If you're an experienced T-shirt airbrush artist, you know that Christmastime sales can easily account for a third of your total yearly net profit. Therefore, getting your business in peak operating condition as you enter into November is essential.

In fact, planning your holiday season business should start as early as July if you are going to try to get set up in a mall or shopping center (a little later if you are going to be working other venues). But regardless of where your shop is located, planning early and following through on those plans are crucial to your potential success.

In this article, I will address a number of key points that often get overlooked (or are just not thought of) until it's too late. Whether you are going to set up shop in a mall or in your garage, these ideas should help your bottom line.

THE DO-IT-YOURSELF APPROACH
Don't assume that you have to be set up in some busy shopping center or mall to have good sales. It's Christmastime. All you have to do is get your stuff out under people's noses and have decent prices and guess what: They will buy it! It's almost guaranteed. Many of you are working out of your home and may think you can't make all that much money as an airbrusher. Wrong! Of course, your overall gross sales may never be as great as an artist working in a mall, but that's OK because you have a lot less overhead than they do. Taking this into consider- ation, you do not need to sell as much to make a good profit.

Consider all your friends, neighbors, and people you work with. Most of us have plenty. These are your customers. All you have to do is let them know that you paint these really neat airbrushed T-shirts, and by the way, they don't cost that much, and you can personalize them however they want them. Wow! Just the ticket for instant sales.

One of the easiest ways to present your business friends and coworkers is to make up a really nice photo album of your airbrush designs from which they can select a design for you to paint for them.

On your home computer, type up a menu of the blank shirts you offer and the price you wish to charge next to each type of shirt. Put this on the front page of your book. As you take orders for shirts, simply go to Wal-Mart or some other discount chain store and buy however many blank shirts you need. No need to have your own supply of shirts (too much overhead). Let Wal-Mart stock them for you!

On the next page of your book, give your customers simple instructions on how to select the shirt and the design they want and how to arrive at the total cost. Make it brief, easy to understand, and to the point.

Next in your book, you will show all of your designs. When deciding on what designs to include, remember one very important thing: It's Christmas, and price is a very important part of your success. The truth about Christmas sales is that most people come to an airbrush shop to buy a bunch of small gifts for people or relatives they really don't know all that well. they have little interest in what they get, and they definitely don't want to spend much money. And you know what? That's just fine with me!

First of all, these people are normally very easy to please. They can get all these little nuisance gifts out of the way at one time and don't have to run all over town. You can offer them the convenience of one-stop shopping. The customer is happy, you get all the business!

Success is all in the numbers. It's called volume sales. Show your photo album to as many people as possible— heck, make up three or four albums and pass them around! Nearly everyone at Christmastime needs a lot of little gifts— for nieces, nephews, grandkids, paperboys, friends' kids—the list goes on and on. All you have to do to sell them something (or maybe a lot of somethings) is to be there with the right stuff at lhe right time.

Now we get to the question "What are the right designs?" Well. whether you are working out of your home or in a high-traffic shopping mall, designs from $3 to $12 (plus the price of the T-shirt or sweatshirt) are the ticket. Having a great selection of subject matter to choose from is very important.

Name designs sell really well at $3 to $5. Sports designs are probably the most popular, with boyfriend-girifriend designs coming in a close second. All larger designs should sell from $8 to$12, plus the shirt price. You'll probably get a lot of requests for custom designs, too. The two categories asked for the most are animals—mainly family pets—and of course, cars. Have a good sampling of both, and try to accommodate your customers' budgets by giving them a good selection of prices and designs from which to choose. Remember, not every customer is looking for a Rembrandt!

When setting up your album, number all of your designs, and put a price on each one. In the front of your book, direct the customer to add the price of the shirt to the price of the design to arrive at the total cost.

When taking orders for shirts, tell your customers that you will have their order done on a certain day (give yourself a day or two of production time). Always be very specific about the date. Be sure to write it on their order ticket and give them a copy.

Then all you have to do is go to Wal-Mart, buy the blank shirt, paint it, and get it to the customer on time to collect your money. (You decide if you'd rather collect your money up front or after you deliver the finished order.)

This little type of home business has worked very well at Christmas for many airbrushers. I've known some who have even enlisted friends to hold airbrush T-shirt parties much Tupperware parties. All such promotion works. The main thing is to get your stuff seen by as many people as possible. The more you do that, the greater the potential for success.

TIPS FOR RETAIL AIRBRUSH STORES AT CHRISTMASTIME
"Be prepared" must be your motto if you have a shop in a mall or shopping center. Whether you are ready or not, the customers will be!

My biggest concern at Christmas is trying to minimize the time I have to take to produce the product. Making the entire process as efficient as possible is the real challenge. It's essential to have everything in place and in order. This is true at the start of the holiday shopping season on November I, and it still needs to be so at 5:00 p.m. on December 24. The latter is not as easy. It happens only if your whole crew understands that you simply will not have it any other way.

Properly setting up your stencils can really help. Always have at least two sets of everything made up going into November. That way, when one set wears out halfway through the season, you don't have to take time to cut new stencils. For designs that are really popular or boyfriend-girifriend designs that are normally done in pairs, always have a lot of stencils cut so that if you get a multiple order for one of these designs, you can set them all up at once and paint them assembly-line style, making the most of your time.

Pennant felt stenciling material is tailor-made for standard design stencils because it is thick and absorbent. It stays dry when you spray the stencil with paint. Working with a dry stencil is inorc pleasant, and it's faster because you don't have to deal with the excess wet paint found on other stencil materials (such as posterboard or polystyrene plastic). Your hands and clothing stay clean, and when storing your stencils. there is no wet paint to dry and cause the other stencils in your file to stick together. I purchase my pennant felt from Troy Corporation, (800-888-2400). which offers it in minimum 25-yard bolts at a cost of approximately $ 1.95 a yard.

GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR SUPPORT STAFF
It's been my feeling when talking to airbrushers around the country that most of them don't expect enough of their assistants, the people we lovingly call "shirt nurses."

"Good help is hard to find," you always hear. That may be true, but if you don't train the helpers that you have properly, none of them can be good. In fact, they will most likely be in your way!

Hiring your shirt nurses long enough in advance to train them is the key. Give yourself at least two weeks with a new helper before he or she is really needed. Expect your shirt nurse to greet your customers with a smiling face and enthusiasm when they enter the store. Your helper should learn the basics of your pricing and your painting abilities. The assistant should be expected to complete the entire sales transaction, then set up the shirt on a board with an attached reference photo of the design to be painted so that everything's all ready for you. Your helpers should be taught to retrieve the proper stencil from your file and spray it with adhesive. You can even train them over time to know how and where to apply the the stencil for the design by looking at the design reference photo.