The holiday season is the busiest and most profitable time of the year for garment decorators, screen printers, embroiderers, sublimators, and DTF shops. In this episode, Aaron and Terry share proven tips to help you plan ahead for Q4 so you can boost sales, meet deadlines, and keep your sanity. You’ll learn how to forecast holiday orders, manage inventory, train staff, and set customer policies that actually work during the rush. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the holiday chaos, this conversation will give you practical strategies to streamline production, simplify your marketing, and finish the year strong. Whether you’re decorating apparel, custom gifts, or promotional products, these Q4 preparation tips will help you avoid burnout and make the holidays your most successful season yet.
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Dad Joke
Aaron: How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh?
Tentacles (10 Tickles)
Holiday Production Success for Apparel Decorators
Segment 1: Forecasting & Capacity
Terry: Looking at last year’s numbers & trends.Aaron: Best-guess projections if you’re newer.Discussion: Facing real capacity vs. “perfect world” capacity.
What volume of sales do we expect?
If you were in business during the holidays last year, that’s your starting point.What dollar amount did you sell?How difficult was it to reach those numbers?And how much business did you leave on the table because you were overwhelmed?If you’ve been in business for multiple years, it’s all the better. You can look at trends up or down for October, November and December. Is it possible this year for you to add to what you’ve done in the past with new marketing, products, graphics, staffing, etc.?Or in semi-turbulent times will you be happy to just maintain your previous sales numbers?Either way, project a number and work backwards on how to achieve it, without the extra hours and the pain, both physical and mental, of previous holiday seasons.Projections are just that, a guesstimate of what we believe we can accomplish. Your best guess is probably more than most decorators do in the run up to the season.As the years go by and you track sales and production, these projections will become more and more precise.
What’s your current capability
Do you really know your current capacity?Unfortunately, most of us imagine our capabilities in a perfect world, not the world we live in day-to-day. It’s hard for you to admit that where we are today is where we are production-wise, but we have to face reality.
