Justin Lawrence joins us on the show to talk all things Print Hustlers! We chat about the speakers that will be attending and what we hope to learn and experience while we’re there!
- 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
00:00:04:06 – 00:00:29:10
Mr. Justin Lawrence is back again. This episode we are talking about, Print Hustlers Conf 2024 and what to look forward to. This year it is November 2nd through fourth in Cleveland, Ohio. A great venue, actually, really great venue at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Not only are we going to see you there, but you’re going to be able to use this coupon code, Hustlers24, to get you a little bit off your order or your ticket.
00:00:29:14 – 00:00:50:03
And today we’re going to talk a lot about the different speakers are going to be there. Now why is Justin Lawrence on this episode? Well, he is hosting. He runs an incredible shop out of Oklahoma City, and I think he is definitely a fan favorite of the pod as well. You know, he shares so much and it’s just really transparent, which helps a lot of other people as well.
00:00:50:03 – 00:01:14:04
So before we jump into the episode, we’ve got some incredible sponsors that are always helping put this show together. First up is GraphX Source. If you need a solution to help improve efficiency and reduce costs in your art department, GraphX offers industry leading outsourcing options for your shop by truly becoming a part of the team. The plug and play with printable or another shop management software.
00:01:14:06 – 00:01:36:10
And when it comes to apps, mock ups, creative art, order management, digitizing customer service or back office admin, there’s no better company in our industry to work with. I’ve got 30 years in the game plus and they’ve been working with a ton of shops. Campus ink, I think has six GraphX artist, so that is really cool. Engine print travel pad two for two.
00:01:36:10 – 00:01:59:06
Get 50% off your first vector step or digitized order. Easiway. If you’re spending hours cleaning dirty screens or someone else’s, hopefully not you as a thing. In the past with easy screen printing and screen cleaning chemicals, their innovative formulas are designed to work quickly and effectively so you can spend less time cleaning and more time creating. Plus Easiways.
00:01:59:06 – 00:02:27:21
Passionate about empowering printers of all skill levels. They are an incredible partner in your shop. Next up, DGI apparel DGI apparel.com that is one of the newest software platforms to hit the industry. DGI was made by MIT engineers with a background in screen printing. I love that combination. DJI helps you connect to all of your distributor accounts and morale for hours and hours, and more.
00:02:28:00 – 00:02:53:23
To compare prices, inventory, and shipping across them very easily and quickly. So cool. The average shop spends a lot of time purchasing every day, and that and DJI helps cut that way, way, way, way down. So what could you do with all that extra time? Well, you tell us. Hopefully. Maybe go, make up my tire. Long Island iced Tea to bring you back to college days.
00:02:53:23 – 00:03:22:20
Whatever you like. It costs you nothing. It’s $0 for every Tuesday. My apparel is DJI apparel.com. Last but not least, Multicraft. Have you heard of Multicraft_Daddy. Multicraft is a supplier that’s been around for 50 plus years. That’s been providing the industry with top brands at competitive pricing. If you open up your Instagram app and you DM them they’ve they are always giving away some really cool fun stuff.
00:03:22:22 – 00:03:44:22
Send your email in and they will add you to a list so that he can let you know if you are a winner. Also mentioned the Prince apple pie and that gets you an extra 10% off your first order. All right, you guys ready? Let’s jump into the episode. Justin’s got a beautiful camera. If you’re on YouTube seeing this, he just looks incredible.
00:03:45:00 – 00:04:14:09
Steven’s got amazing light coming down just from the heavens. It looks like is at the heavens. Or an angel. Just like an angel. Bunch of big topics that we want to just really cruise through and go deep on. First of all, print Hustler’s calf 2024 coming up just around the corner. November 2nd through fourth in Cleveland, Ohio. Justin, you’re your rock and roll in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
00:04:14:11 – 00:04:32:08
Rocking and rolling at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Justin, last year you had a great fit. Are you going to theme it this year for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? My friends brought me close last year, and I put the clothes on. Do you think we could kind of dress you like a 14 year old punk rocker?
00:04:32:08 – 00:04:53:00
And, like, spike your hair and die purple or something? I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure the trend in the industry right now is to bleach your hair. I’ve seen that from a few of our friends. Maybe. Maybe I go with, like, the Andy or the Ryan, like, old. Oh, ultra. Okay, so. So just the tip of a Barbie movie.
