The Embroidery Coach, Author at Embroidery Industry Expert | The Embroidery Coach

3 Tips To Help You Prepare To Make More Money In The Coming Year

by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Management

We all need to start thinking about how we can prepare to make more money in the coming year! I have been working on my new marketing plan and during this time I have come up with 3 Tips that may help you as you are preparing to make more money in the coming year.

Create A Great Mindset!
Set Your Goals!
Start The Year Off With All Of Your Financials In Order!

Create A Great Mindset!

This is the very beginning and most important tip of the 3. That is why it is No. 1.
Do you have a great or positive Mindset? Many times our thoughts, especially the negative ones, are what hold us back from succeeding at what we want to achieve and may really be hurting our chances of having a successful embroidery business. I thought that I had a positive mindset but I discovered that I had fallen victim to a negative mindset and it was all of my own self-talk and negative feelings.

I wanted to charge higher prices for my embroidery work when I first started my business but then the negative talk started. I had been told so many times that there was no way that I was going to be able to make a living with an embroidery business that I actually started believing it.

We second-guess ourselves and we have doubts when this happens. With all of the negative thoughts and other people‚’s opinions, we soon tell ourselves that we aren‚’t good enough, smart enough, talented enough, or whatever to be able to charge the prices we want or need to for our work. So we end up just settling for what we think we can get and really create a tough struggle for ourselves.

This was a huge struggle for me when I first started my embroidery business and it lasted for almost 15 years!I was determined to have the highest quality embroidery of anyone that I knew of that was in the embroidery business and I was told many times that I had accomplished that. I was offering this very high-quality embroidery at a price that was as low or lower than the embroidery businesses that were offering low quality. How stupid was that!

I thought that my customers would not pay the prices that I really wanted to charge and I found that the secret is not to project your thinking & feelings onto your customers! This mindset held me back for 15 years! Since everyone else was charging low prices, I thought that I had to stay in line with them or charge less to get the customers. That mindset almost cost me my entire business!

I did not realize that what I had to offer was a product that I could have priced much higher right from the beginning of my business but my mindset had blocked my ability to see that. It took my accountant practically batting me in the head to get this point across.

It was a struggle for me to change that mindset but with his help, I was able to do so. I guess you would say, he was my first business coach. When I changed my total mindset and started promoting my quality product and excellent customer service I had plenty of work! Most of my customers were already coming to me for my quality and service and when I raised the prices, they were OK with that.

I would love to be able to convince you and all embroiderers that you need to charge for your expertise. We are not or should not be struggling artists! We are highly skilled professionals and should be paid accordingly and you need to develop the mindset of a professional!

Set Your Goals For The New Year!

Now is the time to start thinking about the new goals for the coming year! This year is already half over and we need to be prepared to get the new year started off on the right foot! Are you on target to reach your goals this year? If not, how far are you from reaching them? What is the obstacle that is in the way that has prevented you from reaching your goals?

Sit down with a pad and paper and look back over each month of this past year and see where you were and think about what you could change to make this next year a more profitable year.

Now is the time to set your new goals for the coming year. Do not wait until January gets here. You need to get prepared months in advance so that you can start January off with the right plan to reach those goals.

Setting your goals is the very first step in creating your plan for the coming year. Do not set goals so high that you cannot reach them and do not set them so low that they do not mean anything. Set your goals a little out of your reach so that you do have to stretch in order to reach them.

Write down your Goals. I have found that if I commit to them on paper, not just on the computer, but actually writing them down they mean a lot more and I am more apt to follow through and reach my goals. You must create a plan for each one of your goals in order to be able to reach them.

Start The Year Off With All Of Your Financials In Order

Do you know how where you will stand financially for your year end? I know that the year has not yet ended and we are few months away, but you should be able to anticipate how your year is going to end.

Are you happy with the results of where you are presently? Can you run off a quick report and see where you are today? You may or may not be happy with the way that your year is going to end or where you are today, but knowing exactly where you are financially is the first step in being able to make a change.

Without the knowledge of your current status, it is impossible to create a plan that is going to help you reach your goals and make the necessary changes in your business to do so for the coming year.

If you cannot run off a quick report to find out where you are, you need to start preparing to get all of your financials in order and be ready to start the new year going in the right direction. By the time the year ends, you need to have all of this information gathered.

All of your expenses, month by month
Your credit card purchases
Your Bank Statements
Loan information

Your next step is to see if you are making a profit. If not how far are you behind? Do you know your break-even point? This is exactly how much money you need to be bringing into your business each day, week or month in order to pay all of your bills, including a salary for you! You need to be rewarded for all of your hard work.

You need to know which area of your business is profitable and which area is not. This is the only way that you can realistically make the right course corrections and start your plan for next year. If you find an area in your business that is not profitable, get rid of it. It is not servicing you well and is costing you money.

