Quilting Business Blog » Machine Quilting

Q&A: Stay Away from eBay

Charlotte Colmon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:06:43 +0000

I received this question from Eileen Keane about selling on eBay and making a decent living…

Good morning Chuck,

Thank you for including me on your mailing list for your ezine! I’m finding lots of valuable information on it.

I’ve been reading the selling on eBay article and checking out other machine quilters on eBay. I have to admit, I’m very leery about listing there. Most of the longarmers I’ve talked to have told me that I’d be giving my work away.

If you look at my website, you’ll see that I’m reasonably priced for my part of the country/state. I honestly don’t know what to do; I want more business but not at the cost of making a decent living.

Thanks and I hope I hear from you,

Eileen Keane
www.DesigningQuilts.com

Over the years, I’ve found that eBay is a great place if you want to pick up some unusual item – a vintage toy or script from a favorite movie – but I haven’t really seen much for selling services that seemed like a good deal for the seller. It seems that everyone searching eBay is looking for the lowest price, and it can be tough to make enough money to make it worthwhile. So, here’s my answer to Eileen:

Hello Eileen,

I think you’re absolutely right about selling your longarm quilting services on eBay – you’re not going to get the price you deserve for your work, and in some cases, the experience will not be worth the time as some people who purchase on eBay have expectations way beyond the prices they pay.

I took a look at your website, and it does appear that you offer reasonable prices for your work, and you have some wonderful examples in your photo gallery. It looks like any of your customers would be very happy with your services. So, here are some ideas for getting more business for your longarm and custom quilting business:

Sign up for Google Local Business Center: This is a service that Google offers business owners so that their business shows up in searches when someone types in a location. You may have noticed these local business results when you’ve done a search on Google as they are at the top of the search results with a map and a listing of businesses near the area. So, if you search for “machine quilting business maybrook, ny” you would show up at the top with the map. It’s not an issue for most of your top keyword phrases, but you could also start showing up when someone types in “quilting maybrook, ny”. And, it certainly can’t hurt with your Google rankings.

Work On Your Website: I like your website, but perhaps you can reorganize a bit to make sure that you direct visitors to do exactly what you want them to do – either request a quote for some quilting, order quilting, or order a custom quilt. Make the choices obvious. Maybe have a large button on the home page that says “Request a Quote” and another for “Custom Quilting” so that people’s eyes are drawn to what you want to highlight. Also, you might want to consider some introductory text on the home page that talks about your service and gives the brief description of why you’re special.

Get Some Testimonials: From the gallery on your site, it looks like you have some very happy customers. You should ask them to write you a quick testimonial. If they are a little concerned about writing, then you can call them on the phone, ask them what they would say in a testimonial, and then write it down yourself. Always send them a copy of the testimonial for final approval. Not only is it polite, it also ensures you are covered as testimonials are an area where marketers must be very careful about only using actual customer testimonials – faking can get you into a LOT of trouble.

Try Working with the Local Newspaper: If you have a local or regional newspaper, try to contact the business editor to convince them to do a story about your business. You will want to create some kind of “hook” – an angle for the story that is bigger than just a profile of your business. For example, I do some work with a local band, and the paper here in our area was pitched a story about the band around the hook of four successful business people who are making music at night and loving it. Perhaps you’ve done some charity quilting or have an interesting story about a cherished quilt from your childhood.

Get In Touch with Local Quilt Shops: It appears there are a number of quilting-related businesses in your area (thank you Google Local Business Search!), so you should take some time and go in and introduce yourself. Ask if you can leave some business cards or even some small brochures (many word processing programs will have templates for tri-fold brochures you can print on your inkjet printer or bring to the local copy shop). If you present yourself well, you may be able to get referrals from them. You can even expand your reach beyond your travel area by searching for shops a little outside of your range and creating a nice postal mailing, followed up a few days later with a phone call.

Some other quick ideas would be to get involved with any quilting guilds or organizations in your area for networking (and hand out lots of business cards), network at quilt shows and craft fairs (and perhaps even sell some smaller quilted items to help pay for your time), or even hold a quick continuing education class on some aspect of quilting to help expose your business to other quilters.

