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Apparel Redefined Chats with Cassie Green from PRINTING United Alliance

Apparel Redefined Chats with Cassie Green from PRINTING United Alliance about how businesses navigate the decorated apparel industry. In a recent discussion with Cassie Green from PRINTING United Alliance, we explored the power of education, community building, and innovation in this dynamic space.

Cassie, a seasoned journalist in the printing industry since 2012, now leads Apparel List, PRINTING United Alliance’s media brand. Through strategic content, industry reports, and hands-on networking opportunities, her team provides critical resources to help apparel decorators succeed.

How Education Fuels the Decorated Apparel Industry

Success in apparel decoration relies heavily on staying informed. PRINTING United Alliance offers multiple educational tools, including:

The Power of Community & Networking

A strong community is essential to thriving in the decorated apparel industry landscape. Events like the Apparel Decoration Summit bring together business owners and suppliers for curated discussions, ensuring they stay ahead of trends and innovations.

Additionally, PRINTING United Expo provides an opportunity to experience the latest technology and equipment firsthand. Whether you’re just starting or scaling your business, these events foster invaluable industry connections.

Tackling Industry Challenges

Businesses in apparel decoration must navigate regulatory changes and technological advancements. PRINTING United Alliance helps industry professionals address:

Staying Ahead in the Decorated Apparel Industry

As Cassie puts it, “It’s too easy to be complacent. The best way to grow is to push beyond your comfort zone and stay engaged in industry education.”

For those in the apparel decoration space looking to refine their business strategy, expand their network, and stay competitive, PRINTING United Alliance and Apparel Redefined offer the tools and insights to succeed.

Key Highlights:Apparel Redefined Chats with Cassie Green

 • Cassie’s Journey to Journalism 1:49

• PRINTING United Alliance and Its Services 3:42

• Apparel List and Its Mission 5:50

• Business Strategy and Educational Content 12:36

• The Apparel Decoration Summit 19:50

• Cassie’s Passion for Community Building 27:52

• Future Excitement and Industry Events 32:15

Transcription

Curt Anderson 00:03
John Leroy, apparently, how are you? Dude, I’m doing good. Curt,

John LaRoy 00:06
how are you? Oh,

Curt Anderson 00:07
my goodness gracious. If I was any better, John, you might have to call 911 like this is just so exciting. We Dude, where do you find all these amazing guests? I don’t know. How you pull this off.

John LaRoy 00:18
Lucky man. Real lucky. And we got a great deal. It’s,

Curt Anderson 00:22
I don’t know. So Cassie green is in the house. Cassie, how are you? I

Cassie Green 00:26
am doing great. I’m not sure I could describe it any better than how you did. Any better than you’d have to call 911, we have

Curt Anderson 00:35
to call that, right? It could be a very an emergency phone call. We’ll, we’ll get one to your house, my heart, like, Whatever, whatever needs to happen. So Cassie, what an honor, what a privilege to have you do us a favor. Tell us a little background on yourself. What’s going on in your world.

Cassie Green 00:51
Well, first of all, I mean, thanks for having me. I am the one who’s honored here to be a part of your show, and such a good show, by the way. Um, yeah, a little bit about my background. I am. I have been in the printing industry as a journalist since, geez, I’m going to say this. I’m going to make myself really upset since, like, 2012 I’ve been a journalist, specifically in the printing industry. Came over to PRINTING United Alliance in 2021 to help launch our brand apparel list, which is the Alliance’s media brand that supports apparel decorators. So was really brought on to engage the community, really, you know, come as a support system for the community and be a voice, a connector, and help people really run their businesses better. Lots of creative people in this industry who just need a little business help. So that’s what we’re here to do,

Curt Anderson 01:47
awesome. And so we want everybody connect with you on LinkedIn, and you have a fascinating background. So just you know. So how did what inspired you to become a journalist? Like, let’s, let’s start there. Oh,

Cassie Green 01:58
man, I have known I wanted to be a journalist since I was a freshman in high school, I don’t know why I landed on that. I knew I wanted to write. I knew I wanted to be in sort of a reporting capacity. So I was like, hey, journalist, sounds great, right? Of course, as a high school freshman, you don’t really understand what you want or what any of that means. And so as I went through the rest of my high school career, went through my college career, what I really discovered is that I loved being an editor. And so I loved taking an article, making it beautiful, making it grammatically correct, turning it into this really beautiful layout that people could have an experience with while they were still reading, so that sort of blossomed into knowing, hey, I’ll start as a journalist and then become an editor. That’s my goal. That’s kind of a natural progression in the journalism world. Never in a million years, thought I would land in business to business publication or even the printing industry for that matter. But I feel like everybody comes into this industry sort of by accident anyway, so maybe that’s good, maybe that’s a good thing. And you know, here we are. I caught a few lucky breaks. Just worked really hard and and tried to just exercise my passion as a writer and as a communicator to sort of build my career.

