Are you lacking enough customers or clients to reach the goal that you have set for this year? Are you confused on how to get new clients or customers without spending a lot of money on advertising? Are you lacking time to be creative in trying to come up with ways to get new clients or customers?

Here are 3 easy ways that you can use to dramatically increase your customer base!

• Create a Business Card with an offer
• Add an Email Signature to all of your outgoing email messages
• Start a Referral System

Create A Business Card With An Offer

A great business card with a message will bring in new business.  On the back of this card, give them a reason to shop in your place of business.  On the front of your business card have the Name of your business, your company logo, your tag line, website address and your contact information.  The contact information is going to depend on how you want people to shop with you.  This could be your street address and phone number, it could be your email address and phone number or just your web address.

If you choose to use your web address and email address, then you want to make sure that your phone number is on your website. You need to have a way for people to talk to you personally.  If you do not want to answer the phone, create a great message on voice mail with an offer and tell them that you will return their phone call as soon as possible, that you are looking forward to talking to them.

On the back of your business card you want to give them some type of a free offer or a discounted coupon.  If you want to drive traffic to your website, create a Free Report or a discounted coupon that the customer or prospect would have to sign up to receive.  By doing this, you now have a way to continually market to this prospect.wit

By creating a card with an offer on it, your card will stand out and you will be remembered.  I also have my business cards printed in small quantities because I like the change the offer on a steady basis.  This way your cards are always fresh and new!

Below is a sample of my business card front and back!  The actual business card prints out much clearer than these pictures.

Add an Email Signature to all of your email messages

Many of your contacts may be unaware of what you have to offer and by adding a message to the end of your emails you can create an awareness of your current offer, new website or Facebook page.  This can be done very easily, can bring in new clients and the best part is, it does not cost you a dime!  You can create several different signatures and send out your messages with the signature of your choice for a particular type of customer or client.

You can add images along with your text in your signature.  Here is an example of one of my Signatures.

I have received several prospects and some new coaching clients as a result of the message in this signature.  Your emails with the signatures can be forwarded to other people.

You never know how many times your emails get forwarded to other people or who is going to see your signature.  Make it one that will work for you.  They can be powerful!

Start a Referral System

Setting up a Simple Referral Program for your Embroidery Business takes only a few minutes and it so worth it!  Asking for referrals is one of the most effective, quickest and least expensive ways of gaining these new customers.  Setting up a system to reward customers for referrals by giving them a discount on their next order is always effective. How do I do this?   There are several ways of asking for referrals.

• Have Business cards Tucked Into Customers Pick Up Bags.
• Send Out Business Cards Or Brochures With Invoices.
• Ask For A Referral After Customer Has Placed Their Order.
• Tell everyone that you know about your Referral Program including your employees.

Have Business Cards Tucked Into Customers Pick Up Bags

The easiest and most effective way that I found was to always give my customers business cards and brochures.   When they pick up their order, make sure to add business cards or brochures to their package.  Ask them to write their names on the back of the cards or brochures and hand them to their friends, family and acquaintances.  When the person comes into the shop that has been referred, take their business card and keep track of the person that referred them to you.  The person that gave the referral would then get a discount on their next order.  Everyone wants to get something for giving out your name.  As I said there is a small cost to it, but this is a customer that you did not have to go after.

Keeping Track of the Referrers

I set up a simple spreadsheet for my Referral program.  On that spreadsheet, I put the Date, Customers Name, Name of Referrer, Amount of Sale, Date Referrer Purchased after Referring and Amount of Referrer’s Sale.  This helps me to keep track of the amount of sales that are brought in by the Referrers and who the Referrers are.  You can increase your reward for those that give you a lot of referrals.  This is the best type of Salespeople that you can have!

Tell everyone that you know about your Referral Program including your employees.  This is a simple way to set up a Referral program for your Embroidery Business that WORKS!

Simple Referral System Worksheet

I would like to announce that we will soon be opening our new embroidery training site, “The Embroidery Training Resource Center”.

When I first started my embroidery training business in 2006 I called it Embroidery Tips and More.  It has evolved and grown into so much more than embroidery tips so I thought that it was time to grow up and create a site that was the ultimate in training for the embroiderer, The Embroidery Training Resource Center!

This new site has everything in it that the Embroidery tips and More website has had with more training and videos plus you will have more opportunities to learn from and connect with The Embroidery Coach.

This new site is organized in Membership Levels and has a much faster download speed for the videos.  I am really excited about this new training site.  I have been working on it for almost a year and  I think that you will find it to be more user friendly than the previous site!