00:04:53:02 – 00:05:12:11
No, no. Gotcha. I’m open. I’m open. We can crowdsource it. Last year, Steven, bought me two different sets of shoes because we weren’t sure what my true dad status was. And so I have them both still. But you you you took them both home. Yeah, I did. That was a gift for my friend. I had to thank you.
00:05:12:12 – 00:05:35:19
But. Yeah, if you want to buy me some more clothes, whatever you buy me, Steven, I promise I’ll wear, at least for a moment. I think it’s got to be, like, a hot topic. I think I got to go a hot topic. This is pretty hot topic like this is. This is shirt that Dylan Gilligan printed. Like this huge, earnest, earnest video thing, which is pretty cool, but I’m down for anything.
00:05:35:21 – 00:05:57:16
All right, so the coupon code is Hustler’s 24. That gets you a discount off the show. Make sure you use that. But, I just listed a couple of the different speakers. We’ve got a couple folks coming back. You guys saw the economic talk last year by Alex. I’m going to butcher the last name, but we’ll just say, see?
00:05:57:18 – 00:06:22:10
Super smart guy. Really looking forward to that. What do you think, Alex? The economist. We saw him at threat X in Utah. Could be of all talks in the printing industry in my top ten favorite talks of all time. Maybe, maybe top five. In fact, he layered over this because you missed it, Bruce. Because he he highlighted you and all of the cool data you have and actually compared the economy to the data that you publish.
00:06:22:12 – 00:06:52:03
And talked about trends and what we should be looking out for and what to expect in an election year. And I just it was the first time I heard an economist talk and actually understood it instead of like what I learned in econ 101. So it was magnificent. Justin, what do you think? Yeah. Me and Brett Bowden at Printed Threads spent a day together a month or so back, and I didn’t get to make it out to thread this year, but he referenced the same talk, and he used this.
00:06:52:04 – 00:07:15:20
It’s called the PMI, this purchasing managers index. And what he had done is Bruce. He took your printable open source data where it showed the trends over time. Then he overlaid, this purchase managers index over that. Then he overlaid printed threads like gross annual revenue or, you know, trends over that. And then we certainly have we then overlaid Oklahoma share companies on top of that.
00:07:15:20 – 00:07:45:11
And it is chilling. How accurate that purchasing managers index is as an indicator of what our sales are doing. Like you, you overlay it over our years and I’m talking three or 4 or 5 years in spans. And it is just it is right along with it. So it’s a it’s a fascinating predictor for sure. Wow. I’m very interested to hear what he says about this year so far, because I feel there’s such mixed feelings.
00:07:45:13 – 00:08:12:18
You know, some people doing pretty good. Some people say they’re totally in the dumps and closing. You know, what is the macro generally look like? I mean, if you were to predict based on just the murmurs you hear in the folks you’re around, what do you think? It’s harder to get money. Labor is expensive. And, demand is moving up market to different companies.
00:08:12:18 – 00:08:35:16
So, like, I think our, our industry is under a small bit of a tack to make yourself relevant in 2024. I don’t know how the election year is going to do it. Everyone’s always going to need t shirts, right? But it’s going to be a matter of where do those start to go to? We’re seeing some interesting, interesting consolidation up with some of the bigger companies in our in our space.
00:08:35:16 – 00:08:57:13
So I’m sure there’s gonna be some trickle down. Just how about you, do you have the same thought or what. What would your prediction be? I feel like I’ve just been lost since the pandemic. Really? And it’s still like I. When I think that I’m gaining clarity or I’m gaining confidence in what we’re doing, that sometimes is reinforced.
00:08:57:13 – 00:09:21:15
And then sometimes, like, I’m just wrong. Like our when I compare our sales this year to last year, we were looking at it earlier like we had a, we had like a 600, $600,000 month in August last year this time. And we had like a $350,000 a month in August this year. And so part of that is because of some like some course correction that we’ve done ourselves.
