Knowing your customers and your competition

So what is it exactly that one St. Louis digital T-shirt printing company can do to set itself apart from the rest of its competition? Most individuals are educated shoppers that will seek out to acquire more than just one quote. They often obtain up to four different offers before making up their mind regarding who they want to trust with their screen printing and custom embroidery requirements. Let’s just give the benefit of the doubt to the companies that have been around for five years or longer that they are all going to be able to give you a good product and be able to hopefully get it done on time.

Therefore, it’s been my experience of having been in this industry for over 20 years that it all comes down to trying to find an edge and gain an advantage over our competitors. There are many different ways to do this but it some of these options are going to be more costly than others. I feel that trying to find an edge all starts with good clear audible communication with the potential buyer. The more we know about the customer, the better chance we have to overcome any potential obstacles that they might be facing as well as bringing something extra to the table that they might not of even thought of when they initially contacted us. For example, we have been known to come up with some pretty creative scenarios when it comes to cross promoting our digital T-shirt printing company with other businesses and organizations that are in totally different industries. Experience has taught us that even though we are in a totally different vocations, we potentially can share a mutual customer base. There has been more than one occasion where we have created a scenario where we might have attended the same event and have acted as a partial sponsor and discounted the logo’d apparel in exchange for them introducing us to their current clientele as well as giving us a great referral.

We have always been able to look at the big picture and not be shortsighted. Sure we would like to be their St. Louis screen printing company, but more importantly we would like to provide the same service for their friends and business acquaintances. There are a lot of different ways that this can be done. Some ways are going to be more cost-effective than others. Experience has taught me that there is a lot to be gained by sitting down face to face with our potential clientele and they can convey not only what they are wanting to do with their current project, but also convey any challenges that they might be facing in order to bring this to fruition. We believe that e-mails certainly have their place when it comes to keeping the record of what was discussed and agreed upon, but there is no substitute for sitting down at a table and just talking to one another. We consider ourselves to be the leader in our city when it comes to custom embroidery and also coming up with a reasonable arrangement that will complement each other for years to come.

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Understanding Your Competition

When it comes to establishing a successful company, there are many things to take into consideration like having a concise and clear plan of action before jumping right into action. There is an old saying that reads, those who fail to have a good plan, also plan to fail. Life experience has taught me that this is certainly true. Somebody once said that experience is the best teacher, but that certainly doesn’t hold true in business. I would much rather learn from someone else’s mistakes who went before me in order to avoid some of the same bad experiences that they might have encountered.

If knowledge is power, then how does one go about acquiring good direction? Someone once said the saying, “keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.”. However, I have learned that you can acquire a great deal of knowledge by studying your competition. Go to a major search engine and put in a keyword that is relevant to your industry. In my industry, those search terms may be St. Louis custom screen printing or St. Louis custom embroidery company. This will take you to a landing page with 10 or more of the leaders in your industry. Understand that it is no coincidence that they are showing up. They are there for a reason. The search engines appreciate the quality of the way that it was put together and they are rewarding them with top placement over their respective competitors. Click on to their websites and view them carefully. What do you see? I suspect that you will notice that it was put together well. You will also notice that there is most likely a great deal of content. I have always been of the opinion that marketing and sales are the two most important things that will determine whether you are growing at an exponential rate or staying stagnant and going nowhere. Think about this, even if you are the best St. Louis T-shirt printing company in the entire city, you would never get a chance to prove that unless you got the opportunity to quote on the job in the first place.

When you analyze and breakdown the anatomy of a sale, it has two major components. The first and most difficult part of this equation is that you need to find someone who needs custom screen printing and embroidery at this particular moment. Here is an example of what I am referring to. Let’s just say that you’re an automobile salesman and you are running an unprecedented sale this month. It really is of no interest to someone who doesn’t happen to be in the market for a car at that moment. So the key is to find someone who needs whatever it is that you are selling at that particular moment in time.

Trying to establish a successful marketing campaign for a St. Louis screen printing company is certainly no exception to this rule. You can launch a very exciting custom embroidery campaign, but if they’re not in the market at that very moment it will most likely be irrelevant. On a different note, please remember us when you eventually are actively shopping for the very best digital T-shirt printing value. We will make sure that we make it worth your while.

