Yesterday for the first time I decided that I needed to do an embroidery job. You all know how it is at this time of year, only a few days left before Christmas and sooooo much left to do so I decided that I had to give this a try. Well, I cannot use my right foot, it has to stay off the ground and elevated and I cannot use the crutches too well because of my lack of balance on my left leg. Fun, fun, fun!!

I have this walker with wheels and a seat in it so I an scooting myself around with that for the time being and trust me, I have found a whole new respect for anyone that runs their embroidery business from a wheel chair. THAT IS TOUGH!!! I know of a lady right now that has to be in a wheel chairs and is doing a fantastic job with her embroidery business! I surely do congratulate you Pam for even trying. You work so hard and deserve a medal!!!

I am 6 feet tall so I have everything in my workroom up high and trying to reach my supplies was not easy and of course my work area is not conducive to anyone sitting in a chair but I did accomplish my job even though it took me twice as long. I am extremely grateful that this is only temporary.

I would love to hear from anyone that has this challenge or any other type of challenge in trying to run their embroidery business and let me know how you are doing and what you do to compensate for these challenges.

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

The site it totally different, but the feedback that I have received so far has been excellent. It is easier to access and there are less layers to go through to view the information that you need especially if you are in a hurry. Sometimes you are in a position that you need a question answered quickly and with this new format that is possible.

Please take the time to go to the site, http://www.embroiderytipsandmore.com and take a sneak peak. You can see the total format even if you are not logged in. If you have not yet joined us, please give that some serious consideration. Your first month is FREE and if you decide to join us for an annual membership you will receive more benefits. For the annual membership you will receive a 50% discount coupon towards your purchase of the “How to Price Embroidery DVD Program” and you will be eligible to join us FREE for our monthly webinar training sessions that will be starting in January.

Even though it was tough to get through this past 6 weeks, it has really turned out to be a plus and I am thrilled.

Please go visit the new site and let me know what you think of it. I have not finished adding all of my content but if there is a subject that you would like addressed, please let me know. I am here to help you and to make your embroidery life easier!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
www.embroiderytipsandmore.com

If you have any issues or need help in any of your embroidery applications, feel contact me at joyce@embroiderytipsandmore.com. I will be more than happy to help you and I will be coming up with a huge special to make up for this time off line. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing you.

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

Today I am going to go over the elements of your actual Marketing Plan that you need to prepare for your Embroidery Business Plan. It is very important to do as much research as you can before you actually start working on your marketing plan. Don’t assume that you already know what is needed in your market place without this research. This is a huge mistake. You may have ideas that you think are great but without the proper research, you may find that you are heading in a totally wrong direction.

Marketing Plan

1. Targeted Customer Groups
Main Customers- List the names and geographical location of each. Are they retail or wholesale customers. What is the percentage of sales brought in by each of your main customers? How will new equipment effect your sales with the current customer base? A letter attached from your customers stating how their business will increase in the event that you do acquire new equipment always looks good in your plan. (This was huge for me when I presented my plan to the bank.) If you are a startup, you need to include a list of people and business'’ that have indicated that they would be happy to do business with you or that have promised to do business with you when you are ready to open your new embroidery business.

List Groups of Customers that you intend to target - A fair amount of research is required for this category. A good place to start is talking to people. What is the current demand in your target or niche market and what is it that they want that is currently not available? You will need statistics or percentages of the market share that you expect to acquire and what type of an impact these targeted groups will have on your business. This is especially important if you are going to market to a certain niche within the embroidery industry.

2. Budget for Promotion - Proper marketing can be very costly. What is the actual amount of money that you plan to budget for the first year. Make sure that you are allowing enough for all of your promotions. There are free avenues that you use to promote your business such as word of mouth and networking with business associates and friends. You can even use low cost dealer incentives or coupon give aways. Many business success stories are created through several avenues of adequate promotions.

3. First years Promotion Calendar - What is the actual plan and dates that you have set aside for your promotions. Do you have certain items or services that you are going to promote for each month. I have found this to be very effective in bringing in new business and increasing business with current customers.

