by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Pricing
How To Price Embroidery Workshop Starting January 8th!
I have some questions that I would like to ask you.
- Do you have a concrete pricing structure in place that makes you a good profit?
- Can you give your customers an instant price?
- Do you price by stitch count alone?
These are very important questions for you to think about.
In today‚’s economy and the way that business is changing it is extremely important for you to be able to work with your customers more efficiently and be able to give them an instant price! In order to do this you must have a concrete pricing structure in place!
When a customer or prospect wants a price, you cannot tell them that you will get back to them later! This does not work anymore! They want an instant price! You have to be prepared ahead of time and be able to work with them quickly. You do not have the time to spend on trying to get things figured out. You need to be running your business more efficiently if you are going to stay in business. I do not mean to scare you but the way that we have to do business today is far different than the way that we did business a short time ago.
The economy is changing and we have to be prepared to change with it. The competition is getting fiercer and in order to stay on top, you have to be more organized, give better and quicker service and show your customers that you really want their business.
As you make your plans for 2013 keep in mind that I am going to be holding a series of workshops that will help you become more organized and make it easier for you to run your embroidery business.
- How To Price Your Embroidery–Starting January 8th – 4 weeks
- Embroidery Business Plan-How To Plan For Your Business –Starting February 19th Рthis will include Organization, your Marketing Plan and your Business Plan with projections– 4 Weeks
- Embroidery Shopping Cart-March 26th – Includes more organization and getting samples together- 4 weeks
- Embroidery Business Marketing System – may 14th – Blog-Automatic Emailing System – 4 weeks
Plan to be part of this first Workshop starting on January 8th. You will be creating a tool that will allow you to see instantly if you are going to make a profit on a job or if you should even take a job. This tool is extremely important in your business. You will also be creating pricing worksheets that will allow you to be able to price for Retail, Schools, Organizations and even Wholesale. Having these tools in front of you at all times makes it easy to work with your customers and be able to give them that instant price!
Go to http://www.TheEmbroideryCoach.com and get signed up for the How To Price Your Embroidery Workshop staring January 8th!
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
We are about to say goodbye to 2012 and welcome to 2013! This is the time when we need to look back on the old year and see what worked and what did not work! What do you need to do in your personal life or business to make the necessary changes in the areas that did not work? Is it time to let go of some of the things that did not work?
2012 was a year that was very good and yet it was a challenging year for me! There have been so many changes in my life and I have felt like there have been so many new beginnings from those changes and I am happy to say that in 2013 I expect to see the fruits of the labor from all of those changes.
I have always done a lot of planning and I try to work my plans but sometimes our plans just do not work out the way that we expect no matter how hard we try!
When you find an area in your life or your business that is not working the way that you think that it should, it is time to stop and take a good look at the situation and find out what you need to do to make the necessary change or perhaps you need to let it go.
This was one of those years for me. I had many changes that took place in my life that I had not planned for, but there were three changes that were major that affected both my personal life and my business in ways that I would not have imagined. I would like to share these with you.
- Went back to work to manage my former embroidery business
- I had to build a new Embroidery Training membership site
- Surgery for a knee replacement
Managing My Old Embroidery Business!
One morning in January 2012 I received a phone call from the gentleman that had purchased my embroidery business. The business was not making the kind of money that we was expecting and he was having a lot of problems with the employees. He was an absentee owner and he made some drastic changes to the business when he purchased it and closed the retail side of the business. The business seemed to be OK for while, but now several years later, he was extremely frustrated and about ready to close the doors. He wanted me to come in and do an evaluation of the business and let him know what it was that needed to be done to solve the problems and get the business back on track.
This was a real challenge for me, not because of the evaluation, but knowing what he really wanted was for me to fix all of the problems of the business and then stay on to manage the business. I knew that I could give him a great evaluation and let him know what he had to do to make the changes, but giving up some of the hours that I needed to spend on my embroidery training business so that I could fix his business, was a really tough decision for me to make.
I called my business coach and discussed it with her. She told me to evaluate my business and my personal life to see if this was going to be a benefit or a detriment. I wrestled with this decision for two weeks before I finally made my decision to give it a try for a few weeks and see what I could do to improve this business. I also decided that I would share this experience with my students so they could also learn from this business makeover. It is now 11 months later and I am still there.