00:09:21:15 – 00:09:44:20
And there’s there’s a few really big contract clients that were in there that we do not service anymore. But our cost of goods remained the same. But our, our gross sales are what has changed. So it’s interesting, I don’t know. Quarter three is traditionally our most profitable quarter. And so not our most profitable, but our biggest quarter.
00:09:44:22 – 00:10:05:01
And, our September is a little behind what it was last year, but it’s catching up. I’m really I’m optimistic. I’m hopeful that October is going to be big, but, it’s different. It’s just different. I don’t know if it’s if there really is a recession coming or if we’re in it or if it’s some sort of something new.
00:10:05:02 – 00:10:26:18
We have a recognize, but it’s hard to it’s hard to predict. So what we’re doing is just shoring up our internal processes and trying to make sure that, you know, our pricing is right, our staffing is right, and our customers are diversified like they should be, so that we can just try to be as rock solid as we can be.
00:10:26:20 – 00:10:55:16
Yeah. I that’s interesting mainly that the top line is different than the, than the than the baseline here. I mean, like, how do you interpret that? Again, like I said, for us, I just discovered this yesterday. So like we were reviewing it yesterday. So again, I think that that’s because our specifically contract customers that were providing us garments, we weren’t buying garments for them.
00:10:55:16 – 00:11:15:11
So that’s why like our, our cogs would, would similar, you know, be the same. But we’re not doing nearly the volume that we were. And, but also it means that we’re, we’re doing more of the right kind of work. Like we’re doing less work, but we’re doing more profitable work, which is, you know, what we need to be doing.
00:11:15:12 – 00:11:39:08
Justin, do you guys track contract work and direct work separately, or is it just all under one? It’s it’s all under one. And and for us, we only have like five contract accounts. Wholesale accounts. Really. So like that’s really more of a when we, when we’re why it’s easy for us to identify like where those things are going because we don’t again we don’t do a ton.
00:11:39:08 – 00:11:59:23
Like last year for example, we did this time in August last year. We did an enormous amount of work for five boys. Those guys, and we print and that that was a that was quick, like we we started working with them. And it was almost right as they were really catching fire. We were doing a ton of outsource work for them.
00:11:59:23 – 00:12:17:13
I believe you even made that introduction. Thank you. I think we went pretty fast and furious then for about three months, and then it just kind of stopped, and maybe that’s. But I don’t know what that was. I never really got any sort of explanation, but, I noticed that that is we’re not we’re not servicing them anymore.
00:12:17:13 – 00:12:35:17
And they were responsible for a lot of revenue in August and September of last year. We had another customer that we were servicing, t turtle, a big like, online retailer that sell stuff. We don’t not print for them anymore. And so they made up a lot of our revenue. So again, that’s where I think that it’s happening.
00:12:35:17 – 00:12:54:10
And so all things considered, if we take a couple customers off of us, we’re kind of still printing the same stuff. When I look at our local customers and I look at like, who did we print for a lot last year? And the newer we are, we’re still printing for those people. I don’t think we’re shedding local customers, but it’s just odd, you know, I don’t know it.
00:12:54:12 – 00:13:16:15
And like, you guys made a run with the thunder. Well, that changes the landscape of your business completely, right. But I feel like if we if you were, if you and I were to look at our businesses over the last ten years, every year there was some blip that happened in a weird way, like the Thunder when Illinois went to the final, you know, or whatever.
00:13:16:15 – 00:13:37:21
Elite a like we got a 100,000 piece mask order. I think you can just commit to knowing you’re going to have these one time blips, and then you’re like, I bet you could go back and see them and pull back up. That was the five boys thing, or oh, that was masked craziness or whatever. So the idea that was that was like, oh yeah, yeah, all that, that was PvP.
00:13:38:01 – 00:14:03:21
Yeah. Hundred percent. Justin I’m going to ask you something. When you meet with your team, are there is their gut instinct as good as yours? I think no. And not in a like not their gut instinct. I, I think that. I think that as an entrepreneur, as a person, like, who started something and then has been with it for the whole span of time.