Curt Anderson 03:24
Okay? That is absolutely fantastic. I just always admire somebody that wants to get into journalism. Like, it’s just so daunting to just think, like, you know, there’s so many articles out there, and, like, who writes all these things, right? So it’s people that have a passion, like yourself, uh, fill in the blanks. So we’re going to dive into the apparel list. But I’ve, You’ve piqued my curiosity with content director at well, I want to talk about the PRINTING United Alliance. Just fill in that gap, and then we’re going to dive into a prayer list.

Cassie Green 03:51
Yeah. So PRINTING United Alliance is actually like a non profit association, where people can become members and get various support resources. So a lot of our members are, you know, small business printers, entrepreneurs, people who own their own printing shops, but often need support in like the human resources department, or they need help with legal things, or they need help dealing with OSHA, or they need access to learning and certifications. So think of like the wide format industry. You got a lot of people who are doing vehicle wraps, right? They have to often get these very specific certifications that their customers look for and say, hey, look, I’m really good at vehicle wrapping. I understand what I’m doing. I guarantee your products Good. Well, we offer things like that. So we offer things like I learning. Plus it even supports apparel, you know, decorators, obviously, you know, there’s lots of like screen printing courses, direct to film, which is all the rage. We have a course on that and things like that. And it also is set up to be a community system. So a lot of the phone calls that I field specifically for apparel list is, hey, can you help me? Find a contract decorator in this state that can handle this specific job, because we have access to so many different members and so many different buckets and resources, and we have community a lot of these conversations with people on a day to day basis. We often know how to connect people to who they need in the community, which I think is it’s probably one of the most valuable things the Alliance offers. And then, of course, we have PRINTING United Expo, which happens every year. It’s a huge show. People love it, all right? Of course, I’m biased, right, but it’s a good show. If you’ve never been to a print United expose. Really good show. You can see just about everything in the printing industry there.

John LaRoy 05:40
It is really cool. I mean, that was your first year was, was that in Georgia, Atlanta? Yeah,

Cassie Green 05:46
we had one in Atlanta. Not that, not in 2024 but 2023 and then we’re actually going back to Atlanta a couple years from now. So, yeah,

John LaRoy 05:55
from our perspective, like the S, G, I a, like, prior, and then you had COVID, and there was nothing. And then, kind of like, coming out of that, it was like, what’s going to happen? So like, bringing it all together under one roof number one is really cool. And then from an apparel side, you get to see all the stuff that’s been around for a lot longer, you know? And like how we’re just getting into automation on our side, and it’s like, you go on the other side of the hall and it’s like, oh my god, you know, it’s like, every one of those machines is bigger than probably a lot of people’s shops in our industry. It’s wild. And just to see that and be exposed to that, and go talk to people on that side that are now starting to bring that technology into the apparel space is really cool. Yeah, printing United is fantastic event. Your team does a great job, and bringing that together to create that synergy between the print and the apparel side is really cool. You guys do a great job.

Cassie Green 06:51
Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you for the record. Mine, my mind is also completely blown every time I see some of those commercial printers, I’m like, Ha, this is insanity.

John LaRoy 07:01
I feel bad for the guys. I come and set that up. You know, it’s like, weeks in advance, three days, and then it’s over. And,

Curt Anderson 07:10
yeah, awesome. Okay, so let’s sign in here, Cassie, so we’re talking about your as a matter of fact, you’re flashing on your shirt there. We’ve got the apparel list, and I’m going to be pulling up their your website in a minute, because you are doing some amazing, incredible work. Share with folks. What is apparel list? How are you making the world a better place? What’s going on there? Well, first

