Pricing is an EMOTIONAL thing for most small business owners.

The Impact of Pricing:

In the rest of this podcast we're going to explore price testing strategies the let the market tell YOU how much you should be charging. And taking all the emotions out of it. (or at least as much as you'll let it)

1. The "Tipping Point" Method - Raise your prices incrementally until you see your customer leave.

2. New Product Change Tactic - As you bring in new blanks, new products or new designs you introduce them at higher prices and leave your older ones as is. A slower tipping point method.

3. Use discounts and offers on your website to measure the impact of lower prices.

4. Show different prices to different users and measure the relative performance.

5. Create different versions of your products and offer them at different prices to see which performs better.

6. Use an email or call list to sell at different prices and measure conversion rates.

Here are some ways to increase pricing strategically:

Adjust discounts on volume - If you normally provide your first discount at 12 shirts, bump it to 15. If the next tier is 30, bump to 50.

Add value extras - increase your price but add more value and low cost value-add extras. Include wash instruction cards for every shirt, put every shirt in a bag, offer a discount for a size exchange. e.g. 25% off size exchange if someone wants a different size. up to 3. etc.

Raise Fees - if you charge no 'set up fee' add a modest one for certain orders. If you charge a $20 fee, make it $30.

Increase cost for higher perceived value - sell glitter or digital full color and increase price much more than the basic. Then push this offering. Even though your cost might be relatively the same the product seems more valuable.

Timed price increases - You may want to increase pricing by 20% but get backlash from customers. Start with 5% and make it a goal to increase 20% over X months.

Offer faster delivery at a higher price - Some companies offer a 'rush' fee. Instead, you could offer a standard delivery that is long, and offer 'priority' for a modest fee. e.g. free for 14 days, $20 for priority 7 days, $80 rush for 3 days

Writing will captivate the attention of your customers and win you sales. You got into this business to be the best at what you do. You mastered the art of production, you’ve worked on your sales process, you are even doing your best to get found online.

Putting together great copy (writing) will show the world the true custom apparel professional you are.

When will you need to write? ALWAYS. EVERYWHERE.

Why does it matter?

People cannot pay attention to everything. Your brain filters out 99+% of everything you see. How many people read all of your website, or all of an article, or your entire quote? Almost none.

People need to get their attention captured and HELD.

If someone is searching online for a t-shirt printer or sifting through quotes they got on a job, great writing will help you win more than the competition. They stop on your page, they stay on your website, they keep looking back at your proposal.

Here are some great tips for putting together a great copy.

Help them see the vision.

Simply stating that you make great custom t-shirts and embroidery isn’t enough. These are just abstract thoughts, you don’t see anything. Incorporate detailed descriptions, personal stories, experiences of past customers. When someone reads what you’ve written…. they should be able to close their eyes and see something.

For example:

Our embroidery shop opened in 2018 and we have been satisfying customers all over the area. Our great reviews show that we are the #1 choice for your custom hats, shirts, jackets and more.

not bad… but…

You want great looking custom apparel. We understand embroidery is more than just a logo on a polo shirt. Your team wants to show up on the field looking amazing, your business wants to impress its clients and your mom deserves an amazing looking handbag. Our embroidery business started in 2018 with a vision to put a smile on every customers face (and our reviews show it!)

Make it personal.

When your customers read an email from you, they want to feel they are important. Don’t just copy/paste and email…. write a message for them whenever possible.

For example:

GET A FREE Shirt – Buy 4 get 1 free on all printed logos or a free hat with every 10 embroidery shirts.

not bad but.

Hi Carl,

It was great to do business with you this past summer, thank you again. I want to let you know about a year-end special we have: Get a Free Shirt – Buy 4 get 1 free on all printed logos or a free hat with every 10 embroidery shirts.

Capture attention! STOP. IMPORTANT. FREE. BIG.

Use words to capture attention. This is huge for email subject lines, headlines of ads, social posts.

You don’t get a second chance often. if someone is scrolling through facebook they will most likely miss your post. If they are reading emails, they will probably skip over yours. You have to put yourself in their shoes… what will capture their attention.

