June 19th Show Notes – War Stories of 2 Regular Guys – Part 2
Please find some links and notes from the 2 Regular Guys Podcast. As usual the 2 Regular Guys had more content than they had time. Last week they brought you several war stories about their years in business discussing sales, marketing and customer service. We will follow up this week to finish the info talking about real life events and how we dealt with the problems that arose in Management, Production/Manufacturing employees and more. We gave you the listeners homework asking you to come share your stories with us this week in the live chat at the bottom of the blog talk radio page.
Sponsored by: WholesaleGraphix.com (Use Coupon code SUMMER)
Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys is all about garment decorating, a bit of fun, and no rants or lectures or selling. We are not doing this for our employers, but rather for our industry. For the past two years, 2 Regular Guys has been the first and the most listened to garment decorating industry podcast on this planet! We are humbled by all of you tuning in each week. We work hard to bring you information that will make your business better, and our industry better. Take a look at our incredible weekly guest list and you’ll understand where this industry goes for news, interviews and the heartbeat of garment decorating. Thanks for listening!!
War Stories of 2 Regular Guys
Management
The eccentricities of ownership. I had a fairly new employee who wasn’t happy with the way the owner dealt with him on a subject I can’t even remember any longer. The bottom line for the new employee was, “Either the owner changes, or I’m out of here!” Well guess what, the owner isn’t likely to change. Your decision is fairly simple when you work anywhere, you either accept the eccentricities of that particular owner or manager, or keep moving. Don’t expect the company to change for you, simply decide whether it’s important enough to quit the job you have.
Production/Manufacturing
Poor choice of words (corporate culture). A company I worked with several years ago offered a high end and a high priced screen printed product line. And after much hard work, I had a production crew of 75 who took pride in their work and the product going out the door. When we were printing national basketball championship shirts very late one night, our Production Supervisor yelled “stop the press” as she had the full authority to do. In fact, every person on the production floor had that responsibility and authority. There had been a color shift as I recall. The president of the company who was watching production run these special shirts came over, looked at the print and said, “It’s good enough. It’s only going to a grocery store.” My crew was deflated. There focus on quality just went out the window. For months whenever the presses were stopped, the press operators would always toss out, “It’s fine. It’s only going to a grocery store!” It took me months to get that sense of pride back into the staff. Needless to say I had a chat with the President and explained how important the words are that we choose.
Every company is a direct reflection from the top.
Employees
Life changing experience. If you don’t have employees yet, let me just tell you that your life will change forever! When I was running a production floor with 75 production employees, one of my sons came to work with me to write a report on what one of his parents does for a living. Mid morning he said, “Is this your job??” I said, “What do you mean, is this my job?” “Is your job to listen to people complain all day??” Apparently that was exactly what my job had become.
Would love to hear listeners’ 1st employee experiences… or other employee interactions.
We’ll call this perspective. Let’s talk about the perspective from the front office and the perspective from the rest of the company. I was in a management meeting and one of the company officers was bragging about the benefits package we offered to the employees. I had doubts and said that my guess was that most employees had long forgotten the benefits such as paid life insurance, etc. I pointed out the the employees out on the production floor viewed the world from an entirely different perspective. To prove my point I did a simple survey of the employees with one question: Make a list of all our company benefits. Management was shocked at the result. As an example more people listed the fact that they would occasionally receive two movie tickets if they were doing an especially good job than the number of people who wrote down the the company paid their life insurance. Sometimes, we have to see the world through the other guy’s glasses. We did though create a brochure for each employee to list all the benefits, and encouraged them to take it home and share with their significant other.
The same company owner said to me once, “Why don’t our employees look at this business like entrepreneurs the way we do?” “Because if they did, they would have their own companies.”
From the Chat Room:
KristineShreve: It has to be about communication – and people also have to remember that both companies and people change and grow. What works now might not work in a few years – so both sides need to keep their goals in mind.
FredFoster: A great test for seeing how good a place runs is the state of its bathrooms
KristineShreve: Real life examples are so useful. I use them in my seminars too.
Shows
- ASI Chicago – 7/15 to 7/16
- NBM Long Beach – 7/23 to 7/25
- Embroidery Mart – 8/7 to 8/8
- NBM Philly – 8/28 to 8/30
- ISS Orlando – 9/10 to 9/12
- NBM Denver – 10/2 to 10/3
- ISS Ft Worth – 10/15 to 10/17
Other News/Events
- Complete Screen Printing Business Course – Workhorse Products in Phoenix – July 25-26
- Complete Screen Printing Business Course – Atlas Screen Supply in Chicago – August 8-9
Terry’s Books
Screen Printing: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.
Direct to Garment: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.
Scheduling and Estimating Production Time for Garment Screen Printing Just $2.99 as an e-book
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