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Finding And Keeping Good Digitizers
By: Robert Young, Volant Technologies
Issue: 2006jul
How do you find good digitizers? You can use the services of your embroiderer, but then the question is, Who owns the design if you want to use a different shop for a repeat order? By contracting your own digitizing, you have greater control over pricing and lead times. If your digitizer works closely with your embroiderer, you also have another way to control quality.
Beware though, as all digitizers are not created equal. In fact, most are not “created” at all but become digitizers by default. There are no digitizing schools, certification processes or levels of digitizing aptitude to lend credibility or alert you to special qualifications. Digitizers usually begin as employees in a shop where they learn on the job or are trained by existing digitizers, who will probably share little for fear of making their jobs less secure.
Digitizers may be limited in their expertise. For instance, those working for a hat company may not have much experience on digitizing art for shirts—likewise, those digitizers with experience working with a shirt manufacturer might not be well versed in hat embroidery. Digitizers spending their time in a small embroidery shop in a warm part of the country probably have not spent much time on designs for sweaters, sweatshirts and jackets. They only know what they know, which is why it is important to think about the types of embroidered items you frequently sell and match your digitizers to those needs.
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
A simple list of questions will help you make your digitizing matches.
How long have the digitizers been doing this type of work? Time served does not equal knowledge gained—but at least it is a start.
How long have they been in business? They may have been digitizing for 10 years at XYZ embroidery but only out on their own for six months. Being good digitizers does not equal being good business owners. Running all aspects of a business is much harder than just working as a digitizer for another company. Businesses go under all the time, and you cannot control that. However, you can at least hedge your bet and try to pick your digitizers on whatever criteria you determine to prove they are reputable successful and in it for the long haul.
What do they like to digitize? Normally, if they like something, they tend to be better at it or at least care about making it the best they can.
Have they won any competitions or awards? Winning doesn’t necessarily mean they can digitize anything other than the design that won, but it does show a willingness to let others critique their work.
WHO ARE YOU?
What type of distributorship is your company? Is your goal to provide quality products of which you and your clients are proud? Are referrals naturally coming in because your embroidery is getting noticed? Or is your goal to simply get the embroidery on the item and ship it? Do you believe as long as the client pays for it, who cares?
ESTABLISHING TRUST
Once you have found the matches you need for the type of embroidery you sell, then you should trust your digitizers because they are now partners with your company. If you have chosen correctly, they will do the best they can for you. If you are trying to match something done previously, let them know this.
Your digitizers are human, and design consistency may change depending on what is going on in their lives and when in the week they produce your design. A design punched first thing Monday morning may not be the same as one done in the middle of the week or another completed right before closing time on Friday evening—this is especially true if it is a one-person shop. But digitizers want your business and should always try to do the best they can. They will not tell you something cannot be done unless they believe it cannot or the quality will suffer if they do.
This information may mean that in order to provide your clients with quality digitizing, you may need to have two or more digitizers at your disposal—each with different abilities. Although this makes your job more complicated, if your goal is to provide the best possible products and services to your clients, it is simply something you have to do to stay competitive. PPB
Robert Young is president of San Antonio-Texas-based business service provider Volant Technologies (UPIC: Volan356), which has been designated as a PPAI Business Partner. A web-based service, Volant offers its digitizing services through a U.S.-based team of digitizers with design experience in all major substrates.
In the embroidery industry competitions, Volant has taken first place 14 times—in headwear, shirts, multi-media and framed art—and the company is listed as a Digitizer of Distinction in Impressions Magazine.
Young, who has 17 years’ experience as a digitizer, began Volant Technologies five years ago and may be reached at 866-240-8025 or ryoung@volant-tech.com.
Know Your Embroidery Style
When you are in the interviewing process, be sure to communicate to digitizers exactly what you expect in your designs and find out from the start if these requirements are acceptable to them. Even with great communication upfront, it can still take a few tries for digitizers to get the digitizing the way you want it for your embroidery style. Learning your style is critical for a successful match.
Case in point: Select a design that has embroidered great in the past and send it to five embroidery shops to run a sample on the same material. You know the design has already proven to work on your order, so the digitizing is good. If the five samples do not match, what happened?
The embroidery style, machine speeds, thread tensions and backings used are different from embroiderer to embroiderer, machine to machine and operator to operator. The digitizing did not change, but any of the other variables can change, and the design may need modifying.
Give them a few designs to learn your style. If, however, the relationship does not work and you find yourself going from one digitizer to another, then you are probably the one at fault.
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Copyright (c) 2005-2010 Promotional Products Association International. All Rights Reserved.
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