worthwhile revisiting for the sense that it makes. It's the old K.I.S.S! (keep it simple...
Go green or go home?
"Go green or go home" was the message on a t-shirt that was used to illustrate an article about "the t-shirt industry undergoing a significant transformation as eco-friendly fabrics and sustainable practices become the new norm." The article claimed that brands such...
Thinking of buying or selling a shop? Three things you must know.
Buying or selling your shop can be a complicated process dependent upon a number of considerations. But there are three things you need to know before you begin the process—not the only things you need to know but certainly important things to know. #1: The first...
Automatically lock your PC with Dynamic Lock
This week the newsletter from RGCS of Edinburgh has an useful tip for automatically and dynamically locking your PC when you step away. Dynamic Lock is a method that uses your Bluetooth-paired phone to automatically lock your Windows PC. The idea is to enhance...
Price isn’t everything
I was recently reading an article by Lee Salz who argues that it is a myth that price is a paramount consideration in buying decisions.. He offered some amusing points to illustrate the argument and, while they make obvious sense, you can decide if it's possible to...
Soft hand starts with the screen
The first thing you are going to have to do to produce a softer plastisol print is put away your trusted old friend—the 110 mesh screen. What you want to do is put down as little ink as possible and still get the look and feel you want. And if you are going to...
The constant battle against bleeding Polyester
The battle against bleeding Polyester requires a whole array of measures, one of which is setting up. There are measures that can be taken during set up when preparing to print on Polyester that you can be pretty sure will bleed. If you conducted a bleeding test (such...
Nickle and diming doesn’t win repeat business
One of the big challenges for textile screen printers is customer retention. A promptly-paying, no-hassle repeat customer is like gold to your business. So if your job is to retain the customers that you want to retain in the face of cheap competitor prices and other...
Mistakes to avoid in business-to-business sales
There are apparently five common mistakes often committed in business-to-business sales. Better sales success depends upon avoiding them. The mistakes: Focussing on the sale instead of building a relationship. Focussing on your product instead of the the prospects...
Properly-tensioned screens
Flub-a-dub-dub, flub-a-dub-dub… That is the sound that we have all heard flags making as they are battered by a strong wind. And that is a good thing because that is what flags are designed to do, flap in the wind. But it is not what you want to hear screens...
Tips for more consistent sales
The Business Development Bank of Canada puts out a lot of good material for business owners. One such article offers tips for smoothing out the feast or famine cycle that most small businesses encounter. They recommend a number of tips in a more rigorous process for...
Saving the planet or saving ourselves?
A well-known author, journalist, and marketing consultant who focuses on marketing communication strategies for the printing industries and who often writes on sustainability in the textile industry, recently published an article about whether we're really serious...
Transforming textiles
In a recent article in WhatTheyTh!nk, Johnny Shell provided an update on what the fashion-textile industry is doing to deal with it's rehabilitate itself from a major polluter ro a more sustainable industry. Shell reminds us that the textile industry is a notorious...
What happened to discharge printing?
Discharge printing has been around, apparently since the 90's. About ten years ago discharge prints were a hot item but since then interest has dropped off. I'm not sure why. But like other 'fads' in our industry such as, say, fluorescents, discharge prints could make...
Imprint Canada’s REACH
REACH is an recent innovation by Imprint Canada that you should know about. It's a monthly email newsletter with "timely industry news from Canada's source for promotional & imprintable products information." For instance, the April edition, consists of six pages...
Going for the WOW! effect
There is a good reason why getting some WOW! into your print portfolio with special effects prints. It's true that you won’t find too many textile screen printers that survive on printing special effects. In the Canadian market particularly, textile printers survive...
Sharper edges in your prints
Apparently, for routine printing, many textile printers still use the one-and-one screen coating method. While that may be the most economical way of coating screens, if you consider that the cost of one coat of emulsion works out to be a few pennies, an extra coat on...
Recovering lost WORD documents
I've mentioned before that RGCS of Edinburgh puts out a weekly newsletter with useful computer tech tips. This is one caught my attention recently . . . "If you use Microsoft Word on your desktop, it's worth knowing that Word automatically saves versions of documents...
Dealing with scorched fabric
Sorching has happened from time-to-time to just about every textile printer I've known. In an extreme case, I was in a shop when garments burst into flames as they exited the dryer. Okay, so not all scorching episodes are bad enough to need a fire hose, but they do...
Revisiting spot cleaning with a video
It's arguably the most hated job in the shop—spot-cleaning. But, sooner or later, even the most careful of textile printers need to do it. In fact, I can recall printers trying to remove entire prints in an attempt to recover garments; but that is another story for...
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...