Changes That I Made In This Business!
During this time I have sold old equipment, changed the work flow, added new production flow forms that must be followed, let go of employees that were not happy or causing dissension among the other employees and retrained the remaining employees. The business was totally divided into departments and the employees stayed in their particular departments and were not willing to cross the line to help in another department when it was necessary. There was no teamwork whatsoever among these employees.
This business was strictly a contract embroidery shop and it is almost impossible for a small embroidery business or even a medium sized embroidery business to survive on contract work alone. It needs some retail sales to help balance out the money flow especially during the lean times and there are lean times or months in almost every embroidery business.
I have also had the opportunity to work with each employee personally and have found out where all of their strengths and weaknesses are. This has allowed me to move them around in areas that they are excelling in and are much happier.
The business now has less employees, there is no division within the company and the production has greatly increased with the current employees. These remaining employees are now happy and are very willing to work as a team and it will be easier to train new employees because of all of the procedures that are now set in place. Do you have written procedures for each area of your business?
Plans For More Changes In 2013
I have more changes planned in 2013 for this business. I am in the process of opening up a retail area in the business and the opening is set for the end of January. I have the retail area 
all planned out and am in the process of getting the samples and the display equipment together. I am creating wall samples to make it easy for the customers to pick out exactly what they want for embroidery. It is going to save a lot of time for both the customer and the salesperson. When they are finished, I will take pictures and share them with you. I will tell you exactly how I created them so that you can duplicate what I have done for your own business.
I am also installing a new accounting system to get the New Year started off in the right direction with the accounting and the work flow. The changes that I have already made have been very positive and the owner is pleased with the progress. The employees that are still there are happy and are very willing to work as a team! I will not be leaving there any time soon. I have a lot that I want to accomplish and I want to see this business become very profitable and it is now moving in the right direction.
In the next Ezine, I will be sharing with you the next major change that affected by business!
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Management
Your Embroidery Business Once In A Lifetime Opportunity!”
This Embroidery Business Lifetime opportunity does not come your way very often. I want to offer you something really special to celebrate the end of the year and the launch of The Embroidery Training Resource Center‚ that you absolutely will not want to pass up! What a wonderful Christmas gift this would make! Can you imagine a better gift than all of the information that you will need to grow your embroidery business!
I have built The Embroidery Training Resource Center into the only Embroidery Training Center that you will ever need! The training inside of this comprehensive training site starts with the baby steps of starting your own embroidery business and provides the tools that you will need as you grow along in your embroidery business.
Go to http://www.TheEmbroideryCoach.com for full details! Trust Me! You do not want to miss out on this once in a LIFETIME opportunity!
Along with the Gold Plus Membership you will also be eligible to attend FREE the “How To Price Your Embroidery Workshop” in January of 2013
It is Time To Give Yourself A Gift! A Once In A Lifetime Embroidery Business Opportunity!
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Management, Embroidery Production
Do you have the business organization and forms that help you to run your embroidery business and keep track of your production at all times? When you first start your embroidery business you can become so overwhelmed by all of the forms and processes that are so necessary to keep your entire production running smoothly.
There are software programs that can be purchased to help you keep track of your entire order, but most new embroiderers are not in the position to be able to purchase these programs so you must have a way of keeping track of it manually. I always advise new embroiderers to start keeping track of their jobs manually before going to the computer systems.
Record keeping is so extremely important and there are many forms that I have and keep with each order. You must have a system for keeping track of each step and the forms for each part of your organization or production of every job. Without a good system in place, you will soon become totally overwhelmed with the workload and you will not be able to keep track of your production and it can become very discouraging. I have 3 types of forms
- Office or Sales Forms
- Production Forms
- Shipping Forms
The Office or the Sales Area is the First One That I Will Address.
This scenario is based on the fact that you are an embroiderer that sells retail and may have a retail or showroom in your location. If you are working from home and do most of your orders online or on the phone, the same processes and forms will apply to you as well.
I create sales packets that are ready for each sale so that I can grab them and be ready when I am first starting to work with a customer.
