Join us on the Print Hustler’s Podcast as we sit down with Christine Geronimo, the powerhouse behind Midnight Supply Co. Christine shares her journey from managing a print shop to owning it, the importance of financial planning, and her inspiring initiative, Colorways Summit, which aims to empower women of color in the screen printing industry. Tune in for an insightful discussion on leadership, community, and breaking barriers in a predominantly male industry.
Colorways IG: https://www.instagram.com/colorwaysbymsc/
- Augmented Reality Screen Printing with RockaBlock: Rockland Page, owner of RockaBlock has taken promotional garments to a new level by introducing augmented reality to his shirts.
- ScreenPrinting GPT and 3 Practical Uses of AI…WOW: Matt Marcotte joins the team again to introduce an amazing AI tool to help ALL screen printers
- Doing Things That Don’t Scale + Selling ALL Their Screen Printing Equipment: Davis Slagle of Bee Graphix has online stores down to a science.
00:00:00:05 – 00:00:21:00
At the trade shows. It’s something as little as you know. I’m going there to go buy my sprint 3000. I’m at the M&R booth. You know, no one’s really paying attention to me thinking that just by looking at me that I wouldn’t, you know, be interested in buying one of the machines or just like they would just move to the next person.
00:00:21:02 – 00:00:46:09
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00:02:33:23 – 00:02:52:22
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00:02:53:00 – 00:03:21:11
All right let’s jump on in. If you’re open to saying like how has being and gear being with a financial planner helped you at Midnight’s apply? Because like so much of the time we talk about stuff that seems so silly when we talk about it. Like, I’m just putting so much money back in and like, not having money in the year or in the month or whatever, or, you know, not planning and thinking about different hires and the costs of different things.
00:03:21:12 – 00:03:51:15
Has it changed your perspective in any way? I think it has, just because, like I mentioned, I grew up being the youngest of three sisters and was very spoiled. So I also just didn’t really have an understanding of saving money and business structure. So even my fulfillment business, which was what I had before the print shop, I was fulfilling orders for a bunch of local artists and was doing that just on the side.
00:03:51:15 – 00:04:14:18
And eventually he was like, you should turn this into a business. You should make it into an LLC. And I had been doing that work for already five years until I was like, okay, I’ll make this an LLC. And then that kind of created the business for me. I have a question, Christine. Do you when you think about an idea, do you think about the the numbers first and just make sure it makes logical sense?
00:04:14:18 – 00:04:43:15
Or do you just do it and figure it out later? It might be a mix of both, but I feel that like I do act on on feeling like what? I guess one specific example was like in the pandemic, when it felt like it was a restart and I had to restructure everything. What came to me first as being the most important was paying my people better and bringing on health insurance, and that was a big decision that I made.
00:04:43:17 – 00:05:05:02
You know, prior to having the sales to prove that I could do it, it was mostly just like taking that on and just like forcing myself to work to get those sales to compensate for higher wages and health insurance. If you were to guess between me and Bruce, who’s more impulsive or who doesn’t rationalize their spend, I’ll say, Bruce.
00:05:05:04 – 00:05:26:18
Whoa. Thank you. Who is it? Who is it? Definitely. It’s definitely not over at 16 and under analyzes. it’s a good balance because we’ll take that as I go, so I, I’m. Yeah. You know, I’ll sit down at a poker at the poker table. Bruce will watch the poker table, and then I’ll walk away because I’m like.
00:05:26:18 – 00:05:45:01
And then he’ll walk away because he’s like, why would I play a losing game? And I’m like, this is so much fun. We just, you know, it’s really interesting. People have, like, different styles of how they roll in business and I think that’s really, really interesting. Do you feel like maybe the longer you’ve been in business, you you take different?
00:05:45:07 – 00:06:06:00
Like the way you take a risk has changed? I think so. I mean, when I first bought the business, my first instinct was to like move us because of the facility that we were previously in. It was just sheet metal walls and floors that were about to fall in. we also started to get more pallet size orders.
00:06:06:00 – 00:06:25:02
So as soon as I became owner, like my thinking was, okay, I need to move us to a better place to be able to grow to where I want us to be. I did that in the fall of 2019 and then March of 2020, like I had made the biggest decision of my career. And then March of 2020, like, we’re in the new warehouse.
00:06:25:04 – 00:06:48:19
The world is shutting down. And I remember, like, sitting downstairs and just thinking, like, what? What did I just do to like, the business and why did I move us? And I was heavily questioning why I did something like that. whereas now I feel like I wouldn’t make that drastic of a decision. but I still am, like, making big risks.
00:06:48:19 – 00:07:08:22
But I’m taking the finances into more consideration. I had mentors back then that were also, like, warning me, like, if this doesn’t work out like, this could end you guys. So, Yeah, I think that I think I’m a little more cautious these days. Bruce, what about you? In risk? I’m very calculated with it. Like with hires or anything.
00:07:08:22 – 00:07:34:17
I’ll analyze it to the death and and in an Excel sheet. So I understand the payback period. I understand where every dollar is going for it. I understand the true, true total cost. but that definitely makes me miss some good opportunities. or almost miss. I mean, I think, you know, hiring Matt Marcotte was a great example that I asked you, Stephen, about, which was like, hey, you know, Matt reached out, but I don’t really have a role.
00:07:34:17 – 00:07:51:13
But, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. He’s super sharp. What should we do? And she was just like, dude, are you kidding me? It’s a no brainer. Like, you know what I said? I go, you’re literally going to hire. Yeah. You, like overthought. I’m like, you’re going to hire a Karate Kid of the industry. Like, yeah, I love your gut.
00:07:51:15 – 00:08:13:07
I think, don’t let him listen to this. Will get to his head and help save the clip and send it to Bruce or something. but I think the best entrepreneurs are the ones that know how to make very fast, rapid calculations, but also know how to have, like, really good gut instinct. And that’s why actually, some of the best business people are like great poker players.
