You see, regardless of what political party you represent, loathe, or just don’t want to hear from, there is a market out there for political t-shirts. You may not even want to sell a t-shirt that is encouraging the other guy to win, but what exactly are you trying to do here? Make money for your business or stand up for your principles?

Well, if you’re standing up for your principles, you might want to skip this post. If you’re into making money for your business, then you should read on.

Campaign shirts can be a nice cash cow for your t-shirt business. Not only can you count on a presidential election every 4 years, but you can also work the rest of the election circuit (every 2 years).

Now, let this be said: You need to watch what you’re doing here. If you’re selling products with the intention of giving any proceeds or profits to the campaign, then you can say that in your sales copy (but make sure you’re prepared to back it up if someone asks for records).

If you’re just selling Pro / Anti political shirts, then just list them as that. Don’t ever sell anything and say that the proceeds will benefit a certain group just to spike sales. That’s a quick way to go to jail (I realize that most people would consider this common sense, but just in case, it needs to be said).

Campaign Shirts – Time To Make Fun of Politicians!

I consider myself a capitalist more so than a political activist, so I sell t-shirts promoting any and all candidates. I also will sell some shirts that make fun of those candidates as well. Hey…while you’re at it, you might as well cover the funny campaign t-shirts as well (and usually those are my best sellers).

If you’re running dry of ideas for good campaign t-shirts, just type Political T-shirts into Google, eBay, or even CafePress. These sites will give you thousands of ideas. Now don’t go out and rip off the first one you see. Be original and come up with your own campaign ideas. Besides, there’s no better form of flattery than seeing some of your best ideas being copied all over the internet.

I find that the best place to sell campaign tee shirts is on eBay. There is a lot of competition, but they also already have the traffic. I will sell 5 more political tees on eBay then we do on our own website. Once they start to take off, it seems like they never stop.

And don’t think that it’s too late to start selling campaign shirts. I will literally sell them up until the day of the campaign and depending on who wins, I’ve actually sold them for up to a year after the fact. So don’t take them down once the race is over. Some people want these shirts for whatever reason (sentimental or otherwise).

But make sure that you get them up and running ASAP. You can leave thousands of dollars on the table if you wait even a few days. Happy campaigning and here’s to your guy/gal winning!

Interested in more ways to help out your t-shirt business? CHECK THIS OUT!
 
 

 
 

I get a lot of requests for blank shirt templates. People are always asking me where we get our templates and t-shirt diagrams from. The truth is sometimes we make them, other times they are provided to us (by manufacturers and wholesalers) and other times we have had them for so long (I actually forgot where we got them).

You Can Download Our T shirt Templates

If you would like, you can download our entire catalog of blank shirt diagrams and templates (in zip file). There are more than 320 images and blanks. Some are model images (with blank shirts). Others are just blank shirt templates. There are even some front and back images.

All of the t shirt templates are of decent size and there are so many of them that have multiple colors (especially the model images). Most of the model shirt templates are those where you do not see any faces, you just see the t shirts.

Use These Blank Shirt Templates for Your Clients

Now with all of these different t-shirt templates you can see what your tee shirt designs will look like on an actual shirt. Then you can send those images to your t-shirt printer or to your client for approval.

Here is a quick breakdown of the t shirt templates:

• Long Sleeve – Men’s and Women’s
• Models – Men’s and Women’s (Short and Long Sleeve)
• Raglan T-shirts
• Ringer T-shirts
• Sweatshirts & Hoodies
• T-shirts – Men’s Front and Back, Garment Dyed, and 2 other sets
• Vector T-shirt Templates
• T-shirts – Women’s Cap Sleeve, Raglan, Ringer, Spaghetti Strap Tank Tops, Standard Tank Tops, and Regular T-shirts

So download the t-shirt templates today. There is no cost to do so, we just hope you can put them to good use like we have.

Download Our Blank Shirt Template by Filling In Your Email Address Below:

People often ask me where I get ideas for the t-shirts that we sell. The answer that I typically give is “Everywhere”. However, even I do sometimes get stale for new shirt ideas, so I turn to the Internet.

You can just do random searches, look for funny t-shirt ideas, or even just go to a news site like Yahoo.com. Just spending time looking around at the entertainment section should give you plenty of shirt ideas.

