When do you decide to start your own shop? That’s the subject of today’s Success Stories podcast with guest Ray Markey with Evrik Imprints in Flint Township, Michigan.
Ray has always believed in himself and what he brings to the table. Gathering resources and pushing out to begin his entrepreneurial journey was the next evolutionary step for him. We’ll discuss that and more on this episode, so stay tuned!
When do you decide to start your own shop? That’s the subject of today’s Success Stories podcast with guest Ray Markey with Evrik Imprints in Flint Township, Michigan.
Ray has always believed in himself and what he brings to the table. Gathering resources and pushing out to begin his entrepreneurial journey was the next evolutionary step for him. We’ll discuss that and more on this episode, so stay tuned!
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. When do you decide to start your own shop? That's the subject of today's Success Stories podcast with guest Ray Markey, with Eric imprints in Flint Township, Michigan. Ray has always believed in himself and what he brings to the table, gathering resources and pushing out to begin his entrepreneurial journey was the next evolutionary step for him. We'll discuss that and more on this episode. So stay tuned. Ray, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.
Ray Markey
Thank you, Marshall. Glad to be here.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun. And we've been chit chatting for a couple of years now on some different things, artwork and all kinds of other stuff. So I think it's gonna be fun today to talk about owning your own shop, because that's a new topic for us, I
Ray Markey
think. Yeah, for sure. I'm excited about it. Yeah.
Marshall Atkinson
So let's just begin discussing your career before avrich. You've been in the industry a while. So share your background and your origin story. So people know why starting your own shop was the next logical move.
Ray Markey
Yeah, well, we'll take this back to the traditional school. So I was an art kid growing up, and I was an athlete. So usually you don't get those two things mixing. But I was I played sports and I loved art. So drawing, sketching, those worlds just always just mingled for me. And I was both of those things. And as I got through school, and I decided to, but my junior senior year, I had a bootleg version of Illustrator and Photoshop, and I was teaching my stuff the digital side of it and making logos for people and I went into school initially for design, I thought, This is what I want to do. And at that time, I was playing hockey, I'll be at Division Three, as still excited to be playing hockey at a college level. And I was pumped to be doing design and playing sports still. And I had started at a shop actually a smaller shop down the road and Millington, actually the shop was kid company, they didn't have screen printing at the time. So I was doing a lot of vinyl stuff, just decals and, and stuff in the head of shop out of their garage. And I was helping out there while going to school and I thought this is great for my resume, I'd had no intentions on staying put in that industry, if you will, or stickers or whatever we were doing. I just wanted to get through school and have fun and be a kid and experience everything and the more semesters clicked off. And I realized that the people who I was in school with these creatives, they're very good. But they're not very attentive to what I would consider the business side of things. They were very skilled, but to get them to say put and get stuff done and get organized was kind of tough. And I kept thinking to myself, maybe this isn't the right spot for me. I mean, I'm definitely niched into the sports design arena. And I had had to take a business class, a 110 business class, like what's a sole proprietorship type deal. And I thought I was gonna sleep through it. And I was like, This is gonna be brutal, but I have to do it. And I loved it. And it hook line and sinker. And I'm like, How do I blend this? How do I maybe I'm not supposed to be a designer, maybe I'm supposed to do something else like this is to be a creative person in a business environment was like cheat codes. You know, nowadays, companies are trying to hire that person. That's two things. But you know, 1214 years ago, you had creatives and you had analyticals. And they work together nice. And that was it. They those weren't one person. I don't
Marshall Atkinson
know about working together nice.
Ray Markey
That'll come into play later, because that is another cheat code when you can get that to happen. But yeah, I thought to myself, Okay, I took some some marketing classes, and I thought this, this is my space. This is where I want to be, I want to be in brand development. I want to be the idea guy. I'm a talented artist and a designer, but there are certainly other more talented designers that, you know, as I matured, I realized it's not that you have to be better than somebody, what's your goal, maybe they become a resource for you. You're not a designer, you just need to make this campaign perfect. And they're a tool to help that happen. And a lot of that was maturity and in getting out of your own way. And I pivoted and I went down the marketing track and to marketing degrees later, I settled on that for sure. But throughout that whole process, and I'm fanning this out, this is probably 10 years, 12 years, I went from just being a graphic designer for this kid company. And it was awesome. They were great. And they the more I showed that I wanted to learn the more they were like okay, well, how about this, or how about this and specifically, and I want to say 2012 I had ran into a time in my life where I wanted to pick up Some more hours. And there wasn't really more for me to do there at the time. And the owner of the company was reclaiming screens after the Reclaim person was done for the day just to catch up and said, Well, you can reclaim screens. And I'm thinking at the time, I didn't know, but now I'm thinking, I don't know how many, you know, you go into a shop and their top artists, when they're done doing artwork at four o'clock goes and checks in and does screens for a couple hours, you don't see that too often. I loved it, and had a couple of people that stopped in and shared the science of screen making with me, and I couldn't get enough of it. And I was like, I really enjoy this. I enjoy the process. I enjoy learning about light in exposure times, and all the chemical and science that goes into screen making and it helped connect a lot of dots. Not necessarily halftone dots, but I guess you could draw a line there, it helps you connect the dots for what I was doing in the art department and how it affected production.