00:08:13:09 – 00:08:30:06
you know, and like, there’s so much stuff in poker of, you know, the bluffs and reading people and knowing when to go and knowing when to ride and, and all those things. Actually, I’m going to use an example here. I’m going to actually I’ll rip on Bruce for a little bit. Is that okay. Bruce can make fun of you.
00:08:30:08 – 00:09:01:14
Sure. Bruce is really into surfing right now. Really into surfing. and Bruce you you’re trying to go like every morning and you’re studying it and you’ve got a camera and you’re learning about it. And I have tried to learn how to surf, and it is one of the hardest things. But the one thing I’ve learned about from watching the Olympics and seeing these crazy surfers is they are so like they know exactly when the wave is going to come and they look for the exact moment, but they don’t try to control the ocean.
00:09:01:16 – 00:09:16:14
And so a surfer, if you ever notice, will sit on the beach and just watch like Bruce, you guys go, you sit Indian style and you just like watch the waves. I’m like, what the hell are you guys doing there? Like, oh, we’re just trying to see, like where the currents are, where the tide is, like how the water’s coming in.
00:09:16:14 – 00:09:32:14
I’m like, who fucking knows what it is? It’s just it’s the ocean. Just go surf. And it’s really interesting to see surfers in the way that they’re like, nope, I’m going to wait for the exact moment to ride the perfect wave, and I’m going to have the right board at the right time, at the right angle. And that’s how you get, an awesome surf, which I haven’t done yet.
00:09:32:14 – 00:09:57:09
So Bruce, you’re great in business, and I use that as an example in surfing, where I think you’re good at taking calculated risks. You could probably be a little more impulsive, though, so. Yeah. That’s fair. That’s a cool analogy. I like way more like Steven at the at the poker table. And I feel like I do act a lot off of like trusting my gut.
00:09:57:11 – 00:10:22:14
What’s our risk like recently that you feel like you’ve taken this, this colorways summit that I wasn’t sure how everyone was going to react to and, whether or not I’d be able to get support from the companies that I reached out to, I. And it really was just hoping that, you know, people would believe in, in what I was doing.
00:10:22:14 – 00:10:46:04
And I was so stressed when, when this all started. But it’s two weeks away and I’m feeling a lot better about taking that risk. Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah. So on Instagram you can go to it at Color Ways by M S c. And that’s the Instagram handle to get some more info. Yeah it’s a it’s a two day summit for women of color in our industry.
00:10:46:06 – 00:11:17:17
it’s not limited to just owners. I really wanted to get, you know, printers, brand owners, like clothing brand owners. and, and of course, shop owners because, we are a woman owned shop as well. I, it kind of came from a place of not feeling like there was a type of community where women of color could feel a sense of, you know, authenticity around each other.
00:11:17:18 – 00:11:58:15
I’ve been to different tours and summits, and there have been, you know, like panels and groups that specially focus on getting women together. But even within those groups, like, I felt like a minor minority. I was like one of three in a particular group, that I experienced last summer. We toured, below canvas. There were panel discussions and there was a lot of discussion about having male advocates in the industry, and I really felt that a lot of the discussions needed to be focused around having, like, white women advocates in this industry.
00:11:58:15 – 00:12:29:09
I was only at that summit because Amy Baker from threadbare, you know, invited me to be there. yeah. It’s a it’s happening. It’s we’re doing a two days in Reno, Nevada, and we have, tours at San Ma’s distribution warehouse. We’re touring stitches clothing company, and then day two is a series of panel discussions featuring people from ink tallow, all made, below canvas and really looking forward to it.
00:12:29:09 – 00:13:16:14
So that’s awesome. So what? Yeah. What what do you think are some of the topics I want to touch on to be able to go deeper into at the at the conference. So the three panels, the first is just about women in the industry breaking barriers. for myself Kendall Sours from Inc Tabo and Cassie Muhamad from Big Printing for me, you know, I just really want to talk about how colorways came about, how I’m looking for a community and to continue to build on something like this, because in my search of you know, finding attendees, everyone has expressed that they’ve been, like waiting and looking for something like this, which
00:13:16:14 – 00:13:50:06
has helped me to, you know, continue to keep it going. another topic is just talking about, you know, I really want to hear about the upbringing of some of the panelists and how that has impacted them in their print jobs, how they dealt with adversity and just hearing from their particular perspectives. And then, there will be discussions on sustainability, whether that’s from, you know, a super small business and how they are managing their day to day to a company like All Made and what they’re doing for the industry.
00:13:50:06 – 00:14:11:12
So it’s a wide range of topics. And you’ve got Cassini, who’s incredible, speaker and business owner too. Looking forward to meeting her, Christine. You know, like, it’s quite obvious the printing industry is male dominated and it’s probably predominantly white male dominated. I don’t know if I’m considered a minority. My parents are both, Egyptian, I guess. Maybe.
00:14:11:13 – 00:14:35:04
but I think you’re you’re you’re doing, like, two things almost at the same time, which are really hard to do. Right? It’s like minorities and women, all in one conference and then, you know, like, have you felt, you’re kind of. And what I can hear from this is I’m doing this because I couldn’t find the community in the industry, or it was talked about, but it wasn’t done.
00:14:35:08 – 00:14:51:13
What has that been like for you? Can you can you talk a little bit about, like, being both a woman and, you know, a minority and what what that’s like for you to go to a trade show or. Yeah. What are those experiences like for you? Because I think we need to learn from you. Yeah, I think you’re right.
00:14:51:13 – 00:15:22:15
And saying that like it has been talked about and people want to help, but nothing has really been done as far as like I’ve experienced, at the trade shows, it’s something as little as, you know, I’m going there to go buy my sprint 3000. I’m at the booth and, you know, no one’s really paying attention to me thinking that just by looking at me that I wouldn’t, you know, be interested in buying one of the machines or just like they would just move to the next person.
