Success Stories Ep 54 - “The Art of the T-Shirt Side Hustle”

On today’s Success Stories podcast, we will discuss starting a t-shirt side hustle with the guru on this, Stan Banks.

Stan has amassed a large YouTube following for his show “T-shirt Side Hustle,” which has over 100,000 subscribers.  But how did he get started?  What is it like to have a successful t-shirt YouTube show career?  How does Stan see the future of the industry?

We’ll get those questions answered and more in this episode of Success Stories.

Transcript

Marshall Atkinson 
On today's Success Stories podcast we'll discuss starting at T-shirt Side Hustle with the guru on this Stan Banks. Stan has amassed a large YouTube following for his show T-shirt Side Hustle, which is over 100,000 subscribers. But how did he get started? What was it like to have a successful t-shirt YouTube show career? How does Stan see the future of the industry? We'll get to those questions and answer more on the next episode of Success Stories. So Stan, welcome to the podcast.

Stan Banks 
Thank you for having me.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, it's gonna be lots of fun. And I met you at Shirt Lab, one of the Shirt Lab events. So it's just amazing to be everything that you've done. And I love your story. It's so fascinating. So I can't wait to dig into that.

Stan Banks 
Yeah, man, I'm glad to be here. Shirt Lab was a great event I think more people should attend. I've learned a lot of what the last few years actually. And it's opened my eyes to some things that I could help my audience with, but also learn and grow from so I was there. Fred said are probably asked him most questions. But it was really, really a good event for people who want to grow their business and get some insightful information. So yeah, it was great meeting you there.

Marshall Atkinson 
Good. Good. All right. So let's get going. So before T-shirt Side Hustle show started, you were started out in the industry. So walk us through your journey and talk about what you've learned as you've built your business.

Stan Banks 
So first and foremost, I was a serial entrepreneur, serial hustler, whichever terminology you want to use. So for me, one business led me into the next. So growing up, I could fix computers really, really well. You know, fix them, break them, build them from scratch all of that good stuff, which led me to learn how to do websites, learning websites, and building websites led me into photography, and then promote my photography business is when I started to make my first set of shirts. So I kind of had one of those, we all ended up in a t-shirt business. And out of all those different hustles and things and I did graphic design and a lot of other things in the middle of there. But out of all of those hustles I felt like t-shirts was the one that I had to promote and get out and find new customers the least once people knew I was making t-shirts. And actually I wasn't even making t-shirts at the time. Once people see me selling t-shirts, they then started to ask me, if I could make theirs which opened up a whole new revenue, and then maybe a year or two into it, I looked at it and said, Look how much when I'm making t-shirts versus other things that I'm doing. And the amount of time that I was putting in was purely on production. So it just made a lot of sense for me to make the transition to start selling t-shirts full time.

Marshall Atkinson 
And where do you live? And where did all this happen?

Stan Banks 
So I'm in Wilmington, Delaware, and it all happened right here, you know, I run a local base t shirt shop, you know, it was my YouTube channel and everything that came about it was all on my local base t shirt shop printing for schools, if I was coaching places that my friends were business that people would just bring me so that was kind of where it started for me and it was all done, you know, word of mouth and business cards and you know, just local printing.

Marshall Atkinson 
And so when did you start and walk us through how you kind of evolved your T shirt part of it over the years?

Stan Banks 
Okay, so in 2009 the staff started to try to get you know start making myself I started with a DIY starter kit for Ryan that I had a horrible time trying to burn stream so my friend would burn him. We were printing just my Stan banks photography logos at the time in the living room, Washington and back to probably everything I shouldn't have been doing at the time. But I was doing it you know trying to figure it out. So that was in about 2009 and 2011 After selling a bunch of shirts with my photography logo on it. I was actually shocked so I bought a dozen and they sold out but two dozen they sold out I bought four dozen, eight dozen. It just kept turning over and there was my logo, Stan banks photography and people were actually taking the shirts and they were wearing them out. So around 2011 People started to ask me you know hey, well we're just starting t shirt biz can you make mine can you do my shirts and I said sure I can make them I didn't really know how to print but I knew where to go get them printed that lady was printing them for me for three bucks. So I will go there. Oh she was actually charged me eight bucks for the shirt and the print. I will go there I will send her artwork which I was doing the artwork for once I send it to I will pick up the shirts and delivering to the customer only marketing shirt of $1 So she charged me eight I was charging nine they get about 24 shirts. So I will make 24 bucks on that she didn't charge me screen free so I charged the screen fee was 25 bucks. And now we'll charge them around 50 bucks for artwork so I would just pocket In $100 per job, I had no idea what I was doing.

