Part-Timers Succeed in Screen Printing and Embroidery

Two successful business owners reveal what it takes to hold regular day jobs and decorate at nights.
December 01, 2007

When Alexis Frisbee was a little girl, she loved to embroider by hand. She would spend hours crocheting, knitting, doing needle-point, tatting — anything she could do with thread, yarn and the like. She cherished lessons her grandmother had imparted and spent two decades dreaming of the day she could own a newfangled embroidery machine.

Five years ago, that dream finally came true for the owner of In Stitches and Gifts (formerly Design Embroidery), Vicksburg, Miss. "This is a natural progression for me," Frisbee says. "I've wanted a commercial embroidery machine for 20 years, and finally I just bit the bullet, and I've really enjoyed every minute of it."

Unfortunately for Frisbee, she can't spend as many minutes as she would like entrenched in her embroidery business. In Stitches and Gifts is a 1,000-square-foot retail storefront that is open six days a week, but the shop remains a part-time job for the entrepreneur. (She works full-time as a bookkeeper elsewhere.) After a full day on the job, she heads over to In Stitches where she relieves her sole employee, a friend's retired mother-in-law who worked in retail for about 45 years. She now mans the shop part-time from 10 a.m. until whenever Frisbee arrives, Monday through Friday. Frisbee also keeps hours on Saturday mornings, from 9 a.m. until noon. She says she has a five-year plan in which she envisions making this a full-time gig. For now, though, she struggles with the time factor. "My biggest challenge is being open and serviceable to the customer with the [one] part-time employee I have," she explains.

However, she makes do by outsourcing services she doesn't have time for, such as digitizing, screen printing and sublimation, which account for 5% to 10% of her approximately $50,000 annual revenue. Alterations account for another 25% of In Stitches' business, with the majority — 70% or so — generated by embroidery. Frisbee works on an Amaya convertible singlehead machine. Despite being strapped for time, her typical turnaround time for a job is just one or two days. However, some large jobs, especially those requiring special-ordered apparel, can take upward of 10 days.

Frisbee caters to orders across the gamut. "I try to serve everyone, whether it is a one-time stitch-out or [a large order] for a group of 100," she says. "The biggest challenge through the years has been getting the word out that the embellishment can be done locally, delivered on time and done well." She's determined that providing "a good service and a good product and going from there" will suffice. "They say it's five times harder to get a customer back than to keep him," Frisbee says. "I live by quality rather than quantity."

She also attempts to build personal relationships with clients, inquiring about their lives and remembering names and situations upon their return. "It really makes a difference as far as longevity goes," Frisbee explains. "I will keep them because of the personal rapport I have with them."

Throughout the past five years, Frisbee has been asked to embroider an increasingly diverse group of items. "The biggest change I have witnessed is the desire to have more things embroidered," she says. She says she thinks this trend is indicative of the industry's health. "Embroidery is a step up," she explains. "[The decoration is] not screen printed, it's not sublimation — [the embroidery] looks so nice. That is just our society — you have to have whatever is the best."

Additionally, she says she finds a staggering expansion in the number of companies going casual, allowing employees to forego suits to wear plackets or denim shirts as long as the company logo is embroidered on them. When a buyer for these corporate accounts enters her showroom, Frisbee sees it as an opportunity to land long-term clients by enticing them with an extensive display of personal apparel and gifts. "I want people to see that more than just a logo can be embroidered," she says. "When they walk in and see fashionable items, it will stick with them — that there are more choices than just workwear. The greater variety of samples that people see, the more they want embroidered."

Thus, her shop is stocked with unique items, from sandals, hair bows and chair covers to tea towels, burp cloths and wraps. There are garment bags, girls' dresses and mesh laundry hampers, as well as curtains, Koozies and much more. "I try to offer as much as I can," Frisbee says. "I enjoy seeing the delight of my customers when something they are wearing or giving is embellished and personalized."

NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS
Five years ago when Frisbee entered the commercial world of decorated apparel, Becky and Tom Ramaeker were beginning a similar venture. The couple had spent years watching Becky's brother and sister-in-law make a living from screen printing and decided they could bring in supplementary income using their relatives' extra equipment. Today, Becky, who works full-time as a business analyst for a technology company, and Tom, a lumber yard deliveryman, have a full-service side business — Ramaeker Screen Printing, Knoxville, Iowa.

Spending about 20 hours a week at night and on weekends filling orders for local businesses and schools, they do in-house textile screen printing and heat-applied vinyl. They outsource embroidery and sign work. Additionally, the Ramaekers use their promotional products distributor number to offer a full line of advertising supplies in order to "produce whatever the customer asks for," Becky says. Between January and October 2007 alone, they had printed more than 6,500 pieces.

Within six months of their business' launch, Tom built a 576-square-foot extension, with a separate entrance, onto their home. Today, it houses a Workhorse 6-color manual screen printing press, Harco dryer, Roland vinyl cutter, heat press, Amerigraph exposure unit and Epson printer. "We didn't buy new equipment all at once. We started with some used equipment from my brother and sister-in-law temporarily," Becky explains. "Being small and part-time, we can't afford to invest in new equipment and technology all the time," she says. "Of course, that is a personal choice, too. The business is paid for, and we chose not to use operating loans.

"Our plan has been to reinvest profits into the business and build up our equipment. We pay for all of our equipment as we go, which is much less stressful than having to worry about covering lease payments or operating notes. [For instance,] we started with a new, very small dryer, which we outgrew in the first year. Then we purchased the used Harco dryer. Last year, we purchased the new 6-color press; this year, it is the new exposure unit and a better printer."

Having had no formal instruction, the couple's on-the-job training has had its ups and downs. Becky confesses that while she's "artsy and craftsy," she is not a trained graphic artist and struggles with artwork sometimes, particularly creating a design from scratch.

In fact, she has had to turn away some business due to her inexperience as an artist. She learned to use CorelDraw by following the programs' tutorial and playing around with the software. She's now versed enough to complete artwork for the majority of jobs, but also maintains a list of contacts who can produce more complex artwork, thereby avoiding the pitfall of losing an account.

"I would like to get more training, but it is difficult to find any CorelDraw training locally," she explains. "For the most part, my non-artist status does not hurt the business at all. The large majority of printing we do is quite simple. Most customers either want lettering or simple designs. I have purchased several clipart collections specifically designed for the printing industry, so I have those to use as well."

She also travels to at least one trade show each year, which affords her the opportunity to pick up useful information.

With their machinery up to par and the artwork challenges for the most part ironed out, the Ramaekers are able to work efficiently for their clients, an accumulation of about 200 accounts over the years. Of that, a high percentage are repeat customers. Becky handles the artwork, accounting, screen prep and set-up, while Tom is the "maintenance guy, who keeps the shop going," Becky says. "We both do the printing. Quite often we work as a team. While I print, he is taking the shirts off the dryer and packaging them for the customer."

Average orders range between 20 and 30 pieces and are predominantly T-shirts. The Ramaekers turn around most orders within one to two weeks, and periodically recruit one of their three children to pitch in when the workload piles up.

Like Frisbee, the Ramaekers grapple with the time issue. "As a part-time business, it's a matter of juggling the screen printing with regular day jobs, high school athletics and activities, and spending time with family," Becky explains. "This affords us extra income, a retirement income, something we didn't have before, but it would be a pretty big leap to give up the security of our day jobs."

However, she feels it is realistic that one of them will be at it full-time down the road. "We hope to keep growing in number of customers and also in quality," she says. "In five years I could see this becoming a full-time occupation for one of us. In 20 years, we will be winding down our careers and hopefully be able to have a better retirement due to this business."

Danielle Cohen is a former managing editor at Impressions magazine. She now works as a freelance writer in Atlanta.

To comment on this Danielle's article, e-mail her at writer_dcohen@yahoo.com.