We’re joined by Chad Jones of Allstar Custom Apparel! He recently bought a print shop over a year ago and has been working hard to implement new changes to boost efficiency. But what happens when your team doesn’t trust you at first? Or tries to test their limits? What can you do to evoke trust as a new shop owner? We discuss!
Oh yeah…there was also that viral moment from Sticker Mule’s founder sending a mass email to his customer base informing them of political opinion. Hear what we have to say!
- 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.
Transcript
00:00:04:05 – 00:00:30:10
Hey, print hustlers. We’ve got an interesting episode here. no, it’s actually some good topics. We talked about the sticker mule political email that went out to everybody, which was, interesting story and has actually gone to mainstream media to, we don’t get enough controversy in our industry. So we got to talk about this, and we talked a lot about being direct and managing a team.
00:00:30:14 – 00:00:52:17
I think some of the awkward parts about it, though, not the not the typical stuff that maybe we cover generally, but this was, you know, being more of an individual contributor to being more of a manager and trying to be more direct and how to get there and recruiting, how to create a better process. And what Chad has learned through going in and diving into that.
00:00:52:17 – 00:01:16:08
So this will be a great episode. We got some sponsors though. Hey. All right, easy way. I know Steven spending hours cleaning dirty screens, but guess what? That is a thing of the past. Steven is no longer doing that because of a screen printing screen. printing and cleaning chemicals. Their innovative formulas are designed to work quickly and effectively.
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00:02:09:18 – 00:02:32:16
And thanks so much multi craft. We appreciate all your support. Super color. Super color is doing some crazy innovation. Talk to room kind of often which is so cool to see them. just continuing to build a great business. They’re the world’s best heat transfer made for screen printers, bio screen printers, and they understand the pressures and expectations of running a screen printing business.
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00:03:25:12 – 00:03:48:17
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00:03:48:19 – 00:04:07:16
All right. Strap on in the episode. Chad, how you doing? How’s the business? Pretty good. Hey. It’s good. It’s busy. yeah. Busier than we deserved last July. I remember it was my 1st July. I was asking the girls, you know, is it normal for us to slow down this time of year like this? You know, I was all worried about it.
00:04:07:18 – 00:04:32:10
And this July, we haven’t had seen a break. So it’s like. Why do you think that is? Is it a new market you’re doing or what? No. Just growth, getting more customers. And, I think just within that, some of the customers that we do, however, are buying more stuff. and I can’t attribute it to any sales or marketing on my end necessarily, because I’ve been so involved in the printing.
00:04:32:11 – 00:04:56:04
But, yeah, I’d say just just growth, natural growth. Chad, do you think you spend more time like, if, if and I know I don’t know if you’ve done this or not, but, if you took your customer and look at how much they spent with you last year versus like, your customers average spend this year, are you just getting more out of the out of repeat business, or do you feel like you’re getting enough new business?
00:04:56:04 – 00:05:14:04
Like if you were to look at a typical week, how many new customers that have never talked to you before versus, just repeat. I haven’t sat down and broke this down analytically as much as I should. but I would say just from the feel of it, day in and day out, it’s a bit. I can attribute it both ways.
00:05:14:05 – 00:05:34:09
So we’re getting more. We’re getting new customers, more and more people coming to us, but also, I can think of some of the schools that we do business for that we’re getting more orders from them. you know, for example, we got one elementary school right now that in the past we’ve done like a spirits store for them and a few orders, and now I’m getting the kids shirts before school, the staff shirts before school, all the stuff.
00:05:34:09 – 00:05:51:05
So I think it’s kind of cultivating that relationship. So you get, you know, hopefully the majority of what they order and they don’t split. And in amongst other companies, you’re not afraid to open an online store for a day? No, I do it all the time. Most of our stores are a week long at least. But, you know, I’ll do it.
00:05:51:08 – 00:06:16:02
What do you mean, reopen? Or what do you mean, like, create a fresh one for it? Had you had a team that was, a team made the playoffs, and you’re like, we’re setting up a store right now. Let’s go. Like, you guys pounce on moments. And I think something that I will tell shops over and over and over again is the easiest way to grow your company and to grow your brand is to just build online stores, because the word gets out fast.
00:06:16:04 – 00:06:31:01
and I think that’s something that when we talked about when we were chatting, you’re like, yeah, we build stores and we’ll get them up and, you know, we’ve only got a couple days here. We got a week here, we got playoffs. Come in like, you guys don’t wait, or make your customers jump through a lot of hoops.
00:06:31:03 – 00:06:48:06
which I think is something you naturally do. I don’t think you realize you do it. I was going to say. I think you’re right. I can be a people pleaser. And you know this. You know, we, from from kind of working with me a little bit, can be a people pleaser. And so when they come to us, like, I want to be their one stop shop.
00:06:48:07 – 00:07:10:20
and so I, I don’t like to say no, unless it’s an obvious. That’s something that we can’t do for us. But are these stores preemptive or are they asking for them? And you’re saying, sure. Well, you know, you want that open for a day or two. Let’s go. We do both. There’s some interesting that, that I’m going to say, hey, are you are you open to doing a spirit store?
00:07:10:20 – 00:07:35:23
It’s a fundraiser. You know, it’s no cost to you. You’re just, you know, you’re going to make money off of my work. and then there’s some work’s playoffs. Hey, it’s it’s this happened in the spring for basketball. Hey, it’s a Saturday night. We just made the final four. We need to store up. We’re leaving Wednesday morning to go to state, and, we get it up that we can get it posted, get it closed by Monday night, print them Tuesday, and I deliver them.
00:07:36:01 – 00:07:58:21
so there’s a lot of work, but there’s. I mean, it’s worth it. But when I want to speak, make this for a second. Wouldn’t you say that availability is one of the best, you know, assets that you can have? You know, so my willingness to do that makes me valuable, versus the next, next shop. It’s like, now we going to have two weeks.
