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6 Major Screen Printing Productivity Holes Every Business Must Fix

The ultimate goal of every screen printing business is to maximize profits as it grows. This entails offering differentiated services and effectively managing costs associated with running the business. Paying close attention to best possible use of all resources is fundamental in managing shop costs.

Unfortunately, there are those who tend to think of the business as a series of stand-alone modules instead of an integrated culture where information is shared efficiently. This  often leads to what is known as screen printing productivity holes, or areas of the business model where it’s so easy to waste time and resources.

Here are the six major screen printing business mistakes that should be identified and eliminated.

Uncoordinated Sales Efforts

It’s not unusual for the owners of screen printing businesses to rely on a combination of sales efforts in order to reach out to new customers and upsell to existing ones. Generating more attention and ultimately motivating more customers to place orders is the lifeblood of the screen-printing shop. No sales equals no revenue, and no business can do without that for long.

When the ability to share data about who’s been contacted, the nature and outcome of those contacts, and what actions are schedule to be done over the next few weeks is limited, that can interfere with and frustrate the sales team. Even not being able to review customer history and see what a customer has ordered in the past slows down the process.

The solution to this common screen printing business mistake is to make use of a shared database that makes it possible to ascertain the status of all leads, prospects, and customers. Something like OnSite screen printing shop software will ensure the sales team can organize their effort, keep the sales funnel organized, and jump on opportunities that could otherwise go unnoticed.

Awkward Ordering Process

There is no such thing as a single ordering process that fits every client. Some want to place orders by phone, others via a website. Some will even want to drop by and talk with someone in person. Customers who find that the screen printer does not make it easy to place an order will simply go elsewhere. That translates into immediate lost revenue and greater losses in the future.

While there has to be an internal process for identifying and moving to fulfill orders, that does not mean customers have to be limited in how they place those orders. Make it easy for them to use one of several different methods. The right integrated order management software solution ensures that data can be accepted, confirmed, and prepared for processing.

Orders Lost in Design and Production

Some screen printing projects are straightforward and others require customized attention. Once the design is settled, there’s the matter of producing the volume of units needed to fill the order. How long will that take? Is the order on schedule and will it be ready on time? Customers will ask these questions during the production process and customer support needs to have ready answers.

With a screen printing software package that makes it easy to obtain real time information about an order status, customers don’t have to wait for answers. It’s easy to access the order by more than one type of data, verify the current status, and provide up to the minute information to the client. That goes a long way toward keeping the customer happy, ensuring they come back the next time they need something, and that they will recommend the printer to their business associates.

Poor Quality Checks

It’s not enough to finish the production on time and be able to check the status along the way. Before the order is slated for delivery, there has to be a quality check. For example, were the correct quantities of shirts produced in the proper colors and sizes? Have the shirts been checked to ensure the clarity and color of the screening? When an integrated system is in place, those quality checks are not overlooked. In fact, the orders remain flagged for checking until the task is complete. Doing so will mean the client gets what was ordered and will be unlikely to reject the order or hesitate to place another one.

Sloppy Invoicing Procedures

Getting the order right is crucial, but making sure there are no issues with the invoice also matters. Is there a special discount or an introductory offer that needs to be applied? An integrated system allows the sales or customer support team to apply the discount to the order up front. That makes it all the easier to ensure that special rate is applied to the order and the invoice detail is perfect. Customers who see those promised discounts on the invoices will marvel at how smoothly things went and be back again.

Inefficient Shipping

It’s great that the business owner set up the delivery process to include more than one shipping option. Now there’s the matter of making sure the one selected by the customer is the one that’s used. Customers who want goods delivered by a courier rather than the post will be upset if they pay for something and don’t get it.

At any time from the acceptance of the order until it arrives at the customer’s doorstep, it must be easy to verify details and provide tracking information. The right type of centralized database will ensure getting answers takes little time, there is no need for entering the same data more than once, and verifying the delivery at the destination is a snap.

Integrated business software packages ensure information flows across the shop, efficiently, reducing coordination costs, improving productivity, and making the entire shop run better. There is never a better time than the present to invest in a software package that eliminates those productivity holes. Take the time to check out what Onsite from ShopWorks Software provides. After one demonstration, it will be easy to see how the software will streamline operations across the entire shop, allowing employees to be more productive, keeping customers happy, and increasing profits.

