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Women in Screen Printing Award winner Christy Shellenberger joins us on the podcast today to talk about her journey in merging and co-owning a print shop. We discuss what considerations you should make when merging, our thoughts on Impressions Long beach, and some low...
Zapier.com is an incredibly useful tool when automating your shop. You are able to use Zapier to connect Printavo to thousands of other apps out there. An example is exporting customer data to MailChimp when you create a new customer in Printavo. Or, set up a Zap to take new contact form submissions from GravityForm on your website, to Printavo as new Quotes. This saves your time lots of data entry time.
In this video example, we’re going to run through how to setup Zapier for both those examples!
Campus Ink grew 150% in a year. They were using paper invoices and an unknown workflow. Steven bought into the business ready to take things into overdrive. The shop didn’t have an understanding of how long it took to complete a job. Quoting, approvals, collecting payment, and shipping was slow in their business.
Steven’s main goal was to increase turnaround time. “How can we speed up quoting, approvals and printing? ”
1️⃣
He first started documenting the current workflow of their shop. The idea was to systematize the business. Create a process that everyone can follow and publish it in the shop. This will help new-hires too.
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The next step he did was to introduce technology to make this process a lot more efficient. Steven got everyone on Printavo to remove paper trails and increase transparency in the business. He got sales reps using text messages to receive approvals faster.
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Increase sales from existing relationships. He took his five top student customers and asked them to send referrals. They started sending so much business that he hired them to do outside sales. Steven sent a monthly email (using MailChimp.com), from his email address to all customers to make sure Campus Ink stayed at the top of customers’ mind. He also sent out surveys to customers to continually change his business and adjust to what customers needed.
4️⃣
Steven branded himself as “Steven the tshirt guy” in everyone, business cards, on the phone, email, etc. This helped people remember where to get customer garments as they needed it.
As a shop owner, you may be doing all the design work after hours or in between jobs to keep up with the daily flow of your business. Sending proofs, creating separations, printing film and time behind the computer can drain your time as an owner. A decision to hire …
#PrinthustlersConf2018 was a success! Don’t miss out on our early bird special for next year’s conference! Buy tickets here!
There were lots of amazing speakers that spoke on a variety of topics including branding, Facebook marketing, the culture of your shop, and even following your dreams! Here is a summary of the conference!
Wow! What an amazing weekend we had in Chicago for PrintHustlers Conf 2018. It was great to see our community come together for a weekend of collaboration and fun. All the talks were action packed with tangibles and great takeaways. In case you missed it, or want to build off …
Wrapping up final preparations for #PrinthustlersConf2018! We’re so excited to see everyone at this years sold out event. 14 speakers, 2 days, lots of tees, sandwiches and drinks galore.
Hiring is difficult. Finding the right people, training them and having them stay for the long haul is not easy. Justin from @barrelmakerprinting talks about how he hires.
Justin dives into hiring on the back-office and front-office to balance on the workload.
He generally posts on Craiglist to find talent but actually looks for people who don’t have printing experience. This is because they can be trained and molded into the workflow at Barrel Maker instead of bringing bad habits from the past.
Justin hires for personality and attitude. A person who’s willing to work hard and put in the time, he feels, is better than someone with past printing experience.
Temp agencies are another hot topic that Justin has used to help scale his shop up and down depending on workload.
Take a listen and let us know how you hire!
Dru Dalton explains how he balances spending time with his family and his career. He gives us tips on how to balance everything.
We’ll dive into:
-Self-Care tips
-How Focus Helps you Become a Better Leader
-How to Balance Work-Life
Getting Facebook Ads to work can be difficult. But they’re crucial for driving targeted marketing campaigns. The reason is, you can segment your market very specifically while spending less than AdWords on similar ads.
@rocketshirts has Facebook Ads figured out. Here are some tips they give us:
Spend $20/day for 1 week. The longer your ad runs, the more Facebook works. He’s even tried $1,000 a day and cut it off early to trick Facebook into showing your ad more quickly.
Shoot to break even on Facebook marketing. This will generate more custom shirt sales after the initial retail sale. Your goal should be awareness.
Focus on building up your Facebook page as it gives more exposure via each friend network. Every time someone likes the page, it shows up on their newsfeed for their friends to see.
Are you valuing your time? As your print shop become more mature, it’s important to value time. When we all got started, time was plentiful and capital wasn’t.
As revenue increases, time becomes more valuable. What are you spending this time on?
If you presses aren’t running, it’s becoming more expensive to print your jobs. Any time spends in pre and post-production is costing your shop $$$.
How long are approvals taking? These are one of the most common delays in your production process. How long are customer approvals taking? This can affect your scheduling and how consistent of job flow you’re reaching. How about production approvals? If your production manager isn’t present and the press is held up, your expenses are increasing.
Setup time and tear-down time? Automatic reclaiming and direct-to-screen machines can keep your supply chain running smoothly. Adding more screens into inventory and regularly checking tension can time-sucking tears.
Have more time-saving tips? Post them below!
Should I build or buy shop management software?
We get the question a lot actually. Many shop owners with technical backgrounds are capable of building something completely customer so why not?
I’m going to answer this question unbiasedly for you. This question comes down to focus. As a shop owner, you only have so many hours in a day. Every minute of your day is important and valuable to the business.
Buying any shop management solution, like Printavo, is going to suit 80-90% of your needs as a business. No tool on the market will be able to satisfy 100% of what you’re looking for. The reason is, Printavo has to be simple enough for thousands of shops to utilize. As we continue to push forward as a software company, we will get closer to that 100% but will never reach it. But realize, we are 100% focused on improvements. Our constant iterations are zeroed in on making the best shop management solution so you can focus on growing your print shop.
Building a shop management tool entails that same amount of effort. Maintenance, iteration, and improvements. Just like any new project, building a custom shop management solution is like an iceberg. The top can be visibly seen and doesn’t look too bad. But underwater is where the mass is.
Creeping projects scopes, delayed deadlines and expensive software development is just the beginning of getting a version 1 completed. Don’t forget about hosting and maintenance down the road. Does your custom solution integrate with email marketing software, a POS system, accounting tools or Google Apps?
As technology changes, you want to be on the cutting edge of it to drive your print shop forward. Pick wisely!
Justin Moore describes how he got his first 60,000 Shirt Order and how important big print jobs are to expand your screen-printing shop.
We’ll dive into:
-How important it is to have a professional website
-Word of Mouth will help your print shop succeed
-How to Get Referrals
-Facebook Ads