Cassie Green 07:31
of all, well, I do hope we’re making the world a better place, right? That’s so you’ll you’ll see when you visit the apparel list website, our mission statement, or tagline, whatever you want to call it, is connecting the decorated apparel community. We want to make sure that, first and foremost, we are here to support apparel decorators, whether that’s through education, whether that’s through offering things like white papers and webinars and resources where they can learn more, as I was kind of alluding to earlier, a lot of what we do is connect people to others who can help them, you know, fill a gap or meet a need that they don’t necessarily, you know, can’t necessarily do in house. And so, you know, ultimately, my personal mission with the apparel list brand is, how can we help? How can we support you as an apparel decorator? What are the challenges that this industry is facing in current times that we can then turn around and say, hey, look, we know that this is a challenge. We know that this is something you’re facing daily, weekly, whatever. Here’s how you can address that challenge. So I hate to use this example, but I’m going to the tariff thing, right? We’ve got tariff whiplash right now. It’s fine. It is what it is. However, much as we may want to stick our heads in the sand about that, we have to address it, because it is impacting the vast majority of people in the apparel decorating space, and some of them are ignoring it. Some of them don’t know how to handle it. Some of them are losing, you know, massive amounts of work. Some of them are gaining work. Some of them are even benefiting from this, and that’s fine, regardless of where you stand on it. Our job is to come to the table with resources that will help and help explain, help shed light on it, offer ways that you know your shop can use this as an opportunity to maybe explore something different. And so that’s really, at the end of the day, what we’re here to do. We’re here to make sure that apparel decorators can succeed on the business side of things. Well, I absolutely love that. And

Curt Anderson 09:37
we’re going to, we’re going to geek out about some business strategy, because I’m going to, I’m going to pull up your website and up your website next, and one of the taglines that we’d love to use is, you know, because so many people, they’re so passionate about, you know, their their product, their solution, or whatever the trade is. But like you said, you know, we want to bring in, like, that business acumen. And what I really admire, what you guys are doing at perilous, is like, you’re just. Years unapologetic educators and like, that’s like speaking our love language. John, right? And so what a little tagline you’ll get a kick out of this, Cassie, is we’d love to share with our entrepreneur friends, how do you out teach the competition. How do you out teach? So instead of out spending and like, hey, let’s do all the Google ad, let’s do all the things, right? And what I just really love, like, you know, I’ve written down, you know, podcasts, webinars, white papers, educate, educate. Let’s go there. Let’s pull up your website and let’s take a little tour, just so for folks that are landing on your website for the first time. Now, hey, do we recognize this wonderful person here, who’s, who’s, who’s that?

Cassie Green 10:41
Oh, man, I full transparency, when I became like a journalist, I never imagined I would be like a video, by the way.

Curt Anderson 10:51
Well, who you know like when you’re in college, who you know like from when you’re in college, and what you end up with, you know? And I’ve my my college was 100 years ago, so it’s like you take a winding path, is that, is that what you’re saying? Cassie, yeah,

Cassie Green 11:03
you do. You have to evolve, right? So if you start kind of at the top, that’s, that’s what I was alluding to, like, that’s, that’s our video newsletter, piece of content. We put it out weekly on Wednesdays. And I basically do, like, a very quick two minute video breakdown of what I feel are the top headlines that decorators should be paying attention to. What’s the big industry news? I also share a couple really important, you know, new, fresh pieces of content that I want to make sure our readers don’t miss. So that’s kind of what exists in that top, top area. Of course, you can see there we’ve got plenty of topic drop downs resources. That’s what I was talking about with, like the white papers that we do. So like the direct to film printing, one on one. Obviously, everybody wants to know about direct to film printing right now. That’s a white paper resource, and it’s beyond an article. So building one of those things takes quite a bit of time. We often include an article, but we put, like an equipment manufacturer list. We put side bars that will outline other resources, maybe some YouTube videos that we we have vetted and we know are good for people to learn from. We often provide contact information for people that’s really special, you know, so that they can directly contact people they have questions like, Hey, here’s someone who’s an expert who can help you. So those, those are huge for us. Of course, the podcast, I love the podcast. It was sort of just accidentally came to be. But again, just like everything in this industry, it happens for a reason. We have a lot of topics about, you know, high level business stuff. And what I mean by that is apparel decorators are so creative, and they’re so good at building these amazing designs. They make these beautiful works of art, right? They know how to screen print and they know how to do it well. They know how to run an embroidery machine, and they know how to do it well. They know how to manipulate that equipment and turn it into something magical. A lot of times, what decorators may not understand is how to run your business. So like I was talking about earlier, what happens when OSHA shows up and you unknowingly have removed a safety guard on your automatic screen? Press probably going to get fined, and it’s not going to be a small fine. What do you do? So we have a lot of stuff on that. We have a lot of things on like, you know, the EPA will ban certain things that are in the inks that our readers print with. Okay, what do you need to know about that band? What are the important dates to pay attention to? Things like that. We also talk a lot about, you know, dei topics. So what’s it like being a minority owned business in this industry, and how can we do better? So, you know, those are really things that we try to look at is, is, how do we run a better business? How do we be successful as an industry?