00:07:58:23 – 00:08:25:03
we call that beast mode. So, yeah, you’re you’re willing to go into beast mode for for anyone. And I mean, Chad, I think what’s cool, and we need to get into some backstory here. Chad, bought it, bought acquired a print shop two years ago. Yes. Two. Three. September 1st. And it’s a pretty, would you be willing to share what your revenue was when you bought in?
00:08:25:05 – 00:08:48:22
Absolutely. the last full calendar year was 770. and this year, we’re on track to do about nine and a half. Nice. Congratulations. So nothing. So nothing crazy. But we’re going. Hey, in a in this economy, 20% growth is pretty, pretty awesome. so I think what’s really interesting is you bought into a, you bought a shop.
00:08:49:00 – 00:09:12:02
You also had the owner rollover for, what, six months to a year? you took their old employees. You then inserted yourself as new youth into the business. and now you’re like, re jumpstarting everything, kind of from I, I don’t want to say ground zero, but, like, you’re taking an old fashioned business and modernizing it, which I think is interesting.
00:09:12:04 – 00:09:33:21
we got working together, and. Yeah, we got working together. I don’t know, I think Bruce connected us, and we started working on some different things, but I think there are so many shops that are in your shoes. And I think that’s why we wanted to bring you on, is because some of the stuff that you’re dealing with on a day to day shops can definitely relate to.
00:09:33:23 – 00:09:47:01
If I were to ask you, Chad, what is your role at All Star every day CEO, Chief Everything officer.
00:09:47:03 – 00:10:11:20
and I is, that is a Dave Ramsey thing, but, I can’t steal that. But I thought you listened to Dave Ramsey because he said something. we’re doing better than I deserve or something like that at the beginning. Well, I know that somewhere really pretty humble anyways, but, yeah, it’s getting more specified when you only have, like, 4 or 5 people working, right?
00:10:11:20 – 00:10:32:08
Everybody’s going to do multiple things. but as time goes on, it is getting more specified. I can do admin stuff. I really heavily involved with account managing and inside sales, making sure everything’s right in front of. And, you know, lined up. I’m the main contact with the customer, and now the the girls can handle it.
00:10:32:08 – 00:10:53:07
The other girls that work for me, they can handle it, too. I’ve got them trained up on it now, whereas before and I got a couple stories about how, you know, but before they knew how to work print off, before I trained them, you know, I’d be out on vacation having to do it. but, I’d say mostly customer interaction, account managing, as is my deal.
00:10:53:09 – 00:11:12:13
What are your afternoons like? Oh, I print, yeah, I do a lot of print. And so that’s because of the spot we’re in with the screen print help. you know, our shop’s located in the small town. And, you know, I think finding good help isn’t necessarily just my area. but our hiring pool is a little smaller.
00:11:12:15 – 00:11:32:08
And so, you know, I’ve been, as you know, well know that I’ve been, learning a lot about hiring, recruiting, the right kind of people and not just hiring out of necessity and learning that that’ll get you in trouble. What do you think was the things that you did to, refresh the business? the first I mean, you’re since 2022 is you, let’s call it almost two years in.
00:11:32:10 – 00:11:55:23
It sounds like. Yeah, you know, order entry and standardize. That was one thing. really be proactive with customers going a bit more of the extra mile is another what else? You kind of hit it on the head, you know, just expert customer service. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, there’s times that I mess up, where I get in trouble is I’ll be in the back too much and I won’t respond to an email quick enough.
00:11:55:23 – 00:12:17:11
That’s what really gets me in trouble. And so it goes back to recruiting. Get people to go back there and do it for me, and I can do the more important things and do my job. But, I’d say expert customer service and then implementing shop management software. And of course I use print audio and before all he did was, the previous owner had written tickets and he used QuickBooks.
00:12:17:13 – 00:12:41:14
And so they would write out those tickets and they, they would have, kind of, organization to either be it to be ordered. So somebody comes in and you write down the order, it goes in the to be ordered tray, and then you sit down once per day and batch that and you’d order everything. Then you put it in an order and you’d have wrote down, you know, when you ordered and all that stuff when it comes in, Amy would take it, she would check everything.
00:12:41:14 – 00:13:03:20
And then she put it in screenprint vinyl or embroidery tray. And that means it’s here. It’s ready for production. When it’s done, he would move it over and then go write everything into QuickBooks. I hated that, I absolutely hated that. I wanted it to be in the system the whole time. So as soon as they come in, I’m entering it online.
00:13:03:22 – 00:13:26:13
And then other people, as we grow, they can jump online and see it too. We don’t have to, you know, in case we lose some papers or whatever. And I’m the worst about losing paper. And so I wanted something like that where, everybody could use it. Chad, I want to talk about you. You said something earlier. You said I used to be the one that only knew how to use print ammo, and I was because I like to be customer facing.
00:13:26:15 – 00:13:46:03
I like to be customer facing because that’s where I’m most valuable. and then you said, now I taught others how to do order entry. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yes, I would like to start this. I would like to start this with this little story. And this is what really drove me to, hey, I need to teach them how to do this.
00:13:46:05 – 00:14:08:12
So at New Year’s, I was snowboarding. We were at Wolf Creek, and, you know, it was the day before New Year’s. And, you know, you all well know probably some companies, you know, they got to get their marketing funds released by the end of the year. So they’re trying to get Ahold of me, and there’s like no service on this mountain except for right when you get off the lift, that’s the only spot that you have service.
00:14:08:14 – 00:14:29:23
And, I think if you only have like 15 seconds before your fingers are freezing. Right. So I need to get this quote. And the girls can’t there’s there’s stuff that they’re running into because I haven’t taught them how to do this. Right. for pricing and all this other stuff. And so the only way I can do it and I’ve got the customer, everybody blowing me up about this, and I’m just trying to snowboard, you know?