Regardless of what products or services you sell, we guarantee your business can gain a lot from software solutions for business, such as on-site software systems and information services. While software does cut out jobs and reduce your employee base, it also dramatically increases efficiency and productivity, and can save your company a lot of money.

Here are several ways in which your company can benefit from business software:

• It saves you time. There is no dispute that well trained employees work quickly and efficiently, but it is physically impossible for them to work as quickly as a computer program can. When it comes to completing menial tasks, such as fielding and directing customer service requests, calculating taxes, employee pay and other financial totals, filing data and more, software frees up huge amounts of time for you and your employees to compete more crucial tasks. Your employees can then spend that time on more important, time-consuming tasks that cannot be completed by a software program or a computer.
• It saves you money. Software services not only cut down on labor costs because they cut out jobs, and sometimes even whole departments, but they also streamline your business and make it more efficient. You save money each hour that your business runs more efficiently, meaning you will see major returns from your business software almost immediately. To make sure you see the highest returns possible from your system, make sure you take advantage of training employees and that each manager and employee can use your software to its fullest extent.

Learn more about the Benefits of ERP Software.

The Next Steps for Starting A Screen Printing Business

In our last blog, we gave you the first three steps for starting your very own commercial screen printing business. Here are a few final steps to follow to finish preparing and opening your doors for business.

1. Create a business plan that includes all marketing, financial, operational and purchasing information and details. This will make hiring your staff and your first few years in business much easier.

2. You’re almost there! Start looking for a space to host your business, whether it’s a spare room in your home or a production facility somewhere near your home. It needs to be large enough to host the business you plan on running and the rent should be within your budget.

3. Consult your local government to complete all of the registrations, licenses and tax permits that you need to own and run a business.

4. Finally, conduct sample products, take photos of them and begin marketing to customers on a professionally designed website.

Ways to Grow an Apparel Business

It’s amazing how many decorated apparel shops fail to take advantage of the Internet’s growth in use for searching. People use the Internet to search for just about anything. This creates a great opportunity for you to grow your apparel business.

Here are some crazy facts I dug up on the Internet:

• 85% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses.
• The amount of time adults use the Internet has more than doubled since 2008.
• A big reason for the increase in Internet search usage is 80% of users own a smart phone.
• And local searches are soaring because of niche categories, like embroidery and screen printing.

These sites have other useful Internet facts:

• Wikipedia
• Statista

Google remains the king of search engines, accounting for nearly 80% of searches. Bing and Yahoo account for about 16% of the searches.

Importance of top of page ranking: If you’re in spots 2 or 3 for a keyword, e.g., “screen printing”, you can estimate that about 10% of the monthly search volume will visit your website. If you’re in spot 1, about 30% of the search volume will go to your website. I recommend shooting for the stars and going for spot #1. It’s the best investment you can make in your business.

So how do you get your business listed and ranked highly on a keyword searches, like “screen printing Houston”? 

Here are three easy ways to grow your apparel business using local searches:

First, use Google.

Google’s business model is to get your apparel business listed. They want you to be ranked for the right keywords. If you’re relevant, Google is relevant. Keywords are those words that describe your business. So if you live in South Florida and offer screen printing and embroidery, your keywords might be “Miami”, “Fort Lauderdale”, “West Palm Beach”, “screen printing” and “embroidery”.

One of the best free services offered by Google is Google My Business. By registering, it takes about 10 minutes, you list your business with Google and automatically create a Google+ account. Google+ allows you to showcase your business and get reviews. (We’ll come back to the importance of customer reviews later).  Google My Business also offers a dashboard, at no cost, that allows you to see how much business it’s driving  via listing clicks and views, phone calls, driving directions, etc. And it’s really easy to use.

How do you increase your ranking to get more business? Here’s a few tips:

1. Make sure your business information is correct. Name. Address. Phone. Business hours. Website URL, etc.
2. Proximity. Google My Business and Google+ allow for more than one location if you have one.
3. Local directory references. Google relies on other online directories, like Yelp, and customer reviews from these directories. The more you  have the better.

You can also use Google AdWords Express to buy your way to the top of the search rankings.

Google makes their money off of AdWords. But you no longer do you need to be an AdWords pro to get good results. Make sure you have your business category is listed corrected, like “screen printing,” and Google pretty much knows what search words are relevant. I recommend a small daily budget, maybe $10, to get you started. Then use the service to see what’s working and adjust. The analytics and reporting is free too.