We now have 6 levels of Membership!

• FREE Level- Embroidery Tips and Articles|
• Bronze Level – All of the Embroidery Basic and Embroidery Application Videos
• Silver Level - All of the videos from the Bronze level plus Webinars, Design Creation Basics and Embroidery Business Basics, (many forms and tools you need to run your embroidery business).
• Gold Level - All that Bronze and Silver levels have plus Webinar replays, Embroidery Design Templates, Pull Comp videos, Underlay Videos and Basic Marketing
• Gold Plus Level - All that Bronze, Silver and Gold levels have plus Monograms, Small Lettering, Creating Designs from Shapes, Working with Stock Designs, Manual Underlay and a monthly Mastermind Call.
• Platinum Level -  All that the above levels have plus The How To Create Your Own Embroidery Business Marketing System,  How to Price Your Embroidery, Embroidery Business Plan, Digitizing Lessons and the Platinum level Mastermind call once per month.

The really good news is that for all current members of the Embroidery Tips and More website, you will be upgraded to the next level inside of the new training site at no extra cost to you. If you are a Silver member now, you will be moved up to the Gold Level.  Inside of the Gold level you will find much more information than you currently have as a Silver member, but you will never have to pay any more money for that new level.  If you are now paying a monthly fee of $29.95 you will still pay only $29.95 but you will have all of the privileges’ that the Gold member has.

If you currently are a Gold member you will be moved up to Gold plus.  Gold Plus is going to have access to more than the current Gold level.  The Gold Plus level even has a Mastermind Call once per month.  On this call you will be able to interact with each other and get ideas from one another.  This is going to be an exciting group of business owners.

I am even adding a Platinum Level. This will be for those that want to have access to everything that I have and have their own Mastermind group. This will not be for everyone! This will be a select group of individuals that want to move very quickly in their business.

If you want to move from the Silver level to the Gold Plus level, now is the time to upgrade your membership from Silver to Gold.  I am going to start moving people over from the Embroidery Tips and more website into the new website next week.  If your membership has lapsed and you want to renew so that you can take advantage of this great opportunity, send me an email to joyce@TheEmbroideryCoach.com and I will send you a link to renew.  If you want to upgrade from Silver to Gold so that you will be in the Gold Plus level on the new site, send me an email stating that you want to upgrade and I will send you a link.  If you are currently not a member and want to get in on this really big deal, go to http://www.embroiderytipsandmore.com and sign up today.  This is an opportunity that you are not going to want to miss!

I have been on line and have trained hundreds of embroiderers since 2006. I want you to view me as your friend next door that is here to help you in every aspect of your embroidery business!  Are you just thinking about getting started in the embroidery business or have you been in the business for quite some time?

No matter where you are in business, you always need help and guidance to move to the next level!  If your embroidery business stays the same day after day, year after year, and even if you have a good profitable business, you soon become stagnant and your business starts to move in the other direction!  You do not want to see that happen!

Even though I have been in business for over 30 years, I still have a business coach that helps me reach new heights every year! There are times when I would be tempted to just sit back and be satisfied with where I am at this stage, but that is not possible!  I am very grateful to her for the extra push that I sometimes need!

If you are someone that is not familiar with me or my training, we now have a free level where you can find embroidery tips and some of the articles that I have written.

We also have a new starter level, the Bronze level, for the person that wants to learn the techniques of embroidery only. This starter level will help you keep your expenses down as you are learning all of the techniques of how to embroider, but are not quite ready to open your doors for business!

This new website has been months in the making and is going to be the Compete Embroidery Training Center for of your Embroidery Business Training needs! This Embroidery Training Resource Center will be the place to go for any type of training that you need as you are starting and growing your Embroidery Business!

Join Us Today While You Can Get In At A Lower Price and Be Moved Up To The Next Level When Your Membership is moved from EmbroideryTipsandMore.com to the new more robust website TheEmbroideryTrainingResourceCenter.com!

Having a system in place to help manage your embroidery business is extremely important!  Common questions that have been asked by my students when they are trying to organize and manage their business  as they are starting or growing their embroidery business are:

• How do I manage my business?
• Where do I go to get the help that I need?
• How do I know what I will need?
• Where should I Start?
• Is there some type of software that I can purchase to help me?

So many people that start an embroidery business do so because they love what they do and are very creative.  I was one of those people. They do not even think about what it takes for the business side of the business. There are certain components that every business needs in order to run smoothly and create a profit.