4. Advertising Plans
Current Media selection and schedules
Future Media selection and schedules

5. Personal Selling Efforts

6. Sales Training Programs - This is a must if you have or plan to add salespeople. You must have written documentation in place as to how you are going to handle your sales and sales training guidelines in place for training all new sales personnel.

7. Sales Promotion Tools to be used - This includes the samples that you will be preparing as well as all of your sales literature. Are you going to be purchasing blank catalogs from your suppliers? Are you going to create your own Style Sheets or Sales literature? What types of samples are your going to be needing for your displays? What additional samples will each of your sales people need?

8. Distribution Methods and Channels - How will you sell your products and services to your customers. Retail, Direct mail order or Website orders, home parties, wholesale, sales agents, independent representations, your own sales force are all good choices but you must decide which method or methods will work best for you and your business.

In the next post, I will continue with on with the Marketing Plan and talk about your Sales Forecast, Competition and Pricing.

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

The easiest way to get started is to start gathering all of your information piece by piece and filing it into a three ring binder. I purchased a simple binder along with dividers for each section. I labeled all of the tabs on the dividers with the names of each element in the business plan. As I gathered the information I filed it into the divided section that was applicable. You do not have to work on each section until it is finished. You can work on several sections at once as you have the information. When you are working on your plan in pieces, it does not seem to be such a huge task.

In this post I am going to go over the Business Development section of your plan and what goes into this section.

Mission Statement - Briefly state in one or two sentences the reason why you want to start your embroidery business or if you are an existing business, why you are in business and your company goals.

Form of Ownership - Sole Proprietor, Partnership, Corporation or a Limited Liability Corporation. This you should discuss with your accountant and see which is the best option for you.

Description and History of the Business - If you are an existing business, discuss how many years the company has been in business, if it had any previous owners, sales and profit history and number of employees. Discuss any problems that you may have encountered in the past and what you did to overcome them along with any successes that have helped you to grow.

Major Business Objectives - What are your specific plans to start or increase your embroidery business? What are your specific plans to start or increase your production? What contingency plans do you have in place in case there is a change in the economy or the industry?

Manufactured Products or Services - List all of the products and services that you intend to or already do provide and what sets you apart from the competition. (Do not try to make yourself sound better than the competition here, just what makes you different.)

Machine/Equipment Required - List all of the equipment that will be required for your startup or expansion and include the pricing. Attach pictures or brochures of all of the equipment. If you have more than one department that will require equipment, list them separately.

Inventory Required - List all of the inventory that will be required along with the pricing of each item. You will also need to include the expected rates of inventory turnover, credit terms and delivery policies and your methods of inventory management, planning and control.

Customers, Contracts and Purchase Orders - List all of your prospective customers or market segment if you are a startup. If you are an existing business, list all of your existing customers, contracts and purchase orders that you have on hand. This is very important.

Suppliers - List the names and address of your suppliers, buying terms and delivery policies.

Do not overstate any of your information. It will come back to haunt you! Now that you know how to get started, this would be a good time to do just that! If you have never created a business plan, or if it has been along time, let’’s get started. It is extremely important to have a guide to keep you on that correct path. It is so easy to wander away from your main course and objective and having a good plan to refer back to will help to provide that balance for you and your staff. In the next post, I will talk about your Marketing Plan. Talk to you soon.

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

The new owners are keeping the same management in place and want to increase their embroidery production flow using all of the same equipment that is currently in production with no plans of any new equipment purchases in the near future.

This can be done, but first a new organization plan must be put into effect. By that I mean a work flow organization that also includes a change in the paper work flow and some of the current production processes.

After reviewing many of the current processes I am finding out that a lot of time is wasted in their movements during the processes and going from one process to another. It is extremely important to know exactly how much time it takes to do every single step within the entire manufacturing or embroidery process. This process starts at the exact moment that an order is taken and continues through all of the steps of planning and manufacturing right up until it is billed.

