Success Stories Ep 94 - "Rock-it with Sustainability"

Sometimes you bump into people on the same wavelength as you. Today on the Success Stories podcast, we'll chat with Christie Shellenberger and Jeremy Ray, with Rock Hill Screenprinting in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Rock Hill Screenprinting is the sustainability minded shop, and Christie and Jeremy have a great industry podcast called Last Call for Plastisol. We'll get into both of those topics and more on this episode. 

So get ready to have fun discussing exciting things with these two dynamos!

Transcript

Marshall Atkinson 
Sometimes you bump into people on the same wavelength as you. Today, on the success stories podcast, we'll chat with Christie Shellenberger  and Jeremy Ray with Rock Hill screenprinting in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Rockhill screenprinting is the sustainability minded shop, and Christy and Jeremy have a great industry podcast called Last call for plastisol. We'll get into both of those topics and more on this episode. So get ready to have fun discussing exciting things with these two dynamos. So Christy and Jeremy, welcome to the success stories podcast.

Christie Shellenberger 
Thank you.

Jeremy Ray 
 Thank you for having us, Marshall.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, it's gonna be great. And you guys are doing some fun things that I'm a big champion of sustainability, printing, also podcasting, obviously, because you're on my show, right? That's right. So I think it's going to be kind of a real interesting show for everyone. So thanks for showing up.

Jeremy Ray 
Thanks for having us again. It's a pleasure and an honor, honestly.

Marshall Atkinson 
So so let's get kick the show off, Jeremy, and get started with your origin story about Rock Hill. So you know, my maybe not everybody knows who you guys are, right? So how and why did you guys team up and start the business share that and also the story about growing the shop all the way up to where you guys are now.

Jeremy Ray 
Sure. So I guess, just to go back to the beginning of rockhouse screen printing, basically me and my wife had talked about how I was in a job that I didn't like. And I, you know, I feel like there's those type of shops that start either one of three ways. They're either stay at home moms, they're they're sick of a corporate career and they want to start something else, or they've been in a band. I think that's pretty shop start, right? So we're, I fall into the sick of my job, kind of situation. I was talking to my wife about, you know, I'm, I'm kind of feel like I'm in a means to an end. And it just so happened that my I coach football, so I used a lot of screen printers through the football team, and my son was trying to start a clothing line. And I just said, You know what? We can probably figure out how to do this, because you're not going to make any money with a screen printer trying to print your code on so that's basically where I just decided to because I was an engineer that my my job was an engineering job. I was mechanical engineer for 22 years. I was like, let's just make a press.

Marshall Atkinson 
How hard could it be?

Jeremy Ray 
How hard could it be? So I actually started designing a press online, you know, within my SolidWorks software, and I'm like, you know, there's probably something. So I looked online, and sure enough, Pinterest had like plans for a wooden one. It was a four color station, four color press, wood. The micro right adjustments were killer on that but, yeah, hammer, Hammer, basically a hammer. And, you know, So, long story short, we built the press. It was terrible. I've gotten videos of us printing these shirts. I've got the first shirts where they're so crooked and, you know, the emulsion looks horrible. I painted the emulsion on the screen, you know, like, I made my own screens Marshall.

Marshall Atkinson 
Did you make your own ink too?

Jeremy Ray 
No, I speedballed the ink. Yeah, I Speedball the ink. But in the ends, we decided, like, Hey, this is, you know, my kids start making money off these things. And I was like, you know, I could take a class, maybe. So I went to tech source locally, took a class, bought some equipment, and then, yeah, it started this business. And I was like, you know, son, I'll invest in you. You give me 500 bucks, I'll pay for the equipment with $7,000 setup. And I found myself printing when I got home from work just to help him, but then also we like, Hey, we got to pay this thing off, so put it out to the church, and I was making money, and I'm like, You know what? I'm having more fun printing shirts than I am sitting at a desk doing engineering. So I decided at one point to quit. And my wife thought I was crazy, and all my friends thought I was crazy, and engineering department thought I was crazy, but whatever. What's the worst that could happen? Just go back to being an engineer. So literally, that's how we started. We kind of grew it slowly. My wife was a nurse. She stayed worked nursing. My son actually didn't want to do it anymore, so it was just me. But you know, after I quit my job. We started with a small little shop, built it to a bigger shop, and then just kept on growing organically, slowly, you know, word of mouth, that kind of thing. So but we ended up taking a screen printing course, and that's how I met Christy. Was during a screen printing 101, class and kind of, you know, different stories. Christy's got her own story of how she got going, and then with Snatch and run and, you know, we kind of just kept in touch. Hey, give me a call if you need anything. We can help each other out. You know, we did some embroidery. Before she did embroidery, my wife taught her how to embroider. My wife ended up quitting her job.

Marshall Atkinson 
So you guys friends or anything, or just Yeah, at the class we got at the class?