One of the main components is a system for daily checks and balances to see if you are profitable.  It is very important that you learn how to manage your entire business and it starts on a daily basis with each and every job. Whether you are a one person operation or a large apparel decorating shop, there are some important factors that must be present in whatever type of business management system you choose.

• The ability to create and deliver a quote very quickly
• A way to follow up on the quotes in a timely manner
• The ability to measure the progress of each order as it goes through each and every process.
• A way to measure your production
• A way to measure your profitability
• A system to keep track of your acquisition of goods
• A way to schedule your production
• The quick way to see if you can handle a rush order
• The ability to create a repeat order so there are no errors in ordering or production
• A system to see how quickly your money is coming in.

I have found that many businesses do not have any type of system in place to help manage any part of their apparel decorating business.  You can create your own management system or you can use one of the Business Management Software packages that are easily available for the apparel decorating industry.  Either way, you must have a system for checks and balances. This is a must in order to manage your growing business and become profitable at the same time.

Choosing The Best Type Of System For Your Embroidery Business

There are several business management software packages available today but there are also many price ranges within these software packages.  You need to know what is important to you and your business in order to be able to choose the right package.  Each business is different and has different needs.

You need to create a total snapshot of your entire business before thinking about which type of system or package you will need.  Take an analysis of all of your business needs and answer all of the following questions.

• What type of software are you using for your accounting at the present time?
• How many employees to do you have?
• How many different types of decorating does your business offer?
• How many customers do you have?
• What type of business, wholesale, retail or contract?
• Do you offer products along with your services?
• Are you a service business only?
• What are your monthly sales and revenue?
• Do you have a concrete pricing system in place?
• Do you know what all of your actual costs are in your business that are associated with each different type of decorating that you offer?  It is very important that they be separate in order to have true costing and pricing.
• Do you have a concrete way of planning for future growth?
• Do you have a way of measuring your growth and profitability?

Some of the Business management software companies have starter packages or entry level packages that will handle your quotes and invoicing.  This is not enough to get you started, in my opinion. You must be able to provide your customer with a quick quote, but you also need to be able to take that quote, turn it into an instant work order and then into an invoice when the job is completed.

Many of the business management software packages will integrate with QuickBooks.  If your business is a large shop with more than 10 employees, you may want to look at one of the packages that is a stand-alone package that will handle all of your accounting needs.  If you are a small shop you may want to start with one of the less expensive packages that will integrate with QuickBooks to accommodate all of your needs.  When you are looking for a business management software package, you want to make sure that they contain each component that is necessary for your particular business but each package should contain the following components.

You want to be able to manage everything in your business with or without software, but having a software package makes it much easier to manage all aspects of your business. No matter what type of a system you adopt to use in your business, make sure that you have a system that will help you to create quotes in a hurry, measure the progress of each job, measure your production and measure your profitability.  If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

Working with customers is different today than it was just a few short years and even months ago and you must offer exceptional customer service in your embroidery business to stay in the game.  In today’s world, customers expect to have a great customer experience with you and are much more demanding than they used to be.  With the internet at their fingertips, there is so much available to them and they have many more choices today than they did in the past.  It is to our benefit as embroiderers to offer our customers exceptional customer service and the best buying experience that we can possibly give them.

In this competitive market place you must you must offer better customer service or at least more customer service than your competitors if you want to stay in business.   Unfortunately, this is a concept that is so hard to understand for so many embroidery business owners.  Many embroidery business owners think that they need to offer the lowest price not the best customer service to stay in the marketplace.  This is a total falsehood and I wish that I could abolish it!

Offering exceptional customer service can be the one area that can make all the difference and make you stand out from the competition. Not all customers today are shopping for the lowest price.  They want to be treated with respect, and be shown that you really have their best interest at heart!

Here are 7 ways to help raise your level of customer service, and if followed by your entire organization, will change your business and give it a whole new life!

• Start Out Each Day With A Positive Attitude!
  There is no better way to create an atmosphere of Exceptional Customer Service than to be very upbeat and positive.  When you have a great attitude it is reflected in everything that you do, from waiting on a customer or getting employees started in the morning, to finishing up the day with your family.  Everyone around you benefits from your attitude.
• Always Wear A  Smile!
  Treating your customers with dignity and respect and always wearing a smile is the most important principal in creating exceptional customer service.  This policy applies to direct contact in person, as well as on the phone.  People can tell how you feel and know if you are wearing a smile. 

