Marshall Atkinson 0:06
Welcome to Success Stories brought to you by S&S activewear. I'm your host, Marshall Atkinson. And this is the podcast that focuses on what's working so you can have success too. Just how good are the processes in your shop? What do you do when you learn something and need to begin installing what you just learned? On today's Success Stories podcast, we'll dig into that continuous improvement conversation with Cory Beal with Floodway Printavo. In Winnipeg, Canada Cory's journey started in the early days as a BMX bike rider who wanted some merch and had the desire to learn how to do it. Now he has his own shop. And he's install lean processes to make everything run smoother and better. So if you're referring to taking a new idea and putting into action, you'll want to grab a pen and paper and take some notes, as core is going to help guide us on what works in his shop. So Cory, welcome to Success Stories podcast.
Cory Beal 1:14
Thank you. That was awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. That was a good one.
Marshall Atkinson 1:20
It's always fun to have somebody introduce you, man.
Cory Beal 1:22
That's nice. It was good. Yeah. Thank you nailed it.
Marshall Atkinson 1:25
So you're Canadian. And I think most of our audience is not right. So what are the challenges? Because when I think Canada, I think it's just snow it all the time. And everybody looks like a Mountie. Like you have to wear a T shirts in the t shirt business, right? So like there are certain times that you sell more or what's business like in Canada these days? Maybe that's where I'm going with that?
Cory Beal 1:51
Well, Canada's always been different the challenges and stuff like that. I think the biggest one for us Canadians is probably distribution, like just garment warehouses and the selection we have up here. And then ink distribution, like you mentioned, if it's winter here, it's not like more winter II than other places. Like it's not longer. You know what I mean? Our winter too much longer than other places that have winter. But you can't ship most emotions in the winter. And you can't ship water based ink in the winter. So that's definitely a thing. Even our distributors can't get it. So that's a challenge.
Marshall Atkinson 2:24
So you're just like stockpiling?
Cory Beal 2:27
Well, that's excess inventory is definitely a winning waste, right? I'm choosing chemistry and suppliers very carefully and specifically, so that we can always have it ready to go.
Marshall Atkinson 2:38
Oh, okay. That's great. We'll dig into that in a minute. Right. So So let's just start with your origin story. So you have an action sports background with BMX biking, and you wanted to get your own merch produced, right. So what about this industry intriguing to the point that you wanted to start your own shop?
Cory Beal 2:58
That was kind of a combination of realizing that it was done here domestically, I didn't think the shirts were just printed here. I always had an interest in screen printing, but I saw it on posters only. And then I needed them like I needed the shirts done. And when I saw the shop, and saw like the manual press and stuff like that, it Look man, we've all probably had this feeling it looks comically simple. Just like Kay, like, like if these guys. Yeah, these guys can do it, man. Like, there's no way that I can't do this. It's looks so simple.
Marshall Atkinson 3:32
Yeah, I've always laughed. You know, how hard could it be?
Cory Beal 3:36
Yeah, so that was kind of an issue for a bit for sure. Like, the learning curve was a little steeper than I expected. But yeah, just kind of seeing that. So that's about what got my interest started in screen printing, like just screen printing. And it wasn't until I got a job at a shop, I applied for like a screen printing job. And I thought it was going to be t shirts. But it was a graphics shop like vinyl tackles and big long eight foot halftones for like, the side of buses and agricultural equipment and stuff like that. And when I was there, and also kind of like moonlighting at the screenprint shop, I was getting my BMX stuff done. And that's when I saw like, Hey, I saw the disconnect between customer service and printing and why I saw why I as a customer couldn't communicate with the shop and why that flow. Just kind of saw what was what I felt was missing. You had the epiphany. Well, like I said, it seemed easy. I'm like, Hey, why doesn't Why doesn't someone just do stuff? What they say they're going to do? Like, hey, why don't they just do this stuff on time? Because I kept having all my deadlines missed. Why can't they just do what they say they're going to do? Print what they say they're going to print, you know, like accurate mock up and just have it done on time. I thought that if I could just do that, then we'd be fine.
Marshall Atkinson 4:48
And then fast forward. Yeah, well, you've discovered all the speed bumps, right?
Cory Beal 4:54
Yeah, well, so I was working at that screenprint shop and that's when I kind of like I got laid To off from the graphics shop, and that's when he was like, Okay, well, I'm going to do something like while I'm off work here, then let's see if we can get this going. My thought was like, if I need it, then surely someone else might need it. So if my BMX stuff can kind of fun the print shop startup, then print shop and kind of sport that BMX stuff after and that was playing.
Marshall Atkinson 5:21
Oh, I see. And so your main customers were part of that biking community?
Cory Beal 5:26
A little bit. Definitely like, yeah, shout out to shout out to like, Atlantis, I have some of their shirts hanging here. I want to think about it's like, yeah, I guess that is some of the first orders we had. Yeah, shout out to my BMX family for all that. And those were the first kind of jobs just and just started an Instagram, you know, and started trying to get local customers. And that was it. I think I had like a six month runway of like, a rent for the time. Yeah, I just thought if I can get enough customers to pay this rent, which is like $1,000 a month, then we'll be alright for a little bit. Now. It's kind of a first mission.
