Episode 175 | What you need to start a Custom T Shirt Business (besides a printer)

hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the custom apparel startups podcast this is actually take three this is mark stevenson and this is mark vela and today we're here to talk about what you need to start a custom t-shirt business besides a printer yeah and that that's really important besides a printer part is is some i'm just looking forward to sharing this episode when it's all done because we get so many um questions on our advertising and on the website and through chat and everything that you know people are just asking for the price for the printer you know so how much is the printer how much is the printer you know just give me the price i don't want to talk to a sales person i don't want to go through your pitch or anything i just want want that price and you know the printer can be 36.95 or 79.95 or 149.99 or whatever the printer price is but that is little literally never the only thing that you need so i'm looking forward to be able to deliver value here to people that won't let us answer that question and uh maybe we can link to this and they'll see that there's a there's kind of a universe of things that you have to accomplish based around the printer when you start a business no that that's a great way to intro this and i also want to be sure that we explain that um when we say t-shirt business and printer um it we can also be we're also talking about embroidery business and embroidery machine or promotional business and uv printer or whatever it is right this works for anything kind of in the customization business and and any type of production style business in general so uh but to simplify the title so it wasn't a paragraph long we chose t-shirt business and printer it's the most common yeah it's it's true and that's something that you might use to you know when you're talking to people about your business you know you might want to simplify it to words that they're most likely going to be attracted to like if you primarily do promotional products you might want to say i'm in the promotional products business if it's custom tees custom tees rather than something general like i customize things yeah and and i i was telling mark that when people ask me what i do for a living oftentimes i just say um i i do marketing for a company that sells t-shirt printers like short everyone gets that and then usually i'll follow it up with um and any other and anything else that you want to print on so if you want to print on a t-shirt to a guitar we sell a machine that does it including embroidery machines you know for hats and and polos and stuff and then everyone kind of gets the whole picture so i think that's the kind of the the title of this podcast is that way and uh to mark's tip when you're talking about what you do find some interesting things that are short and sweet okay thanks everybody that's the podcast yeah so uh that's how we so that's a good little piece of information that doesn't have anything to do with this podcast so now we should get into it and uh to follow up what you were saying mark um i sold embroidery machines and t-shirt printers for a long time you sold other types of equipment in the past as well um so people typically are asking what's the price of the printer what's the best one how do i get the best best deal how do i um how fast can i get it all these things and they uh hyper focuses on the one thing not realizing that there's so much more that you need some of it costs money some of it doesn't and uh you could feel a little bit lost after you've made or purchased your printer if you didn't think about all this other stuff yeah and i mean honestly if you if you talk to somebody at cold s here coleman company we'll we'll make sure that you have everything or that at least you have that information but you know we've got a lot of listeners too that will just buy from what we call a box house you know they may just go online to amazon or someplace and buy a printer or a cutter or or something like that and they get it in the box and then they call us and go like you know well like what do i do now like i i don't have i don't have a heat press i don't have all the all the little tools that you're going to need to successfully produce a product on a regular basis so i'm glad we're we're going to go through those next yeah and i mean here's a heart here's a hard truth right i love to just give my honest opinion on things right but you're in sales not anybody one person is in sales and uh somebody wants the best price on a printer right that person who is at who's trying to find the best price or the lowest payment is probably one of the hardest people to get to buy accessories yeah the things they need or spend more money or upgrades and things that they might want because all they're focused on is the best price of the machine or the lowest payment and what we try to do at cold sea is is get you the right piece of equipment right and um so and everything that goes with it so some of the things here that we're going to talk about are things that are from cold sea um others are just other parts of the business you should be prepared for yeah stuff you need to do stuff you need to do and and i was on the phones a lot in the supply store for years answering phone calls onboarding new customers talking with them as as they purchased and some people would be very bothered that they needed to buy something else right like well why didn't i get that in the first place right um i don't know why didn't you get that in the first place you know and uh and it's typically because that balance and folks not wanting to be upsold naturally it's a defense mechanism i get that right i mean you sold cars right yep yeah defense mechanism i don't want the undercarriage protection and the window for fire i do i do i do have a little a little car tidbit though because that is one of the pieces of equipment that i used to sell right is um you know my happiest customers the ones that were most satisfied were the ones that