Each one of these steps has a time and cost associated with it. The work flow should be time studied at each stage of development to see if there is another way or movement that can be changed or incorporated to help the process be done more efficiently and quickly. It is very important to keep track of each one of these steps in the total process.

In most cases there is not enough thought put into the planning process before each step. This is especially important as a small embroidery business is growing and expanding into a larger organization.

It is the essential first step on your road to growth and success. The main purpose of writing a business plan is to give you a clear direction and guidance of how you intend to run your embroidery business and plan for future growth. With this plan you will be able to analyze and measure each step along the way to ensure that you are truly on the right path.

Writing a business plan is not as tough as it seems, the hardest part is getting started and knowing where to start. Many business plans look great on paper, but make sure as you are writing your business plan, that it will work for you in the real world! Creating a formal business plan takes may hours of work, but the end result is very rewarding and a real eye opener. With the proper projections you can foresee trouble spots and pro-act instead of reacting to obstacles that may be put in your path. It can be a simple 5-10 page plan that will work for most small to medium sized embroidery businesses or as complex as your want it to be. This all depends on your situation. Just make sure that it is real!!

If you plan on obtaining any type of financing you will be required to have a business plan. If your embroidery business is going to require financing through a financial institution or investors, then you will be required to furnish additional information. The basic elements of the business plan are as follow:

Table of Contents

Next I will talk about how to get started and begin going over each of the elements within the plan. Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

I have accomplished a lot of wonderful things and I have made a lot of mistakes! I'’d like to say that everything that I did was successful, but that would be incorrect! Like so many people, I have learned from my mistakes and many great accomplishments and new methods for doing different applications came as a result of a lot of those mistakes. I now have the privilege of sharing those methods with you so that can learn from my mistakes and not have to create your own.

My embroidery business started in 1978 when a friend of mine wanted the names embroidered on the left chest of some jackets. Embroidery was not available in our area, so I decided to give it a try. This was before I had ever heard from computerized embroidery machines. I started with a home sewing machine and a lot of practice. This was my beginning and it all started with free hand embroidery.

In 1984 I purchased my first computerized embroidery machine. I outgrew that very quickly and in 1985 I bought my first 6 head machine. From there I added a 12 head, a 15 head and 3 more single heads. At the same time that we were growing so heavily in the embroidery area, we were also growing in the twill and banner area. We started sewing twill letters on jackets and baseball uniforms in 1979 and banners were added in 1980, that part of the business increased in size almost as much as the embroidery.

In 2000, I decided to retire and that lasted 3 months. When the embroidery business gets into your blood, you cannot stop. You live, eat and sleep this business. Your head is always coming up with new ideas and things that you want to try. In August of 2000 I went to work for Hirsch International Corp. selling their Embroidery machines and software and it took me on a whole new path. I had the privilege of working with two of the more knowledgeable design software people in this business, Ed Levy and Gaby Finley.

Sales were good for me, but my main focus was to make sure that the person that I was selling to was also getting started out on a fast pace. I want to help guide people in the right direction when they first start in this business and help those that are running into problems. This has involved most areas of the embroidery business. Many embroiderers do not know how to get organized or how to produce good quality embroidery.

In 2002 I decided to go into Consulting and Training on a full time basis. This has led me to so many great people and has given me satisfaction that is hard to even explain. It is so exciting to see a new person create designs and be proud of what they have accomplished. It is also just as exciting to go into a larger business and improve their quality and raise their level of productivity.

My goal is to make it easier for you to learn new skills faster and easier without having to go through all of the hassles that I did when I was first learning. I have created a video Embroidery Training Website to help teach you the easy methods for creating your embroidery applications. The website is http://www.embroiderytipsandmore.com. This site starts with the basics such as of hooping, backings and goes through many of the applications and even shows you how to fix unexpected problems!

If there is anything that you need to learn or would like information about please let me know and I will try to accommodate your request. Any question that you have is probably the same question that someone else has, but is afraid to ask. Please do not hesitate to ask. This will only help a lot more people and that is exactly what we want to do.

Fondly,
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach