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27 Apr 2012

How Logo Wear Can Boost A Prospect’s Confidence In Your Business

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Through our engagement in local business and community groups, we have had the opportunity to see a lot of small businesses come and go. We can almost sniff out the ones that are going to fail based upon the way their representatives present themselves. One of the most important indicators is whether that representative projects confidence. I think this goes right down to the subjective, perhaps even unconscious decision-making that is wired into our brains that guides how some of us vote for leaders, decide who we admire, and perhaps even choose friends. Would it not be advantageous to have that same wiring working to boost a prospect’s interest in your business?

We recently supplied some embroidered shirts to a small startup that supplies camera equipment. The owner ordered only four shirts. He wanted them because he was heading off to a trade show. What do the shirts accomplish for him? Several things:

Awareness — At least people will know what he represents whether or not they ever speak to him.
Branding — This builds upon Awareness because the firm has other marketing materials and is trying to achieve a consistent brand image.
Boost A Prospect’s Confidence — Consistent branding materials help a consumer to decide whether your company is stable and a viable long-term supplier.

Stability is particularly important for potential clients who are looking for a long term relationship with your business. They want to know if your company is just a flash in the pan or if you will be there to support your product several years down the road.

Think through how your company looks to your prospects. Does your company inspire confidence? Do your prospects feel comfortable that you will be there for years to come? Do your representatives look and act like they are mercenary hires or like they belong to a brand? Your website, your print materials, and your logo wear all help mold that brand image in the eyes of your target market.

30 Mar 2012

How Your Car Rental Instincts Can Help When Choosing an Embroidery and Screen Printing Vendor

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One of our local Seattle / Tacoma area embroidery and screen printing competitors shut its doors this past week. While we feel sorry for the staff affected by that event, it obviously creates an opportunity for our firm. We have already had clients calling us to ask if we can take over handling their logo wear.

The first client with whom we met starting off asking us about our production capacity. Their former vendor had advised them to make sure they found a vendor with at least X number of machine heads, which translates into how many garments one can stitch simultaneously. What the now-shuttered vendor did not advise their client to contemplate was the condition of the vendor’s equipment. This Puyallup-based competitor was openly for sale for many months. When we considered purchasing their business last year, we learned that their equipment was antiquated and falling apart. The owner was not investing sufficiently in the maintenance of their screen printing equipment. It literally broke down into a heap of scrap metal the following week!

When you go to rent a car on a business trip or family vacation, what goes through your mind when you find that the car you rented is dented, rusting, and/or dirty? Are you not comforted when you find the car you rented seems at least clean and well maintained, and preferably relatively new? Wouldn’t you want the same from a logo wear vendor in which you have trusted a key element of your corporate branding?

When choosing your embroidery and screen printing vendor, how much capacity the vendor has only answers part of what you really need to know. What you also want to know is what is the downtime of their equipment. Just losing a film printer’s toner controller chip — a $5 part (!) — can knock a screen printer down for days while they await delivery of a replacement part. On the embroidery side of the house, cheap production equipment is made with a lot of plastic parts that will crumble and break inside the machine eventually, leading to the vendor having production downtime. Recently, one of our local Seattle area competitors even had to ship equipment back to a service center on the east coast! What if that had happened just before you rolled out your new product?

Our service technician visited us 15 months ago and listed the parts of our equipment that the manufacturer considered “disposable.” When we scheduled his return visit last year, we told him to replace all of those “disposable” parts, whether or not it was immediately necessary. We do not believe that downtime is in our customers’ best interests; therefore, it is not in ours.

Top quality embroiderers and screen printers have built their businesses from the ground up with the idea of minimizing downtime in order to always ensure smooth, reliable production for their clients. Work with a vendor that feels invested in the future of your business, and invests to ensure your mutual success!

16 Jan 2012

Company Logo Wear in Corporate Branding — the IBM Example

Posted in Cheap vs. Quality, Embroidered Apparel, Uncategorized, Work Uniforms | Leave a comment

Branding one’s company involves a number of decisions from logo design and development of graphic standards to setting the corporate culture and tone of customer service. The ultimate goal is to make a brand resonate well in the mind of the consumer.