just came in and bought a car and the ones that spent three hours going back and forth trying to save you know as much money as possible and get the lowest payment and things like that never thought they got the best deal they were always upset in the end they were sure that somebody ripped them off yeah yeah and there there's a defense mechanism there and because unfortunately the automobile industry uh ripped so many people off for so long what for a period of time and i don't know if that's true or not still but it was it was a stigma for a reason right was back in the day yeah back and then and the same with mechanics and the same with uh mortgage brokers and all of these industries were where uh you if you're not an expert you could easily be sold on things you don't need right but um but besides that what we're here to so now that we've got that out of the way i guess yeah we understand where we're coming from we we're going to talk about some other things that you're going to need and we'll just go through a list some of them cost money some don't but all of them are really important so write these down and be sure you have them if you're already in business and you don't have this stuff yet put it on the list you're gonna need it you're gonna need it so why don't we uh let's just start off with the first one here is um i'll start off with this one you could do go next we'll go back maybe so the first thing is just what i would describe as machine accessories and add-ons and this can be on anything that goes with or around your equipment and the production to get your final product yeah a lot of these a lot of these kinds of things are included in the first level kits that you get when you order a package like an essentials kit or something like that so you'll at least get samples or something along those lines but some of them are stuff that you've got to order extra yeah and and not everybody needs all of these things so we'll list a handful of them here in a minute that are common accessories but there are so many accessories that go along with production uh that you need to that's kind of why cold sea is a great asset is you speak to somebody about the equipment and by the way this podcast is sponsored by coldesti.com and if you're just running into us uh that's why we're referencing cold seas cold so if you go to coldeste.com you'll see all the equipment that we uh that we offer and support and train and the accessories we we have for those but um accessories you may or may not need right are going to be things like finishing in teflon sheets that are heat press accessories um a different type of heat press like a hat heat press or a mug heat press if you want to produce those okay um a little so i would i would say that finishing sheets are probably one of the most common ones yes right yes yeah this is uh this goes on top of a t-shirt um or anything that goes on a heat press right it's uh it's like when you use parchment paper paper for baking or aluminum foil for baking that's what this is so and you're going to need that for for white toner printing like digital heat fx you're going to need it for direct to garment printing you're going to need it for direct to film printing um do you need it for sublimation yeah sublimation it's highly recommended and it's not the same thing for every machine right there's different grades and different types so you get the right one but there's teflon sheets there's reusable ones disposable ones but these are little those are small accessories that are part of production they're con they're consumable items that you will go through over time um then there's a little bit more electronic items like heat presses like a hat or a mug heat press um and there's little tools scissors tweezers um and one one thing you mentioned mark that's really important is like a temperature and humidity gauge to read the the room that you work in maybe you want to just pitch that for a minute on why that's important absolutely absolutely it's a sleeper and you guys have to remember this because we rarely do in florida because humidity is is inescapable here but if you are in a dry climate or if you're up north and um you know when you run the heat if you're in an area that gets dried out and you're using any kind of liquid ink that that liquid ink gets dry the where it comes out of the heads of your printer it gets dry so that impacts the quality of the print and whether or not you even get a good print so you really need to have a temperature and humidity gauge because you don't want the ink to freeze you don't want your printer to freeze you don't want the everything to bake because it's too hot you don't want the ink to dry out and clog your printheads so those are really simple items that you know honestly if you're in florida typically you don't have to worry about so um you guys should make sure that you're getting one with whatever kind of printer you get yeah it's one of these little things um that's great and also the the other stuff all the little other things we mentioned above there are all important accessories there's a hundred other things that you could buy for accessories and add-ons and i think the the point i want to make sure that you mention the um the heat temperature probe for a heat press oh yeah because because that's super useful if you um especially if you do not buy a heat press as part of your package if you get a printer when you have printing issues um one of the first things that a support person is going to ask is you know is your heat press giving consistent temperature you know and you're not going to be able to say yes because you have no idea right you know there could be a manufacturing issue where there's a cold spot you know there's there's a lot of things that happen with heat presses and that's just a a way to confirm that when you set the dial in the front it's the same thing that the heat press is delivering on the inside right right and no matter what heat press the brand you have no matter how much money you spent no matter how cheap or expensive it is