  All of your customers should be treated as if they are the most important customer you have; it does not matter if they are a large account or a small one. Small accounts very often grow into large accounts.

  You want your customers to feel that you are a partner in their business success, and as a result, you will receive more orders from these same customers.

• Have A Clean And Well Organized Environment!
  Invite your clients or customers into a clean well organized environment when they visit your showroom or office.  This goes a long way in making that first impression. 

  Have your samples clean, well-organized, in top quality condition, and available for quick viewing as you are giving your presentation. Make sure that all of your samples are labeled with the information that is pertinent to that sample. Having a system in place makes your presentations more effective and creates a feeling of trust with your customer.

• You Must Be Willing To Work With Your Customer-Give Them A Reason Why They Need To Come Back!
  In the marketplace today, you need to be available and be willing to work with your customers in whatever capacity they are requesting.  Today, the customers are demanding more and more from their suppliers in the way of services.  If you do not meet their demands or wishes, someone else will.  If this is not possible for you to accomplish, given your situation, you must let them know up front immediately. 

  Sometimes their requests seem to be unreasonable, especially delivery dates, but you must deliver on time or ahead of schedule of the agreed date, in order to keep them happy and coming back for more. Customers become very unhappy and untrusting when they have to wait past the due date for goods they were promised.

• Always Return Phone Calls And Always Respond To Emails!
  When a customer or potential customer calls and has to leave a message, make sure that you get back to them in a timely manner.  If you do not return their phone call, they will feel that you do not want their business.  All present and future customers need to be made to feel important!
  This same principle applies to emails.  If a person takes his time to email you, you must be courteous enough to take your time and reply to that email.  They do not care how busy you are; their time is as valuable to them as yours is to you!  This type of customer service is expected!
• Take Accurate Notes!
  Take accurate notes when you are working with a customer in person, over the phone, or my email.  Customers very often want to make a change in their order and this must be taken care of immediately, as to not hold up their order. 

  You should have a system in place for this type of procedure, with forms to use to take the notes or make changes.  Make sure that the notes get connected to the customer’s order.  This is also true with email.  If the customer sends you an email letting you know that he is requesting some changes in his order, print it out and attach it to the original order.  Then you want to bring it to someone’s attention so that it is not missed.

• Never Show Anger With A Customer!
  If a problem or mistake has occurred by either you or the customer, never show anger towards that customer, even if they show anger towards you.  It does not matter if they are right or wrong; you must hold your head up high, keep your composure, and talk to them in a manner that will diffuse their anger. 

  Being angry does no one justice, and in business it is one of the best ways to create bad relations.  I have found many times by offering the customer a bit more or giving the customer a slight discount that they were much happier, and I was able to smooth over a bad situation and build a better relationship with the customer at the end of the problem.  They must be treated with dignity at all times.

Offering Exceptional Customer Service is not hard and is expected at all times! If you give all of your customers more than they expect and you will be greatly rewarded.

Next on our journey of “Organizing Your Embroidery Business” is the Finishing Department.  Setting up the finishing department with the right tools and equipment is very important if you want to present a high quality finished garment to your customers.  Most of the tools are very simple and easy to gather.  The only real equipment needed is a commercial steamer and a steam iron.

When I say commercial steamer, I mean just that and not one of the hand held ones.  They do not do the job that the upright steamers do and my favorite brand of steamer is the Jiffy steamer.  The reason for that is the amount of time that it lasts and the ease of being able to get parts for them if something does need to be replaced.

The only other piece of equipment is a table.  Depending on the size of your area or business, you will need at least one table in your finishing department.  It is best to have one area for the trimming & steaming and another area for the packing.  If this is not possible you will have to go through one entire process before you can start the next process.  This is not an issue if you are a one person organization, but if you have more than one person in your finishing department, they will each need their own area or table.

The tables can be very simple but they need to be high enough so that the employee is not bending over too far to do the job as it can be very tiresome by the end of the day.  Cover the tables with some type of cloth backed plastic or a piece of heavy canvas. If you are using the plastic covering you will need a towel or some type of terry cloth to lay down on the table during the steaming process.

The basic tools that are required for your Finishing area are:

• Terry Towel
• Shout Wipes
• Liquid Dish Soap
• Textile Marking Pens
• Fray Check
• Lint Roller
• Clothes Brush
• Wash cloth
• Nail Clippers
• Scissors
• Trimmers
• Plastic Bags
• Scraps of Topping
• Commercial Steamer
• Large Trash  Can
• Steam Iron

All of the small tools need to be kept in a plastic drawer or some type of container so that they are all easily accessible and not scattered around.  I make sure that each one of my departments has their own tools so that there is no wasting of time searching for a tool.

