How do you know when it is right to shift your business from one strategy to another completely? That’s the focus of today’s Success Stories podcast, as we’ll talk to Josiah Blackmore with Red Threads in Midland, Michigan.
Red Threads went from a retail focus and in-house production company to one that outsources the work and has brought in a different strategy for B2B work.
Josiah will share his thoughts and tips on why not being afraid to shift his business was the correct choice. So get ready for a great show!
How do you know when it is right to shift your business from one strategy to another completely? That’s the focus of today’s Success Stories podcast, as we’ll talk to Josiah Blackmore with Red Threads in Midland, Michigan.
Red Threads went from a retail focus and in-house production company to one that outsources the work and has brought in a different strategy for B2B work.
Josiah will share his thoughts and tips on why not being afraid to shift his business was the correct choice. So get ready for a great show!
Marshall Atkinson 0:06
How do you know when is the right time to shift your business from one strategy to another completely? That's the focus of today's Success Stories podcast, as we'll talk to Josiah Blackmore with red threads in Midland, Michigan. Read threads went from a retail focus in in house production company to one that outsources some work and has brought in a different strategy for b2b business. Josiah will share his thoughts and tips on why not being afraid to shift his business was the correct choice. So get ready for a great show today. Josiah, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.
Josiah Blackmoore 1:03
Hey, thanks for having me on Marshall. It's a beautiful day here in Michigan. I'm outside right now because our shops under renovations and why am I glad it's not raining right now.
Marshall Atkinson 1:12
Yeah. So we're recording this in October. And as we've gotten cold yet
Josiah Blackmoore 1:18
up there, yeah, man fall hit us in the face. It went from you know, 86 degrees to 56 degrees overnight, and it has held.
Marshall Atkinson 1:28
Yeah, well, I bet your hoodie season is up.
Josiah Blackmoore 1:31
That's right, man. And so are my profits. Awesome. That's awesome.
Marshall Atkinson 1:35
So let's start the episode off by discussing your business journey. So go back to the early days and talk about where you were, and then maybe what you've done to grow your business up to this point.
Josiah Blackmoore 1:48
Yeah. So our business started out probably about how a lot of other screenprint shops started up. You know, we had a vision for a clothing line. And for me, specifically, it was a Christian clothing line. I mean, I didn't like all the cheesy, corny Christian tees out there, you know, I'm a fashionable guy. And so I actually just took a t shirt. And I took all my favorite Bible verses and I wrote them over every single square inch to the t shirt. And I was wearing it around and, you know, looking for some life direction. I was like 21 years old, you know, wondering what to do with my life. And acquaintance. Next city over saw my shirt. And I guess he had run a screen printing business in the past. And so he had all this equipment. He was like, Dude, I love your shirt. I love the vision that you have. You can just have all of my screen printing stuff, all my business, and he gave me like 10 grand of equipment, I priced it out and presses 30 gallons of ink, 50 screens, 500, blank TVs, exposure units, everything. And he said, Here you go, Dude, get at it. So then I had all this equipment sitting in my basement. I'm like, wow, like if this isn't a sign, I don't know what it is. And then I got connected with a business incubator space that was starting up in my city. And they offered me a rent free shop about 1300 square foot, and then chose a name for my business read threads. And then I got connected with the lady who owned red threads.com, just like a month later, and her name was Ramona from California. And she loved the vision, you know, and she owned the domain red threads.com. She was like, I just want to bless you. And so she gave me red threads.com. Now here, I've got, you know, an online presence. I've got a vision for a clothing line. And I got all the equipment to do it and a space to do it in and I'm just like, alright, we're doing this.
Marshall Atkinson 3:37
That's amazing. It's like, the planets are lining up.
Josiah Blackmoore 3:41
Absolutely. Yeah. It was pretty wild.
Marshall Atkinson 3:44
Is this the same shirt that you're wearing? When I met you that had the tiny type on it? Like you had to like really look to see what it was?