Jeremy Ray 
Yeah, yeah. So Christy's timeline is a little different than mine. She's been in business a little bit longer than I have, but that's kind of how, through that friendship, kind of built Rock Hill screen printing. We ended up doing an open house last year, last February. So it wasn't this past February. It was the February before that, with anatom because I had been using their equipment. And, you know, I did crazy things like paint my floors white, and got some custom, I got a custom white Anatol machine, so everything was white, looked like a laboratory. And so it was very easy on the eyes for social media, and we had a 90 shops sign up to be come to Rock Hill and see our shop and be a part of, like a learning Open House experience. So we did that. And that's kind of where me and Christy kind of came up with the idea for last call for plastisol. Started doing that podcast together. Started to, you know, hey, we're sharing similar stories. We're hanging out a lot more. So that's how we kind of teamed up to the point where Christy, you could probably share where, you know, where you felt like you wanted to make a change, but, but I, we me and my wife kind of talked, and we were like, hey, it would be great for Christy to come on board as well. So eventually brought her on and made her a partner. And yeah, it's it's gotten us to where we are today. So that's kind of like the nutshell version of The Rock Hill screen printing.

Marshall Atkinson 
And so Jeremy, what do you do? And then I want to hear Christy's take on that whole thing.

Jeremy Ray 
Absolutely. So, yeah, I'm, I'm more production. I have, you know, I enjoy the production side more than anything. I've never been good at sales. My wife has done sales. She did embroidery. Literally, it was just me and her and one other person. But I always printed all the shirts and figured out how to do all the mechanical things. And she did, she did all the other stuff. And then, so now we brought Christy on board. We've got 16 employees. I think we're maybe down to 14 right now, but we get Christy, brought Ben made a whole sales team up for us. But so, so she runs sales, I run production, I run operations and production, and then my wife is human resources and bookkeeping and, you know, all that stuff. And she also still runs embroidery. So it's a three person partnership, and we've got, yeah, we've got a pretty big operation going right now, but medium size, I guess, in in the grand scheme of things. But yeah, so that's kind of what I do.

Marshall Atkinson 
Okay, Christy, what's let's, let's hear from you.

Christie Shellenberger 
So, um Yeah. I started screen printing nine and a half years ago now, where I just, like, one day I said, how hard could it be to make a t shirt famous passwords?

Marshall Atkinson 
It can be really hard

Christie Shellenberger 
it's been really hard some days. So I started out of my house as well, and just I bought a speedball kit on Amazon, made some shirts for my friends at the gym, and I documented that whole process on Instagram. And the first day that I documented it, people offered to buy those crappy

Marshall Atkinson 
T shirts. So I was like, this is interesting. What was the print? What was the image? Do you remember?

Christie Shellenberger 
It was for a CrossFit brand called Snatch and run, which was my brand at that time. So, but the ink was like, all caked on and splotchy, and it was all guys terrible, and people had offered to buy them on some clearance target shirts. So I just took that money that I made that night and then bootstrapped the business every night I would go and buy some shirts at Target, because this is before I even knew that you could buy shirts at SNS. So once I figured that out, that you could get this same shirt day by day through a distributor. That was a game changer, too, for my business. Um, as funny as that is, but, um, I grew out of my house, and when I had the bathroom, the guest bedroom, the dining room, and then we were curing shirts in the oven of the kitchen. Yes, um. Um, my husband, at the time, was like, I think you're making enough money to get a space to do all this production. You don't need to take over our house. Um, so I did that, moved into a small shop, um, went to screen printing 101, finally at that point, because before that, I was just watching YouTube videos and figuring it out, right? And then I was traveling around the southeast, across the events and selling CrossFit Related Fitness apparel there. And through that process, met a lot of gem owners who wanted us to print their shirts because they knew we understood them. We knew we knew their members. We knew what was funny in the industry. We know what fabrics worked for CrossFit, etc, so then they just leaned on us to print their apparel, and that's really how I grew from a fitness brand to a bulk printing, screen printing shop. So we did that for years and had an auto I always struggled though with production, keeping production staff, because my heart is really always been in sales. That's what lights me up. That's what I like about screen printing, teaching people about apparel, selling apparel. I don't like producing apparel. So, yeah.

Marshall Atkinson 
Well, here's the thing is sometimes two plus two equals 10. Yeah, it came up with the right person, right? And, yeah, everybody's got their superpower, right? Yeah, absolutely combined forces, like you guys have, you know that that you get a better result, yeah? So,

Christie Shellenberger 
um, you know, I got to that stage in my mind last year when I was brokering out a lot of stuff that I just didn't want to print my own stuff anymore, but I wanted to still sell apparel, but I was looking at a bigger space and kind of running a storefront retail operation for screen printing and embroidery. And that's when I had asked Jill and Jeremy if they wanted to come look at the space and just give me their thoughts. And Jill and Jeremy were like, Hey, before you do this. Why don't we talk about joining forces? And I've known them forever. They're great people, and so it was almost a no brainer at that point, that I could do sales, and then they could take the parts of the business I really just don't enjoy, and they're good at, you know? I don't need to struggle at things I'm not good at. So it's been a really great partnership so far, as far as that goes.