Embroidered Garments Go From Embroidery Machine To Finishing

When the embroidery machine operator removes the garments from the machine, she also removes the hoop and then places the garments into a basket, bin or on a cart.  This basket, bin or cart is then taken to the Finishing area.

The process for the finishing is as follows:

• Remove the backing
• Trim the top threads if this is necessary
• Stack the garments in a pile by size
• Steam the topping off and remove the hoop mark
• Fold up the garment and place it in a size stack
• Count the finished garments in each sized stack
• Bag the individual garments if required for the order
• Place them in a box

This box of finished goods is then sent to the shipping department.

I have found from my own experience that the employee works much faster if she or he is standing during the entire finishing process, but if it is necessary for health reasons, the employee can be sitting for trimming and removing the backing but they need to be standing for the steaming, folding, counting and stacking the garments into the sized stacks.

A quick and easy way of removing the topping is to remove it with a topping ball as you are steaming the garment.  Steam your garment thoroughly and then dab the topping ball on top of the embroidery to remove the topping.  It may take a 2 or 3 tries to remove all of the topping but it removes it even in the tiniest areas.   I have heard of and tried many other solutions for removing the topping but none are to my satisfaction and quite often leave a wet mess behind.  This is not acceptable to me.  When that garment is finished, I want the process to be finished, not waiting for it to dry; plus the steamed finished garment looks more professional!

I will include a video that will show you how to create a topping ball.

Please leave me a comment below to let me know that this has helped you to get your Finishing department set up for finishing your garments efficiently in your Embroidery Business!  If you leave a comment below, I will send you access to a bonus video showing you how to Remove the Topping!

Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach

Marketing to your customer and prospects is different today than it was just a short time ago.  Today Email Marketing is an easier and a more cost effective way to get started with your marketing. In the past, when someone wanted to do business with you they had to try to get your attention through direct mail, telemarketing or face-to-face.

The problem? Most of the time these marketing methods were completely unsolicited – the  marketers pushed information to consumers. As a result, we often refer to these solicitations in a negative way and respond angrily. I do not know about you, but when someone calls me on the phone and tries to sell me something, I get very angry!  I do not have the time to listen to all of this noise!

So how is email marketing different? Email marketing is building a relationship with your prospects and customers.  This is extremely important in today’s marketing!

The major difference between email marketing and the other marketing methods is that people opt-in – or choose – to receive your marketing message. This is HUGE! It’s like an open-door invitation to share your information and expertise with your customers. That is something you just can’t pay for. In today’s world of technology, your emails can be received on smart phones, most of the tablets or pads and of course on your computer.

In this article I am going to discuss:

1. What Is an Email List?
2. How Do You Get Subscribers?
3. Why Build an Email List?

What is an Email List?

An email list is simply a collections of email addresses that you have collected from your customers and prospects. Most marketers will also collect the person’s first name with the email address so that they can personalize the email through automation in their email marketing software. Instead of saying “Hi”, you can say Hi Theresa” in your emails.  You can also collect other information such as location or phone number in case this is important in your market segment or your marketing message.

How Do Your Get Email Subscribers?

Having a “mailing list” with a series of autoresponder messages that you update regularly is great, but if there’s no one on your list, you’re not going to be making many sales.

Email marketing is a way to market your product or service through email. You can build your email list in a number of ways. Here are 2 ways to get started:

Opt-In Forms. The most common way to build a list is by placing an opt-in form on a website,  sales page or a Facebook Subpage and having people fill it out. Whenever someone visits your Facebook Subpage, your blog, or your website, there should be a clear place for them to subscribe to receive more information, or some type of free gift from you.

Getting people on your email list may seem difficult at first, but there are proven strategies for making people want to give you their email addresses such as providing an Opt-In bonus.  This can be a free report on a subject that they are interested in or it can simply be a coupon towards their next purchase!

Customer Lists. Many shopping carts have automatic processes for adding purchasers to your email contact list. This is something you’ll definitely want to integrate, because customers are already a step above a “prospect.” By buying something from you, even a purchase of $10 or less, they’ve proven that they want what you’re offering, they know how to purchase on the internet, and they have money to spend.

Why Build an Email List?

Some people start building their email lists and then get discouraged because they are not getting a flood of people opting in right from the beginning and give up.  This is most unfortunate.  They simply do not understand the true value of building a large, responsive email list.

