by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
Do you get frustrated when your embroidery design does not look good when you sew it out? It can be very frustrating when you sew out a new design and it is not working the way that you want it to? Where do you start in finding out what the issue is?
The first thought when you have an issue is to blame the digitizer. Sometimes this is valid, but there are times when the issues are caused by other factors such as improper hooping, wrong thread or needle, wrong backing, no topping and even running the machine too fast! The machines today are built to run faster than they really should run and when you purchase your machine that is a huge selling point. You can sew it at 1400 stitches per minutes all day long!
I have not seen too many embroidery machines that you can consistently sew out your garments that fast and have great quality embroidery. Your registration is not the same when you run it too fast. For higher quality work, slow it down a bit. Some machines will run very well at 850 or 900 stitches per minute, some will run a little faster, but the average is about 750-800 stitches per minute. Many older machines will need to be run at 600 to 650 stitches per minute. Here is a perfect example of what can happen if the machine is sewing too fast. This was brought in to me by one of my students that was not happy with the way that his design looked when he sewed it out. All we did was to slow down the machine.
Before you blame the digitizer, sew out your design and sew it more than once. As you sew out your design, have your design sheet in hand and place marks on it where each issue occurs. If the issues are with the design, you will have the same problem in the same spot consistently each time you run the design. If the issues are in other areas of the design as you run it, it is time to investigate other issues that could be happening.
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by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
This is a question that I get very often. Should I digitize my own embroidery designs? Should I spend the money to learn how to digitize my own designs? Should I upgrade my embroidery Software so that I can digitize my own designs? If these questions are going through your mind also, then read the article here that I have written.
In today’s world of embroidery, it really does not pay you to sit at your computer and digitize your designs when you can have someone else do one for you for a very few dollars. You need to keep your embroidery machines running and the best way that you can do that is to outsource your designs and spend the time that you would be digitizing, running your machines.
Many designs can take you several hours to digitize as in the design to the right. This was a jacket back design with a lot of detail. The customer wanted to see it in full color and then decided it was too much and only wanted an outline.
At the end of the month, you will be able to complete many more jobs than if you digitized or set up all of your own designs. Your bottom line is what matters at the end of the month!
What To Look For In A Good Digitizer!
First of all, what is a good digitizer? A good digitizer is someone that will work with you and help to make you look good to your customer. A good digitizer will know the embroidery process and know what it takes to make your design look the best that it can on your particular type of fabric.
Make sure that your digitizer knows production so that you have as few trims and color changes as possible. Make sure that he or she sews out the designs before sending them to you. You need to see what that design looks like sewn out on fabric. This is a big problem with a lot of digitizers, especially with Graphic Artists. They get their software and think that since they can create any type of graphic art, they can digitize a design for embroidery. This is not always true. Many times, they don‚’t know anything about the sewing process and have no idea about push and pull compensation, underlay stitching or density, all very important factors in creating quality designs.
The best place to find a good digitizer is through the sales rep in your area that sold you your embroidery design software. He or she should be able to direct you to someone that will be the type of digitizer that you are looking for.
If you can find a digitizer that digitizes their designs using the same type of embroidery software that you are using, this is the best of both worlds. This makes it easier for you if there is need for a size change or some fabric setting changes. With the right tools and education, you can do this yourself.
Important Information To Tell Your Digitizer About Your Design
- The type of fabric the design is going to be sewn on
- The finished size of the design.
- How many color stops you want in the design and where. Many times you want to change a particular color if your garment color changes.
- If you will be using this design for any other type of application
- The format do you want the design to be finished in-Preferably your software native format such as .EMB or .PXF. You also want the .DST file. If you have the original file, you can take care of any edits that you may need.
- You will want to be able to increase or decrease the size of the design from the original size
- Let them know that they can make some modifications to the design to make it sew better such as increase the letter size or choose a different font style?
Should I digitize your own embroidery designs? I would say, you are better off learning how to become an expert at editing your designs. What you need is the capability to edit the designs in case you want to make some changes. Having great editing skills are very important. If you do not have great editing skills, this is where you need to concentrate your learning effort.
If you want to learn good editing skills, contact me and we can schedule some lessons! This will help you speed up production and be able to increase your quality at the same time.
Good Editing Skills Are A Must In Today’s World of people that do not want to wait! Join us for our Free Monthly Training.
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
WOW! Here we are at the beginning of another new year and now we are faced with having to close our books for the year. Are you ready? Are your records all organized and ready for the simple process of closing the year out or do you have a mess of papers stuck in a box or file that need to be organized into some kind of order so that your accountant can make it happen?
