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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Screened Gear on December 13, 2011, 06:06:14 PM
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Customer calls and tells me that he got my quote and it looks good and he is really glad he found me and that I can help him with his order. I don't really remember quoting the job ( I quote a lot of jobs on Mondays) He goes on about another screen printer that he used to use and then that he is going to be sending me a ton more jobs if this jobs works out. (2 red flags in my book) then we talk about the job for 30 mins. He then said he really appreciated me helping him out on this job even though it’s not 200 shirts. I then told him I have no problem printing smaller jobs as long as they are 24 shirts or more. Our minimum is 24. He then said ok, I will talk to you later and hangs up. I have an appointment with him tomorrow that we set up so he can see the shirt samples. I didn't remember the quote and went back and looked it over. He wanted 12 shirts in his quote and I replied back with our minimum is 24. I am guessing he only looked at the price of the shirt and didn't read he had to order 24. I bet he doesn’t show up tomorrow.
Over 35 mins of my time talking on the phone, setting up an appointment and going over the job. The last 2 weeks have been like this. A ton of small jobs for Christmas. I get 3 to 5 calls a day for 1 to 5 shirt orders for gifts. I don’t even what to answer the phone anymore. I now ask the amount of shirts they are ordering as soon as I answer.
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For 5 years, before going out on my own, I managed a shop that did offset, digital, & wide format printing. We got these requests all of the time-below minimum, tight deadline, arguing about setup costs. I'm thankful for the experience that I'm not alone with the crazies calling in wasting my time. I try to keep my sighing to a minimum when the call starts with "Yes, um, so, um do you screen print onto like shirts?". Goes quickly downhill after that.
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We get this too and especially right now which is extra tough because we're insano busy, we have a retail clothing store for our brand so it's go time right now and these sub-minimums are the last thing we have time for. There's a dude down the valley with an iDot so I send 'em there. Seems like somebody could do well with a DTG, immense patience and a penchant for assembling quick artwork in my town.
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The problem is with this type stuff, your are generally dealing with morons. They have zero idea what they are after...most of them are clothing lines that think they are going huge. They want to make no investment.
I had a guy the other day that wanted 11 shirts by the end of the day. I was willing to do it except they balked at my price. Then I was done talking. I had the time, so I was willing, but when his mom called and asked if it would be around $110, and i responded with $240. When I realized he's spending mommy's money and he wanted the shirts in an hour and THEN I find out every shirt gets a different print. I had no desire to talk anymore.
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The problem is with this type stuff, your are generally dealing with morons. They have zero idea what they are after...most of them are clothing lines that think they are going huge. They want to make no investment.
Bah I am so glad I don't have to deal with that garbage and total waste of time. Sad thing is it will never go away.
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No joke, I wish it would. There seem to be several crowds that this follows but is not limited too. The hip-hop crowd is the worst...hands down. The next worst would be the new crowd of non-profits. A lot of them are either political groups or they want swag to sell to raise money.
It gets old.
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i just had someone contact me on facebook that wants one coat screen printed.
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ugh, I love it...because it is not me.
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No joke, I wish it would. There seem to be several crowds that this follows but is not limited too. The hip-hop crowd is the worst...hands down. The next worst would be the new crowd of non-profits. A lot of them are either political groups or they want swag to sell to raise money.
It gets old.
MMA Aholes are even worse. I need one shirt with an all over print and all my sponsors across the back. My fight is in two days. can you do it? And by the way if you to do it for free you can have your logo on it too. UUUUGGGHHH Fk no.
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I don't get a lot of the MMA stuff. But I used to get a lot of requests for affliction style stuff. I saw a balding-middle-aged Indian guy wearing an all over foil print..it is officially over in my book.
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They don't know any better, but want to be in charge.
You can't educate them because they don't want to listen...they're in charge after all.
They don't have any money to cover their bs, but even if they did, would you want to?
Such is custom retail.
