Custom Apparel Startups

Episode 87 – What to Do When Bad Things Happen

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What to do when something goes WRONG

Your equipment will break.

You will lose the internet for 3 days
You will ruin the shirts
Your supplier will be out of blanks, supplies, catalogs
You’re going to have a bad month.. or 3

Nothing can prevent bad things from happening. And just because you have a small business or a home based business doesn’t mean you’re immune to the effects of what happens to EVERY business.

Here’s what’s happened to me before:

Our $10K per day shopping cart web service provider’s server went down – customers calling – no way to process orders.

Power went out in our area for several days. Lose customers? You bet.

Waited 3 weeks for a shipment of blank shirts to come in – they were bad. Bad workmanship.

My fault, no. My business, yes.

Each of these only happened once (okay, maybe twice). Let me rephrase that – they happened more than once and continue to happen occasionally. And it does really SUCK.

But there’s less panic. Less lost business. Less blood pressure intervention needed because now we know what to do!

That’s what this episode is about. Inspiring you to come up with a plan for WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG

Here are some basic rules for when anything bad happens:

  1. DONT PANIC!
  2. DONT MAKE IRRATIONAL DECISIONS
  3. DO EXECUTE THE PLANS YOU HAVE IN PLACE BECAUSE YOU LISTENED TO THIS PODCAST
    • Equipment failure
    • Know your vendors contact info and procedures for getting help
    • Understand what’s under warranty and what you’ll have to pay for
    • Set aside emergency funds
    • Have a company you know you can contract out the work too so you can still service your customers
    • Internet is Down
    • Make sure you have paper back up forms so you can still take phone orders
    • Sign up for a plan with your cell phone provider so you can use your phone as a hotspot and bypass local internet
    • You ruined shirts
    • You’ve got to order for wasteage – especially if you are ordering something custom or that’s not showing tons in stock at your supplier
    • Have a defined policy about this – what do you say to customers? How will you compensate them for a delay?
    • Your Supplier is out of XYZ! Maybe a ship sank, or a factory closed or a production run failed quality control – there are lots of reasons why your supplier might not have what you need…
    • Keep Stock of what you NEED to run your business. For most equipment, inks, toners, papers, substrates and parts there’s either no expiration date or it’s pretty far out. Don’t order this stuff just when you need it. Keep it on hand.
    • Find an alternate product or supplier.
    • Bad sales months happen.
    • Keep a cash reserve
    • Identify what financial resources (like credit cards) you can use in an emergency
    • Listen to the how to sell more next month podcasts.
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