Lettering dilemma

[Jenny]

Sharon like you and Rod, Don does our digitizing but I don't digitize. He's very good at this and we don't charge near what it is worth since we don't really know how to charge for that. Most I have ever charged was $25 and I know sometimes like the last one he did should have gone for at least twice that much if not more. He has also had to digitize lettering before. We haven't had any problems with the small lettering so far since we have been able to use the ones on the machine and check the code sheets and do a test out first. We do specialized things too and even our basic stuff I don't think I charge enough since I don't really know what the cost of this in our area is. I know from what I paid years ago for a simple name on a Christmas stocking was then and what we charge now isn't enough. When I go to invoice and I think what it should cost and it just seems like too much I always reduce the charge and I know this isn't fair to us.

[Rod or Sharon]

Jenny,
We all must remember what our machines and software cost us not to mention all the hours, days, weeks, months and years it has taken us to perfect what we do. We invest in the best of equipment and software and many of us have the overhead of storefronts. We pay property tax on our equipment, tax on our income, and Rod and I pay several hundred dollars a year for insurance just for the privilege of coming into your homes or storefronts to work on your equipment or give training. There will be the day that you need a tech call and that doesn't come cheap. We have to charge for travel time, our vehicles, insurance, etc. as well as what we have invested in our years of training and travel in order to do what we do.

The point being, we all invest a lot to be able to put a nice sewout on a garment for someone. Value your art, skills and time. If you don't charge a fair price, that word gets out and it hurts the rest of us. I refuse to turn my machine on for under $7.50 (and that is if I sold them the garment) and have been in stores where that price is $12.00 starting fee whether it be for a name or one initial. It still takes the time to thread up your machine, load the design, etc., hoop a garment using stabilizer and possibly Solvy. What is your time worth?

Several years ago I was told we should be making at least $25 to $30 an hour clear profit to make it worth while and that is probably up by now.

Digitizing is a unique skill. I cannot tell you the hours Rod has invested in fine-tuning his skill and the times he has stayed up late nights or given up a holiday to work on someone's design or travel to repair a machine. We have driven through snow storms for 14 hours on Christmas Eve to get home. Charge for your time, equipment and skill. Rod no longer charges by the stitch count but charges by the complexity. Some designs can be small with intricate work and many hours but fewer stitches than a simple jacketback. You really need to check your area and see what the prices are.

I will say that there are places overseas that you can send your artwork to and get cheap digitizing. And you will get just that, cheap digitizing. Most of those people don't own a machine and your design is never test sewn. A good digitizer will stay with their client until it is perfect. Rod test sews all designs more than once and it all takes time and materials.

If you don't charge for your work and make a nice profit, you might as well call it a hobby and go enjoy an evening with the family in front of the TV or go to work for someone where there are benefits and only 8 hours a day. Do you hear what I am saying? Time is precious and so is your family. Value your time and your work.

In our area digitizing starts at around $65 and goes up from there. You have had enough experience to be able to do your work fairly quickly so figure what kind of hourly wage you need to be making and price accordingly. If your work is top quality, people are willing to pay the price. Remember, digitizing is a one-time cost and should be a pass-through to the customer.

For all of you, the easiest way to charge for your work is to have it posted or printed on a flyer. That shows it is a concrete price and you are not playing with the client or charging random prices. Be straight forward and fair. We have never had anyone challenge our pricing.

One Christmas Eve, I had a lady come into our store and wanted to know what I charged to put a name on a Christmas Stocking. At that time, I told her $7.50 and she made a sound and said, "I can get it for $5.00 down the street!" I kindly told her to run, not walk. She went out to her car and brought me in an armload of stockings to embroidery. I don't back down or apologize. We have never lost but one client.

OK--I have been on the soap box long enough...sorry everyone. Guess we are getting old enough that our time is precious to us!
Sharon

[amayaki]

Bravo!

I have a very picky client who gave me an A4 poster sized design the top half pale blue solid colour and the bottom half solid pale yellow, with large 'loose' text in pale blue on the pale lemon,and reasonably readable at A4 size. She wanted the whole thing reduced exactly proportionally to be a logo above pockets, and as a design, it looked fine, but once sewn out, the tiny pale blue print of the lower line of text was simply indiscernable among the pale lemon background solid fill, so I have spent much time and made many sew-outs to get the solid logo with a readable bottom line of text, changeing the proprtions accordingly. Client not happy. Take the job somewhere else, I said. "My fiend who has an emb. business has done it" she said, and that's lovely to know "but I wanted it done locally" she said, and that's a very supportive gesture for local business, but.... Funny thing: despite repeated requests there has been NO sign of her friend's sew-out, so there's a sort of a stand-off, but I would rather decline the job, than sew out unreadable text. I believe my 16,000 stitch solid and readable logo is acceptable (have shown my sewouts to innocent bystanders!). I wish the committee she heads for which the logo is being prepared for embroidery, could understand that pixelated prints-outs bear little relationshiop to thread width, and that a solid logo on a knitted garmnent will stiffen and flap about. I have offered the same design without the solid top and bottom, just with a nice border, and the image and text as required, except for a larger bottom line of text, making it readable without having to invade body space.