um the heat press pressure and temperature sometimes need calibration meaning that it goes out of calibration over time from heat and pressure heat and pressure are these things in the universe that change matter over time if you're a science person and you watch discovery shows you know that right from diamonds to stars heat and pressure are are bears on on substances and you have a heat and pressure machine um so it's important to make sure that it's right and it will it can be out of calibration quickly you know for various reasons especially if it was um in a garage where it was hot or freezing cold and uh so a gauge for this and if you don't want to spend like a hundred bucks on an actual digital gauge uh there's even a little uh throwaway things that you can use yeah to measure temperature so uh so anyway it's a really important accessory and it's one of these things that that not everybody will get but it's really important over time to own this uh and i think the the bottom line for the accessories and add-ons is you should be discussing this with whomever you're working with for your equipment sales um or your customer care representative after you've purchased a piece of equipment and honestly um if i mean really if a salesperson adds like a couple hundred bucks to your order that's that's not how they're getting an extra vacation that year like their point like they're not making it they're not like oh they sold you 200 bucks worth of stuff now they they made an extra 500 on commissions like that's not how this works right and it should be obvious for a small dollar amount so by the way these questions go for wherever you buy your equipment doesn't even have to be it doesn't have to be cold see it can be it doesn't even have to be apparel decorating or promotional products equipment if you're gonna buy a new a new you know kitchen appliance ask what accessories that you should be getting to make sure that it stays up and running properly and that you're going to need every day absolutely and it's great and it's just it's a great thing to know and ask and uh if you're speaking with somebody who's helping you guide you through the process of making a purchase of something like this you should directly ask them say if i were to spend like a few hundred bucks on accessories what would i get what what would you what would you recommend i get or as you know what matter of fact put like 200 bucks worth of stuff on there you're gonna i know i'm gonna be you know yeah yeah yeah right and it's just going to make your life easier and especially if you're um already financing equipment or getting a loan or budgeting out money if you put in an extra 500 or a thousand or whatever the dollar amount is of things you know you're going to need in the future or likely to need in the future you don't have to worry about it then right um and for financing it might be if you could add like pennies yeah pennies a buck more so and also i'll give you the i'll give you the dire scenario is uh and it happens all the time you'll call in to support with whatever printer that you've got and say my you know is making transfers great it's been six eight months everything's been absolutely perfect all of a sudden the upper left-hand side of all of my transfers they're not you know they're not working right they're not sticking properly it's coming off the shirt then the tech support person is gonna go okay cool so um it's probably your heat press right so what is your you know let's let's check the temperature on your heat press um okay can't do that i don't have a temperature gauge you know um it's not a good idea to put your hand in there to see if it feels warmer or not so now the the whole process is at a stopping point because you don't have that tool right and and the same goes with the with the temperature and humidity gauge uh you know hey uh my i keep having to run head cleanings on my dtg printer oh okay what's the humidity in your room because if it's too dry then that'll cause the heads to clog on a regular basis i don't know let me run down to home depot and get a um humidity gauge and i'll call you back tomorrow right yeah it's all good points and there's so many little things that just remember in general that there's two things um one is you're gonna need some stuff right away and mark you mentioned that when we put uh packages and bundles together we try to include the very basics at least um and you're gonna need things always forever because you're in business of production and you're always going to need a new accessory or add-on or consumable yes um over time and the point of business is that you sell stuff for a profit that the cost of those things are part of the cost of doing business and in the end you have a profitable business but but uh you're always going to be having to buy something and and get something new or refill something so just budget that in when you're planning speaking of things you're probably always going to need and you need right at the beginning um you've got a nice list of business setup things you should probably take care of next thing so that's the next thing you need is um besides a printer is business setup stuff so tell us about that if you don't so um there there are a few things and these are things that we're going to say because they're things that you say about business setup there could be some things that you elect not to do and you may not need depending on on what kind of business you're starting and the first one is a uh like you might need a state license or you know if you're working from home you might need a business license from your county um you might need something from your hoa that says it's okay for you to do business the government always wants it's a couple of bucks so you need to make sure that you are getting all your licensing taken care of yeah any any tax certificates if you're going to pay tax or not um federal ein numbers i mean all your basic business stuff you want to make sure that that you're prepping for this and planning for it for one it's going to cost a little