Here are five reasons why you need an email list:

1. Automatically Follow up - An email list allows you to market to your customers and prospects 24 hours a day, 7 days per week automatically.
2. Constantly Building Your Business – New prospects can be signing up to your email list automatically, every day without your help.  This is a way to constantly be building your business automatically and getting new people into your pipeline.
3. Capture Visitors – You have put tons of work into your website or Facebook page.  If you are not capturing visitors, they are leaving your page, possibly never to return again.  If you capture their information, you can keep in contact with them and build a relationship.  Most of your potential customers or clients do not buy from y ou when they first find you or hear from you.  Through email marketing, you can stay on their minds through your automatic emailing program with your autoresponder messages.  When they are ready to buy, they’ll look back for your emails or remember your website and order from you.
4. Saves You Time - Instead of sending your message one on one, over and over again, you can now reach your entire list with one mailing.  This not only saves you time, but it also leverages your time into long-term profits.
5. Increase your Sales – Sharing your information and building a relationship with your list is great, but the main Goal here is to create your sales.  An email list can deliver you an increase in sales.

The important thing when you start is not to give up too soon when it starts out slow.  This is perfectly normal and if you do give up, you will never see the benefits of having a large responsive list!

When I first started my email marketing I thought that I would never be able to build up a list.  It seemed like it was taking forever.  I kept hearing about all of these people that had thousands on their lists and I knew that I would never get there!  Today I still have what is called a small list but with almost 5,000 on my list today, it is giving me a lot to work with and I am able to share my message to all of the 5,000 people!

Start today setting up your automatic emailing system.  You will be very grateful you did!

In part 4 of this series on Organizing Your Embroidery Business I am going to be talking more  about the Hooping Area how to set it up so that it will run efficiently.  I am also going to show you the basic process of hooping.

In part 1 of this Organizing Your Embroidery Business series, I showed you a floor plan and in part 2 I talked about The Receiving area and what you needed to Process your Orders. In part three I talked about the Hooping Area and the Tools and Equipment that you need.

Setting Up Your Hooping Area

When you are setting up your hooping area there are some important points that you need to think about.

• The space that you have to work with
• How many embroidery machines you have
• How many machine operators you have that are not doing their own hooping
• How many people you have that are actually hooping
• The different types of items that you are working with that need hooping

This may sound like a strange criterion, but it all depends on the size of your embroidery shop and your product mix.  I have different hooping setups for different types of products.  The standard left chest or right chest logo is hooped in one area and on one type of hooping equipment, the large jacket backs or sweatshirt fronts are hooped on another type of equipment and the caps are hooped on a cap hooping device.  This means that I would have 3 distinct areas set up for hooping.  Each one of these areas use different types of hoops or hooping frames, different type and size of backing and/ or topping.

After you have determined what you are going to be hooping, you can set up your area with the right supplies.  I purchase my backing by the rolls and cut them into pieces to size  for each situation, with the exception of the cap backing.  I purchase that in 4 inch x 8 inch cuts as well as by the 250 yard roll.  I need the 250 yard roll for the designs that embroidered on the front and sides of the cap at the same time.

I also purchase the topping by the roll, usually a 25 yard roll and cut that to size.  I cut 8″ strips 2″ wide, 3″ wide, etc to keep on hand at all times.  You only need to have enough topping to go through the part of the hoop that is going to have your embroidery.  You want to make sure that it is cut wide enough that you can catch it into the sides of the hoop while you are hooping it.  If you purchase cut squares of topping, cut them into strips so  you are not wasting unnecessary yardage.

Setting Up The Hooping Area

In each area, I have the appropriate backing, topping and hoops set up for the hooping.  If you are a small shop and do not have a specific spot that you can keep set up for your hooping, keep your supplies on a shelf or in a box that is easy to move to your area when you begin to do your hooping.

In my large shop, I had 3 people hooping at all times.  In a home shop you are only going to have 1 person hooping and that may be part time.  If you have more than 1 person hooping, you must have individual areas set up for them.  You can have a large hooping area set up in one location of your shop or you can set up individual areas on a table in front of each machine.  I have 3 different hooping systems because there are 3 different types of hoops.  On my 15 head embroidery machine we still use a flat table for many of our items.  This takes the old style hoops that sit inside of spider frames.  We set up for embroidery machine using the tubular frame for shirts fronts or sleeves, and that takes a different hooping system. We also have second brand of machine with different hoops which takes the third hooping system.

