Explain the price curve rather than quoting a unit price. Setup is paid per colour and not per garment, so thirty shirts land surprisingly close to a hundred — and the printer who says this plainly is having a different conversation from the one who quotes £8 each and disappoints later.
Match technique to quantity in the open. Screen printing above a certain run, vinyl or direct-to-film below it, embroidery for workwear: laying that out reads as advice rather than as a sales ladder, and it stops the enquiry that was never going to work.
Write a page about artwork. A photograph taken in a messaging app is the single biggest time sink in this trade, and explaining what a usable file looks like — and what redrawing costs — turns a recurring argument into a priced service.
Own the deadline searches. Tournaments, festivals and leavers' week are fixed dates, and a printer who states an honest turnaround gets the jobs that can actually be delivered instead of the ones that arrive with four days' notice.