Marshall Atkinson
It's the craft. Right? So yeah, you know, so as a designer, we're, if you think about it, each color is a different layer and how they're applied to the garment or the tote bag, or wherever you're printing, and how they stack on top of each other. And if you know some things, then you opens up the different possibilities, which is how the whole funkiness simulator process works because we're building color, you know, if I take 10% of this blue, and I put it on the orange, hey, that makes kind of a brown color or whatever, right? So what happens, right, but that's understanding screens. That's where everything I think clicked in for you, right is just that Yeah.
Ray Markey
And fortunately for me, I got stuck with that responsibility for a year or two and develop out some some good SOPs and how the screens really need to be front and center. And that's important, it's not the high school kid that you can just plug in there to kind of do the dirty work that was really important. And the exposures were important and dial in that whole department down. So I really got to be hands on with that. And then I asked to learn the press, and they had a 10 color press. And the kind of work that we ended up bringing in over there with a 10 color press, I had to be pretty creative on how you make prints happen on a 10 color press. And that played a huge fan too. So like you might not have enough space to put a foundational black and then a shadow black at the end of this really nice print. Right, so a bunch of three Oh fives and you can't clear a black on one stroke perfectly when it's solid. So usually you need something underneath. So hey, there's Navy in here, you can lay down the Navy. And then once it flashes and gets the black, you lay the black down solid on top, and you end up with a solid black. There's just there's lots of weird, I could write a frickin book about the different little nooks and crannies to make things work. And it was just a never ending saga of learning new stuff and getting better. And it was awesome.
Marshall Atkinson
I'd read that frickin book.
Ray Markey
Right, it was incredible, for sure. And it was a big journey. And the more I got involved think ownership over there was like, wow, this is this is pretty nice to have somebody that eager to learn and get better. And, and I, I for the most part I just asked for more rope. So as I as I, you know, graduated school, and I was now full time I said, alright, I'll take on, I'll take on the marketing. And at the time, we had like, you know, eight different versions of the logo, there's no color way there's no typeset there's no official digital identity for the company. And I was like, there's some stuff we got to do. For sure. And they gave it to me as a responsibility. And I took a lot of pride in that. And I you know, as far as visually building how it looks, feels interacts with the community and the customers everything that would make a brand, a brand, not just a logo I poured my heart and soul into and a lot of a lot of what happened over those next 10 years was okay, well I can I have a little more rope, can I have a little more up, it'd be nice to have the autonomy to make this decision where, you know, you make so many good decisions that are best for the company, and then you gain you gain their trust. And that's really what happened and I was all in and it just kept going and we got to a point in 2019 where where it pretty much the ownership was able to get away and they were able to be gone, you know for months at a time and we had a really solid foundation and it was it was great. And at that point I was I was leading an organization within the leadership group of ownership and I and it was it was incredible. And I was like at that point pretty much it was like alright, this is this is what I want to do. This is this is incredible to lead a team full of people that are all there for each other doing something that you love. That is what everybody dreams of.
Marshall Atkinson
So what made you decide just starting your own shop was the right move for you. How did you know? Because he gets to the point where you're running everything, and you're doing doing it all. And it's like, you know what I can do this? How did like how do you jump off the cliff with that leap of faith?