Curt Anderson 13:51
Yeah, I love this, and this is so critical for those small entrepreneurs. You know, you know, when you’re John, when you’re as an entrepreneur, you’re, you’re, you know, minimal staff, you’re throwing on multiple hats all day. You’re trying to your your own HR department, your your own marketing department, and then, like you said, Cassie, like, Oh, my goodness, I gotta figure, I gotta know, oh, I’ve gotta be an OSHA expert on top of all this. So John, what are your What are your thoughts, as far as, like, what they’re doing here with this podcast, it’s great.

John LaRoy 14:18
I mean, I was in June or I was in hell, was I, I think San Antonio in June, and I saw one of the notices come out for the OSHA podcast, and we had a booth at the sports thing trade show. And I’m like, I’m not gonna be able to listen to this, but I had three or four people at the office listen, and it was really insightful and really impactful. And there was a lot of actionable things that we did after that for our own shop floor, tying in with our own our payroll system, Pelosi, that has all the OSHA trainings to get our people on the floor OSHA certified. If you know, God forbid anything happen, we have have those bases covered. So it was just these things that you don’t think about because so much of like what we. Do Curt. You know this too. Being in manufacturing, most of the business that are started in our space, in the apparel side, are owner operator, right? And you’re doing the printing, you’re doing the embroidery, you’re doing the DTG, whatever it is, however your business grows or evolves. Usually you’re that person that’s doing it all. And 15 hats is tough to wear 20 hats. But as you continue to succeed and grow your business, and take some of those hats off and and people do other things, you still don’t know what you don’t know. And so much of our industry, you know, is, is small business, and to go hire, you know, $185,000 employee, that’s an HR specialist, probably isn’t realistic for the vast majority of our industry, but we’re still kind of looped into manufacturing, right, which comes with a lot of OSHA problems, or OSHA awareness, or exposure, workman’s comp exposure, other insurance exposure. Just, you know, when we’re like, hey, we don’t make steel beams, but our workman’s comp, you know, there isn’t a code for our specific screen printing decoration. There is for embroidery, but not for screen printing, and you kind of get lumped in there, so you have to do stuff to mitigate risk. So it’s amazing what you guys are doing, because there isn’t that resource. There is no trade there is no trade school for screen printing embroidery, and although everyone wears our product or is exposed to a screen print or embroidered piece of apparel at some point in our lives, it’s not treated the same way that other trades are treated that are just as essential and valuable. So we like one of the thing I say is like one of my main goals in life is to bring some consistency and professionalism and spotlight to our industry, because when everyone shut down, people are still wearing clothes, and you had to have a focus on your brand to survive, and then Take away the office setting. How you get people to show off whatever fortune 500 company that they’re wearing is they’re going to wear a polo, they’re wearing a quarter zip. And you just have this mass rush to to get people in a brand, and what does that brand convey? Well, behind all of that are people that are actually still doing the work and your your group at a perilous and printing unit really does a great job supporting us, kind of at the ground level. So again, hats off to you.

Curt Anderson 17:31
Think of that, Cassie,

Cassie Green 17:32
wow. I like Thank you. First of all, that’s like, it’s incredibly good to hear that the things we’re doing are resonating in this industry in a helpful, actionable way, right? It’s Curt you mentioned this. It’s one thing to create content and to put it out there. It’s a whole other thing to have that content resonate and for people to find it helpful. So I think, thanks. Thank you for the validation. I mean, I’m glad we’re going the right direction. We’re also one of those brands who knows that we need to evolve and learn. So if ever there is something that we’re not covering, I should really hope that people would come to us and be like, yeah, like, you guys need to talk about this. You need to cover this. We need to dive into this. And, you know, anytime there’s feedback or insight or additional things we could be covering, I mean, I’m an open book, I want to hear about it. And so that that’s great to hear John, um, 15 hats. Yeah, I’ve heard the 15 hats. I’ve heard 20 hats. See, y’all do a lot on a regular basis, yeah,

John LaRoy 18:40
yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s, I’m not 15 hats anymore, but for a while it was, you know, yeah,