bit of money right so if you're trying to run on on on a shoestring budget um prepare that you're going to spend some money on that um and then the other is just it's frustrating to um you're gonna set up to be able to buy something wholesale somewhere and then that company might say great we just need to prove you're in business and you've got nothing no coleman company doesn't do that right we don't we don't demand a resale certificate no we don't no no a coleman company we we don't uh colemancompany.com we try to be very very startup and small business friendly so as you get going you know we're not asking for that type of for that type of thing but if you're going to buy certain items in bulk from certain companies they just won't sell yeah you know for various reasons i remember that's actually one of the reasons why we started um we put wholesale apparel we put blank shirts and bags and things like that on colemancompany.com is because um the bigger you know the really big apparel wholesalers require a business license and a reseller certificate and a certain amount of time in business and a lot of our customers don't have that yeah so and we've provided yeah and and for some wholesale wholesale things if you have all of those things that still might not be enough right because of uh various volume requirements volume requirements things like that so um so one is you want to get all this stuff ready to go in addition to having um maybe an accountant an attorney you know anything like that on deck even if they're not doing anything yet yeah right you want to have you have that all set up and i would say that you know when you when you say an accountant you know you you should at least have a plan on how you're going to track um incoming money and how you're going to create invoices yeah so you know whether it's fresh books or quickbooks or you've got a bookkeeper or you know somebody that knows how to do it you should just know by the time you get a printer you're committed to selling stuff yeah so you have to also commit to keeping track of what you sell yes and and that's exactly the next thing on the list right so the next thing on the list of what else you need uh besides a printer is uh accounting slash invoice credit card uh money stuff software and organization in so many words anything associated with money um so yeah you've gotta find um are you going to accept credit cards the answer is probably yes yes it's 2022. if you're

listening to this in a hundred years from now and you ask what a credit card is um it's like a piece of plastic that you use to buy things and had numbers on it um that was before we did like fingerprint scanning of money and things like that before they put the chip in your in your your palm yes yes so it was a plastic card you had to keep on your person but uh so you need a way to process this um like stripe or square or paypal or you may even have a local person who does um merchant service who has like a merchant service you know company um that can help connect you with visa and credit cards or terminals that you can do in person or stuff on the internet right hey you know you know what you don't want is you don't want to make it hard for people to buy stuff from you there you go right so so you know if you don't want to just take paypal you don't want to just accept checks you know you want to make sure that you can take people's money and however they want to give it to you um so i would do that work um before you're ready to sell your first t-shirt right and and then behind all that is um the other money stuff your business bank account um your business credit card slash debit cards maybe checks you know uh depending on the type of business you do and where you are um deciding if you're gonna let people pay online or in person and preparing for that you know these are these are all this money stuff is really important um and uh when it comes to accounting you know as well i i thought that i wrote it down but i don't see it in here it disappeared buddy but you need some sort of a way to track your money in your invoices okay right did i write that down in here no that's why i said it so uh yeah you would need um accounting software or invoicing software so a way to actually go in and uh and send somebody an invoice and then to mark the invoice as paid and to keep track of it yep and uh you yeah go ahead i give you i give you all permission to grow into this stuff too like you have an idea of what you're gonna do but like for example if um um i use stripe on on some of my websites and one of the nice things about it is that i can send people an invoice right from stripe they um they will take credit cards and they give me like a little mini accounting suite so i can keep track of things inside stripe you know um you may not need an ein number right off the bat you may decide to be a sole proprietor you know the the things about all this is you've got to like at least think about it and know what you're going to do you know rather than get your printer and now you're starting to look at i don't have the right heat press i don't have the accessories i've got an order i don't know how i'm going to take the money um i don't know how i'm going to ship my goods you know things like that yeah and and and then i think that leads perfectly into next thing that you need besides a printer as a plan yeah maybe maybe more than one yes and and the plan thing i don't want us to get overboard because we have entire podcasts that are like three-parters that go into plans yes um so maybe we just bullet through it but um go back and and to other episodes um and look for where we discuss business plans and niches and things like that but um right i mean who are you going to sell to yeah i i think you should really find the episode where markville and i talk about noodling quite a bit no for a niche market it's not the name of the padres episode though it is in there i think that's 2019. um but uh yeah i mean who are you gonna sell to what's what's your plan on selling to them do you have a niche market