Josiah Blackmoore 3:51
Yeah. So that was, you know, one of the first ones that we made. That was the entire Book of John printed and discharging, I ended up, you know, building in all of our printing press that we needed to make that vision. And the shirt that you saw was the entire Book of John printed on a t shirt in discharging. So that was always the vision for it to be a fashionable piece. Right. So that kind of got me into discharge, water based printing and all over printing and kind of where our roots are.
Marshall Atkinson 4:20
Yeah, it was a really amazing piece. And I was really blown away. And I think premiere right that was at the ThreadX event. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Cool. So you've launched, you've got the plants aligned, everything is looking rosy. Tell us about, you know, the infancy of your business and walking that through because you've been around for a couple years now and you've made some changes. So that's kind of what the shows about is that pivoting your business strategies walk us through that a little bit.
Josiah Blackmoore 4:50
Yeah, so we started up I had zero printing knowledge and I thought what better way to learn how to print fashionable shirts than to print for other people and get paid for it. So that incepted retail printing printing for customers and that's exactly what we did. We started taking orders. We originally started watching YouTube videos on how to get started and T shirt forums.com before Facebook groups were a thing. Then I got connected with a man named Richard Greaves and he just downloaded how to print shirts how to, you know, be a business owner in the screen printing industry. And that was huge.
Marshall Atkinson 5:26
Yeah, you are in Michigan, his backyard?
Josiah Blackmoore 5:32
Well, and we got started because I was looking to buy my first you know, three case 6k metal halide lamp for exposing all of our screens. And I was just reading his posts on T shirt forms.com. And I ended up just giving this guy calls like, Hey, I don't know who you are. But the knowledge that you're dropping on here is just next level. And I have a lot of questions found out he lives about an hour and a half away from me. So we met up for Thanksgiving dinner one year, and the rest is history, he took me under his wing brought me to trade shows introduced me to every single industry, veteran and successful person that he has met over like, you know, 40 years in the printing industry. And that's how we got started really pressing into retail printing. And we did end up not printing our Christian clothing yet, not yet. Because it turns out all over printing discharged T shirts is a giant headache for production, giant headache for production. And our retail business was kicking off. And so we, you know, we follow the money. And so doing this for about eight years now printing for customers. And yeah, I guess we'll get into that story. Yeah.
Marshall Atkinson 6:43
So because we want the business to thrive. And you decided that it was okay to pivot your idea and do something different. I think a lot of people, they keep trying to hit that nail with a hammer, and they're kind of stuck in the mud, you know, I'm saying you pivoted and did something, and now you're more successful.
Josiah Blackmoore 7:05
Right? I would totally agree. And, you know, I really am a business owner at heart. I'm definitely a bootstrap, DIY screen printer, you know, by roots. But I am a business owner at heart with a vision to just run multi multimillion dollar business, you know, having touchpoints all around the US and internationally. And so when things just won't work, we had to figure out what was working. And how can we expand on that?
Marshall Atkinson 7:31
Okay, good, good. And so what's going on with your company today? Like what give us the scoop of where you are now?
