In 1982, Fred Schwartz left his job as a mechanical engineer at General Electric, deciding it would be fun to start a company focused on creating personalized products.
8 Can’t-miss Time-saving Hacks
Industry experts weigh in on everything from keeping your employees engaged to creating boilerplate emails and reusable jigs.
By Matthew Blake
(Originally printed in the November/December 2022 issue of Insights.)
In 1982, Fred Schwartz left his job as a mechanical engineer at General Electric, deciding it would be fun to start a company focused on creating personalized products.
Clockwise from top left: Randy Allen from Engraving Concepts; Fred Schwartz from Quality One Engraving; Shon Roti from 9th Street Designs
“I made some mail flyers and got the business off the ground making license plate frames and then going to swap meets,” recalls Schwartz, who is the vice president at Quality One Engraving in Rancho Cucamonga, California. “My first major issue became how to manage the engraving stock. I had piles all over the place.”
Schwartz realized that instead of treating the scraps like garbage, he needed to think of them as a commodity. Along with the full-sheet storage racks he constructed for yet-to-be-used material, Schwartz built half-sheet storage racks and divisible cabinets for the scraps. He also added compact, tuck-top boxes for excess material.
Schwartz then began thinking about ways to reuse the metal or plastic sheets, whether for a sample or a smaller project like a magnet or keychain.
In short, it was an office hack—one small trick to save time, money and/or stress. For Schwartz, an array of these seemingly minor office hacks, from choosing the right equipment to understanding when a job must be outsourced, has led to efficiency gains.
Other industry veterans, including Eddie Hill at Award Masters and David Takes of Expressions Engraved, have also unearthed hacks that were not obvious when they started in the business. More recent arrivals to the awards and personalization industry, such as Sara Thompson at JDS Industries, bring their own approaches to resourcefulness, including creating a better work environment. “I find new ways to get to know my team,” Thompson says. “It helps with overall production.”
1. Maximize (or minimize) your workspace
In 2019, after 20 years in the awards and personalization industry, Shon Roti opened the graphic design and production consulting company 9th Street Designs out of his home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
At first, working from home in an 8-foot by 12-foot room was just a money saver. But Roti discovered a benefit to a small workspace: “The reduction of steps needed while working on any particular project,” he says.
“There is time saved moving product from a staging table to the equipment that decorates the product,” Roti says. “In larger production spaces I have managed, the distances between storage, staging tables and production equipment can increase the overall production time.”
Meanwhile, in Roti’s present space, “My product storage, staging table and production equipment are literally within an arm’s length of the chair and desk in my office.”
Roti’s desk can double as a staging table, while a dedicated staging table stores equipment below.
Dave Stevens, technical development manager at Trotec Laser, shares Roti’s small-space strategy. Stevens, who works from his company’s Phoenix office and his home, says: “Have a designated space with your computer and other office supplies.”
2. Constantly make jigs
The No. 1 product assemblage office hack, mentioned time and again by laser engravers, is completing a jig for any product that features a recurring aspect.
Anyone using a laser engraver should draw a jig via software such as CorelDraw and then place a printed version in the honeycombed bed of their laser. “If we know we will be engraving a product over and over, we make a jig for it,” says Hill, president of Pensacola, Florida-headquartered Award Masters Inc., a company that Hill purchased with his wife in 2006.
“[The jig] improves predictability, expedites production, reduces efforts, minimizes mistakes and improves results,” Hill says.
Thompson implores her nine-member JDS team to carefully create jigs. Like Hill, Thompson believes that a well-done jig not only saves time but improves the product’s accuracy. Plus, the material to print the jig can also include scrap plastic. “It’s anything that we have around,” Thompson says.
3. Send texts with a tracking phone number
In describing what technology is useful in clearly and directly communicating with the customer, APA members described a couple of shortcuts. For Hill, one is Award Master’s tracking phone number.
A tracking phone number that can store information on a caller is not exactly new. But its text application means that Hill and his team do not have to use their personal cell phones when communicating with clients. To have a strictly professional texting number is important, says Hill, because “a growing percentage of our customers prefer text over email.”
