This is a glass room divider featuring the Golden Gate Bridge.? The photo is taken from the Presidio on the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The size of the glass divider is approximately 32” x 48” and consists of eight 12 x 16 SolaPix® art glass panels. To create the artwork I used CorelDraw X6 to break the image into the individual components that make up the mural. To print the image panels I used my Ricoh GX 7000 printer with Subl...
Continue readingBy Michaele Birney Arneson As the owner of a 50-year-old trophy business redefining itself within the custom gifts and awards market, the exponential growth of the sublimation products industry is a godsend. With hundreds of products to use as blank canvas (including blank canvas), the only limit is one’s imagination. Therein lies the problem.&nbs...
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We have talked about business cards before but here is one more thing I think is vital to a sublimation business – full-color business cards. Until recently, full-color cards were just too cost prohibitive for a small business like mine. They still aren’t cheap but they are affordable and they sure turn heads. I never believed I would drop $150 for 1,000 business cards! And that was the wholesale price! Retail would have been closer to $300. Now, ...
Continue readingWhen you are selling a product, wouldn’t it be nice if every customer always ordered two or four of everything they ordered? Think what that would do to your bottom line? Well, I don’t know how to guarantee that but I know how to encourage it, and it really works. I show prices for everything in my showroom. Nothing odd about that. But I also show on every price tag the price for buying two or four or even more of the same item on the each price tag. Eve...
Continue readingGranted, I don’t sell many of them but I offer a heart shaped charm (sold by Conde) for $49.95. The charm costs me less than $10. Along the way, I learned how I could sell this innocent little charm (necklace to be more precise) for $50. Here is something of what I learned. I used to look at this heart shaped charm and see something with a perceived value of about $20. That’s because I’m not a woman who might wear it – nor a mother or grandmo...
Continue readingOne of the facts of life is that people don’t buy what they can’t touch. Each year, I spend thousands of dollars for my wife and I go attend the Las Vegas ARA Trade Show. Why? Because I want to see what’s new in the marketplace and by that, I mean I want to touch it, hold it in my own hand, feel and see the quality of it. In short, I want to fondle it. Why? Because, pictures lie. Have you ever ordered a dinner based on a picture in a menu only to be disa...
Continue readingby Steve Spence In years gone by, there were any number of companies that offered businesses a program to provide them with individual recognition plaques plus a master perpetual plaque for a single annual fee. Here’s how it worked: A company signs up with you to provide them with 12 monthly “Top Salesperson” plaq...
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Mirror Mirroring your image is a very important step when sublimating or using transfer papers. On most substrates if you fail to mirror your image your final product will be printed backwards. Some printers have the capability of mirroring where others do not. If your printer’s driver has this option I recommend setting it up by default. If it does not then you will have to turn to your application to do the ...
Continue readingby Steve Spence One of the easiest markets to sell to is your local Volunteer Fire Department. The men and women, who give their time to protect their community from fire and all the related tragedies in their community, do it out of a deep passion, a love for the job, the adrenaline rush and the camaraderie. Regardless of their motive however, one thing is sure, they love what they do. It is far more than a hobby; it is a calling and with it comes a d...
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