Marshall Atkinson 6:01
Yeah. And it's always fun when you start getting customers that like, aren't related to you, or you didn't know them before. Just some person out there calls you updating stuff and you kind of like, conquer that sale. That's always like the best first feeling.
Cory Beal 6:19
Yeah, it's crazy. I remember that. I remember vividly, I remember someone coming to pick up and being like, whoa, like, are we like your first order? Second being like, yeah, yeah, pretty much like...
Marshall Atkinson 6:29
It is they give me the dollar, you save a little loss?
Cory Beal 6:33
Wow. We don't know why our smallest denomination has a $5. Bill, I should have done it. But no, I started the business in 2014. So it was probably like a electronic payment. And unfortunately...
Marshall Atkinson 6:45
Okay, so BMX was the start, right? And then who are your main customers? Now? You know, what corner of the world are you conquering?
Cory Beal 6:54
Right now, I'm trying to shift it over man to like more quality focus customers and trying to narrow down what that looks like in my market. But right now, it's like, lots of bands with a decent amount of bands, tons of local businesses. So if they need not uniforms, right, but if they're selling retail, we do tons and tons of local businesses, not so many local clothing brands, but tons and tons of those businesses, events to do a decent amount of local events. I almost forgot events, because it's been so long. Yeah, so a decent amount of events. Now it's starting to pick up like, those are all the deadlines I'm dealing with now. It's just people planning these last minute events. So that's kind of been it. And man, I'm in the plug the t-shirt tribe here, I kind of know, I don't have the focused market, right? See, I just described such broad like these industries, but not like a type of customer. And that's what I've been working on in the trial is like we do all these events. But we should only be doing certain events, man, the ones who want nice shirts and good inks and will pay for it and want to work with us only. That's like, I need to go.
Marshall Atkinson 8:00
Yeah, well, you know, it's just really recognizing who your best customers are. And then what you want to separate the signal from the noise. Who are the people who should be paying attention to because they're the ones that really love us and will pay us what we charge. And then everybody else just doesn't really matter as much and you don't have to market to them. And you know, when they want to add I can get this a nickel cheaper somewhere else. You go, Hey, good luck. I have cost me a nickel more.
Cory Beal 8:30
We're talking about startup times, right? It took a while to man I even had that earlier this year when things were slow, where it's kind of like you do answer every email, you know you're in a you're not in a position that really say no to certain types of orders. And it's a cliche saying is like, it's almost as important what you say no to is what you say yes to, like the clients you refuse are almost as important as like the deals you win. And yeah, it's a dichotomy. It's really tough being in that where you need that revenue, and I have trouble. My context for this is I have troubled saying that to staff, because when you have somebody looking orders, it's really hard to like, for me to articulate that. Yeah, we need $1 amount, but it also needs to be like a good customer. You know what I mean? Like not every dollar is the same?
Marshall Atkinson 9:17
Well, you can always make another dollar, but you can't make another minute. So when you're spending a lot of time on some pain in the butt client that takes you what way from doing two or three other things, because it means so much hand holding or they're, they're so argumentative about or whatever, you know, it's like it's like, not everybody is good with that, right? So let's just focus on the people that we need to focus on. Right? That's really the key.
Cory Beal 9:44
I'm really working on specifically like you have to learn how to say no to different types of situations. And that's I can say no to a 25 piece order. I wish I filmed this interaction. I had a guy walk in the shop the other day, and he was out of there probably within 45 seconds he liked have a picture of a laminated card of where the DTG shop is like where you can go get like 10 shirts from right now. And he took a picture and just left right away. He was stoked to be helped. Like, everything was good. He's gonna come back probably if he ever needs a real amount of shirts. But yeah, I can say no to those people. But I can't say no to someone who's like who, like 50 emails in or, or wants the cheapest shirt or something, or?