Josiah Blackmoore 7:39
Yeah, so we made a huge transition two years ago, and we were manufacturing prints in house. And I had always entertained the idea of outsourcing because we do a couple of unique things in our art department that we'll get into a little bit later. But that's really where we excel is with art, and customer service. And we were killer printers doing waterbased, plastisol, and discharge. But our bottleneck was our customer service, because we were getting more customers than we could handle. And I still wanted more yet. And so we just had to figure out, how can we grow the business. And I had grown manufacturing, we were running two autos, two manuals and a full staff. And the next step for us for growth. In our customer base, if we were going to double our customer base, I would have to double our manufacturing. So I'd have to get, you know, at least one more, maybe two more presses in a bigger dryer, I'd have to get a bigger space, more staff. And after counting the cost, the minimum investment was $350,000, just to get to that next level, where we're taking care of more customers. And I thought, Man, I want to start making money right now I want to double my customer base right now. And I know how difficult it is to raise up manufacturing and get the right staff in place and trained. And so we just decided to work with a different company to do our prints. And so we started outsourcing two years ago. And the thing that pushed me over the edge was a little bit COVID Actually, because we made this transition right in the middle of COVID. We had turnover of our staff, one of my key staff members, my office admin was my wife at the time. And she was about to have our first child and so she wanted to just be a stay at home mom, she wanted to get out of the business. Well, she wanted to get into the business to the family. And so with all this staff turnover, my vision for growth, it was just the right time to start working with somebody else so they can manage the staff. They can manage the production. I can double my customer base. And I don't have to you know, work myself just ragged trying to handle all these customers, train all the staff and build up manufacturing.
Marshall Atkinson 9:51
Okay, so you just started to contract stuff out. How did you decide on who to use because that's a big truck. trust factor, right? We got, we're replacing a lot of control and the quality and the turn time and everything in somebody else's hands. So did you interview people? Did you go and visit them? How did you decide on who to use.
Josiah Blackmoore 10:15
So we had contracted out some difficult jobs in the past. And obviously, with my connections, Richard grieves in the industry, you know, I know a lot of other contract shops out there, they're not necessarily close to me. But actually, it was an outside rep from one stop there, an apparel supplier in Michigan, and he had just had a conversation with a company about 45 minutes south of me, and they were looking to start contracting. And because he knew me, and he kind of knew where my vision was at, he was like, Hey, man, you're gonna start contracting your workout, like you need to meet these people. So it was our first month, and we sent contract jobs to about three or four different shops at the same time. So we sent out forger jobs to four different shops, and we had a list, we were checking them on quality, ease to work with processes, turnaround time, and willingness to cover their mistakes, and really kind of what that gets into his core values.
Marshall Atkinson 11:13
Okay, so basically, you created a scorecard to evaluate your partner with Absolutely. So you selected a winner, and that's what you've been using, right?
Josiah Blackmoore 11:24
Yeah, we selected a winner. And, you know, one of the biggest things was core values. Because, you know, as a printer, I know that problems happen every single day, Miss prints, you know, suppliers don't ship in the right garments. You know, sometimes you need rush jobs, you know, everything under the sun. So what was important to me? Wasn't the things that you can meet just from shaking hands. And from, you know, just meeting somebody initially, what was really important to me was measuring their core values, do they align with ours, so that when the going gets tough, we can go together still?
Marshall Atkinson 12:01
And did you? For these top four folks? Did you go visit the shops and kind of interview and see what they're doing? And check out the cleanliness? And like, all the stuff that I would do? Did you go and just really look at them and and just kind of like mentally picture, your job being printed here?
Josiah Blackmoore 12:20
Absolutely. Yep. We sat down. And we interviewed every shop after they had finished our job. So we conducted the interviews, when we were picking our jobs up, basically. And we were talking to them about all those things, the quality, the core values, it was kind of funny, the printer that I actually selected to be our printer. They were running our job when I showed up and it's their flash wasn't on. And so I just walked on, press and swipe my finger on that wedding, and I'm like, Hey, all you're flashing on? Like, what are we going to do when there's problems like this? How are we going to avoid this in the future? What's your plan? How are you going to take care of us? And that was just kind of a funny thing.
Marshall Atkinson 12:58
Hey, that's a great thing. And so what was the response to that question?
Josiah Blackmoore 13:02
Well, first, they turn the flash on. And they got in, none of the pieces got messed up. I mean, I guess I came in at the right time. And so they hadn't even pulled a shirt off press yet. So we were able to turn that flash on. But it did open up a really great discussion for when things happen. How are you going to handle them? And one of the things they told me, it's not really like a huge knowledge drop or anything like that. They just told me, we'll always make it right. We'll always make it right. And you know, I'm a Christian. They were Christians, too. It's a husband, wife, team with a staff of about 20 now, and I just really resonated with their core values as individuals. I trusted them right out the gate, that when they said that they will make it right. I believe them and they have ever since.