00:14:03:23 – 00:14:43:05
I’ve seen things and I have like weathered things and I’ve, I’ve, I protect my team from a lot of things that like with like hard financial things or big moving pieces that maybe I don’t even really know how to best handle, but I just kind of throw myself at it and lessons learned. But I think that’s one of the unique value adds that I will always bring to this team, is that the continuity and even my leadership team, like they’ve been here, all of them are like 4 or 5, six years seniors and I, they’ve seen the business certainly change over the past half decade for them, but they’ve also only seen it kind of
00:14:43:05 – 00:15:04:23
from their perspectives, you know, like they’ve seen it from production or they’ve seen it from art or they’ve seen it from operations. Whereas like I, I kind of I get the privilege of seeing it from all angles. And, and hyper fixating on things, you know, at times to keep the lights on or hyper fixating on things to go earn special customers.
00:15:05:01 – 00:15:33:21
So no, I don’t think they have the same gut instincts or they or I think they might arrive at the same conclusion together that I ultimately would, but maybe I can get there faster. I can see it a little faster or I just know, like, oh, hey, we’ve already done this, or I already ran into this wall 2 or 3 times by myself so I can tell you all like, guys, this is we should pivot away from this or this is absolutely the thing that we should do because this has bailed us out once before or we’ve we found success in this, you know.
00:15:33:23 – 00:15:54:08
Yeah. Oops. Something Stephen or. No. I’m so like as I’m removing myself from the business I think of business is like playing poker a little bit. I’m the best poker player at Campus Inc. I’m just going to say it, Justin, you’re the best poker player at Oklahoma Shirt Company. Now you’re running 15 poker tables or you’re running 15 chess boards at once, right?
00:15:54:08 – 00:16:13:16
And you’re going to one chess board, you’re moving, you’re going to the other chess board. And for so long, I think I was just giving them all the tools to play their own chess game instead of asking them like, hey, what would you do here? What? What’s the what’s the move? Let’s play poker next to each other, sit at the table with me.
00:16:13:18 – 00:16:40:00
And so something we do every Monday with my sales team is so like individual sales contributors, they have to look into a glass ball and say, where are you going to be at by Friday? Well, my gut tells me this. My RV is this, I think I’m going to be here and we just write it down. And then on Wednesday at our all ten call, every lead from every department looks into their glass ball where if where’s the month going to end up?
00:16:40:01 – 00:16:58:20
And what I tell them is I’m not trying to put you on blast. I want you to have the same gut instinct that I do, so that we can both look at a number and say, if we don’t change something, this is where it’s going to end up. And so the more I don’t know, I feel like you’ve got some pretty good poker players at Oklahoma Shirt Company.
00:16:58:22 – 00:17:35:03
Did they? They give me a run for my money most every week. Okay. Can we can we keep going on some print hustler stuff? Bruce, what else you got? You’re coming back for another automation feature. I mean, I think you blew everyone’s minds. Not from a technical standpoint last year, but from a practical standpoint. I mean, I think, you know, touching on that, you know, being able to put your mindset in the right, thinking about how should I think about automations and what matters, and setting the context of, hey, look, no one has it perfect.
00:17:35:03 – 00:17:57:11
No matter what you have to spend, no matter what the team has, no matter what you can invest, you’re not going to get the 100% perfect solution. So here’s things that I use in how I think about it. What? How are you thinking about, presenting this year? I might have to go surfing somewhere and get stung the day before by a stingray, so I can get that you know, that extra pep of my stuff and fire me up.
00:17:57:11 – 00:18:24:03
But in Ohio, I know you’re going to say Ohio of hey, Lake Michigan, Kevin Baumgartner, he’ll surf, he’ll surf Lake Michigan or whatever, Lake Erie, Huron, what’s what’s over there in Cleveland, I don’t know. So Alex Alamos is from the United Kingdom, and he is actually the CEO and founder of automation CIO. So he’s actually coming because automations.io is like Zapier, but they do it for you.
00:18:24:05 – 00:18:43:13
And so he has been working with tons of print shops and so he decided to come. So we’re going to do it together. I, I think what we’re going to talk about, we’re going to have some tricks up our sleeve. But like we’ve done a bunch of these same automations, I think we’re going to try and spice it up and talk about how to automate in real time numbers.
00:18:43:13 – 00:19:04:01
You need to measure so you know the health of your business. Because I think more than more than anything, we got to know our numbers in real time. So we’re going to try and we’ve been slacking back and forth. You know, if you work with him, he’ll just join your slack for you. But we’ve been like, okay, what’s the craziest thing we can do?