Marshall Atkinson 
So your customers are still in athletics. Do you do anything else besides the CrossFit? Yeah,

Christie Shellenberger 
so I do a lot of CrossFit brands, but I'm also pretty big into Charlotte corporate scene. I love corporate partners. I love kind of doing that concierge hand holding of big clients and doing presentations for them and stuff. And then our Rock Hill clients are more like schools and government and manufacturing plants. So it's been a really great mix of clients where we're pretty steady year round.

Marshall Atkinson 
That's awesome. You know, I was just talking with the shop owner today, and you know, they had a kind of a dismal q1 and he was always a problem for them. And, and one of the things I was talking about was finding another customer that's busy, yes, no, in the q4 and q1 and that way, you know, you level your production out by, you know you have your pile of awesomeness that you can offer, right? So just finding other customers that need what you offer, and that's the big sometimes, the big challenge is finding that and offering and having a diverse client base is really good. And I tell people like you really don't want one customer to own more than 20% of your work, because if something happens with them, you know you're really screwed.

Christie Shellenberger 
And you know what I will say to that point when there was this like drama and CrossFit around covid And all of those kind of things, and a lot of people were shying away from the brand, and a lot of my gems weren't selling as much of apparel and stuff. And it really was a lesson to me in that that you needed to find other clients and in other client industries so you're not victim to these kind of things happen in the media.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, and so far, everything's worked out great for you guys. I love your story, where you both have distinct things to do, right? How do you guys come together, working on the next step and the next vision, and next year, or three years from now, or that type of stuff. Are you using, like, I'm a big believer in that book traction, where the EOS system, where we think, you know, we've got a visionary and integrator. I've always been the integrator, which is the guy who gets things done. You know, I'm a former Chief Operating Officer, so you know, Jeremy and I probably think a lot alike about getting things handled, right? Um, horrible in sales. I hate that stuff, but I research it, and I read about it, and I do stuff and I. Talk to some really awesome sales people who are doing a lot of things, so I'm very knowledgeable about it, but you know, I would rather be doing the work and getting the work done. That's really kind of where I excel at, right? So how do you guys think about the future for your business and targeting the direction that you want to go?

Jeremy Ray 
We had these meetings we call the brain trust, and it's literally just the three of us that get together and sort out things. We had a business coach to help us, kind of guide us through those things on there. Yeah, and, and, you know, so Christie's got some sales coaching. I've got the business coach. We've taken a pause on him, just because we had we hit that move period where we just joined forces and things got a little crazy. So we're going to try to pick that back up in six months, but really just trying to get used to each other, because we're daily together every day. Now, it's stressful. We went through a stressful time with with the move so, but yeah, it's just we have sales goals that we talk about. We have business goals, we have needs, we try to make decisions together, and all of those things. But we're still young enough as a partnership where we haven't really developed all the systems and got them flowing really well yet, but absolutely relying on other people to help us out is kind of where, how we've gotten to where we're at now and and really, the coaching has helped considerably.

Marshall Atkinson 
Good. Good. I love it, and it's good to like have the freedom and the psychological safety to say things without people getting upset, right? So that way, you know, and it sounds like you guys have that, so that's good,

Christie Shellenberger 
yeah, definitely. And you know, what's really great is, I don't think we could have picked a better partnership where people are really excellent at the things they do, like Jeremy is a rockstar operations and Lean management in, like, production, and Jill is a rock star finance and keeping all that straight and keeping us on budget. And then, like, I'm just really good at sales, and so we can really lean on each other's strengths and say, like, I can go to them, and I go, this is what we can do in sales, and I know we can do it, and this is how we're going to do it. And they both just go, yes, if you can do it, do it. And then that's what I do with Jeremy with operations and Jill with finance too. Like I just lean on them as the experts in their area. And everything so far has worked out great, you know.

Jeremy Ray 
And we do stay in our own lanes, you know? That's, that's a that's a key as well. We didn't have a sales team. Christy came in and developed a sales team for us. So now there's, what, five, five sales. Yeah, it's insane. We never had outside sales. We just relied on, you know, word of mouth and existing customer base and so this and social media very small in the marketing. Social media side. Didn't really invest in that, but, you know, organic shop growth, just like most small shops, but Christy coming in and developing a sales and outside sales team, which has really pushed us forward, you know, where there's actually people pounding the pavement out, you know, in, you know, for us and spreading our name. That's that's helped out considerably.

Marshall Atkinson 
That's great. That's great. So let's the question two here was shift gears a little bit and in a snow secret, you know, one of my favorite topics to talk about is sustainability. I've been on that topic running shops for a long time, right? And how did you get started with that idea? And how do you feel sustainability is relevant for a more customer facing need for the industry?

