In his book How To Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie states, “Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language”.  We LOVE our name on things.

You see personalization everywhere.  Even the advertising we see daily is personalized.  If you search for a certain topic, the ads you see on Facebook, Google, and other websites are catered just to you!  Don’t be surprised when you search for “new Dad” books when ads for cribs, baby toys, jewelry for your lovely wife, etc. start popping up as you’re trying to research your upcoming fantasy football match up.

If you’re offering screen printing or some other type of decoration now, and you don’t have a heat press to offer the one off, customized item, you are really missing out!  I hear all the time about how screen printers “don’t have the time” to offer a one off.  You don’t have the time to make 60 – 80% margin by offering one item?  What value did you add to that customer?  Are they not likely to come back to you to get that 100 shirt order?  I hear from Sign Makers that already have a cutter that they don’t want to add a heat press for the same reason.  That’s even more surprising to me.  You’re already cutting one off signs, why not just add the press, throw a roll of material in the same cutter, and make them a custom shirt.  Easy money!

I get the value of offering only what you offer, not wanting to confuse your workers with a different method or confuse production.  Looking at personalization as nothing more than a way to satisfy your customer, or to over satisfy your customer, is an easy way to justify doing things just a little differently.