ImagesMagUK_September_2021

www.images-magazine.com SEPTEMBER 2021 images 71 KB BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Example: DTG pretreatment Similar to the underbase in screen printing, the pretreatment step for direct-to-garment (DTG) digital printing is crucial to your success. As with salt in a recipe, too little or too much can completely ruin the outcome. You want just the right amount. This means having control over how the pretreatment fluid is applied. Dial in the right amount, in only the areas you need it. How are you controlling the pretreatment in your DTG print department? Do you have regularly scheduled preventative maintenance on the pretreatment machine or applicator so the nozzles don’t become clogged? Great chefs have steps like this dialled in and controlled. Do you? Cooking with pots and pans Chefs are picky people. They keep their knives razor-sharp. The kitchens they work in are constantly cleaned and anything they use regularly is less than an arm’s length away. In fact, there is a term for that, ‘mise en place’, which is French for ‘everything in its place’. Now, let’s talk about your shop. If Alain Ducasse toured your shop and compared it to a kitchen, would he be thrilled or disappointed at your level of cleanliness and organisation? Are you exact and crystal clear in your instructions and expectations for your crew? Do they know exactly what to do next, and how it should be performed? What to focus on I get it. You are not a world-famous chef. But you can use the elements of a chef to try to become the best in order to improve how your shop runs and see how that might differentiate your company from everyone else. For me, to surge past the competition, there are really only two things that I would focus on: behaviours and outcomes. Why these two? Because if you get down to the basics of these two ideas, you can distinguish your business from the rest of the pack. Especially if we throw in the notion of the idea of ingredients. Behaviours What is behaviour? For a world-acclaimed chef, what type of behaviours do you think Alain Ducasse exhibits on a day-to-day basis? I don’t personally know the guy, but I’ll bet he has relentless curiosity, exacting standards, a low tolerance for under- performing anything, a highly organised way of handling processes, business savvy, pride in his work and the ability to teach others, and is open to new ideas. So, when we think about using new ingredients in your business to develop some market differentiation between you and your competition, how do these behaviours make a difference? Do you think he has trouble finding or keeping staff? What processes do you think they have built over the years to be able to perform at such a high and exacting level? I want you to imagine that you could shadow Chef Ducasse for a day. What do you think you could learn and reverse-engineer for your own business to help it dominate the market? What behaviours do you tolerate in your shop that are nowhere to be found in his restaurants? Why are they okay for you? Outcomes At the end of the day we are always judged by our customers. In the restaurant business, developing a loyal following of repeat customers is the key to growth. Sound familiar? It doesn’t take much these days for customers to abandon you and go somewhere else. Especially if all you are offering is ink or thread on a garment. That’s not much of a differentiator. If you only focus on the product, you are missing out on many of the factors that keep customers coming back for more. What are the key outcomes that you need to hit on a consistent basis? Do you know? Marshall Atkinson is a production and efficiency expert for the decorated apparel industry, and the owner of Atkinson Consulting and co-founder of Shirt Lab, a sales and marketing education company, with Tom Rauen. He focuses on operational efficiency, continuous improvement, workflow strategy, business planning, employee motivation, management and sustainability. www.atkinsontshirt.com n Do you understand what your customer needs? n How is order information handled? n Do you create and consistently hit deadlines? n In your shop, do you have processes that everyone follows? n Does everyone know what to do next? n How long should something take? n What does quality mean? n Are you organised and work cleanly? n How are you learning new information? Is that in alignment with the expectations of your customers? Have you verified this somehow, or are you just guessing? How many new customers turn into repeat customers? Are the ingredients you use for cooking matching the flavour palette of your customers? When they keep demanding something, such as online sales, or water-based ink, or laser-etched leather patches… are you learning to cook these dishes? Or do you say that you can’t put them on the menu? Maybe sticking to your same old, boring, routine way of conducting business has meant a drop in sales lately? Maybe, then, it’s time to start using some new ingredients? Use the elements of a chef to differentiate your company from everyone else