Example:

T-shirt we made for the local Busy Bee Breakfast House

not bad but…

Holy Pancakes and Bacon check out this awesome shirt we made for the Busy Bee Breakfast House.

Follow good formatting

You should create a standard format you use for everything you write. In categories.

This format aligns with how you write, your brand and your business personality.

This could be a good time to start some continuing education. Take a course for writing online, watch videos, go to blogs, pay attention to what big brands are doing.

Ultimately writing great copy is just a big win for you. Too many small business owners just throw something together and don’t ever look at it again. You can beat them every time if you pay attention to your words and always improve how you write.

Your customers have a great idea for a shirt, or a blanket or a cap. You might even agree its a great idea, but it’s just not possible. Maybe it is possible, but not with your equipment or skills. How do you still win? How does your customer still get what they want?

You can still win, your customer can still win… you just have to work it out. We are here to help!

Your customer asks for something that CAN’T be done.

– They want 5 hats with embroidery on the bill for under $10 each. You aren't getting that anywhere in the world.

– They want a DTG print that glows in the dark neon pink on a moisture wick t-shirt.

This is probably the simplest one to solve. You know they cannot go anywhere else and get this. You know they won’t find it for a price they are willing to pay.

Explain to them why, let them understand. If you explain in a way that shows how much of an expert you are they will be excited to have asked you. They will know they didn't waste their time chasing something that doesn't exist.

I agree that embroidery on the bill of a cap looks very cool, but these are actually done pre-construction. They actually sew on fabric, then turn it into a cap later. The issue is that getting this done comes with a pretty steep minimum order. I realize you only want 5 caps, so let's find an alternative solution.

Your customer asks for something your equipment cannot do.

– I want an all over print on this long sleeve fishing shirt.

This is a case where you don’t want to send your customer away, but they have very specific desires. You have 4 choices.

1. Send them away (nope! not an option)

You don’t want to just send them walking. Part of the relationship you are building is that of a trusted adviser. The minute you say “no” and don’t offer a solution means you might not be their #1 ‘go to’ person. At minimum if you have no clue what to say go with, ” Actually I want to look into that a little bit, can you give me a day? I may just have a GREAT option for you”

2. Talk to them about things you CAN do instead

You’ve got to take a shot at just offering what you CAN do for them. This could just be an alternative though, they may like your idea better.

“Actually I know you mentioned embroidered hats, but a lot of my customers have been doing heat press caps with a vinyl material I use. The designs come out really clean and they are a really sharp modern look. Want to chat more about this idea?

3. Outsource the job

You should be building relationships with local decorators. Screen printers, embroiderers, sign shops, award shops, etc. The more you have the more of a resource you will be

Have a wholesale and pricing table that you can quote and charge. Remember these should be profitable!

Quote as usual, be sure to build in time for delivery. Don’t over promise.

4. Refer out the job

If none of the 3 above can work based on your customer or business, be sure to refer out the business to someone very specific. Also they should know you sent them. You can do a conference call or a group text or CC on an email.

Your customer asks for something you won’t do

– I want this bible passage on a shirt (its 350 words and will need to be .25 inch font and you cut vinyl)

This is where it can get tough.

This is your time to be the expert and explain to them why it isnt a good idea. You can explain how the method you decorate apparel wouldnt look good this way. You can explain how in general this isn’t best practice for decorating a shirt.

Be the expert and offer good solutions (maybe the solution is outsourcing).

For example:

The bible passage example, they might want 100 shirts which means it could be a good candidate for screen printing. Outsource it.

The digital transfer won’t feel or wash well. Figure out a way to alter the art to make it work out. (stripes, remove colors, etc)

The embroidery job can be turned into a transfer or vinyl or dtg job.

Your customer asks for something you can’t do.

OUCH. You know that this CAN be done, you just haven't learned or perfected the art.

I would like to get caps embroidered (but you haven’t taken training or practiced on caps)

I would like to get a logo made and put on a shirt (but you arent a graphic artist)

This is a time when you might think. ‘ok I will buckle down and learn this. Then I can fulfill the job’ – PLEASE be careful doing this. You might not realize how long it could take you to master this art. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Some people pick up graphic arts easily, others struggle. If you haven’t done it before, you don't know how hard it might be (for you).

