Clarity on Customer, “Yes,” “Good,” Time and Profit: A 5-Part Fix for Chaotic Shops
Screen Printing Magazine, November 2026
Your shop isn’t short on effort. If profit feels thin and every job feels urgent, the real issue is clarity. That means knowing, with confidence, what deserves your time, your money, and your attention.
In this piece for Screen Printing Magazine, I break clarity down into 5 places where it falls apart in decorated apparel shops. Each one comes with homework.
- Customer: Who you are built to serve, and who drains your time. One headwear-only shop won’t partner with anyone spending less than $50,000 a month.
- Yes: Why selective shops say no, and what one large, low-margin order sold without production input did to everything else on the schedule.
- Good: Defining success before the job starts, so a task gets the same result in the same time no matter who does it.
- Time: How 9-minute screen setups cost one shop $352,350 a year at a $300 shop rate, and how preregistration cuts 2 hours of setup off every day.
- Profit: Why contribution margin can look healthy while real profit disappears. In this industry, labor is a variable cost, and the contribution margin excludes it.
Who should read this?
Owners of screen printing, embroidery, and promo shops who are busy every day but don’t see the profit to match. If you can’t say which customers make you money, start here.
The full article walks through the homework for all 5 areas, including the complete setup-time math.