Ray Markey
Yeah, so that was really what what happened was at the end of 2019, I got to look back and go, Okay, there's a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears that went into this and being self aware to knowing okay, there's, there's things that I don't know. So at every step of the way, I would have thought, Oh, I could do this, I don't know, I could do this on my own. But then you give it another year, and you reflect and go, Hey, remember, all those things you didn't know that you learn this year, you'd have been in a really tough spot, and you're not matured a little more, had you not t-shirt matured a little bit more. And it really just got to a point in 2019, where we clicked over into 2020. And we went through all the COVID stuff. And it just got to a point where there was a lot of sacrifice, I got a young family. So I got two boys that mean the world to me. And I'm thinking that a lot of what's happening here has a lot of, you know, a lot of my input into it. So I'm thinking, How long do you go? What's the overall long game? You know, what's, what is the long game here to where you eventually want to get to? Do you want to be an art director forever? No, I was aware enough to know that I have what is normally the Achilles heel of most people. And that's the art background for this industry. But I also have a lot of the soft skills to like, I have the ability to build relationships like none other, I'm still trying to dissect it and be able to teach it to somebody. So I don't have to be the one doing it forever. And all these different things. And it's like, what, what am I missing? What's stopping me from doing this? Why couldn't I run a shop, I couldn't run this shop actually is where I was at. So I had approached ownership over there. And I said, we went through probably two years, little over two years of the negotiation to to buy out. And that was a it was an interesting, fun experience for me. And it was exciting. And the unfortunate part is SBA is difficult. So banks are difficult. And even if you have a very successful company, it's very difficult to get funding for stuff like that, unless you have somebody who's very wealthy back you on it. And that's just the reality when it was And fortunately, even ownership there and myself, we got to get our hearts broken a couple times along the way to find out that SBA really wasn't going to work. So there's, you know, I went to some financial advisors and I got a couple of different opinions. And usually a company like that 10 to 12 employees doing the sales they were doing, the books were healthy, usually stuff like that, when you have a successor that can come in and take over and is competent to do it. Usually that's seller finance to an extent and then you can run a conventional. So we pitched that and we gave it its due diligence. And you know, I didn't want to be too selfish. So I thought I gave it an appropriate amount of time for them to think about our next move. And we had a timeline set. And we got to the end of that timeline. And it was, you know, I cared a whole lot I was I wasn't an employee. So I was there. As long as it took to get stuff done.
Marshall Atkinson
You had an owner mentality, oh, wow, you're working your employee, but you had the ownership mentality, which is really hard to get sometimes.
Ray Markey
Yeah, we had, we had a lot of big accounts that when I call them personally, because I get to that next step. But when I was, we got to the end of our timeline, pretty much. And they just said this, we're not comfortable with this. So at that point, it was a mutual I don't, I don't feel entitled to anything, I'm grateful for what I was able to learn, I was able to definitely give back my fair share into that company and what they have and into that team. And it was just time because I wasn't going to work, how I was working, giving up my skill set and my devotion and time for somebody else. I wasn't going to build something great for somebody else when I had the capacity to do it for myself. At what point do you have to draw the line there and realize I have what it takes to do it. And when is the right time. So it was a very difficult decision for me and my family to leave there. Those guys were all like, those guys were all I knew professionally and they were like a family to me. And it just came to a point where I was like, I can't keep carrying like an owner and then not have any. I had been we had tons of people who reached out to me were confused. Like, they thought I Oh, they thought I was an owner I did on the place and I was like, No. They're great people though. So and it was just a mutual thing. It was I think it's time to go and you know, they didn't want to see me go but at the same time they under they kind of had to understand where I was coming from. It's just based on you know, validity it's this is what it is. There's no emotion tied into it. This is full transparency. And this is taking your given taken. It was what it was. So I had, I had actually left. And I had gotten right down the road, about 35 minutes north is a shop called sandlot sports.
Marshall Atkinson
I'm sure a lot of people have heard about them. Yeah, they're great people.