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Finding the best screen printer for the best value

So what is it that differentiates one St. Louis screen printing company from another? When it comes to trying to figure out which one is going to give you the best overall value for every dollar you spend it can be pretty hard to navigate through, especially when there are so many different options. Sometimes there is a very fine line which will differentiate great service from good. There is a lot more to getting the best deal possible than just who is going to give you the lowest quote. There is an old saying that you get what you pay for. We understand that there certainly is no victory in paying more than you have to. However, if the deal seems that it is too good to be true, then it probably is.

We’re in business to make a fair profit margin as well as create a scenario where you are equally as comfortable acquiring your logo’d apparel from us. We exercise a methodology of checks and balances that makes absolutely certain that there are not going to be any bad surprises when you go to open up your box of completed product. Our protocol normally includes submitting to you a virtual example review. Although it is not going to be a perfect and accurate representation of color, it will lend itself to making sure that everything is spelled correctly and laid out on the T-shirt exactly the way you prefer it to be. If the time will allow for it, we strongly encourage that you come over to our office in order to view a completed sew out of your logo. It is also a great opportunity to not only pick up and feel your T-shirt, but you can also take the extra time to try it on and make sure it fits correctly.

We have literally thousands of different types of apparel on our website ranging from extremely high-end and designer brands to very low end items that would be used for a giveaway. None of these products are going to be right or wrong. It’s just relative to what kind of money you’re looking to spend as well as what kind of quality you are looking to obtain. Almost every person who is looking to find a superior St. Louis digital T-shirt printing company that can also cater to custom embroidery seems to have similar needs, but yet they are all going to be unique situations. This is why we quote everything independently. In doing so, we can come up with a plan of action as well as pricing that is going to lend itself to offsetting any potential challenges you might be facing. We have a very experienced staff that knows what they’re doing, as well as having access to the best equipment that are industry currently has to offer.

Give us a call and we can discuss what it is that you’re looking for in a screen printing company. You’ll be very glad that you did. You will experience silk screening at its best, done correctly, and delivered on time.

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Knowledge is Power

When it comes to establishing a successful company, there are many things to take into consideration like having a concise, clear plan of action before jumping right into action. There is an old saying that reads, those who fail to have a good plan also plan to fail. Life experience has taught me that this is certainly true. Somebody once said that experience is the best teacher, but that certainly doesn’t hold true in business. I would much rather learn from the mistakes of someone else who went before me in order that I can avoid some of the same bad experiences that they might have been encountered. If knowledge is power then how does one go about acquiring good direction? Someone once said, to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. I have learned that you can acquire a great deal of knowledge by studying your competition.

Go to a major search engine and put in a keyword that is relevant to your industry. For example, for my industry the search terms may be St. Louis custom screen printing or St. Louis custom embroidery. This will take you to a landing page with 10 or more of the leaders in your industry. Understand that it is no coincidence that they are showing up. They are there for a reason. The search engines appreciate the quality of the way that it was put together and they are rewarding them with top placement over their respective competitors. Click on to their websites and view them carefully. What do you see? I suspect that you will notice that it was put together well. You will also notice that there is most likely a great deal of content. I have always been of the opinion that marketing as well as sales are the two most important things that will determine whether you are growing at an exponential rate or staying stagnant and going nowhere. Think about this, even if you are the best St. Louis T-shirt printing company in the entire city, you would never get a chance to prove that unless you got the opportunity to quote on the job in the first place.

When you analyze and breakdown the anatomy of a sale, there are two major components. The first and most difficult part of this equation is that you need to find someone who needs custom screen printing and embroidery at this particular moment. There is an example of what I am referring to. Let’s just say that you’re an automobile salesman and you are running an unprecedented sale this month, it really is of no interest to someone who doesn’t happen to be in the market for a car at that moment. So the key is to find someone who needs whatever it is that you are selling at that particular moment in time.

Trying to establish a successful marketing campaign for a St. Louis screen printing company is certainly no exception to this rule. You can launch a very exciting custom embroidery campaign, but if they’re not in the market at that very moment it will most likely be relevant. On a different note, please remember us when you eventually are actively shopping for the very best screen printed or digital custom T-shirt printing value. We will make sure that we make it worth your while.