00:19:04:01 – 00:19:33:18
Like, can we do real time profit tracking or, you know, all these different things. So we’re going to work on it. Hopefully it’ll be good. That’s really exciting. Matt Marcotte, did a little printable audit for us a few months back. And, after his arraignment on us, of us of our incorrect usage of printable, we landed on, like, a strong recommendation for automations.io specifically for a lot of our follow up process.
00:19:33:18 – 00:19:50:14
A lot of those automated things that like print Top was just missing. And so that is that’s brand new for our company. We’re not missing anything. Oh, yeah. Got Bruce. Yeah. It’s perfect. It’s perfect. Just custom check out fields on merch. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. But we have I’m excited. That’s really exciting to hear. Steven. I didn’t know he was coming.
00:19:50:14 – 00:20:13:12
Weird. That’s brand new for us. Is is bringing that in and making our processes better. So that’s super that’s super exciting. Okay. Lucas Ugly, a, former founder of Robot Creative, is going to be speaking on winding down a business and starting something new. Lucas is going to be super vulnerable. He’s going to share some of his experience.
00:20:13:12 – 00:20:34:15
Long time friend of the industry. Not everything’s as pretty as it looks. And I think he’s going to go into it and talk about what happened. And, that’s going to probably be a little bit of a tear jerker. I don’t know too much. But I’m excited about that. Yeah, I, I watched y’all’s episode a few weeks back with Cole.
00:20:34:17 – 00:21:01:04
And I think one of the most special things certainly about, like, the three of our relationship and a few other people that I’m very close with in the industry. You get really vulnerable really quick. And you recognize that, like, your loneliness is is only protected by your, like, facade. And as soon as you are bold enough to push that facade aside and let some people in and let your friends and, you recognize really quickly that you’re not alone.
00:21:01:06 – 00:21:37:14
And they’re like, you’re not, like, toiling and writhing in some of these really hard things by yourself. And so I’m recognizing this like deconstruction of people’s like standing in front of their shops. And this is what we are, and this is who we are, and this is how badass we are and all these things. And really, it’s more of like, hey, we’re great, but like, this is hard and I’m sensing this trend of like the conversation, certainly, Stephen, that you and I are having and that me and Brett are having and Dominic and Superior, Ian and Cole and Lucas and, anybody who owns a print shop, like you’re not alone and we’re not alone.
00:21:37:14 – 00:22:07:02
And so I’m excited that we’re entering into this newer season. And part of it is probably one business is hard, but two, we’re all growing up, too, you know, like, I’m I’m 11 years into this and we’ve all got some life under our belts. And we’re beginning to part of sustainability is recognizing that, like, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns, like there are highs and lows and how you navigate the lows is even more important than how you navigate, you know, those highs and that’s, that’s really encouraging.
00:22:07:04 – 00:22:25:01
Every time I find a new a friend or one of my friends that opens up with me or that I’m able to open with, not only do your relationships get better, but also we strengthen each other. And so that’s that’s very bold of Lucas. And I’m I’m excited to hear that. Absolutely. It’s going to be interesting story I don’t know the full story I feel like I only know a portion of it.
00:22:25:01 – 00:22:47:16
So that’s that’s going to be a good one. And I think the last one, the feature that that, that Brett is friends with is a guy named Derek Hast. You guys know Derek has, I just know, very limited, but a very talented designer, an artist, with fine art specifically. So, he’s doing a lot of tattoo or concert posters.
00:22:47:18 – 00:23:14:03
His father actually was a really big industrial designer in World War two. I mean, it’s just, like, comes down from a family of design. Very, like, very art driven pieces. You could see it at Derek Hess. He’s on his Instagram. So super talented. Been doing it full time for his whole life. And, interested in his perspective and just his background and how he can help share as well.
00:23:14:05 – 00:23:43:04
You know, we all know our industry is very art driven. We’re going to hear from Brittany David from Snugs, you know, Snugs with a Z. I think they do like close to $100 million a year. Their, promo distributor. Yeah, I see there, there’s so many sleeper distributor companies that just do crazy number. Now granted, it is, you know, a bit inflated because of the revenue includes Cogs, but still I mean sleeper companies.
