I THINK IVE LOST IT

[Screened Gear]

I feel your pain.  My first larger job was 4350 pc white shirts with 4 color process and 1 spot color on a 6 color workhorse manual "Every morning I felt like I'd been in a car wreck the day before".   It took a week and a 1/2 to get a little over half of them done because it was just me and my wife trying to print, answer the phone and deal with walk-ins.  I was bound and determined to finish them no matter what it took.  While we were approaching the 3/4 mark, we received another order for 3800 more.  I thought "no way" and that's where the first automatic came in.  It was a large investment, but I haven't looked back.  It seems that the business has picked up significantly and it's definitely paying for itself.

Those are some nice jobs. Are you contract. The biggest job for me today is 1750. I think its my pricing that keeps then away. I get about three to five 250 to 500 orders a month but not much larger.

[Doug S]

I feel your pain.  My first larger job was 4350 pc white shirts with 4 color process and 1 spot color on a 6 color workhorse manual "Every morning I felt like I'd been in a car wreck the day before".   It took a week and a 1/2 to get a little over half of them done because it was just me and my wife trying to print, answer the phone and deal with walk-ins.  I was bound and determined to finish them no matter what it took.  While we were approaching the 3/4 mark, we received another order for 3800 more.  I thought "no way" and that's where the first automatic came in.  It was a large investment, but I haven't looked back.  It seems that the business has picked up significantly and it's definitely paying for itself.

Those are some nice jobs. Are you contract. The biggest job for me today is 1750. I think its my pricing that keeps then away. I get about three to five 250 to 500 orders a month but not much larger.

We do very little contract work.  Those jobs were from a church about 110 miles from us.  Now we average about 2800 pieces a week but that consist of several jobs anywhere from 24 to 500 pieces per job and rarely anything over 500.  They are mostly for churches, schools, hospitals, and reunions.  Although I know it could change at any given time it just seems that since we've bought the sportsman 2 years ago that business has really picked up.  We also make signs,
do truck lettering and make banners.  I'm hoping that if the shirt business keeps picking up that we can drop some of the other stuff "mainly signs and truck lettering".  Time to do those 2 things is becoming scarce.

[Screened Gear]

I feel your pain.  My first larger job was 4350 pc white shirts with 4 color process and 1 spot color on a 6 color workhorse manual "Every morning I felt like I'd been in a car wreck the day before".   It took a week and a 1/2 to get a little over half of them done because it was just me and my wife trying to print, answer the phone and deal with walk-ins.  I was bound and determined to finish them no matter what it took.  While we were approaching the 3/4 mark, we received another order for 3800 more.  I thought "no way" and that's where the first automatic came in.  It was a large investment, but I haven't looked back.  It seems that the business has picked up significantly and it's definitely paying for itself.

Those are some nice jobs. Are you contract. The biggest job for me today is 1750. I think its my pricing that keeps then away. I get about three to five 250 to 500 orders a month but not much larger.

We do very little contract work.  Those jobs were from a church about 110 miles from us.  Now we average about 2800 pieces a week but that consist of several jobs anywhere from 24 to 500 pieces per job and rarely anything over 500.  They are mostly for churches, schools, hospitals, and reunions.  Although I know it could change at any given time it just seems that since we've bought the sportsman 2 years ago that business has really picked up.  We also make signs,
do truck lettering and make banners.  I'm hoping that if the shirt business keeps picking up that we can drop some of the other stuff "mainly signs and truck lettering".  Time to do those 2 things is becoming scarce.

Thanks for the info. I am going through some marketing and price changes and my goal is to do 50% of my jobs in the 100 plus range. Right now I am about 25% above 100. I know I can just lower my prices and get more but I don't want to go that route. Target marketing and competitive pricing.

[Shawn (EIP)]

I've given a lot of thought to downsizing to a single color press 2 station , ditching the shop rent, go back to printing out of my bacement and contract everything else out. That way I'm not completely quiting the business but quiting a lot of the head aches while being home for my family. Plus the wife wants to go back to work or nursing school (the kids are driving her nuts) this is only solution we can think of but it's soley my decision. Daycare isnt an option, we dont wan't stangers "mistreating" our kids (too many horror stories).

[mk162]

there are bad stories about everything in life.  The big one is finding a place you trust.  We send Ava to a church based daycare.  It's only 3 hours a day for 3 days a week, so it's not a full day, but the folks there are great and we know them...also, kids will usually let you know if something is wrong.  ava is sad when mommy leaves, but never wants to leave when she comes to pick her up.

[Admiral]

I've given a lot of thought to downsizing to a single color press 2 station , ditching the shop rent, go back to printing out of my bacement and contract everything else out. That way I'm not completely quiting the business but quiting a lot of the head aches while being home for my family. Plus the wife wants to go back to work or nursing school (the kids are driving her nuts) this is only solution we can think of but it's soley my decision. Daycare isnt an option, we dont wan't stangers "mistreating" our kids (too many horror stories).

are the headaches because you are too busy?(making a lot of $ hopefully)

If they are not then get as much help here as you can to make things easier.  Sometimes I hate what I have to print but I've figured 98% of it out and don't have to work much overtime anymore.  Today I did a 6 screen 500 piece print, 5 screen 100 piece print, 60 3 screen front, 2 color back, 50 2 screen front, 120 4 screen front and 126 5 screen front...all on a 7/8 diamondback.  Took a lot of time to learn how to get it done right and put the procedures in place to not run into problems but now it's easy to run our press full blast, no headaches for the most part, not much over time.  There will be some for the 6300 piece job next week though.

Downsizing would likely mean less $ made...try to figure out how to get it done with less time put in.  Work smarter not harder.

[Homer]

worst I've ever done was 1k black shirt cmyk w/2 whites on an 8 color Harco/Brown manual with worn out lazy susan bearings. not only did they look like garbage, my elbow still isn't right from printing on that pos press. . .The color brown makes me shiver. . hell that was over 10 years ago. my "boss" didn't have a clue how to sep things so the entire design was based. . everything, even the black, solid patch of white crap. . . . .I think the order got rejected if I remember correctly.

[mk162]

that is a lot of printing for an order to be rejected.

Homer, I didn't know you used to work at a different screen printing shop.