Business Before Modern Day Technology

I have tried a lot of different things in my life long before I ever actually became a St. Louis T-shirt printing company. I wasn’t always in the screen printing and custom embroidery business. For many years I was in the asphalt paving industry. It gave the illusion that you are making a lot of money quickly, but it was seasonal. Winter would eventually rear its ugly head and I would end up having to shut down for four months at a time. What took eight months of working long days and even evenings would seem to disappear in a matter of the remaining four months out of the year. You were totally dependent on the weather. I can remember how the days would start out sunny and then a couple of hours later it would start to cloud up with the threat of rain on the horizon. A lot of our business consisted of sealing the driveways. We used a coal tar emulsion that was liquid and could take up to three hours to dry on an overcast day. If the sun would happen to be out, it would dry much quicker and you could actually walk on it after 20 to 25 minutes. Keep in mind that this was before the cell phone was invented so I really didn’t have a reliable way of keeping track on where my crews were working. If I thought that inclement weather was coming, I would have to get in my truck and drive from subdivision to subdivision trying to make a realistic estimation of where my guys were in order to monitor their progress and warned them of the upcoming storm approaching. This was a very physically demanding job and I can remember coming home exhausted at the end of the day. Although my crews day was over, I still had a lot of work to do. I had to try to line up work for the next day which was often very challenging because I was trying to reschedule some of the jobs that we couldn’t get to on that day because of the weather. I think that was one of the things that I hated the most. The fact that people would have to stay off your driveway for a couple days was something that often would not work well with their schedule.

I remember going from house to house walking down the street and taking good notes regarding the problems that were on their particular driveway. I would then go to the library and get what’s called a crisscross directory and find out who lived there, as well as their phone number. I would then call them up that evening and mentioned that I was working down the street and couldn’t help but notice as I was driving by that they had a particular problem and would simply ask them if they would be interested in receiving a quote while I was working in the neighborhood. Most of the time they said sure give me a bid. Keep in mind that this was back in the day when people actually answered the telephone.

I eventually was able to get out of that industry and started a St. Louis T-shirt printing company that also specialized in custom embroidery. Like any other business owner I was trying to figure out how to get an edge on my competition. I would try to find a way to set myself apart from all the other St. Louis screen printing companies in town. I would usually do this by offering them something besides what they asked for. For example, let’s say they needed 24 of something, well I would offer them exactly what they asked for, but throw in a couple extra items left over in our inventory in order to act as an incentive. Sometimes it would be additional T-shirts and other times it might be something like a sweat shirt that might be left over from another job. No one else would offer them something extra, so if all things were apples to apples, we would usually get the job.

Please remember us the next time you might be in the market for a St. Louis screen printing and custom embroidery company. We don’t just have a set way of doing things. We can handle a small order with a digital application, as well as a large order by producing them conventionally.

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