have question about home business

[eunyoung]

Hi I bought a machine 4months ago
and ive been practicing so now i'm good
with machine and digitizing,
But i have no idea how to make income out of
this.
if anyone doing home business or knows
about it, i need advice.

[KGM]

Hi there, There is a lot to doing a home business. This is a terrific list but I don't know where to tell you to look - search messages for marketing, business start up etc I would think.

There is another Amaya list - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmayaEMB/ and you are certainly welcome to join us there, too. We have had some long and detailed posting on new business start up and marketing. Search old messages there too.

I don't usually give out a lot of advice as I don't have bunches of time but overall, you do need a business plan - you can see a format on how to write one on sba.org I believe which should be the small business administration website. Make your plan and work it.

You then next tho need to make sure you can be a business where you are located - at home? We are at home in a large shop behind our house.. but we live in the boonies and only have to have a sales tax license to conduct biz in our county. Whatever the requirements, best meet them as sometimes fines are pricey.

Then you need to figure out some kind of accounting system - we use QuickBooks Pro and we started out by buying the book Quickbooks for Dummies lol. Our accountant though has been a hugh help, too. You will never really know if you are making money or not until you keep careful track of all costs and expenditures vs. income.

Then you need to figure out a niche. Is there something you 'know' about? Something you have a lot of contacts in? We are 'old car nuts' and have shown dogs, horses and purebred cats plus have 5 kids and 14 grandchildren to market for us lol - which we furnish many decorated garments for them to wear with a pocketful of business cards!

So we have a lot of contacts in all of the above and we do fairly well.. So you don't have to have just ONE niche.. [img]smile.gif[/img]

We know people that I digitize for that do coffin shrouds (little curtain in the top part of the coffin, dogs -coats, leashes towels etc, horse equipment-like stable blankets, fly sheets, halters, leads etc. Others that do some straight sewing and adorn it with embroidery..

You need to figure out pricing - what it costs your material and time-wise to do things. There is more to this than meets the eye - with the cost of your machine and utilities, shop space, etc etc You can -if you are going to do local selling- call other embroidery biz in your area and see what they charge. Most will share info with you.. well maybe at least, some will. Ask on the list though it might not be accurate as if you are in a small town with no great economy or on the other hand in a big city that is doing well.. it could change pricing quite a bit.

Whenever I am Not busy - I work on marketing. It is something that will pay over time and keep on paying the more you do it. It is hard sometimes to get motivated to do it when you first start out and are not making very much -if anything. You just have to keep on, keeping on though or you Won't make it.

There are a ton of other details but have no time for more. There are excellent books in the library too that are abt small business start up and marketing.

Good luck to you!
[img]smile.gif[/img] Jill

[KNC Designs]

We have been doing embroidery work for 2 years this Oct. and it has all been by word of mouth.

Curtis

[Impressive Threads]

I started my business from my home just over 2 years ago. It is tough to get a customer base started. If you have an 'niche' you can market to great. I did not, so I tried various ways to sell myself. I finally hit upon a winner and that is to join a networking group. I joined BNI which is a single catagory chapter. BNI is all over the country. Single catagory means no one else in that group does embroidery. The other members of the group bring me business referrals as I do them for their businesses. I also attend chamber of commerce mixers and just this week finally joined one. There are several to choose from here in Phoenix so I attended a good number of them before I made my choice.

I live in a urban type area in Phoenix so at first I did alot of driving to meet new customers at their location and to deliver even if the customer was bringing me apparel they had purchased else where. Now I do not have any problem telling them where my home is if they want to drop off / pick up their apparel. I still deliver to clients that order apparel through me.

I have alot of competetion in Phoenix so I emphasize " outstanding customer service" as a reason to go with me. Most of my customers are small to medium sized business and they like dealing with someone small instead of larger shops.

You might want to seek out similar decorated apparel home based business. I have hooked up with screen printers and promotional product people who need embroidery done from time to time and contract to them.

It will be frustrating at first, and it takes about 2 years to really get rolling along and seeing a profit, but if you love doing this as much as I do, you will succeed. Best of luck to you.

Cindy in Phoenix