I have 3 HoopMaster hooping systems, one for each style set up. This is a huge timesaver.  I also have an All in One hooping system for my t-shirt & sweatshirt backs, and the Third Hand Cap hooping system for my caps.  The initial outlay for all of the hooping systems was quite a bit of money, but the time that it saves is worth every penny.  This is what you want to think of when you are purchasing your hooping systems.  You can get one system with a lot of different templates that will work if you have a small shop, but for a larger shop you will need to have all of the time saving items that you can use in order to work efficiently.

Items Ready for Hooping

As I mentioned in part 3 of this series, the items that are ready for hooping are sitting in a staging area after they have been logged in and counted.  When they are ready for hooping, they are moved to the hooping area.  After they are hooped, they are placed on a shelf in a basket if it is a small order or in a cart if it is a large order.  I have 2 different sized carts that I use for this purpose.  Sometimes the orders are so large that they take several carts but  I always want to keep all of the items together for the same job so that none are missed during the hooping or embroidery process.

Here is a video on the Basic Hooping Process.  This will show you how to hoop properly for  basic hooping of your garments.

In the  part 5 on “Organizing Your Embroidery Business”, I will talk about the Organization of the Finishing Area.

Did you ever have a needle break in the middle of your embroidery and have it chew up your garment?  This happened last week on the 15 head machine.  While Betty, the embroidery machine operator, an excellent operator, was on the other end of the machine the needle broke on head no. 1 and it chewed up the center of 2 letters.  It was sewing a narrow silver line in the center part of the letter and that section was totally chewed up!  Here is a picture of the garment.

At first Betty panicked but when I took a look at it, I knew that I could fix it. Sometimes it is not worth your time to go through and fix something, but it all depends on the value of the garment and whether or not you can replace the garment.  This happened to be a very expensive golf shirt that a customer had brought into the shop.  It was one of an order of 24 pieces and this one needed to be fixed!

When something like this happens, you must leave it in the hoop.  If you unhoop it, your chances of getting it all lined up perfect for this type of fix is not very good.  So first rule-DO NOT UNHOOP!

I turned the hooped garment over and placed it upside down on my ripping and pressed a scrap piece of no show backing on it to help hold the shirt together that was chewed up.  Here is a picture of the backside of the garment with the piece of pressed backing on it.

I brought up the original stitch file of the design, unfortunately, I did not have an outline file or my .pxf file which is the native original outline file for my software, because the design was brought in by the customer.  Here is a picture of the original .dst file. The colors  show wrong, but that is the nature of  a .dst file.  You can see those narrow red lines inside of the letters.  This is what was being embroidered in silver when the needle broke.

I digitized a same sized area from the edge of the black outline( the green outline on the .dst file pictured) on each side of that section of the letter and then copied the red line area from the .dst file onto that filled area that I created.  I used the same complex fill type stitch pattern  inside of the white area.

I found out where the start and stop section was in the center of the design and I put in a command so that the new section that I was creating would also start and stop in that same spot. I deleted all of the rest of the design, made sure my fixed design was also going to start and stop in the same place as the original design and then saved it as the design name fix.  Here is a picture of that finished design fix from my software.  You can see where it was starting and stopping from the cross hairs are and the star in the design.  Betty put the hooped shirt back into the machine and taped a new piece of topping on the top.

She had taken out the shirt when she noticed the needle break, turned off that head and finished the run for the rest of the shirts.  Now the machine was back into the same start position and she was ready for the fix.  She programmed the new fixed design into the machine, programmed in the colors that she needed and then started the machine.  It was lined up perfectly and sewed out in the perfect spot.

You must remember to always put the hooped garment back into the same head that you removed it from when you are using a multi-head machine.  Not all of the heads are in the exact same location and this is very important!

This is an enlarged photo but you can see the end result!  It was a perfect match and the customer would never know that his garment got chewed up by the embroidery machine!

A Wonderful Tool For Ripping Out With “Peggy’s Stitch Eraser!”

I would also like to share a tool that one of the employees, Patrick, made that we now use with “Peggy’s Stitch Eraser.”  This little block takes the place of  the bottom of a glass candle jar that I have been using for many years!  A couple of weeks ago, the candle jar broke and I then panicked!  Patrick came to the rescue and made this perfect this wooden tool that the 12 cm hoop fits over nicely.  I turn the garment upside down and place it over this block.  I used the block also to lay the hooped garment against to press on the backing.  It is perfect!  I told Patrick that he needs to sell this great little tool! If you are interested, let me know!  Patrick is a genius!