It has been a good learning curve for me, and I think I will take the Henry Ford approach - one model take it or leave it!

I am so irritated by the exercise, that I have had a bit of a dummy-spit and told her to get her friend to do all the new garments, and I'll do worn garments, so I don't have to buy and resell the T-shirts and try to make a profit on both the shirt and MY work. 16 thousand stitches is not a small job for costing purposes, and I'll never get my time back for the digitsing and sew outs, but your words, Sharon, are very supportive of having the hootsch-pa to make your quote and stick with it (love the smax stocking story).

The other salient feature of small jobs is to have payment on delivery, offer no credit, and I've learnt that the hard way.

Thankx, Sharon, for being such a strong advocate for the embroidery industry.

[LawsonPoling]

I've been thinking a lot about pricing lately. When I went to the NNEP show in Nashville last year one of the Presentors said something that made total sense. "Do no project what YOU would pay onto your client." She proceeded to tell a story of a particular customer who wanted a logo and then "this" and then "that" and as the client mentioned each item, she mentioned a price for that component. All told she made a hefty sum and the client was thrilled.

When I first began this endeavor I did not mark up digitizing work done by my digitizer. After a few times of that I realized I needed to be paid for the time it takes to do those transactions so I now tack on a few dollars and my conscience is clear.

I didn't fully understand setup fees. I have a 16 needle unit, the thread colors the client wants are already threaded, and it's a simple matter to load the design and sew it. $20? Outrageous! I don't think like that any more, either. After wrestling with the ball caps and 'burning' many of them, and after the time spent on learning how to do knitted polos for example, I now realize the principal way I'm gong to get paid for that time and material cost is in the form of a setup fee. Ala Cart pricing is another nice way to recoup money for time. Yes, my conscience is very clear and so far my clients are happy. Do not project onto your clients what YOU would pay. Indeed.

[levelbest]

For us "Set Up" and one time digitizing fee are combined. To get any logo to sew right, we on average will test sew out 4-5 times, tweaking, adjusting, making sure everything goes right.

Now, if you are doing 50 shirts, it's much easier to work that into the price. 5 shirts, not so much.

I'm stright out honest with folks who bring me small orders. We don't just get the shirt, load the design and press go. We take the time to make sure it doesn't look like C R A P. Many of our competitors do that and it SHOWS!

Folks who go with us - go with us again and again because they know, we're not necessarily the cheapest but that we provide the best value overall.

[LawsonPoling]

Thats funny! The amayauser's webmaster reveals how to say C R A P when you really wanna make that point.
Anyway, I was 'working' last night on a logo for the aforementioned Jersey Knit Polo's. I 'burned' the red one for not doing sew outs so I used it as my test material. By the way, this was all for the text part of the logo. I'm finally satisfied that I've done the best I can on the text. Now it's time to add the graphic portion of the logo. Being careful to not burn another polo (I really like the other colors) I do a sew out onto three layers of backing and a top layer of solvy. Beautiful. Good job, Lawson!

I ran the Navy polo and then the Forest Green one. Proud as a peacock UNTIL...the grapic, which is a round disc filled, and with a 10 point single line center around it came out like C R A P! (lol)

Apparently the filled disc still stretched during embroidery and so the single line center around it didn't match. In the words of Yosimitie Sam, "Razza Fazzen Spatter Blatten...OOohhh"

I ended up taking out the single line center from around the disc (which also served to hide my walking stitches to avoid stops/cuts) and re-did the walking stitches and added a cut.

Down to just the black polo now I re-sewed it and out of four Polo's I got ONE that I would actually sell to a client insofar as quality goes.

Great lessons learned last night. Stay with your substrate material until you've test sewn the WHOLE design, LAW-SON.

[levelbest]

I think we've all had those DOH! sort of moments Lawson. Years and years into this and yesterday I still had to look back in the archives of this discussion board to see how I needed to do something [img]smile.gif[/img]

BTW, there is ton's of knowledge here in past posts...

[Impressive Threads]

LOL, in truth I think I spend more time doing sewouts and editing than actual production. And fun thing, what looks & sews well on the black polo with not necessarily sew well on the white. What's up with that?

All in all I love what a do every frustrating day.

Cindy in Phoenix

[Jenny]

We too do many test sewouts to make sure our designs are right before we put them on an item.
Don really does work on a design much longer than he needs too sometimes. It will look great and we will even do it on an article and give it to the customer and the customer is very pleased with it, and then Don will still go back and work on it and work on it until he thinks it's perfect. For him Perfect is truly Perfect (he is an electrical engineer retired) so their perfect is different from our perfect. This last design he did is a 49,000 stitch one and it really does look great. The customer is very pleased with it and has given us more jackets to do and plans on having us do more also. I charge $50 per jacket and only charged $25 for Don to do the design. I told the customer that the design should be more but I didn't know how much more so I just settled for this amount since he is a repeat customer.