Is your sublimation business flourishing? I hope so. I hope you have so much business, you don’t know what to do with it all. If not, perhaps some of the ideas shared here will help you make your sublimation sales go snap, crackle and pop! |
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Remember 9/11? Of course you do. Everytime I think about that terrible event, I remember two ladies (let’s say they were past middle age and let it go at that) who attended one of my workshops. They sat in the very first row and were really eating it up. They were taking notes and constantly chatting among themselves during the two-day exercise. To say they were excited would be a huge understatement. |
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Have you ever eaten at a Long John Silver’s? Of course you have. Have you noticed lately that many of them are using sublimated name badges? I don’t know who’s making them but there are a lot of other food chains that haven’t heard about the advantages of sublimated badges yet. Which one would you like to do work for? While you’re at it, don’t forget to offer “Employee of the Month” plaques as well. Have you heard about the guy in Florida who sublimates images onto the sides of boats? This is a story I’ve heard told dozens of times. I’ve never met the fellow and I really don’t know if the story is true but those who told me about him assure me this is gospel. It seems he puts images on the sides of fiberglass boats. Now fiberglass in its natural state will sublimate so that is believable enough. UV stability is an obvious question but I did some testing on raw fiberglass recently and it has held up surprisingly well in the elements. I was also told he had taken a conventional heat press, removed the heating element and welded handles onto it so he could press it against the boat by hand. Anyway, I don’t really know how he does it (if he does it at all) but the mental image I get is of some guy sitting on the edge of a dock with an extension cord draping back over the water to some far away outlet and handpressing a transfer on the side of a boat while his feet dangle in the water below! Some jobs just aren’t worth the risk. My first occasion to see ceramic tile murals was from a photographer in New Mexico. He would take the pictures and sell the job but farm out the sublimation work to someone else. He did murals all over the country. I’ve seen pictures of this work in government buildings in New Mexico and churches in New England. I’ve lost track of him but I hope by now, he has found the virtues of modern ceramic and glass tile and is making his own murals. Murals, both large and small are very popular right now. Home owners, kitchen installers, tile setters and even floors in commercial buildings are all prime markets for sublimated tiles. Why aren’t you making them? Speaking about tiles, I’ll never forget the guy who attended a workshop in Washington State. He was convinced that ceramic tiles could be used in swimming pools. There was talk of this on some websites, etc., but no one was taking it very seriously since the only testing done thus far was in a laboratory. Still, he was insistent. When I followed up later, I found out that he was really doing it. He was installing pictures in people’s swimming pools! There’s a niche marketing concept for you. |
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A lady attended a California workshop one time incognito. Now this has happened before and telling me someone in the audience is attending incognito is like telling me, “Your assignment today is to find out everything you can about this person.” Sure enough, before the day was over, she had spilled the beans. She was there to learn how to work with fabric for Disney. Disney, in case you don’t know, makes and sells thousands of sublimated shirts a month. For those who think they can’t sell sublimated shirts for $20 or more, think again! Do you like birds? I do. My wife and I spend a lot on bird feed, most of which is consumed by the squirrels. Still, we enjoy our bird feeders and although no self-respecting bird would ever live in one of our birdhouses, we like those as well. Some birdhouses, however, put ours to shame with their sublimated welcome mats and logos. One gentleman, Duane Ruh, president of Little Log Co., Inc., runs a company that makes planters, birdhouses and key racks and affixes company or school logos to them (he is properly licensed to do so by the way). You can order a birdhouse with the Ohio State University logo, John Deere or in my case, the Marshall University logo on the front. Although some of these wooden items are laser engraved, many are sublimated. One of the nice things about sublimation is that images can be sublimated onto metal, film or other sublimatable material and applied to almost anything—in this case a birdhouse. Are there items in your neighborhood you could buy, attach a sublimated logo or saying to and resell? Most high school logos and mascots are not licensed. Then there are the local junior colleges, trade schools, churches, civic organizations… The list is truly endless. Speaking of schools, a project I started on one year turned out to be a total surprise. Three local high schools were consolidating and emotions were running high as many former graduates could not bear to see their children attending “some other school.” I didn’t think much about it myself but a friend came to me and offered to go to the high schools, set up a table and sell “Last Graduating Class” and “End of an Era” plaques showing a picture of the building, the mascot, the person’s name, etc., if I would make them. Since I didn’t have anything to lose but a couple of samples, I agreed. Hundreds upon hundreds of plaques later, I wished I had sold them directly and made the extra money for myself. I still get an occasional order for one of those plaques. Is there school consolidation going on in your neighborhood?
One person I met specializes in class reunions. They find lists of class reunions from the Internet and then contact them offering everything from shirts to key chains and name badges. Apparently, they have done very well. It does seem logical to do name badges with the person’s graduation picture on them and there could also be a plaque with the reunion photograph. Let’s see, what else could we sell these folks?
While I was in the Tampa area one year, a man approached me about doing coffee cups. He wanted to know as much as possible about the “dos and don’ts” of coffee cups. We talked for several minutes before I learned he already made cups—thousands of them a year. He hooked up with local school photographers and sold coffee cups to parents using the digital images the school photographer took of the local children. Everybody made a dollar or two and he made a living at it.
Well, did that seem like an article on marketing to you? I hope not, but it was. Good marketing is as simple as two things: Believing in your product or service and a warm relationship with another person. Those who expect to make big bucks selling sublimated products by waiting for somebody to come to them will probably be disappointed. Sublimation is such that dealers must learn to think outside the box and then take the initial step. Potential customers don’t know what you can do until you show them—especially where sublimation is involved. Even telling them isn’t enough, you have to show them. When you do, however, it’s amazing the unique ideas people will come up with. Like the guy who asked me if I could sublimate the hubcaps on his car! |