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Integrity and communication in business

What is it that sets one St. Louis T-shirt printing company apart from another? I’ve heard it’s been said that little things mean a lot and this rule is certainly no exception when trying to figure out who you want to put your faith in and work with when it comes to your custom embroidery projects. Let’s just give our competitors the benefit of the doubt that they are going to be able to cater to a simple one or two color logo. Pretty much anybody can do that, but we take great pride in being able to take on the jobs that other St. Louis embroidery companies tend to shy away from. Many of the projects that we cater to are literally very complex pieces of artwork. There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a t-shirt company.

We follow a strict procedure right from the start to make absolutely sure that everything is going to be processed correctly and there is no miscommunication. The very first thing we do after we receive your free quote request is call you. This is because we have learned from experience that there is no substitute for audible conversation. E-mails as well as text messages certainly do have their place, especially when it comes to keeping an accurate record of whatever was discussed and eventually agreed upon. However, it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to gaining valuable insight on your project as well as any challenges that you may be facing such as an extra quick turnaround time or limited amount of funds to work with. The more information that you are able to convey to us literally increases the chances of our screen printing company coming up with reasonable solutions to any challenges that you may be facing in order to work out a scenario where you’re going to be just as grateful to have worked with us as we will be appreciative having have been able to provide you with what you needed. This is just what we would consider to be good business.

We live and die with the repeat order along with the awesome referrals that our satisfied clientele gives us once the job is finished and delivered on time. The only thing that we would ask of you is that once the job has run its course and you were happy with the service that we provided, that you would get on Google and write us a good review. It’s amazing how many people tend to find us after doing a relevant search on the Internet. Once they happen to stumble upon our site they often take the time to read this type of thing and form an opinion of whether they can trust us or not as well as trying to navigate which one of the many St. Louis T-shirt printing companies they would like to work with.

We recently started catering to digital applications as well. This certainly gives us the equipment that we need to be able to not only take on large orders such as 500 pieces or more, but also be able to cater to as low as 12 items at a time. Please give us a call when you need custom T-shirts.

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Selling T-Shirts To Earn A Living

I remember being a young kid and thinking to myself that I had it all figured out. I was the kid that you went to high school that seemed to know everyone and everyone knew me. It took me an extra 5 minute. or so to go from one class to another simply because I had so many people to say hello to. Life was so simple back then. The two most important things in my life at that time were wrestling and then girls. Once in a while we would be at a tournament and I would be fortunate enough to earn a date with one of the other teams cheerleaders which would enable me to enjoy both the wrestling and the girl. Life was so simple back then. It seemed like it would never end, but then it did. All of a sudden I was out in the real world where I didn’t know anybody and nobody had ever heard of me either. I got married two years after graduating and then had a daughter approximately 2 years after that. Therefore, with what seemed to be the weight of the world on my shoulders, I knew that I had to figure it out quickly. I think this is the main reason that I have such a heart for wanting to work with young people and especially college students. They have all these great ideas as well as share huge potential. They also seem to have what appears to be an endless amount of energy. There is an old saying that reads youth is wasted on the young. If I only knew then what I know now, life could have been a whole lot easier.

In spite of all these great attributes, these young kids seem to share a few similarities. They are all lacking direction and they are normally lacking financial resources to work with. Most of them tend to appreciate as well as welcome any help that someone is willing to give them. Effort is very admirable, but it doesn’t pay the bills. You can be running as fast as you possibly can, but if you’re running west when you should be going east, you’re going the wrong direction. If you are thinking about starting some kind of fundraiser you first need to figure out what it is that you want to sell.. I would suggest that you entertain the possibility of selling custom T-shirts. Unlike pizzas or Girl Scout cookies, digital T-shirt printing is not perishable. Therefore, if you don’t happen to sell them all by the date of your event, you could always sell them later. We have been known to act as a partial sponsor when it comes to helping kids launch a fund raising campaign. We are well aware of the fact that it’s not easy, but we’ve been in this industry long enough to recognize what is going to be effective and what isn’t and we can allocate those strategies accordingly.

We are a St. Louis screen printing company who also caters to the needs of our customers when they happen to be looking for a dependable St. Louis embroidery company as well. We have been in the silk screening business for a long time. Why don’t you give us a call and talk to one of our representatives about your custom t-shirts? Then be as honest as you can and let us know as much as you possibly can about yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish. Then we can try to come up with a realistic plan of action that will not only offset any budget restrictions that you might be working with, but will also allow us to work together for years to come.