00:15:22:17 – 00:15:39:22
or, you know, an old white guy from Illinois doesn’t want to sell you a press. and they want to sell me want either. I’m just kidding. Keep going. What are you going to say? I’m also always on social media so I can see someone thinking that, you know, that’s that’s my sole role. Is like to get Instagram footage at the trade show.
00:15:39:22 – 00:15:57:03
I just feel like a bunch of times I’m not taken seriously just because I am a woman. I look super young and. And they might not think that I’m there to make, you know, serious decisions. When? Solely. Last year, I was there to just go look at this dryer that I wanted to buy and to connect with my friends.
00:15:57:07 – 00:16:19:00
This came from anger and rage and like, not being able to see anybody else make that change. And it truly was, you know, I went over to my friend’s house and I was like, I was a little frustrated, and felt, you know, that it wasn’t as inclusive as it should have been. And she’s like, well, maybe, maybe you should.
00:16:19:01 – 00:16:44:14
You should be the one to, you know, put something on like this. And then I took that really seriously. And since last summer, you know, have been planning to do something like this. So I’m just really looking forward to how this will, you know, at least have people pay attention to the fact that this has been lacking in the industry and and just having people understand that it’s it’s something that’s important that should be happening and should have been a long time ago.
00:16:44:14 – 00:17:04:22
But we’re here now. So were you able to get the dryer, were you able to get the dryer or what did you get? Yeah, I did get a sprint 3000 ended up being used from, a company that I used to work for, called Codis design. And I know Codis. Yeah. You familiar with Codis? Very, Greek.
00:17:04:23 – 00:17:25:13
Really? Fraternity sororities? Heck, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Heavy in the Greek scene. and breweries and a lot of my accounts while I was there was CrossFit gyms. I bought my machine from them. I it was actually just a photo from Dave McClain. And, my production manager was like, oh, it looks like it’s at Codis. And I was like, I work there.
00:17:25:13 – 00:17:47:13
So it felt like a that was a whole, a full circle moment that I needed to get that specific dryer. It was in the price range that we were looking for. And, yeah, that just arrived last month, last June, I think, before we and I want to get into Midnight Supply and stuff like that, I think it’s important to acknowledge that, being able to talk about starting a discussion is the hardest.
00:17:47:13 – 00:18:04:10
You know, starting a discussion is easy. Trying something is hard. Doing it right the first time is even harder. And so if there are organizations that are out there and I know there are ones that that they mean well, they’re trying their best. You know, if you have no one show up to your booth, but you’re trying the best.
00:18:04:12 – 00:18:23:03
You just have to keep coming back and trying and trying and trying. And so it’s it’s empowering to see colorways or, you know, some of these other organizations that are, that are starting, but I think what we have to do is like, don’t stop. Like we all need to be on a relentless pursuit. And if we didn’t do it, you know, if there’s something we could have changed, let’s change it, right?
00:18:23:03 – 00:18:54:23
Like if there’s a way to make it 1% better, let’s make it 1% better. If there’s opportunity where we make a mistake, let’s give ourselves grace to hit, edit, undo. You know, because what we don’t want to do is divide ourselves in an industry where we all need to come together. So before we all kind of like, I love that this is happening, I think that I would just challenge us all to make sure that any organization or anything we do, we try to come together on it, you know, as much as we possibly can and hear each other and feel heard and understood.
00:18:54:23 – 00:19:20:20
So I think this is super cool. And what you’re making. So, let’s talk midnight supply. Chris, what do you got? So you worked. I was I was reading a lot of background. Christine, you worked at Midnight Supply. but obviously it’s your shop now. Yeah. So, like, what happened there? So I was at Curtis Design, which was two blocks away from Midnight Supply Company.
00:19:20:22 – 00:19:59:10
It was an already existing print shop. And then that tanked. So two guys, purchased it and turned it into Midnight Supply Company. And I knew one of the guys through my work in the music scene, and he, invited me to come over to meet with him. I went over on my lunch break. He presented the opportunity to manage the print shop, and then I went back and put my two weeks in and, haven’t looked back ever since it was, the first two years where I was just, you know, trying to restructure it, trying to set minimums.
00:19:59:10 – 00:20:23:20
And, there was one fall where I just really crushed it. And the next meeting with the previous owners, they were like, we’re selling you the print shop. So 2018, switched ownership over to me. And then, 2019 was when I made the move to the new facility. There’s a lot there. Right. So you were brought in to take over the print shop.
00:20:23:20 – 00:20:41:14
I find that interesting because I think a lot of owners would like to just like, hey, can someone just handle this for me? And and I can, you know, step back a little bit. What was that experience like? And, you know, what did you feel like you were stepping into? Someone else wanted to try to find someone to do something similar?
00:20:41:16 – 00:21:09:02
Yeah. I mean, I felt like it was such a huge risk. Like I Got to Code is because all of my side hustles and part time work, like, fell through. I was working at a record label, and all of a sudden they were like, we don’t have a job anymore. Like that day, so I scrambled and I was looking for anything that had to do with merchandise, and that’s how I came across Midnight Supply Company or, a craft code design.
00:21:09:04 – 00:21:32:07
Then I think once they bought the print shop, the these two guys are entrepreneurs. They have many businesses. one of the guys was printing his brand at the shop. So, I think they had known that I was working with merchandise and they had seen me in, in, you know, operations and management roles. So I was brought on to Midnight Supply.
00:21:32:07 – 00:21:49:17
And like I said, the first few years was really trying to restructure and, you know, figure out what had gone wrong with the previous company and try and fix all of that. how did the structure work when they were like, hey, yeah, like you tell us about like, are they actually like buying it? Like, how did that work?
00:21:49:17 – 00:22:12:15
Yeah, because obviously I didn’t have any money. so they same created created a sale where, you know, whatever the price was, I was able to pay them monthly through the business, just the operations of the print shop. they put a lot of trust in me. They, really gave me the responsibility, and I took it and ran with it.
