As everyone should know by now, the fundamentals of business matter. On today’s Success Stories podcast, LaTonna Roberson - also known as the Lady Print Boss, will share her thoughts on the industry, what are the key fundamentals for running a profitable business, and her views on what’s ahead for the industry.
LaTonna operates her company, T-shirt Shop Dallas, with the help of her team of family members and support staff. She has very specific guardrails in place to help the business operate smoothly and profitably, which allows her to share the secrets of her success with her in-house training and consulting business for the industry.
Take a few minutes and listen as LaTonna shares a tip or two that just might make a difference in your business.
As everyone should know by now, the fundamentals of business matter. On today’s Success Stories podcast, LaTonna Roberson - also known as the Lady Print Boss, will share her thoughts on the industry, what are the key fundamentals for running a profitable business, and her views on what’s ahead for the industry.
LaTonna operates her company, T-shirt Shop Dallas, with the help of her team of family members and support staff. She has very specific guardrails in place to help the business operate smoothly and profitably, which allows her to share the secrets of her success with her in-house training and consulting business for the industry.
Take a few minutes and listen as LaTonna shares a tip or two that just might make a difference in your business.
Marshall Atkinson
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. As everyone should know by now the fundamentals of business matter. On today's Success Stories podcast, LaTonna Robertson, also known as the Lady Print Boss, will share her thoughts on the industry. What are the key fundamentals for running a profitable business and her views on what's ahead for the industry. fatahna operates her business t shirt shop Dallas, with the help of her team of family members and support staff. She has a very specific guardrails in place to help the business operate smoothly and profitably, which allows her to share the secrets of her success with her in house training and consulting business for the industry. So take a few minutes and listen to as LaTonna shares a tip or two that just might make the difference in your business. soltana Welcome to the Success Stories podcast.
LaTonna Robertson
Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, it's I think it's gonna be a lot of fun, and you've helped us out before was Shirt Lab. And I think it's gonna be a fun conversation all about your shop today, you're ready to get started. Asher I am great. So let's begin by discussing just your basic business journey. So talk about the early days, and where you got started and how you've grown your business to what it is today.
LaTonna Robertson
Okay, so when I first started, a t-shirt shop at Dallas, I was actually just doing heat press work, regular old inkjet transfers, and t-shirt vinyl. And that really wasn't getting me the results that I wanted. But we were making money, I believe I was one of those people that were lucky I was in a bizarre type atmosphere. And there were customers all over, people would come in, they would get one or two shirts. And it just kind of took off. And I wanted a better way of printing. So I started to research screen printing. And when was that one time, that was around 2001 that I started to research screen printing. We started the business in 2000. And by 2001, I was working, you know, just doing singles is a lot of work. And I want it to make more money and I want to grow faster. So I started to research the screen printing about 2001.
Marshall Atkinson
So you were doing little small orders. And now your focus is how can I get bigger orders? Did you create a business plan? Did you start going after select markets that maybe their orders would be bigger? How did you pull that in?
LaTonna Robertson
So originally, I had absolutely no business plan. I had absolutely no business plan. But when I decided that I wanted to screenprint I knew that I needed to find customers who want it more than one or two shorts. So my game plan was to start to go after companies. And right from the beginning, I started to go after companies. Like I said I didn't have a business plan. But I had a game plan to go into get companies and that was around you know the internet started popping. And I immediately got online and started advertising screenprint T shirts. And my business kind of changed from that point. From the point that I got online, I stopped getting so many people that were getting the onesies and twosies. And I ended up moving out of the bizarre because it was a walk in location. And there were so many people that were coming in, I never would have gotten the time to get any work in doing, you know, bulk orders. So we moved from that place to a new place. I started teaching myself how to screenprint and we started doing orders.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, great. And so you went from doing ones and twos to like what like couple dozen hundred And that those type of sounds.
