Images_Digital_Edition_January_2019

KB MARKET INTELLIGENCE www.images-magazine.com 114 images JANUARY 2019 way to involve production staff in your marketing and identity. Show that you believe in the promotional power of embroidery by creating garments and accessories featuring your shop‘s logo. These pieces are great for sales calls, customer incentives and as uniform pieces for yourself and your employees. What’s better is that it doesn’t have to break the bank: use ‘dead stock‘ items, create cover patches for rejects or incorrectly decorated pieces, or take advantage of low-priced closeouts, sale items and self-promotional deals from your favourite vendor. Crew decked out in logowear are walking advertisements for your shop, and customers receiving your promos will have your brand at the front of their minds for reordering as well as spreading the word. You could even carry unsized promo products to make a presentation for on-the-spot sales opportunities. T he holiday shopping is over and purse-strings have been pulled tight. The long nights of last- minute stitching are quickly fading from memory as you settle in for the start of a new year and the flipside of all that busy work: the January lull. If your shop is like many of those I’ve worked in, the ‘hangover’ of holiday labour and the initial sales drop can leave you low on resources, but luckily, flush on time. For production-minded owners, it’s easy to focus on in-house tasks like maintenance and cross- training employees, but it’s sometimes easy to forget that without a push for new orders or a direction for the upcoming year, growth can simply stall. All those tasks that you’ve known you should do – those plans for promotion, those opportunities for sales and those operational tweaks suggested by industry experts (the implementation of which just couldn’t top the immediacy of keeping the needles moving in busier days) – this is the time to execute them. Although it is important to work on technique, overhaul equipment and train staff, it’s equally important to work on the commercial side of your commercial embroidery operation: preparing, planning and building those neglected parts of your businesses that don’t directly impact the production chain. By spending your January lull looking in on current customers, preparing plans for your content marketing and pushing yourself beyond your current boundaries, your business will be in better shape to grow and profit, even when production demands increase to fill your days. This is the time to redirect and reinvigorate our businesses. Stitching for self-promotion Though I suggested you should get yourself out of the ‘production-only’ mindset from time to time, creating self-promotion products is a great Start the new year off on a positive note by giving your business a much needed yearly MOT. Erich Campbell explains which areas to focus on for maximum return Howto mine the lull Revisit for reorders Sales often focuses on the wide side of the funnel, but it’s in retention that we are most secure in our potential success. With the cost of set-up being such a large part of embroidery, the savings inherent in the repeat order write their own sales pitch. The inherently simpler order process, without the art discussion and approval, makes embroidery reorders fast, no-nonsense transactions with a lower per-piece finished price. Prominent local events are not only fantastic opportunities to sell embroidery direct to the organisers, but also offer a chance to sell additional products like these promotional items. Getting involved can also lead to the organising group placing its own year-round orders that were influenced by your work on the event Local events have their own following; posting items related to these events and/or sponsoring these events can expose you not only to the businesses and groups involved with organising them, but to the entire attendance if done well