00:22:12:15 – 00:22:32:11
And, I think it took me about three years to to pay them. They gave me such a great deal. And, I’m really grateful for them. They’re still two of my biggest mentors right now and have been over the last ten years of my career. They I still have the relationship with them, and I continue to learn from both of them.
00:22:32:11 – 00:22:52:04
So seller financed essentially, which is actually a really that’s how I bought into Campus Inc. I put down a little bit of money, but essentially what I think. And so for listeners trying to understand this, is once you come up with a valuation of the company, let’s just say it’s five times profit or three times profit or, you know, whatever that.
00:22:52:04 – 00:23:13:11
So if if profit is, you know, $100,000, three times, that is $300,000. So then you look at it and say, okay, how do I pay off $300,000 to these owners over five years? Okay, that’s 60 grand a year. Okay. That’s five grand a month. Can I afford to pay five grand a month for the next five years?
00:23:13:13 – 00:23:34:06
And if I can, I can take over the business right now. And so it sounds like, you were able to come up with a number. can you talk about a little bit about, like, how you came up to that number? Did they just give it to you? Like, they just they they came up with the number.
00:23:34:11 – 00:23:54:23
It was a ridiculously good price. I don’t even like I need to look back and see what was, it had to have been less than like 50,000. And they, you know, structured it so that I was able to make small payments across the course of a few years. really wanted to see me succeed. You know, obviously they’re invested in it.
00:23:54:23 – 00:24:21:22
So, yeah, I haven’t really thought about that in, like, ten years. Can you can you talk about how big the business was when you bought it? One auto or a manual and maybe like myself and three employees, now we’re at two autos, embroidery key presses and ten employees. Okay. So like when you bought the company, you were doing 3 or 4 or $500,000 somewhere in there, probably around like 500 to 800,000.
00:24:22:03 – 00:24:46:21
And then sweet. Now you’re probably 4 to 5 times that. 3 or 5 times you’re, in my dreams, I think. Okay. it’s been a lot of work in trying to survive a pandemic. Really rocked us. but my goal for this year is, like, 1.2 million and I hope, I hope that we get there with with profitability, like it’s been.
00:24:46:23 – 00:25:12:12
It hasn’t been easy at all. I’ve made some expensive investments, machines, the move in my people and, I just feel that the last couple of years, last year, this year and the next is really about just like getting us to, you know, profitability to be able to paint again, just like pay people more, invest back into the business.
00:25:12:12 – 00:25:35:18
Thank you for sharing that. I know we have to sometimes pry, but it helps when listeners are like, I can connect with Christine there and that’s where I want to be. Or oh, I’m in the same spot. So I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing my key. Can you tell us more about the profitability remark? Like what? What are the things that you feel like you do now to try to get there profitably?
00:25:35:20 – 00:26:02:04
I mean, for us, it’s like our our operations is just cost so much. And, and just driving sales up has been the main focus and putting people in place to help me to get more sales and process orders faster. it really was me still on the production floor, handling a lot of the office work up until maybe 2022, 2023, when I really started to bring more people on.
00:26:02:06 – 00:26:37:08
I’ve been making, you know, certain investments like the dryer, which is now cut our electricity bill in half. And it really has just been about like fine tuning our expenses and trying to grow it organically. We haven’t really invested in like, marketing of any sort. a lot of our sales come from word of mouth and Instagram, and just in making connections and learning from other shops, I feel like if I’ve been able to get us here at like half of my speed, like, what can I get us to when I’m really, really applying myself?
00:26:37:12 – 00:26:58:15
I just feel like so much of the pandemic was just like chaos and then trying to, like, bring the company back together and bring my printers and finally feel like I’ve built a team that I trust and the production is a well-oiled machine. And now it’s just about, increasing our sales. Christine, how closely do you monitor your numbers?
00:26:58:15 – 00:27:23:18
Like, hey, you’re going to marry someone who’s probably fiscally and financially responsible like you talked about? Like, do you look at things? Are you crazy about numbers? Like, what are you crazy about that you check every single day? I guess I can be crazier about the numbers. Like, that is definitely my focus now and and moving forward like it was so much not taking all of it into consideration.
00:27:23:18 – 00:27:42:00
It was mostly just like survival mode. It feels like making the biggest move in my career, the world shutting down. And then just like Army crawling out of that hole, it feels like just the last two years I’ve been able to start breathing and and like, now really focus on the numbers and get us to a good place.
00:27:42:00 – 00:28:01:10
Because you were heavy on the music merch side, right? Yes. With which I’ll stop then. Like Christine, are you checking like, you know, do you check your bank balance every day? Like, do you are there things that you check that you’re like OCD about? Like, I always check, you know, I check what Shopify did. You know, I check bank balances.
00:28:01:12 – 00:28:17:18
I check what stripe dumped in. Those are like my things that I look at every morning. What is the check if the press is running? I just gave up on that. Have shirts left the building? no. I like to see throughput, but yeah. What do you look at? Yeah. bank account often and top of the week.
00:28:17:18 – 00:28:41:22
Like, you know, I’m, I’m checking the bank account, making sure that, like, our bills are paid weekly and then preparing for, like, payroll and rent, which are the two biggest expenses. And, mostly just like paying bills and collecting balances is just my main focus. And being able to just keep going with cash. Cash flow Printavo helps a lot with that.
00:28:41:22 – 00:29:12:17
Like just being able to check like deposits and and making seeing like what we have the week ahead, two weeks ahead. this year I’m really trying to like get ahead of like, finances instead of, like going through the month and, you know, seeing how we did, like I really need to be able to halfway through a week in like see where we’re headed and really trying to get our sales up based on where we’re at, weekly and, and just trying to stay on top of that.