Curt Anderson 18:45
yeah. He had to get, get rid of a few, you know, but, and he has a wonderful team to support him. But I love, love, love, what you’re doing here. Cassie, cyber security. I just had a wonderful, not well, you know, I guess wonderful in cyber security shouldn’t be in the same sentence. But, you know, this is, you know, like, for small entrepreneurs. I was interviewing a couple of cyber experts the other day, and, you know, like, you know, we all want to have, like, you know, the ostrich in the sand type thing, you know, like, head in the sand. And so you guys are hitting these tough topics down here. I see you’re covering, you know, print on demand, basics, you know, dissecting it. And so just, you know, again, kudos to you to like, really understanding your audience. And there’s a page and a playbook right here that any entrepreneur could take. It really doesn’t cost much to, like, put out this content, if you will. And it takes time. It takes energy. So I want to diminish or discount that, but Cassie, I just love what you’re doing because, like, you’re speaking to your ideal customers. You’re meeting them where they’re at, using that cliche, you know, understanding their challenges, their pain points, what frustrations do they have? And like, Hey, we’re in this together. That’s rising tides, all of you know, lifts, all ships. And so I just, I love what you’re doing here. Let’s slide over to you. Have a wonderful event. I think you might. Mentioned it before, but I’m going to pull it up here. What’s going on with this big event you have coming up in

Cassie Green 20:04
June, the apparel decoration Summit. Okay, so I am particularly proud of this event. Our team is particularly proud of this event. So what the apparel decoration Summit is is a it’s an invitation only hosted buyer event. And what that means is we specifically design this to be a small event, very intimate, very focused on networking, very focused on connecting with the right people in the industry. And so when we open up this invitation only, what that means is we are qualifying people to be there. So we put people through three levels of forms and applications and information that they need to provide to us in order to attend this event, we ask all of the deep hitting questions like, What is your shops revenue? How much are you going to spend on equipment in the next six months, in the next 12 months, in the next two years? How many employees do you have? What percentage of your business is allotted to screen printing versus embroidery versus heat transfer, you know, graphics and things like that. And we ask all of those questions because as a hosted buyer event. It’s up to us to bring in these qualified decorators, these qualified attendees, to connect with the sponsors and, frankly, be sold to our sponsors. Want to sell to these shops, knowing that it’s pretty much a sure sale if they provide the know the kind of product they want. So say, for example, you know, John is out there looking for a new automatic screen press. He’s also needing a reclaim system the whole nine yards, right? We bring someone like John in to sit with our sponsors, like rock or like easy way systems so that he can talk to not just a salesperson, but often the president of that company, so that when John makes the purchase and something, heaven forbid, go wrong, he has this person’s cell phone number. He’s now not just connecting with a customer service representative, not that that’s a bad thing, but John wants that direct in line to someone who will help him immediately. And that’s the point of this, and that’s why we bring in higher level shops. We do have, you know, a bottom number that we accept people in. You do have to be in the buying cycle a whole slew of things. But it’s not just as a sales event, per se. It’s also an education event. So our presentations are on things like our state of the decorated apparel industry survey. So we have our chief economist come in and break down all the data points of the survey and why that matters for apparel decorators and for the shops, and educates them on how to use the data. Because it’s one thing to have the data, but you gotta understand how to use it and apply it to your shop. So, you know, it’s education things like that. We are bringing in Gary Jones, who’s our VP of Environmental Health and Safety affairs, and he’s gonna talk about OSHA, because, like John was just saying, when you’re wearing 15 different hats, you don’t realize that you have to be the person to make sure the MSDS sheets are available for people, make sure there is a fire extinguisher readily available, and, heck, even, make sure that there’s a water cooler available. I mean, we’ve had members get dinged for that. So, you know, these are topics that we know that shops who operate in that upper echelon of business need to deal with, because they’re people who run very small shops. You know, I’m talking like two to five employees operate differently than shops that are running, you know, 15 plus 20 plus employees. There are just different needs and different challenges. And so this event really addresses that, and we organize and orchestrate everything. I mean, it is coordinated down to you are having one on one meetings with the people that you know you’re going to buy from. We, you know, you don’t set up with a meeting, a meeting with an embroidery company if you’re not going to buy an embroidery machine, right? And so it’s very curated, very specific. It’s in its third year this year, so still pretty new, but already pretty popular. We we had a wait list last year. We already have a small wait list. This year, we are still taking applications, by the way, so if anybody wants to apply to attend, still time to do that.

Curt Anderson 24:34
Well, I absolutely love this, John, I and I want to get your feedback. And so another big takeaway for me with this conversation, Cassie, is like you. Not only are you guys unapologetic with educating, you’re doing a phenomenal job building community. Can you just share a little bit like and like you can just feel your passion coming through the screen? Like, What? What? How the how does that instill into like, your culture, you as a person, like, just this? This fierce community builder. Where’d this come from?