Christie Shellenberger 
Yeah. So I just, we're at work all day, every day, and I just really like to do things that I feel good about doing. And then you hear all these things online, like, the apparel decoration industry is the dirtiest industry, the least sustainable industry, you know. And you're saying, Well,

Marshall Atkinson 
hold on, we're number two,

Christie Shellenberger 
two, number one. We're

Marshall Atkinson 
number two, worst industries on the planet. Yeah.

Christie Shellenberger 
So that's like, you're hearing all these things, and then you're thinking like, it's just, this isn't fun. I don't want to be a part of this, but so how can you change it? How can you be part of the solution to the industry? And so that's kind of what got my thought process going on sustainability. And so I started doing more research, and there's a lot more sustainability projects and mindsets within this industry, then people like to advertise, which blows my mind. There are so many manufacturing companies that have zero waste initiatives, and they're doing some really awesome things, but they're just not spreading the word enough, because they don't think it's cool, but it is cool, and if you start talking about it. Your customers, they will think it's cool too, and they will want to invest more money in the products that are eco friendly, or shops that are eco friendly. And like we should be doing that for our environment, we should be doing this for the industry as a whole, so it gets a better rep. It's just something that I'm really passionate about. So I like talking to people who are also passionate about, like, the little things we can do in our shop and within our industry that can make everything better,

Marshall Atkinson 
right? That's great, you know? And I got interested in it a long time ago as an art director, and then I got moved into doing operations, and what do I know about that, right? And I went to a trade show, SGI, a by the way, in Atlanta, and I took a class, and it was all about sustainability. And I found my hook. Because when you're sustainable and you combine that with Lean, Six Sigma practices, right, what happens is you become really efficient, you lower your costs, and also you develop better things that you can talk about with sales. And then so I got the shop I was running in Florida to become the first shop to be SGP certified. So that's the sustainable green printing partnership, and this is an outfit that does a third party audit. I think you guys would be great to look into that, by the way, and and so what I found is that effort really paid off because we're lowering our costs. So that's the cost optimization kind of part of the deal. But what's really great about getting that certification is because it becomes an offensive weapon that you can use for sales, because when there's two or three people in line for the job and you're sustainable and they're not, they're picking you because you're doing things that are better. So it becomes a really great way to win business, and it's kind of a thing you can flash around a little bit, right? But it takes a lot of effort and a lot of work to think about this stuff. And it's really about you being proactive about the choices you're making and what you're doing and and really just start thinking about things, and it's a never ending continuous improvement thing, right? And, and I think a lot of people focus on the blank, and they don't think about the process, and they don't think about the the envelope, you know, your facility, right? And so the things that we can do to make our shops better are all about reducing waste. You know, less is more kind of a thing. And so when you start thinking about, why do we need to? And I always go to this one, because it's easy, right? Why do we double stroke her under base, right? Because that's twice the ink and twice the time. So if we look on building a better screen, right so we can hit to under base with just one stroke and get the same result, which requires more effort in our craftsmanship, the outcome is the fact that we can print more a day with less ink and less energy, because you don't need to flash your dwell time as long, and you get more output a day. And the end result, when you analyze that is, it's a huge amount of money and impress more impressions that you printed a day, but it requires you to put more time and thought into your screen room. That's just one example. I've got hundreds, you know. So, yeah, yeah. So give me an example of some projects that you guys have done with your shop on sustainability that have allowed you to save some money or become more effective with your time, or something.

Christie Shellenberger 
Yeah. So the most important one to me and my sales team, which I think anybody could implement with their sales team, is having a good base of stock colors and really educating your customers on these stock colors are most of the time good enough. You will need Pantone Matching sometimes, but you don't always need Pantone Matching. And what that does, if you can get a customer to pick stock colors, is less waste. We have less ink containers on our shelves. We have less time mixing ink. All of this is less waste overall for your shop, and it's better for the environment too. So that would be my number one. Jeremy, what do you have?

Jeremy Ray 
Well, mine ties back into eliminating any aerosols in the production department. So use plungers with press wash and the plungers, we use old T shirts instead of paper towels, those type of things we implemented. But one of the biggest game changers that really just came out in the last year has been print grip. And that's this is a product where you. Replace your pallet tape with this. It's a rubbery type material. It's not glue. It's not there's not any sticky element or chemical on it that makes it sticky. It's actually the gumminess of the actual rubber itself. And they've kind of figured out how to get it to where, you know, it's pressure sensitive, so you're really only using waters to clean up the fuzz that's been taken onto the shirt. But it's not you're not cleaning up glue. So you now have no no spray glue, no water based glue, no anything that you need, no web spray for hoodies, none of that. And so you're not only eliminating all of those products from your shop, which saves money. But on top of that, you're not introducing any of that into the shirt and also into the shop, or, you know, into your employees, for that matter. So that's been a huge one for us recently.