00:14:29:23 – 00:14:47:01
And I’m terrible at it at this point. It was like my first week, and I’m bust on my butt. Anyways, I get offered to lift snowboard down to a spot where I can sit on my butt. And I opened my print topo app on my phone, and I’m writing this invoice while I’m on the top of the world over there on vacation.
00:14:47:01 – 00:15:12:20
Yeah. And so it was at that point I was like, I’ve got to train somebody else to do this for me because I can’t. I can’t do this in my case. Can you talk, Chad, about, you know, don’t I love that? Yeah. That’s awesome. Can you just because I think if you’ve been skiing or something and you and you’re sitting on the side and you’re like, God damn, like trying to figure it out, you really don’t have much time for your fingers just turned into icicles.
00:15:12:22 – 00:15:41:09
It was. It was just going out. It was freezing because I was sitting on the snow. Yeah, yeah. did you make the sale? You got the sale? The. Yes. Yeah. All right. Good. I want to talk about something that we talked about. Chad, is your employees controlling you or, like, having a lot of shame or guilt, or them saying things like, well, you should be here all day or.
00:15:41:11 – 00:15:58:03
Well, that’s your responsibility, right? So this is how we’ve just done it, or this is how we’ve done it, or this is what Chad needs to do. Right? Can you talk a little bit about the transition that you’ve gone through in the last six months and the mindset shift you’ve had with your team? Because you’ve got a really solid team.
00:15:58:03 – 00:16:24:18
They’ve been there for a minute. They respect you, they love you. What’s your relationship? What was your relationship like with your team? And maybe what is it now? So I think we can, I want to preface this a little bit with, Steve and I kind of, like, broke this down one day. We we we we’re trying to do some stuff, and we had to separate from it for a day and just talk about this stuff, and we contract it back to kind of how it’s brought up.
00:16:24:20 – 00:16:41:17
I’m the youngest, my family. And it was the deal that, you know, somebody would show up with groceries if you weren’t on your feet out there helping them right now like you were in trouble. You were hearing about it. And so it was always about helping the older people or helping somebody else. It was never about you, was always about everybody else.
00:16:41:18 – 00:17:01:01
and there can be really good things that come from that, don’t get me wrong. So coming into business, you know, one lady that works for me, she’s she’s 50 years old. And so I have a hard time telling her what to do. Not that she doesn’t do it. It’s the. In my head, I’m like, who am I to tell her, you know, my senior what to do?
00:17:01:03 – 00:17:24:17
And then the other two girls that work for me, they’re two years younger than me, so they feel like they’re my sisters my age. and, you know, sometimes asking them to do something that’s not like their regular job. I feel like I shouldn’t ask them. So say, if we really need help cleaning screens, I’m thinking in my head like they’re going to tell me no, they’re going to tell me no, that’s not that’s you do it.
00:17:24:17 – 00:17:42:14
You know, they’re going to tell me this. I walked in there one day after Steve and I had this talk and I said, hey, we need to to get to a place. Two more screens right now is playoff season. So we’re going through a ton of them. And I literally said, okay, yeah, I was thinking about doing the same thing and I pitched it, you know, so I’ve got this.
00:17:42:19 – 00:17:59:23
I tell myself these stories in my head real bad about, you know, when to wear their emotions on my sleeve before I even ask them to do something. And odds are what I’ve learned, what I’ve learned is if they’re going to get a little upset of it. Steve kind of taught me this is they’re going to get a little upset.
00:18:00:01 – 00:18:16:06
They might be upset for ten minutes and they’ll get over it. You know, we’re not going to go out and say something rude to them. It’s just asking them to do something. That’s all it is. Ask them for. How did that feel after? Because I, I feel like I do the same. In fact, I do it so much that I have a post here.
00:18:16:06 – 00:18:40:22
Let me show you this. I have a post-it note here. It says, step one give appreciation, then step two give direct feedback. What exactly do you want instead of beating around the bush? Like literally what is the outcome you want? And I put it right here. But how did that feel for you after? Like, did it change or is it a skill that you’re always working towards?
00:18:41:00 – 00:19:05:15
I’m trying to hone it, and this is a key leadership skill that I’m trying to hone and get better at. man, I don’t know how religious y’all are, but you can trace it back to Jesus doing it. there’s examples all over the place. Where you on that post-it note right there that you just had is you give the praise and the recognition first, and then you’re going to critique him, ask him to do something after that.
00:19:05:17 – 00:19:24:13
unless it’s just so bad that you can’t praise him for anything, and then you just got to get that business. You know, maybe there’s other problems there. Yeah, right. yeah. But do you have that? Stephen? I feel like you’re more direct out of all of us, but do you still. Do you still have that? shit.
00:19:24:13 – 00:19:48:00
Yeah. Like you feel guilt or shame like, before you even, you know, it’s like, sometimes, like writing a, you know, a job. And then I remember before I would just knock it down before I even send it off. It was like, oh, my. Negotiating with just myself. Yeah. I think our perception of what our employees think is completely different than what they actually think.
00:19:48:00 – 00:20:08:01
Sometimes. and I think, Chad, you know, going off on that, there was this expectation that you had to be in there every single day. And if I’m not in there, they’re gonna be like, what’s the owner doing? He should be in there. How did that change? Or what did you do? You know, I think it starts with putting it out there and labeling the situation first.
00:20:08:03 – 00:20:23:19
And, you know, making it known what you’re trying to achieve. And then they can kind of get on board with it. But if they think you’re just they don’t know why you’re not there, then they think you’re just being lazy. They’re working hard, but you’re not. That’s what’s almost in some people’s mind. Or that’s still just in my head.
00:20:23:21 – 00:20:41:01
But if they know that, hey, if I’m trying to get in here and then I’m going to leave so that I can do focused work because I can’t really do it here, they’ll understand that. But I think it starts with putting it out there first, making sure everybody’s on the same page. You get by and about it first.
