Groundhog Day: Turn failure into success

If there is one movie that encapsulates what it’s like to run a shop in the decorated apparel industry, it is Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day.” In the film, Bill plays a cynical TV weatherman, Phil Connors, who relives the same day repeatedly when he goes on location to the small town of Punxsutawney to film a live report about their annual Groundhog Day festivities. He has to relive the same day until he gets it right.

Like Phil Connors, you may make the same mistakes daily in your shop. Some of these are obvious, but you haven’t learned to correct them yet. Others could be completely invisible to you currently, and you’ll only discover them after you seek success through positive change.

Repetition isn’t a bad thing. If you repeatedly perform at a high level, you will want to keep doing whatever you are doing correctly. But this article isn’t about that notion. Today, we’ll explore four common challenges that businesses face and offer actionable solutions to transform these problems into repeatable successes.

Remember, you are what you repeatedly do.

1. Bottlenecks in workflow

The theory of constraints says that you can only move as fast as the slowest part of your process. Do you know what that is in your shop?

This could be delays in design approval, screen setup times, embroidery trimming, or scheduling so you have a consistent on-time delivery record — or thousands of other issues. Whatever your challenge, the impact can be slowed production timelines, frustrated clients, and costly overtime to keep up.

Do your shop a favor: Walk around the building and ask your employees what bottleneck affects their work and slows them down. Trust me, they all have an opinion. It’s what they usually complain about.

Solution

Take the time to map out your current processes. Your mission: simplify it so it takes less friction, effort, or time to complete each process part.

You want it like a fast-food drive-through lane. There is a reason why when you say, “I’d like a No. 1 with a Coke,” it is much easier to process than “I’d like a double cheeseburger with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions, with a medium French fries side and a medium-sized Coca-Cola drink.”

What can you do in your shop to compress the meaning and timing of things so that they flow faster? Can you standardize the language, process steps, or decisions your employees must make? Also, how many steps in your process can you change so there is only one way to do something? It is either right or wrong.

For example, there is only one way to tape up a box, prioritize jobs on the schedule, mix ink, or do thousands of other things. While there may be reasons for doing things multiple ways, matching the process steps to the outcomes can create a faster workflow and hold trained employees accountable.

This might mean you don’t offer everything imaginable in production but only concentrate on the most profitable. Learn to say no to what isn’t a good fit.

2. Inconsistent quality control

In your shop, do you have a challenge with quality? Something may have been handled correctly today, but the same task will be wrong tomorrow. If you think that these problems only exist in your shop, let me tell you that you are not a unicorn.

Many shops struggle with inconsistent results. This could be misaligned prints, incorrect colors, or errors in purchasing. A lack of quality control leads to increased waste and, ultimately, unhappy customers.

Solution

Better quality lives in everyone understanding the expectations before they start with whatever task they need to complete. What does success look like when entering an order, designing a T-shirt, running some Carhartt jackets in embroidery, or shipping an order to a customer?

If you do a root-cause analysis on your problems, the origination point is often missing or erroneous. Try to get “one source of truth” for how you do your work.

Take a step back and start charting out your problems and errors. Start a spreadsheet. This won’t only be for production issues but everywhere in the building. I can tell you that sometimes production delays are caused by problems with purchasing, so don’t drop every problem squarely on your production team’s feet. You want to get the data to connect the dots on how your problems begin.

3. High turnover in entry-level positions

Finding staff members is difficult for many shops in the industry, and keeping them is even worse. This leads to repeated training and onboarding cycles for new employees.

This problem fosters lost productivity, higher costs as tasks take longer, and lower team morale. It’s simply not a good situation.

Solution

Answer this question: Why would anyone want to work for you? Is your shop a destination employer in the area? Do you treat your employees well and think about their roles in your company as careers?

Also, this is key: can someone make more money in your area working at a fast-food restaurant or other low-wage job? If someone can make more money flipping burgers or bagging groceries, why would they want to start a job that is often more difficult, like working for your shop?

If you have an employee retention problem, you must treat employees better. You want your crew to see their jobs as a career. This means when they are hired, there is a route they start taking to higher wages and more complex work with your business. Map it out.

Build a culture of growth with clear career paths, mentorship programs, and bonuses based on milestones or performance awards. Offer small perks. Catered lunches, flexible schedules, free apparel, and/or other ideas show you care about them. Have empathy and say “Thank you.”

Remember, most people don’t leave their jobs over money; they leave their jobs because of how they were managed. If you have a shop with an employee retention problem, chances are the reason is you.

4. Repeating nonprofitable work

We’ve all been there. We said yes to a job with zero chance of making money. If you really looked hard enough, dozens of those jobs are clogging up the schedule now. The fear is that you’ll lose that customer if you say no to something.

Non-profitable work steals time and resources away from work that could be more beneficial to the shop. Any shop that splits contract decoration and more profitable direct business should know and understand this. Saying yes to low-profit work feels good because “It keeps production going.”

But the problem is that nobody has worked out the math in a long time, and now the shop sales are on autopilot. We just take whatever is placed before us and crank it out.

Solution

Sorry, it is called math. And math is something that no one wants to do. Like the old man who doesn’t want to go see a doctor because he doesn’t want to know he has cancer, plenty of shops blindly accept whatever is sent in, regardless of whether it is a good fit for running a healthy, profitable shop.

You have to do your math. What does it cost to print or embroider a shirt? Not a guess. The real math. There can’t be guessing.

Once you know these numbers, the next question is, what type of profit do you want to make? Many shops I speak with don’t know the answer to this question or even what they made last year. (“Sorry, I’m waiting on my accountant to tell me what I made” is an excuse I’ve heard dozens of times.)

Here’s a fact: I don’t have your shop’s numbers, but I can tell you that the top 80% of your sales come from only 20% of your customers. Fact-check me. Pull that report; you’ll see that I’m right. Of course, if that is true, 80% of your work is responsible for 20% of your overall profit.

That’s a lot of work for little money. Those stinky, low-profit jobs are often why you have overtime, scheduling problems, and cost issues.

Once you have identified the problem, you can start making changes. Raise your minimums. Have some price increases. Say no to unprofitable work. Train your sales team to go after more valuable clients, using value-based pricing and upselling other services and offers.

Your mission is to work half as hard for twice the money.

Conclusion: A framework for success

Every shop that I speak with has a different set of challenges. No two shops are the same, and it is ridiculous to think that any answer for one shop will work perfectly for another. There are simply too many variables.

However, repeated challenges can feel overwhelming, but they also present an opportunity to build better systems that create long-term success. (You know, the whole “every problem is an opportunity” thing.)

By addressing any issue head-on, you can transform that recurring problem into a predictable, repeatable, and consistent success.

Here’s a simple framework to get started:

1. Identify the challenge: You have to name it and be able to describe it. Work on them one at a time. If you have to, prioritize the problem that will make the most significant impact if you resolve it.
2. Brainstorm solutions: Get the team together. Go where the work takes place. Walk through the problem, taking careful notes, pictures, or videos. List potential solutions and prioritize them based on ease of success or likely impact.
3. Test a solution: Start small. Implement one idea. See what happens. Keep testing and pushing, all the while evaluating effectiveness.
4. Measure results: Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Track the outcomes and refine your solution based on what you learn.
5. Scale up: Once you have steady success, expand the solution idea across your entire operation.

Remember, repetition can be a powerful tool when done right. It is up to you and your shop to define success and work toward having it repeat every time. You can do this!