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, and I was talking with Christy about that on the phone the other day, and I know about this product, and you're the first shop that I bumped into that actually is using it right. And I was so excited to hear about that, because I've wanted to know from real life not what the brand says, but what you guys think about it. And I love the fact that you guys are really digging the outcome. Yeah,

Jeremy Ray 
we've got six months on our auto right now with one, one set and print grip. Doesn't like us to say that, but because they want to sell replacements. But I've I found where you can just, you can wear that thing out and clean it well, and and and reuse it and reuse it, reuse it. And these guys will run hundreds of hoodies without having to spray web spray. And that's insane, right? Yeah, that's

Marshall Atkinson 
great, because nobody likes the web spray like spirit your forearm hairs.

Jeremy Ray 
That's ready, so saves your hands, save everything. So it's, it's, yeah, it's been great. I highly recommend it. So

Marshall Atkinson 
one of the great things, if you're listening and you're thinking about sustainability, it's always about reducing what you're using, reducing steps, reducing labor, reducing a product usage, you know, like, I ran a really huge shop, like, incredible amount of stuff that we did through that thing. And I had a huge project just on shrink wrap, because we would have to shrink wrap pallets a lot. And so the the before I got there, you know, the CFO would buy the cheapest shrink wrap, new in demand, and we would have to mummify a pallet to ship it right? And somebody would have to go around like, seven, 810, times to get this thing secure so the boxes wouldn't fall over. And so I found some streak wrap that was a better product, but it cost like, three times more. And how I proved that it was a good purchase was I had because she didn't believe in it, right? And so I had her come out to the floor, and I had her shrink wrap a pallet with the old stuff and with the new stuff. And when they I go, here's the difference. It's not just the amount of product we're using. It's the time it takes to do it. And I want you to pretend, because some of these things, we had some really huge orders. We would have 3040, pallets, so we have to shrink wrap. I go, I want you to pretend you're doing this and you're got 30 of these to do. And it's like, you remember that game you probably did with your kids. It's called the Dizzy bat game, where you put your foreground on the bat. You spin around the bat, right? And you stand up and try and run, of course, you run crooked, and you run into things. And it's hilarious. That's what it's like to shrink wrap blocks of pallets, right? And when you only have to go around once, because this stuff is so much better, that's the win, right? And then she was an instant believer, right, then, right? And so you just gotta, like, use stuff and try it. I was always playing with different things and trying to reduce stuff. Like, you know, how do we not have masking tape on screens at all, right? Especially if we're using try lock, right? Especially, you know, why are we using tape? And so I was a two year project, right? And so found, found the answer, which is graphic screen fashion. I trained with it, with the with the caulk and the badge, right? Sealant system, yeah, no more tape, right? And so we were using 300 and something screens a day. So imagine the size of the tape ball we had in our screen room before that, right? And, yeah, um, now that saves $7,000 a year just on masking tape. Wow, gone, right.

Jeremy Ray 
That was still Dallas thing for me. I was like, we're spending way too. Much money on paper towels, so we don't need paper towels, right?

Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, exactly. And so I love the fact that you're going down this road. It's just fantastic. And you guys need help with anything. I would love to be you know, peppered me with questions like, what you hear so far. Be sure to subscribe so you can get the latest from success stories. And now here's Zach shortly with the SMS spotlight. If you've

Marshall Atkinson 
All right, so let's shift gears for a minute, and let's talk about your podcast. Last call for blast us, all right, and you kind of alluded to that earlier. How and why did you start that? And has there been a benefit to your business for being in the content creation arm of the industry instead of just, we're just printing,

Jeremy Ray 
yeah. So the podcast was really just a continuation of the open house that we had, and it was we were, we were both. We both recognized that, oh my gosh, there's people coming from all around the country to one see our shop, to listen to what we have to say, and are literally, really taking pictures of everything that we're doing. And they're like, hey, we want to learn from you guys. And so Christy's like, why are we not doing a podcast as well? Like, because we just, we have this attention, right? Yeah, and where people sponsored it, you know, we had all these great sponsors, and so we were like, This is it. This is where we need to, this is where we need to push our efforts in and really back up a hair. I had been in my mind. I'd been, like, thinking of, like, this whole situation where none of the shops got along in the industry, and like in our area, I would say, just in our area, our shops didn't get along. We hated each other, and I didn't understand that, because, you know, I liken it to a brewery model, where you walk into a brewery and there's other breweries in there drinking beer, and I'm like, that's that's really cool to see. Like, they have one thing in common, they're making beer, but they all are competitors, too, but they don't care, because they, you know, everybody likes raptors. It's, yeah, right. And I'm like, I want to start something that, like, maybe a screen printers, I don't know, like a meeting place for screen printers to come together, and is it? Is it a town hall session where we talk, you know, about printing and the struggle, struggles we're having and learn from each other? Is that even possible kind of thing it