Marshall Atkinson 
But you no longer do it that way, right?

Stan Banks 
No, not at all. So what ended up happening is I learned a lesson. I'm like, you know, hey, no matter, I was like, Can I bring you 200 shirts? And how much would it be? She was like, $8 I don't care what you how many shirts you bring me, it's gonna be $8. And I was like, that's not right. You know, I should be to get some breaks in here and make more money. So I started to look around. And the first thing I did was start to supply my own shirts. So I went out, and I started to try to find my own shirts to supply my own shirts. So I bought them back to her. And she said, okay, cool, you supplying the shirts, it'll be $3. So now I start to add some profit back into my pocket, adding in the shirt. And now I can make a little bit like maybe $2 or some $2.50 More at the time that I will make bringing it back into my pocket. So now where I was profiting $1 I'm now at like, 350 a shirt. And then I said the same thing. Hey, if I put you 100 shares, 200 shirts, how much would you charge me, she's like, I don't care how many shirts you bring. It's $3. So then I started to look for it in prayer. And I walk into a print shop one day, and the print shop owner was actually a substitute teacher of mine in high school. I'm maybe like three years out of high school now, not too far out. And then the whole world of printing kind of theories versus every other business that I had.

Marshall Atkinson 
That's very interesting. And it was like, "Hey, it's Mr. Clark, he does this!" right?

Stan Banks 
Yeah, yeah. It's actually Mr. Brown really, really sick with a Mr. Brown, it was a really dope setup, you know, and everything that I've learned from him, is kind of what got me to actually what I teach on YouTube. So he gave me all of the information that I needed. Over time, he allowed me to fail, he allowed me to like learn, and then that was information that I started to take take to my YouTube channel.

Marshall Atkinson 
Right, right. That's great. That's great. So I think, you know, many shops in this industry struggle with growth. I mean, you were just talking about how you kind of like, bumped into better solutions as you're going, right? So talk about that entrepreneurial journey and ways that, you know, if you're listening right now, like people should be thinking about what is the next level in the industry. So you're right here right now, what's coming up next? And how you should be learning and taking that new knowledge and applying it. So you just talked about it, you've done this a couple different ways in your career. So what should people really be doing, Stan?

Stan Banks 
they should be doing the work, you know, a lot of people sit on the sidelines and ask 100,000 questions, but they never actually get started. What I like to tell people is when you're starting out, I mean, it's good to collect all the information. But at some point, you got to pick your poison, and you got to start. And then once you get started to questions, that whole list of questions that you made, you'll be presented with a whole new set of questions that are actually about you solving problems that you have, you know, what, I think a lot of us get stuck up on paralysis by analysis, right, which is basically you asking so much you don't know which decision to make, you know, and there's a lot of great people on the internet teaching and doing different things like yourself, myself, and some of my other counterparts on YouTube in different places, industry experts, ultimately, you got to pick somebody's information to go with, nobody's really wrong, everybody has their own perspectives on it, but get started. And then you'll start to formulate questions that actually will make a difference in kind of like starting that journey, and learning as you go along.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah. So you know, from attending a couple of Shirt Lab events, our motto is actions reveal priorities. So you can read a book or watch a show or, you know, talk to people all we want, but until we actually start doing things, right. That's how you know that you're, what is a priority for you. And it's really funny when I when I talk to people sometimes, you know, they're all complaining about how come they don't have any sales? And my first question is, okay, well, tell me about the sales activities you did today or yesterday, how many calls did you make? And they say, none, I go, Well, is it any wonder you don't have any sales?