NOTE: Don’t just go to facebook and ask if XYZ is easy. The 3-4 people probably aren’t a big enough sample size to get a true answer.

So what do you do?

You can do similar to the above – sell something else, outsource, refer.

You could try to produce and learn… but make sure you have two things in place

Enough time to learn it – definitely no rush jobs

An exit – have a place to outsource to so you can meet your deadline if you get stuck

Once all is said and done, evaluate. Is this something you want to do? How long will it take you to master it? Is the time / effort going to pay off.

Takeaway….

The big takeaway is that YOU are the expert your customer is coming to. The same works for all other experts right?

I remember a friend telling me this grand cake they wanted for wife's birthday. The baker said if they wanted it this many tiers tall, it would need to be a certain size (which was 2x budget and fed 2x the people). They agreed to the small cake and it was spectacular.

You might walk into a mechanic and say to replace your spark plugs, but the mechanic will tell you that for this job you should replace XYZ with it as well. Or they might tell you that the problem is misdiagnosed.

The reason people keep going back to trade experts is that they trust them. If you build that relationship with your customers, you both win.

Mark S. : This is Mark B. from Contract-DTG. If you didn’t hear him before on Episode 86 then make sure to listen to it here: https://customapparelstartups.com/episode-86/

During this episode we’re going to ask Mark to walk us through 3 questions that many growing custom t-shirt businesses have:

#1: How do you know when it’s time to REPLACE a piece of equipment?

You’ll hear how Mark tracks escalating maintenance, part availability and more to figure out when it makes sense to say goodbye to a current piece of hardware.

#2: When should you change or upgrade to a BETTER system?

Hear his story about how he decided to go to replace a perfectly good manual screen print press with an automatic and how you might apply that same logic to what’s next.

#3: How do you evaluate NEW equipment?

Mark has a busy shop and he is a VERY technical, hands on equipment owner, so various manufacturers have asked him to test drive their new products. Learn what he looks for and see what makes sense for your business.

[Hint: it includes speed, quality and consumables cost]

In this CAS Mini-Cast we are going to talk about the anatomy of email and how to structure powerful email using the Mailchimp.

Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform and an email marketing service. It’s perfect for businesses of all sizes. You can start using it for free and upgrade as your business grows.

The greatest part about the Mailchimp is that it’s easy to use for beginners.

Facebook groups can be very powerful if you want to increase sales for your business… but they are completely different compared to Facebook pages.

Groups are about community, participation, conversations and less about selling. But it doesn’t mean you can’t sell.

Here’s how to do it:

Selling is done by helping people. This way they will learn more about you and how you can help them.

If you are a custom apparel business looking for local or national business and you are doing word of mouth marketing then you should consider using LinkedIn.

Here’re some tips to improve your LinkedIn profile:

Look at LinkedIn as a mini website and an opportunity to market yourself and get new business.

Inspired by the Harvard Business Review.

It's important to understand your stages of growth and when you are transitioning to a new stage. If you don't take specific actions while in each stage, you will get stuck (or worse regress).

Stage 1: Existence

This stage is all about the big question..

During this stage of your business, you are heavily involved in every aspect. You may even be the entire business yourself.

The main goal of this stage is making sure the business can exist and making it to stage 2!

Stage 2: Survival

This stage is all about financial survival. You know you CAN be a business. You know you CAN get customers. You know you CAN deliver the product.

But... can you do it profitably?

During this stage, you may actually significantly grow in size. You may have employees and achieve some record breaking sales for yourself.

Many of you will stay here - some on purpose. This is the business that provides a "salary" or pays for the owner's lifestyle, but never goes beyond that.

This may be satisfying personally, but it's very vulnerable.

However, you must grow in profitability to get to stage 3.

Stage 3: Traditional "Success"

Getting to this stage means you have some economic health. You are profitable (meaning the business is putting money in the bank after paying you.) This is a place you can stay in indefinitely.

Your business is making money. The owners are getting paid. You are stable enough to handle changes in the market, emergencies and financial setbacks. This differs from stage 2 where you are 'just making it.' Now you have a solid business with a growing bank account.