00:20:41:03 – 00:21:03:13
so easy for me to talk about it today. Tell me you did that kind of hard or did you just end up, like, learning it out or. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And, you know, if I bring in something new, I’m not sure how they’re going to react to it. I’m nervous as I get out and I don’t know that they know that, but I’m just I can feel the bugs, you know, the butterflies in my stomach about, like, what are they going to say?
00:21:03:15 – 00:21:38:17
Sometimes we convince ourselves out of ideas or we convince ourselves for the other party before we even actually try it, you know? or we. Yeah, we just, like, over rationalize it or we overthink it. And then, if we actually played it out, it might not be that that same situation. One thing, Chad, that like when you started to make this transition where you’re like, I’m not going to reclaim the screens, I’m going to deliver bad news, and I’m not going to be here as much.
00:21:38:19 – 00:22:06:04
And that’s not your problem. That’s mine. how did you ensure that when you left, shit didn’t hit the fan? Like, did you put any things in place, you know, so that this whole snowboarding thing doesn’t happen again, right. Like, what are some of the things that you are doing consciously, with your team, you know, to give them the autonomy for you not to be there?
00:22:06:06 – 00:22:24:18
I think preparation and going through scenarios before you leave for a week. And so like, if I can, I can try to leave for a morning and leave for a day and then see how that goes before I leave for a week. And it’s almost like practice in a sense. It’s like, okay, I’m going to prepare this screen for it, or I’m going to training really, really good.
00:22:24:20 – 00:22:49:11
I’m going to go run errands for the rest of the day. I’m gonna let you do it now. Amy. Still in charge over there whenever I’ve gone. So she’s I mean, there is still quality control. Like, if he has a problem, there’s still somebody to go to for some questions before they come to me. but I’d say just thinking about every possible scenario that can come up while you’re gone, training them for those scenarios.
00:22:49:13 – 00:23:12:15
I think I think that’s, how it goes and then letting them doing it. The hardest part is letting them mess up. That’s the hardest part for me. And I’m sure y’all can identify with it, but they have to right way more. I still have, tough times with that. even just like I was just sharing a screenshot with Steven of like an email formatting, which I was like, not just let it go.
00:23:12:15 – 00:23:36:18
I don’t need to be in this. It’s fine. I I’ll text you about it’s fine. And then I literally like five minutes later, respond back to the person like, hey, this isn’t formatted right. Can you, can you fix this for the next one? But I know I shouldn’t have done that. Like, but letting it fully go, especially if it’s a customer interaction.
00:23:36:20 – 00:23:58:16
I don’t know. Have you been able to like, other than. I mean, I guess you could just sign out and, like, literally just delete it and then it’s gone, and then you can’t do much about it, or you sign out of the slack, or you’re not checking certain things, but, I don’t know. the saying that I have is the best problems you don’t find out about because they fix themselves, right?
00:23:58:16 – 00:24:16:04
And the worst ones are when no one wants to fix it, and then it ends up on your desk. Right. And you’re the last one to know. but I think there’s some wisdom there, like Chad, something I think you did with Amy is like, there was a day you sat down with her and you put her in charge.
00:24:16:04 – 00:24:42:06
You’re like, I’m going to lay out your job here, and I’m going to write what you are responsible for. and even though you guys have, like, not a crazy operation, 4 or 5 employees, you still wrote it down and gave it to her. And that, at least is something documented where she knows I’m in charge, you know, and I think there’s there’s a lot to be said there, even if you’re a small shop having job descriptions.
00:24:42:08 – 00:25:04:03
like something cool that Chad has it at a shop is every almost every employee has a job description. And it’s it’s pretty cool because you can now you can duplicate it. You can just rinse, repeat it. Right. so I think that I think there’s a lot of wisdom there. Bruce, real quick on the on the situation, you said that the problems like fix themselves.
00:25:04:03 – 00:25:23:13
So Alex she’s our graphics. I.t. Girl. she is she is a natural problem solver. And I have found through trying to recruit people that you can’t find those everywhere. Those are rare. And so if something’s going wrong, she’s not going to ask you first. She’s going to go try to figure it out. And I really, really value having those people there.
00:25:23:13 – 00:25:43:22
And so it’s it gives me confidence in her. Another thing, that was impactful for me was, Chris Maki has talking to him one day and we’re on the phone. He’s out at lunch and I’m like, what’s going on the shop? You know, just and he said, they’ve got a big job going on right now. So I like to go out to lunch and let them figure it out.
00:25:44:00 – 00:26:11:03
I’m like, whoa. You know, at the time when I was talking to him, I was still pretty new and I just thought that was powerful. I was like, and he trust him that much that if they mess up a big job, I mean, they should be costly. But he knows that they’ve got to figure it out. What do you think like as a as a leader now you know finishing out this year into next year is the one thing that you want to try to improve.
00:26:11:06 – 00:26:33:06
Is it that letting go or is it leveling up or is it the hiring side. Or like what like what do you think is your big focus? I would say recruiting and then training and empowering other people to do their job without assistance or to to problem solve as much as they can without anybody else’s help. Before they go to somebody else.
00:26:33:08 – 00:26:59:08
Chad, you use the word recruiting, not hiring. Why do you use recruiting? That’s a Steve. Steve word. There’s a silver. wait. Explain the difference. Chad, go down this journey of what you’ve been doing as a recruiting. Because I feel like a lot of people need to hear this. So, before we would post on Facebook, we would post, you know, a sign outside saying that we’re hiring.
00:26:59:10 – 00:27:15:12
And then, you know, we get a few applicants because you don’t get a lot of visibility that a way. But we would we would get a few applicants, and then I would just kind of help you to choose the best one that I thought was the best one. And you’re kind of hiring in society at that point and you’re not and, you know, listen to plenty of podcasts.