Cassie Green 25:05
I don’t know. I’ve always so everybody says don’t mix personal and business. I actually do mix personal in business. So for me, the apparel list is very much a part of my identity and my fiber. If I don’t succeed connecting people to those they need to be connected to, If I don’t help at least one person who’s reading our newsletter, who’s attending this event, then I take that personally, like, I take that as like, a personal failure, because not only is it my job, but listen, I just want to help people. I mean, there are so many good, good people in the printing industry in particular, and so many of them have become my friends over the years, and so now it’s not these are professional relationships that have often turned personal. So if I have a personal friend who’s in the industry, call me and be like, I need help with this. I’m going to treat that like I would a friendship, because I’ve just gotten to know these people on a personal level, I know often their kids. I know who their kids are. I know how many they have. I know like, you know what they like to do for their hobbies and their free time. And I just, I look at it as a relationship. And I don’t know why I do that. Maybe it’s maybe I’m competitive. I don’t know.

Curt Anderson 26:19
It’s in your DNA. You can’t help it. So, John, I just, I’m dying to hear your feedback. I know, like, you know, I’ve been on site multiple times. I’ve seen your the rock machine is just a we call it the Ferrari. So John, your thoughts on this wonderful event? What Cassie is doing here?

John LaRoy 26:37
Yeah, I think it’s great. I mean, we were just both at an event in Phoenix that was smaller. I really like the network aspect of it. I mean, printing unit, like what you talked about previously, it’s a great event, but each event, I feel it’s a unique and depending on what you’re looking to get out of it. Like the printing unite is like exposure, you know, it’s like, you don’t know, you don’t know, and you just get to see all the stuff. But there’s so much like we try and travel. I use show with an agenda of what we want to accomplish, because it’s so easy to get sidetracked, right? But so often, at these bigger shows, you have a plan, until you punch in the mouth, right? And it’s like you run into someone, and next thing you know, three hours go by and the show’s over, and you’re out, and you’re doing that, and it’s good to have the agenda, but you get sidetracked easily, and then the networking kind of goes away, and you’re just there, kind of looking at product, talking with your team, that type of stuff. But then the event, like we just went to, in Phoenix, the print on demand event, you’re a conference out in Nashville with a smaller audience, with very focused and targeted goals, you’re able to get a lot done because, let’s face it, like a lot of the small business owners and operators and, you know, critical people in the organization, taking four or five days, three days, whatever it is, outside of the week, on top of family obligations and stuff, it’s a commitment, and it’s just seems like coming out of COVID, there’s something going On, literally, like every month, maybe two or three times a month, and it’s like, you got FOMO. I mean, I get serious FOMO all the time, so it’s like, hard to pick where do we go, and what do we want to get done, and who’s going to be there, and who do you want to talk to, and who want, who do you want to network with? So I feel like you guys have done a really good job of communicating what the goal is, because, like you said, you want to qualify people that are there, because no one wants to waste time. Everyone’s time is extremely valuable. Those buyers are expecting to sell, and you’re expecting to go and talk to people that are serious about selling you something you want to know, hey, is it in stock? What’s the lead time? What can we spend? You know, what’s the timing? Because a lot of the big purchases that were expected to be made coming out of COVID, you know, all this inventory flooded, all this, you know, manufacturing, the vendors and distributors, and then what happened to happen, and the market didn’t do so well, and people didn’t have, you know, interest rates went through the roof. So there’s, there’s a lot of, I would say, friction between the buyers and sellers right now, and no one wants to waste time. So it’s a really good event. I think it’s really, really focused. But bottom line, I like where these type of events are going, where it’s more specific to both parties needs. And what we say the best part of a deal is when all parties, 234, win, and it’s a really good opportunity to get in front of people that are, that are, have mutual interests and needs. So I think again, great job.

Cassie Green 29:30
I appreciate that, and I also want to commend you, because you took the time to attend the print on demand conference knowing that it was going to benefit your business. You. You were just like, hey, I understand that this is an investment of time and money, and those things are worth it.

John LaRoy 29:45
Yeah, it is. It is, and bringing other people from your team too is really important, I feel like, because I can come back and then spew everything I learned. But it’s one thing to hear it from me, which I hear a lot from me already, but to hear it, you know. Themselves and experience the, you know, activity of getting outside the building and getting on a plane and flying somewhere, and then being able to come back and tell that to their team and see what they heard. It’s different coming from me than it is from their direct team lead. So, yeah, it’s important.

