Working Nine to Five
Over the years, I can’t even remember how many times I’ve heard people complaining about their nine to five job and express that they wish they could own their own company and be their own boss. It’s one of the American Dreams. However, there’s an old proverb that says be careful what you wish for because you might actually get it. The grass is always greener on the other side. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons for each.
When I started up my St Louis digital t-shirt printing and custom embroidery company, I had it to incur an entire litany of challenges. To start with, I had no idea what I was doing. Knowledge is power, but I didn’t know where to acquire it as the internet and cell phones weren’t even affordable and easy to acquire for the average person. I couldn’t just pull up a tutorial on YouTube like we can do today. The first thing I had to determine is if I could actually sell custom t-shirts.
I’ve been self-employed my whole life. I have a good understanding that no matter how accomplished you are at whatever it is you do, nothing good is going to happen until the sale is made. In other words, if that phone doesn’t ring with a job on the other line, you will quickly go out of business. So I got some business cards printed up and just started knocking on doors the old school way. I would introduce myself and just simply ask if I could talk to the owner or the manager. I was aware that although the majority of the doors that I knocked on actually used screen printing and embroidery, they didn’t necessarily need it that very minute. So the biggest challenge I incurred was trying to find someone to sell at that very moment. Then all of a sudden I got a revelation. I thought to myself, how lucky are the people who simply punch a time clock from 9:00 to 5:00 and put in a 5-day work week. They go home at the end of the day and don’t give their job a second thought. I on the other hand would be thinking about selling custom t-shirts every waking hour.
When owning a business, there are no guarantees like a common nine to five job where you know you’re going to get a paycheck at the end of the week and know exactly how much it’s going to be. The upside though towards owning your own St Louis embroidery company is there’s no limits to how much you can make. Be on the lookout for future blogs, regarding the potential of starting up a digital t-shirt and screen printing business.