2025 Planning Power-Up: Strategies for a Successful Year

Get ready to hit the ground running in 2025! In this annual planning episode, Terry and Aaron share fresh, unique strategies to help you prepare for your most successful year yet. As planning geeks, they’ll guide you through actionable ideas to improve your processes, set impactful goals, and elevate your business in the new year. From reviewing 2024’s lessons to implementing innovative tools and forward-thinking strategies, this episode is packed with insights to inspire growth and change. Whether you’re fine-tuning your current plans or looking for creative new ways to push forward, this is a show you don’t want to miss!

Our regular listeners know this, but 2 Regular Guys are all about garment decorating, a bit of fun, and no rants, lectures, or selling. 2 Regular Guys was not created for our employers but for our industry. Since February 2013, The 2 Regular Guys have been the first and the most listened-to garment decorating industry podcast on this planet! We are humbled by all of you tuning in each week. We work hard to bring you information that will improve your business and our industry. Take a look at our incredible weekly guest list, and you’ll understand where this industry goes for news, interviews, and the heartbeat of garment decorating. Thanks for listening!

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News

If you have anything newsworthy you would like us to share, please email details to info@2regularguys.com. Use the subject line “Weekly News.”

Dad Joke

Why was the letter E the only letter to receive a gift from Santa?

The rest of the letters were Not-E (Naughty) 

Thanks, Ramona McKee 

Bonus: During Christmas, there are only 25 letters in the alphabet

Yep, No L (Noel)

Planning for 2025

Last year…

Terry: Stop and take a deep sigh of relief. You made it through the worst business interruption in decades. How can we use this experience in 2024 and beyond?

• What did you learn about you… about your business?
• Who helped you keep your business afloat? What can you do to show your appreciation, and build on that relationship?
• Diversify your technology
• Diversify your customer base

Aaron: Sustainability Initiatives: In 2024 the customer’s priorities are changing. Sustainability is no longer a buzz marketing term, but a requirement to a lot of our markets. The buyer has increased awareness and demand for eco-friendly and ethically produced apparel. Understanding what that truly means to your customers is crucial. 

• Sourcing sustainable materials
• Reducing waste
• Adopting eco-conscious production methods.

Terry: It’s time to implement 52/15 Training. A new year and a new approach to education in your shop.

• What it’s about…
• Best-trained staff in your market
• Don’t know where to start? Go into the 2RG archives and use the Secret Sauce videos.

Aaron: Customer-Centric Approach: I believe 2024 is going to be a good year, but I think it is also going to be a cautious year. Election year, lots of unrest in the world. Decorators must make decisions based on their unique business foundation. Decorators need to be very clear about what their reason and values are, who exactly their ideal customers are, and what specific internal challenge they can solve for their ideal customers. So take some time to look at how you interact with your ideal client.

• Do your services really meet their complete needs?
• What processes or “ways we have always done it” need to be changed?
• What policies need to be rewritten to make sure they focus on what is in it for the customer?

Terry: Take a look back at your 2023 expenses. Compare them with 2022, and beyond, maybe your last healthy year before covid. Everything costs more now, and we can’t expect inflation to turn into deflation.

• Does anything stand out?
• Anything you can remove or tighten up?
• How does this impact what you’re charging? 

Aaron: Become a Goal Getter. Planning and goal setting go hand in hand, but I’d encourage you to make 2024 the year that you become a goal getter instead of a goal setter.

• Quitter’s Day Story
• What is the difference (Getter v Setter)
  • Vague versus Specific (How Much and By When)
  • Huge Leap versus Broken Down
  • Hidden versus Shared with Others

Terry: Cut your losses… processes, employees, equipment, customers…

• The year in review
• Start the year with a clean slate

Aaron: Your Support System: If you ever want to get into an unending argument with me, try to explain to me why you believe that success is something you can do alone and that you are independent and don’t need any help. Success is a team sport. And one of the most important things you can do to ensure success in 2024 is to be intentional about your success team. 

• Top 5 – You are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with – Be intentional
• Hire a VA – OSG.link/iworker
• Leave some Facebook Groups / Start Your Own with Your Ideal Customers Instead!
• Join a Mastermind Program (HSS and MOS)

Terry: Now let’s look at some new ideas for 2025 to plan for success. 

Terry: Looking for new business for 2025? Build promotional packages for your neighbor businesses.

• Personalize garments and promotional items with their logos, not yours
• Send the same package to some of your own customers, to show them what more you have to offer
• Offer this same service for those same neighbor businesses to send to their own customers

Aaron: Implement a Weekly ‘Business Health’ Check-In: Choose one consistent day and time every week to pause and assess key metrics, like production efficiency, expenses, customer satisfaction, and team performance. Build a habit of proactively addressing issues before they grow into major problems.

Terry: Time for a Trade Show. I’m always surprised when I meet decorators who tell me they’ve never been to a trade show. There are lots of new technologies and products in the past year or two. Plan to go to a trade show this year and see what’s new, face-to-face.

• Go with a plan of what you want to see
• If you are taking staff, give each an assignment of what to look for and be ready to report back about what they found
• You don’t have to change how you do things, but don’t be left behind either
• Message to vendors: We get it, you got through Covid without trade shows so you think you can keep doing that. Your competitors are back at the shows, and new customers won’t know who you are going forward. Don’t allow yourself to suddenly be in catch-up mode when your sales take a dip.

Aaron: Clarity + Confidence + Action = Business Success.

-Clarity comes from alignment, perspective, and intention.

-Confidence comes from surviving a risk

-Action only comes once we have survived a risk to gain confidence and that action also brings more clarity (success leaves clues)

The practical application of this is to flip the script, instead of squinting for more clarity, summoning up more confidence, and then tip-toeing into action. I’d suggest your plan is full of actions, taking as many as you can, letting those actions give you more confidence by celebrating all the successes and allowing the confidence to give you more clarity on the next steps. I’d first invite you to take action on the SVP Business Assessment I have been talking about. OSG.link/svp As our friends at Nike would say, JUST DO IT!

Terry: Clean Slate for your production floor in 2025. Are you limping and struggling with equipment that is past its prime, making production more difficult and time-consuming? I’ll use a screen print shop as an example.

• Squeegees last a long time, but over time they need to be replaced. Take stock of your squeegee inventory.
• Do you have screens in your inventory that have less than ideal tension? It’s time to start replacing them. Many of your suppliers will take old aluminum frames as a trade-in on new ones.
• Are there inks, chemicals, supplies on the shelf with a ¼” of dust on top. Clean up and clear out to start the new year.
• Pull out your Exposure Calculator and test that your exposure times are still correct.
• In any other type of decorating business, you get the idea here. Make your own list of things to test, replace, clean up to start a new year of production.

Aaron: The Next Step of a Goal Getter – Last year we talked about the difference between a goal setter and a getter. Someone who achieves what they set out to do. This year it is time to go even deeper. Get EXTREMELY specific with your goals, create cue-based plans, make goal pursuit fun, stay flexible, build social support, and take consistent action.<