But what happens when it’s time to send the customer-facing representatives out into the streets? Smart marketeers are thinking ahead to this eventuality. Perhaps branding for those sales representatives is best accomplished with a company lapel pin on a suit jacket. For example, for years IBM was associated with blue suits, which helped create a corporate identity that worked for IBM. Now what you are imagining in your mind is a bunch of people dressed in quality blue suits. But what would happen to your image of IBM if those quality blue suits looked threadbare, had jacket lapels that were way out of fashion, or were otherwise of poor quality? Would that not have tarnished your impression of the great IBM brand?

For many companies, branding efforts extend to outfitting employees in embroidered shirts, embroidered jackets, embroidered hats, and other logo wear. Marketers should consider not only the quality of the stitch work of an embroidery shop, but also the quality of the garment upon which the logo will be placed. Work closely with your embroidery shop to ensure that the garments meet your expectations for durability and style. Otherwise, your branding may end up reminding people more of a circus when you had envisioned looking more like IBM.

29 Dec 2011

Why Screen Printed Team Jerseys Peel and Flake

Posted in Cheap vs. Quality, Screen Printing, Sports Team Uniforms | Leave a comment

sports team uniforms cheap quality screen printing problems

We constantly have conversations with prospective customers who are wary of screen printing. They feel like they have been burned in the past in their dealings with screen printers. It’s no wonder. Take a look at this image of a local sports team jersey. It looked like this after only TWO washes!

You may think, “Well, that’s what happens with screen printing.” Wrong! That’s what happens with poor quality screen printing.

The first question that went through my mind was, “Why isn’t the club taking these back and demanding replacements?” The answer, of course, was, that the club didn’t have time to seek replacements because the season was underway. So everyone just lives with it and assumes that this is what happens when you buy screen printed team jerseys.

It does not have to be this way, folks! You do not have to accept substandard quality in this arena. How would you react if you bought new tires and then discovered the tire shop had installed retreads? You would reject them, demand to have things straightened out to your satisfaction, and then still probably report the vendor.

I’m In Stitches does not tolerate poor quality screen printing. We use only quality inks. We make sure the ink adheres properly to the shirts. Finally, we cure the inks onto the garments properly. This is perhaps the most important part of getting a quality outcome. Cheaper vendors can escape doing this well because the customer does not notice the difference until weeks later. Properly curing the inks onto the garments ensures a high quality outcome that keeps our customers pleased for the long run and keeps them coming back.

When you order screen printed tees, screen printed hoodies, and screen printed team jerseys from I’m In Stitches Custom Embroidery and Screen Printing, you can count on us getting the job done right.

29 Oct 2011

How helping a father save the day for his daughter led us to become a distributor of Augusta Sportswear.

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We recently took a call from a client desperate for help. We’ll call him Robert. Robert’s daughter, we’ll call her Elizabeth, is a cheerleader at a local high school near Tacoma, WA. Elizabeth’s cheerleading uniform did not fit her well because her torso is longer than average. Consequently, her belly was showing when she went through her cheer routines.

Robert knew us because we had provided custom embroidered shirts for his company sales team some months earlier. He shared with me that he was really frustrated with the vendor the vendor the school had selected for its team uniforms. Robert had explained that he was trying to purchase a larger replacement cheer jersey for Elizabeth, but the vendor was not responsive. He begged to know if there was anything we could do to help.

I stopped into his office the next day to see what the jersey looked like and to take some photos. We were not yet distributors of Augusta Sportswear, the maker of this jersey, but that was easy enough to fix with a few calls. A few days later we were set up as a distributor and were able to get a larger jersey ordered and shipped via FedEx overnight delivery. We then used the photos to recreate the jersey. The school name and jersey number were screen printed onto the front. We used heat press vinyl to put Elizabeth’s name onto the back of the jersey.

Elizabeth was soon wearing her newer jersey onto the field for the homecoming game. Her new jersey was 1 inch longer than her old one, covering her perfectly. She even sent us a nice personal note thanking us for going to the lengths we did to help her out.

18 Sep 2011

Why your basic expectations of a logo wear provider could actually be costing you business.