Marshall Atkinson 10:25
Well, this is a great segue to the next question, which is about Lean, right? So lean is the journey that never ends. Yeah. So how'd you get started with that? And what do you like about that continuous improvement? The key here is process. So like that 50 email thing you're just talking about? I bet there's a better process for that than answering 50 emails
Cory Beal 10:51
or Yeah. So there's gotta be
Marshall Atkinson 10:55
what got you interested in doing Lean? And just really, for those of you that hadn't heard of LEAN what is
Cory Beal 11:03
Alright, so yeah, so my origin story with LEAN is it all starts with Paul Akers at FastCap I should say my mom too, because my mom has always worked in manufacturing companies. And I remember the first time I ever heard about Justin time was like, copy editing her resume when I was like, like 10 years old, you know, the kid, like, who can type on a computer and asking her what that is. And I always thought it was interesting that, that a huge company has this process to make things really smooth. I didn't really get it the time. The next time I really saw it slapped me in the face was that Paul Akers FastCap and watching some of those tour videos, what year is 2022? Now, so we moved here, and I think 2017 And I was looking for shop tours, looking for like, factory, like, first screen printing shops, and then watch whatever you could about that. And then lean factory tour. I think that's exactly what I typed in. And I saw these fast cat videos that just blew my mind just super engaged team, everyone's super pumped on working there. You can tell they don't say that. But you can just tell. And they're excited to show the improvements in the fixes that they make to this company. And, yeah, I'm getting goosebumps now just thinking about it. Because I'm not exaggerating. And it's like, that's where if dude, if I lived there, that's where I would work. And I would definitely work there. But I went to Disneyland, man, I felt the same way. It was really dialed, everyone loved it. And everyone's kind of excited to be there, I can tell. And it wasn't just like, because they're paid to be that way I tell everyone really was engaged with what they're doing. So what they're practicing there is Paul's flavor of lean, and lean. I mentioned the Toyota Production System. So I'd say Lean is what it's like a group of principles that will help you eliminate waste from your operation. Well, first, they'll help you see waste, and then give you some principles and some methods to eliminate it. And that's how companies like Toyota, you know, their reputation is the best car maker in the world. And that's not like the best cars in the world. But they're the best at making cars by every measure that there is so very impressive to me. I loved just seeing that.
Marshall Atkinson 13:18
Yeah, and waste by the way, isn't like you know, your full trash can. Waste can be excess inventory, it can be wasted time, it could be wasted steps that could be wasted labor,
Cory Beal 13:31
I thought you're gonna name the eight of them.
Marshall Atkinson 13:33
I wish I had my cheat sheet in front of me that I can pretend I'm smart
Cory Beal 13:36
policy, no acronyms, right? And because to know it is to is to see it. And I had that same epiphany too. So one of them is defects, right? And that's an obvious one, let's spoil less shirts. And then another one is like motion wastes and transport waste. So that's like, let's walk less in the shop. Some of those were really obvious, right? And the other one would be you said like access processing, like wasted time, you know, if I have to like, find stuff that's just excess processing, right? But waiting time you never think about that. Like, I would have the gut feeling like okay, I'm standing in front of this heat press. But now I think okay, what can I replace this waiting time with? Could I put part of the process in this waiting time so that I'm not waiting? And it gave me a different framework for talking about it and teaching it to people especially which is kind of important part.
Marshall Atkinson 14:25
Get the two heads federal press where you're loading the next shirt while the other ones cooking?
Cory Beal 14:30
Yeah, I need to that's on the list. Right. So even with the clam shell, I was running the clam shell yesterday and I was just thinking my you know, I'll peel the transfer now not like when the clam shells open like I'll do this after so while during the waiting time and it just gave me that language for it. And those are some of the main like excess inventory is one I never really thought about. Obviously you don't want a ton of stuff in inventory. But there's inventory of everything. You have an inventory of jobs that are on the go inventory of emails and and inventory of employees. There's all sorts of different, like ways to think about it. And it really opened my mind to all of that.
Marshall Atkinson 15:07
This is why it's the journey that never ends.
Cory Beal 15:10
Yeah, like, what continuous improvement.
Marshall Atkinson 15:14
There's like, okay, there's there's another layer. Oh, there's another layer. Oh, there's another layer. Oh, there's, you just keep going. Right? And here's the thing is it doesn't have to be like, hours and hours and hours of thing. What can you change in the next five minutes?
Cory Beal 15:31
Yeah, that's so that's what hit me with Paul Akers was while his whole thing is is simple, and lean is fun. I watched some of his talks. And that was it. And so I had seen like, Man, I have this Six Sigma, like Kaizen textbook, Six Sigma is a branch of lean, you might call it right, and is a textbook. And it's, it's really cool. You know, I like a Gantt chart, as much as the next guy was weird, like, all these technical things for planning huge factories and huge processes, like building a car. But seeing him present it that way. Just ate like, you know, like, learn these ways do these kind of, he doesn't have like a list, right? But just seeing it presented. So simple. Two seconds improvement. How are you going to save yourself two seconds a day, you know, label something, you're going to put a tool closer to where it needs to be just like, fix what bugs you that's the quote, right? And when I saw it that way, okay, I'm just gonna fix one little thing every day. Yeah, the compound interest, man it, it's insane. So
Marshall Atkinson 16:31
what has been your favorite project that you did in your shop that either paid off with the most time saved or the most money? Or whatever? Just like you're the poster child of lean in your shop? Is what Cory?
Cory Beal 16:47
Yeah. So I'm going to have to say Kanban Cards. I'm looking around, because I should have one. I guess I don't have anything consumable in my office here, apparently. Oh, there's one right there. Yeah, so the number one thing is Kanban. Cards. This is straight from FastCap as well. And Kanban is Japanese for like signal. Road Sign is the analogy. I think so.
Marshall Atkinson 17:11
So Korea, can you just describe the kanban card for us?