Marshall Atkinson 13:50
Okay, cool. Cool. Love it. Love it. 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 our SNS spotlight
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Marshall Atkinson 14:36
Alright, so your website states that you have design on demand. What is that? And how has that phrase helped you with sales?
Josiah Blackmoore 14:47
So that phrase is indicative of a unique service that we offer and to my knowledge, I can't think of a competitor that offers the services that we do. And I'll tell you About the backstory really quick, you know, sometimes helping customers to frame up their artwork for the job and getting them the right apparel like that is most of the work sometimes with placing an order. And I got so frustrated years ago, going back and forth through email, not just with one client, but with maybe 20 or 30 at a time and trying to manage all these emails, and keep track of where everybody's at. And so we just decided that we're not going to go back and forth through email, we're going to have in person design sessions, where we are going to sit down live with the customer, we're going to do all their art right in front of them on screen, they're going to tell us all the changes, they want to make the color changes the size location, we're going to pick out all the garments. And that ended up being a huge efficiency and time saver, because we're able to just sit down and in one hour, knock out the whole job. And so, and we were also able to give people, you know, a level of customization and service that they probably couldn't get from an easy, efficient online source, right. So we started doing that in person. And it was actually kind of funny, because when COVID hit, we had been doing this for about three years. And I was continually asking myself the question, how can we be a million dollar business? How can we be a multi million dollar business. And we knew that this service was a goldmine. But our bottleneck was geography, our city is not big enough to meet with enough people to bring in the amount of revenues that we want to see. And so we decided that we were going to start using zoom to meet online with people in live. And this was funny, because this was before everybody went crazy. And before everybody found out about zoom. So we were learning zoom, we were utilizing that software. And then after the Coronavirus, hit, everybody downloaded zoom, which was perfect for us, it was actually perfect for our business model. So we immediately transition, we saw the opportunity, and we immediately transitioned to no more in person design meetings, we only started doing them live. And then from there, we started to reach out to people and have these design sessions outside of Michigan immediately people would tell us about their orders, we'd be servicing people in Florida, you know, in Texas, North Carolina, all these other places over this live design session. And we should just a conversation with my brother in law, he said, you know, you need to call that design on demand. That is a that isn't a winning word. You need to call it design on demand. So that's the basic premise of what it is. Does that answer your question? Marshall?
Marshall Atkinson 17:40
It does. I love it, you know, and what I'm really impressed with Josiah is the fact that every time you turn around, like these planets keep lining up for you. You know, and it's inspiring to hear that you're taking advantage of just stuff that's in front of you, I think your head is up. And you're observing and you see an opportunity. And you're like, Hey, what is this, let's pull that thread, no pun intended read threads. But let's pull that thread. And let's see what happens with this. And I really liked that. And I think a lot of times people have to be willing to fail a little bit to push something forward. And innovation is what drives the differentiation and business. And your design on demand idea is just spectacular. And speaking from a former art director, I kind of did this. What happens though, if it's a really complex job, you know, because not everything you can do in an hour, you know, some things just take a little longer to Illustrator stuff. Do you like they're there the whole time? Or are they just will do it in stages?