Posted in Cheap vs. Quality, Uncategorized, Work Uniforms | Leave a comment

Most people would say that the rule of thumb about how long you have to make a first impression with a prospect is a maximum of 30 seconds. If you think that that 30 seconds begins when you shake a hand and introduce yourself, you are wrong. What are your sales representatives communicating before they have even had a chance to speak? This is common sense to anyone heading into a job interview, but often gets lost when companies are looking to outfit their teams. What impression are your clients and prospects forming when they see your team in the logo wear you have provided them?

You see, the question is not whether an embroidery and screen printing shop can provide you with cheap apparel. We all can do that. The real question is: can you live with it?

So what are the basic expectations of a logo wear provider? For about 70% of the prospects who call our shop, they seem to be:

The embroidered shirts, hats, or jackets will look decent when pulled out of the box.
The embroidery or screen printing will resemble the original design when staff tries them on.
Timely delivery
Inexpensive

Let us paint a possible outcome that satisfies those expectations. Your company buyer orders $2000 worth of logo wear through an online vendor whose prices seemed most attractive. The boxes of embroidered jackets and polos arrive two weeks later. Things look great right out of the box. Upon closer inspection, you notice that the part of your logo that should be burgundy is looking a little too close to purple. A month later, your sales reps stop wearing the polos because the fabric is pilling up. You look at one and notice that the shirt seems like it is now two years old, not one month old. Your company mascot in the logo no longer seems to be smiling, but merely grinning and bearing it.

This is a corporate branding decision that gets worn into live conversations with potential buyers. Why would you want to get into a position where your company logo is compromising your image?

Here’s how you can raise the expectation level and avoid this situation:

Reorient your decision-making process toward buying quality. Quality logo wear will last longer and look better.
Get to know your embroidery and screen printing shop and see if they control their production. Quality embroiderers and screen printers take pride in their work and know that happy clients are repeat clients and can refer business. They won’t let poor quality work leave the shop because they know it will cost them a future order.
Ask to see the quality of your vendor’s work. Most shops can show you samples from other jobs that should help you determine your confidence level.
Ask to see the quality of your vendor’s recommended apparel. We will often visit a client with samples of new and worn garments from different vendors so that our clients can make a side-by-side comparison of features and durability.

If you follow those simple steps, you will find your way into quality corporate logo wear. In so doing, your clients and prospects are likely to have confidence that quality is something your company prioritizes and provides.

29 Aug 2011

How is it possible to guarantee quality embroidery digitizing?

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I received a thought-provoking e-mail from a vendor who would like to earn our business. The service the vendor was selling was embroidery digitizing as well as conversion of art files into vector formats for screen printing.

I had just hit the delete button when it struck us what was most odd about the pitch — a bold claim in the vendor’s e-mail that read: ”We guarantee quality.”

That one statement solidified why I was not interested in working with that vendor. How can they guarantee quality? Whose quality? Who judges the quality? Their boldest claim does not speak to whether the needs of my clients will be fulfilled. That is what I guarantee. That is what I require my vendors to guarantee.

Digitizing logos for machine embroidery is part software and part art. Just guaranteeing that there will be an outcome is insufficient to ensure that my clients are achieving their branding goals.

22 Aug 2011

The Top 4 Indicators of Poor Quality Sport Shirts You Need to Know before You Buy Embroidered Polos

Posted in Cheap vs. Quality, Embroidered Apparel, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

There is inexpensive and then there is cheap. While inexpensive embroidered polos can lower your costs and make you a corporate branding hero, cheap embroidered shirts can actually raise your costs and lower your revenue!

If you don’t believe that, consider: when was the last time you dressed in your cheapest clothes for a job interview? You have never done that because you wanted to win the job offer!

Your company representatives are trying to win the next job for your business, and every time a prospect views a member of your team, that team member’s logo wear is making the first statement about your company. You can train your marketing and sales staff to say the right things, but if you have outfitted them in dilapidated apparel, the prospect will be wondering how well his needs will be satisfied when your company could not even be bothered to outfit its own staff in quality shirts.