Cory Beal 17:14
Yeah, absolutely. So it's, I'm holding in my hand, a small laminated card, just like four by six. And on it has just everything you need to order it, and to receive it, and to restock it. And I guess the last critical piece is where to place the kanban card, the sigma. Alright, so on this card, it has the product name, green Galaxy pitch black Kanban. Alert is that one gallon, so this would be attached to like a one gallon bucket. And when you bust into that bucket, you get this card in your hand. And it's a signal to bring it to the Kanban bin, it's basically like tell me that it needs to be purchased, right. But I just have a bin, I purchased these things. And they go on a board for receiving everything that comes in, you know, a gallon of ink comes in, and the card has the rest of the info. So like I said product name has the Kanban level one gallon says where it goes, in this case, ink mixing, we don't have a very dialed but some people have the shelf location, right shelf to space one. And then on the back. It's like the order quantity QR code with the link to like the website order it from just super simple. And somebody asked me the other day, what kind of tape do you use on your screens, and I sent them like a picture front and back of the car mock art. Like there's literally everything you could need to know about it on this car. So we have that for everything. It's my favorite. Like, we don't run out of stuff anymore. And if we do you change the Commonwealth? Well, like if you are even at risk of it, you change the Kanban level and it works pretty slick.
Marshall Atkinson 18:50
So when you use the QR codes, order, right, does that have a Zapier length that triggers that you ordered something and it's included into a spreadsheet. So now you're tracking how many gallons of black Galaxy black or whatever you're ordering, and it's automated and nobody has to
Cory Beal 19:08
do it. So this is from a member I said, this is straight from FastCap. And their original template does have a bit of that on it, the tracking for how much you like when you ordered that much. So when you're looking back and kind of make those decisions for me, I stripped that out of it, because I figured that the only adjustment we need to make is when we're at risk of running out and we should bump that signal back a little bit. So if I'm at risk of running out of this green Galaxy black ink before the next one arrives, then I should be putting this to two gallons instead of one gallon and kind of feeling it out that way. So
Marshall Atkinson 19:44
the reason why you would want to know that. Let's say we're talking emulsion, right? So you feel your motion and your trough. And you're using well how many screens can you get out of a full trough right? How many? How much how long is the bulk of it, wasn't it We started looking at that, and we see our emotion usage go up, right? So does that mean that we're coding our screens incorrectly, so it could trigger a audit or review that maybe we're doing something or properly because we should get an X number out of whatever it is right? And either and then also, if we're doing our project, we're trying to use less of some material. And then you see that normally, you've been using it one per month. And now it's one per quarter, you know that your efficiency with that material has really increased, and that can be a good thing. And that proves you're saving.
Cory Beal 20:40
Yeah. Right. Yeah, like graphic not along with anything like revenue or anything would start to maybe tell you some some stories, right. I was gonna say the easiest ones here are like, so Amazon, for example, you scan that QR code, pops it up on your phone, buy it now, the only ones, like right off the top of my head, I'm going to add it to I have some that if you have to email a supplier, I set up a Google form instead. So you'd scan the QR code that pops up the Google Form with their information. prefilled. So it says Mark at Douthit this email says like what we want to order, and then you kind of just hit send, like if you don't have any special notes to add, hit send and it'll send that email for you. Because I had a bunch of problems like that way anyone can kind of can order it right. And that could be tracked that is tracked. So um, you got me thinking like, how am I going to do that with Amazon? And that stuff, right?
Marshall Atkinson 21:35
Hey, Zapier has all kinds of fun stuff. Right? So
Cory Beal 21:39
yeah, that's actually a good point. Like I wonder Amazon is on there. As like that sort of thing. I'd be interested and you can order it through like Alexa. Right? So
Marshall Atkinson 21:49
I'm sure there they have something like that. Right. And Sure. So my action tracker out by the way has this built in. Like what you hear so far, be sure to subscribe so you can get the latest from Success Stories. And now here's Devin Freet with the S&S Spotlight.
Commercial 22:08
Learning more about trends, eye catching decoration techniques, and unique apparel styles is the key to adding more value to your clients orders on our YouTube series decoration miss. We're teaching you all that and more by taking on challenging placements, products and misconceptions about decorating will show you that those hurdles are just opportunities to deliver something elevated and unique to your clients. So if you're having trouble on the press, or looking for some decoration inspiration, check out decoration myths on the SNS. activewear YouTube channel, thanks for listening.
Marshall Atkinson 22:42
Alright, so one of the things that I really like about you know, you and what you guys are doing is that you're always searching for the next answer. So walk us through how you actually implement something new that you've learned. So it actually starts making a difference. So this is all about, you know, you took a class, you read a book, he watched the video, whatever, you learn something, and we want to implement with the action. And of course, our staff. You can have Debbie doubters who don't really trust it or whatever. How do you get that thing going? So people have the psychological safety where they're okay with failing it, because we're going to learn how to do it correctly together.