00:27:15:12 – 00:27:33:23
We’re just talking about how that’s a huge no, no, because you end up paying for it in the long run. If you get them hired on and they only work out for three weeks, you might as well have just not hired them as desperate as we get or just let let $2,000 on fire. Yeah, yeah. I’d rather see fireworks go up in there or something.
00:27:33:23 – 00:28:00:10
Right. But, working with Steve, we had to stop one day and just work on recruiting. And so we had a post on indeed. And I had, like 150 applicants. And then, you know, I narrowed it down to about 10 to 15 that I wanted to talk to. And then I hired one. My mistake there was that I still thought I had to hire one out of those ones that I talked to.
00:28:00:12 – 00:28:22:00
And, you know, he came on and works for a few weeks and he got in some trouble outside of work, and it didn’t work out. But, anyways, now I know the process of doing that, which is going to serve me for the rest of my employer career. It’s interesting because when we started the recruiting process, recruiting is the highest form of sales.
00:28:22:02 – 00:28:46:12
I’ll say it again, recruiting is the highest form of sales. And, if you’re a great recruiter, you’re a great salesperson, because if you can convince people to come work for you, then you can convince people to buy from you. something that I see in the industry that happens is that we are hiring desperately, and that we’re not casting a wide enough net to get as many possible leads early on in our recruiting process.
00:28:46:14 – 00:29:08:05
And so, you know, what ends up happening is we will post on Instagram, but we’ll say you have to email me at this address if you want to apply, and I’ll be like, you’re not supposed to be testing them right now. You’re just getting leads. You’re just getting leads. Why don’t we try to get 150 people in our funnel and then whittle them down and then test them right.
00:29:08:07 – 00:29:28:09
And so I think what’s cool there, though, Chad, is you realize that, hey, if you pay some money, you put some stuff on. And indeed there are hundreds of people that want jobs. Now it’s just a little sales pipeline. And you ran a process. I think what’s what’s really funny is, you did a phone interview on the call with me.
00:29:28:11 – 00:29:48:23
and what we learned is like doing phone interviews isn’t easy. It’s awkward. How do you ask the right questions? How do you do this? How do you do that? And now, when you recruit, you just. You recruit so much smarter. and so I think the interview question that you ask that helps chit chat where you’re with a lot of what are your what are your banger questions?
00:29:49:01 – 00:30:07:17
Hey y’all. I’m so much of a talker, you can probably already say that. I just try to feel them out and I try to see if they have any motivation. But one thing that I look for, I don’t know if I necessarily have one question that I ask at that point to this out, but I want to look for is they are blaming themselves or one somebody else for where they’re at if they start blaming everybody else.
00:30:07:21 – 00:30:30:23
I didn’t get along with the boss before. that one’s always a red flag alert. Yeah. And, man, all the time you’ll see people come in and they’re like, oh, so-and-so did this. This happened because then this happened because of them. I’ve always been the type of I’m blaming myself too much before I start blaming anybody else. And I don’t think I can hire me, but I don’t want somebody is going to blame everybody else.
00:30:30:23 – 00:30:53:16
Because what happens when I come back and they mess something up and they just blame other circumstances? I can’t teach that person a thing. How do you sift out the motivation part of a phone call? I look for energy. I don’t think I had this honed in quite yet, but I really look for energy. If I’m talking to somebody and they have like no motivation to even talk to me, why do I want them in my place of work?
00:30:53:16 – 00:31:10:05
You know, I want people to be happy that I work there, I want, and whenever I walk in, I want to feel good about that person. The last thing that I want and I’ve had, this is where I walk in, and I dread talking to that employee like, I want to be excited to come see what’s a joke, you know, I’ll scream for it and be I want to be excited to be with them.
00:31:10:06 – 00:31:28:00
And so I kind of like, do you have any banger? You have any banger question. Stephen. So when you’re recruiting, the phone interview is to screen and qualify your candidates. Do you have reliable transportation? Do you have your head on straight? Are you a convicted felon? Are we willing to talk to you? You know, like, it’s just a sifting.
00:31:28:00 – 00:31:43:14
It’s a quick sift. You’re not supposed to be digging too much in a phone interview. It should be 15 minutes long. It should be pretty quick, pretty brief. And in 15 minutes, you should know. Do I like this person enough to bring him in? You don’t start hitting them with the hard, committed questions of why are you the best team player you know?
00:31:43:14 – 00:32:00:19
Or where are you going to show up to work every day? It’s it’s all just qualifying them and sniffing them out. Once you bring them in, that’s where you have more of a behavioral interview. You’re asking harder hitting questions. You’re asking questions like, you know, I can teach you skill, but I can’t teach you effort and attitude.
00:32:01:00 – 00:32:16:17
Why do you have the effort and attitude here to be successful? Right. you know, timeliness is really important to me. how do I know that you’re going to show up on time every single day? Or are you going to be the person that, that calls in sick? Right. And you kind of scare them in that, in that in person.
00:32:16:19 – 00:32:31:07
And then after that, you do the working interview where it’s like, hey, I need you to come out here for a couple hours, I’ll pay you. And, we need to see if you’re a good culture fit here. And that’s where you’re watching for things like neatness. The questions they ask, are they annoying? Do you like them? Do you not like them?
00:32:31:09 – 00:32:52:11
To see if, like, I want this person, I want this person here every day. And if you can do those three things, you can you can hire pretty quickly. they you can’t miss a step, though. I think, in my opinion. Was that banger enough? Bruce, I like that someone, told me before, when you’re interviewing as an owner, you generally very optimistic.
00:32:52:11 – 00:33:27:04
We’re all overly optimistic in what we do, and we make it happen over time. In interviewing, you got to be actually the opposite. You got to be pessimistic. You got to look for the red flags. Because what happens is, is will say, I don’t know. I think like that. You know, I think we can maybe train that person or I’ll give it a shot or whatever, but hunting for red flags and like the soccer like referees, like pulling up the the yellow card or red card or whatever, that help stop me, waste a lot of time from potential bad ones because all the ones I have like I’ll take a shot on.