00:23:43:06 – 00:24:09:00
Yeah like Halo. You know we will never remember the first time you heard of Halo. And you’re just like, wait. So they do like billions of dollars. Like a billion I think. Does Halo $2 billion. Yes. Last year they did $1 billion in sales. Sheesh. You know, the one thing that I’m looking so forward to for the last three years, I’ve been the DTF guinea pig.
00:24:09:05 – 00:24:34:19
And this year I’m passing that torch to my good friend Justin Lawrence, who purchased his first machine. And if you come, he might tell you where he bought it, if he likes it or not. Yeah. And he’s gonna you can you can line up to get autographs with him. Talk about his machine, his experience, color profiling, powder film.
00:24:34:21 – 00:24:59:06
You know, all the things that go right with it. And I’m so thankful for you, Justin, that you have taken that torch and you’re carrying my my DTF cross and taking it, to this year. So thank you. Stephen. How many messages the get just on the regular of, either questions what to buy. Why you made me buy something that doesn’t work.
00:24:59:08 – 00:25:31:09
Justin, is your machine running? I get, like, a couple of weeks. It’s pretty funny. I mean, that has, like, I toiled with the decision with DTF for a long time. We made a decision on our machine. Got it. I the lesson lessons learned. Like, I made sure this time that I had competent operators that had competent training and that knew that, like, we bought a machine that we were finally ready for, you know, not just like, I’m going to get a DTG machine and this is going to change the game or I’m going to, but more so like, hey, we know we let data drive the decision.
00:25:31:09 – 00:25:55:23
We’re ordering this much DTF per week. And we have had I mean, we had issues like you with anything else, but nothing major. We haven’t had down. We’re printing a lot of DTF, we haven’t ordered any DTF. And we are very, very happy with our machine. And, it’s it’s crushing. I mean, how seriously, how many times have I called you in the past two months and said, hey, Steven, we’re stuck.
00:25:56:00 – 00:26:15:13
Can you help? Well, either you you’ve been pretty quiet, and it’s like it’s either quiet because he wants to route his machine sucks and he’s embarrassed to tell me one or. And it’s not running or things are so good. He’s just like, I’m not. I don’t even know what’s going on. So I’m glad to hear that. And, we want what you buy.
00:26:15:15 – 00:26:35:00
Now come to the come to the show. Oh, are you going to share? It’s okay. You got to ask me in person. But we are very happy with our DTF machine. I think that you could probably be happy at this point. You know, the technology is getting better. Supports there, like manufacturers know, like if we’re going to sell a machine, we got to support it and it’s got to work.
00:26:35:00 – 00:27:00:20
Maybe. But we’re very happy with ours. And it’s killing it. Justin, would you ever sell transfers to other people? Not. I don’t want to build a vertical around that. I would help somebody out locally, but I don’t even really want to do that because I don’t. It’s like it’s kind of like fulfillment. It’s kind of like anything, like, we we can do it.
00:27:00:20 – 00:27:26:09
There’s money to be made, but do we have any business doing it? You know, really we should just focus on our customers and focus on the ways that we make good money, you know, and not doing everything. So now tell this I don’t I tell this I, thought for a second I would sell transfers to other print shops, and Justin asked me to run a quick job that I overnighted transfers for with my powder loss unit, and, none of them stuck.
00:27:26:11 – 00:27:44:22
And that was the day I learned that, I’m not selling transfers to other shops because, you know, if it’s one thing to fuck up your own order, it’s the worst feeling to fuck up a friend’s order. Yeah. And so, Dillon messaged me, like, two months ago, and he’s like, dude, I need transfers in New York for this event.
00:27:44:22 – 00:28:03:15
Like I need them tomorrow. Can you do anything? And I’m like, oh God, don’t don’t make me do this. And so I did them and I was just like holding my breath like. And I was like, how are they? He’s like, they were great. I was like, thank you, God. Like, I’m so anyways, now we want I thought that was the one for you that you printed in reverse overnight.