Great Shirt Ideas

Great shirt ideas come from everywhere. You can get them from:

• Movies (make sure you’re not using copyrighted material)
• Television (same as above)
• The News
• Pop Culture
• Sports
• Kids
• Even the funny things you do in everyday life

With movies and television, maybe there is a new catch phrase that is making the rounds that might be good on a t-shirt. Just remember to make sure the catch phrase it not copyrighted or trademarked.

With the news, is there a funny news story going around that might make a good t-shirt. Remember when Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan got arrested? There were numerous t-shirt sites out there that we selling Free Paris or Free Lindsay t-shirts.

If celebrities aren’t your bag, maybe you can make shirts to root for your local sports team (copyright and trademark rules apply here too). Perhaps there is a new nickname for a player or the team and you can use those on a t-shirt.

Sometimes I will just put down certain things that my kids have said to me. And yes, they may seem funny to me and no one else, but that is the chance you take with every shirt idea. But believe me, for every t-shirt idea, there is a t-shirt buyer.

Other Funny T-shirt Ideas

Other great shirt ideas come from everyday life. Perhaps something one of your friends said to you, or even a bumper sticker.

Ideas never stop flowing. I usually keep a notebook at my desk, next to my bed, and in my car. I have thousands of ideas that are in these books and when it’s time to put some new ideas up on the t-shirt site, I have plenty to choose from.

For more tips and tricks on great shirt ideas and how to start a t-shirt business, CLICK HERE.

There are so many different ways that you can market t-shirts or advertise your t-shirt website. But one of the biggest mistakes that I see is that when people are marketing their site, they are marketing the brand of the site instead of the products. NOW…with that said, if you already have a brand that has been established for quite some time, that is OK. But it is very expensive to build a brand from the ground up.

So instead of spending thousands of dollars online to market your brand, instead you should be marketing your t-shirts or lines of t-shirts. For instance, our website has a number of different types of tshirts on it. Funny Tshirts, movie t-shirts, tv tee shirts, and many others. So instead of marketing our site we will market funny tshirts, movie tshirts, an so on.

With that said, sometimes those are some pretty competitive search terms and it may cost us quite a bit of money to advertise for those terms on a consistent basis. So lets look at marketing our individual t-shirts.

WINNING! Tshirt Marketing

Remember when Charlie Sheen was WINNING! He had t-shirts all over the internet. Some with his catch phrases on them and others that were mocking him. Regardless, these t-shirts were all over the internet. So if I had some of these t-shirts on my site, I would want to market Charlie Sheen t-shirts. These were hot at the time and there were a ton of searches for them.

To find out the best way to go about tshirt marketing, we will turn to Google. To find out what search terms are hot, use Google’s Keyword Tool (when you get there look under the tools link). Just type in something that you think may be a hot topic and Google will tell you how many times a month those terms are searched for. You will be able to see not only local searches, but global searches, how much competition there is, and how much a click may cost you if you advertise on that search term (but if your page is set up correctly, these costs listed are usually much higher than what you will pay).

If you type in Funny t-shirts in the keyword tool, you will see that the term is searched for 246,000 times a month and may cost you 78 cents per click if you are using Pay Per Click Advertising. But if you type in Charlie Sheen Shirts, you come up with 18,100 searches on only 52 cents per click.

Tshirt Marketing 101

Now even though there are far fewer searches, the Charlie Sheen searches are highly targeted searches with people looking for a specific product. Sure, you may get way more visitors using funny t-shirts, but what do you want? Traffic or targeted traffic.

Targeted traffic is much more likely to buy shirts from your website. Especially if they entered a SPECIFIC search term into Google and found your ad and website. Also, it is much cheaper to market this way.

Tshirt marketing can get expensive and out of control in a hurry. You may be able to get 1000 clicks to your website per day at 78 cents each which would cost you $780.00. But how many of those are targeted buyers? In my experience, there is so much competition in the funny t-shirt market, that most of the traffic you get are just people looking around. They are not buyers, they are just kicking the tires and killing some time. You can go broke advertising t-shirts like this, and in a HURRY.

So stick with targeted advertising for your t-shirts. You will get more customers who are actually buying what you’re selling.

If you’re interested in how to start your own online t-shirt business, CLICK HERE.

Happy Marketing!

Here is a quick little tutorial on how to design a tshirt. Now, before you get too deep into this video, this video is a little bit more advanced. It is using Illustrator and a 4 color t-shirt is being designed. Now if you are a rookie, or new to designing shirts, perhaps you should start out with a 1 or 2 color design.