00:33:27:04 – 00:33:46:02
It’s just the probabilities are too high. It doesn’t work out. All right. So, Chad, you said a red flag on the phone is bad energy if they’re not talkative, if they don’t call you on time, if they’re like mopey or whatever, that’s a red flag on the phone. What’s a red flag when you’re looking at resumes? Yeah. And short employment history.
00:33:46:04 – 00:34:04:06
because y’all well know that, anybody listening to this is going to know I can’t train somebody screenprint in one week. I can train them how to pull a shirt off the press in a week. You know, that’s pretty easy. I could train to do that really quick, but it’s. I need somebody to operate it. Press most of the stuff back there, take some training, takes some experience.
00:34:04:08 – 00:34:19:22
And so if they’re going to come in and work for me for six months, you know, I may have just got them official at six months. You know, I can I can train somebody to work without me and probably 46 weeks. But it takes some months, y’all know, to to actually get proficient at what you’re doing. And that’s pretty much anything.
00:34:20:00 – 00:34:38:11
but if they’re only coming to work for, for a place for six months to a year, was it really worth devoting all that time into them? And so if I’m looking at their resume and I see a bunch of different jobs and each one is six months a year, then I’m really kind of just skipping on to the next one.
00:34:38:11 – 00:34:55:16
I want to see 2 to 3 years at each place. I don’t even care what the job is. Could be Burger King. Could you stay somewhere for 3 to 4 years? Because if you stay there for 3 to 4 years, they liked you enough. You know, you did a good enough job to be there. You didn’t get fired.
00:34:55:18 – 00:35:21:04
Something must have gone right. But the job hoppers. What is it? What do you consider job hopping? Because sometimes I have seen I mean, we we had one really good team member who, you know, had a three sort of year stint. And he turned out to be great. And he explained it, though he explained, like, you know, one closed down, you know, this year that is a year a hop.
00:35:21:04 – 00:35:56:00
Is it six months. Is it three. Like, was we talking to engineers or hourly employees? That a bit of both. My example was an engineer. Okay I think we’re talking hourly employees. But a year for me for an engineer is a huge red flag. Yes. I think a year is a red flag. So what? What’s considered job hopping for an hourly person that you would red flag the resume if they have, if they have ten years of work experience and they’ve had eight jobs, that’s a problem.
00:35:56:02 – 00:36:27:05
Okay. What about but you know, most folks maybe in the three years work experience, four years work experience, 3 or 4 jobs, I mean, if if someone’s at a place for 2 to 4 years, in my opinion, that’s good. It’s the like six months to a year. You know, I started, I started October 2021 and, I was done July 2022, you know, and you just you just see them, cycling back and forth, I think for the unfortunately.
00:36:27:07 – 00:36:45:10
Yeah. Go ahead to the employees, wouldn’t you? I’ll say that it’s almost more common to see the job hoppers than it is the people that have a longer tenure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, from my experience, I’ve been seeing more of those. Right. And look, you can look at age, you can look at like where they’re at in life. Right.
00:36:45:10 – 00:37:04:12
If you’ve got like a 24 year old and they’ve just done odd jobs and they’re a good person and they’re looking to sink their teeth into something fine, right? Sometimes it’s like, I’m looking to make that career move. Move fine, right. There’s always edge cases. but I think to your point, Chad, if you were going to pour into someone, you have to be very careful.
00:37:04:14 – 00:37:25:14
and so maybe if there’s a job hopper that you like, maybe they’re just folding shirts, you know, you’re making them earn that before you put them on press. I want to talk about, Bruce Willis some time to talk about stickers. let’s do it. I think we got a good, difference of opinions here, which is good, because I have my own pros and cons to this chat.
00:37:25:14 – 00:37:48:15
Did you see this sticker mule email campaign that went out recently? Okay. So you’ve heard of Sticker Mule though, right? You have lost me. all right. Basically sticker Malcolm you can order they have a lot more than stickers now, but they started off on stickers incredibly short process. as far as ordering. And I think that’s why they’ve really gained a lot of growth.
00:37:48:17 – 00:38:12:20
huge company now out in the York area. We had the founder on Anthony. who who’s like, really runs the business his way. You know, he’s got he’s customized printers. He’s got like engineers on staff that have literally customize it to his specific orders. He said, you know, I should give a preface that he’s known for doing more controversial marketing things with the business.
00:38:12:20 – 00:38:31:04
I mean, they they again, they, they run it their way. They sent an email out and Bruce, they’re probably we don’t know their revenue. They could be $100 million company easily I think easily, easily, easily. We’re talking like thousands of employees. They’re all over the internet. They’re arguably like the biggest sticker company. I think that I know. Right.
00:38:31:04 – 00:38:50:08
Yeah. with the best technology and the best turnaround times and like, the product is really good. They send you hot sauce in every order. Right? it’s election season, right? People are heated. Thanksgiving is is, and family outings is a maybe a little, you know, you want to step, you don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.
00:38:50:08 – 00:39:15:00
And actually, in our families, we just don’t talk about politics because of that, especially right now. and it brings an interesting conversation into the workplace as far as that. Coming up in the workplace sticker, you sent out an email the other day that I’ll read just some snippets. Hello, Donald Trump was shot. I don’t care what your political views are, but the hate for Trump and his supporters have gone too far.
00:39:15:05 – 00:39:33:19
People are terrified to admit that they support Trump. Americans shouldn’t fear I support Trump. Many at Sticker Mill also support Biden. The political hate needs to stop. By the way, this week, get one shirt for $4 only 19. I suggest you buy one that shows you support Trump. And so I need you guys out for a little bit.