LaTonna Robertson
I mainly started doing 24 pieces and above with the goal of doing 100 piece orders. And the way I started advertising back then was I don't know if you remember Do you remember when they used to do the little door hangers? I think it was the Yellow Pages. I would put an ad in the Yellow Pages. I would do the mail marketing where you sent, you know ads through the mail. I wouldn't even do green sheet ads. So I was doing a little different type of marketing than what we're doing today.
Marshall Atkinson
That's great. You know, there's people probably listen, you go on Yellow Pages, what is that? You had to look, there's a book with people's phone numbers in it. But
LaTonna Robertson
that's how we started to get known, we would put a special in there, right out the bat, I always did a special. And I believe at that time, there was like a $4 T shirt special that Ken and I had. And the goal for me to do that special was just to get people to call me, not for me to actually do the $4 T shirts. And I think that that's one of the mistakes that a lot of people make when they get into business, they'll put an ad out there. And then they'll only try to sale, that $4 t shirt. Well, my goal is to get you to call me. And then once I would get the phone call, I would upsell
Marshall Atkinson
Right, yeah. So that one color on the front becomes a three color front and back on a better grade shirt. And all of a sudden, now you're at 12 bucks. Exactly. Okay. And so you're screen printing and doing great. And then over the years, you've grown your business to be quite a successful venture in Dallas. So talk about kind of where you are now and how that's evolved with different things that you're doing.
LaTonna Robertson
So we screen printed for a long time, just use a manual presses. And then we got into the automatic printing, when I got into the automatic training, we kind of went into doing contract work. And the contract work for the size press automatic that we had just was we were not able to keep up with the production and I'm a numbers person. So I went back and I looked at the numbers. And I said you know what, I need to be praying for the end user. So I went back to that and started printing to the end user and marketing, to restaurants, any type of business that needed my services. But up underneath that I normally stay up underneath that 500 piece wrench. And I think that that's just important to know, I think it's really important for you to know the ability of your equipment, you know how much you could put out. So you know, Hey, you don't have to charge like me, I always say what's the difference between a printer that makes 40 cents of print versus a printer that makes you know, two or $3 of print? At the end of the year? If I'm able to put out less product? So you want to work half as hard for twice as much, right? Yes, that was my goal to work half as hard for twice as much and to work smarter and not harder. That's what we do now.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, so a real interesting thing that you might think about listeners is to consider how much money you're trying to make per hour with your equipment. So that press that embroidery machine that heat press, whatever it is, when it's running, we want to make whatever it is $300 an hour, $1,000 an hour, whatever. And then your prices are reflective of that number. And that's how you can build your priceless just thinking about that. Do you do anything like that? Wattana
LaTonna Robertson
almost definitely. So whenever I am looking at my jobs, every Monday I come in, and I kind of have a goal, I have what I call a $10,000. Monday, I know exactly what it takes for me to pay my people to run my business successfully. And for me to be happy. So I have a goal that I set on Monday. And then if I reach my goal, whatever it is on that Monday, then I know that the rest of the week is going to be great. I know how much it costs me to run my business per day for me just to keep the doors open. So you got to know how much it's gonna cost you to keep the doors open, how much it's gonna cost you, you know, to pay your people and then, you know, hey, where do you want that profit level to me, I like for my profit levels to be a little bit higher than normal. So I know a lot of people go for it, you know, hey, if they get that 33%, then they're good. I try to go for at least half or more 60% profit. So I target companies that are willing to pay a little bit more for sharks. And that's pretty much how I've grown. It's kind of being known as that premium print. Yeah,
Marshall Atkinson
that's just so awesome to hear. I see so many people in this industry who are fighting for scraps. And they're they'll say something like this, oh, I'm one of two dozen printers in my town and everybody is lower and you'd like if I don't price this lower, I'm not going to get the job. And my response to that is is your customers you're talking to the wrong people. What you really want to be focused on is people who value what you do and are okay with paying for that value because As in any different industry, whether it's a cell phone or a car, or a steak dinner, right? There's Western CES. And then there's Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, right? There's a 16 year old Buick. And then there's a brand new Mercedes Benz, right? There's always people who will pay more for something better, because they understand the value that brings. And you as the shop owner, just haven't communicated the value well enough for them to go. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll pay it. Right. That's the problem is communicating the value. That way you can charge higher prices? Don't you agree with that?
