We recently connected with Johnny Jinx and have shared our conversation below.
Johnny, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry
When I first started tattooing in 2005 and dinosaurs roamed the earth, we used electromagnetic relay machines most folks in the biz refer to as “coils”. Noisy, heavy, and and awkwardly balanced – these relics came with a steep learning curve. Since then, many new innovations have been made to the rotary style of tattoo machine. They come with a lot of benefits, such as the same machine can now be used for multiple needle types just by switching a cartridge. With coils, you’d have to have a machine tuned for lining one size width, another machine if you wanted thicker lines, another machine for shading, another machine or two for color packing. Compared to the coil system, you would think the rotary and needle cartridge system were an obvious and less cumbersome choice for tattoos. And in the right hands they can be. Most every high end artist uses them and that’s become an issue. A lot of beginning artists look up to these rock stars and think ” that’s the tool I need.” and they shell out $800-$1400 for machinery they don’t understand to do tattoos that could be done faster with proper training and a $60 Amazon Special. I would like to see tattooers reacquaint themselves with coils, at least for smaller tattoos. Since I made the switch back to coils my clients’ heal time has improved to a week or less.
Johnny, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ve been a tattooer for over 18 years and a shop owner for 11. Its a fun job if you enjoy providing service and making other look and feel their best. When I opened shop, it was an experiment to see if I could pull the slimmest profit margin from others while attracting customers to my new shop through the reputations of well established talent. A lot of tattooers made a ton of money at my shop and passed the savings to their customers. For the most part folks were willing to ignore our low budget decor since they were getting killer work at a low rate. But after a while more and more artists were complaining about the run down look of the place and demanded I spend more money on the place. Raising their rent to pay for their requests was out of the question (of course) so folks just left, many of them to places that charged more than I did. That got my attention. It signaled to me that I HAD TO raise my rent if I wanted to keep artists. So I dumped a couple grand on a fancy looking mirror, I bought a throne, poured a couple more thousand on curtains, threw out all our old jewelry and replaced it with higher quality and hypoallergenic pieces, and took out a loan for signage brighter than the surface of the sun. All of those things combined with an eleven year reputation has justified, in my mind, the higher rates. I’m happy to say that my artists still enjoy a higher quality of life than many of their local colleagues and competitors, which has been my goal since the beginning. Sometimes I get a greedy daydream about how I can squeeze more money out shop but my wife always reminds me about our core value of not disrupting the livelihoods and incomes of our staff. I still never schedule anyone to work (they come and go whenever they want), and if someone takes a hardship, I’ll let the rent slide until business picks up. I’m not getting rich from this business plan, but I can still provide for my family.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When an artist leaves a shop, just for fun they like to all quit together all at once. After elven years, I’ve seen my share of mass exodus (exodi?) the first time it happens, I took it personally. I’ve seen shops go out of business for losing over half their staff. If I had been living outside of my means or if I was one of those shop owners who didn’t tattoo, I definitely wouldn’t have survived. Funny thing happened though: with less artists came more money and higher profit. Somehow, somewhere in our timeline, the shop that started off relying on the reputations of others – had developed a reputation of its own. A good one, too! We now brought in customers on our own without the help of those awesome artists who helped the company years ago.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
In the beginning, it was having an awesome team of talented artists with an established clientele that got the company going. These artists were a little jilted at the system of handing over 50% to a shop they no longer needed for providing new clients. Over the years, however, as the artists came and went, I’d like to think it was the committed presence I put into the place. What does that mean? Well, if someone got a tattoo here and their artist moved on to greener pastures, the free touch up policy is still covered by me. I don’t any money from the client, but its ok since my staff pays my bills. That assurance has won the trust of many new clients for myself and staff.
Contact Info:
- Website: brokenclovertattoo.com
- Instagram: johnnyjinxhatesyou
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrokenCloverTattoo/
Image Credits
Self Portrait, Oil on Board, By Johnny Jinx