Image of an embroidered half of a donkey and a quarter - Seattle, Bellevue, WA

Is “Half-Assed” Work Worth 25% Less?

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Every day we take calls from customers asking for quotes for various embroidery and screen printing jobs.  We win some.  We lose some.  If we were losing all of them, we would interpret that as a signal that our pricing was too high.  Conversely, if we were winning all of them, it would be wise to contemplate raising prices.  We figure our pricing is competitive given the quality of work that we demand of ourselves.

Once in a while we get a caller who boisterously declares, “Whoa that’s expensive!  I think I’ll keep calling around.”  Often there is a pause waiting for our reaction.  We usually say, “OK, well let us know if you change your mind because we would love to work with you.”

What we WANT to say is, “Seriously?!  Is half-assed work worth 25% less?”

Why do our thoughts ramble that road?  Because we see the same shoddy work out there that you run across sometimes.  When we’re in the grocery store, we’ll see someone in a screen printed hoodie where the ink is flaking off.  At a Chamber luncheon, we’ll be sitting across from someone whose embroidered logo on a shirt or jacket is too low, too high, crooked, or is misplaced so that the right-most edge of the logo looks like it is slipping under the armpit.

There are dozens of ways for embroidery and screen printing shops to cut corners in order to win clients with lower pricing.  We have written separate blog posts about some of them and will continue to do so as we find good ways to present the information well.

We have problems with these shoddy techniques.  First, it’s just not the right way to do business.  We don’t view our customers as conquests.  We’re not here to leech off of you.  We want our customers to be successful over the long term, to be repeat customers, and to refer others to us.  It might not be the fastest way to grow our business, but we respect ourselves in the morning.

Second, we know how hard it is to build a business brand and how easily a poor impression begins to degrade that brand.  We would not want people to think poorly of our brand.  By logical extension, why on earth would we want anyone thinking poorly of our clients’ brands?  We view our clients’ logo wear as physical extensions of our reputation, and we will work to protect that!  We view it as an honor to be chosen to help advance a client’s brand.  Why dishonor the client?  Doing so would just be bringing dishonor to our own brand.

Third, providing quality work means three things:

  1. Ensuring quality inputs like premium thread and ink, which costs a little more.  (Skeptical?  When you go shopping for wall paint or nail polish, what is your expectation of the cheapest brand?)
  2. Rejecting garments from our suppliers that we believe don’t make the grade (e.g. pockets askew, sleeves not sewn onto the main body in a way that looks harmonious, etc.), which costs time returning things and having replacments shipped out.
  3. Rejecting our own work that doesn’t make the grade.  Yes, sometimes we have a production issue where garments will be destroyed, damaged, or just not quite look as great as they could.   It happens.  We have to throw our work out and reorder pieces at our own expense in order to be able to look the client in the face.  It costs us extra money and time.  No, we don’t pass that cost on to the client’s job.  But then, no, we cannot also compete to be the cheapest vendor when our focus on quality leads us to discard “cheap” looking work at our own expense.

What is shocking to us is when we hear stories of vendors who have insisted on unloading garbage onto their clients.  Yes, that happens too!  We refuse to be that vendor.  Our goal is for you and your team to wear our embroidery and screen printing work — your brand — with confidence.

Hence, the question:  “Is half-assed work worth 25% less?”  Well, what is your image worth?

 

 

 

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