So here are the top four ways to spot poor quality sport shirts:

Number 4: Buttons – Look at the buttons on your favorite shirts. Compare those to the buttons on the cheapest shirt you have. What do you suppose is the wholesale pricing for buttons? How would you compare that sum with the value of your time trying to replace a broken or lost button?
Number 3: Plackets — If you are unaware, the placket is the part of a sport shirt that extends down from the collar to hold the buttons and the button holes. Plackets should be straight. End of story.
Number 2: Loose threads — We are sure that you have purchased shirts that have not had any loose threads. We are also sure that you have purchased shirts and been annoyed at having to cut loose threads along the inside seams of the shirts. That is frustrating because you know from personal experience that it’s possible to make a shirt with no loose threads. Yet this manufacturer either does not have the equipment or does not have the management to ensure that you have a good experience.
Number 1: Collars — Collars are the number one dead give away of poor quality shirts. The problem is, it’s not always easy to identify this problem at the outset of the shirt’s life. The collars of poorly manufactured shirts will not hold up to repeated washings. The same collar that laid perfectly flat when you pulled it out of the box now seems to require a flat iron to straighten it before every wear.

If you want to outfit your team in quality embroidered shirts that will last, there are two simple steps. First, do a little research when selecting an embroidery shop. We suggest you select one that seems less interested in the immediate sale than in having a long-term relationship with a client that will recommend the vendor to others. Second, talk with your embroidery vendor about your needs and concerns, and then listen to their recommendations.

11 Aug 2011

Embroidered Logos — Graphic Design Parameters

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Graphic designers and marketing staff should be aware that there is a minimum stitch length for machine embroidery. While most logos will not be affected by this issue, there are certain design features that can run up against that limit. This can lead to inconsistent branding between print materials and corporate logo wear.

A good examples would be a design with a vertical striped “picket fence” effect. A logo with very fine stripes may look great in print where pixels can be printed as thin as the eye can see. However, that same design will have to be compromised for embroidery. A good embroidery shop will work with the customer to determine how they want to solve the issue, with some possibilities being: (a) reducing the overall number of stripes so that the minimum stitch length can be achieved, or (b) eliminating the stripes in favor of a solid field. In a nutshell, the goal becomes to make the embroidered logo resemble or remind people of the company logo rather than to make the embroidered logo a duplicate of the company logo. That may not be an issue for Bob’s Painting, but could be a deal breaker for a multinational corporation planning to register a new trademark.

The minimum stitch length for machine embroidery is about 1mm, depending upon the machine manufacturer. If the logo is intended to be worn on a company’s embroidered shirts, plan on the logo being at least 1.5″ wide and not more than 4.5″ wide at the very greatest, depending upon customer preference for a subdued or a loud approach to their logo wear. Do your math accordingly about the stripes.

10 Aug 2011

I’m In Stitches Launches Charitable Drive to Grow Facebook Fan Base

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After welcoming the 100th fan to our Facebook fan page, the owners of I’m In Stitches discussed what we could do to continue to grow our Facebook fan base. We’re not a huge company with a ton of resources. We’re a small and growing embroidery and screen printing firm in the Seattle-Tacoma market with limited resources. We decided that one way we could grow our fan base even with limited resources was decided to tie a charity incentive to the growth of our Facebook fan base.

The owners of I’m In Stitches both have long histories of active involvement in local non-profit organizations. We decided that it was possible to tie our fan base growth to our interest in supporting and learning more about various humanitarian causes.

Beginning with our 100th fan, who has already been identified, every 25th new fan at who follows I’m In Stitches on Facebook will get to designate a charity to which we will send a $25 donation. The only rules are that:

the fan must be a new fan — no unliking our page and reliking it,
this must be a U.S. based charity, and
the charity must be a 501 (c) 3 organization, which means it must be a true non-profit humanitarian organization, not an association or a political cause.

If a fan chooses not to designate a particular charity within a reasonable amount of time, we will make a gift in the fan’s honor to an organization of our choosing. We will post the acknowledgement letters in our blog to demonstrate our good faith in this effort.

We retain the right to make all final decisions about this campaign, its promotion, its execution, and, if need be, its termination. We reserve the right to alter or discontinue this campaign at any time.

All legalese aside, our goal is not to shrink, but to grow our embroidery and screen printing business. We look forward to the possibility of growing our donations as our fan base grows!

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