In all honesty, you can make a lot of great shirts with only 1 color designs if you are creative enough. We have run our entire t-shirt shop with only 1 color designs since the beginning. Not to say that you shouldn’t do 2 color designs or more, but it comes down to what you really want to do with your t-shirt shop.

It also really depends on how much you want to spend in the tshirt design process. When you learn how to design a tshirt, people will talk about expensive graphic programs, set up costs, screen charges, and more. Don’t get discouraged, just keep reading. We have some solutions for you when it comes to how to design a tshirt.

Tshirt Design Tips

You see, if you are printing these shirts yourself, then more than one color will really only cost you some time and a minimal amount of supplies (screens, emulsion, etc). But if you are paying someone else to print your shirts for you, each color is usually going to be a separate set up charge. Here is an example:

If you have a 4 color t-shirt to be printed. Most shops will charge you $15 – $20 for each color as a set up charge. So you are looking at anywhere between $60 and $80 plus the cost of the t-shirt. Now if you are printing more than 1 shirt, you only have to pay that set up charge once. But you see how expensive that it can get.

So if you’re printing only a 1 color job, it may cost you $15 for the set up, but it is a lot cheaper than $8. So that is something to keep in mind.

Also, if you’re looking at starting your own t-shirt printing business, you can do what we did and purchase a small t-shirt press. Now we purchased a 1 color – 1 station t-shirt printing press and started printing our own shirts. It’s a great way to make some extra money and even start your own full time business as we have.

Another thing to touch on in this video is the fact that they are using expensive design software for these shirts, and you don’t need those right away. Sure, they are nice to have and have a million features (if you know how to use them), but they are not necessary when starting out.

You can find out more information on how to start your very own t-shirt business and how to design a tshirt inside of our t-shirt business training. It is jam packed with videos on how to design a tshirt, start your own t-shirt website, and even advertising and marketing tips.Click here to join our training.

So take a look around, we hope you will visit us again soon.

Our Videos on How To Design A Tshirt

Thanks for visiting…

Mike

Just one question. When it comes to t-shirt marketing, are you on Pinterest yet? If not, you’re already behind.

Pinterest is the fastest growing site on the web today. In fact, it is already in the top 60 sites on the planet (according to Alexa) and it is only growing faster. The big gimmick of Pinterest is that there are no articles, just pictures. It is garnering a lot of attention from not only social media users, but businesses as well.

Basically it is an online bulletin board. Except, you can only put up pictures. And anyone can put up anything that they want (within reason, good taste, and not illegal or pornographic). If you have a new t-shirt you just designed, it’s time to show it to the world.

Do you have a t-shirt that people are going nuts over? Then perhaps you should get involved in the Pinterest T-shirt Project. What is the Pinterest t-shirt Project you ask?

Ok…we just made that up, but it sounds good doesn’t it? But really, just go over to Pinterest.com and scroll down. The only thing that you see are pictures and comments by people using their Facebook profiles. Wow, the number 2 website and the number 59 website on the planet. Tell me, is that enough traffic for you?

So you need to start your own Pinterest t-shirt project. You need to be on that website and promoting not only your brand, but your best selling t-shirts. If you have a really funny t-shirt that sells, pin it up there. The more comments you get, the more viral your shirt gets. It’s a win – win for everyone as you can also share items that you have pinned up there on Facebook and Twitter. Once people pin your products, you can reach out to them and connect with your audience.

Now, with all of that said, Pinterest does frown upon self promotion, but you can help people find you by installing a “Pin It” button on your website next to your products. That way when people find your t-shirts, that can help promote your business (similar to the like button on Facebook).

Join the Pinterest T-shirt community. There are thousands of t-shirts already on Pinterest and it has sprung up a community that not only shares ideas, but gives each other clients and customers alike. I heard somewhere that Networking is a good idea for business owners (who knew?).

So, use those social networking skills for something other than updating your Facebook status to newly single.

Start your own Pinterest t-shirt project today.

Talk again soon,

Mike

Here’s a quick 12 Steps on How to Start a T-shirt Business. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of these points exactly (and I let you know my comments in parenthesis), I do like the simplicity of it because starting a new business is never easy. It does take work and determination to do so. However, here is a quick overview of some of the things you will need to do.