Here is a question that I received from one of my students.  She needs some help creating outlines on Small Lettering!  I thought that I would share it with my readers as this is a common problem.

Hi Joyce, hope you can give me some advice on lettering. Everybody wants OUTLINES. and I find them to be very problematic. I have seen them done with smaller lettering successfully, though so I don’t want to give up. I’m doing a 13mm lettering and every type of outline I use looks like a dotted line! I don’t want to do satin outline because I think it may be too heavy. Any advice?

Vicki, Creating an outline on a small letter can sometimes be very problematic; however it is doable!  Creating a satin stitch around a letter that is only one half inch is very difficult.  You will usually loose most of the inside area of your letter.

The run stitch outline looks good if you are using a dark colored thread.  If you are using a light colored thread it looks terrible, at least that is my opinion.   I have found that by digitizing a run stitch and going around the letter 2 times will make it look slightly better.  Also use a small stitch length such as 1.6 or 1.8 millimeters.  Do not use the 2 ply as it will start and stop in the same place and you do not always have the control over the start and stop point.  It all depends on your software.

The best method is to digitize a single run stitch around your letter and then duplicate it.  You can control the start and stop point if you have are using this method.  Another tip is to create the inside part of 2 or 3 letters at a time if you are doing a line of lettering.  Then go back and create the outside part of these same 2 or 3 letters.  Make sure that you put a lock at the beginning and at the end of this run segment.  I always use line locks for my run stitches and connect each one of these letters.  Do not lock and trim each letter individually, you may have many thread breaks or the thread may come out of the needle when you are starting up the embroidery machine.

Vicki, I hope that helps you a bit!

When your business is growing and you start to hire employees, it is very important that you stress upon the new employees the need to be able to work together as a team.  If the new applicant is the type of person that gives you any indication that they will not be a team player then that is the wrong type of person to hire.

This week I had a situation with an embroidery business that has 12 employees and they are not growing as they should. The main problem is the lack of ability for them to work together as a team.  Many embroidery operators have the attitude that their job is the most important one in the business and the rest of the staff is just there to assist them.

Every Employee Must Feel Important

Each and every one of the positions within the embroidery business is just as important as the embroidery machine operators.  Each one of those employees deserves and should command the same respect as the embroidery machine operators.  Without the person to log in the orders, plan and prepare the orders, hoop the garments, trim the garments, pack the garments, and wait on the customer, the embroidery machine operator would not be necessary.  This is a huge problem in many small to medium shops.

Every employee in the business needs to have a feeling of importance and feel that they are needed and respected.  Many times the position of the person that hoops the garments or the person that trims the garments is not treated the same and they feel very inferior.  This is most unfortunate. Their job is just as important as the embroidery machine operator.

I was hired by the owner of a medium sized embroidery shop to re-organized his business so that it would run more efficiently and grow at a faster rate.  This has required me to make a lot of changes and not all of the changes have been accepted graciously.  The opposition that I have had is that, “this is the way that we have always done it and it is working, we do not want to change it!” Just because that is the way that it has always been done is not necessarily the best or most efficient way to get the same  job done.

There have been a lot of changes within the embroidery industry in the past few years and your business needs to change along with it in order to be able to keep up with the rest of the industry.  There have been changes in backings, threads, equipment, fabrics and generally the way that business is run today!  If you do not change with the industry, you will go out of business and do so very quickly!

Customers are demanding more and more and in a shorter time frame.  If you do not meet those demands, someone else will.  You must be willing to offer the highest quality products in record time with a smile on your face at all times!  In order to accomplish this, you must insist that everyone on your staff work together as a significant part of the team.  If this is not possible, hire new employees and develop a team spirit or go out of business; it will be very difficult for you to survive in this new economy!

Developing A Team Spirit

Have a group meeting once or twice per month.  Let the employees know what changes your are making or what needs to be changed and let them be apart of the decision making.
This is very important.  If you have a negative employee that does not want to be apart of the group, it is time to rethink that employees position.  Find out what it is that is bothering them and see if you can help to make them feel part of the team, especially if they are a good worker.  It is very difficult to let someone go that has been part of the company for a long time and sometimes totally unecessary if you can help to make the situation better.

Show your gratitude by bringing in a treat every now and then.  This is something that is always appreciated and it also helps to smooth over bad situations at times!  It does not have to cost a lot of money, it is the thought that counts and small gestures go a long way!