Good luck with your business, and please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best regards,

Chuck

Marketing is one of the areas that many small businesses take for granted. When you go into business, you tend to focus on the product or service you’re delivering, instead of attracting customers. But, in order to succeed, you need marketing to drive a steady stream of prospects to you business and help convert visitors to customers.

Back in the Quilting Business Business

Charlotte Colmon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:29:08 +0000

Hello everyone, and I’m officially back in the quilting business! I know some of you don’t remember me, but I’ve been running the www.QuiltingBusiness.com web site for over five years now, and I also have a number of other quilting-related web sites that I run.

But, about a year ago, I had to take a full-time job (my accountant assured me that if I kept taking money out of my retirement fund, it would be gone by the time I retired), and I got kind of burned out on running the web sites and doing the whole “9 to 5″ day job thing. So, for the past year, I’ve been spending most of my spare time watching the kids do their various sports and activities, and watching our puppy Ginger grow into a rambunctious dog.

But a funny thing happened about a month ago…

I decided to take a look at my web sites to figure out if they were worth re-registering. And you know what? I was still getting traffic and still making some sales, all without any promotion at all. I knew I was making a few sales every month, but when I added it up, it amazed me that there were as many people able to find me without any online advertising. These people really wanted to know how to make money with their quilting. They really wanted to start a quilting business.

So, what I decided to do was to simplify my quilting business life. I took a look at all the different quilting web sites I had, and decided to trim it down to only those that made sense. I also decided to consolidate all of the quilting business communication to one email list, and to turn www.QuiltingBusiness.com into a blog so I could quickly update the blog and also offer the ability for the Quilting Biz community to comment and interact very easily.

That decision was made about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and I’ve finally finished the blog and updated all my sites. And now, I’m ready for the big unveiling.

So, what I have left are the following web sites:

www.QuiltingBusiness.com – My main web site and the Quilting Business Blog. I’ll use this site as the main focus of my communications.
www.Machine-Quilting-Business.com – This is where I sell my ebook, “How to Start Your Own Machine Quilting Business.”
www.Start-A-Quilt-Shop.com – This is where I sell my ebook, “How to Start Your Own Quilt Shop.”
www.QuiltingForCash.com – This is where I sell my ebook, “How to Start Your Own Quilting Business.”
www.QuiltersTips.com – Home of the top quilting tips on the Internet, and also a weekly contest for your best quilting tips.
www.TopQuiltersTips.com – Just a place that shows a bunch of the top quilting tips from www.QuiltersTips.com.

It was such a nice surprise to see that so many people were still interested in starting a quilting business. I would never have guessed it, although I should based on the wonderful emails I have received from everyone over the years. I’ve been truly humbled by the generosity of the Quilting Biz list over the years, and I regret I haven’t kept up with the list the way that I should have. And that’s all going to change.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be delivering some good information that is designed to get you going in your own personal quilting business. This information will include some great free software and web sites that will allow you to get the most out of your computers and the Internet, as well as some good, solid marketing and business information to help you jumpstart your quilting business.

As always, please feel free to send me any questions or any resources you think will help others. There’s also www.QuiltersTips.com for adding your own quilting tips to the community. I know how giving this group is, and I want to make sure all of the new people who have been added to the Quilting Biz community over the past year, while I’ve been quiet, get as much out of it as possible.

So thanks once again for caring, and I look forward to offering some great information in the weeks to come.

Happy Quilting!

Chuck

Can I Make a Living with My Quilting?

Charlotte Colmon — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:35:31 +0000

A lot of people wonder whether or not they can make a living at a machine quilting business. I’m not a fortune teller – I can’t really determine whether or not you’ve got what it takes to succeed in a machine quilting business. Only you can make a business successful.

In this article, I’ve answered a couple of reader’s questions about the viability of a machine quilting business and also some business basics.

Since I was 12, I have wanted to make a living from home. I have been sewing for about 40 years, quilting for about 3 years, and people seem to really like my quilts. My question is: Will I be able to replace the income from my job, with a quilting business? It seems to me, that I would need to do more than make one quilt at a time and sell them in order to make $1,000 per week, which is what I will need to be making before I can quit my job. What other things could I do that would generate more income?