Bookkeeping is one of our least favorite things to do as embroiderers! We did not start our embroidery business so that we could do bookkeeping! We are born creators, not bookkeepers, but unfortunately, it is part of owning a business and is a very necessary part of the business that we must be on top of! You may feel like you are drowning in paper work.
It is critical to organize every part of your business and your records must be organized for easy and accurate bookkeeping. Without good organization of your records it can become very overwhelming when you need to produce some important information and it can cause unnecessary stress in your personal life and your business.
Have you found yourself spending many days just before time to file your taxes trying to get everything organized? Trying to pull it all together at tax time when it is disorganized is really hard and time consuming, not to mention how frustrating it can be. You could be spending this time getting more jobs out, but instead you have to stop producing your embroidery and concentrate on the taxes in order to stay compliant with the government.
Your business generates a lot of paperwork and it can easily get out of control if you do not have a good system for taking care of it. This was a huge struggle for me until I realized that I could not continue to do it as I was and get my jobs out at the same time. I had to take some time out, stop the crazy disorganization of papers and get my books in order.
I had been told about systems where you can scan all of your paperwork and then dispose of it but I have not found this to be successful for me. I bought the scanner and spent a lot of time trying to get a good system figured out so that I could eliminate all of the paper but that did not work for me. It would be great if we could just throw all of that paper away, but unfortunately, we must keep a good share of it and file it in an organized manner so that it is easy to retrieve.
Keeping accurate financial records is necessary for the growth of your business. You need to be able to look back and compare one year to the next so that you can plan in a more efficient manner. You also need to know which area of your business is performing the best and in which area you are not making enough money. Without accurate records, this is impossible.
If you are new to bookkeeping and you have not started to use any type of accounting software you must first go through and organize all of your records. You must have them in order before you can even think about using any type of accounting software.
Start The Process of Organizing Your Bookkeeping Records
Step 1- Separate the receipts for your expenses and for your income. Make sure that you have every little piece of paper because it can make a difference at tax time.
Step 2– Take the pile of receipts of your expenses and separate them by the month. Do the same for your income.
Step 3– Separate the piles of expenses and income for the first month into piles of like kinds.
Step 4– Create a spreadsheet with columns of the like kinds for your expenses and add the receipts into each column that is applicable. By like kinds I mean, Office supplies, loan payments, travel expenses, etc.
Step 5– When finished with the month, place the receipts into a file folder marked by the Month and place the file folder in a file drawer. Keep one file drawer for this purpose only.
Step 6– Repeat this process for your income statements.
Step 7– Total each column of expenses for the month. Do the same step for your income.
Step 8- Repeat this process on a separate spreadsheet for each month.
Organizing them in this manner will make it easier for you to start the process of working with accounting software. I know that the term accounting software is scary if this is all new to you, but it really is very simple to use once you have your expenses and income organized.
Spread Sheet Ready To Go!
I have created a spread sheet that you are welcome to use to get this process started. It will be much easier than having to create it yourself. Fill in the form below and I will send you the Spreadsheet and you can start using it.
This spreadsheet will get you ready for starting to set up your bookkeeping system or get you ready for the end of your year and be able to give your accountant your spreadsheets. I worked with my spreadsheets for several years before I started using accounting software and it worked for me as my business was very young.
In today’s world, the accounting systems are very simple and it is smart to start using them right from the beginning of starting your business. I have created a program called Embroidery Business Bookkeeping System that teaches you how to set up your books for the apparel decorating business. This goes beyond embroidery and can be used in other areas like vinyl, DTG, screen printing and more. You want to have your books set up in such a way that you can tell in each area of your business where you are making money and where you have problems.
Once your accounting system is set up correctly, this is very simple. You will also be able to create your invoices quickly which helps you get paid quicker! You won't lay awake at night worrying about paper work! It will be taken care of!
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Planning
Let's face it, we all want to have a business that we love! We all want to start each day with the feeling of I can't wait to get started today!Your business is a very serious venture and if you do not plan it out, you are just running a hobby and you would be better off doing something else with your time unless of course this is the kind of life that you want! For me, I want to know what I am doing and what I need to do each day of my week and month. I wake up each morning with my plan in place and I know exactly what I have to get done that day and I do whatever I can to get it accomplished.
Does it always happen, No, but I surely do work at it hard enough and try to get it all accomplished. Without a written Embroidery Business plan, I would not know what I had to get done by the end of this week or this month in order to reach my goal.
Here Are 10 Tips To Help You Make Your Embroidery Business Planning Easier!
- Set Your Goals!
Do not set goals too 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.
- Reach Out For Help-Outsource!
