Our clothing line has entered into round two of TeeMadness! We’re in a neck and neck race with another clothing company, and we need your help to advance to the next round! It only takes one second to vote, and two clicks!

All you have to do is click on this link, and then click on the green button next to our name which I have spot shadowed for you. Please help us avoid an EMBARRASSING second round elimination, and we’ll high five everyone and do everyone’s laundry. Mr. 51% has also been so kind to volunteer his singing talents via voicemail to anyone who can prove they voted for us, and told their friends.

Our clothing line has entered into round two of TeeMadness! We’re in a neck and neck race with another clothing company, and we need your help to advance to the next round! It only takes one second to vote, and two clicks!

All you have to do is click on this link, and then click on the green button next to our name which I have spot shadowed for you. Please help us avoid an EMBARRASSING second round elimination, and we’ll high five everyone and do everyone’s laundry. Mr. 51% has also been so kind to volunteer his singing talents via voicemail to anyone who can prove they voted for us, and told their friends.

Hi I’m Jon Kruse. I run Mediocore Clothing and the blog How to Start a Clothing Company. When Tim and I got together to discuss writing a guest article for each others’ blogs, I was stumped on what to write about. In the end I decided to write about something that has helped me a lot but most people pass over it because they consider it common sense. What is this you ask? It’s called asking people for Help!

I use a three step approach

1. Connect on a personal level with someone.
2. Ask them for help.
3. Give them the tools they need.

When I first started I was very timid and I didn’t want to ask anyone for help. I would make up absurd milestones in my head that I had to reach before I would post on certain forums, websites, or even email friends that own clothing companies about helping me out. Looking back, I wasted too much time trying to do things by myself when there were so many people that wanted to help me and knew so much more than I did. It wasn’t until I let go of my fears of asking people for help that I finally started seeing returns in my business.

I hear from a lot of t-shirt companies that are starting out and looking for advice. I always tell them to have a great relationship with the t-shirt blogs and I have a couple articles about the subject “How to get your cool t-shirt reviewed“, “How I became one of the top online t-shirt companies by being a nice guy“. It really amazes me how many people will come back and say “ohh they wouldn’t post my shirt, it isn’t their style” or something along those lines. You will never know unless you try, and doing nothing is the fastest way to fail. I have had plenty of blogs post my shirts that didn’t really fall into what they normally post just because I have a good rapport with them.

Once I started making a personal connection with blog owners, I did the same thing with my customers. When you join my mailing list I give my background and what I believe in. I tell them about when I got fired from my job and decided to pursue something I really was passionate about–starting a clothing company. A lot of people can connect with my story because they know someone that has lost a job or have lost a job themselves. I always give out a couple of coupons with every order and ask my customers to tell their friends about my shirts. Some people will do this without you asking, but the simple act of asking someone to do something makes it a lot more likely that it will happen.

So let me go over those steps again.

Make a personal connection with someone.

I read a book called “You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself”. There is a ton of good advice in there but one of the stories that made a strong impression on me was about tipping waitresses. It said that when it came down to how much tip you would leave you would tip more to a waitress that made a personal connection with you over a waitress that provided the best service to you but didn’t connect with you. This is the opposite of what most of us were taught, that hard work and dedication will pay off, but really the most important thing is connecting with someone and making them feel like your friend.

How to connect

Myspace, emails, facebook, twitter, these are all great ways to connect with your fans. Johnny Cupcakes really has this nailed down, and even though he has only said one thing to me over the internet, I still would call him a friend. He also does things like a showing of gremlins and a free pizza party and these stories spread through the Internet like wildfire.

Ask them for Help

• When was the last time you helped someone for no reason at all?
• When was the last time you helped someone when they asked you?
• Just asking for help will increase the chances of them helping you tremendously.

Give them the tools they need

You have to make it as easy as possible for someone to help you or else they won’t do it. So many times I hear a band or artist asking for votes for a contest, but if I get to the website and I have to fill out a long form I usually just give up. This is how it is for most people, so give them the tools that will make it easy for them to do what you’re asking.