Ray Markey
Yeah, Adam and Ryan run a great shop up there. And they're great people. And what I really wanted to do is I needed to get out of the mentality of all of the extra baggage that came with where I went, what I was doing, I was running the marketing, I was running the, the art department, which was extremely efficient at that time. And I left all that and all the baggage that came with that, and all the mental fatigue that came with that. And Adam and Ryan said, you know, they, you know, obviously, I have a sports background, I know the ins and outs of screen printing and definitely designed in separation. And that was they had just hired a stud in our embroidery team. So I was going to come in, and they when we started talking about pay it was basically, we're going to pay you extremely fair, what you think you should be paid, we also think you should be paid. And we're gonna kick you out after 40, you got a family, we own this place, let us handle it. We need you to come in and do a great job at what you do. And then and then go home and be with your family. And to me that was that was what I was talking about. So that was the change that I needed. And that was where I was going. And I actually spent two weeks up there with those guys. And I tell you what had the opportunity not come that I'll discuss in a minute, I'd still be there. Because those guys are fantastic. They remind me of not that they're old, but they remind me of older versions of me. And it's like, that's where I was going to be if I had a day job. That's where I'd be for sure. So shout out to those guys for being so incredible. Yeah, so basically, I was going to take the job up there as the art director at sandlot. And then in the 11th hour, I had some, some investors reach out to me through a connection that I had in the industry. And they said, Well, why aren't you? Why aren't you doing this on your own, you have the pieces, what's stopping you. And it was, I can't, the whole thing is to give time to my family to do what I love, but to be home, and to not have the hours of an owner and to have all the baggage that comes with running a company. And I said, well, I need to start. You know, this is what the ideal situation would look like if I wanted to go out on my own. And we had about a week or two of negotiations, and we had an agreement. And I had to keep pinching myself, I'm like, No way. No way. Did this really all come together like that. And if you would have asked me, although a lot of my input is on the other shot. At the end of the day, that wasn't mine to begin with, although, you know, my efforts went into making it what it was. It's not mine. And if you could have told me that would you have rather started from scratch and have this be your legacy from the ground up? I wouldn't have thought that was an option. But you put in the work and all of a sudden the opportunity arises and I had to have a little sit down with my family. And I said alright guys, this is it. Do we stay with the do we stay at sandlot with Adam and Ryan and and work it out with the day job? Or are we committed as a family for me to do this? And it was a resounding let's do it. Yeah. And
Marshall Atkinson
the your name, your shop name. Let's get that in there. Because I'm proud of it.
Ray Markey
For sure. So Eric, Eric imprints So Eric is a combination of my two boys, Maverick and Everett. They're seven in almost four so seven and three now. And they are my reason for being they are when if something happens to me, I want my hard work to be able to mean something if they want to sell the shop and do what they want with it, whatever. But that time away from them has got to mean something. It's got to be a tangible thing that I can say I can give this to you. My time means more than just being away from you and paying the bills and building something that you can take if you want it's now all for nothing. That meant a lot to me. That was the driving force for me doing pretty much everything I did. So yeah, and even though even the logo work the icon portion is three dashes. It's an M if you look at it traditionally but if you flip it like a sleeve and print the M becomes an E in fabric in Everett, so there's definitely a lot that went in that logo for sure. Yeah,
Marshall Atkinson
that's great. I was talking with some other shop owner the other day and one of them his reason because we all start with Y Right. Right, wanted to start his shop and then fund so all of his kids can get $50,000 A year from his from the shop and there he's taking the money and investing it to build income for their lives for 50 grand a year forever for their kids, right? Because he takes the profit and does it and does things, right. So, there's a lot of folks out there that, you know, the reason they do this stuff is for their children. Right. And that's, that's dry. That's our whole mission and being and of course, you know, we get sucked into the industry, and we love it and can't leave and like, you know, it's like, the mafia or something. That's just great. That's great. And so Alright, so, so we're 2020 or 2021, you started, what was the what was the year?
Ray Markey
So? The avrich? Yeah. So we started Average July of this year. So actually, it was Whoa. 2020 2220 2222. Okay, so in 2022, I left kid company in June of 2022. I started brick imprints in July of 2022.
Marshall Atkinson
Great, and, and, and so, and you started completely clean, brand new everything, employees, equipment, building, whatever, and we're starting. That's the reason why I want to do on the podcast today, because a lot of people buy a shop, right? Hardly anybody just gets a brand new set of Legos and starts from zero, right. So that like Ray,
Ray Markey
it was incredible. So my big thing when when I was going through this was like, it was gonna take a lot to take me away from my day job if you will up at sandlot. So, it had to be perfect. And I got to witness and when I went to go look at the MHS, for instance, because we put a 12 color S type. And I said to myself, I don't ever want to be handcuffed by an operator, I don't ever want to be handcuffed by Do you know how to line a job up? That is such a muscle memory thing that a lot of shops can get handcuffed with, well, if I lose him, now all of a sudden the second in line, it takes them twice as long to line a job up. So the thought process of okay, I've seen him in person. And I've seen the screens go right from the CTS right into the press and just production run. There's no lining up, there's no messing with it. And I thought first of all, it's too good to be true. But I went you know a couple of different contacts that taking me to shops when I was still with kid because I was gonna try and put one in there and work and convince them to put one in there. And I got to see it firsthand a couple times and I said no, this is this is the real deal. And then Tom up at s psi did a very good job walking me through everything and he said alright, we'd love to have you you know put put a team together that came to drop everything in and I was like, Okay, we got Mark and the Delft CTS I have a great relationship with Mark. He came in and he was a huge help connecting a lot of the dots for me. Put the CTS in, put the dryer in the press in. I was like man there is there is It's almost scary. There's no excuse there's nothing to hide behind this is as fluid as it gets. And you know, we put in a good rip system. And obviously the art is taken care of. And we put a space for where we know, incoming needs to come here. We walked out a floor plan. This is where it needs to come in. This is where it needs to go out. What's the step study look like here? Is that too far away? Do we need to shorten that up might not matter now, but it definitely will later. So it was it was a lot of fun. I love the analogy a new set of Legos because that's what it was dude, I was a kid in a candy store. It was incredible. For sure.
Marshall Atkinson
Do you have a manual? Also? No,
Ray Markey
we just have the auto right now.
Marshall Atkinson
So what is your what is your minimum?
Ray Markey
The print minimum is 12. It is definitely price to where we still make money. And the crazy thing is is where we're at. We're in we're in and it was a showroom of a car dealership. So it's a beautiful building. And it's very clean and the lighting is super hipster. It's awesome. Yeah, it is. It's an incredibly clean space. So I'm very grateful for that.
Marshall Atkinson
And you have the whole car dealership, or just the showroom part.
Ray Markey
It's a building. So it's a it's in the complex, but it's not the end of the complex. So it is most definitely not somewhere where you would drive past and see hey, they do screen printing and embroidery. It is primarily key accounts base. So if you know that we're there, it's because you do a fair amount of business and we're treating you as a key account. So that's our whole game plan is key counts.
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 Zach shortly with our S&S Spotlight,
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Marshall Atkinson
As you recently learned, starting from scratch has some unique opportunities with staffing. Okay, so you're you're building your crew, you got to hire your folks, right? So talk about that process, the hiring process, and starting your shop culture from the ground up. Because you're on your website, you got core values listed and all that stuff. So let's let's get into that a little bit because the equipment doesn't run itself. Right.
Ray Markey
Right. No, definitely. Definitely doesn't although there was times in the first couple of weeks, where we had, we had so much, we had so much support those first couple of weeks, I sure wish it ran itself. Because there was a lot of 2am 2am after 2am, after 2am days of you know, sitting there running a press we actually had we had a security guy, I was on my way out at like 130 in the morning. And he stops me getting in my truck. He goes to you okay. I was like, Yeah, I'm good. I own the screen printing shop in there. And he goes screen printing shop. And he looks in there and he sees the press. And he goes, I thought that was exercise equipment. I started. I started laughing it goes well, it is it definitely is. So it's both it's a screen printing press. And it's definitely exercise equipment, for sure. But yeah, I knew hiring was gonna be tough because
Marshall Atkinson
oh, well, Larry, his headphones dropped out.
Ray Markey
There we go. I knew I knew hiring was going to be tough, because I was going to be really picky. And the people I'd put in the right in the place that they needed to be. So I knew that I was very against putting a body somewhere for the sake of growth and for the sake of having a body there. So I wanted, I wanted like, like minded people that knew that that organization was going to care about them and what they wanted. So that's a big thing for me is there's a lot of in there's memes about this all over the place now about the pizza party mentality. And it's it's extremely unfortunate, because it's a reality for a lot of people where they bust their butt. And they give a ton for an organization. And then you have you know, their their management or leadership steps in and goes alright, well, great job. Here you go, here's a pizza party, or here's this and it's like, everyone looks at each other. Like, we should be grateful for this, because it's better than nothing. But do they really know what matters to me? Like, do are they recognizing what matters to me like it might be, I would trade five pizza parties for two or three paid days off and for somebody to cover my workflow. So I could go take an extended weekend with my family somewhere. You know what I mean? So not that you're ungrateful for it, but really digging down to figure out what means the most to every person, and letting them know that what you bring to the table, we can't do this without you. I'm not trying to hide it, I'm going to give you everything that I can give you. And at the end of the day, likewise, if you find a better opportunity somewhere, I'll be the first one to congratulate you. Because what I'm giving you here at Everett is everything that I can give you. And it's fully transparent. If you want more, this is how you get more. If you're wondering why this person has this responsibility. It's an open book, we can talk about it. If you want to grow with us. I want you to grow with us as well. And here's your responsibilities and what you do with it is up to you. But somebody that could get that and wanted more out of it. And yeah, into hiring is certainly tough. For sure. I think you spoke about this a lot in the hospitality industry. There's, there's a huge wealth there to pull from because those people know this is really about people. Right? So if you you can put ink through a screen onto a shirt, but if you don't have a lick of personality. What's great about that experience,
Marshall Atkinson
yeah, well, you know, I think former hospitality you know, restaurant kitchen, waiters, waitresses, bartenders sometimes make really good workers because they're used to process everything you do is process because you know that thing that dish has to be assembled correctly in order to be correct, you know, to taste good. And there used to run around there on their feet all day. It's hot, it's sweaty, it's miserable. You got to it's all about pleasing the customer. Right and, but they get paid crap. You know, so somebody's tired of making 210 An hour plus tips. Hey, we got something for you over here. Right so
Ray Markey
Um, yeah, I actually I hit what I would consider the jackpot, my my a production guy, the guy leading my production right now, if you came from a were influenced so there's still a fair amount of machine shops around here. He came from a break a break comp company that makes break parts. So it's a it's a dirty, very methodical draw you know, boring dirty cold, your CNC machine turn put your part here
Marshall Atkinson
Oh, I'm thinking about his movie Tommy Boy, why is that?