Josiah Blackmoore 18:52
Yeah, so that's a great question. And I would say we could boil it down to two paths that the customer can take. And first I'll start to say, you bait the hook to suit the fish. We do not want all those complex orders. We actually don't we want efficient orders. And so we do everything that we can in the upfront with our marketing and our sales pitches, to align ourselves with customers who fit our profile. And so that right there, it funnels people to us who they fit our profile, they're easy, we can knock them out in a half hour to one hour. And I would say that that attracts most of our clients. Now, we do have some that do have big jobs, they do require more than one hour session. And really what we do is in that first hour, we call it the discovery meeting. And we just want to discover their artwork and we really want to get all those rough draft details down. We'll make some sketches for them live and make sure that we catch their vision. And then if we feel like we don't have their vision completely understood, we will schedule another meeting and we'll bill for it. Our design sessions are free for The first hour, that's the deal that we have been running. And we've been doing that for two years. But if it goes over that, we charge them just $50 an hour, we're not trying to make money, but we also want them to value our time. And we want them to get their poop in a group so that they're efficient with us. And if we don't need another discovery meeting, we'll just wrap up their artwork on the back end and just charge them $50 In our art time to just wrap up the artwork. And we really try and utilize that collaboration session together to answer the things that you really need somebody there in the conversation with you like what apparel are using? Where do you want this place? How many colors do you want to budget for, so that hopefully at the end of that session, we know everything that we can do to just go ahead on the back end, make it happen without a conversation and then shoot them some final drafts final invoice and just get a yes, on the order.
Marshall Atkinson 20:50
So really, the sales process and the art are kind of intertwined at the same time.
Josiah Blackmoore 20:56
100%. And that's actually what I call my people is sales designers, that is their term, it is their job, not just to do artwork, live with people, but also to sell them. And we grant Commission's on every single order that comes through, even if it's an inside rep because we want to incentivize them to sell higher, sell more. And we want to reward them too. And so every single time you meet with a designer, you're not just meeting with an artist, you're meeting with somebody who has product knowledge, they can pull out the right pieces, they know it has margins, and they can create artwork with all the colors, you know, for screen printing and all that even embroidery too. They have all that knowledge so they can sell jobs that fit the budget and see if we can, you know, maximize things for our customers and our profit.
Marshall Atkinson 21:43
That's wonderful. Love it. Love it. Love it. All right, so let's wrap up here and talk about the future. So what's next? You know, you're always doing some cool stuff. And this is a perfect case for that. Right. So where do you see the industry going? What are you interested in all that?
Josiah Blackmoore 21:59
Well, Marshall, before I ask that question, I think you should ask that again here in a second. But I would also love to speak to the point that when I was going to, you know, industry, conferences, events, trade shows, I got so much flak from my industry about sales designers. And they all told me that it's not going to happen. And they were so concerned about the type of person that would be required to do that role. Well, a salesperson and a designer. And they all told me, This person doesn't exist. Artists or artists, they sit in the back room, and they're not good people, people, salesmen are salesmen. And they're not good at artwork. And so what you're looking for just not only doesn't exist, but you're not going to find that. And I just didn't believe them. I did not believe them. I mean, these were people, I don't want to name any names, because they're probably gonna watch this podcast. But I mean, these are people who are mature, seasoned business owners. And, you know, the one thing that kept me going was I kept on saying to myself, I'm that guy, I do these sessions already in person with people, I know the skills that are required. And, you know, we're not flying amazing artists, we make quick T shirts, we make quick t shirt artwork, that can get wrapped up in a half hour, and I train them up on sales, and we can find these people, we can do this. And so that'll dovetail into your next question of what is in store for us in the future. Because I see a future of sales designers in the red thread the future.
Marshall Atkinson 23:28
I love it. You know, I'm an ex-art director, you know, I'm not in the dark in the back. You know, I had plenty, plenty of sales meetings with some really high profile clients back when I was doing that, you know, I'd be on the call or on the trip. Because I could well, this I wasn't the salesperson I was with the salesperson, I could sketch out, hey, what about this right in front of the client, and then it's go to strategy immediately. And a little quick thumbnail gets approval. And those things always get approved on the first time out because the customer already knows what you're doing isn't a surprise. Now if they don't like that the love was at the bottom and they wanted at the top. They're gonna say that when you're doing this on them.