Cory Beal 23:25
Yeah, like, failures, learning, right? That's a big old cliche that you've heard before. I heard a good one the other day, it said, Would you rather be right? Or would you rather be learning? Right? I'm like, wow, I would not like if you're right about everything. I already know, that's not gonna work. Like, I want to like test it and learn. So I've had challenges for sure. Like those qualities you described? Yeah. Gosh, like, that sounds great. You know, but I think I have it to a fault where one of my issues I think, is sometimes you get a little too many things on the go. But it leads into, like, how do you make people feel comfortable, it's like that is the reality that not everything is going to stick. Like the business changes quickly, right? I have some projects on this list, like doing customer personas and stuff for sales. And it's like, now that some staff changes have happened, like, we don't really need to add more in the pipeline before you know what I mean, like priorities kind of change around and move around. So everyone understands that failure is learning. And that's a big one that not everything's gonna work. And it's at least gonna teach us that it doesn't work. And that's really important too. Like, we know a lot of IT stuff that doesn't work. And that'll give us info to find what does so my biggest thing there's trying to make everyone feel comfortable with that we are learning all the time and then I don't know a lot of stuff like I have to clarify that sometimes Hey, I'm not telling you that I know this I'm telling you to run this experiment so that we both know it right because I can't answer your question. And that's really important always learning environment. I'm not the the king of the castle but definitely not the smartest guy in the room and try not to be I'd rather be learning than me right all the time.
Marshall Atkinson 25:03
Right? I love that. It reminds me the one of my favorite quotes was just from Nelson Mandela, which is I never fail. I either win or learn.
Cory Beal 25:12
That's so perfect. It's the same thing. It's like, man, there's so many cliches successful people fail more than unsuccessful people even try. That's like another one I heard. It's like, yeah, do you do you gotta get in there?
Marshall Atkinson 25:25
Yeah, well, so when I'm doing any process change or anything, you know, one of the things I talk about is the WD 40. Story, right, which is, you know, when they actually got their formula to work, it was the 40th time.
Cory Beal 25:41
Version 40. I love that. Well, you
Marshall Atkinson 25:43
don't hear a dumb about WD 17. Okay,
Cory Beal 25:46
it didn't work. Because that didn't work.
Marshall Atkinson 25:50
I kept pushing through, and then on 40 It works. Right?
Cory Beal 25:54
That sounds really good to me. Like, it even sound like now. Yeah, I'm glad I'm at this part of my journey where that sound like 40 iterations. That's pretty quick. Right? That's like some pretty quick product development sounds like only 40 failures to figure it out, right?
Marshall Atkinson 26:10
Edison the light bulb, if you want more, right.
Cory Beal 26:12
Yeah, cuz the classic quote, right?
Marshall Atkinson 26:15
So. But the point is, it's not how many you know, you can hit it on three, the point is not to give up and to learn as you go. And especially you're trying to improve something with your shop. Because, you know, a lot of times the failure is the stepping stone to the success. And without that failure, you would never hit the right thing. Right. And so if you really screw something up, the thing is to do or, you know, the conversation you had with your supplier where that would have never happened without that failure. And that's why it's important to try, it's not important to fail, we all want to win, right? But it's important to try and be okay, if something isn't quite correct. And then we're going to learn. That's the point. And I think a lot of people, and especially I'm gonna say, younger folks, right, but they're not the champion out of the gate. They don't want anything to do with it. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. So I don't know what's behind that. But
Cory Beal 27:24
I'm grateful for BMX man, because BMX, it's not the hardest thing in the world, right. But it's inherently pointless. Like, it doesn't add much value to your life outside of just being fun and stuff like that, right? It's not like, no one really starts it for commercial success and whatnot. Right? So whatever it is, it's your own personal battle. It's like a piece of architecture or something. But once you get to a certain point of writing, I think it taught me that, you know, it's hard. And it's harder than a lot of silly things. And like a BMX trick, if you're, if you don't land it, sometimes you're you're crashing or whatever, right? I think that all the time that screwing up shirts is like, you just print another shirt, you're not like picking yourself up from the bottom of a set of stairs or something like that. And that's a quote kind of from an idea from an old BMX pro named Edwin Delarosa, talks about that. And it's like, you look at say, photography, and you're like, I can be a photographer, you take a bad picture and was like, you just take another one, until you get good at it. Right? You can figure that out. And so trying to instill that in everyone is, well, it can't be done. They can't You can't instill that in everyone, right. But something I find is really important. Something I've been trying to focus to implement lately is kind of defining what is the success of that idea looks like? So if I bring back an idea, and I talked about how I have too many things on the go, really I think it's just like I have all these things with no end on them. And then we keep starting new things where there may be are they maybe are done those old tasks, but then they maybe got right continued a little bit after the real finish. If I had defined that, that goal, we would have hit it moved on and been happy. But I leave some things lingering, right? So defining what that looks like even with the roles here right? What does tear downs what does it mean to be good at tear downs? It like there's some principles there like that no ink is going into the sink that you can do it while keeping like pretty clean. And that the mat by everything is left. Better that you're not damaging any of the keeping everything safe and like this mesh safe and the squeegees good and good condition. What are those definitions? Right?