00:39:33:21 – 00:39:55:07
Vocalize your support. Stop the hate. Sincerely, Anthony co-founder and the Sticker Mule. And then was the bottom of the email says, like if you want to for controversy, go to Twitter. What do you say? Yeah, yeah. that was wasn’t there too. But for some reason I don’t have them. Good job. But yeah, I was like, you know, this isn’t, you know, stop hating on each other.
00:39:55:07 – 00:40:25:02
The more controversy is meant for Twitter X or whatever. and the subject of the email was Trump 2024. So this is a naturally good conversation, especially because we follow this company called Base Camp who two years ago said, look, work time is for work related things. We don’t want to talk about political things here at all, like we only have a good six, maybe eight hours of work time here.
00:40:25:07 – 00:40:44:08
I don’t want you to bring up all this personal stuff going on and, and current events and these types of things. Don’t put it on work channels. And half the company quit out of, I think 50 half of them left because they were like, well, you know, it’s work life. This is our life. Like we want to talk about this stuff.
00:40:44:12 – 00:41:06:03
You know, it was like, look, you could talk about it. It could be our grabbing coffee at lunch, whatever, but not on work related channels. Let’s just focus on work. So I have some pros and cons here. what I thought, I mean, I think there’s a couple of obvious ones, but I’m curious if your guys’s opinion. This is a bold play, right?
00:41:06:05 – 00:41:31:22
In a way where it’s either a genius marketing campaign and now they’re on MSN, they’re on, you know, Fox, they’re out. They’re all over. It’s viral on social channels and so on. but it probably also makes, I’d say half of the team maybe feel alienated and or customers. what do you guys think? You want to, Stephen chat?
00:41:31:22 – 00:41:57:02
Who wants to go first? So you talk. I read this. Go ahead. Jed, what are you gonna say? I was. Where are you talking? More focused on the email you sent or what he said, and, yeah, the email. Like, would you ever blast your customers out that would you ever take your personal opinions and put it through the universe and send it out to the world, and then basically make that your company’s thing?
00:41:57:04 – 00:42:14:20
we, we kind of stay away from politics because you may have somebody that comes in that orders a ton of stuff from you, and you didn’t know that they support a button, and then you put a Trump deal out there and maybe they go somewhere else. I just want to stay away from that. I’m a strong in my beliefs, but nobody else has to believe the way that I do.
00:42:14:22 – 00:42:34:09
now, when it comes to, you know, I might put something, you know, a Bible verse up there in my business. Not that’s something I’m going to hold strong to. But as far as politics, I really don’t think the workplace has room for it, to be honest with you. Yeah, I think his his move was a like.
00:42:34:09 – 00:42:52:06
I think it was an evil genius marketing move. I think he knows his demographic. I think he knows what’s going to come out of it. And I think he’s creating all of this buzz so that, like, the printing industry can cancel him. He can get more leads and sell more stickers, and he can kind of like feel strong, stronger in his beliefs.
00:42:52:06 – 00:43:12:14
Because if those are his beliefs, fine. But I do think I almost feel like it was a crazy marketing play. Bruce, do you think that I mean, you could probably run the numbers if he said I would churn a third, but we would gain more than that because of all of the mentions and because maybe that, you know, his bait.
00:43:12:18 – 00:43:35:02
I mean, he does mention both. He’s like, look, our team supports both sides, but we don’t want political hate here. It came off as a lot more aggressive than that, though. I’m on your side though. Chad, I think you know, as much as, Anthony’s definitely a very sharp business person and marketer. This was a bold play.
00:43:35:04 – 00:43:58:02
I mean, this this was a very bold bet. And like. Yeah, but, like, why I don’t I don’t, I don’t understand, especially when you’ve got an incredibly, you know, growing, profitable business. What was the, what was the point of making that bet? Well, now, granted, the opportunity given given recent events, he was like, this is on people’s minds and I don’t know.
00:43:58:02 – 00:44:16:17
But the good thing about it is that he chose unity. He didn’t side because siding is where you would get in trouble. But if you were going to try to bring people together, then I can see, you know, good things coming out of that. It was, together. But yeah, you know. Yeah, yeah, but but then he doubled down on it.
00:44:16:19 – 00:44:41:17
and you know what? Like, I think Anthony’s been he’s more in the tech world. I think he’s been part of some, you know, some different companies and some things, like in, in Elon’s world, I don’t know if it’s like social media. I think he’s tried to start a a social network or something like that. So I imagine the way he influences or thinks about the world from a marketing standpoint, social influence standpoint is just different.
00:44:41:18 – 00:45:07:19
I think it was. So it came out of left field. I had a couple employees fired my way and say, like, I don’t feel like we should be ordering from them anymore. and, at Campus Inc, like, we’re we’re a very, like, understanding company. We have a very, our, our production facility is down in central Illinois, and our sales and marketing and offices are up in Chicago.
00:45:07:19 – 00:45:43:22
So completely different demographics, different generations, different political affiliations, different religions, you name it. and we have like a mutual respect to just respect what people believe. Don’t push it on anyone else if you want to talk about it. And it’s not aggressive and it’s it’s cordial. Like we don’t really, you know, police it, but, we don’t we, we just don’t tolerate, like, crap that could put someone else down if, there’s an employee there that is dealing with something that you have no idea about, you know what I mean?
00:45:43:22 – 00:46:01:19
Like, that’s the stuff that I don’t like is, you know, if you’re talking about, you know, abortion rights or something like that, like, you don’t know who’s in the room, you don’t know who’s dealt with whatever. And like, why are you to just say that in your place of work and then you make your place of work uncomfortable, regardless of what side of the aisle you’re on.
00:46:01:19 – 00:46:25:14
It doesn’t doesn’t really matter. Matter. But I just think, like, as business owners, we have the opportunity to have a family kitchen table and to have healthy and happy conversations. And it doesn’t need to be polarizing or hate or whatever. I, I don’t know, what do you think, Bruce? How do you respond if staffs like. Well, we should we should buy from someone else.