00:29:12:19 – 00:29:30:11
no, that’s super helpful. I do this thing, you know, when I was, a little bit earlier in business, my dad would always ask me if you shut down your business today, what do you got? And so he would make we made a list, and it’s like, okay, well, here are your bank balances, but all your bank balances there every single day.
00:29:30:13 – 00:29:48:00
How many under positive checks do you have. So how much cash do you have then below that you have your accounts payable. How much is on your credit cards, your essence, your sand Mar alpha, any sales tax? Payroll? who do you owe money to if you were to shut down today and then, what are your accounts receivable?
00:29:48:00 – 00:30:03:02
What’s all the money that you’re going to bring in? If you were to shut down today, what’s 30 day, 60 days, 90 days, and past 90 days that you’re never going to collect? and then where’s any of your long term debt? So if you were to shut down the business today, what banks would be coming after you?
00:30:03:03 – 00:30:29:22
Would there be SBA loans with heavy equipment loans, whatever. and based on that number, we would measure it every single week. And that would be the thermometer for our business. And we would just watch it like a hawk. So I really think it’s important, that shop owners, especially now, are measuring these things every day and looking for signals in their business when something’s going well or when something’s not going well.
00:30:30:00 – 00:31:09:16
I’ve just heard it more and more often in the last like couple of months. Is every day good or is it paranoid? You know, because I sometimes I feel like it also creates a bit of anxiety because of the fluctuations, but it’s like, oh, it’ll be fine by Friday because, you know, this deposits or whatever. I think it’s like tracking calories if you track your calories every day and you were religious about it, you’d probably eat less donuts, or you would take better measures and so, you know, if I notice cash down, I’m looking at my are and saying, is our team collecting money as fast as possible.
00:31:09:18 – 00:31:26:16
Why you know what’s going on here. And that’s what I’m focusing on because I need to survive. Right? I think in this day and age, if you last, you win. Then you need to make sure you have a pulse on your business. So I think that could get a little extreme. It’s like, do you step on the scale once a week or every day?
00:31:26:18 – 00:31:52:07
I think once a week is good, right? What do you think, Bruce? Yeah, I think that makes sense. we did something similar around once a week. I felt that made sense. And then, you know, kind of a monthly snapshot at the end to see how things went. Do you, one thing you mentioned, Christine, is driving down expenses makes sense trying to reduce overhead where you can and then also top line revenue, trying to grow that.
00:31:52:09 – 00:32:17:09
It’s harder to I think it’s a little easier. Maybe to look through the expenses. What can we cut, what can we reduce, what can we downsize. But the top line is a little bit harder. Like, you know, do we need marketing campaigns? Do we, do we need do I need to be reaching out to people like, how do you think about that with all right, I want to be able to grow sales more, maybe 10% total for the year, 20% for the year.
00:32:17:11 – 00:32:48:20
What does that mean for Midnight Supply Co? as far as like what? Like what do you do. Yeah. some things as little as, you know, just, the type of events that I’m going to like, how I’m networking, I really credit everything that we’ve been doing to my relationships and being able to just, like, show face that things and, and, and then obviously, like, making sure that our clients are happy with the product.
00:32:48:20 – 00:33:15:14
But one little thing that we started doing was just, you know, creating like these merge packages for clients that either have a current order happening or they had just finished an order with us, but we’ll, you know, throw their logo on a bunch of promotional products, like items that they didn’t originally produce with us. And I just feel like that opens up people’s minds, like 75% of the ones we’ve sent out.
00:33:15:14 – 00:33:43:02
People have ordered products for their, so and we just started doing that. it’s something that we’ve continued to just do weekly. We’ll pick a client, try and figure out products that they would be interested in. And, that’s been helpful. I think people don’t realize we can do things other than t shirts. so sometimes just presenting the opportunity to them directly.
00:33:43:04 – 00:34:03:15
we also have a lot of background working with musicians and touring musicians and being in the Pacific Northwest, the upper left corner of the country, like a lot of tours start here. And so sometimes logistically it makes sense to produce it in Seattle, where your tour starts and then go along to the rest of the country.
00:34:03:15 – 00:34:29:01
So I’ve, I’ve found that, a lot of those clients, you know, we’re starting to reach out to tours that are coming through and people are, you know, seeing that it’s reasonable to work with us and make sense logistically, for the tours. So that has also been helping us. and then just we’ve been doing a lot more pop ups this year, like, you know, at local festivals.
00:34:29:01 – 00:34:53:22
We started working with Life printing.com, and just really getting more experience outside of the shop and letting people know that we exist outside of South Park neighborhood of Seattle. Interesting. It sounds like what you’re doing is really trying to increase your, like, surface area, right? Like just different ways to kind of expose the business in ways that might not be traditional.
00:34:54:00 – 00:35:10:17
and I think that’s really neat. A really interesting business case is five hour energy, you know, a five hour energy successful. Have I said this before, Bruce? five hour energy’s successful because they decided to be on the counter of gas stations, not in the fridge. Right. So they just it’s the same energy drink, but they’re like, no, no, we’re not going to make it cold.
00:35:10:17 – 00:35:31:00
And with all the Red Bulls and monsters, we’re going to actually reposition it, increasing the surface area and the opportunities and repositioning, their product. And so when you think about these things of, hey, I’m going to partner with Life printing.com. and I’m going to go out in the community and print. It’s like exposing yourself to something that might come.
00:35:31:00 – 00:35:48:02
It’s a sales opportunity or these gift boxes where I’m actually going to pick a company every day and find a product they would never think of and show it to them on a platter. Right. And I think sometimes we think we have to sell one certain way, but what we really have to do is try to do all these little things and see what pops up.
00:35:48:04 – 00:36:09:10
And so I think that’s super cool. Bruce, what do you got? Have you guys tried five Hour Energy? Yeah, I think a long time ago I don’t remember it working. My dad would be like, this is a really funny story. When I sucked at tennis, he’d be like, here, drink this. I was like 16 or something. And he’s like, wake up, little shake your see?
