Once a customer placed an order with us, we had to mock up each artwork, queue it for production, manufacture it, and ship it. Below is the flowchart of the steps orders took before they were delivered to the customer.

Someone once told me, "There can't be any grey areas with customers." I kept that quote in mind as I built Rockin Monkey. From an operations standpoint, that meant ensuring orders flowed effectively, produced repeatable outcomes, and maintained transparency internally and with the customer.

As I built out a PrePress department with multiple graphic designers, the mockups they created for customers needed to be consistent, no matter which designer worked on the order. Consistency began to take shape through custom macros, multi-step logic-flow actions in Adobe Illustrator, an internal order-tracking and processing system, as well as a customer mockup approval system.

As a business owner, grey areas meant lost revenue and mea culpas. That second one hurts reputation and trust if you don't address it and remove those grey areas. And it just makes you feel bad - you let someone down, there’s a knock to your pride in your work, and incremental increases in stress.