Stan Banks 
It's funny, because today, I think the internet has spoiled us in a way, right? Like, when I wanted to market my first business, I literally was I grew up in barber shops. So I literally walked to every barber shop for like a month straight and put business cards in there, you know, and that those are the things that people don't want to go out and do now. They must rather sit behind a computer say they have a business and hope that people just find them. And you know, for some people on the internet with ads and different things like that it works. But for the majority of people, they never actually see the success that way. And that's one of the things where I'm like, Hey, I run a local base print shop. I don't get any business off of my YouTube channel. We actually had a brief conversation about that. I don't do business across my YouTube channel. You know, maybe I should I could grow probably and do different things like that. But ultimately Do people run away from the old things? They don't have business cards, you know, they're not willing to go to networking events, they're not willing to say, you know, going to a restaurant, see, they all got different shirts on and say, Hey, man, can I speak to a manager, I make shirts, and I can supply like, those are the first things that I always thought of, when I promote and market my business.

Marshall Atkinson  
I know it and I go, Hey, give me your business card, I'll send you some stuff, they go, I don't have any business cards with me. And it's just always shocking to me that, you know, for 10 bucks, you can get 500 business cards. Yeah, it's not like it's that big a deal. And then now I have the little dot thing on the back of my phone. So when in a trade show, and they say that I can just say, hey, try this kind of thing. And, and I think it's really important that people out there, and if you're listening and you're struggling with sales, and you're not really sure what to do, I think one of the first things that you can do, and I've said this for years, is write a business plan about who your ideal customer is. And then what is their problem that you're uniquely qualified to solve. And then if you write that plan, then you kind of know like a laser beam focus who your target is. So that can be hospitals, that can be delis that can be rock bands, that can be people, dog groomers, I mean, it doesn't really matter who is your ideal customer. And then because you have something uniquely qualified, you speak their language, you've got the contacts, you know what you're doing. And then it's so much easier to go after that business. Because you kind of have a direction. And where you can start researching and doing things and draw a circle on the map. I mean, how many businesses are customer potential customers are within a one day ground ship of me, and this one category, and then I'm going to create a spreadsheet and go after, like with a vengeance, right? And just doing something as simple as that is going to really give you some direction and some guidance, because, you know, you look at Facebook, and everybody's like, I don't have any sales, I don't know what to do, what do you think I should do? And it's just because these people just don't put in the work, don't you think this is true.

Stan Banks 
And I like to call that wrote a book called niches bring riches. It's like, got a kid, and they're on a youth athletic team, start there, make your kids something that kind of like own the niches that you're in? And to add on to what you just said, a lot of companies would I see struggling or doing what it's something that I think could be improved across the industry is we all market based on the services we provide, not who we serve, you know, I offer screen printing embroidery, you know, but they never go out and say, you know, what, I offer screen printing embroidery for, you know, nurses for these categories, and kind of like hone in on the situation where they can find themselves useful for people. So it automatically clicks in their head, you know, right?

Marshall Atkinson 
It's so true. And you did, what you have to do is use to connect the dots, and know what your customers are looking for. They're looking to solve problems. So that's what you should be talking about, right? And I can't tell you how many times I've been on somebody's web page. And it's a really nice picture of their building. You know, and as it's like, if I'm your potential customer delight care how many windows you have, or you've got a flower bed, I don't care. I'm trying to get on a HR person. I've got a problem with employee retention. I'm trying to get a new onboarding package for new hires. And I need to talk about that with somebody that can do the shirts for me, right? If I go to your webpage, am I going to see that? You know, are my going to see the answer to the problem that I'm struggling with? That's what I think people should really focus on is be solutions based, and talk about the answers to people's problems for the market that you're trying to serve. If you show that and you illustrate this is what I do I solve your problems, then you can write your own ticket.

Stan Banks 
Yeah, I agree. I think that is 1,000% Sure.

