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Hundreds of Best-Selling Stock Designs Just Added!

We just added 573 of our best selling stock designs to your BlingFORCE account, free!

These are designs created by us over the years, and now they are available to you, without any design fees.

stockdesigns
Find stock designs from your Account homepage.

 

There are many, many creative ways to utilize our stock designs in your business. Additionally, you may find them useful as shortcuts in times where you would have had to invent your own custom design, for example, for a generic birthday shirt. Now you can check our stock designs first and many times potentially avoid the additional time and cost of having something custom designed.

 

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Design Fee Changes – August 2016

We’re introducing a new system for Design Fees that’s fairer to all.

Effective August 1, 2016, we will be modifying the way in which we determine the one-time design/setup fees that apply to each new Design Request you submit. The Design fee is still assessed regardless of whether or not you ever place an order for product using the design.

What’s changing?
In a nutshell: The way we calculate the fees. It’ll be $25 per hour going forward.
For years we’ve used a structured pricing system where the design fees start at $10 and go up depending on if there are mixed materials used (such as glitter + rhinestones), or if there are > 1,000 stones. Feedback has told us time and again that that structure is too complicated and can be too expensive.

Under the new system, all design fees will be simply based on the time spent by our Designers in creating your bling design, preparing your proofs, and communicating with you. It will be a flat rate of $25 per hour and will no longer depend directly on what materials are used. While there’s no mandatory minimum cost, we anticipate the lowest possible cost on a very quick, basic, small design should be 15 minutes ($6.25). Up until this point, our minimum design charge has been $10.

How does this affect me?
In a nutshell: Your overall design fees may go up, they may go down, or they may not effectively change.
BlingFORCE Clients who send clear specs and/or art in their design submissions may enjoy significantly decreased design fees on average. Some Clients may see no overall change, while others who provide poor detail or art are likely to see overall increases. It mostly depends on the complexity of each design and the quality of the info you give us upfront. We studied dozens of past projects and determined that, when GOOD QUALITY art and/or design details are supplied, the average project took about 30 minutes to complete. That’s $12.50 in design fees. And that’s about the average we’ve been charging up to this point based on the structured system.

What can I do to pay the lowest fees possible?
In a nutshell: Provide Detail.
We don’t want you to pay big design fees. In fact, design work is a money-loser for BlingFORCE, and not something we profit from. We want to work together with you in the most efficient way possible.

The clearer you are upfront about what you need us to create, the more efficiently we’ll be able to work, resulting in minimal time spent and the lowest cost to you.

That means:

  • Providing starting artwork whenever possible;
  • Supplying quality artwork that does not require labor-intensive redesigning/fixing before converting to bling;
  • Clearly stating the details of the project when the request is submitted, including which colors are to make up which parts of the design, if a multi-color design and it’s not obvious from any artwork you supply;
  • Including font names in the design request if you know them, or detailed descriptions/attributes of desired font styles if you aren’t providing art or font names. For example, any of the following are helpful descriptors of text style/fonts: bold, tall, block, varsity, script, elegant…
  • Specifying the desired size if you have a certain size requirement. If you don’t know the width AND the height, just providing one of these is still very helpful.

What Makes Good Art?

what-makes-good-artwork

 

How can I know what to expect?
In a nutshell: You can check a box on the form and we’ll quote you first.
We’ll be changing our design submission form on Aug. 1 to accommodate the new fee structure, and at that time we’ll add a feature enabling you to request a quote estimate after you submit the project but BEFORE we do any design work on it.

Does the change in fees cover BlingFORCE’s actual design expenses?
In a nutshell: No, not by a long shot. But we’re OK with that.
Design work will still be highly subsidized, and almost half of the actual average cost will continue to be covered by BlingFORCE. Project triage/Project Management is a significant expense that can cost as much as the actual Designer’s time. We don’t plan to charge for the project management time, just that time spent by the Designer working on your individual project.

In other words, we realize that in order for you to be willing and able to create custom designs for your Clients “on spec,” we need to share the design costs with you.

 

I hope this new approach serves to simplify the process, encourage well-thought-out submissions, and reward Clients who provide high quality art and details with lower prices. As always, I welcome your feedback and questions.

-Brian

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80/20 Rule – The $1,500 Customer is Already There

8020rule

You probably already know that the 80/20 Rule of Marketing states that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your revenue.

But it goes much, much further than that. There’s a lot of deeper math involved that can have enormous impacts on your business. My buddy Perry Marshall figured out the math a few years ago, and I’ll be sharing some of his 80/20 “rules of thumb” that I believe every BlingFORCE Client should know.

The first rule of thumb, excerpted from The Ultimate Guide to Local Business Marketing, is as follows:

“One-fifth the people will spend four times the money.”

If you have 100 customers who you make a $30 sale to, 20 of them will spend $120 (4x), 4 of them will spend $480 (16x), and 1 of them will spend $1,500 (50x). The 80/20 rule virtually guarantees this will be true.

How does this apply to your business?

It means you’d better strive to recognize opportunities for larger sales.

8020visualized

If your MO is selling t-shirts at a table or booth at live events, and your main product is a $30 shirt, there are upward opportunities that can make you much more money.