Curt Anderson 30:18
All right, this is phenomenal. I know Cassie, we could keep you here all day. I promise we’d be done by like, just three or four hours, right? So we’re going to, we’ll, we’ll start winding down. But I saw, I was kind of scanning those topics that you have for your podcast, and I saw a couple kind of related around culture, and I feel like, and you mentioned, you know, a couple things where I’m like, you know, you’re really committed to culture, John, you talk about, like, that brand promise is, you know, so embedded into, like, when you’re in the apparel industry, when you hear the word brand or the phrase brand promise. Casey Cassie, what is, what’s that mean to you? Or just like, again, like from a perilous like being this wonderful educator, what are your thoughts like, what brand promise Are you trying to exude at a perilous and What message are you trying to convey to your clients or your readers and everybody that you’re reaching? What question

Cassie Green 31:07
to come at toward the end? But no, I love this question, and also really funny, because I’m used to being the one to like zing questions at people. So when I think of Brian promise, I I latch onto the word promise because it’s easy to say something and it’s hard to take action on that thing. So so many people say they’re going to do something. Say, oh yeah, I could get to that, or Yeah, I could do this, or Yeah, I could help with that. Are Are they like to me, actions are where it’s at, like I am a person of action, so much so to the point that sometimes it’s almost detrimental, like I’ve been described as maybe a little aggressive. It is what it is. It’s fine. I’ve accepted it. It’s who I am. So when you when I say from the apparel list that we are going to connect to the decorated apparel, decorated apparel community. I mean it, and that means I’m going to connect you to the podcast episode that I think you should listen to. It means I’m going to connect you to people like John who can help you fulfill an order that maybe you can’t. It means I’m going to help you find the event that you should attend, even if it’s not ours. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve sent to various events. Like, I always tell people like, you should attend ISS you should attend print on demand conference. You should attend shirt lab, you should attend print hustlers, because, here’s why, because you’re going to benefit by A, B and C, and so that, to me, is like, you know, make the promise and then keep it.

Curt Anderson 32:45
Absolutely love it. Keep that promise and just Alright, this is phenomenal. Thank you for putting up with my little I threw little curveball at you. So as we, as we start winding down, what you got? A wonderful event, your podcast. What else are you super excited about in the industry, moving forward? Oh,

Cassie Green 33:01
I don’t know if you guys can tell I’m kind of an excitable person. I get really excited real easily about a lot of stuff. So right now, definitely excited about the apparel decoration Summit. That’s kind of, you know, taking a lot of the focus. I am excited for pretty United Expo, simply because we’re gonna have the apparel zone again this year. And so the apparel zone is a place that, if you have not previously been exposed to apparel decorating, it’s like a beginner level. So kind of on the flip side of the summit, this is more for beginner level people who maybe haven’t done it or considered it, they can learn the basics. Kind of get exposure to the equipment, get some hands on training. So I get really excited about that. And frankly, I’m just excited that I can connect with people like y’all. I mean, the fact that I get to attend all of these events and meet people like John and now Curt and like that is so cool, because the more people I meet, the more I understand this industry, the more we can support so I’m just excited for more events and more in person opportunities, and seeing what those yield

Curt Anderson 34:02
absolutely phenomenal, you know, just, yeah, just a little ounce of enthusiasm that you have there. Cassie, and it’s just, it is completely contagious for the industry. John, we’ll start winding down. I have, like, maybe one or two more sneaky questions, what? Uh, what your thoughts and takeaways so far?

John LaRoy 34:17
No, I thought, you know, we talked about the brand promise, and I feel like that doesn’t tell the whole story, because a promise doesn’t totally elicit consistency, right? You might do something once, right, and then you fulfill your promise, but consistency over time creates momentum, and delivering on that promise over and over again is actually what makes your brand, you know, so because the brand speaks louder than words speaks you know it is what you are at the end of the day, you’re only as good as your last throw or whatever cliche you want to insert here, but consistently doing that is really important, and I feel like a perilous Curt. You You as well everything that you know people. That you get a good gut feeling on, you know? You know that that person can be trusted on, because they’re going to do what they say and say what

Curt Anderson 35:08
they do. Yeah, I, you know, the apparel list. I just love the name, you know, just like, it’s like an Oscar award winning movie, right? The apparel list. So, Cassie, let’s go here. So just love the podcast. Love how you’re helping. You know, it’s that, like, just the industry, it’s like you’re giving business advice. You’re trying to protect people’s businesses with cyber you’re trying to protect them with OSHA advice. You’re trying to help them with, you know, best practices could be accounting, so and so forth. You’ve isn’t that a gift and a blessing when you get to, like, interview all these people and like, you get, you get to be coached and counseled, right?

Cassie Green 35:43
Yeah, isn’t that I love what John just said, I’m like, Dang that. That’s so good.