Marshall Atkinson  
Like what you hear so far, be sure to subscribe so you can get the latest from Success Stories. And now here's Zach shortly with the S&S spotlight.

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Marshall Atkinson 
You have a show called T-shirt Side Hustle, which is incredibly impressive. It's got over 100,000 subscribers, you know, as they say Rome wasn't built in a day. So what did you do to build up that size of followers? Because I think it's important that somebody listening right now be thinking about that if they want to start their own YouTube channel, right, you know, and I think that's a big thing right now, what should they be thinking about Stan?

Stan Banks 
So I kind of have the unorthodox approach to starting a YouTube channel, right? First and foremost, you have to understand that, are you going to get on YouTube to promote your business? And if that's the case, then you should be doing work to say, ask your customers like, how can I make it easier for them to work with me, you know, teach them things that they're already asking you all the time, and put that content out in the world and service your customers and teach them how to work better with.

Marshall Atkinson 
It's the Frequently Asked Questions route.

Stan Banks 
Yep, yep, that's the great place to start. For most businesses. Now, what I decided to do was, I felt like there was a barrier of entry to information when I had that struggle of trying to learn and figure out how to get into this industry. So what I set out to do is to actually teach people how to make extra money, because everybody around me was complaining about the incomes that they made, you know, and so I decided, you know, what, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn my camera on, and I'm gonna teach everybody to every job that I was doing, I was just showing people what I was doing every day, as the word came in today, I might be doing vinyl tomorrow by the heat pressing 50 shirts, tomorrow, I might be screenprint in a four color job, whatever it was, in that case, is what I did, the advice that I would give is just to be consistent, and probably do a lot more research on being a YouTuber, and being a content creator than I did. I still, to this day, don't look at analytics, I don't watch any of that stuff, I just put out the information that I see people struggling with, or that I'm experiencing myself. So I have a lot of room to grow even still. So I don't have that overnight success story. As a YouTuber, I just put out constant videos over the last five years, which grow over time.

Marshall Atkinson 
Okay, and you still you're not using any apps like vid IQ or anything to help you with your tags and all that?

Stan Banks 
I have those apps installed. But I don't look at it. You know, just being honest that to buddy are two great apps that you can use. But I don't typically go in and keyword for I make content, I just make the video on that I'm not out to try to create content from the standpoint of like, how do I get views? How do I get more, I'm trying to give people information that can actually impact their business. And what I find is that that stuff normally doesn't come with us. It just you know, it's not the sexy part of the internet per se, like, you know, when you're going through struggles and things.

Marshall Atkinson 
So one of the things that I'm a big proponent of you know, I create a lot of content, Stan, and I start off creating a template. Like for this podcast, I sent you the outline. That's a template, right? When I do stuff on YouTube, the graphic I put up there, the blog article, I write the graphic for that. Everything I do is simple. And that way I can just switch out the picture, switch out the title vital. Do a couple little things in about three minutes. I'm done. Right? You use templates when you do this kind of stuff. So it's easier to create the content and post. Tell us what you do.

Stan Banks 
So content creation for me is easy. You sent me a job right now, right? You got a business, you need 24 shirts for Shirt Lab right and you hit me up. All I did was turn on the camera. Hey, this customer has a job. I'm printing to color design. On this next level Bella Canvas whatever insert S&S activewear brand here. I'm putting on his shirt today. And here's how I'm doing it. Today. I'm using screenprint. Tomorrow, the next job may be embroidery, I don't do embroidery in house, I outsource it. So I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm doing. Because I'm here to teach you, right. And I don't know everything, I don't have every tool. All I can do is get on the internet and say this is how I'm making money every single day. And that was kind of like what I thought my competitive advantage was like, Listen, I'm doing this every day. You might see me at two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, printing shirts, you know, and I'll be on live with 25 people or two people didn't matter because it was the work that I was doing already every day. So my approach to it is easy. I can get online I can talk about the business because I put seven years into doing the business before I even started my YouTube channel in 2017.

Marshall Atkinson 
Okay, that's kind of a template you have a certain way you're working and that helps foster the next step.