Ray Markey
Yeah. So imagine so and so he's real creative and he actually called when I was doing my batches of interviews, I was on my second batch of interviews, I went through all the first interviews and I said, No, I did a working interview with one of the guys and wasn't wasn't great. And I was on my second round, and he had called me. And he said, Hey, I'm just following up and I said, Oh, this is this is good. Okay, I will definitely put attention to your name. And I'm getting ready to go through these interviews or these resumes for interviews. Now, I'll give you a call. He calls me back a couple of days, because I hadn't got a chance to call them in yet. And I started he called me two times and said, What are you doing at four o'clock today, you want to come in today? He came in, he was dressed better than me. He's got a thing or two, he could teach me about dressing myself and came in and all of his values fit. And he was a very creative kid that just wanted something more neat as a kid, he's 25. But he has seen the process. And he's got that creative edge to where what we do does, it takes a lot of creative edge to craft. And I watched it set in for him. And I said this kid, he's got value alignment. That reminds me a lot of me. And I was like, I love it. This is incredible. And I just sat him down. And I said, No, I'm done. I'm good. If you want this position. Can you show up on? Can you show up on Monday, and we'll start and he has been now I've been involved with hiring and firing lots of people in the industry through a screenprint shop. And I've never had and I might be biased because this is my shop now but I've never had this good of a fine. So I was I hit the the person the human jackpot for sure with with Dante. He's been incredible. And we got you know, some supplementary help to come in for stalking and incoming and it's just, it's incredible that that we got to this point, because it is terrifying. Hiring is tough. It is so tough and to be picky and also urgent, like, I don't have time. Like, wouldn't it be nice if I had unlimited time to just shift through and pick the right person, but in the business in the hiring world that's out there right now. You got to be super competitive, and you got to be quick, and I got more jobs coming in. And then you know, my wife and I can handle with, you know, some help here and there like, No, this is this is this is where from zero to 100 really fast. And I needed good help. And thank God that He came along, and we got really lucky. And he's been he's been crushing it for us for sure. So as we continue to add
Marshall Atkinson
for somebody who comes from a different industry, right, so maybe some of their processes, add an augment what you're doing. And also somebody who is creative, you know, looking from a different viewpoint different perspective can say, you know, that's a really great way of doing it. But what about this is he suggested anything as far as your SOPs or any process stuff, because he came from a different industrial background.
Ray Markey
Yeah, that might be my favorite part is because as an owner, now I have to realize that there is no cloning machine. I do have weaknesses, and it's my responsibility to be resourceful enough to plug those weaknesses. And he oftentimes will go, we'll be in the darkroom talking about something, we'll be getting screens ready for the next day. And he's like, what about this, and he'll pitch it. And it's like, that's a great idea. So we have our flash on the Mm hm. We were switching it when we were running a test print. Like if we're changing something or anything was happening where we needed to stop for a second hit the flash, I was changing it to manual, flashing it and then the problem was I was forgetting or he was forgetting we were collectively forgetting to switch it back to auto. So we would have things that would not be flashed, right? And he goes, Well, what about if we turn the heads on, but we hit the button top? And it's like, I never thought of that. As a care, we'll get into cleaning procedures. And he's like, Well, what about if we set this like, on the last day of the month? And I was like, that's incredible. Yeah, you take that and run with it man. Like as long as the filters are cleaned on the dryer, and the presses wipe down. We got the funds cleaned up and he just takes complete ownership of it and I tell him every day how thankful I am that he does that and that it doesn't go unnoticed and, and Yeah, he definitely brings a component that you can tell came from a very systemized Mechanical, industrial background for sure. Good.