- Customer Quote Form – Can be part of the packet or separate-This form is filled out and a copy given to the customer-your copy is then placed in a binder until the customer comes back in ready to place the order.
- Order Form – I have one for Apparel and one for Caps-You can expand on this if you have different needs.
- Form of Payment -Credit card-Pay Pal-Check form
- Design Tracking & Timing Form
- Production Tracking & Timing Form
- Packing List
- Do you have a checklist to make sure that all of the steps are taken?
These ready-made sales packets make it easy to work with and you do not forget anything as you are going through the entire process with your customer or prospect. Between the Quote form, the Order form and the Form of Payment form, you can collect all of their information and be ready for the sales process. I also have all of their information to easily input it into my database and start marketing to them. This can be in the form of a Newsletter, postcards, emails or a combination of all three.
Order is Ready for Processing
Once the order has gone through the sales process it is ready for the production process. The first step is to be Logged in. This can be done manually on a sheet of paper or in the computer. On the Log In Form, you want to have all of the necessary information to track it through the entire production process, finishing process and out the door! After the job is Logged In the process begins.
- Two copies of the Customer's original order are made and the original Customer Order form is filed away and you work with the copies of the order all the way through production. The goods or blank products need to be ordered. One copy of the order is then placed on a clipboard and hung up so that you can easily see it. I have mine hung over the Login table. This will stay there until the blank goods arrive.
- The other copy of the order goes to the person that will be creating the artwork or embroidery setup for the job. The Artwork will need to be started. The Artwork Tracking & Timing form is used to keep track of all of the time that is spent on creating the artwork, design set up, sewouts and getting approval from the customer. There is a lot of time in this step and it all needs to be kept track of. I have a form, Customer Approval Form that I created that has the embroidered picture of the design on it and the color breakdown so that the customer knows what the color will be for each part of the design. If there are different colors of garments, your color breakdowns may be different. You must have the customer‚’s approval before you start embroidering the garments. This is very important.
- The Artwork person creates a folder that will hold the production information and be followed all the way through production. I have an Embroidery Room Worksheet that the Artwork person fills out. This has all of the embroidery and design information on it, the color breakdowns, how the order will be hooped and run. A copy of the design is then put on a disk and placed inside of the folder. All of this information follows the job through the entire process.
- The blank goods arrive. This is where the Production Tracking and Timing form comes in. Each step of the production process must be timed and kept track of so that you will know what your true costs are at the end of the job! The blank goods need to be counted, inspected and organized in stacks of sizes. Each size will be hooped in a slightly different location so you must have a system of keeping track of the sizes so that they do not get mixed up and hooped improperly. The blank goods must be checked against the packing slip from the distributor and the customer‚’s order to make sure that they match. After they are verified that they match, the distributor‚’s packing slip is attached to the customer‚’s order.
- The garments go to the hooping area and are hooped with the properly sized hoop and the correct type of backing and topping if necessary.
- The job then goes to a staging area waiting to go to the embroidery machine. If you have your jobs hooped ahead of time, you will save a huge amount of production time and can just basically feed the machine. This is when you can really make money.
- After the garments are embroidered, the embroidery machine operator removes the hoops and places the garments into a bin.
- The embroidery machine operator will make notes on the Embroidery Room Worksheet of any changes that were made and other necessary notes that she feels is important. Many times an embroidered garment will be placed on a copier so that they have the exact location pictured or if there is any question about how it was run. If it was a job that was difficult to hoop, that will be recorded on this Embroidery Room Worksheet.
- The Production folder that the Artwork person created is then filed away with all of the embroidery and design information so that it is ready when a repeat order comes in. This makes it very easy to repeat a job without errors.
- The embroidered garments then go to the finishing area for trimming, steaming and packing.
- After the garments are trimmed, steamed and packed, they are then placed in stacks and counted to make sure that you have all of the proper pieces and sizes that match the customer‚’s order.
Job is Finished Ready for the Shipping Process
- After the job is counted and placed in size stacks, the Packing List is created. This will have the Customers Name, Shipping Address, Order Number from the Log In sheet, Box __ of __, Quantity, Item Description, Color, and Size
.