A couple tips on writing a good ad listing:

1. Create a strong offer, e.g., “10 Shirts Free with First Order”
2. Clear call-to-action, e.g, “Give Us a Call Today” or “Learn More”
3. Clear benefits, e.g., “100% cotton t-shirts”
4. And take the time to put these keywords on the webpage you’re directing people to.

Second, use Yelp AND get customer reviews.

And Yelp is no longer for restaurants. According to some facts I found online, Yelp has 142 million monthly visitors a month. And people are searching for just about everything, including decorated apparel local businesses.

Local Yelp listing is free. Again, make sure your business information is correct. And the most important thing to remember about Yelp (and Google+) is get customer reviews. This will  help get you listed high in search results, driving more business. So make sure your customers are “nudged” to provide you a review. One good tip is simply remind them via email, especially if it’s a happy customer. Putting a Yelp badge (which is available on their website) on your website is also a good idea. Or simply have a sign in your shop and provide incentives to your sales team to get great reviews.

Yelp also offers paid advertising. This can work really well but start small and expand if it works.

Third, use the other online directories, like YP.com.

While the other directories are not as relevant as Google My Business and Yelp, they help with ranking. Nearly all provide a free service and all you need to do is make sure your business information is correct. YP.com and other directories also offer paid advertising, but I recommend starting with Google AdWords Express. If this works, then expand.

Here’s an example of a company using the three easy ways to grow your apparel business. We’ll not quite an apparel business, it’s my barbershop! But it’s the same principle. You’ll notice in the screen shot that The Barber Club in Pompano Beach ranks first in Google+, SEO and Yelp. This is how you grow your business in 2016. Wondering how they ranked so high? 118 customer reviews did the trick.

So how did the owner find the time to get this going? 

I’ve got three answers for you:

1. The owner made the time. He found time in his busy schedule to ensure his business was listed. He made time to get customer reviews. He made time to ensure getting customer reviews is part of the company’s culture.
2. He earned the time. His entire shop is automated, saving the owner time. Time that he reinvests in growing the business with great local search adverting.
3. He invested in software. The owner mentioned to me he went from being reactive to proactive by getting his business organized and used software to automate much of it.

How do you make the time?

There’s over 850 decorated apparel, screen printing and embroidery companies using ShopWorks OnSite business software. Most companies experience a huge savings in time using this all-in-one business management software to run their business better. 15% savings or more per employee is not uncommon. Now you could use this time to golf, spend time with the family, go fishing, or whatever you like. Or you could use this time to grow your business with great local search marketing. Get started with these three easy ways to develop your apparel business and think about what you could do with your extra time if you invested in streamlining your business operations.

Ways to Save Money in Business

When it comes to saving money at your business, the biggest ways to save are often not found in the little things. Sure, purchasing cheaper paper clips saves you money, but you will save a lot more if you are being economical with your actual workspace.

There are several office money saving tips you can apply to your space.

1. Cutting down on the amount of paperwork you have will allow you to consolidate into a smaller space, meaning you save in rent and heating and cooling costs. Software solutions for business like Apparel ERP or Digital Printing Systems allow you to store all of your information in one convenient digital place, saving you tons of space and resources.

2. Don’t feel bad about taking advantage of other people’s misfortunes. If other companies need to downsize or move quickly, they will offer their space at a much cheaper rate. This may mean subletting, but you can usually shave as much as a quarter off the asking price.

3. Don’t be afraid to share your space with another small company or offer extra rooms as storage for another company. This will allow you to maximize your space and make money on the parts you can’t necessarily use yourself.

4. If you have the type of business where your employees can complete their work from anywhere, consider ditching your space altogether and paying them to work part time from home. This will cut down on costs drastically and help your business run even more efficiently than when you had a physical space.

Choosing a quality, secure business software is incredibly important, and here are three reasons why OnSite 7 is one of the best options, when it comes to converting your business to an online database:

1. We are more secure than other companies. We haven’t had major security breaches and are constantly researching new technologies to make our databases even safer than they already are.
2. We have better customer support. Whether you want to learn how to use your software better, or you are experiencing a problem of any kind, you can either call one of our experts, today, for help troubleshooting; view help and seminar videos online; or attend our training center and have access to hours of classes, seminars and help.
3. We do it all. Our software isn’t just built as accounting software or as a database to store information. It does nearly everything for you — from storing all of the information for orders in one convenient location, to Apparel Erp helping to create schedules right on the production floor.