Marshall Atkinson 29:33
So it's a Japanese tea ceremony.
Cory Beal 29:35
I never heard that. What's that
Marshall Atkinson 29:37
Japanese tea ceremony there's a certain way you have to do everything where everything goes how to pour where the Korea they would raise the temperature the TV everything is and people work to perfect this one action. Right. So if you think about this could be, you know, tuning your car or it could be Do me a baking bread, it could be anything, right? So it's this the, we're working to perfect this one action is much as we can. And then it's those subtle nuances that trip us up with stuff, right? And just how people work. Like, one of the best screen printers that I ever saw work was this guy named Brian. He was a manner of screen printer. And he had one speed, which was really not that remarkably fast. But he was in his actions, and he would output and everybody would ever know what setup screens a minute and a half to about two minutes of screen. Right? And yeah, you know, the 12 color manual, right. And he would be doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And we would, he would consistently go through some between 25 and 40 screens a day, every day, you're feeding that guy first, he cannot run out of screens and jobs. But the reason why he was so good was because it was like watching just a martial arts guy just very loosely or somebody's very fluid, very exact, very precision oriented. And he was the only person I've ever seen in this industry. Because he never made mistakes that he could have. He was licensed to approve his own jobs. He didn't approve his work, because that just slowed him down.
Cory Beal 31:28
You can't be waiting for that. I love that.
Marshall Atkinson 31:31
Waiting. Nothing's eliminating waiting. Right. But other people because they weren't at his level. Right. You know, we had to look at what they're doing. Because you know, we don't want to mistake right. The lesson here I think is just me someplace, which is his everything was an arm's reach. Right. Everything is that exact spot. I mean, everything that he had is exactly where he wanted it. Right.
Cory Beal 31:57
Did you read Paul Akers new book banish sloppiness. I don't know if it's super new. It's kind of its main. It's like a two hour audio book. But that's kind of the theme banner sloppiness fall in love with precision. And man, I gotta go to Japan because it made it like that manual printer would love it like, that sounds like how I would be with like 20 years of experience if I had just like focused on it, right? Like this guy sounds like he did. And I think what I loved about two second lien was that it gave a language for that. Because if I watched that guy before this before knowing about lien, I think I would have a really hard time putting my finger on what it is like, how he does that on? And what is going on here? Why he's faster? Like, what is the difference here? It would be you'd think it's a simple stuff. Like we're talking about, oh, you'd never screws up shirts. But like, why and how, and what's the difference, and that's what really made me fall in love with it is being able to look at that stuff and think about it better
Marshall Atkinson 32:56
all process. He does things in a very orderly, precise manner. He knows what he's doing before he starts. He's visualizing what the outcome should be. He's ensuring that it happens. You know, it's like, I don't know if you'd like sushi, but go sit at the bar and watch a sushi. Oh, yeah. Right. There's no screwing around. There. They're very hyper focused on their outcome, right? And so how can we take these types of things, and bring them into our industry? And that's what you know, process improvement and workflow and lean and all that stuff is all about, and it's really understanding where are you are on the journey more than anything, and, and it's okay, it's okay to be at the very bottom beginner level. Because, you know, nobody was born with these skills. They're required from work here, it required for repetition. The only way to get better is to do it. You know, and that's how it's done. All right.
Cory Beal 33:59
I love it. Like, we're not the golden standard of like, of setup times, or like even manual reclaim or anything, but, but that's really it is just thinking about how to be better, a little bit better all the time. I love it.
Marshall Atkinson 34:13
Well, it's not well, here's the thing is, you have to know where you are. Right? And so a story that I tell sometimes is like, just pretend that you are dropped from outer space, and you're in the middle of the a wheat field somewhere, right? That's where we are. And we start out on journey. And then the first thing you have to do is we have to figure out where we are. And then we have to figure out where we want to go. Right? And that gives us the direction that we want to travel in. And so right now, I don't know where you are. If you're listening to this, what are you measuring? You can't manage what you don't measure, right. So what are you measuring? That's on the bottom, Richard Greece's emails, what are you measuring? Right? It's so true. It's like and then of course, if you're measuring that's gonna give you a number. Okay, so what is a good number and what is a bad number? rehab, it's up to you to define that. Right? And for me, you know, because I've looked at so many shops over the years, I like shops that can set up a screen and under five minutes to screen for a job, attend that a job is, I mean, to screen job is 10 minutes. Right? In the reason I like that, and I like to know how fast the presses run with impressions per hour. You know what the reason I want this information is because that helps you schedule more accurately. Also, it gives you a baseline for improvement. So, you know, maybe right now you're at 10 minutes a screen, right? That's okay. Right? Well, can we get to seven? Right? Can we get to? Five? Can you get to four? Right? What can you because there's a certain point where you can't get to zero or a certain point where you're, you're at your limit? But can you maintain that? Right? And then can you teach that to other people?