Marshall Atkinson
Love it well. Alright, so let's round up the discussion and talk about your customers because none of this makes any sense without them. So, so who are you serving? And why? And it's because you're starting your customers from scratch, right? I mean, your business from scratch. Right? So how did you target these particular customers? Why did it make sense for you to build your business around them? And, and that's what I really want to focus on. Because I think a lot of people have this mentality where our doors are open will print for anybody, right? But what we want more than anything is to have a bullseye of the ideal customers are going after. And we are viciously going after that, right? There's no, there's no hesitation, we know exactly what we want. That's who our best customers are. And so kind of walk us through that a little bit, because you just did that from scratch. So what do you do?
Ray Markey
Yep. So we went. So two things, one, I needed to fill the lead generation cycle. And we filled that lead generation cycle with three main, I guess, markets, is what we have our primary focus on. And all of these markets care deeply about one common thing, and that's their brand, and the value that they put on their brand. Right? So this isn't I'm okay with clipart. I'm okay with whatever is cheapest? No, that's not our guy. Our guy is the person who cares deeply about or lady who cares deeply about something that they built or something that they manage that has an identity, that means something that has to have quality. So we branched out into three main markets for our marketing segments. The first is organizational athletics. So that's different from your high school teams that change decision makers every other year, not trying to race to the bottom with the individualized teams in the high schools and in the middle school, stuff like that, or little leagues. I'm talking about organizational athletics like league so right now we print for the OHL, Ontario Hockey League. Flint Firebirds, there's some things in place, maybe for the Red Wings and the Tigers in Olympia entertainment, that's organizational athletics. The Flint City bucks is another local team. They're a USL two soccer team, we prefer those guys in their their women counterpart. Let's see AFC. So organizational athletics, they usually have some pretty strict guidelines on what their brand has to be the quality that it has to be in the value. This is the this is the really the hook line and sinker that separates us. They value having somebody at their disposal, who is great with design and can help them through the process. There it's not a customer service rep. Although a lot of shots have a customer service rep that's very helpful up front, do the does that customer service rep have the ability to make decisions when you need something in three days? Do they have the ability to design something for you that's extremely relevant, and nobody else can do to that caliber? No, they don't. So we leverage that heavy on our organizational athletics.
Marshall Atkinson
And that's fan nurtures stuff for the athletes, both
Ray Markey
so it's the fan wear and it's the athletic. So it's the warm ups. It's the fan wear, it's the retail stuff that they you know, we ended up tagging in making retail ready for them to put in their stores. It's the whole shebang, anything that has to do with apparel decoration for organizational athletics, or we're all encompassing on that market. And that's been that's been really great for us.
Marshall Atkinson
Are you upselling with promo stuff that goes with it also?
Ray Markey
Yeah, for sure. Yep. So I've gotten a lot of traction with our ASI stuff. So a lot of promo stuff that comes with it. So there's there's certainly a lot that goes into making that lucrative for us. And with the background that I have, it does help with the conversational pieces. I played soccer growing up, I played hockey growing up I raced motocross and like the extreme sports so when I have discussions with people on you know, things, it's relevant, because I know I can speak the language and know what we're talking about. So when I'm building these key accounts out, I'm we're speaking the same language so I can connect what you need with what I can deliver. It ends up working out pretty great. The other is another segment that we have is churches and nonprofits. And this has almost nothing to do with the money coming back. This is selfishly for me. And it's because I'm great at running this organization and putting apparel decoration together. This is this is what I'm good at and this is what I can do. But selfishly, I wish that I could be bigger than ink insurance and make a real impact in the world. So my goal If the lining with churches and nonprofits is that I can take my success in the business and help churches and nonprofits with their mission. What are you doing? What are your you are out there making a difference, you're the boots on the ground you are, you are the people out there that it is your main goal to make that difference. So things that I wish that I could do if I had unlimited time. So to be a resource for those people, is really satisfying to me. So to leverage my company, and what we're able to do, to come in and to be a resource for those guys is incredible. And not that we give it away for free, we still have to, we can't lose money doing it. But you know, to a church that's paying 1450 for you know, 500 shirts that have a two color logo, well, that's gouging, that's pretty expensive. So I'm not going to give it away. But I can certainly help you out. You need help designing? Can I do this? No. Can I bring my team in and help? Is there anything that I can do to help? So the churches and nonprofits segment is really, it's really kind of a project for me. But it's also built us some great relationships too, that have led to other private sector work that, hey, these guys are helping us out tremendously. Also, somebody within the church owns a contracting business, or they're a carpenter, and they need this and we see what you're doing in the church or this nonprofit. And we really, really like you leveraging for good. And will you come work with us, and now you have an alignment, and now it's more than shirts. Now you're building a relationship. So now you're the shirt guy for them for reasons other than that shirt looks great. And it's harder to separate that moving forward, because it's built on more than just thinking shirts. Yeah.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, you know, if your business is only about the print, you're losing. Oh, for sure. I love that. That's great. So what's it what's the third one?
