Start-Up Business

Value of Personalization

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.

How to Create a Custom T-shirt Business

I’m fortunate to work in an industry with very little barrier to entry.  I’m also fortunate to work for a company that has taken the time and devoted the resources to making it as easy as possible to make those barriers even more insignificant.  Many entrepreneurs are drawn to our industry because the start-up costs can be under 1k.

Here’s what you need:

The steps are simple.  After you purchase your vinyl cutter and heat press, you can register a FREE account on CadWorx Live.  Login to CadWorx and find a design.  You have thousands of pieces of Clip art to choose from and hundreds of different templates!  Customize the design with your own text and send the design to your Clipper vinyl cutter.  The Clipper will cut out your design in the Heat Transfer Material of your choice.  Once it’s done cutting and you’ve weeded away the excess material, take the design to your Heat Press and heat apply to your T-shirt!

What makes my industry great is that it is as much fun to make custom shirts for yourself, friends, and family as it is to sell them to your customers!  For under 1k, you can either have a fun hobby (and probably less expensive than my wife’s hobby of shoe collecting) or a legit, profitable business!