Sewing Business Blog

Time Management Important To Business Success

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In the past we’ve talked about organizing your sewing time in order to be more productive in your work (organizing sewing projects so you’re using white thread for several items before changing to a different color thread, etc).  There are many ways to actually be more productive while working, therefore getting much more work done.

The question is, what about “time management”, in order to cut down on stress and frustrations in your daily life?  We’re talking about your “sewing / working” life as well as regular “family” life.

I remember in past years, with six kids all needing to be in different places, AND my sewing / alterations piling up, I could feel the frustration building.  Even if you have only ONE child or two children, and trying to shuttle them around while customers are trying to make appointments, pick up work (that perhaps you haven’t done yet) – stress can be a killer for the business.  Just try working under this kind of stress and see how many mistakes you make — or work on something that isn’t even due out to a customer for a week, while something due out today sits on a shelf!  YIKES!!

The best solution that I found in these working conditions is to do everything systematically!  I KNEW what time the kids had to be at various places, and I KNEW what work needed to be done before they got home from school.  Sooooo, cut down on the telephone chit chat, turn off the tv, and quit procrastinating about that “difficult” alteration that you agreed to do.  JUST DO IT!   In most instances, the “difficult” alteration isn’t nearly as difficult as your mind wanted to imagine, so the longer you put it off, the more behind you got, until the stress of starting the alteration job was near a boiling point.

By organizing the workload in daily increments —- get up half an hour earlier in the morning to get a job out of the way; plan the amount of sewing/alterations/craft work that you can handle before the kids get home from school; and if you’re overloaded on work at the moment, perhaps you could work another half an hour or hour after the kids go to bed, rather than watching tv.  That would be “just for tonight” – not every night, and would be so you could get enough caught up to prevent stress and frustration tomorrow.

By prioritizing your workload and not postpone things for tomorrow when you could easily do them today, you will have a much more stress free and relaxed lifestyle.

Customer Satisfaction Is Highest Priority

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Whatever your business consists of – sewing, crafting, alterations, pattern making, monogramming, sewing with leather – the common thread among them all is satisfied customers.

Satisfied customers equals a growing business, whereas one single dissatisfied customer can turn away more new customers than you can try to get with all the advertising and promotions out there.  It is true that “word of mouth” is what grows a business, but it seems like one disgruntled customer never knows when to stop fussing!

There are a few things to consider when dealing with customer satisfaction. Read on and see how these ideas might work into your business.

** Get customer feed-back.  Listen to what the customers are saying.  Are they “suggesting” that something just doesn’t look right about items you’re making?  Perhaps they’re thinking ahead and asking you to make additional items that they’ve seen someplace else, and would really like to buy such items from you.

** Respond promptly to customer complaints.  Address any customer problems immediately!  For every one that actually comes to you to fix the situation, there are probably others that simply don’t come back.  Let your company be known as the ONE that will listen and solve customer problems immediately.

** Provide the best possible service.  Let your customers know that you will provide the best service (perhaps hems in 2 hours, or whatever works into your business) — then DO what you say you’ll do!  Word will get around very quickly about your prompt service.

** Say “thank you” at every opportunity.  Customers want to know that they’re appreciated, and a genuine “thank you” will make them feel glad that they came to you.  You might want to recognize your long-term faithful customers with a special birthday card, Christmas card with a little coupon in it, or make up your own “customer recognition day” and have coffee and doughnuts set up in the customer waiting area.

** Stay enthusiastic — even if business is down.  A positive attitude will pass on to the customers as they come in and they’ll go away happy that they’ve done business with you.  You might be the only bright spot in their day, so don’t let them down.

Do your best to have 100% customer satisfaction.  Your customers will respond to your dedication of service and that word will get out and you’ll find yourself with new customers just because “somebody” told them how great your business is.

Ideas To Make 2019 The Best Year Ever!

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The New Year is upon us, and sometimes we start to visualize, or dream, about how great this new year will be.  The facts are that we have to do more than just dream and wish – we must take ACTION!  Action requires us to think about things, write some things down and begin to work on the list we’ve written.

Here are a few ideas to help you get started on your list for the year and help to move your business at a pace that will definitely make it the “best year ever”!