Cory Beal 35:59
You said something there man that I want to touch on, you said you can't get to zero, right. And that is like so important. I love that because zero as in, you can't make it perfect. But there's a Toyota principle, it says it's a FastCap principle. Actually, I'm one that we repeat here that Toyota never attempts to improve anything unless they can cut the waste in half. And they've done that over and over. They've been, you know, we talked about their reputation as the best company, and they've stripped the whole thing down and rebuilt their processes. So imagine the humility to like, be the number one, and then strip your whole thing down and, and look at it from scratch. Like we don't know what we're doing. We're gonna read, think about how we even help screens. Right. And that, I think is so admirable, but you said, you can't get to zero, right? And I heard Paul say this thing like, some people really think you can. And his thought on it was like, how would that be possible? If everything we're doing is waste, like, as screen printers, the only time we were really making money is when that squeegee goes across the screen. Everything else? It's like if everything we're doing all day is waste, how can we ever eliminate all of it?
Marshall Atkinson 37:03
I have the answer. You ready? What's that? You're printing for the wrong customer? Off? Yeah,
Cory Beal 37:10
I know, I, the more time you're spending off the press, even just loading the shirt, right? It's like everything we're doing is effectively not something we get paid for. And it's interesting to think of that way. Because even if you're the perfect printer, you could still load shirts faster. You still know them straight or something I don't know. But you can't reach zero. There's no such thing as perfection. Like, like the Fahrenheit thermometer. You ever heard that? Like there's no absolute zero? Because there is no such thing as as cold. There's only the absence of heat. All right, you take heat away from something. And so you would need something colder than zero to bring it to zero. That makes sense. You need something with less heat than zero to take it away. And it's kind of a weird thought, right? There's no such thing as cold, only the absence of heat, and you can't get to zero, because you need something with less heat than zero to suck that heat off the thing at 0.01. That makes sense. There's no absolute zero, they have not achieved it. They got very close about it. And so I think at the same way with like improvement, it's crazy, right? I know, it's not like, but that's it, you would need what would you need? You'd need like the most perfect business or the most you'd need an already perfect state to like, oh, to work your way up there. And does it exist? I don't know.
Marshall Atkinson 38:28
Where t shirt printers. You know, everybody right now is going ooh, word that conversation
Cory Beal 38:36
is a physics thing. I heard it and it blew my mind. I'm like, Oh, I guess you get that low. Yeah, but man, like that's what Lean feels like you can't get that low you need like perfection is you can't even imagine it because you have to keep stepping towards it.
Marshall Atkinson 38:51
This is when new technology comes out. new processes, new chemicals, new consumables, new techniques, new substrates to print on. We're in a never, never ending journey. And this brings up the last question here, right, which is, you know, what's next for you guys? Right? So you're excited about doing a whole bunch of changes? Where do you see you guys going? What's next for what you're trying to improve? Or what you're seeing in the industry? You can't like to try? I mean, where are you guys on that?
Cory Beal 39:24
So where are we at right now? Right now I just had some staff changes. So I had someone in production leave and I had someone in customer service leave as well. And so it's really tight right now, but I'm looking at it as an opportunity to like to kind of rebuild from not from scratch, but to reset some things right. And so what's next for me is really thinking about how we are garment decorators and not just screen printers, looking really hard at Digital transfers looking really hard at like, Man, I just got one of those heat presses to be like leather catches on hats, just looking at ways to not get distracted from what we're doing. But to kind of increase the revenue of this space in simple ways. Because if I can have a heat press running, while the press while the screenprint press is running, that would be amazing. Seems like an easy add on. So my whole thing is just, let's kind of figure out what our best customers are. And move towards that, you know, and, and get rid of the hardest jobs, the least possible jobs and maybe switched in this other process.
Marshall Atkinson 40:32
Awesome. So what you're talking about is viewing things from a different lens. You know, when you're a screen printer, all of your problems look like screen printing problems. When you start looking at things through an entrepreneurial lens, then it's like, there's other opportunities where we can make money. And what is that, right, and now everything is in colored, we have to screenprint it, we could digitally transfer it. We could embroider it, we could supplement it, we could put a patch on it. It can be applique. It can be all types of things. And then what will drive our customers wild, where they absolutely pay us 10 times more money than what we're making now on something. When you start looking at it that way, then that's when you realize there's the waste. There's the waste, right there is we're not talking with the right people. We're not doing the right things, we're not providing the right value. And just think, you know, what an easy way of thinking about this. And I'm taking a guess here, but do you have an iPhone?
Cory Beal 41:40
I do? Yeah. Right. Do
Marshall Atkinson 41:41
you know that iPhone does the exact same thing as some other phones out there that are half the price, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah, everybody lines up and the new iPhones, let's go get a standard line. You've seen pictures that for the thing that's way more expensive that still, you know, you talk to it takes pictures, you can text I mean, you know, granted, the usability of the phones a little different, right? But the basic functions of the phone are the same as any other phone out there. And a lot of times unless you have the right carrier, it doesn't even matter what phone you have, if you have no service, you can't connect. So I would argue that if we think about just that as our business model, right, how can we get people to line up around the block for something that we offer where we charge double?