I create my plans in cycles of 60 days and to reach my goals and get everything done that I want done at the end of this 60 day plan, I have to reach out for help. I have hired someone else to help me and have given them instructions as to what I need done.When you are the main person in your business and the only one running it, trying to get everything done is impossible. There are tasks that you can hire out to take some of the big burden off of your shoulders. This may be simply having someone come in and clean your home for you periodically. It may be someone that can run errands for you. Before my husband retired, I had someone do small errands for me each week, like go to the post office and make my bank deposits. This freed up a lot of time for me. I have someone that does all of my books for me.
I found that this was one of the areas that was really bogging me down.I have heard embroiderers say, as soon as I get enough money to hire someone I will, and it will be easier. This is the wrong way of thinking. Thinking like that will not be productive for you and you will find that that day will never come. You cannot get ahead and do everything yourself unless of course you are just starting out and you do not have much work. Once the work starts coming in, you cannot afford to try and do everything yourself because some of the other areas of your business will suffer when you are trying to get your embroidery work done.
- Find Out Where You Stand Financially!
Before I hired a bookkeeper, I was always behind with my books and before I knew it, the year was half gone and I had no idea as to where I was. I did not know if I was making a profit or losing money. I had a vague idea and I knew what was in my bank account, but it was very frustrating for me not knowing where I stood. If you do not know where you are financially, it can really put your whole business in a tailspin and it is usually a downward spiral.You need to know where you are at all times, so that you can make the proper adjustments to change whatever needs to be changed. You must also be willing to say NO! This is another area that is a hard one for most of us embroiderers! I know that is a hard one for me, but I have come to the conclusion that I cannot do it all and what is not creating the most profitable for me is gone! 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.
Start Planning Small!If you that have not been in the habit of monthly, weekly, or daily planning, you need to start today, but start small. I know that in all of the books about planning it says to start out with your entire year first, then your month, then your week and then your day! To me this was impossible. I could not relate to that because I really did not know what I was going to be doing in a year and I did not have any type of a plan in place.I started by planning out my day at the end of the day before. I worked hard to try and complete what I had on my list to do. I also found out what I could realistically do in a day‚’s time. Once I got used to that and saw how much more smoothly my days started running, I planned out my entire week on a Master plan and then created the daily plan from there.Now I have a basic plan for the year, but my Master Plan is mainly a plan for 60 days at a time. To me that is much more realistic. I have specific goals that I set for each 60 day cycle and without my Master Plan, I would never reach them!
- Time All Of Your Actions!
Start timing all of your actions. This was huge for me when I started this. I found out that I was wasting a lot of time on mundane items and by timing myself, it made me work a little faster with a totally different mindset. I was taught this by another internet marketer and I found out that many of the top marketers were using this method so I decided to give it a try.In my Embroidery Pricing program I teach you about timing all of your production and artwork but I have not talked about timing all of your other tasks. This is just as important. Timing each one of your tasks is a big step toward creating more efficiency. Create A Master Plan!Planning out your business takes time, but once you have a Master Plan in place, it is a huge time saver! When you are creating your Master Plan, you need to be off by yourself and not in the middle of your business. This may require that you go away for a day or lock yourself in one room with strict instructions to leave you alone!
I find that creating my Master Plans in 60-day cycles works great. This is not a huge chunk of time and it makes it easy to plan out 8 weeks instead of trying to plan out an entire year. I have basic goals for my year but it is just too difficult to try and plan out an entire year. There is one exception to this and that is Marketing, but we will touch on that later.Each piece of your 60-day plan is then broken down into smaller chunks that are more manageable and easy to plan out right down to your daily to do list.I do not want you to be overwhelmed by all of this and start thinking that you have to immediately create a 60-day plan. I have a simple method that I use to create my 60-day plan and if you choose to participate in my Embroidery business Plan Made Easy program, you will see how simple my step by step method really is.
- Plan Each Area Within Your Business!
After creating your Master Plan it is very important to go back and start planning out each are of your business. You have many individual departments within your business, even if you are a 1 person business.To start planning each area, you will go through each of your processes, 1 by 1 and write down your process step by step. As you are doing this, think about what you are doing and ask yourself a question. Is there an easier or quicker way that I can perform that same task? Write it down in a step by step fashion and create an actual process manual out of it.A process manual needs to be created for everything that you do from taking an order from a customer to shipping your products out the door and even creating that invoice and sending it out.
Every function that you have in your business has a certain way that it is done or needs to be done to be efficient. When you are finished with your manual, give it to someone that is not familiar with the process and ask them to read through it and try to duplicate that process. If they can, it is complete. If they cannot, you need to go back and rewrite it until they totally understand what it is that you are trying to do. Make it so simple that anyone can pick it up very quickly!
- Create a Marketing Plan!