00:36:09:12 – 00:36:31:08
Yeah. They’re gross. They work. Have you had, But I remember having it. I like a 7-Eleven. I guess there’s just something. This is like years and years ago, but, yeah, I just remember it being gross. But I was like, well, you know, if it wakes me up, sure, maybe that’s. Maybe that’s what I also do. It’s just no one cares about the taste.
00:36:31:08 – 00:36:53:05
It’s like, yeah, you’re just not expecting that. Okay. I wanted to take some time because I read this book called Shine. So the the author is the same author from the book traction, which you guys have probably heard of, Gina Wickman, of which, you know, traction is, unbelievable operating system for the business to to run on and get things organized.
00:36:53:07 – 00:37:17:09
His second book, shine, has some very interesting takeaways. I’ve got like four or so of them, and I’m just going to rifle them off and, curious to get your guys’s thoughts. Okay, so the first one is decisions in a ten year time frame. So he talks about shifting your mindset from short term thinking to thinking in ten year time frames.
00:37:17:11 – 00:37:41:13
He says short sightedness is limiting you when you shift to a long range thinking time will slow down. A feeling piece comes over and you’ll feel more consistent. People overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, but they underestimate what they can accomplish in ten years. All of your goals, plans, activities and items. and to do lists really examine.
00:37:41:13 – 00:37:58:06
Do they align with the ten year thinking goals? for example, you brush your teeth every day so that you get the long term outcome of having healthy teeth and gums to live a longer life. You know, when you’re deep running the business, everything is day to day. It’s hard to even think of next month, to be honest.
00:37:58:07 – 00:38:23:00
What do you think about that as far as shifting the daily activities and tasks and things you’re doing, to thinking about what you want in ten years? Christine Jeffers Christine, you go, yeah, I mean, I feel like everything that I’ve done is for the long term, like it really is hard for me to get hung up on the day to day.
00:38:23:00 – 00:38:45:00
Like everything I’m doing is for the growth of the business. And everything that I put out there is is for the longevity of Midnight Supply Company. But like, I think just the just day to day, I’m so caught up in, in my daily tasks, so much of working in the business, as they say, and not on the business.
00:38:45:02 – 00:39:08:20
I, I’ve taken a few classes that have really like, forced me to spend time on on thinking, you know, outside of the box and focusing on just like the day to day operations. A lot of that is me being able to delegate tasks as well. Like that’s been one of the hardest things that I’ve been, how I’ve been able to get over and like hire more people to help me out.
00:39:08:22 – 00:39:39:16
I think that that has also helped my day to day and being able to think long term, it’s not like, yeah, it’s not like, what are you doing about this? This is it’s like, thank you, man. It’s making my brain hurt. Bruce. I think there was a pivotal point in my business or in my career where I was thinking about the next day or the next hour or whatever, and, when I finally brought leadership in to work with me, we were able to sit down and think about things in one year, three year, five year and ten year increments.
00:39:39:18 – 00:40:19:17
And it wasn’t really until I had other, you know, like minded leaders, that we could sit in a room for a day and have a retreat and whiteboard it all out and put it on the calendar and do it again. because I wasn’t accountable to myself. And so I think the first thing that I did before I could afford, you know, hiring executive leadership was to be part of communities and networks and have mentors and advisors that I would meet with regularly, because when I vocalized something to them, they would ask me how it was and I would be held accountable to them, because I think the hardest thing as a business
00:40:19:17 – 00:40:40:20
owner is if you’re accountable to no one, you’re, you know, you’re you’re going to speak in big figures and, you know, shops say like, oh, I think I can be a $50 million company. And it’s like, who are you accountable to? You know? so I think there was a little bit of an inflection point probably 3 or 4 years ago.
00:40:40:22 – 00:41:02:21
and now, I have my eyes on making sure our business lasts and you’ll hear me say that a lot. If we last, we win. And so, you know, if Campus Ink is is around ten years from now, like we’ve won, I think, and that’s what my goal is, is to make sure that our company still exists, ten years from now.
00:41:02:21 – 00:41:29:15
So I don’t know. Bruce, how do you think about this? I don’t think I was able to think about this until I probably just took time off away from my phone. and away from slack and email. And that day, there’s just the constant day to day, like, there’s just so much momentum. It’s like you’re on a train and the train is just like hurling, like a 60, 80 miles an hour.
00:41:29:17 – 00:41:50:21
And it’s like you kind of look to get off and you’re like, I’ll get off later. I’ll get off at the next stop. And, and I don’t, I think it’s hard to actually pop up and have that vision. And then the second thing is, it’s very hard to have self-reflection about some of the work that you’re doing, if it actually matters for the ten you like.
00:41:50:21 – 00:42:09:18
I think we tell ourselves a lot that I’ll just do it or I’ll, you know, I’ll, I’ll take care of this or so on. And I kind of wonder, like, did I need to just do it? Like, couldn’t I have given that’s the person, let them struggle with it. Probably goofed up on it for a week or two and then figure it out.
00:42:09:20 – 00:42:29:16
Probably. And that would have been a lot better than the me doing it. And that brings me honestly to the second point. he said create no boundaries. What are you not doing? Like, we have a lot of our jobs. It’s like, this is what I am doing this or responsible for, but can you write down all your notes for examples?
00:42:29:17 – 00:43:00:01
First one, which I thought is pretty powerful to create no boundaries is no no subject or the verb create no boundaries, as in these are things I’m not doing. Okay, yeah, that’s the subject of the verb or whatever. It’s like I was like, no boundaries. Like what the heck? No. Okay, say no to. Yeah, okay. Exactly. So the first one, I think is crazy powerful is like, no, $25 an hour work.
00:43:00:03 – 00:43:30:21
He says there’s nothing wrong with people that are doing $25 an hour work. But as the owner and especially as a business that’s really growing, never do anything that you could pay someone $25 an hour to do. Now, I think never is a very strong word, but for that but that is an interesting blocker to how black and white different tasks, you know, email, calendar, order entry, you know, following up, maintenance, you know, all that type of stuff.
