How to Keep Embroidery Costs Lean While Maintaining Quality

Create Common E-mail Templates
Customers often ask similar questions. Instead of typing the same thing repeatedly, create answer templates to their most common questions. Some embroidery business owners may not think that a few minutes here or there is worth the template, but having a well-thought-out e-mail response will ensure customers receive the right information each time they ask a question. This also helps eliminate mistakes or errors that can come with trying to send a quick e-mail while you're distracted with another important task.

Qualify Your Customers
Before spending hours of time on a project that's just not feasible, ask your customers questions about what they’re trying to do. Everyone has had a customer who wants the impossible to be, well, possible. Instead of taking up a lot of time working with them — only to uncover that what they want isn't feasible — ask these questions.

• Is there an event deadline?
• How many pieces do you need?
• What is your budget for the project?
• What does your artwork look like? (You need to make sure that the artwork is compatible with the type of product they want. For instance, an army hat can handle a different embroidery size and more fine details of artwork than a fleece beanie hat.)

Some customers will balk when faced with these questions. Ask them delicately so you don't upset the customer. However, you don't want to spend an hour on the phone with a customer only to realize that you can’t produce what he wants.

Avoid These Common Mistakes
One of the most common mistakes new embroiderers make is they take an order knowing it will cause problems in the production stage. New business owners and entrepreneurs want to do everything possible to grow their businesses, and it often goes against their intuition to turn down orders. However, sometimes doing so is necessary.

The changing economy means that a lot of knowledgeable middlemen are no longer available to run interference between customers and embroidery companies. At Wholesale Hats, we're doing more business directly with end users, which can be good and bad. We're thrilled to be able to offer our pricing without the markup from a middleman, but end users are less knowledgeable about the processes and need a little extra handholding.

Potential customers approach us each day with a design that's just not possible to embroider properly and professionally. The lettering may be too small, or the design could have fine details that make it impossible to embroider. Embroidery shop owners must be frank, yet tactful with their customers and explain the limitations of the embroidery machines. If the customer insists that the design can't be changed, it's a good idea to have different options, such as screen printing, digital printing or using a heat-seal patch. Customers will appreciate your creative ability to think outside the box, while still providing them with what they want.

Operation Changes Can Reduce Costs And Errors
Before sending an order through to the production line, make sure you've done everything possible to review for errors and potential issues. Have a production sheet on file to ensure the order is truly ready for the production process because this will help eliminate errors. It will take a little extra time to ensure you actually can move forward with production, but this can save you a lot of money in wasted product.

One of the most difficult changes to make is with personnel. If you have an employee who's just not pulling his weight, or who is consistently causing problems, you need to let him go. This may be more difficult for small companies that employ friends and family members, but if you're running a business with the goal of making a living, you need to replace the employees who aren't contributing to the success of your company. Many small businesses go out of business because of poor management decisions, so don't let your feelings of loyalty allow your company to be run into the ground.

Maintaining quality products, along with cutting down on the time spent on everyday, menial processes, can go a long way toward reducing costs and keeping customers happy. While following these steps isn't the only way to keep costs down and customers satisfied, it's a great start. Consider taking a look at your own decorated apparel business to see what types of changes you can implement to save money.

Brian Burr is chief operating officer of WholesaleHats.com, Palm Desert, Calif., which has produced embroidered garments for clientele that includes Google, NASA, MTV and the United States Army. He has been involved in every aspect of the embroidery industry for more than 18 years, and has full knowledge of embroidery machine operation and repair. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Brian at brian@wholesalehats.com.