Josiah Blackmoore 24:17
Absolutely. And it's gonna save you so much back and forth of trying to figure out what are their wants and desires. And you can make shifts if you needed to. Right then and there.
Marshall Atkinson 24:27
Yeah, I love it. I love it. So you're gonna capitalize on your sales designer role. And that sounds like that can be a great opportunity for somebody out there and I don't think you really need to be even in Michigan because of the technology we have these days.
Josiah Blackmoore 24:41
No, you absolutely don't. And it is my vision to work with people, you know, pockets of just talent, you know, around the US and you know, ultimately the vision is I'll kind of backtrack a little bit kind of talk about where we are and what our next steps are is Is now a good time to kind of do that.
Marshall Atkinson 24:59
It is is the perfect time.
Josiah Blackmoore 25:02
So this year was a bit of, I guess, you could say, a rabbit trail for us in business because we did purchase a local competitor, I really wanted the space that they were in, it's just got a great space for offices and for meeting with my locals. And it just worked out that way. So I bought a business, we've been renovating that, I also bought a house at the same time this year. And so I've been working on that working on my old house to to get ready to rent out. And then also we had a kid this year. So you know, what's next for us is not happening this year. We're just trying to stabilize as a business and prevent ourselves from drowning. But you know, the long term vision for the future Marshall is just that working with sales designers, that's what we're going to call them, you know, they don't have to be local, they can be online. And the main vision is to have these people available online so that people can schedule a session with them. If you go on our website, right now, there's two designers to pick from, you can schedule a session with them on Calendly, that works best for you all to generate a zoom link, you show up for the Zoom meeting, and you have your meeting, we screenshot our programs, and we do everything live in front of people. And my goal is to foster relationships online, to have maybe like 25, you know, 35 different artists and designers to choose from, and they'll have a portfolio up each one so that you can see, you know, where did their skills and talents lie in the art department, you know, what kind of organizations do they work best with, whether it's a nonprofit or retail customer making fashion brands, but people will eventually Scout an artist on our website, they'll schedule meetings with them, and hopefully build relationships with them so that in the future, they'll continue to go back to that artist, they'll continue to go back to them and help them to, you know, not just get the job done. But like I said, we're gonna grant Commission's on, on every order, but we want to build our artists book of business to be able to work with people. And my ultimate vision is to have like, you know, 2535 or more sales designers that you can choose from, and eventually offering all kinds of different printing, you know, not just pigeon holing ourselves into just t shirts or embroidery, or, you know, the screen printing embroidery services, but offering designing for all kinds of things promote not really promo items, we'll just have those available. Maybe I really want to press into the profits, though, as a business owner, I want to be able to design big ticket things. I don't know what that is just yet. But I do want to be a design company, you can log in, you can design with them, make all your stuff. And in that one session, you can order your shirts, you can order your hats, your banners, your signs, your marketing materials, all that stuff. And that's kind of where the long term vision is.
Marshall Atkinson 27:43
I love it. I love it. And so if you're listening right now, and you're a designer, and maybe you'd like to sell at the same time, I think Josiah wants to have a conversation with you.
Josiah Blackmoore 27:56
Love to send him my way.
Marshall Atkinson 27:59
All right, man. So hey, 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 maybe you can help them, what's the best way to contact you?
Josiah Blackmoore 28:11
Well, I would say reach out to my admins on red threads.com. I really try and make myself as available as possible these days. But everybody knows how to get to me. They've really got something some gold and they need some help. Like I always make myself available to help people. I've been helped so much by my industry, the people that I've met, and so I do have a special heart for helping people who you know are in the industry, and maybe they need some pointers and things like that. Definitely reach out at redthreads.com and you can get a hold of me.
Marshall Atkinson 28:44
Great. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Josiah. I love what you're doing. Keep it up.
Josiah Blackmoore 28:48
Thanks, Marshall. Hey, it's been great, man. Thanks for having me on today.
Marshall Atkinson 28:52
Thank you.