00:43:30:21 – 00:43:53:19
He’s like, that should be delegated because that’s the type of work that holds you back from gaining the freedom in your life that sparks more creativity and have a more satisfying impact on the work that you’re doing and get like, focus on essentially this high energy, high impact work. So that’s a no. Other examples of no’s or like no back to back meetings that are more than four meetings a day.
00:43:53:21 – 00:44:16:19
no taking a meeting with someone just because they emailed. And hey, can we jump on a call? We’ve all got that one. he’s even said no running meetings, which is an interesting one. no housework he put in parentheses. Just hire someone. no email on Saturdays, you know, no meetings before 8 a.m., things like that.
00:44:16:19 – 00:44:33:13
Right. And so, Christine, back to you. What do you like? What do you say or what do you think about. You’re going to be like, I just start I have no, no, no, but does it be I think it’s just like, what is that. What do you what I’m saying that what what what jumps in your head now like, oh I swear.
00:44:33:15 – 00:45:05:16
Oh, interesting. Yeah. I mean, maybe the one that you said that jumped out at me was like, no meetings when people are just, like, straight up reaching out like, I, I only until recently like I, I was taking on all meetings, meeting with anybody and everybody that wanted to come to the print shop until just recently, like, I have had to value my time more and have had to vet people before they come into the shop and like, sit down with me for a complete hour to end up just not really having anything to move forward with.
00:45:05:16 – 00:45:23:08
It was just like I just needed the information type of meeting and I was just like, why? Why did I even hold that? So I you making this long list makes me feel like I need to make my list a lot longer. And like, I feel like I’m just starting my no list. Yeah. Bruce, I’ll give you a couple that I’ve started to create for it.
00:45:23:08 – 00:45:47:01
So I get so much inbound that wants to meet with me. It’s like, you name it and it’s all call me. I’m like, come on, you know, but I basically put up a defense in order to meet with me. So, like, I’m the last resort. If I absolutely have to meet with them, I will. And usually that’s really big, high level stuff in the business.
00:45:47:03 – 00:46:10:11
but like, our E will always ask, like, Steven, is this a meeting you need to be in? And so I’ve kind of created a little protective barrier around myself. The other thing that I do is I try to split up my morning. So like, I’m trying to do this thing where no meetings before 11 a.m., I want that to be my time so I can do whatever I want so I can record this podcast so I can whatever, no meetings before 11 a.m..
00:46:10:13 – 00:46:33:11
And then the other thing is, internal meetings, on Monday, Tuesday. And I’ll do external meetings on Thursdays. So, like, being selfish about, hey, I need to be working on company stuff and I’ll take outside meetings on Thursdays. because what you what happens? Like you said, Christine, is people just they just waste your time. And a 30 minute meeting could have been ten minutes.
00:46:33:11 – 00:46:54:16
The other thing that we’re doing is. Or just email or. Yeah, no hourlong meetings. We can do 30 minute meetings. A 30 minute meeting is powerful. It’s impactful. It has an agenda. It’s quick, don’t need to have an hour long meeting. You know, you don’t need to talk about the weather for eight minutes on your call. So, like out zoom, zoom or, you know, you know, it would be funny.
00:46:54:16 – 00:47:17:02
Is if zoom had the weather and all locations to make meetings more efficient. No weather talk when we start this call. Yeah, that’s my only rule. We don’t talk about the weather. Let’s talk about some good. Let’s get going. You know, so, I try to and then I, I try not to work like after 7 or 8 p.m., like, no nighttime work.
00:47:17:04 – 00:47:53:15
and then I really try to check out on the weekends, almost inaccessible on the weekends. and that’s in the last couple of years, versus what about you? I think the interesting point is he writes at the end, like, things are okay. Like when you do it, you find out things are fine, like they’re there the next day or they’re handled or things move on like the the no boundaries become more powerful and a little bit addictive, just as just doing it or just jumping in was also addictive before.
00:47:53:17 – 00:48:15:17
so I, you know, when I was actively running the business, I had zero batteries. I mean, again, it was it was like that because I wanted to take all the opportunities and similar to what you talk about, Christy, like I wanted to now I think towards the end now. Yeah. I mean, being smarter about the inbound outreach definitely was, you know, more selective on the events.
00:48:15:17 – 00:48:36:04
It’s like we try to do all the events and then tried to be very finicky and more direct was a no. I thought I needed to be there all the time. That turned out to be a no. I did not need to. The team was fine. They performed, did a good job. and that, I think was a little bit of my ego.
00:48:36:04 – 00:49:05:07
Which brings me to my last, bullet point here that I’m gonna share with you guys and get your thoughts. So, Christina, go get ready. All right, so the the last part he talked about was consider the possibilities that decisions are made out of love or fear. Okay. And so by fear, I mean, you know, inside your mind, your ego and more so on the love side, it’s like who your true self is and what you actually care about.
00:49:05:09 – 00:49:37:07
Now, when you think about those decisions are made by either love or fear. That helps you be able to make a little bit clearer decisions. Let me explain. So for example, you should not attach yourself to someone or something. No one should be attached to you. This is an indicator of fear. For example, if you have a large customer that’s detrimental or abusive to a customer, to your team, or to your company, but you fear losing them because it may setback your growth plans, you’re making a decision out of fear.
00:49:37:07 – 00:49:55:10
Here’s a great example. On the fear ego side. You know, if you’re wanting to be a savior and fix everything and just do it, that’s like feeding our ego. We want to be there. We want to be present at the event or in that meeting, or have a the last say about the decision and making sure that it’s what we wanted to do.
00:49:55:12 – 00:50:15:09
You know, that’s feeding the ego of what we should do. another good one for fear is if you’re doing things out of FOMO, you know, missing out big next potential, opportune. Instead of just saying no. are you afraid you’re going to disappoint someone? If you said no, are you going to feel guilty if you said no?