1. Start A T-shirt Business – Is This The Right Business For You?
2. Understand How a T-shirt Business Operates.
3. Make Sure There is a Profitable Market for Your Business Idea (This might want to be pushed up to item number 1)
4. Create a Business Plan For Your T-shirt Business
5. Set Up Your Business Team
6. Get a Small Business Loan if Necessary (as we show in our Start a T-shirt Business training, this step is not necessary).
7. Legalize Your T-shirt Business
8. Get the Right Equipment for Your T-shirt Business (not always needed in today’s t-shirt world)
9. Get Insurance For your T-shirt Business
10. Prepare to Accept Money (this is discussing how to get paid for your shirts).
11. Set Up Your Accounting System
12. Acquire Customers For Your T-shirt Business (easier said than done, but good to point out).

Now that you have a basic understanding of what it takes to start a t-shirt business, check out our training on how to start your own t-shirt business. It covers everything that you see here and much much more. All in great detail and videos that walk you through step-by-step. Click below to find out more…

How to Start Your Own T-shirt Business

Until Next Time…

Mike

T-Shirt Company Business Plan

To have a business plan…or not to have one…that is the question.

In the last 5 years, a number of people have asked me if I have a t-shirt business plan. Whether they are people interested in my business for conversation sake, or people (banks or otherwise) who I’m looking to do business with, it happens more than you might think.

For the first few years I would answer that I don’t have a business plan. I always would seem to get a strange look in return. Finally when I would receive those looks, I finally started to ask “What does that have to do with anything? I have a successful t-shirt business without a t-shirt business plan.”

Well, it turns out…that I didn’t need to have a business plan…but it would have been better if I did.

Sure, it would be great if I did have one, but that takes a lot of research, time, effort, and so on to put together a business plan. I just don’t have any extra of any of these. Oh…but if you had a business plan, you would save yourself so much time, effort, and research in the future.

The Lego Business Plan

Think about it this way. Say you’re putting together a Lego rocket ship for your kids (obviously this is something that I’ve had to do lately). Could I do it without the instructions? Sure, but then there is probably a good chance that it will take me longer, it will not look exactly like the picture, and I just may have a few hundred pieces left over. Would you call this a complete job? Of course not.

Now say that you have the instructions. You can do the job more efficiently, it will look correct, and I will you have used all of the pieces. Sure, someone had to take the time, effort, and put the research in to make up these instructions. However, this plan made it possible for the user to succeed with less effort, time, and research.

So, does one need to have a business plan to become successful? Absolutely not, however, it sure does make things a lot easier.

Have a look at my own experience in the T-shirt business. If I had a plan in place prior to starting the business, I may have known when it was time to expand and how to go about that.

Over the first few years I always wondered when and if I should expand. It was always just a lingering thought in the back of my mind. Once I thought about it I would usually discarded as daydreaming or something that I was not ready to do. You see, I didn’t have a plan. I had no idea when the time would be right. And as more time passed I started to see that procrastination or lack of planning was a problem with my business.

If I had that plan laid out ahead of time I would’ve known the right time to grow the business and how to start doing that. With that said, would a business plan tell me exactly how to do things correctly? Of course not, mistakes in business will always be made. But at least I would have had a foundation to start building on rather than just thinking about it and not taking action.

A Business Plan Is Not Perfect

A business plan is not going to be perfect. In fact, a good business plan should be updated consistently as different problems, solutions, technologies will evolve in time. Will a solution be the same today as it was 10 years ago when a business plan was written? Possibly, but chances are that it will have changed.

Would I have a better business today if I had a plan laid out ahead of time? Without a doubt. Your judgement does get better with more experience on the job. But as a business owner, your priorities will tend to get jumbled. Not because you’re not thinking about them, but because there are so many to think about. With a plan in place, it would have been a reminder that you’re working towards a goal and you need to take these steps to get there. Forget about the small problem that you have today (or just spend less time making it into a big problem) and figure out how you’re going to fix it and move on toward the big picture.

So take a look at your business around you. Are the people involved with your business the people you would have chosen when you started it? Are the processes you use now the same ones you would have predicted? Are you growing as fast as you would like? Maybe yes is the answer to some of these questions and maybe no. However, the answers to these questions would likely have come easier if you would have been thinking about them since you started your business and written these answers down in a t-shirt business plan.

Good Luck…

Mike

Want To Know How to Start A T-shirt Business in 7 Days? Click Here

Business Plan Content – Wikipedia Article

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