But only with the pita crowd.
Lose them.
The rest are great. Plenty of awesome folks out there to do business with.
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Custom retail. I like that. You are right, there is zero informing them. They know everything.
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They don't know any better, but want to be in charge.
You can't educate them because they don't want to listen...they're in charge after all.
They don't have any money to cover their bs, but even if they did, would you want to?
Such is custom retail.
But only with the pita crowd.
Lose them.
The rest are great. Plenty of awesome folks out there to do business with.
I just dealt with one of these on Friday. A buddy brings in this guy that wants 5 shirts. I tell him he has to do 12 and its 150.00. 1 color 2 sides. The guy says no he only needs 5. I say sorry you get 12 or I cant do it. He decides to play tuff guy and says he will walk if I dont do 5 so I say ok because I am already busy. My buddy calls me back an hour later and he says that he found a guy that was willing to do 5 shirts for 135.00 and he was going to use that guy. For 15 bucks more he could have gotten 7 more shirts. People are stupid.
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Yeah thats funny. I tell people I can sell you 6 shirts but it will cost you the same as 12 so what would do you want 6? or 12?
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when the phone rings, we have a series we run through to get to the point within 30-45 seconds. let them talk, then give them the "quiz" , how many, when do you need them are the first two questions. Those set the pace for the conversation. i almost never turn work down, I just price the hell out of it. I had someone want 2 jackets screened -1 color, back only -supplied jackets, took 25 minutes from art - finish... quick 100.00. We don't usually print supplied, but we made an exception because of who she was. these are the lessons it's taken us years to learn, you can dick around on the phone all day long unless you learn how to control the conversation, same thing with face to face.
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We do the same Homer. It's crazy when people call and start right in to their spiel about how they need
these shirts and it's a got you know a logo on one side that's a picture of their old dog, well sort of their
old dog it was really given to them by their uncle but now it's the logo for their business well sort of business
it's just now starting and do you guys do hats and anyways it's really easy and we already have the shirts and
all you have to do is print them it's easy.
I've gotten pretty good at cutting them off and trying to at least get the quantity out of them before I have to hear
the whole story. We don't quote without seeing artwork, etc usually takes care of most things if the quantity doesn't.
That said, breaking my minimum quantity scored me Sharks tickets last week (eat it Dallas) as well as a potentially
large client in the future.
Thing is, if someone calls up and is nice and professional and occasionally downright funny but wants something we
don't do I will go way out of my way to help them out on theirs. That's just the way I am. I have also
never called a business and wasted their time and ran off at the mouth and had my kid screaming in the background
and refused to hear what they were saying and just repeat my spiel over and over again. Never.
Being in business has taught me a fkload about humanity. Some of it I wish I never knew.
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I almost always ask about the amount of shirts they are ordering. This guy was calling to follow up on a quote I sent. I want to clarify that I have no problem helping a client on the phone for 30 mins or more. I just hate when I talk to someone for that long and they don't have a order that qualifies. That’s another reason I am the only screen printer in the area that is Appointment only. If i had to help people that are walking in and have no idea what they want I would have not time to print shirts.
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I would punch myself in the balls if I was on the phone for 30 minutes. . and got nothing out of it. . .stop in, we'll talk and go over details. That shows me a few things, 1) you are more serious about ordering - people are lazy, if they make the effort to stop in, most of the time they mean business 2) I can close the deal better face to face and take money on the spot - get the order typed up, go over artwork concepts, colors - talk them into a few hoodies too and away we go. I hate the phone, I can't talk and work at the same time -I always screw something up.
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My wife does all the quotes and if some one calls and starts in on a quote she goes straight to our qoute list which is in the computer while she is talking with them. Trying to remember a quote or person you talk with a week or so ago is trouble..you might give them a different quote than the first time and believe it or not some people will have other people to call you and ask for a quote on the same oder. I'll come back to this thought customer coming in
Darryl