Marshall Atkinson 
is? I have that? Yeah, yeah. Reynolds, shirt, lab, shirt

Jeremy Ray 
lab, exactly, right, so, but I didn't, not me not knowing these things. I was like, gotta be a way to do that. And then Christy's like, let's do a podcast. And I'm like, this is the way, you know, like, it wasn't like a Chamber of Commerce. It was just a way to bring other shops together and go, Hey, community over competition. Let's, you know, all you know, rising tides, raises all ships, kind of thing. You know, there's

Marshall Atkinson 
a great term for that. It's called co opetition, right? And

Jeremy Ray 
you know what? I actually went to a seminar with Ivan Meisner, and he was talking about his third, his new book, The third paradigm. And he was like, hey, you know that there's these three paradigms. The first paradigm was, like, this competition, right? Like you had to be the best that you had to be. So there was the Ford versus everyone else in the automotive industry. It was post versus Kellogg's and the cereal industry was all this, like, we got to be the best we're going to be. And so we're going to ramp up production, we're going to do everything that we can do to output the best products, and we're going to beat our competition. And there always was a loser and then, but they didn't take into consideration the employees, the second paradigms, like in the 60s, where they're talking about, hey, we need to start thinking about what our employees think. Maybe get their input, but we're still trying to put other people out of, you know, business where this is a this is a competitive world, but we're going to listen to listen to what our employees have to say. We're going to think about them more. And then this third paradigm is all about co creation, and it's taking now your these other businesses and like, let's join forces and figure it out. And I'm like, That's what breweries are figuring out. That's what breweries are doing, right? They're collaborating on different. Years, and they're doing things like, you know, and I was like, This is it? This is like, it's all tying together. So it's great to hear that, you know, that that sort of thing is taking off in the industry in other ways, like, you know, with your your project, and your in kitchen, and all these different other things that are going on. I, you know, I start to go to shows, and you realize, hey, there's like, this is bubble of people that love each other, right? And want to hang out with each other and talk and and, but you don't, maybe not all the shops in your area participate in that. You know, I push it so much, and then they're like, I had a shop come up to me at another show. And they're like, hey, you know that idea you said about, you know, getting along and CO creating with other people, he goes, that didn't work. You know that that I was like, maybe, you know, not everyone,

Marshall Atkinson 
because it's who you're teaming up with, right? Yeah, right.

Jeremy Ray 
So we went on that, went that path when we first started the podcast, and then, you know, we were like and we wanted to do it live, and we wanted to not necessarily

Marshall Atkinson 
live. Live is scary.

Jeremy Ray 
Wanted, we wanted people to be in person. And so, yeah, we, we kind of revolved it around having a beard, hanging with your buddies, talking about print, you know, right? And, that's kind of where we went with it, and, and it was a continuation of the open house. So we already had sponsors, and they were like, yes, we want to continue what we saw here. And so they immediately hopped on, sponsored us, which was great. Nobody does that. And then we kind of, you know, once a week, once every other week, we're, you know, and you know, we're 27 episodes in. And I say it really helps our shops. We can walk out into the the, you know, screen printing world now in our again, in our bubble and and and be recognized. And then also, people know who Rock Hill screen printing is now all around the country. And so we advertise those things on our social media, even boosts our customer base. So yeah, it's helped us considerably. So

Marshall Atkinson 
yeah, are you publishing your episodes on your website?

Christie Shellenberger 
They are on a lot of call for plastic salt website, yeah. But so

Marshall Atkinson 
a great thing for your website, by the way, is, if you have you can get the embed code, and then put that on one of your pages on your website, and then that's going to boost your SEO juice, even if nobody ever clicks on it. It's the fact that it's there, because the Google algorithms love new things. If you're doing stuff all the time, like like Atkinson consulting web page. I have my success stories podcast. I also do a live show every Friday with my buddy, Alan Howell from easy way. That's our Q A with Alan a Marshall show. Both of those are on my consulting web page, and that really helped my ranking. And that's something you might think about. The Smart

Jeremy Ray 
we've shared a lot on social media and all the pages, but, yeah,

Marshall Atkinson 
you get all that, but just the Google crawler spider thing, yeah, like that. You know that isn't a person.

Christie Shellenberger 
I've noticed too about the podcast, where it's not really like a selling point for our individual customers, but it has made it easier for us to be better, because we know all these industry now. So, like, it's so much easier for us to learn and ask questions and get answers quickly. That's made our shop so much better, and then that's made it easier for us to sell to our customers and be better for our customers. So that's been a really, like, exciting outcome from the podcast that I didn't think we expected when we started it. Right? Absolutely,

