Impressions - Digital Decorator 2019 - 16

The next day call and introduce yourself. As your number of client
chapters grows, use your history of business with the previous office
holder to get your foot in the door for another year of production.
It's a great market opportunity, selling to college students who
generally will have substantial expendable funds. Budgets for these
special events can be mind boggling if you're looking in from the
outside. Also, the opportunity for onsite printing at parties and
events can be tremendous here.

FOLLOW THE CUSTOMERS

As mentioned in the above example, the ability to travel to work
onsite with customers is a distinct advantage of DTG printing.
Many machines are portable and have the potential of creating a
buzz around an event when customers start wearing their freshly
printed garments.
An example is national car shows. One successful technique is to
take photos of the cars on display, go back to the trailer or tent, and
drop that image into a predesigned template mentioning the show,
the date, etc. Then it's as simple as walking back to the car and holding up the shirt in front of the owner. There's only one question from
the car owner at that point, "How much?"
An operator who sets up at high-end events told me he decided
to charge $40.00 for a shirt, on the assumption that he would sell
one shirt and move on to the next car. What he did not anticipate in
his business plan was the fact that most of these car owners would
call him in a few days and order more shirts with the same image.
People will pay for what they're passionate about, and $40.00 is not
too much to feed that passion.
This concept isn't just for high-end car events. It's for every event

This is a custom print produced for a local high school.
Photo provided by Xpress Printing, Edinburg,Texas.

Bryan Bahlmann, shown with original artwork by artist Katy
Lipscomb. Photo provided by Be Seen Wear,Valley Center, Calif.

large and small, and for car club gatherings as well. For every car
ever built, there's a club for enthusiasts. There are as many garmentprinting possibilities as there are passions in people's lives.

THE COLOR GAMUT

A huge advantage of DTG printing is the ability to use all the colors you can imagine. This sets a DTG printer apart from a screen
printer. A good example of the ideal customer for this capability is
local artists.
Weekend art fairs (and similar street fair events) are a great place
to find local and regional artists who want to put their work on shirts
to resell. These customers will love the opportunity to feature many
of their creations and buy in small quantities, but be prepared for
some critical eyes on the colors, etc.
At the next event, create a packet with your business card, price
sheet and a sample garment and pass them out among the artists.
The pitch? You should expand your market by selling your artwork
on T-shirts. Once you're in the door with a few artists, the others
will follow.

MARRY YOUR PASSION

Use Info*Action #105 at impressionsmag.com/infoaction

16 * Fall 2019

We all have lives outside our businesses, or at least we did at one
time. A great way to stay connected with hobbies, causes and personal interests is to marry your passion to your DTG business.
I know a printer who offers a line of monster shirts year-round.
He's a faithful fan of those 1950's and 1960's black-and-white monster movies. This decorator loves everything about these movies and
that industry. He was attending related events anyway, so why not
make a little money and meet like-minded people?
He sets up his booth at theaters offering B-horror movie festi-

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