Cory Beal 42:31
I'd say that's what I'm up to next is like, how do we transition? I feel like I can't just like cut some people off, right? Maybe I can, I don't know. But I'm planning this fork in the road of like, we're printing more water base and discharge or whatever, we want to work with people who are well, okay, if I'm understaffed, right, then that I have two options. It's like hire somebody, which aren't as hard and I don't, I'm not like, super interested in doing that right now going into Christmas? Or do we like refuse some customers? And then the question is, who do we refuse? And I don't think I ever had my customer service, ask him that.
Marshall Atkinson 43:06
I know the answer to that. And we'll leave this as the last thing today, when should you do an ad 20 deep dive on your customers, right? The top 20% of your customers give you 80% of your revenue. On the other hand, right? The bottom 80% of your customers only give you 20% of your revenue. So if you're looking at who you should cut out, it's those bottom 80% of your customers that only give you 20% of your revenue. Right? So if you focus on the top 20%, the people that are really actually paying all your bills, and you try to clone those people, and you try to like, you know, not saying we have to be ugly about it, but we're trying to move the other people out of the way, right? That's how your business grows, is because you're no longer doing jobs that don't matter that aren't profitable, that are working with people you don't like, etc. Because those are typically these smaller, dinky little words.
Cory Beal 44:04
Yeah, they really are. And like, I guess I'll leave it at that. I totally agree. Because it's like, I've done that audit before, and I need to keep doing it. And for me, sometimes it's maybe not just the dollar amount. It's like who has the most emails or something like that, right? So just thinking about it that way, your whatever
Marshall Atkinson 44:22
you look at it, so if you've got a customer that just emails you all the time or whatever, how do they get the answers? Can they do you be more self service, right? And can they find the answers on their own? Can you have a service that somebody has to take or some other way where they can send in an order and where you don't even have to talk to them, but there's some sort of vehicle for that, right? And then other people that demand more attention who pay or higher rates, you get the concierge service. And you know, there's plenty of ways to look At this, you know, just looking at different industries, right? There's really cheap hotels you can go to, or you can go to the four seasons. Right? One of them charges we were money than the other. Sure, yeah.
Cory Beal 45:13
Man, I heard somebody say, I wish I could give credit this person you said, I would rather like improve my communication for a good customer than to not you know, then to refuse them because they want to talk, say my example. They want to talk on the phone or something like I would rather improve my communicator, give them those options, or like you said, if they need to online ordering portal, like, address, whatever it is to get them in, like improve the communication, but nothing. That's it? It's like, I shouldn't be focusing on that too. Right? Prove that communication. Get them in, like, what can we address? Because yeah, if someone has 50 emails, takes two to tango, you know what I mean? My friggin customer service person answered every one of those emails. So they had 50 chances to like wrangle it in as well.
Marshall Atkinson 45:55
You know, right. Well, that's all about how you educate yourself. Yeah,
Cory Beal 45:59
training. That's it. That's why that key thing, you don't just like, make that up. It's like the Japanese tea thing there. It's a training exercise. The training is amazing. Everyone knows how to do it. Precision. That's the difference. I think I read
Marshall Atkinson 46:13
a great quote the other day, and it says training is for animals, education is for people, educate our staff. So they know what they're doing. But they know the why behind it. That's what's important here. And I think a lot of times in our industry, we don't really get to the why part. We just train them on how to jump through the hoop.
Cory Beal 46:30
Yeah, I don't think we spend enough time with that person. either. I don't check in I'm speaking for myself. I don't check in enough, I think and I maybe leave them alone too soon, to let them get some experience or whatever. But if you went to Toyota, man, that person has a lead hand standing with them for months, just to make sure that they're doing good. And they can't even touch a shirt for months until they're dialed right so there's a Paul Akers, video man, it's called our training stocks. And it's amazing. I highly recommend it, we should link it in the in the description. It's like 10 minutes, our training sites, your very next lesson.
Marshall Atkinson 47:05
So Cory, thank you so much for sharing your story of success with us today, as someone wants to learn more about you or what you could do to help them. What's the best way to contact you?
Cory Beal 47:17
I'm always chatting with shots on Instagram. So that's at for the way Printavo And got a YouTube channel as well. It's Cory at floodway. And I'm answering comments all the time on their love answering comments on there. So those are two great ways.
Marshall Atkinson 47:30
Are you still doing the discord group that I've never been to yet?
Cory Beal 47:35
Yeah, we had like a clubhouse chat. And then we're doing like a weekly live. But Scott and I got really burnt out on it. We're thinking about coming back to the top your episode, but just trying to like, get our shots sort of leveled off.
Marshall Atkinson 47:50
Alright, well, great. Well, thank you so much, Cory. I appreciate you. Appreciate you too, man. Thank you. Well, that's our show today. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, so you can stay up to date on the latest Success Stories episodes. have any suggestions for future guests or topics? send them my way and marshall@marshallatkinson.com and we'll see you next time.