Marshall Atkinson 
I can tell you from all the stuff that I do, right, I talk to, I mean, I talk to a lot of people, right? And I'm curious by nature, and, like, I don't know everything, like, the amount of stuff I don't know is just incredibly immense, and and so I'm always asking people, What are you using, and what's going on and whatever. And, you know, and because I want to know that stuff, and I want to know where people are struggling, and, you know, and in you know, I'm all about helping people, but at the same time, you know, I want to know where people are winning, because that's, that's, that's where the direction of this industry is going. And, you know, a shirt lab, for example, you know, we have a mastermind group called shirt lab tribe that's got about 200 or so shops in it from not just us, but other countries too. And what's really interesting is, you know, everybody shares what's great or what doesn't work, or, you know, this is the thing that you need to look at, or I just learned this thing, or I just read this book, or whatever, people share. That stuff all the time, and, and it's a really great resource for people, especially if they're trying to evaluate different things. And people post stuff like, we have a private Facebook group. We also have a circle platform we use where people could answer and ask questions and stuff. And, and it's, it's a really good resource. And so anyway, the I totally love the fact that people are doing things. And there's a guy, his name is Jay Bassel, and if you don't have any works, he's a marketing guy for equipment zone, and he presented at our event last year in New Orleans, and one of the terms he used was the collaboratory, right? Which are collaboration, but it's a laboratory. So what we're going to do is we're going to get together and we're going to share ideas and stuff, and we'll build something that nobody's ever seen before, and then we'll see if that works, right, and and I think this industry is really good about that stuff sometimes. And I think the reason why you're getting sponsors for your podcast, and I have a sponsor for mine, you know, it's the fact that people want to share things, and they look and know that people who are interested in making a difference in the industry, we need to support them, because there's so many, it's the silent majority. There's like, you know, 99.9% of people you'll never hear from. They're just out there doing their thing. There's a slight little bubble of people who are interested in helping each other, right? And and to me, we're not competing. You know, you have your podcast. I mine, other people have theirs competing at all. We're just sharing what we know. We're sharing our knowledge, and the more the better. And it's just fantastic. And kudos to you guys from for starting something with no guarantee of success or safety or time. And I know how much time it takes to do these things, yeah. So congratulations on that. You know,

Jeremy Ray 
thank you. They say, if you can get past seven episodes, you're doing all right or something. So it's we, yeah, we're 27 so

Marshall Atkinson 
yeah, I'm way past that. But, but I, but I know how much effort it takes. And yeah, after the show, I can give you some tips, but yeah, oh, okay.

Jeremy Ray 
Well, you know what I will comment on. One thing you said about supporting the other people in the industry. The biggest thing for me is like, what I recognize is like, there's guys like Chad kirkenbush and Jeff ferriochi that are, like, innovating. They're just printers, and they're, they're making innovations that are changing the industry. Yeah, and, like, and I'm geeked out about the stampinator, because I'm, like, I watched him do, he uses SolidWorks. That's what I designed in for 22 years, you know, like, I'm an expert in it. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. And he's like, Oh, maybe you could help me do this. Or maybe you can, you know, like, Heck, yeah, let's do it, you know. And then the Chad with the print grip, I mean, that's a like, that's a problem you just solved, you know. Is it easily?

Marshall Atkinson 
It's great. I love it. And so think about that, the sustainable part of that, right? Nobody likes web spray, nobody likes the spray tack, right? Just, it's horrible stuff, right? And it's just the the stuff going in the air and the carbon footprint of that. It's just awful, right? And so for a long time, you know, I've used water based adhesive that we put on with, like a condiment bottle, and the the little applicator used for, like a car wrap, right? And and that was way better than using the spray stuff, right? And so this is just another level above that, yeah, and there's stuff out there every there's smart people everywhere, you know. And I've been in industry for a while, and back when I was an art director, right, I was printing film with an image setter, aspect image setter. And at the time, I was working for a shop, and we were Nike's number two garment decorator, and I would, I remember printing, this is just so ridiculous. We were doing all of the NFL teams with, like, a training camp shirt, Nike Training Camp shirt, and I printed all of the teams out, you know? And then Nike goes, Hey, we decided to make it a half inch bigger, right? And I just got through printing two days worth of film,

Jeremy Ray 
oh my gosh, right?

Marshall Atkinson 
And I'm, you know, it's just and then, so now that prompted me to. Get interested, is there a better way of doing that? And then that's how I stumbled on the Kibo Ijet, which is computer screen technology we bought, like the sixth one or something. Number is the guy that invented this is guy named Jeff McHugh, who, by the way, if you don't know Jeff, he's the funniest man in the industry. He should be a stand up comic. He's so funny and he got, he's the guy who came out and installed it, yeah? And that completely eliminated everything, no more pinholes, no more Moray with halftones. I mean, it just completely eliminated all that in one step. Those are the byproducts of that, right? But no more film. Yeah, right. And then that was, and let me tell you, if you're using film right now and you're listening, okay, here's what doesn't happen, people go from CTS and then they go back to film that never, ever, ever happens in the history of this industry, ever, right? So if you're thinking about how you can improve your shop. CTS is the way to go, right? So, computer screen. So just throwing that out there, from a sustainability point of view, think about how much film we're not using anymore, no more envelopes, and trying to find that black plate that you used three weeks ago and whatever just eliminated in one step. So, love it, love it, love it, right? So we're going to tell him, Hey, we need to wrap up here. So last question, okay, so Christy, this is to you, right? So what are you excited about these days, about the future, right? Where do you think the industry's going? You know, what are you guys really looking into maybe you haven't bought yet, or you're thinking about something right? And what are you doing right now to get prepared for that?