LaTonna Robertson
I most definitely agree with that. I think that when people call me, I'm the authority. So I think that a lot of times customers will call you and they may originally want a cheaper shirt, or they may have a particular dollar amount in mind. But when you can discuss the t shirt with them, and you can bring that quality, you can show them a better shirt or, you know, kind of start a conversation about things like you know, what are you going to be using the shirts for, and you give them that premium quality, and you give them a reason to pay more, because most of the time when people call you, if they have $5, that is their lowest budget, you know, they actually have more than $5 to spend. So I've taken people from a $5 T shirt to a $20 T shirt. And I think that it's just all about you taking control, finding out what it is that your customer wants. And knowing what where that budget is I'm a printer, I'm not afraid to ask where your budget is. And so I asked people, what type of budget do you have? Sometimes people will lowball you. And just because you tell me you have a $5 budget, that doesn't mean that I'm going to offer you a $5 shirt, I'm going to actually go and offer you what I can offer you. And if that's a $7 shirt or $10 shirt, and kind of explain that value that you can get out of purchasing from me.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, I love it. And also a great question to ask is, I know you already said it is how are you using the t-shirt? So if that end user gets the t-shirt, what does that customer think when they get the t-shirt? Is it this is going to be my favorite shirt that I'm gonna wear as soon as it's out of the laundry? Or is this something I'm gonna wear when I'm mowing the lawn or changing the oil in my car? Right? Those are two completely different scenarios. So what is the end user going to think when they get this shirt? Right? Is it the best shirt they've ever seen in our life, that's what we want, right? And typically, that has a higher value and has to be in alignment with what the expectations are. And so that's what you have to pull out of your customer. And I think that's exactly what you guys are doing. So that's really good to hear. Alright, so shifting gears here, let's talk about some terminology. Specifically, where does the lady print boss monitor come from? And that's how you advertise and market yourself. I want to hear all about that. Because that's such an awesome name. Where does that come from?
LaTonna Robertson
Well, I grew up using the word boss up. So my father always used to tell me, hey, you know, you need to boss up and basically bossing up, it's a slang, it's all about, you know, addressing problems as they come, being a big girl. And you know, just tackling stuff head on. So I use that slang. And that's where the lady print boss comes from. Being a woman, and a predominantly male business. It's just a perfect name. You know, I'm a boss, and I'm a female. And I really target a lot of women. And, you know, try to teach people to address things, address problems head on in your business, that's the whole concept behind bossing up. Because if you have a problem in your Bssa, you put that problem off, it just snowballs. You can never get past it. So you have to just Basa address it so that you can get to the next level.
Marshall Atkinson
What I really like about it is this is marketing. Right? This is you're instantly the authority figure. You're in charge. And then you can move and pivot and do things from there because you've already established the hierarchy in the conversation because you're the boss, the lady print boss, and when people talk to you and they see that they are they respect your position and what you bring without you even having to prove anything. And so it's so it's really such a great thing. And I'm sure you've seen that over the years, haven't you?
LaTonna Robertson
Yeah, really? Hey, it's people when they call me they already respect the name They already respect me, they have pretty much done their research. And it's just a very strong name for a strong personality.
Marshall Atkinson
And you use this in your marketing and all the soccer stuff, right? How do you use it to your advantage? Maybe that's another way of looking at
LaTonna Robertson
how do I use it to my advantage? Let's see. Well, I mean, just the wording itself, Lady print boss, people know that right off the bat that you are lady, and that you're targeting female. So you know, I deal with men and every gender but pacifically women, it's a strong draw for to pull women my direction,
Marshall Atkinson
because they see you as an authority figure and somebody to respect that's already traveled down the road that knows more than me, she's the experts, I'm going to rely on her to guide me, right. So we're familiar with the book story brand, you're the guide in that relationship. And that really has a lot of power that you can communicate in the sales process.