Change your mindset, Set your goals and get your financials in order. This is the beginning of creating a great plan to help you make more money during the remainder of this year into next year!

If you will do some serious thinking about what I have given you in this article and start applying these tips, it will help you to get prepared for the coming year.

7 Tips To Help You Embroider Designs On Caps With Ease!

by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Education

Here are 7 tips that will help you embroider designs on caps with ease and save you a lot of unnecessary frustration. Trying to get high-quality embroidery designs on caps can be a real challenge when you are new to embroidery but with a little practice and experimenting, you can overcome many challenges.

For best results always start your design from the bottom up and from the center out. For better registration always finish one section of the design before going onto the next if at all possible.
Your embroidery design for a standard cap should not be more than 2.10 inches High and if you are working on a low profile cap it usually cannot be more than 2 inches high. I try to stay within the 2-inch high category for all of my cap designs. Very often your customer will want a repeat order, but if they decide to change the type of cap for their new order you may have issues if the original design does not fit on the new cap.
Sometimes 2 inches is too high for a design if you have more than 1 line of straight lettering or if you have a design that has a long line of small straight lettering on the bottom. This can be a real problem. Your bottom line of lettering may pull up in the center of the cap.
Make sure that the bottom of the design is at least one-half inch up from the seam where the cap front and the brim are sewn together. If you are working on a stiff cap front your letters may distort if you are sewing too close to the bottom of the cap. A lot of this depends on how the cap is made and how stiff it is at the very bottom of the front where it attaches to the brim. When you are hooping your cap, you must make sure that your cap facing is really tight into the lip of the cap framing device. If this does not work you have to either shorten your design to compensate or distort your lettering in the opposite direction. Sometimes just shortening the height of the design and moving it up slightly on the cap front will take care of the problem.
If you are using an embroidery design for a cap that has been created for a left chest, it is not always possible without editing the design to make it embroider properly on the cap. If you have lettering on the bottom of the cap you will have better results if you edit your design so that this lettering will stitch out first. I have found that this works best. Make sure that your lettering is set up to stitch center out. If your lettering is not stitching center out, you will need to re-sequence the lettering.
Always use cap backing when you are hooping your caps, regardless of how heavy or stiff your cap is. This also will help to produce a higher quality embroidery design on your cap. A 3 oz. tearaway cap backing is the best choice.
If you are working with a stiff cap such as a FlexFit cap; I have found that steam pressing the cap first softens up the backing and flattens out the top part of the cap. This makes the cap sit closer and flatter against the needle plate and helps to embroider designs on caps a lot easier. This is especially important when you are embroidering designs on youth sized caps. They are smaller and it is harder to get them flat against the needle plate.
Walk your machine when you first startup. By that I mean when you press the start button, keep your finger right on it and do not let up. This will allow the machine to stitch one stitch at a time and it will walk over that really thick part of the seam. When you just hit the start button in a normal fashion the machine is going at its fast speed. This causes the needle to deflect when it is trying to sew through those thick areas and will break. I am sure that you have seen this. If you walk the machine first, it will start very slow and you will avoid this from happening and this will help you to embroider designs on caps with ease.

I hope that these tips will help you embroider designs on caps with ease and make working with caps more pleasant than it has been in the past for you. Until you learn how to embroider designs on caps with ease, it can be very frustrating. Caps are a real money maker; they can be one of your biggest money makers, so it is to your benefit to learn how to embroider designs on caps with ease.

Building Customer Trust And Loyalty In Your Embroidery Business!

by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing

People work with businesses and professionals they trust. Building customer trust and loyalty in your embroidery business is an ongoing process. Here are 9 tips for building customer trust and loyalty with both old and new customers.

Keep your agreements with your customers
If you promise delivery on a particular day, make sure to deliver when it was promised. Even something as small as the time you have scheduled an appointment is an agreement. Each time you break a promise to a customer, you break the trust.
Create realistic customer expectations
Make sure the customer understands exactly what you will do for him or her and what is included in your service and what is not. What will create extra charges? How and when will you be billing the customer? Living up to the expectations you create helps to build trust with your customers.
Help customers to understand the process and strategy for their order
If your customer understands how you and your business works and what the process of their order is, the customer can then know what to expect and when to expect it. Trust comes when the customer feels confident and comfortable with the plan and the strategy.
Never over promise
It is tempting to promise whatever the customer wants to hear without looking at your schedule or asking if it is doable. When you do not deliver on your promise this causes broken agreements and broken trust.
Carefully explain the customer’s role
When a customer is clear on what his or her role is then he or she gets clear on what progress can be made without their involvement. Getting really clear on what the customer needs to do to move his or her order forward, helps you work as a team and builds trust.
Discuss potential problems that can happen
Nothing disturbs the trust of a customer more than when something unexpected happens. Guard against something negative happening as a surprise by discussing the potential pitfalls with the customer.
Review the work order in detail
Any decisions that the customer is going to have to make should be discussed in detail. Relationships and trust are built over a long period of time but it can be broken easily. An unexpected issue that is a surprise to the customer that he or she was not expecting can break that trust quickly.
Avoid making the customer feel stupid
No one likes to feel stupid. If customers feel that you think they are stupid they will no longer entrust you with their ideas or work. Customers who don’t feel valued by you may stop trusting you. No one sets out to make a customer feel stupid, but it could be an attitude, an inadvertent comment, or a look that gives the customer that impression. Be aware of your inner thoughts. They show up without your noticing. Be very careful with your language.
Don’t allow interruptions when you are meeting with a customer.
It gives them the feeling that they are not important to you and you really do not want their business. Everyone needs to feel special no matter how large or small their order is. This can ruin the good will and trust that you had with them.