Most embroiderers do not even have a marketing plan and really do not know how to create one. One of the biggest mistakes that embroiderers make is cutting back on marketing during the slow periods. You know when your slow periods are, you know when the holidays are, create programs to ramp up your sales for all of these times. It is not as hard as it seems or a lot of people make it out to be.Most embroiderers think that when the business is slow, this is the time that you have to cut back on everything. How is that going to bring more work in the door? That makes no sense to me. I have embroiderers even say to me, I have to stop your membership site because things are slow. What they should be doing is reaching out to me for help so that they can avoid those times.
You should create a Marketing plan for 1 year in advance.You need to create a plan around the entire 12 months calendar, this would be holidays, sports events, business events and any other type of event that you can think of. If you know ahead of time when your promotions are going to be, it makes it easy to plan out each one in advance of the promotion and be ready for it. This will help to avoid those slow times.Marketing is the most important part of your business besides your skill level but even if you are the best embroiderer in town, if you are not marketing your business, you are not going to have any!
- Use Tools To Make Planning Easier!
Without the proper tools it is a lot harder to create a plan or even know where to start in creating your plan. You need to create a good Business Plan as your foundation and then you can start planning each area from there. I have a program that I have created that will give you all of the tools to help you create the type of business plan that you need and will be able to use on a daily basis.This is a 4 session video training course that I have recorded that takes you step by step all the way through your planning. I want you to have your total Embroidery Business Plan in place by the end of the course.This is a program that will show you in an easy step by step manner how to create your Embroidery Business Plan and get you on your journey to being able to run your embroidery business more efficiently and be able to create more profits! I want you to have the opportunity to get this next year started off properly.
- Work Your Plan!You must be committed to this process. Without a good working business plan or roadmap, it is very difficult to grow your business or even stay in business! If you have your goals set and your plan together it is much easier to get through your day.There are so many areas within your business that need to be planned out and without getting started, it is very hard to run it efficiently! When you have your business planned out and know what you are doing each day, you are then on the road to creating the very type of business that you will love!
Get started on creating your own Embroidery Business Plan TODAY!
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
When you are creating your basic pricing structure, there are many factors that need to be added in over and above the actual cost that you are currently incurring as you start your new embroidery business. This also applies to businesses that are expanding by adding new machine or services, such as screen printing, vinyl, rhinestones…pertinent to any apparel decoration within your business.
You should always include the cost of doing business as a store based business from the very beginning. Most new embroidery business owners that are home-based do not include many basic expenses that will prevent them from making a living with their business or plan at all for future growth.
- Rent
- Insurance
- Utilities
- And More
Figure Floor Space Required To Determine Cost
These are just a few of the basic expenses that must be covered. Do you know exactly how much floor space you need for your business? You are going to need at least 1 small room or a corner in your basement to hold your embroidery machine and other equipment, a work table, some shelving. My home workshop that I started with was 12 feet by 14 feet. It was very compact but workable. I had 2 single head embroidery machines in that room, but I did not have my desk in this space. However, I would have had room for it, if I did not have 2 machines.
Call a real estate agent in your area to find out what an average charge per square foot would be for a rental of commercial space. You can then ask someone that has rental space, about what the utilities would cost. Call your insurance agent and find out approximately what the insurance would be. As long as you have an idea as to how many square feet you would start out at, these would not be hard figures to come up with.
If you have a machine that is paid for and you have no machine or loan payment, you still need to include the cost of new equipment. If you paid cash for your machine or took the money from your savings then you need to set up a repayment plan to pay yourself back.
Without including these types of cost when you are creating your basic pricing structure, you will have no way of creating a price list that will give you the means for planning for your future growth.
When I started my business I was in my home, did not take a salary, I had no idea that I needed to add for my utilities, rent or other items. I charged very low prices so that I could get the work and made many mistakes as a new business owner.
I just kept thinking that if I increased the numbers that went through my business, then I would eventually start making money, but I found out that it does not work that way. I did what most embroiderers do; by trying to undercut the competition and found out in the end that I was only undercutting myself! That practice set me up for failure right from the start.
You may have heard my story of how I almost lost my business because of the way that I was pricing. When I had to move out of my home into a retail location, I was not at all prepared for it. I was not aware of the many additional costs that were associated with operating my business away from my home. As a result, I had to work extra hours to bring in more money to pay for all of the extra expenses.
When I went to the bank to borrow money because I needed another machine, I was told no because I did not have a plan for future growth or even a plan B.
This is NOT the way to start your business! It is very important to include all of the basic expenses when you are creating your pricing structure right from the beginning of your embroidery business! Without it, it is impossible to grow. DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE!
Click Here to start creating your pricing structure that will help you plan for future growth!
