Bob Oakley joins Nazdar (Shawnee, Kan.) as sales director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Oakley has spent the past 29 years working in the industry, most recently as sales director, Eastern Europe and export for FujiFilm Sericol.

Two of the driving forces behind every successful business are credibility and quality. The two, as with the many other factors of success, go handⁱ-in-hand though they are both equally individual. Quality—the creative, unique and professional products you produce—affects your credibility, how creative, unique and professional the services you offer are. And, to those who are painfully aware, it only takes one sub-quality product out of a million to ruin years of hard-earned credibility.

No matter how superior you believe your product quality to be, or how dependable your delivery record has been, a decorated-apparel business is only as good as its people—the good folks who interact with your clientele and give your company its reputation. One can appreciate the fact that many employers are making tough fiscal choices to deal with the economy these days but, unfortunately, some of those decisions are shaking the confidence of the very people that could buoy a business to deeper, safer waters.

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Okay, you are more than likely either a screen printer, an embroiderer, running a cutⁱ-and-sew garment plant or you are embellishing fabrics and garments in some manner. Whether it’s a thumb-print from a careless loader, a miscue on a test print, a drop of oil from your embroidery machine, or just some smudge you don’t know where came from, you are faced with fabric stains. In the process of any kind of embellishing, it can’t be helped. And stains are costly. You can’t deliver the goods with stains and, if you can’t get them out, you’ve got to replace those goods. Worse, you are facing a deadline and may not have time to replace the damaged goods.