um how are you gonna price it what other things do you have to consider in this kind of your plan i mean so if you are you going to are you doing business just locally are you going to deliver everything in person um do you need boxes to set if you're doing large orders do you need boxes that you um that you buy in bulk to to send stuff out are you going to use envelopes you're going to use fedex or or regular post how are you going to get your customers product are you going to include anything when you send stuff out so you're going to put in a thank you card or a brochure or a flyer about your business you know what is what does that look like as well yeah i i think that's great and while you're planning all of that you should also plan some other things like um when are you going to do the work right is this full time or or a side hustle um when are you do you have dedicated times that you can dedicate to uh your finances or sharing up you know sharing up your invoices following up with customers sending thank you cards like you mentioned maybe um so so all of that about organizing your time organizing your money as we talked about before and then organizing your kind of your business plan you know what one thing that we forgot is you should have an email address at least okay yeah right you know you should have an email address that i mean sure if you if you want to go the easiest way you can just do a gmail address that's bob's custom t-shirts at gmail.com um but you know if you're on the track and you're gonna have a website or do an etsy store or something you should look at something like a um a google suite which is very inexpensive where you get your own domain and then you can you know do uh bob at bob's custom t-shirts.com no and uh outlook offers a great service like this and then often times your domain service provider like if you use godaddy even will offer this you could hit uh wix offers this type of stuff you know so wherever you might be building your website or your domain might already offer this service um otherwise you know google and and uh microsoft are probably the too big um i think even apple has stuff for this too agreed um so now that we've got a plan uh one of the next things we put in here it's two that kind of go together i think but um you need space and organization yeah so so it's it's funny since you since you reminded me of my uh previous life in the car business there was a there was a famous world's greatest car salesman and i read his book and he told me about uh you know uh not asking too many questions at one point and he told the story about uh this this little old lady who bought you know she'd saved up her whole life for a cadillac and it was back in the days when cadillac's were 400 feet long yeah and you know she's writing up the paperwork and and he just says you know ma'am i you know i think this thing is going to look great in your garage don't you and she sat back and she thought about it a minute and realized that it wouldn't fit so she so she didn't buy the car but imagine if she had bought the car or the printer in the heat press the uv printer and got it home or that product arrived on your doorstep and you realized you didn't really have space you know you didn't you didn't know where you were going to put it um and the place where you thought it was going to go it doesn't fit or it doesn't work right for some reason yeah and and it's and space being physical is important um and digital too right so you want to have um a digital space where you can keep things where you keep your invoices like we talked about fresh books or quickbooks where you where you will um store other information maybe using microsoft excel you've got some sheets for that or an invoicing software or production software but you want to have a digital space too where you can organize everything um some folks will use like um uh microsoft onedrive or uh other folks will use like google drive and that's where you can store a lot of your documents um you know uh a calendar you know things like that so digital and a physical space are both extremely important so one thing that uh that i'll put everybody's mind at ease if you're shopping for a custom apparel or promo promotional products system then any of our cutters whether it's just a heat transfer vinyl or it's the bn20 for full color all the digital heat fx line and their heat presses and all the supplies and everything our direct to garment printers all of our bling machines those will all operate just fine in a 10 by 10 space you know i wouldn't want to put three or four of those things in the same place but you know you can operate you can operate most of our equipment in a back bedroom um what you can't do is you can't put some of the bigger the uv printers or no fun um to put to put in there and also you know there might be some venting and none of our direct to film printers are appropriate for like inside the house without proper ventilation and and things like that right so um you make a great all the first ones aren't noisy either so you know you're you're fine doing that yeah i i think that's it's for one backing all the way up to the accessories you know area um i see your drink you're drinking a spin drift i am don't you don't you remember like when you were showing off yours yes i had bought my first one so advertising fantastic yeah so uh if you're not watching this on youtube you're always missing out on something interesting i know i mean first of all you get to see me holding up the uh the spindrift and then mark villa does close-up magic on every uh every 15 minutes he does well back to the magic of of the information we've got um uh so you mentioned some power and space right so you want to make sure you have enough space and you have the power to power your equipment these are all reasonable questions to talk to somebody in the beginning and plan for that stuff if you're going to buy something that's particularly large you might need some dedicated power if you're going to have multiple heat presses you might want to have dedicated