Christie Shellenberger 
Yeah. So thing that I'm most excited about is, as we have grown our shop and combined shops, now, we are able to be a pillar in our community. We are big enough now where we can hire, train, retain long term employees. We can give them benefits. We can provide a great work environment with employee perks. We're not just like some screen printing shop out of a garage anymore. We can really take care of our people and then also take care of our community, educate our customers, help their businesses grow through social media, networking them with our other clients, we really are taking that responsibility in our community that we're going to push everyone forward. So that's what I'm most excited about for Rock Hill screen printing, which I think other shops can really take that responsibility too, and not just think of themselves as another small business. They can be a leader in their communities. But then in our shop, we have some goals for equipment. I I told Jeremy not to fill up our space the other day, because I really want a third auto in there eventually. Jill laughed,

Marshall Atkinson 
are you still on one shift?

Jeremy Ray 
We are still on one shift. Yeah. So

Marshall Atkinson 
one thing you might think about is trying to do a like a swing shift or a second shift, and then really trying to make that work before you get way more autos. Because what you'll do is you'll reduce your cost per imprint, because you've already got this equipment that doesn't have any utilization on it. I'm a big fan of two shifts. I ran two shifts on all the shops that I've run. It's really difficult to do two shifts, because who wants to work those hours? But there actually are people who want to work those hours. You just have to make it worth their time. And if you can't do the full shift, maybe a part time shift that works till like midnight or something. And that way you're getting more production out if you've got long runs, typically, long runs are great for that second shift, because nobody has to approve it, you know. They're just printing, you know? And it becomes way easier to run if you've got that, if you're doing a lot of 144 piece jobs, that's not going to really work, right? So it just kind of depends on the or it could AB stuff that you do all the time. Maybe they're like designs that are reprint orders, and it becomes real easy to print when you're doing the same thing over and over again, just depends on the work so for

Christie Shellenberger 
sure. So I think that, and then eventually we're gonna need a bigger dryer. We're gonna need a gas dryer. So

Jeremy Ray 
gas dryers are probably the most, the cost effective ones that are gonna save us money. I think in the end, have you guys

Marshall Atkinson 
own your building? No, we're

Christie Shellenberger 
leasing our dough. It was not for sale. You

Marshall Atkinson 
have a lot of you have a lot of things. You guys,

Christie Shellenberger 
yeah, I can make lists for you of everything. I want to

Jeremy Ray 
own a building. And we were, we were trying to, but the really to be able to get what we wanted in this area is, right? Hills growing. We're, it's, it's, it's few and far between in buildings. So we came across this one, and we were like, all right, this has got everything we need, and checks all the boxes.

Marshall Atkinson 
Well, you should think about funding some land, and buy the land, and then maybe a year or two from now, you put the building on it, and whatever you know, just do it in phases. A lot of times, I know from speaking with tons of other shop owners, building a building is the way to get what you want, right? Because we're so niche specific, especially with our drainage in the screen room and stuff, it's hard. And then three phase right? It's really hard to find exactly what we want. And these days, just putting brief A's in a building, it's 50 grand sometimes, right? It's just crazy talk, right? So, you know, and you know, loading docks, you know, all that stuff, there's a lot of stuff, right, yeah, but that's great, right? That's great. And you think about your your business as a person, right? So when we start the business from the house, that's the baby stage, and as we go through stuff, you know, we're getting older and older and older with what we have, right? You guys are maybe in your early 20s stage, like, you know, of the business, right? If it was a person. And then, you know, as you mature, right? That's when you start buying real estate and doing things, and just like you do as a as a human being, as a person, with the house we live in, or

Jeremy Ray 
whatever. And, well, I had to tell you, Marshall, we felt like we're, we're becoming adults. I mean, I'm 50, and I was like, we're finally, you know, Christy's like, we're adulting really hard right now. I'm like, I know. I've never, I've never been this. I've never felt like much of an adult before, until now, because all the legal things you got to do, and yeah,

Marshall Atkinson 
the best, the best people you can have on your team is a really good accountant, a really good plumber, a really good electrician. And to me, a mentor or a board of directors or a business coach, or somebody who has already been there, done that, printed the t shirt, right, already knows all that stuff, right? That can help you make better decisions. Because they've, they've been doing, they've done that for years and years and years, right? Yeah. So anyway, so hey, thanks so much for sharing your story of success with us today. What's the best way to contact you? If somebody wants to learn more about what you do, and also please share where they can find your podcast? Yeah,

Christie Shellenberger 
on Instagram is probably the best way to find us at Rock Hill screen printing, and our podcast is at last call for plastic out anytime we're here to help anybody that needs

Marshall Atkinson 
it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Appreciate you and take care

Jeremy Ray 
Good. Thanks, Marshall.