Is Marathon Sportswear the biggest screen printing shop you’ve ever seen? This massive facility just outside Chicago print for 1,500 high-profile marathons and races each year – but they do more than high-volume screen printing for big clients.
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When you're at the scale Marathon Sportswear is (millions of shirts printed a year), you can define your own niche.
Marathon isn't on an easy path – they're fighting hard to improve their processes, boost their sales, and keep their screen printing both modern and affordable – and they share a lot of the same problems with screen printing businesses of any size. Did we mention printing for runners is difficult? High-volume, firm deadline, tough apparel. Marathon have mastered their craft.
Here are Marathon Sportswear's biggest tips and lessons learned:
Find equipment and technology that fits with your screen printing business. Instead of trying to fit your business around your equipment, find the screen printing gear that actually fits the work you do and double-down on investing in it.
Manage your people and treat them well. Marathon only grows because of their low turnover and long-serving staff. This stems from solid management and great process.
Keep more capacity than you need. As an operation that's set up for retail and contract printing, Marathon has to keep additional capacity. This means two i-Images, multiple presses, backup garments, and a way to always craft a plan B.
Create your own niches. Marathon is an example of a shop that exists because they created their own niche: running and races. As they grow, they're beginning to craft even more niches (like ink that only appears when wet, targeted at gyms and exercise clubs).
Put process at the center of your operations. While Jim didn't dive into the Marathon process on video, we talked extensively about their ongoing efforts to improve communication, process, and alignment within the shop.
Improve – or stay stagnant. Jim overhauled Marathon's operations, implementing real systems and practices that keep everyone organized. That effort – though difficult – continues to pay off.
Every bullet point above is a challenge for screen printers at every level.
"The running community is wonderful," Jim says. "We have a low turnover rate. We have nice people in management positions. We have great production managers that do a really good job. It's not perfect, but there's not a lot of re-training."
Jim was candid about the impact Marathon Sportswear has had on peoples' lives – he's proud to offer stable employment alongside opportunities to earn a truly good wage doing interesting work.
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Marathon looks intimidating. It's a big screen printing shop, pumping out thousands of t-shirts every hour. A lot is on the line. But the environment is relaxed, surprisingly quiet and calm, and totally focused. There's no sense of chaos: everything is in its right place. That's a testament to Jim's leadership, his team's love for their work, and the mission-focused way that Marathon Sportswear operates.
Thanks to Marathon's team and CEO Jim Piko for taking time out of a busy schedule to chat. We are always looking to large shops like Marathon to learn about process, ways to help, and what the biggest players in the industry are thinking about.
Jim was an open book with us, answering questions for well over an hour off-camera and showing us the details of his operations in a totally honest way.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the problems that a shop like Marathon Sportswear (with its millions of shirts printed each year) look similar to the problems that smaller shops face: staffing, communicating with customers, finding new customers, and choosing the right jobs that make enough money to keep the business going.
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