This is the stage where you have some professional staff coming on board (or outsourcing.) You will most likely have employees dedicated to certain tasks (accounting, sales, production, etc.)

During this stage you can go one of 2 ways:

1. Disengagement - You have the opportunity to walk away from certain aspects and know the job will get done. You can choose to only work in the aspects you desire. Maybe you just want to sell or manage staff, or run equipment. This is the 'dream' stage. You can do exactly what you want with the business, and leave all the things you hate to employees.

2. Growth - Now that you are profitable and have a business that can leverage that power. Do you risk it and shoot higher? You can take your profits and dive into a new endeavor. You can use your business's credibility to borrow money and get into bigger business.

This is the stage where you would completely step away from day-to-day operations and focus on making the business grow even more. You have staff that controls every aspect of the business so you can take things to the next level.

Growth has risk though, you could take yourself back a stage if the risks you take don't work out. Now you are just back to 'surviving'.

On another hand, if you don't look for some level of growth you could be at risk of falling behind the competition.

This growth can take you to stage 4.

Stage 4: Take-Off

If you have chosen 'growth' then the stage you want to hit is right here. The focus of this stage is to have financial growth including income and profitability. You are no longer focused on what's happening in your supply chain, but what's happening with financials.

In order to get to this stage and succeed you must master delegation. You will have to continue to add levels of management to watch over each part of the business (as needed.) You and your team will have to manage cash and staff with precision. The business can really make it to the big leagues here, but without managing people and money, it can crash too.

You can grow HUGE or you can fail miserably. If you make it you enter stage 5.

Stage 5: Resource Maturity

Your business has the ability to get into detailed operational and strategic planning. Your management is mature and very experienced. You have systems in place from sales to production that are well developed.

Here are some factors that determine success or failure and moving through the stages:

Business factors:

Owner factors:

You have to understand these stages and where you want to go. Recognizing where you shift focus and motivation. Your business can be whatever you want!

Resource: https://hbr.org/1983/05/the-five-stages-of-small-business-growth

Here's a GUARANTEE: You're wasting your time doing either one of these 5 things, or every close it.

You don't realize how much of your time is being wasted. As a business owner, your time is the most valuable thing in the company. How you use this time absolutely affects your business growth and how much money you will make. You set on a journey to live a dream, don't waste time getting there.

Let's go through some wasters and winners!

Solving a Problem using Google

Waster: Youtube, searching, forums and Facebook to try and resolve a machine issue.

Waster: Searching all over for 'how to do XYZ in photoshop

Waster: Filing business / tax paperwork when you have no clue what to do

Catering to needy clients

Waster: Being at the beck and call of needy clients

The 80/20 rule is true - 80% of your actual sales come from about 20% of your customers - and they're NOT needy

Winner: Help them understand your time is valuable too. e.g. "I have a meeting at 1 pm, I will address your issue after"

Waster: Dropping everything to fix a problem

TIP: Read the 4 Hour Work Week

Your BAD at Something. But you do it Anyway

Waster: You cannot digitize well. So you try, sew out, try sew out, try sew out

Waster: You are an introvert and generally unlikeable... then you try to handle customer service

Winner: Hire someone to help you out. Talk to customers, handle problems etc.

Waster: You get a scary legal letter, then try to look up the laws. (or ask on facebook)

Another book: EMyth by Michael Gerber

You Can't Find Anything

Waster: Piles of boxes of shirts. Finding a "small" takes 5 minutes

Waster: No CRM, No Customer database. You will find yourself searching through emails and texts to find what you quoted someone

Waster: No process from orders in to orders out.

Penny Pinching

Waster: Jamming vinyl designs or transfer designs so close, it takes 5 minutes just to cut them out.

Waster: Always price shopping supplies that cost almost nothing. e.g. thread

Waster: Trying to save money with lower quality materials.

You've got the opportunity to achieve and exceed your dreams in front of you. Don't waste time getting caught up in the details of things that won't help you achieve your dream.

Litmus Test: Whenever you are doing something that takes a long time. Ask yourself. "Is this task going to help me achieve my goals?" - if it's not, don't do it!