– Brenda Farland –

Here’s my response to this question…

Hello Brenda,

Your question is a tough one. Since I’m not familiar with the quilting market in your area, or what types of quilts you make, I would have a tough time gauging whether you would be able to make $1,000 a week or not.

What you could do at this time is some market research to determine the what type of quilting market you live in. For example, how much do the types of quilts you make sell for in your area? Do you have something different to offer that would allow you to sell your quilts at a premium price over other quilts? Is there a lot of competition? What about demand?

Once you have a feel for the market, you can then figure out how much you need to charge in order to make your quilting pay. How long does it take you to complete one of your quilts? What are your material costs? What would you like to make for an hourly wage? All of these questions need to be answered before you can determine if you will make money, let alone replace your current wages.

There are some pricing articles on www.QultingBusiness.com that may help you with your calculations. I know there is some work to do, but if you are truly interested in making your quilting pay, then it is well worth the effort.

Good luck,

Chuck

Here’s another question:

I am interested in starting my own quilting business. I have just recently lost my full-time job.

I do have a Professinal Quilters Long-arm machine and have been doing some quilting for family and friends.

However, I do not have a Master Card or Visa Card, I do have a check card. Is it possible to do this with a check card?

Thank you and I will be looking forward to your reply.

Karen Smith

And here’s my response to this question:

Hello Karen,

Having just a check card will not stop you from starting a machine quilting business – it just means that you will need to be a lot more conscious of your budget (since you cannot carry a balance).

In your case, since you have a quilting machine, you have the single biggest expense already covered. What you would need to do next is to go through the process of making your business official.

To do this, you would need to register your business and make sure you have all of the local requirements settled before opening. These requirements include, but are not limited to, insurance, getting a bank account, registering with your local government (town or county depending on where you are), and getting customers.

This may sound overwhelming, but there is a lot of good information about starting and running a small business available at the US Small Business Administration’s web site at www.SBA.gov. There, you will find some great information that will help you decide how you want to run your business (or even if you are ready to make that step).

Good luck,

Chuck

PLEASE NOTE: I am not an attorney, so I am not giving any kind of legal advice here. You should always consult with an attorney when dealing with any kinds of legal matters.

If you have any questions about your quilting business – whether just starting out or looking for a boost with some solid marketing or business advice – feel free to send me an email at chuck@quiltingbusiness.com.

Chuck Smith is the owner of QuiltingBusiness.com, the web’s only site dedicated to helping you make money with your quilting. Visit QuiltingBusiness.com today to sign up for the FREE email mini-course: “7 Unique Ways to Make Money with Your Quilting.”

PLEASE NOTE: This article and product review archive is here for your benefit. If you would like to use any of the articles or product reviews on your own web site or in your own email newsletter, you must include the resource box at the end of the article and also contact QuiltingBusiness.com requesting permission.

Choosing the Right Quilting Machine

Charlotte Colmon — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:34:11 +0000

Over the past few months, I’ve received several questions about choosing the right quilting machine. I’ve decided to include a couple of the questions and answers in hopes that they will help you if you’re looking for a quilting machine for your own machine quilting business:

Which type of long arm quilting machine do you recommend? And which frame works best?

Dinah

Here’s my response to this question…

Hello Dinah,

Choosing your long arm quilting machine requires a little bit of research on your part. First of all, you need to determine your budget. How much are you willing to spend on your equipment before you even start your business?

Once you have a figure in mind, request information from all of the machine manufacturers who fit the budget range. There will be a wide variety of features, and you will need to determine which are important to you.

Once you have all the information, narrow your search down to a few different manufacturers – perhaps 2 to 4. Then, try to get some more information. Go on some machine quilting forums to ask questions. See if you can find someone locally who has that machine and ask them if you can “test drive.” And, you can contact the manufacturers to see if they will be having any demo days nearby where you can see and try out the machines (perhaps at a quilt show).