LaTonna Robertson
Yes, I think that you know, once people finally print Boston, they go and they look at the website, and they kind of see your track record and they see your longevity that just says a lot in itself. You know, I just let people find me and look and figure out you know, if they want to give me a call or not, and if they do, then you know, I have emboss up.
Marshall Atkinson
Like once 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.
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Marshall Atkinson
Alright, so you teach classes, which of course I do also. So I greatly admire and appreciate that because I know what it's like to pull all that information together and teach people and there's a lot of satisfaction that I get from that I'm sure you get it as well. So what are some of the top fundamental things that shop owners really need for success that maybe they aren't doing. And I think this is where you might give us a tip or two that you're always talking about. And we can boss up, right so we can get better.
LaTonna Robertson
I think that a lot of shop owners get stuck in print mode, I started out teaching screen printing classes. And I found that, you know, most new shops, you go out and you buy all of this equipment, and then you learn how to print, right and you get your skills up. And then you're standing around and you're waiting on customers. And I think that because they get stuck in print mode, trying to figure out you know, the print process, and they don't ever get their marketing plan together. For me, the number one thing that has helped my business is email marketing, it's a game changer. And now I'm doing email marketing classes. And I think that one thing that businesses need to do after the sale is follow up Marshall, they do not follow up. And they do not put those customers in a funnel to market to them and get them to come back. I think that if more shops focused on after the sale, and reaching back out to that customer afterwards, they would have more customers coming in. My goal is to get more customers coming in, then that are going out. So once you've got a customer, and that customer is already in that following you're making, if you satisfy that one customer, they're gonna go and tell three different people. And if email market to that customer correctly, and make them an offer, that customer can actually become a salesperson for you and help your business.
Marshall Atkinson
I totally agree, you know, there for each sale. There's three aspects to every sale, right. So there's the original order, right, the thing that we're doing right now, whatever that is, right. There's a referral business where Hey, build, you know, some people that I can help, right, help me out. And that's either they're gonna give you Yeah, you got to talk to Steve, you got to talk to Nancy. Or they're gonna leave you a Google review or something. One of those two things, right, maybe both, that's even better, right? And then the third thing is the repeat. You know, you sold them something hey, can you sell them something? A month later, or six months later, or you know you're doing a summer project, hey, it's hoodie season, we can need to do something with hoodies, right. So you're constantly getting that engagement and getting those customers activated. Because once you get a customer that's really, that really likes you, it's so much easier to get more business from them than some brand new stranger who's never heard of it.
LaTonna Robertson
Exactly a lot easier. I just closed the deal the other day, delivered shards. And we already have because of the follow up email, I got an email yesterday from that customer that was referring to another customer and we're closing the deal on that one today.
Marshall Atkinson
Great. And you use automated tools for that, like MailChimp or any other things. It goes into your system with a Zapier link, and it's automatically done. So you don't really have to even worry about it. Do you use tools like that?
LaTonna Robertson
Yes. So Zapier is one of my favorite tools for me to automate things. I know that now Gmail has come out with something that's great, just something to put out there. For people who are just getting started email marketing, Gmail now has the ability for you to create templated emails within your Gmail account to send out to customers. So if you create emails, you are able to send out I believe it's 1500 or 2500 emails a day now, directly through Gmail, you're not going to have the ability to see open and click rates, or to see what type of computer they're using, or things like that. But it's a great little free tool. For people who are just getting started to be able to create templated emails, and send those out to their customers, you know, in massive amounts.
Marshall Atkinson
I didn't know that. That's very interesting.