Four Financial Management Mistakes

Contracts and software solutions for business are the two biggest factors in establishing a financial frame for your business, and the strength of each of these will help determine the ultimate success or failure of your company. Poorly managing your contracts or failing to utilize your digital printing systems or apparel software means the financial framework of your business will collapse.

Here are four of the most common financial management mistakes, and ways that you can avoid them:

• Often, businesses let revenue contracts expire by accident, resulting in a loss of finances or partners. With reliable business software, you can store all of these contracts in your system and set up reminders when they are up to expire.

• Expense contracts will renew automatically, and don’t require evaluation, meaning that if you have signed a disadvantageous contract, you will want to stop it from renewing. This requires you monitoring your contracts constantly to catch these contracts before they renew.

• If you aren’t monitoring your system and your contracts, you may let legal risks remain unmanaged and unidentified. Even though it isn’t fun, as the business owner or manager, you need to make sure you are familiar with the financial framework of your company and that you are constantly reviewing contracts to maximize your profit potential.

• Finally, make sure your contracts meet compliance reviews. It is easy to let this slip, and it can result in a great loss of profits. Again, this requires constant checking up and monitoring of contracts.

OnSite and QuickBooks Software Comparison

QuickBooks is an accounting program that can be quite useful in simplifying the accounting processes in your office. However, it is limited to just that: accounting. OnSite, on the other hand is complete business solution software.  It offers accounting tools in addition to other tools that help you to manage your business proactively and more efficiently.

QuickBooks was initially designed to be used in all industries, which made it a good accounting option for many different businesses. OnSite, by contrast, is designed to be used only in the embellished products industry. The idea was that tools designed for a certain industry would be better able to serve it better than general programs.

While maybe 20 to 30 percent of your time is spend accounting, a majority of your day is spent on managing work, entering sales orders, checking jobs, doing quotes and more. A complete business solution can better consolidate your business and simplify your life than many general, specific programs.

No matter what kind of business you run, whether you require Apparel ERP, digital printing systems, or other software solutions for business, you need to have the basic software and hardware requirements needed to support your OnSite 7 workstation before you purchase it. Here are a few of those basic requirements, and a full list can be viewed here.

• A workstation computer is recommended to have both 1.5 GHz processor or higher, with no lower than 700 MHz, and 256 MB RAM or higher.
• Workstations running OnSite 7 are very dependent on the processor speed, and must meet the minimum specifications in order to run it efficiently. These are:
  • Windows Vista Ultimate, business or home
  • Windows 7 Ultimate, professional or home premium
  • Windows XP, professional or home
  • Mac OS X 10.6
  • Mac OS X 10.4.11
  • Mac OS X 10.5
• The software was designed to run on monitors that are 17 inches, at 1024 X 768 resolution or higher, and will run poorly at lower resolutions or on smaller screens. If you do have a smaller screen, you will have to scroll around every page, because it will not display the full screen.
• You must also have a server with three or more users, in order to run OnSite 7 that has a Dual CPU/Core Duo and 3.4 GHz processor minimum, recommended 2 GB RAM or higher, with no less than 1 GB RAM, and a tape or other automated backup system. Without any data, the OnSite 7 system will take up about 250 MB of storage space, so having a good-sized server to store additional data is important.

Financial Record Keeping Tips

Record keeping is one of the most important aspects of maintaining a business. The financial records you keep help ensure that you are safe from IRS audits, employee lawsuits, and more, and job records help you maintain consistency in your commercial screen printing business.

We gave you the IRS recommendations for how long you should keep certain kinds of information in our last blog. Here are several more categories, with advice on how long you should hold on to your records.

If you own business property, then the IRS recommends that you hold on to your records until the limitations end, from the year in which you disposed of the property. These documents help you calculate applicable depreciation, depletion deductions, amortization and more, and will help you determine loss or gain on your property. If that property is a vehicle or real estate, you should keep the title or deed in a secure, safe spot until the property is sold or properly disposed of.

Bank account information and statements should be held onto for about seven years minimum. If they are supporting documents for tax returns, however, you may want to keep a copy permanently.

Regardless of the kind of information, your software solutions for business should provide a place for you to store them indefinitely and in one, secure place. Your apparel software shouldn’t just keep track of your jobs and orders, but it should also help keep track of your finances and business history.

As a rule, make sure you keep important documents indefinitely, keep documents with conditions that expire until those terms have expired, or four years after, and keep most other documents about seven years.