00:46:25:16 – 00:46:47:14
I take it into consideration, you know, I think that’s where I have to align and say like, you know, do I want to make a business decision here? Am I willing to look past it? Is it going to be a continuing problem? How is it going to affect our brand? Right. Like, because we, we, we dropship sticker mule to a lot of people.
00:46:47:18 – 00:47:06:07
Right? And if that comes back and bites me in the butt. Yeah, I might be a little annoyed. You know, maybe I’m maybe gonna look somewhere else. Right? The ordering process is really simple, though, and it’s cheap and it’s fast. So like, I do take that stuff into consideration and I just let them know, like, I hear you, I understand I’m going to make a decision based on it.
00:47:06:07 – 00:47:37:06
And I just need to respect because it is my company. Right. but I don’t necessarily I don’t democratize my business. I still own it, you know? Yeah. I feel like after watching, you know, was it Bud Light or. They’re like one of the beer companies, you know, getting involved in politics and and I think that was, the more, like, gender identity stuff and Disney trying to pick sides and it just feels to me like an unnecessary risk.
00:47:37:06 – 00:47:56:02
But again, I know Anthony’s more of a mad scientist and, and likes to do things his way, so I appreciate that, too. the two crazy how it plays out. Yeah. Bold move. It’s crazy how many sticker companies responded differently. Right. Like we’ll do this without hey, we’ll do this. Well, this is so it’s like, I feel like he knew what he’s doing.
00:47:56:02 – 00:48:14:12
He’s like, I’m just going to like this fire year and see what happens. And when things go good, you get definite. You can take more risk. And, you know, things have gone good for a long time. For them, it seems so. Anyway, I thought it was, pretty cool. We don’t have enough controversy in in our industry, so.
00:48:14:13 – 00:48:38:03
Yeah, we can get controversy. You want controversy? no, I’m just getting. Yeah. Red versus blue versus green. Let’s go. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. Relax, relax. Now it’s fun. Yeah. people are super sensitive right now. Yeah. maybe we can try to get Anthony on. You think he’ll come back on and talk about it?
00:48:38:05 – 00:49:02:02
Bruce, I’m sure every news outlet is just like, oh, shoot him a message. Shoot him a message. I will, I appreciate you guys reaching out yet. If folks want to have questions, can they shoot you an email? Absolutely. just chat. And also, our best apparel icon. That’s a long, our Instagram is also good. Our Instagram is all star custom purple.
00:49:02:04 – 00:49:27:07
yeah. And, we’re really trying to grow the social media before, you know, there really wasn’t much social media presence at all. And so now one of the girls who works for me, I don’t point at her to to take care of it. And, she’s thriving at it. She likes doing it. And so she’s she’s still answer DMs if, if, if a shop slides in your DMs to tell you, how great you are, you’ll answer and and I do it to other shops.
00:49:27:09 – 00:49:45:05
y’all had in the zone on one time and I followed them. And just the other day I reached out to them about some stuff about their shop that I thought was awesome. And, you know, they came back to me with like a novel about what they do. And I was more than willing to talk about it and, and to share their process.
00:49:45:05 – 00:50:02:23
And I was like, that’s fantastic. I think there needs to be more of that in the space. and the more you get to know people, it seems like they’re willing to share their stuff. So Steve’s hooked me up with a couple people, in the industry that, you know, I’ve been able to talk to and, learn about their business, and then I’ve been able to share stuff onto them to help them.
00:50:03:01 – 00:50:30:04
the previous owner in my business, he didn’t have any, maybe like one contact that was in the industry that he talked to. It was pretty much just his deal. And, and so, you know, you all have been a good outlet to meet other people in the industry. The first thing we haven’t really talked about acquisition or anything like that, but like the first thing that I did when I acquire the business is I looked, I searched up screen printing podcast, and I found print.
00:50:30:06 – 00:50:47:13
that’s how I come across Print Dollar. Is it the number one? Is it the number one screen printing podcast in the world? Not even, don’t give me the line. Is it the is it the number one screen printing podcast? Actually, it does not come up. First you have to actually hunt for. Okay, Dylan, it is Andy, do you hear it?
00:50:47:13 – 00:51:07:17
We’re going to label it that. Yeah. I’m just saying we have to hunt for it. It’s, Chad, it’s a cool. It’s a cool network that we have. It’s a fun family. I always say we’re all coworkers. We’re dealing with the same shit every single day. firing, hiring, managing, printing, you know, chief everything, officer. And, this has been awesome.
00:51:07:17 – 00:51:26:04
I’m excited for you. Because, I was in your shoes, and I in the same as the same exact footprint, with, like, the same exact type of business partner. And, it’s going to be cool to watch your journey. We’re going to have to set a date a couple of years from now and come back on and visit and talk about how it is.
00:51:26:04 – 00:51:46:02
So yeah, hopefully by then you’ll be in our new, new building and, everything I’m working on closing on a lot right now to build us a new building. And, you know, I’m, I’m excited for what’s to come. The road to a for Chad. Thanks for joining us and being transparent. Appreciate it. Hey, protesters. We appreciate you guys joining us for another week.
00:51:46:04 – 00:52:04:06
And we’ll see you next week. Hopefully you’ll be able to pull something out. And we love keeping to be able to share with you. All right. Thanks for supporting. Bye guys. Thanks so much for listening. Hopefully that was informative. Don’t forget to subscribe. Don’t forget to like, don’t forget to hit the bell for notifications if you enjoyed this video.
00:52:04:06 – 00:52:17:02
If you enjoy all the stuff we’re putting out, it’s really helpful. We love to just be able to see it. That means that we’re doing a good job to subscribe, hit the bell for notifications and hit the like button and I’ll see you in the next episode. Bye!
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