• When you want to have a blog post a new shirt, give them already hosted pictures to use, a bio of your company, and information about the shirt. The less work they have to do, the better.
• When you want a customer to tell their friends about your company, give them coupons to hand out. Get them on a mailing list with emails they can easily forward.
• Just doing these simple things will increase the chances of someone helping you.

Now get out there and ask for help!

Jobby Monster

Darren let us know that he’s started his own gig called Regal Clothing. He’s got some great stuff including my favorite, the Jobby Monster.

It seems like most of the sites on the net are posting his Fingerprint ID shirt, but this one takes the cake for me.

Use the code IHEARTREGAL at checkout and you get 10% off!!

Just the other day I did a blog post entitled, “5 Resources & Tips to help get your T-Shirt company off the ground.” In it I gave a few tips on how we got our store’s traffic flowing after getting our site online and getting our shirts printed. What I did not go over, however, was all the steps in between deciding to start a company, and actually opening our doors to the public. (Our virtual doors, albeit)

As some of you know, at Assault we rarely push other peoples’ products because we want you buying our stuff–that is unless we fully endorse what we are pimping. For instance, the Heelys that I’m wearing on my feet right now.

With that I’m happy to point you in the direction of an e-book from Fuel For Design called How to Start a Clothing Line. If you’re someone who’s been wanting to break free from the man, and start your own clothing line this is a great resource to get you started.

It’s not very often that you get to find websites that are brand new to the market and that are actually trying a totally different approach to business. Recently, we somehow managed to get in contact with the great people at Cameesa, a new, possibly better than Threadless style social website that gets the crowd involved in getting their favorite shirts printed by providing the actual support for the prints.

Signing up and getting a profile setup is quick and painless. After logging in you can cruise through the designs and choose to “support” certain shirt designs that you like by pledging a dollar amount towards that shirt. Best part is for those of you who don ‘t do t-shirt design is that if the shirt you support gets picked then you get one sent to you AND you get a portion of the profit!

Are you a starving t-shirt designer like us? Then submit some of your work and reap the benefits if your shirt is picked for printing!

I’ve become a real fan of sites like this, as well as sites like Rumplo, and Please Dress Me, but more so I’m a fan of the business model. Being able to have the community rally around the designs they like best is like a guaranteed product that will sell. Throw in the fact that people are willing to wear just about anything on a t-shirt and you’ve got yourself a surefire way to make money. The real genius in what Cameesa is doing though is that the community is also funding the designs and sharing the profits. For the little guys like Assault, every penny counts. This seems like a great way to expedite the up front cost of printing shirts. (even if people have pledged to buy them) We know better than anyone that sometimes people just don’t buy the things even when they like them.

I think a site like Cameesa opens the doors to designers who may have tastes more like myself. Same goes for the great work that comes out of Design By Humans. As of recent Threadless seems to print more and more of the same style of shirt rather than branching out and allowing for a more diverse audience to get involved. Is Cameesa the answer to what we’ve been looking for in an apparel design community website that isn’t Threadless? I think it’s got a great shot.

It appears as though Rachel Bilson has launched her own affordable clothing line through DKNY. Check out the write up at ShinyStyle.

She had this to about the team at DKNY

I am just amazed at how the team at DKNY Jeans were able to listen to my ideas and come out with exactly what I was talking about. They literally brought my ideas to life,” Bilson told WWD. “I also want to show people that you don’t have to pay a million dollars for clothes that look good. You don’t have to spend a lot to get a great look.

The Edie Rose for DKNY Jeans label will consist of a 15-piece collection featuring button-down tops, sweaters, jackets, T-shirts, dresses and two jeans styles – a straight leg and a skinny leg. If Ms. Bilson wants some custom kickass t-shirt designs, let me tell you that we’d be happy to do it for a good cause. Best of all, I can guarantee our designs are probably more original than the $25.00 single t-shirt kind of blah you’d be overpaying for at DKNY. So if you’re reading this, email us–and we’ll have at least 5 things for you to choose from that you’ll like better, they’ll cost less, and they’ll actually have something on them.

I feel like a late night QVC salesman, but this shit’s true.