Printer to printer (in town relationships)

[Dottonedan]

Makes one wonder  how the tire shops get along. So many of them in a town. Look at fast food joints. You think McDonalds owners don't talk to Burger King owners? 

[Gilligan]

Sure they do... they sit on each other's boards and such... no really directly, but they both sit on the board of boeing together or something like that.

So they "know" each other and cooperate with each other VERY well.

I'm sure there are always understandings of "you do this with your company and I'll vote this way on X board".

I forgot the exact numbers and I can dig them up if anyone really wants them but there are like 156 people that sit on like 260 something boards (that 200 number might be under exaggerated actually)!

[Dottonedan]

I'm not at all being "stingy" with my knowledge, I just think it's rude to tell someone how to run their business when they have more business than I do.

Bah!  there are plenty of printers that are doing boo koo business that are bad printers and need and want/take guidance/suggestions.

They know "if you know" what you're doing.  Those are the ones I like helping out. They are thankful for making life easier and it also helps build their business.  How many times have we heard  "WOW, thanks! that saved a tone of work!!"


Some who do good work feel they are fine where they are at and don't need you/me/us...but they really aren't "all that". Ego gets in the way sometimes. I've had people get huffy when you mention an improvement. I run into a few like that.  Sometimes, I think it's probably more that they want (me) to be wrong then to have them improve.    I can be a target sometimes. I donno why.

[jasonl]

Makes one wonder  how the tire shops get along. So many of them in a town. Look at fast food joints. You think McDonalds owners don't talk to Burger King owners?

according to the commericial, wendy, ronald mcdonald, and the burger king all meet at Krystal for lunch!

[Gilligan]

That is true Dan, I don't question that.

I've just had conversations about single point light source and when he asked how long my exposure times were I told him and he said "I get about the same" and then I mentioned undercutting and how it will hold better detail and he said "I don't see how we can get much better detail than we already do."  At that point I'm not going to argue with the man and keep trying to convince him he is wrong.  If he is satisfied then I won't keep pushing the issue.  This topic he sort of brought up, as most I don't really do anything more than maybe say "well, this is how I'm doing it" and usually they just say "you are crazy..." or something to that effect.  What they are doing is working for them.

I can't disagree... they have the majority of business in town... I do wish they would charge more so we could all charge a bit more though.

[alan802]

I pretty much let anyone stop by and take a look around, spend as much time as they like as long as they can keep up with what I'm doing.  I actually enjoy it a lot.  I've also been one of those guys who will be driving by a shop and pop in and I rareyly get invited back to production and I'm treated very carefully the whole time.  Even shops that I've loaned ink and pallets to seem to have issues with me roaming around their shop when they roam around ours all the time.  I think everyone around here thinks your gonna see who they are printing for and then go after them, but I'd just open the phonebook if I wanted to steal other shop's customers.  I'd have better luck that way.  I've had at least a dozen other local printers out in production, and I will show them whatever they want or answer any questions they might have.  I'm not worried about them taking our customers, but I would rather them become better printers.  Some of the crap around here is just awful.

I heard I have a couple cajun goons coming up my way next Friday, I better turn all our box labels around so they can't see our customer's names .

[Donnie]

I've had a printer in a town near by bitch to their school officials for using out of towners for printing.  I can kind of understand how they feel, but holy bajeeesus if they only knew how to print  . Their stuff was pretty bad. I let it go. This last year, the sponsor called and informed that the kids revolted and I'm back... thanks to Dan and my printing.

In the end, if you take care of people and produce a good product, they will be back.

[Gilligan]

That's awesome Donnie!

[ScreenPrinter123]

I heard I have a couple cajun goons coming up my way next Friday, I better turn all our box labels around so they can't see our customer's names .

To be fair, I grew up being told that the difference between a coon a$$ and a horse's a$$ was the Sabine River...  And as an aside, I'd turn all the lights off and hide behind desks if two cajun goons showed up at my office. 

[balloonguy]

My shop is always open to visitors. Anyone that wants to stop by feel free.
Matt

[inkbrigade]

We are not open to anyone.

We don't let customers, vendors, anyone into the shop. It's not because we are dicks it's because we're too stinking busy!

To be honest we would be more likely to let other printers from other shops into our shop before we would let customers in.

I would really like to be friendly with more shops around Portland, because were all in the same boat. I don't necessarily see other shops as competitors.

I honestly believe there is more than enough printing to go around. And if you're hurting for business you're just not looking in the right places.

So yeah Portland has a lot of screenprinting shops. Especially small shops due to Ryonet being about 10 miles away, and them having weekly training seminars for new people getting into the business.

We are good friends with Brandon from gorilla screen printing in Seattle, and we like having him at our shop. I'd like to be better friends with other shops in our town but like others have said, other shops can be weird.