I hope this helps,

Chuck

Here’s another question:

I’m looking at all the quilt machines. I would like to start a small home quilting biz, and I ‘m also making them for my kids. Most of the quilting machines are too big for me, but the quilts I make are too large for my home sewing machine.

I’m looking at the HandiQuilt system as it has a lot of good features, it can be put away easily, and the cost is very user friendly. But I know that a lot of machine quilters use the Gammill system. It’s very big, I can’t put it away, and the price is very high! Is there something I’ve missed?

Darlene

And here’s my response to this question:

Hello Darlene,

What you need to do is determine what kind of business you are looking to start. If this is a part-time business, then perhaps a smaller quilting machine is sufficient. If you are looking to create a full-time income, then you may need to consider one of the larger machines like the Gammill.

But, first of all, you need to determine whether or not this business is right for you and your circumstances. First, is there a market for this type of busines in your area? Are there a lot of quilt shops and quilters?

Next, you need to determine what kind of financial resources you have access to. Do you have some savings? Can you get a loan at a bank (do you have good credit and are you comfortable putting together a financial plan).

One of the best places to start answering these questions is at the Small Business Administration’s web site – www.SBA.gov. There is a great deal of good information on starting and running a small business. You will be able to see the work involved, and also get a better understanding of financing and running a business.

Good luck,

Chuck

Are There Too Many Machine Quilting Businesses in My Area?

Charlotte Colmon — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:30:26 +0000

Recently, I received a question from one of the QuiltingBusiness.com community about determining if her local market was over-saturated with machine quilting businesses (name withheld). Here is the question (which I’ve paraphrased for brevity):

While inquiring about the need for a long-arm quilter in our area in a local quilt shop, I was told (in a not-to-friendly tone), “There are 13 home-based quilters in our area and that’s enough!” I have been very excited about starting my own business after my Gammill demo and she sure took the wind out of my sails. How do I go about doing market feasabilty without scaring my competitors?

Here’s my take on how to go about doing a market feasibility study for the machine quilting business in your area.

First, make some phone calls to the 13 other machine quilters in your area. You can get these numbers from the phone book or from the local quilt shop (you may want to have a friend get the contact info from the quilt shop so they don’t know it’s you asking).

When you get them on the phone, tell them that you have a quilt top you’d like quilted, and want to know:

What is the pricing?
What is the turnaround time?
Do you have an references?
Do you know of other machine quilters (if they can’t handle the job quickly – gives you more names to call)?

If you find out that most of the machine quilters in your area have very long turnaround time, then this could mean a very active quilting market. If most of
the machine quilters are not busy, then perhaps the market is over-saturated.

If you do find that the competitors are very busy, and they cannot deliver in a timely manner, then this could be a great opportunity for you to come into the market and dazzle the customers. That is, if you can turn the quilts around for customers sooner than your competitors.

Assuming you can, then the first thing to do would be to try and get some publicity for your new business. Push the angle of the over-demand for machine quilting in your area, and that as a new machine quilter, you can do their quilting job much quicker than your competitors.

In addition, you should hold an open house where you demonstrate the techniques and materials that you will use if you are chosen for a quilting job. Make it very informal – coffee, cookies, etc. – but also very informative. Talk about the quality of your quilting machine, the techniques that you use, etc.

You may also want to differentiate yourself with some kind of marketing spin. Perhaps you can offer a 100% money-back guarantee. Or, you can guarantee that the quilt job will be done in 1 week or less, or you save 20%. Anything that will set you apart.

You should also strive to make your business as professional and inviting as possible. Don’t go overboard, but have some nice cards printed and prepare your price lists and other business handouts with an eye for your potential
customer. Quilters are artistic, so your materials should look great (again, without overspending).

As you gain some customers, ask them for referrals and recommendations. Also, find out where your customers congregate – is there a local quilt guild you could visit or join to discuss your machine quilting business?

There are a lot of different things you can do for marketing as your business grows, including Yellow Page advertising, newspaper advertising, postcards, direct mail, etc. But first and foremost, focus on customer service and customer referrals – these are money in the bank.

Good luck with your research,

Chuck