ever wondered how to take your business from just you to a team of 30 employees
want to know the secret to success that nobody talks about I want to introduce
you to Brett Bowden owner of Printed Threads a print shop in Dallas Fort
Worth that discovered a recipe for success that helped them double their
business for four years if you hang around until the end Brett will tell you
the secret to exponential growth in your business that you won't want to miss
industry spotlight: printed threads owner brett bowden
double your revenue 4 years in a row
now meet Brett and hear his story when I was in high school I always played music
I was in rock bands and punk rock bands and the way we would feel official like
we were actually cool and could be a real bands you had to make t-shirts you
know so we would make t-shirts and we sell them in our shows and then when I
decided we weren't gonna be the Rolling Stones figured I better find a new way
to make a living so I went to college got a degree in music at the time I was
getting through college as a cable guy which is a really rewarding job if
you're ever looking for a way to make yourself feel good at night its install
cable I was miserable I came home and talked to my wife and we said hey you
know let's not be miserable let's figure out a way to make a living and be happy
so my wife and I we went to the bank we got a loan and we started printed
threads in 2010 in the garage at our house on a red velvet road and wares
printed threads now compared to in your garage nine years ago today we're
sitting in a 15,000 square foot shop with about 30 employees for automatic
presses and printing a whole lot of shirts and everything is unicorns and
rainbows
how creating culture helps grow business
one reason I think printed threads became a successful company is because
we actually sat down and laid down some groundwork some foundation you cannot
build a 10,000 square foot house on a 1,000 square foot foundation it's not
possible and so if you look at large companies large successful companies
like Apple and Google what are they doing and if we want to be a large
successful company one day we need to emulate a lot of the things that they're
doing but one of those really important things is establishing core values at
know your core values
Printed Threads we have core values that we set together and determined based on
our core group of people people that knew what the most important things
about our company were so as we sat down and we determined what are things that
are really special about our company we came up with these values number one
driven by the crafts number two passion for progress number three
delivered the right product at the right time and number four be thoughtful
so everyone knows these right?
should our employees be able to list their core values I absolutely hope so
so Lauren what are our core values at printed threads
driven by the crafts passion for progress to buy products at the right
time and be thoughtful good memory thank you I've preached them and I tried to
make sure that they they all know and understand then and so on everyone's job
description those core values are listed and they sign saying that they are going
to they're gonna live by those values
how to maintain growth
in the beginning it was kind of a side
hustle we're printing shirts in the middle of the night that type of thing
but it was very evident from the very beginning that we were going to grow we
started growing extremely quickly from sixty thousand three hundred thousand
six hundred thousand to one point 1 million to two point two million we grew
that fast year over year so it was really important for us at that time
when we were moving so so fast to just stop and look at where we were and in
doing that we hired a business coach we wanted to make sure that someone was
helping us through the process of becoming more than just a punk rock
business owner now we needed to be a corporate structure and in doing that we
started working on the pillars of our business we started working on our core
values our vision our departments our organizational chart which is something
no one ever wants to work on by the way all these companies that are trying to
be young and hip they're building these org charts that don't make any sense
and what we need to know is who's the leader of this organization right and
who do I go to when I have a problem who do I report to who do I talk to who is
my person because we will all want our person to limit to on a daily basis
right or we want to know who we go talk to to make things better at our company
so we have to set up that structure that feels uncomfortable when you're a young
business because we want to all just be equals and at some point we have to
realize there are leaders in this company and those leaders in this
company are gonna set the vision and they're gonna steer the ship and when
that person steers the ship we chart a course and we head towards success
who leads the leader?
in all reality as a business owner it's lonely at the top you have to have
people to talk to you have to have people to listen to you and help steer
you in the right direction in big companies they have a board of directors
my board of directors is probably my wife my banker my CPA and my business
coach so if there's someone watching this right now and maybe they're like
you were nine years ago in their garage printing what would you tell them to do
to take that leap I think the first thing you need to establish as a young
print shop it's who you want to be you can look up authors like simon Sinek
that have written a book called start with why look up his TED talk kind of
figure out what that is who are you gonna be why are you starting this
business right it's gonna be very very difficult maybe the hardest job that you
could possibly choose for yourself is entrepreneurship but it's also the most
rewarding job you might be able to choose because you get to affect a lot
of people and that can be really rewarding but know that there's going to
be crazy struggles so establish that why why am I doing this and then when you
figure out why you're doing it go tell people why you're doing it this is why
I'm doing this business I want to help you or I want to do these things I want
to affect my community I want to cure cancer with t-shirts whatever that is
maybe it's way too big and people don't understand it but the fact that they see
that you have a vision is going to attract them to working with you and
then just go tell the story to as many people as you possibly can we hope that
by sharing success stories from other printers you can learn from their
experiences have you developed a system of core values with your shop let us
know what they are in the comments below this is the first of a series of videos
we're doing with printed thread so if you want to hear more from Brett hit
that subscribe button and tune in next week