Ray Markey
The third one is contractors and builders. And this one is primarily because they really care about their brand. So I don't know if you've ever tried to have a discussion with a successful contractor. So there's certainly a difference between builders and successful builders and contractors, because they take great pride in what they do. So that that aligns with us perfectly. Like our tagline is better for your brand. I'm here to leverage good design and experience and a guide through your process. And those guys are always decked out with Carhartt jackets and driving the $70,000 truck and their brand in their visual is extremely important to them. And they will pay for a partner in making that great,
Marshall Atkinson
they have a lot of ego too, because when they roll up to the job site, they want to out deck the other guy, because that shows they're doing that. Right. So there's a lot of there's a lot of that, you know, while they're while they're walking around, right? So,
Ray Markey
yeah, when they, you know, you get two of them that go to bid a job and the one guy comes in, what did the other guy come in? Oh, he had a basic, he had a basic polo, and that comes in with the Nike or Under Armour stuff. And you know, he feels good about it. And they're not afraid to spend the money on the high end stuff. So that yeah, that would be the reason they're because they're extremely proud of what they do. And they're not afraid to make it great. So you don't often have to go back and forth on nickel and dime.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, well, they got a you know, $80,000 truck and $150,000 tractor and they're like, what's what's a, you know, a $20 $50? Polo? Right, whatever.
Ray Markey
Right. Exactly. Yeah.
Marshall Atkinson
Well, good. That's awesome. And so what's what's next for you guys? Right? So what are you excited about? Is are you doing online stores? Or you're looking at any of that stuff? What What's the this year gonna hold for you?
Ray Markey
Yeah, we just actually, we just committed to stalls spirit store. So I was almost committed with Chipley. And they're great people. I love the people at Chipotle, they got a great product, but I seen what the stalls spiritwear store were all about. And to me stalls does a great job servicing the CAD cut industry, you know, not necessarily the higher end textile stuff. They do not, they're not really not so useful to a shop like ours, but I did a demo of their store. And I swear it was like, all of the best things about ink soft back in 2014 2015. It was like they took all the good stuff and put it back into place with a couple bells and whistles and I was like, Yeah, okay, so I grew up on inks off so I knew inks off like the back of my hand for a decade. And we did tons of stores. And I thought whoever did this, they pulled all the best things like even the terminology a lot was insane. And I was like this is this is incredible, and the price was fair. And I was like alright, cool. Let's do this. So we recently He signed on with the style spirit store. And we got a bunch of. Now when I say organizational athletics, we have a bunch of travel ball organizations. So like eight you through 15 new teams, not just the one team, the organization in general. So we onboard a couple of organizations, that we're gonna be able to leverage those who are in the middle of building out some some bigger, higher end web stores for fulfillment. We're getting ready to add a bunch of stuff for finishing for more retail ready stuff. So that's always really exciting to be able to add bells and whistles, marketing, segmentation and all the creative. We just spent the last two months working on that all goes live next week. So that's always really exciting to to roll that out. So there's a lot of exciting stuff. We're adding some more crew. And it's, it's an exciting time, for sure.
Marshall Atkinson
Are you doing fulfillment boxes and stuff like that? We're not,
Ray Markey
but I certainly certainly has my attention. We're a little little bit of a limited space for setting up like, I always think if we hit a home run here, do we have the space to handle a home run? I don't know if we have the space to handle doing boxes like that. But it sure is a it's a it's a cool idea. And it definitely caught my attention the last couple months.
Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, well, cool. All right. Well, hey, thank you so much for sharing your story of successful today. What's the best way to contact you as someone wants to learn more about what you do? Or maybe how you can help?
Ray Markey
Yeah, probably email. My email is ray@evrikimprints.com
Marshall Atkinson
Right. Well, thanks, Ray. Appreciate it.
Ray Markey
Thanks for having me, Marshall.