LaTonna Robertson
You'll have to check your Google account, look down in the bottom where they have all of those little apps, and you will see templates. And if you click templates, you can change your theme. It has different ones for like sales items, different template emails, and for me, you know, those little gifts worked really, really great for me. And video.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, great. I'm a big proponent of video, I do a video a day. And I send that out to many different things. But I'm always creating video and sending it to people. And I use a tool, and it allows me to see when they open it and what they do with it. And use loom loom is great for that I use a tool called soap box, it's really great, it's really easy to edit, and you just paste it in your email and send it and you don't have to type in anything. Because if you can leave a voicemail on the phone, you can create a video. And it's weird to start off with videos, because it seems weird to look in the camera and pretend you're talking to somebody. But it's a lot of fun. And once you get the hang of it, it's just I just carve out a couple of minutes a day for videos. And that's what I do every day.
LaTonna Robertson
Okay, I may have to try that I use the one that I use. Currently, it's called G mass. With G mass, it's a really good program, it's directly in Gmail. And for me, I used to use Klaviyo to do my email marketing, right. So with clay VO, you have to go in and go into the app. Since I'm there looking at emails all day, I wanted something that was right there that I can see. And so I can tell if you clicked on a button and went to the website, what you did from that.
Marshall Atkinson
Good. I love it. And so this is really important for everyone listening because she's actively looking at stuff and monitoring it and creating new engagement and, and I'm sure you're trying new stuff all the time just to see what sticks
LaTonna Robertson
all the time, all the time. And also I don't send every email, I have different email lists for different things for different types of clients. I don't think that everyone should be on just a blanket, email. So you should have different ones depending on you know what that customer is looking for?
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, so you have that customer, you have what's called the words called tagged. So like they're a restaurant or they're a screenprint customer or whatever, you can have multiple tags, and then you can create drip marketing campaigns just for that tag. And for example, you're gonna send everybody was tagged embroidery video about your screen printing. So you could say hey, did you know we also screenprint call us up we can do your order and that way can create a lot of engagement because sometimes people just don't know what you offer and it's up to you to educate
LaTonna Robertson
Oh yeah, I mean with a name like T shirt shop Dallas, and we believe that I offer you know, we do award medals, we do different things. So, you know, a lot of times you have to just with email marketing is really Easy to show people other things that you sell. And you can put, you know, multiple products in one email also. So if you have a customer and they're into sports, and they buy jerseys from you, you can always put, you know, your medallion add there to that, hey, did you know that we do awards? And then they'll see oh,
Marshall Atkinson
yeah, great. Great. Alright, so let's wrap up here. And let's talk about the future. So a lot has changed in this industry, especially after the COVID pandemic, right. So what new directions? Are you thinking about these days LaTonna? I'm very interested in that.
LaTonna Robertson
Well, 2023, we will be launching a line of inks and some different products that I'm going to be launching myself to just kind of diversify the business and do things that we normally do anyways, we're still going to cheap screen printing, but also bring in some other avenues of income.
Marshall Atkinson
Oh, that's interesting. So you're going to become a supplier?
LaTonna Robertson
Yes, it's actually already in the works. And that's just something that nobody knows.
Marshall Atkinson
Oh, well, everybody knows now. So that's very interesting. And so this is going to be supporting the classes. So if you're taking a class from you, you could also say, Hey, we've got the perfect egg to show you here's how to use it. I think it kind of dovetails into what you're doing.
LaTonna Robertson
Yes, I'm a big proponent of using your existing business, to bring in money from other avenues. And I think that when you have money coming in from four or five different avenues, yeah, I mean, that's just how you turn that six figures in the seven figures.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, yeah. So this is all about creating different sales channels. Right. And so a lot of people only think about one. And so I think I love it, the fact that you're trying to do many different things to broaden your revenue. That's just fantastic. So congratulations with that.
LaTonna Robertson
Thank you. Thank you. I'm all about the pivot.
Marshall Atkinson
Right. That's great. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story as successful as today. Let's on so if someone wants to learn more about what you do, or how maybe you can help them, what is the best way to contact you,
LaTonna Robertson
Ladyprint boss.com. That's it.
Marshall Atkinson
All right. Well, hey, well, thank you so much for your time today. I love hearing it and good luck with the new supply chain.
LaTonna Robertson
I think that's great. Thanks for having me.
Marshall Atkinson
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 at marshall@marshallatkinson.com and we'll see you next time.