When You Run Out of Luck – A Friday the 13th Podcast

Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys are 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. Since February 2013, The 2 Regular Guys have 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!

News

• Aaron: My latest article is out in Graphics Pro Magazine. I would love to get the Regulators’ Feedback on it. It’s about overcoming imposter syndrome, and I’m pretty proud of it. You can give it a read at https://osg.link/imposter. Let me know your thoughts on it. Anything in it you can use to improve your business?

• Terry: Another legal show? The new TikTok businesses put your knowledge, or lack of it, on full display. Kim watches a 90-day business with ½ a million followers.

Dad Joke: From Jack Canfield – I couldn’t quite remember how to throw a boomerang

 Then it hit me

When You Run Out of Luck

Aaron: On Friday the 13th, when you run out of luck!

When there’s a pandemic – Let’s not belabor this

• Being fluid and agile about how you do business – EZ example
• Aaron – Looking for solutions – The complaining just leads to more complaining and resignation. If you are in a leader’s position, a face when people are tuning in or looking to you for advice, it is your responsibility to do more, be better, and show up as the best version of yourself. Not stand for the I CAN’T and the shallowness of being overly principled.
  • Principles v Values – Cursing is an effect, and saying I curse is a value = not true. Your value is being able to say what you want and speak your mind with effect. But is cursing required in all circumstances? No, so it is not a value. Same with the way we dress, act, etc. Those are not values. They may be effects or ways to express some values, but your values always serve you in all cases, and we need to lead with those, NOT Principles

When people leave unexpectedly (or expectedly)

• Training and cross-training
• Odd retirement story

When the supply chain snaps

• Take advantage of distributor availability tools
• Offer alternatives
• Aaron – I also think we need to stand up a little more. The distributors in this situation have shown a side that I don’t like. They got complacent, and with all the buying up of other companies, they clearly have money to do more for their customers than they are doing. They are fine to make their problems their customers’ problems. Why would you not waive handling fees when you are forcing your customer to add hours of work to their plate trying to find products they need. Why would you not do something about the shipping charges when you are forcing your customer to get complete orders from multiple warehouses. Trust me, no one wants to spend 3 hours finding what they need to fulfill an order and wait for it to show up from multiple places, yet the customer is being penalized for the distributor’s logistic issues. As customers, we also need to ask for a partnership and not let up until they agree to help find a solution, and not just say – It is what it is.  If they “fire” you as a customer, then you didn’t have a partnership anyway. You were just a number on a spreadsheet to them.

When disaster strikes – Equipment Failure / Natural Disasters / Utility Outages

• • Treat stoppages as an eventuality, not just a possibility. What will you do when it happens, not if.
  • Build your ‘dream team’ of outsource suppliers- always useful for times when throughput is maxed-out, but can be leveraged for issues like these
  • If it’s mission-critical, know who fixes it, how fast they can be on-site, and if it’s sensible, have a backup.
  • All digital assets need to have local and off-site backups; the cloud is universally available, easy, and cheap. Never let a critical digital asset live in one place, on one device.
• TC – Think through your disaster scenarios before they become reality.

When prices increase

• • Know the current standards and provide alternatives to preserve budgets (as needed) – remember that there are many ways to keep end-costs in check, including adjusting decoration or scope of the project, not just dropping down the ‘good-better-best’ scale on garments
  • Focus on outcomes; what is the result the customer needs, and is the value they’ll get worth the investment, or can we get the same outcomes for less if there’s no other way
  • Keep your value up-front; don’t hide what you do to provide value. Show your unique value proposition, convenience, support, etc. and use intangibles to prove the value rather than just stress circumstances.
• TC – Efficiency in production

5 Things to do when your competition ‘steals’ a customer

From Erich Campbell

1. Be brutally honest with yourself. It’s tempting to get defensive, but you often know if you dropped the ball and now is the time to break down the why and how.
2. Listen carefully to criticism; even if it’s ultimately bunk, knowing the justifications and perceptions of the customer can be educational.
3. Dispassionately evaluate the customer. Sometimes the customer was never yours; bargain hunters are fickle and some customers / jobs were never the best fit for your shop.
4. Refocus on your strengths. Don’t focus on what they do differently as much as you focus on what you can do best. What would you be able to do that they couldn’t, and how could you get to the people that value that ability?
5. Move forward. Be civil, even-handed, and open-minded in talking with the customer, leaving the door open and reputation intact. Once you’ve learned what you can, the best thing you can do is move forward to the next opportunity and regain confidence.

Be Part of #5Things

If you would like to present your 5 Things, five quick points on any subject whether it be advice or five instructional steps, we would love to hear from you. You can come on the show and present them yourself, or we will share your list with our listeners or even play a recorded video of you sharing 5 things. Whatever is easiest. https://www.2regularguys.com/5things/