power more than one so you could discuss that with um who you're working with or maybe even uh if you have an electrician or something like that you know you could discuss that with them too you know you could provide them some stats on what you're going to be running um and and then with the space and the power and all that stuff um you've got to have all of it organized pretty well or it turns into a mess really fast yes like break out the break out the graph paper you know for your room design and make you know make sure that you've got everything download a free app uh get out some blue tape you know just make sure that where wherever you are first of all physically that everything that you want in there fits um you know think about the um you know the the heat press and where you're gonna want it if you want do you have kids do you have little ones that that might be uh interested in putting their hands inside the heat press and see if they can make a panini yeah you know then um you know you need to think about all that yep and and then uh and then there's there's plenty of other things to think about within organizing the space and making sure that things make sense um where you're gonna do your production is it in the right spot where you're gonna put your ink is it near a window does it get really cold in the winter could it potentially get you know um close to freezing temperatures near that window you know if you don't have a well insulated i mean there's lots of things to consider um if you're going to be doing production you know where are you gonna fold your shirts where are you gonna store the mugs just kind of think about all of that stuff with space and organization for both digital and physical space because it's it's another frustration from folks for they get all set up and ready and didn't even consider or think about well gosh mugs every case of the space takes up a bunch of space i didn't realize i was going to have like a pallet worth of stuff stored where am i going to keep it and uh so just just it's all worth thinking about hey listen i'm going to do a quick commercial for an embroidery machine because i because we haven't talked about those one of my one of my favorite things about the embroidery machines is they come with wheeled stands and you can literally roll them into a closet in a bedroom like they fit in a they fit in the corner um you don't need an extra heat press or anything like that with those the the supplies can get a little bulky and the hoops are hard to handle sometimes but it's very convenient um so if you're gonna use a room for double duty then you should think about that too you know get get carts on wheels so you can move it around you know just make sure that you're thinking ahead what you're going to use the space for yeah and honestly it doesn't matter if you have a big shop or you're working out of your house space is is always an issue i've talked to so many people about it where they're concerned about the width of the cutter or the width of the printer because the the corner that they've designated in a big warehouse right it's also full of stuff so every no matter how big or small your space is it's important and hey here's a here's a great question to ask your sales person am i going to need to access the back oh okay right because because i know that you know um with the bn20a that we've got in our in our showroom the ink cartridges stick out the side which is great but sometimes you need to get to the back to adjust the roller or something like that and it's it's a little bit more difficult because you can't walk behind it yes so so you know just just think about that stuff that's why we're your friends you're talking about our showroom because in our planning we have a printer back there the bn20 printer back there and it's hard to get behind there and it's not on a table on wheels right so it's like a multi-person thing to get behind there when we need to do something and um so we're not perfect and we and we spent a lot of time designing that we did so it's also a lot of this stuff is live and learn over time well there's one more thing you need um to start a custom t-shirt business before the printer and uh it's help yeah it's it's a uh it's a plan for help at the very least a plan for help at the very least what are you gonna do when fill in the blank yeah and it's a simple concept you don't know it's hard to predict so it's so it's one of these things that's getting help is a simple idea about help with what to do what when and where gets very complicated so i think it's just worthy of considering ideas um how do i think i'm gonna need help in production if i get busy do i think i'm gonna need help in accounting do i think i'm going to need help in selling or customer service do i think i'll just need general help like an assistant somebody to fold and box and deliver you know but consider all that stuff when you get busy and then who could do it for you right i like that and i would say that you know for example um about a month ago uh the sound on my laptop died right so we do a podcast i edit videos i do voiceovers things like that so i couldn't work effectively without a laptop well luckily i called um we've got an amazing it guy and i called him up and we got we got it taken care of i got a new laptop in what are you going to do if you have computer issues with the one that runs your equipment what will you do if your internet goes out or if your router goes bad you know or if you lose power you you know you've you've got to just think about these things a little bit some of them are very likely it is very likely that your computer is going to get messed up at some point right it is very likely that you're gonna have internet problems and maybe it won't affect your your business at all or maybe it'll shut you down for two days so so it's so much easier if you just make a list of here's why i call when i have computer problems here's what i do when the internet goes down here's what i you know here's what i do if i have an accounting question here's what i'm