4. Implement boilerplate email communication
Just like with a jig, boilerplate email copy can help cut down on time. After all, customers aren’t looking for unique email communication. They typically just want pertinent information related to their order.
As such, industry professionals can set up email templates to respond to, say, order updates or people can copy and paste text from previously written emails. Either way, you shouldn’t be spending loads of time crafting personalized messages for every item that comes across your inbox. “If you are not using email templates, you are missing out,” says Randy Allen, sales and tech support, Engraving Concepts.
5. Organize client orders with spreadsheets
Since starting Expressions Engraved in 2000, David Takes has single-handedly produced wood, crystal and acrylic awards and personalized gifts.
For Takes, the biggest timesaver was when he started using Google Sheets to manage his production workflow. The spreadsheet software, a competitor of similar products like Microsoft Excel Online and Apple Numbers, provides endless rows and columns to track customer requests.
“At a glance, I can see every order in the pipeline,” Takes says, adding that cells will automatically change colors if there’s a conflict in the production schedule.
Takes has a sheet for each component of the business. “In addition to the tracking production, we also have an underlying page where we can immediately list any product or material that needs to be ordered,” Takes says.
Embracing such software “is a nice, centralized way to make sure nothing gets lost in the shuffle,” Takes says.
6. Produce informative newsletters, webpages and videos
How much time is spent answering the same questions over and over again? That thought has spurred businesses such as laser manufacturer Trotec into creating newsletters and webpages that provide clients expanded answers to their most-asked questions.
“Having resources on hand for your most commonly asked questions can be a huge time saver, especially if you keep them in a public space for your clients to access,” Stevens says.
A recent Trotec monthly newsletter includes a how-to video from Stevens on laser cutting. It also incorporates a “customer success story,” which doubles as a guide for customers on how to use the Trotec Speedy 400 laser.
Additionally, Trotec sends updates on upcoming exhibitions and internal job openings. Even if recipients don’t open the newsletter initially, a copy can be emailed in response to a customer question.
“Remind your clients that resources are available in newsletters, email and on social media,” Stevens says. “This will reduce the inquiries you need to process and eliminate any unnecessary back-and-forth communication.”
Another medium used by Stevens and JDS are instructional videos. According to Thompson, numerous customers have told her that they’ve watched JDS videos. “Communicating through the video platform is important,” Thompson says. “Visuals mean a lot to clients.”
7. Keep your team informed
After 40 years in the personalization industry, Eddie Hill quite literally has a book’s worth of knowledge. “I made what we call a ‘quick reference’ book,” Hill says. “Every single question that could come up goes in that book. If a new question comes up, I type the answer and put it in the book.”
The book is three inches thick, with copies spread across Award Masters’ office. “We have one for each salesperson up front,” Hill says.
The sales team uses it to index prices for every possible item. That includes, for example, the going rate of engraving an urn or a sword. The book also contains standard operating procedures for each machine, including maintenance and assembly and how to vary operations based on whether wood, metal, plastic or another material is being used.
The takeaway: Sales and production techniques can be passed down in a clear, comprehensive way to all employees.
Workplace equipment stations at Trotec Laser (top) and JDS Industries
8. Make sure to have fun
One pandemic-era issue for the personalization industry was ensuring that employees were safe when working beside each other. Thompson recalls pivoting in the spring of 2020 and ordering a slew of personal protective equipment. As her team got acclimated to continuing to work from the office, more mundane concerns re-emerged, including how to keep people engaged while doing repetitive tasks. “There is a lot of monotony in the production world,” she says.
As a way to blow off steam and have fun, Thompson says their team started to throw horseshoes and bean bags. Soon, employee breaks turned into mildly competitive affairs. “We’d have people throw a football into a garbage can. Or they would write down a favorite song, and we’d guess who wrote down what song.”
Thompson hopes that taking time for such fun, low-key activities can help her employees feel better while also getting them more engaged with their job. “I love our team, and I try to get to know them,” she says. “I couldn’t work remotely, because I really enjoy the people.”
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