00:50:15:09 – 00:50:20:03
Things like that, you’re making a decision out of fear instead.
00:50:20:05 – 00:50:39:05
Okay, that’s the last point. I’m just curious what comes to mind, for making those decisions. Because I know we’ve also had the customer aspect, like everyone’s had that, which was so funny. When I read that part, I was like, wow, we’ve all had the customer. We’re like, shit. But you know, we should do what we can.
00:50:39:05 – 00:51:10:06
We should keep bending over backwards like we should try to make it work, even though that’s making a decision out of fear. Yeah, I feel like I’ve definitely had a client or the clients where I couldn’t really handle the relationship and none of the team wanted to be dealing with them. And there was always that fear, like losing the sale, you know, they helped us to get other accounts and, but it came to so much of like stress and like not wanting to deal with it.
00:51:10:06 – 00:51:45:06
But I was finally able to get over that fear and fire the client. I also think that people who react from fear almost just drag things along instead of just like dealing with it head on. communication in that sense is important. Like, I feel like I’m dealing with something like that right now where it’s just like, if we had just dealt with this head on without any fear of like, repercussions or anything, like we would have dealt with this probably like a month ago.
00:51:45:08 – 00:52:21:14
so I just think that fear causes so much stress and, and unnecessary stress. But the hardest part, I think, is just like getting reasonable and getting over that. Because how do you work? How did you work? How do you work? Now? I try to make a lot more of my time spent out of the love side and less of the fear ego side, because I, I’ve, I’ve really written down more of that ten year goal stuff as far as how I want to spend my time and how I want to, you know, what I want to like?
00:52:21:14 – 00:52:38:18
What gives me a lot of energy when I spend it. And it makes it easier to say now once I wrote it down, like I think until I and I physically put it into a document, and I spent a lot of time on this. okay, this is how I want my days to look like, and this is what I want.
00:52:38:20 – 00:53:02:18
you know, business. So, like, continuous is what I want. our life personally to look like in ten years, when opportunities or things come up, it’s so much easier to say no because it doesn’t align with what I feel like I want to look like in the future. So, of course, there’s like, all right, I’ll give this a try or, you know, I’ll try that.
00:53:02:20 – 00:53:21:18
But then the other day I, I signed up for this opportunity. I was, I was, but I was signed up for an opportunity. Help them out for a little bit. It just was not like a good use of time. And also, I wasn’t like leaving it thinking this. This is actually what I thought it would be aligned with what we’re doing longer term.
00:53:21:18 – 00:53:47:18
And I was like, hey, this isn’t going to work out and try to have that to conversation earlier than letting it drag on. But, I feel that that’s easier because I do honestly have more time now to think about that versus, you know, being back to back. And again, he goes back to like, you should be taking off more time than you think to be able to think through these things.
00:53:47:20 – 00:54:12:06
He’s he mentioned business owners just literally, you know, as a fear point. Well, this will look bad to the team if I’m gone all week or if I’m gone on Fridays or from the office or, you know, they’re making that decision and and hurting that vision point. Steve view. I think yeah, I think I, I struggle with a lot of fear and FOMO.
00:54:12:07 – 00:54:27:00
I want to do that to be included, or I want to do that to not disappoint someone, or I want to do that to prove a point. I think this is something where it probably goes back to how we were raised. Right. and what we were to our parents and siblings and who we were proving what to do.
00:54:27:00 – 00:54:53:16
Right. Like the little kid that always wants to show off, you know, and so I think that resonates in people’s businesses and their lives and stuff. I think where I’m at now is being able to say no means that I might disappoint someone. Like, if Bruce really wants me to go somewhere and I’m like, if I go, it’ll make him happy.
00:54:53:16 – 00:55:17:04
If I don’t go, it’ll make him sad. I have to be okay. Disappointing him. But if we’re good friends, he’s going to be disappointed. And he’s like, all right, cool. You know, and I think fear is built out of, like, overthinking what the impact is really going to be. You know, saying no to someone might make them disappointed, but they’re going to get over it and it’s going to be okay.
00:55:17:06 – 00:55:52:17
And so I think when you can start to be really selfish with your time, with opportunities and serve yourself, then you can turn around and have a battery to actually do what you absolutely want to do. And I think that’s the whole like, self-sacrificing thing just builds resentment for everyone. so I think there’s definitely business owners out there that probably struggle with this because they’re running their business out of rebelliousness or retaliation or, you know, and they’re trying to be the best for everyone, and they’re taking so much pride in it.
00:55:52:19 – 00:56:14:03
but you have to also serve yourself. So I think this this last point hits home. I got super psychological on this one. But, I think the the last quote that, that I think relates to all of this is you have two choices that I love this quote and I think about it so much just day to day work wise, but also personally is your two choices.
00:56:14:03 – 00:56:34:19
Your two choices are one. You can make the hard decisions and have an easy life, or you can make easy decisions and have a harder life. So you you, you pick whichever do you want to have the hard decisions upfront and the talks and the and and the choices that you have to make for an easier life later.
00:56:34:19 – 00:57:03:00
Or the opposite. that was guy this, this weightlifter guy, actually. Jersey shore, Jersey shore. I mean, he could have been might as well. All right, Christine, thanks so much for, being so open and and sharing with us again. We’ll drop a link down actually for colorways in the description so people can join. If you’re listening. That’s instagram.com/colorways by m s C.
00:57:03:02 – 00:57:18:12
so you could be able to sign up, take a look at the cameras. A website is up. Thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate it. This is awesome Christine. Good luck to you. We’ll talk to you. Thank you. Bye for now. So we’ll see you the next week. Thanks so much for listening. Hopefully that was informative.
00:57:18:14 – 00:57:37:19
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00:57:37:19 – 00:57:38:05
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