00:28:03:20 – 00:28:27:18
And that was I don’t think the screen printers decorators have any business selling DTF transfers truthfully. Like let let a supply company do it like GSE or like two Bly or whoever. Like let them. Where do you buy your supplies from or where you buy your inks from? Or where are you? Like, I think there’s a probably a vertical for them, but your local decorator, like just because you can I don’t think you should.
00:28:27:22 – 00:28:47:12
You can make dozens of dollars probably, but it’s crazy. At DTF Expo, I posted it in the Facebook group in Arizona. I need DTF transfers for tomorrow, and by the end of my talk, I had like 15 comments. Like, I can make a video, I can make them for you. It was wild. Oh, that was part of the talk too, but I did at the beginning.
00:28:47:18 – 00:29:11:05
I said, you look, you’ve got I mean pharynx next level with these presentations now, I mean the, the real time just a train. I’m a train monkey, y’all. I’m here. I do think that like markets DTF stream is a unique like that’s I could see myself buying in or signing up for something like that. Like is that the OnlyFans for DTF.
00:29:11:07 – 00:29:32:21
Yeah. Okay. That stream DTF streams DTF stream. But that’s where like if you did buy a machine and it was sitting dormant, you didn’t have any jobs to print for a few days. And you could just like flip your machine into the flow and then you could begin producing and then you could turn it off almost like an Uber or like a Lyft.
00:29:32:21 – 00:29:53:19
Like, I think that’s super cool. And also, if you don’t have a lot of volume to get reps in your machine, I think signing up for something like that where you could really be testing and learning and getting a lot of reps with your machine, and then when you start getting busy, you can throttle that back. I think that’s a really cool I would save space for that.
00:29:53:21 – 00:30:12:07
But as far as like, hanging a sign, providing transfers full time for anybody who needs it, I’m not. I don’t think that’s an option. In hindsight. Would you have bought the machine earlier or you think this is. I don’t think the technology is ready. I think I got lucky, again, like the timing holding off, holding off, holding off.
00:30:12:07 – 00:30:32:07
And and the machine that we bought, like the company that that went in on it like they did it. I feel like they really did it proper. They found the right machine. They found the right, the right printers, the right, spool, like the right, all of the powder shaker, all that stuff, like. So I think that our technology is as good as it could be.
00:30:32:07 – 00:30:50:05
When we bought it and it was just set it, you know, and ready to be supported. And I think, you know, when that company went behind you and did that, it’s kind of the same as like, you know, you are Oklahoma Shirt Company is the poster child for workhorse. And so I think they know what your name bears.
00:30:50:07 – 00:31:11:06
And they’re going to do a great job which is great right. Like if you’re going to put your name on it it’s got a rock. So come to print Hustler’s and learn about it. The next day of Print Hustlers, I believe there’s some shop tours, stakes, manufacturing is, is is, gorilla Joe’s going to be open? No, I don’t know.
00:31:11:06 – 00:31:35:05
Where’s what’s the tourist stakes? Just takes. Just takes. It’s Joe in Cleveland. I don’t know, but I don’t know where he’s at. Actually, I have no idea. Stakes calls town Ohio, which is maybe Ohio. I if we’re close, I’m going. That’s the homie I want to. I’d love to see your shot. Steaks is really cool because they do on demand DTF.
00:31:35:07 – 00:31:57:12
And they will fulfill for you. And you can connect your web stores to it. So Jed does a fantastic job there. Great dude, awesome facility from what I’ve heard. And it’s going to be exciting to see their facility, actually. Yeah. So I’ve got a personal like I met Jed a few years back. I won’t go too deep into it.
00:31:57:12 – 00:32:21:22
My sister, 15 years ago got hurt, and, and, like, is living with my mom and has somewhat of a job, but needs care and needs prompting and needs handling. And I have a brother in law that, has pretty severe, Asperger’s on the autism spectrum. And he, he again, he’s part of a very special organization that helps him with jobs and helps keep him busy.
00:32:21:22 – 00:32:50:14
And he can make revenue. So when I connected with Jed and understood, like, how he has, he has special jobs and a special that has built a special business for neurodivergent or for people with autism or for people with other disabilities, and that they have made lives out of it and productive lives. And like, a business that is built on, I think is really inspiring and really different and really, really respectable.