going to do if i need help with production and i can't finish something myself here's what happens when i go on vacation you know these these having this list and just sticking up somewhere it's super relaxing it's super relaxing because oh look it's problem number three my internet is down here's the phone of the internet service provider here's my account number let me hop on the phone and see what's up right you know rather than what i usually do which is i've got an actual filing cabinet down here with all my bills from 10 years ago that's how i look for the phone number in my account number to call somebody right it's great it's and all that stuff is really important and by the way i love just thinking about simple things too you know just say i have a teenager you know right maybe you do i don't but if you did i have a teenager who drives maybe i'll just ask if they'll hey hey planning for the future would you might would you be down to make a little bit of money delivering stuff to the local businesses you know um over the summer you know i'm hoping to get busy enough where we could do that and you know you can make some cash you know those are little things you could talk about um you could talk to your husband or wife or or friend or partner about um hey what do you think about as they get a little bit bit as we you know this business gets a little bit busy doing the accounting stuff are you good with that or or running email customer service just just throw the ideas around the people who are close to you who are kind of going to be a part of this family business if it is a family business um and if it's not that case and you have something completely different going on how might you hire somebody what would be the plan for that right so um i think it's all worthy of having a plan because help is something that is inevitable unless you unless you just the only caveat is if if you want your business to stay small we're just you run it and you're gonna work 40 hours and that's how much work you're gonna do a friend of mine has a business and that's what he does he's like i don't want it bigger than that don't want the drama right again that's him right he knows that it limits the money he makes but that's it um uh but even still i know that his wife helps out with some books helps out with going to the bank you know you can still so help it help is is always important so i think that that wraps everything up mark that's everything that's not everything but it's a lot of what you need to start a custom t-shirt business um or embroidery business or any customization business besides a printer or an embroidery machine or a heat press yeah i i love that and i i hope this gives some clarity to people out there that really are just focused on how much is the machine and maybe makes you more comfortable in talking to a salesperson or someone that knows you know rather than just trying to figure this stuff out yourself because you know from an equipment standpoint you know we we as a company and most companies put put together bundles for a reason because there are things that people ask for so you should talk to somebody about that if you are setting up your business maybe you want to talk to somebody at the small business association about that if you are looking to improve your finances maybe you've got somebody to talk to about personal finances you want to run run stuff by the business about them you've got a friend that runs a small business and you can ask them hey where do you go for help where do you get computer services things like that so yeah and my i think my takeaway is um be sure when you're shopping for something you ask the question what else will or or might i need yeah and then take serious consideration on if you will or if you will need those things and make a purchase and and it reminds me of um when i worked at best buy many many years ago when i was younger and i worked in the camera department and so many people just wanted the camera and this was digital camera like early days 2000 right um they uh you need a memory card you probably need a case you probably want some sort of lens cover you want a lens cleaner because you don't want to use your t-shirt right um these are all things you probably want um and then best buy had their things they sold right like protection plans and insurance and all stuff like that and and our job working there was to offer all those things and there's a level between the things that are optional like insurance and things that are critical like a memory card right right and and uh what is critical for your business is not always going to be the same for everybody else some people didn't need the camera case because they got the little camera and it closed with the lens cover and it could fit in a purse case was optional for them memory card was not and i think it's the same for what we're purchasing here not everybody needs a mug heat press true right because not everybody does that but if you're serious about it you probably should um and i think it's really important to ask that question and and realize that uh if somebody's trying to sell you a box of uh finishing sheet that costs 16.99 that's that's not how they're getting rich to try to upsell you on stuff they're recommending something that's legitimate and you should just and you should probably get it um yeah just get it especially you know spending fifteen thousand dollars and someone's telling you buy something that costs twenty bucks yeah you know what's fifteen thousand and twenty in the in the grand scheme of it all you're gonna buy it later so uh uh consider everything really think about it and i know that um if you if you wrote this stuff down and you consider it all you're much more likely to be successful than somebody who digs their heels in and doesn't think about it yep i agree um okay that's it this has been mark stevenson and mark villa you guys have an amazing well-rounded fully stocked accessory heavy business thanks mark bye

2022-06-03 04:04

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