Stan Banks 
Yep. Kelly so it's really simple man. You think about a job. You know, I picked the garment. Pick your print process, prep your print process, print the garments, tell them what you did. In this case, tell them how much money you made or what they could be charged. origin or anything like that. And the way that I filmed my videos is really, really easy. You know, those six things that I just mentioned would be my six clips. And then I call it a day, you know, so I would just blind those up.

Marshall Atkinson  
Okay, now do you for your thumbnail, you do have a template for the graphic.

Stan Banks 
Yes, now I do in the beginning, I didn't make any thumbnails. But now I do. And I tried to segment them out based on like, different series and things, which I'm still perfecting, I got some things coming up for 2023, that's gonna be really interesting. And we're gonna have a really good approach to some cleaning somebody stuff up now, because I never looked at myself as a YouTuber or a content creator. You know, I was genuinely out to help people start t shirt businesses with the information that I had learned, because I didn't tell you this, but I had got a job, and 2015 for 10 hours an hour, I had never had a job in my life, I got the job to get health insurance. And then I realized that I wouldn't have been able to survive off of that 10 hours an hour to take care of myself, let alone myself and a child. So if I didn't have t shirts, you know, I wouldn't have been able to care for myself for my kid, because of money that was coming in from that job. It just wasn't enough. And so I believe that if you wanted to start a business out of every business that I tried, this was the best one. And because of that, if you wanted to make $300-500 dollars a month to make your bills hit less, you know, just so you can, you know, breathe easier. If you wanted to save money to go on a vacation with your family, whatever it may be, I thought T shirts was the best business to be in. Because literally for me, it literally soda. So once people knew I was making not even making selling T shirts.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, right. It's great. It's great. All right. So as we know, this industry is always changing. There's new decoration techniques, new types of shirts, new processes, new ways of doing everything. So just thinking about the future. Stan, what are you most excited about? Looking forward to what's coming up? What are you like sitting go? Man, I can't wait for that. What are you thinking about?

Stan Banks 
Well, there's a lot of print techniques that I see overseas, that I wish we could do like embossing and some of those things and bringing that stuff over here to see it happen here. But you know that the recent technology DTF has been the number one thing growing in the industry. And I think over time, it's getting a lot better, it is moving really, really fast. Unlike when DTG came around, it was like a slow, gradual process. But I feel like because they've adopted some of the things that they learned from DTG, that DTF is the new wave. And I'm interested to see where it goes over the next few years as far as the quality goes, and the consistency and what big companies actually get behind the process in order to kind of like take it to that next level. So I think, you know, everybody is watching and seeing what DTF will become over the next few years.

Marshall Atkinson  
I totally agree. And by the way, if you don't know what that means, that's called direct to film. And that's a transfer. And so if you're going I don't like transfers, you know, you might have had an issue with a transfer a couple years ago, let me tell you, the technology is so change. You've got transfers right now in your closet, you just don't know about them. And I was at sporting goods store a couple months ago. And you can look at on this on my Instagram account. I went and probably about a dozen different designs from Nike were all transfers. And so if you think people don't like transfers, you're wrong.

Stan Banks 
It's true. It's a personal opinion. I think we in this industry, we get caught up so much by the information in the proper way to do it in a way it's been done for the last 40 and 50 years, that we forget that like at the end of the day, most customers don't care. And I would actually argue that today right now, more customers care, because they've had access to information like I provide, and the stuff that's provided across the internet that they've learned a little bit about, everybody's that you know, there is a good quality and it's not going to erase that stigma these days. As long as you're applying it right. You know, you're using the right equipment and temperatures Correct. Everything that is done, you know, people are perfectly fine with do they actually care most common person buying T shirts doesn't.