00:32:50:16 – 00:33:15:19
That’s probably the thing I was I was going through all the precursor things with my team, last week at our, at our Altium and that was one of the things that we’re certainly most excited about on Sunday afternoon is, is going to stay manufacturing and seeing, you know, how they do it all. I think, something you said there Justin and and to other shops, Justin usually brings his team or at least 3 or 4 people.
00:33:15:19 – 00:33:36:18
Are you bring in bring in the squad. Yeah. Bring in my leadership team. I mean, it’s we’ll do it forever. You know my. Yeah. The best. It’s so cool for a lot of reasons. But if you want to invest like, this is the easiest way to invest in your team by taking them to an industry conference. Right. And just letting them soak everything up.
00:33:36:20 – 00:33:55:15
We talked about that gut instinct. When you bring them into this world like they’re going to, they’re going to learn a little bit about your world and they’re going to bring that back. They just the camaraderie behind it, the conversations at dinner, things you should be working on. I don’t think you could put a number on the impact it makes to bring your team to something like this.
00:33:55:17 – 00:34:18:14
There’s some events I bring my team to. There’s some I don’t, you know where. I just want to party with my friends. Print hustlers is one that you bring your team to, for sure. Especially, like, I think about any trade show even is even impressions. And Long Beach like, is really cool, but it takes a far second place to, to print hustlers.
00:34:18:14 – 00:34:39:10
I mean, it’s a thing again, like, I don’t take my team to any other trade shows or anything, so I just we exclusively we’re all in on print hustlers. It’s the timing is right. Once a year is enough. And they all have grown to love it. And it’s. I think it’s wonderful. Yeah. And they become friends with other people in the industry, too.
00:34:39:10 – 00:34:51:17
So like my team, they think Justin’s like, God, you know, they think Bruce is okay.
00:34:51:19 – 00:35:19:07
I mean, I was about to say that is half of the conference, honestly, is is. Yeah. The content and everything. And then the other half is being able to hang out. And originally that was part of print. Hustlers was just, you know, the trade shows are so busy. Everyone’s sagging. It’s so loud, you know, all this stuff’s happening, everyone’s got appointments or whatever to go and do, but great time to just hang out and be around each other and, be together.
00:35:19:09 – 00:35:40:20
What about you, Bruce? What are you most looking forward to for me? I always love the tours, the facilities. We’ve got, the the, steaks manufacturing you mentioned just from looking at a few photos they shared on Instagram. This facility looks incredible. Yeah. I love when I start seeing, like, signs from the ceiling directing people around.
00:35:40:20 – 00:35:57:20
I’m like, oh, okay. So the rest of it is pretty dialed. Like, if you got to that stage in your business, the rest of it, you know, is really, really cool. Yeah. So I’m really excited for that. And then just seeing a lot of good friends again. Yeah. I mean, again, Long Beach, I feel like I’m yelling half the time.
00:35:57:20 – 00:36:22:12
So this one you can actually have conversations and hang out. Haven’t been to Ohio in a minute either. So is there some pretty pronounced print avenues? That’s a great question. I mean, they, they’ve they have some really the, you know, there’s a, big new hire for product organization. So we hired Lady Rebecca, and she’s been leading product.
00:36:22:12 – 00:36:51:02
And so, they’ve got basically statements coming out pretty soon. They’re doing a lot of testing internally with that. And a couple other things that I’m gonna start getting in trouble if I start mentioning or giving out dates like custom fields. Maybe. You know, Toilet Express. Hold it down the toilet. All right. Pronounces kind of 2024.
00:36:51:04 – 00:37:08:00
We’re excited to see you. Make sure you’re there in November. Second through fourth. Go to print huskers.com. You can see all the details and then yeah use that code if you want a little discount. Huskers 24 if you want to pay full price don’t use the code. All right apprentices we appreciate you guys join in and hanging out with us.
00:37:08:02 – 00:37:24:16
Just and let’s do a part two. Let’s do another part two to to talk more stuff. We will see you guys again next week for Justin Ferg myself. Have a good one. See you guys and balloons.
00:37:24:18 – 00:37:44:19
What are those? It’s when you use your phone watch. Is that, 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. If you enjoy all the stuff we’re putting out, it’s really helpful. We love to just be able to see it.
00:37:44:19 – 00:37:52:10
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