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The Key to Having a Great Looking T-Shirt

Every St. Louis screen printing and digital T-shirt manufacturer, as well as custom embroidery company, share a few common denominators and that starts with starting out with good clean artwork that is not only well put together, but is color separated and created using 300 dots per inch established in the size they want it to appear on the apparel. We could be the best St. Louis screen printing company out there and use the very finest state-of-the-art machinery out there, but the completed product is never going to be any better than the artwork that it originated from. The reason I mention that fact is that it needs to be created somewhat close to size of how you want it to appear. If you take something small and you blow it up substantially, it will start to break up and distort. Most of the people out there are clueless when it comes to what is usable. Many people ask us to use a business card and say just take it off of that. However, that just simply is not going to work. Not all artwork is created equal. There are a lot of different ways that we can figure out that the artwork is going to lend itself to a superior finished tee shirt or not well before we ever put it on the press and start the production process. Normally the more colors that an image is composed of, the more things can go wrong and the more complicated the application. This also will obviously play a role in pricing. The most simple of custom T-shirt designs are going to be a one color application on a light-colored background. The two most important components when trying to determine how to bid a job are the amount of colors that the logo will consist of and also the amount of T-shirts that it is being applied to. This is because the very nature of screen printing mandates that you have the same exact setup for one unit as you do 200 of them at a time. The exact same amount of cleanup is also required after the job was completed.

If the image is cleaned and ready to go right from the start then that is going to save a lot of time. On the other hand, if it needs to be redrawn and re-created then it can run into quite a lot of money depending on the image itself. Most of the time artists charge by the hour and the price can range anywhere from $50-$100 per hour so it is best to be very clear and concise when conveying direction to the individual who’s going to be working on it in order that he can get it right the first time and not have to go back repeatedly and make different revisions. We have a proven system that we have developed over the years in order to make sure that everything is not only spelled correctly and laid out perfectly according to the way you like it well before we ever put it into the production schedule.

We also have the best equipment that modern technology can currently offer. We are a St. Louis digital T-shirt printing company who also can cater to all your custom embroidery requirements. Please give us a call when choosing a t-shirt company.

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Establishing a quality embroidery company

The first thing you need to understand when starting the process of establishing a terrific piece of custom embroidery is that the machine that you are using is never going to be any better than the individual who created the software that tells it how to apply it. Although many pieces of artwork are similar, they are all at the same time going to be unique unto themselves.

This type of equipment has come leaps and bounds over the last 10 to 15 years. The needle is moving faster than you can see it and able to apply well over 300 stitches per minute. It is also capable of making color changes on the fly where you don’t have to manually change over the thread. They also have automatic trimmers which can significantly increase your output and cut the production time in almost half of what it used to take. One of the most important factors that we take into consideration when putting together a quote is quantity. This is because you have the same exact set up to produce one item as you would 50. We are extremely good at what we do and the more efficient we are at what it is that we do, the more competitive price we can come up with and we will not only benefit, but the end user will also come out ahead. Think of digitizing as a GPS that tells the needle where to go and how to get to its destination efficiently. It can also avoid problems such as taking inefficient routes to get to the custom logos final destination in the quickest time possible. Although you can take a lot of different side streets and they will all eventually get you to where you’re going, you normally would prefer to take the highway because it’s going to be a lot faster.

An accomplished digitizer will take into consideration every aspect of the image and figure out what is going to be the most efficient way for the machine to stitch the image. He or she will also try to take in to consideration what type of material or substrate the embroidery is going to be applied to. Different types of fabric push and pull and stretch at different rates which can significantly complicate the application process and play a large role in the quality of the completed product. Sometimes customers request their company logo on caps which are round in shape. This means that the design is going to have to be sewn on a radius which will be a completely different type of application then applying it to something that is flat like a T-shirt. An image that is created to work on a round garment will almost always work on a flat item but not the other way around. If the digitizer knows that you might consider the possibility of doing caps later on down the line, he can create the software where it will work on either one and you won’t have to incur the expense of making another tape later on down the line.

We have always taken the approach of providing our clientele with a digital sample as well as a completed sew out of their logo before we ever go to put it on any product. This extra step obviously takes more time, but it helps to make sure that everything is going to be perfect. We are a St. Louis screen printing company who would like to take care of all your custom T-shirt requirements. We also have the finest equipment that the T-shirt printing industry currently has available such as being able to cater to digital and inkjet applications. We would ask that in the event that you do not want to work together, you would at least try to use a local St. Louis t-shirt company in order to keep the money local where it recirculates throughout our city.

