How to Sublimate (Part One) (8 Steps)

1. First and most important, you need to have a good, solid understanding of the basic process of sublimation before you can successfully make a business of it. There are some people who go into the sublimation business and fail, or give up - like any other business. There are various reasons why. Let's cover some of these in Step Two
2. Main Reasons Why Sublimation Start-Ups Fail:
Failure to understand color correction and color palettes.Equipment not working properly - for a variety of reasons (will cover).Weak or bad business plan.
3. The failure to understand color correction and color palettes is a problem for some people in the sublimation business. To be fair, and honest, one should not go into the sublimation business expecting to exactly duplicate colors they see: A) in the real world. B) On other items. C) On their computer screen. This also means one should not promise their clients they can exactly duplicate each and every color. When should color correction be a major concern?
4. If you are taking a job in which you will produce hundreds or even thousands of sublimated items for a client, then exact color replication is very important. How do you handle this? You spend at least a week - perhaps a few days more - working on color palettes, testing and getting the colors right. Please do not expect that you will scan a logo in, punch a few keys, print and sublimate it and that's it. That's not it.
5. I will cover color correction in depth in a coming chapter but first let's move to the second main reason some sublimation businesses do not pan out: Equipment not working properly. Well, it's one of two things. Either there is something wrong with some part of the equipment and it needs to be replaced, or the equipment is not being used properly. Even though I found it can easily be a malfunction in some part of the equipment, more often I found it was the equipment not being used as it must be for the particular process to work.
6. A common example of equipment not being used properly is found at the heat press. This does not mean the person operating the heat press is a dummy. It means they have not found the right method for the item they are pressing. I will cover in depth tips and tricks at the heat press and how to use mug, cap and flat heat presses properly.
7. A weak or bad business plan can kill a business - any business. In the sublimation business a common cause of failure is - well, not having a written business plan. What exactly do you want to offer your customers? WHO are your customers? How will you market your sublimated products? In tech support when meeting with perspective and existing customers, I often found them trying to offer too much in the beginning. In other words they were ordering name badges, coffee mugs, t-shirts, bumper stickers, magnets, jewelry, ceramic tiles and so on. Since they were brand new to the business I could not see how they expected to learn how to sublimate and sell all that product in the beginning. What was more impressive was the customer who came in and said I want to sell sublimated jewelry to my customers - help me to do that.
8. Learning to sublimate is not really that difficult, though in the beginning it takes a little time to get used to the various aspects of the process. In the next chapter we will set up a small business that has through some hard, preliminary work landed a potentially lucrative contract to provide T-Shirts for a local motor sports track.