Change Is Hard. Hello Change.
Sometimes you can see the writing on the wall. Most times you just need to read it.
Today, August 31, 2020, marks the end of an era: BrandWise is changing direction. For close to 25 years we have been doing in-house screen printing and production, and today is the final day in our building where we have “lived” for nearly 20 years. My parents started up a small screen printing shop in the late 90’s, and while trying to decide on a direction after college, I found myself working away in production in that little shop. What I remember most - the smell of the inks when printing and the cleaners when reclaiming screens to be used again; the heat from those sweltering summer days, no matter how many fans you had aimed at you; the frustrations of getting tension exactly right when making new screens; the many hours driving back and forth between our local shirt suppliers. “You need that order this afternoon? No problem, we got it!”. We had daily lunches at McDonald’s, because there really weren’t too many other places around to choose from back then. We added promotional products to our offerings in 1996, moved into a larger facility in 1997. We moved again in 2000 with much excitement of our first automatic press and high capacity dryer and visions of what we could now print.
And now our building sits almost empty.
To many, this change seems to be sudden. However, digging deeper, it was something that was definitely needed and had to happen. We tried to keep our pricing low and competitive, even though almost all of our costs continued to rise. Covid-19 definitely didn’t help, as a number of programs and orders we produced were for outdoor and tradeshow events. Lastly, as I continued to become more creative in what we are able to offer and helping solve more problems for our partners, it became much more difficult to also run both screen printing and promotional pieces well. I found myself as a jack of all trades and master of none. I really wanted to fully focus on our partners’ needs and wowing them with amazingly cool and creative ideas to help their businesses thrive and grow, but was often distracted by the daily challenges of running a production facility. As the bard would say, “Therein lies the rub”
On one hand, having your own production facility seems to give the sense of being able to do anything at any time. It also allows you to take on projects you shouldn’t take on, just because you can. Small or large projects, you can easily over-extend what you are capable of when trying to gain business to grow. And then eventually you learn… not all business is good business. If only I had read “The Pumpkin Plan” by Mike Michalowicz years before I did.
I had some tough conversations (mostly it seems with myself) and had to make a decision – fully invest my time into the printing and production side by working hard to bring in new printing business, re-evaluating our pricing, and looking for ways to cut costs and streamline our processes. Or, move to what I really love to do – coming up with the creative ideas and projects for clients, marketing, branding and learning to work more with companies/brands that are looking to improve the world with social and environmental responsibility.
I chose to move forward with what I love to do.
The transition of ceasing our production facility was not an easy one. I won’t ramble on with the details, but there were many more things that needed to be done than I had anticipated. As I am typing this up now, I think of those things that I will be doing for the last time today and that makes me a little sad. The commute to work, open and closing the shop for the day, flipping on the lights, water-cooler chats with co-workers, wandering the showroom for ideas, brief discussion with my dad about sports, geese wandering the parking lot, and all of those little nuances and quirks that make a business a business.
We’ve all navigated through the weirdness of 2020, but one thing we’ve all realized is that change is all around; sometimes it’s hard, but it isn’t all bad either. When I look around my new home office, I see a bright and exciting new future. I know that I can now be more focused than ever on what I enjoy doing; building relationships with people, being creative working with my partners to come up with amazing ideas, helping others, and making a change for the better in the world.
Hello Change!