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Choosing a competent screen printer and embroiderer

We are not considered to be the best St. Louis screen printing company for nothing. It has taken many years of hard work and dedication to our craft to establish a stellar reputation. On the other hand, it only takes a few bad jobs to tarnish it. Pretty much any St. Louis embroidery company can handle a simple one or two color application. However, many of our competitors turn away a lot of the jobs that we take on. We are not intimidated by the complex job. In fact, we actually look forward to taking on a challenge. So many of the everyday applications are simple and others are very complicated pieces of artwork. We take a lot of pride in being able to turn out a difficult project with excellence. Many times we’ll provide an extra item just for ourselves in order that we can hang it on our wall and display it.

I’m going to give you what I hope is some helpful advice for the next time you’re in the market for some digital T-shirt printing, as well as custom screen printing. The very most important part of the equation is starting out with a good clean piece of artwork. No matter how well we do our job we are never any better than the artwork from which it came. If the image is compromised, the finished product will not look good either. The ideal scenario would be for the image to be created with 300 dots per square inch in the exact size that you would want it to appear on the finished product. Keep in mind that if you take something that is extremely small like a business card and you blow it up 10 times the original size is going to appear to be very grainy and distorted.

Another thing you should take into consideration is the time sensitivity of when you need your product completed. Normal turnaround time is two weeks. That being said, we have been known to jump through hoops and get things completed in a fraction of that time, but it all depends on our current workload which can change from one week to another. Also keep in mind that our online catalog has over 10,000 different items and it is impossible to stock every item in every size and color. Therefore, we recommend you allow approximately 3 days for your blank apparel to even arrive at our production facility. We also want to have time to submit a virtual example of what your custom T-shirt is going to look like before we ever start the production process. It doesn’t however, act as a perfect representation of the color ink that is going to be used, but it does make sure that everything is going to be laid out the way you prefer it to be as well as spelled correctly. Every smart phone as well as computer monitor is going to be calibrated a little differently from another therefore it is not going to be a total accurate color match.

You are however welcome to come by our production facility and check the ink before we start the screen printing or embroidery process. This is one of the advantages of dealing with a St. Louis digital T-shirt printing company instead of one that is out of town.

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We Love Referrals and Repeat Business

The key to any successful St. Louis screen printing company is to keep the customer coming back for more. We keep good records of where our sales come from and how people find. Through this, we discovered that a very large percentage of our overall business comes from the repeat customers. It is 10 times easier to deal with someone that you have dealt with before and have a history with than someone that doesn’t know you. When you go into a sales interview with someone brand new that you have never dealt with before, you not only have to sell them on your pricing as well as a good product but more importantly you have to sell them on yourself. With the repeat customer, this is already been established long ago. They are already very confident in your ability to deliver quality digital T-shirt printing on time. Much of the time they’re calling you on the phone and they just simply say something to the effect of just screen printing more of the same T-shirts that you made for us last year. We normally keep the films archived and can pull them and reuse them on future orders.

Unlike many of the other St. Louis embroidery companies, we normally like to have a completed sew out on hand that we can pull when it comes time for the reorder so that we can match the threat color. Custom embroidery is all done by computer and the first thing that needs to take place is that the image needs to be given to our digitizer that creates the software that tells the computer how to sew it. An excellent digitizer has the ability to create the illusion of depth by using different types of stitches and placing them in different directions where it gives the illusion that it is three dimensional even though it is applied to a flat piece of material. Hats are different because they need to be sewn on a radius. What works on flat items such as jackets doesn’t always work on a finished cap. However, if we know that you might be considering doing some hats in the future, we will often be able to create that software where it will work on both. This will allow you to avoid having to create a different tape later on down the line. You can reuse this for many years to come as long as the image does not change in any way, shape or size. This tends to lend itself to our customers coming back years after the initial sale.

The overwhelming majority of our new customers find us by getting on their computer and doing a relevant search such as St. Louis T-shirt printing company. We are normally somewhere on the first page. They then click on us and that takes them directly to our website. Sometimes they will fill out the free quote request and other times they will actually give us a call. Unlike many of our local competitors, we actually answer our phones. Please give us a chance the next time you are in the market for some custom embroidery and we will prove to you why we get so many people coming back for more.

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