Marshall Atkinson 
They don't they don't care. And here's the challenge, Stan is that if you're a screen printer, and that's the label you have in your head, everything to you looks like screen printing. And so when something comes along, that's not screen printing, you think it's wrong? Yep. And because you've got hundreds of 1000s of dollars of screen printing equipment sitting out there on the floor. Now here's something that's disrupting the industry that is screen printing so to you is wrong. That's the same thing with DTG. Right DTG came out. And to me DTG is very limiting because it really only works on cotton. It's got a big issue with poly right DTF can apply to nearly everything. You could do like a little American flag on the side of a mesh trucker hat and it'll stick, right. So there's so many more options out there and you but just like anything, you'd have to do your research, you got to know what you're doing. And there's companies right now, if you don't want to buy the printer, because it's admittedly, the early into the manufacturing of the equipment, you know, stole supercolor, there's a whole bunch of them out there that make fantastic heat transfers, I would recommend trying them out, right, just ordering some stuff, some and goofing around with them on some junk shirts you've got laying around, you don't have to use a new shirt, just try it out. And you'll see that it's just a fantastic way to go.

Stan Banks 
The thing that I loved about heat transfers, I looked at my mentor, and he could never find employee to screenprint. You know, I think people forget that screenprint is truly a tree, right? Like, you know, there's a lot that goes into it outside of putting the squeegee. And some of this stuff like burning screens and washing out springs, some people just don't want to do right. So I felt like what he transfers, I can confidently bring somebody in here off the street today, and in 30 minutes to an hour, leaves them on a heat press walk away and be confident that they are going to be able to do the job and perform it versus standing over their shoulder for weeks and weeks trying to make sure that they're doing certain things, right. And that learning process. That was what actually made me kind of fall in love with heat transfers and heat pressing. Because I started out screenprint in 2009, you know, and in 2015 is when I got my heat press. And I thought to myself, why didn't I start like this? You know, and you know, I was doing vinyl at that time just to make some custom shirts. But I was like, Why didn't I start my business like this, because I thought about all the learning curve that I had to go through trying to burn screens and mountain of DIY starter kits in my mom's dryer in the basement, and doing all of these things that I had to work through. So this was a great gateway to get into the business. And then the top that all all of the knowledge that you learn from the heat press and where the vinyl cutter or whatever the case is, it translates perfectly into screen printing or into any other full color process because you know, you cut one, two colors of vinyl, that's color separation is screenprint. You know, and now you can do buying. So I thought all of those lessons that I learned, I was like, Man, why didn't I start like.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, right? Well, you just have to apply it right. And I think it's really important that, you know, people reach out to suppliers, they reach out to different companies doing things. And it's really great to go to trade shows to go to an event like Shirt Lab or any other networking event where you can meet other folks that are doing this because I guarantee you, whatever you're struggling with right now, there's somebody out there that solved that a month ago.

Stan Banks  
And I think that's my biggest lesson for my audience today is that you know, going out getting outside of your house and from behind the computer, and meeting people who are really doing the stuff that you're trying to do. You can help people out who are trying to do what you've already done. You can learn from people doing what you want to do. And then you can build networks and just grow community and figure out what else is out there, how people were growing, how people were making money. And that was it. I said before that I had coming into the industry know, once you're inside these rooms and meeting people, it's amazing how welcoming they are right? You think like, oh, they're not gonna help me because I'm gonna be their competition. But if you get outside of your house, and you go travel to Shirt Lab in Chicago, or wherever else it may be, or, you know, maybe my event made the hustle or depending on which demographic urine or who you cater towards, or actually fit in with. If you go to these events, you actually get to meet people doing the work. And they're not your competition, because they might be from Rhode Island and LA and all over the place. And I've seen people flying across the country to help people to go visit shops, and do different things like that. And you don't know how far you can take this business until you see what people are out here actually doing and that allow you to elevate you know your game and figure out where you want to take it and how far you want to.

Marshall Atkinson 
Perfect. Love it. So Stan, thank you so much for sharing your story of success with us today. If someone wants to learn more about what you do, or how you can help them, what is the best way to contact you.

Stan Banks 
So you guys can find me on YouTube and Instagram @tshirtsidehustle, and also tshirtsidehustle@gmail.com will be my email.

Marshall Atkinson 
Awesome. Hey, thanks a lot. Stan, thank you so much for spending some time today. You're awesome.