** Update your planner for the entire year.  Put in all birthdays, anniversaries, craft show dates, conferences you want to attend, etc.  If you don’t have major items on your calendar, you’ll get so busy you’ll forget important items, or worse than that, you may be trying to schedule two craft shows for the same weekend, if you don’t already have something on your calendar.

** Set up 2-3 major goals that you’d like your business to accomplish this year, such as getting started in that new area of sewing for big and tall men, locating two additional craft shows that you can attend or setting up your customer area so you’ll be able to show off and sell some of the crafts that you make from those downloadable patterns. Write these goals into a book so you can cross them off when you’ve accomplished them.

** Plan your time off.  If there’s a reunion coming up over Memorial Day or you think you’d like to head into the mountains or to the beach over the 4th of July, mark it down in your planner, and add that to your list.  By doing this you know well in advance of the upcoming days that you won’t be in the office / workroom, so you can get your work done accordingly.

** Educate yourself.  In every business, there are new things coming along constantly, and you need to keep abreast of any changes.  You could even decide to educate yourself a little and learn how to do your own sewing machine repair, instead of having to take your machine to the shop for maintenance and repairs.  Figure out how many times you had your machines at the repair shop last year – add up the total spent, and this will probably be the savings you’ll have THIS year, once you learn how to take care of your own machines.

** Organize your office. The biggest problem in any office, at least in mine, are the mounds of paper!  Things I want to look at in a few days, magazines I want to browse through again, ideas for projects that get out of control – you name it and it’s all in my office.  I’ve decided that I WASTE entirely too much time shuffling these things around to make room for more papers.  Today, January 1st, I have made the decision to clear out the “junk”, get the office organized, get a filing system set up and categorized (project ideas in one file folder, future article ideas in another folder, patterns organized in my new clear view pattern holders,) and go through the huge stack of magazines to tear out and file what I want to keep and recycle the rest of the magazine.  I’ve made a big headway already today and feel so much better about the office – I know I won’t be wasting as much time this year as in past years shuffling and re-shuffling.  And guess what – time WASTED means less productive time, therefore dollars wasted!

** Last but not least, after making your list of goals and “to do’s”, plan how and when you will get them accomplished.  You don’t have to do everything in January!  Spread out the items according to what you’d really like to accomplish first, second and so on;  this way you can get a time-table set up that you can easily follow.  If you see that you’re nearly finished with your entire list by the middle of the year you can easily set up another set of goals for the last half of the year.

I’m planning on making 2019 the BEST YEAR EVER for my sewing and craft business.  How about you?  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Motivation Equals Momentum

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A few posts ago we talked about how to stay motivated, and how easy it is for others, including family members and friends to rob us of our motivation.  Today we want to talk about how staying motivated can be the deciding factor in the momentum of your business.

For starters, make a little sign “Motivation Equals Momentum” and put it in your sewing room, on your refrigerator, on your computer or wherever else you can see it several times a day.

The momentum of your business (how your business is growing) is determined upon your motivation and your “stick to it” attitude.

Over the past years we’ve seen many home businesses fail and fold because the owners liked the “free time” better than working their business, and of course the business failed to grow — it simply withered and died.

On the other hand, we’ve also seen home business entrepreneurs that have had nothing but a string of bad luck and misfortune come upon them – financial difficulties, family issues, health issues – that would have closed most people down, but somehow they gritted their teeth, dug in and worked around the adversities, and have very successful businesses that are still around.

The amount of motivation and determination YOU have will set the stage for the success of your home business. There is another quotation that I have on my wall that you might want to consider putting on your wall as well —- “Faith, Focus and Follow-through = Success!”

Now is the PERFECT time to put that “Motivation Equals Momentum” thought in gear as you get ready to start up for the Holiday Season!!  Do you have some new ideas for patterns or projects or items to sell?  Go to work NOW to get those things going!  Let us all work hard to make this the best Holiday Season ever!

I’m sure many of you have stories about adversity, and how you’ve worked your way through it.  Let us know how you’ve managed to keep the momentum going in your business, in spite of difficulties — we’d love to hear from you.