B16 Marketing 102 – Where & How to Start

Master the move from manual to automatic screen printing. Learn hands-on press fundamentals, darkroom prep, and setup efficiency to scale your shop with confidence.

Why Someone Should Come

Moving from manual printing to an automatic press is one of the biggest decisions a screen printing shop can make. Automation can increase capacity, improve consistency, and open the door to larger jobs, but it also requires a different mindset around screens, setup, workflow, labor, maintenance, and production standards. This session helps attendees understand what changes when a shop moves from manual printing to its first auto and how to scale in a way that supports productivity instead of creating new bottlenecks.

Who Should Come

This session is ideal for manual screen print shops that are thinking about automation, business startups that want to get into screen printing in a serious way, and new automatic press operators who need a practical introduction to automated production. It is also valuable for shop owners and production leaders who want to understand what skills, systems, and expectations need to be in place before adding or fully utilizing an automatic press.

What They Will Learn

• Manual to Auto Mindset: Understand how the move from manual printing to automatic production changes setup, labor, workflow, and production expectations.
• Automatic Press Fundamentals: Learn the core skills and best practices needed to operate an automatic screen printing press with confidence.
• Darkroom Readiness: Discover why screen quality, exposure, mesh selection, registration, and reclaim discipline become even more important when printing on an auto.
• Setup Efficiency: Learn how to reduce downtime through better job staging, screen preparation, registration habits, ink setup, and press organization.
• Hands-On Production Concepts: Explore practical automatic printing applications, including projects such as fleece and simulated process work, so attendees understand how different jobs behave on press.
• Scaling the Right Way: Learn how to evaluate when automation makes sense, what to prepare before the press arrives, and how to avoid common first-auto mistakes.

Build the repeatable systems that make automation profitable. Learn hands-on SOPs for press setup, darkroom, training, and quality control that help your shop scale and use them to print a job.

Why Someone Should Come

Automation works best when the shop has repeatable systems behind it. A press can only print as efficiently as the process that feeds it, and many shops lose time because each operator handles setup, screens, approvals, ink, garments, maintenance, and cleanup differently. This session focuses on the standard operating procedures that help shops create consistency, train employees, reduce errors, and turn automatic printing into a repeatable production system instead of a daily guessing game.

Who Should Come

This session is designed for shop owners, production managers, automatic press operators, lead printers, and teams preparing to scale. It is especially useful for shops adding their first automatic press, training new operators, trying to reduce production mistakes, or looking to document best practices so the business can grow beyond one person's knowledge.

What They Will Learn

• SOP Foundations: Learn what standard operating procedures are, why they matter, and how they create consistency across art, darkroom, setup, production, quality control, and cleanup.
• Press Setup Standards: Understand how to document repeatable procedures for loading screens, registering jobs, setting squeegees and flood bars, staging inks, and preparing garments.
• Darkroom and Screen-Making Procedures: Learn how consistent coating, exposure, washout, drying, labeling, and screen storage help the press run more efficiently.
• Training and Accountability: Discover how written procedures make it easier to train new employees, set expectations, evaluate performance, and reduce reliance on tribal knowledge.
• Quality Control Systems: Learn how checklists, approvals, test prints, production samples, and job notes prevent mistakes before they become full-run problems.
• Continuous Improvement: Understand how to use SOPs as living documents that evolve with better equipment, stronger habits, and lessons learned from real production.

Set your business up for long-term success from today onward. Learn the systems, processes, and resources that help you do things right now so you get the right results tomorrow.

Why Someone Should Come

Many shops are busy but not actually healthy. Orders may be coming in, but pricing is random, bookkeeping is messy, job tracking is inconsistent, and every order feels like a fire drill. This class is about getting the boring but essential parts of the business right so the shop can make money instead of just creating stress. Attendees will learn from Cole’s successes and mistakes, including how growth can become dangerous when the numbers, systems, cash flow, and expectations are not under control.

Who Should Come

This class is for new shop owners, decorators trying to turn a side hustle into a real business, production people moving into ownership, and anyone who can make the product but feels shaky on the business side. It is especially valuable for people who are already working hard, taking orders, and serving customers, but know they need clearer pricing, cleaner records, better job organization, and more confidence in the financial side of the shop.

What They Will Learn

• Business Formation Basics: Learn the early decisions that help turn a side hustle or production skill into a real business, including structure, accounts, responsibilities, and basic operating discipline.
• Bookkeeping and Clean Records: Understand why the books need to be accurate, current, and useful, not just something handled at tax time.
• Understanding Real Costs: Learn how to think through blanks, ink, transfers, labor, overhead, rent, equipment, software, spoilage, owner pay, and the true cost of keeping the shop open.
• Pricing for Profit: Discover why random pricing creates stress and how to build pricing that covers costs, supports cash flow, pays the owner, and leaves room for growth.
• Cash Flow and Financial Pressure: Learn why sales volume alone does not equal health, and how overhead, payroll, loans, slow payments, and seasonal swings can create pressure even when the shop looks busy.
• Customer Communication: Learn how better estimates, approvals, expectations, timelines, and follow-ups reduce confusion and protect profitability.
• Simple Systems That Scale: Discover how checklists, templates, job notes, production boards, quoting standards, and repeatable processes make the shop easier to manage.
• Running With Real Numbers: Leave with a clearer understanding of how to stop guessing and start running the business with cleaner systems, better tools, and decisions based on real numbers.