Building relationships and customer trust with both your customers and prospects helps you to build loyalty. Loyalty is something that is very uncommon in the embroidery business anymore but it is not impossible to get. When your customers feel that they are valued and you give them excellent customer service, they will become loyal!

Always Give Your Customer A Embroidery Design Sew Out Sample

by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Tip

Always give your customer a completed embroidery design sew out sample to get their OK and have them sign off on their design. Creating embroidery design sew out samples is a very important step in your embroidery production process. You need to be able to show your customer a completed sample of how his embroidery will look before you actually embroider the design onto the customers finished garments.

I have discovered that most embroiderers create the embroidery design sew out samples on squares of backing fabric and give this to the customer for their approval. You really do not know what the actual design will look like on the finished products. The settings for the various types of fabrics need to be adjustment correctly for the best results on that fabric.

Having the exact same fabric is not always possible but there are fabrics that work as great substitutes. A t-shirt fabric works for a jersey knit placket shirt, the backside of a sweatshirt is a good substitute for a light weight fleece fabric, and an old worn out sheet is good replacement for a dress shirt or a handkerchief. If you use your imagination you can come up with a lot of close matches that will definitely work when you are creating your embroidery design sew out samples.

A great source for these type of fabrics are old garments that your family has discarded. I cut up various sized squares from old or unwanted garments and store them in plastic boxed that I have labeled: T-shirt fabric, Sweatshirt fabric, Wind shirt fabric, Terry cloth, Dress shirt fabric, and Heavy woven fabrics. When it is time for a new sew out sample these fabric squares come in very handy.

Another good source I found for inexpensive garments was at Goodwill or The Salvation Army stores. I needed some leather for a sew out sample and did not have any on hand. I found a jacket at the Goodwill store that had the lining ripped out of it. It was not selling so I was able to pick it up for $5.00. I have created a lot of sew outs from the one jacket.

You also want to choose a color of fabric that is closest to what the customer will be using. If this is not possible use a light color or neutral fabric for garments that will be a light color and a dark colored fabric for garments that will be a dark color. Create your embroidery design sew out sample in the correct colors that your customer will be using.

Giving your customer a completed embroidery design sew out sample on the correct type of cloth and in the correct colors shows him or her exactly how the embroidery will appear on the finished garments and it instills within them a level of confidence that you as a professional know exactly what you are doing.

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Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

Control Supplies Inventory Costs In Your Embroidery Business!

by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Management

Keep A Close Eye On Your Inventory Costs

Keeping close track of your inventory and supplies is a must when you are trying to control your supplies inventory costs in your embroidery business. Keeping a minimum on hand of all of your basic embroidery supplies is very important. You do not want to run out of a supply when you are in the middle of a job. Keeping a running inventory record is a must.

Planning ahead so that you are not ordering for overnight delivery is one of the ways to hold down shipping costs. Ordering in quantities, if at all possible, will reduce the costs of both the supplies and the shipping. Early payment discounts also helps to reduce the cost.

In a small shop the extra supplies can be stored in the actual work area. In a larger shop they must be stored in a separate Supply Storage area that is strictly for supplies or inventory. This will remove the extra clutter and keep the production and prep area more organized and cleaner.

Have One Person In Charge Of Inventory

Make sure that you have one person in charge of your inventory. When supplies are removed from the supply storage area, they must be accounted for so that they can be replaced before they are actually needed. Keeping a running log is very important in order to have this information at your fingertips at all times and it deters others from picking up supplies when they are not authorized to do so, controlling employee theft. In some areas this is a constant problem and one that is hard to pinpoint.

You as a business owner must do everything that you can to prevent losses to your business, and employee theft of supplies is an area that can be prevented. It is up to you to control supplies inventory costs in your embroidery business make sure that employee theft does not happen.

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