Curt Anderson 35:48
It is so good. Yeah, he I tell you guys, like, I’m, I’m, why do I hang out with him? You know, I never want to be the smartest guy in the room. I just want to hang out with smart people. You know, I want to be the smart guy that hangs out with smart people. So, Cassie, what’s the all this business advice that you’ve had? And I, and I’ll tell you at the early, at the beginning of the program, you’re like, Oh, gee, I’m going to, you know, 2012 I started being a journalist. But, you know, I can, I dwarf, you know, I go, I shouldn’t use that word. I go way, way, way back past 2012 but business advice, you’re hearing all sorts of wonderful business advice, and I’ll tell you, for my perspective, your early stage of your career, you are absolutely crushing it. You’ve like far exceeded my expectation. Just absolutely love this go giving attitude that you have of just fiercely helping entrepreneurs. What’s the best business advice that you would love to pass along to anybody listening today. So our entrepreneur friends out there, what’s the best business advice that you have for them?

Cassie Green 36:47
Oh, man, how do I even stand up to what John already offered with the consistency and excellence and consistency? Um, okay, so if I had to choose something else other than that, um, my, my favorite thing that I like to tell people is it’s too easy to be complacent, and I am guilty of this too. I we get in our comfort zones, like you have your daily tasks, that you do your routine, blah, blah, blah. We’re operating we’re not you’re not necessarily failing. You’re not experiencing bad things. Business is coming along. It’s great that, to me, is okay, now’s the perfect time to not be complacent. Now is the perfect time to go aggressively pursue something, find something new that excites you and and gets you out of your your comfort zone, and even if it doesn’t pan out. I mean, just don’t be complacent there. There’s nothing more dangerous to me than that.

Curt Anderson 37:45
All right, bravo, Cassie, bravo. We are giving you. I’m giving you a standing ovation right now. The word complacent being content is just like it’s, it’s, it’s not good, right? Nails on a chalkboard. So we, I, that is just absolutely brilliant advice. Cassie, I’m reading a book right now, and the whole time as you were talking, I’m like, I feel like you’re Have you heard of the book called unreasonable hospitality? Unreasonable hospitality, man, I couldn’t encourage you enough to read that book. And I feel like you’ve partially written that book. We can talk about it offline, but it’s anyway. It’s a, it’s a great New York Times bestseller, great book. And so I think, do you have a book in you? Like being a journalist, you have a book in you somewhere.

Cassie Green 38:32
I i would love nothing more than to write children’s books, um, based on the absolute insane things that my children put me through. I’m I’m sure John can attest. I just learned that you have two small kids as well. So yes, that would be fun. Maybe someday,

Curt Anderson 38:50
maybe someday. So alright, as we wind down, we can find you on LinkedIn. Where else we can find you at the perilous on your website, where anywhere else that we can find you hanging out.

Cassie Green 39:02
Uh, yeah. I mean, the best way to find me is just email me directly. See green@napco.com um, please email me. I love having conversations. If you can’t tell um, love having, like, phone, you know, calls and meetings and things like that. That’s the best place to find me. I mean, I exist on Instagram, but it’s solely under the apparel list name. And LinkedIn is my primary place, so that’s actually also a really good place to connect with me directly as well, because I’m pretty responsive on LinkedIn.

Curt Anderson 39:31
Awesome. Alright, John, as we close out parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to

John LaRoy 39:36
share, no, it’s great. I mean, no growth in the comfort zone. If you’re sitting on a treadmill at three with no incline for the rest of your life, you’re never going to get in shape. So you gotta, you gotta get on. You gotta be comfortable getting uncomfortable. And that’s great advice, because at any stage of where you’re at, like you always can plateau and you could sit there, but if you’re not growing, you’re dying. And that’s really good advice. Because it’s easy. It’s easy to sit and be mediocre, but there’s no fun in that.

Curt Anderson 40:07
Just, yeah, just man, just a whirlwind of enthusiasms here. So, Cassie, we’re going to close out. Hang out with us for one minute. I want to thank you. Thank you, John, how about a big round of applause? A grand slam wasn’t even a home run. It was like, you know, bases were loaded and she just smashed, destroyed a a Grand Slam. So Cassie green, we appreciate you. We applaud you, we commend you. We thank you. We salute you. We wish you just continued. Monster success at perilous best of best success at the show coming up in June. And again, guys, connect with Cassie on LinkedIn, Instagram, go to her website, go to the event, and just, you know she just, just hang out with her. You just, you’re going to feel a little bit smarter and just more, more, more what more productive, proactive, all the above, just hanging out with her. So alright, we’ll close out today. John, dude, I don’t know how you do this, man, like I just every week, like you just, I don’t know you do it. So thank you appreciate.

John LaRoy 41:07
Thanks. Cassie, thank you guys.