  • The math above tells us that 20% of your customers are willing to spend $120 today. What >$100 product do you have to offer them? Is it something over the top, such as a blinged-out, fabulous jean jacket that they MUST have? Or, do you excel at selling people into combining several products and making that $120 purchase?
  • The same math tells us that 4% of your customers – 4 out of every 100 that buy from you – are willing to spend about $500. One of them will spend $1,500 with you. And by extrapolation (since it doesn’t end there), some fraction will spend $3,000 or $5,000. Do you have the capability of serving them? If not immediately at your booth, can you ensure that there’s a way that you can help them in other areas, such as the large group they wish to outfit, or their kid’s sports team, or the fundraiser they’re in charge of?

If your vision is narrow and you’re focused on selling each person one shirt, you’re missing the larger picture. Your job is to identify and connect with that one customer who walks up who will pay for your entire event, time and overhead – because you sold her something HUGE. And since you’re seeing the forest through the trees now, you can also take advantage of the 25% of customers willing to spend 4-15x what your normal product costs.

The 80/20 rule is why Starbucks sells $5 cups of coffee, $15 bags of beans, a couple different $200-$300 coffee machines, and a $3,000 professional espresso machine. Although not every 1 in 100 customers buys a machine, they know that once in a while, some guy is gonna walk in and buy 5 of them for his office building.

And in reality, many of our Clients see numbers that are much more favorable. Meaning, that $1,500 sale comes around perhaps 10% of the time, rather than 1% of the time. It has to do with how aggressively you advertise and promote, rather than waiting for customers to inquire on their own.

So if you have a booth, table or storefront, you’d be serving yourself to have a table tent or sign advertising that “We take custom orders!” or “I can outfit your entire group – no project is too large!” or “I specialize in 50+ piece orders!” or “Bulk discounts available on orders $1,000+!”.

A large order should sound like your “norm.”

Make customers think you’re “doing them a favor” by offering them a tiny slice of what you do, even though your “normal” gig is much greater and grander… larger products that you knock out all day long.

And if you’re virtual, your web site visitors ought to easily and instantly see that should they have a need for something larger, you are willing, ready and able to accommodate them.

To summarize: While it’s all perfectly fine and well to focus your attention on selling your core product, always be searching and open to opportunities for larger sales, as the 80/20 rule demonstrates that certain portions of your “normal” customers are actually extraordinary ones.

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BlingFORCE Tip: Consistently Overdeliver

overdeliver

I’m not suggesting you underpromise… just that you overdeliver – every time you possibly can.

It’s really not that difficult.

Pleasantly surprise your customers and they’ll keep coming back.

Here are a few ideas:

  • Have their order done a few days earlier than they expected. Tell them 2 weeks to delivery, but deliver in 10-12 days. Customers love that!*
  • Whatever you do, never deliver late (this is different than the idea above, but even more important). In an era of flaky shirt printers, your timeliness is an asset. Build in an extra shipping day in case there’s a carrier delay.
  • Prep shirts by folding them individually (here’s two quick ways). Also, group them either by size or in the order on the paperwork. Makes it much easier for them to count and distribute once they get home. Don’t fold a massive stack of shirts in half and force the customer to take it apart to distribute. Everyone loves a nicely folded shirt like it’s fresh off the store shelf!
  • Always ensure the finished product looks better in real life than it did in your customer’s head (this is always easy with bling shirts, which always look better in person than on-screen).

*On accomplishing short lead times: BlingFORCE can help you meet this goal as we typically make & ship transfers orders in just 2 business days. Did you know the “industry standard” for rhinestone transfers is 6-10 days!? What are those other companies doing with that extra week?

And those are some relatively simple ways to overdeliver every time, and help ensure a high customer repeat rate.

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Why we Spent $40k on a Rhinestone Machine – And Never Used It

rhinestonemachine

8 years ago when were were shopping for our first automated rhinestone setting machine, Molly and I flew up to Canada to demo this one series of machines. The guy running the company was totally scammy and just really shady. BUT – we were taken aback by the quality of Korean rhinestones he used in his own shop, and to demo the machines (one reason would have been that he wants the machines to perform well, so you want to use really good, round stones for the demo).

We’d been using only Korean stones since 2006, and the quality was good, but these were great. The color, consistency, clarity, shape and facets were like none we’d seen outside of machine-cut stones (which are too expensive to use for everyday jobs).

We weren’t really impressed with the machine, and wanted to find out more about the stones. Of course, Mr. Man wouldn’t divulge his source, but promised to give us the name of his supplier in Korea if we purchased a machine.

And we did. For $40,000 after all was said and done, including shipping from the East Coast, where it was residing at a trade show at the time, to Los Angeles.

And even though we hardly used that machine – mostly as a backup – we don’t regret that decision one bit. It was our “foot in the door” to the next level of rhinestone & stud quality, and it really made a difference to our business.

We’re mighty proud of the rhinestones & studs we carry. They last the life of the garment (often longer) and just function great, day in and day out.

And while we don’t plan to share our supplier’s identify (we were offered $10k once for it), you can rest assured that what you buy from BlingFORCE will use these incredible stones. You should share the same pride with your customers as we do with ours.

-Brian