- A copy of the Packing List is made and placed inside of the box for shipping. The original is sent to the Shipping department to have the shipping label created and the cost for the shipping is added to the packing slip.
- This copy of the Packing List with the shipping costs added is attached to the total packet of forms, Customer‚’s Order, Artwork tracking & Timing form, Production Tracking & Timing form and sent to the office to be invoiced.
- The shipping person must go back to the Log In form and add the shipping date.
- The Invoice is generated by the Office person and then she goes back to the Log In form to write in the Invoice Number.
This system gives you a total tracking of all of your processes and helps you to keep on top of your orders at all times. If a customer calls and wants to know where their order is in the processing, it is very easy to find out and give them an accurate answer. This is very important. Customers want and need to know that you are totally organized and on top of their order at all times!
This system works even if you do not have an automated system that tracks in the computer. As your small business grows and you have the funds to add an automated system then you will be ready and understand all of the processes. The automated systems still need to have the accurate information input into them, but they are a huge time saver when you get to that point in your business.
I hope that this basic process will help you as you are getting your Embroidery Business organized and getting all of the forms necessary for you to keep track of your production. All of these forms are available inside of my Embroidery Training membership site. I have 4 levels of membership. Go to http://TheEmbroideryTrainingResourceCenter.com and see what level is the correct one for you. Most of the forms are inside of the Silver level.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
There are many ways to market your embroidery business but first I want to start out by giving you a few pointers about increasing the sales to your current customers and then I will talk about prospecting for new customers. It is much easier and more cost effective to market to your current customers than always trying to find new ones! This is the first step in starting to market your embroidery business.
Increasing customer sales with your current customer base is all about creating relationships. Creating good customer relationships is the most important duty that you have as a business owner and this is something that does not cost a lot of money. Many times it is the little unexpected things that we do that mean the most and keeps those customers coming back to our business over and over!
I purchased a program from a large company and was shocked when I received a handwritten Thank you note in the mail. I have to tell you, I was extremely impressed at this gesture! Just a simple thank you card that only took the salesperson a couple of minutes to write meant a lot to me and I will remember that the next time that I decide to order another program.
Here are some simple ways for you to increase your customer sales.
- Offer Exceptional Customer Service
- More Low Cost-High Profit Services To Your Existing Customers
- Build A Relationship With Existing And Former Customers
- Plan A Customer Appreciation Night
- Create A Web Presence
- Offer More Than One Price Level Of Products
There are several Low Cost Methods of prospecting for new customers.
- Networking Off Line and On Line
- Donate Products & Services to Charity for Fund Raising Events
- Ask For Referrals
- Attend Trade shows in Your Niche
- Offer to Trade Your Products & Services
- Press Releases
I will go over each of the simple ways to increase your customer sales and explain how to prospect for new customers. They can be done at the same time and many of them can be done on a daily basis as you are working within your business.
Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses.
~Bruce Henderson~
Make Your Business Stand Out From The Crowd
Is there a service or a process that you can offer your customers that they cannot get from any of your competition? What is it that you can do to be more efficient than the competition? It is usually better to focus on being different in a particular market rather than trying to compete directly. Find a unique strategy or a way to position your products or your business differently in your current market place.
Spend some time educating your customers about the benefits, services and value that they will be receiving by doing business with you. Point out to them what you are doing that the competition is not doing. You do not have to say that the competition is not doing such and such; you just have to point out what you are doing that makes you different or better!
You cannot compete with the big manufacturers or embroiderers that have many multi-head machines when you are only a small shop with one or two heads. Don't even try. You must focus on what you do best in your smaller market. If you focus on improving one step or one process that can make you more efficient then this alone will help to make you more profitable!
Those large shops normally are not offering the type of customer service that you can offer. This can set you far above the larger shops and help to increase your customer sales. I have seen this many times. Many of the larger shops have systems all set that they will not steer away from, and they are usually profit focused instead of customer focused.
In order to be successful in this business, you must be customer focused. The profits will follow if that is the case! By finding your own unique way to stand out in the crowd, you will increase your customer sales naturally.
Offering Exceptional Customer Service to all of your embroidery customers will make you stand out and is extremely important in this competitive market place today!
Click here for more information on How To Market Your Embroidery Business!
