How to Grow Your Business Using Custom Embroidery Contractors
Let’s say you own a business and have a limited amount of time. And like the rest of us, you have a limited set of skills that you know how to do well right now.
Maybe, on some things, the time it takes you to do things may be a little longer than someone else. Or, you also may not be at the point in your business where you can hire a part-time or full-time employee.
It may not be right for your business – you may be content to work out of your home, and it doesn’t make sense to hire someone. But very often, It makes sense to explore your options and give part-time contractors a try.
Maximize Your Best Skills and SubContract the Rest
Why would you take one of your greatest skills and outsource it someone else? Sometimes it’s about grasping the bigger picture for your business.
You may have started this business by yourself and become good at creating designs. But you’re also trying to grow your business. In this example, you have two options:
1. You become the artist, and you hire someone to run your business.
2. You manage the business and bring someone in to do the artwork.
What are a few of the jobs/tasks you can outsource?
- Web Development
- Web Design
- Digitizing
- Accounting
- Writing
- Art
- Design
- Marketing
- Social Media
- Sales
Lessons I’ve Learned
In our many years of hiring outsourcers, there have been some lessons. If you hire contractors, chances are you’ll experience similar pain points. We want to help you to avoid as many as possible.
One of the signs of a good contractor is that they ask you questions about the job. They realize the rules and expectations were going to talk about below.
- Have a clear, defined description of what you want to be done
“I want a t-shirt about rabbits. Give me something funny.” Is not clear and defined. In a few sentences (5 or less) do a description of the job. Later you’ll create a more lengthy description, but when you’re initially looking for a person, you want this brief description to help you weed away all the people who aren’t qualified.
Examples: if you’re hiring an accountant, you would want to specify that they need to be an expert in QuickBooks (if that is the program you’re going to use). Perhaps they need to be local so they can come to you.
- Have a budget
How much are you willing to or can afford to pay? But also, figure out how much you should expect to pay.
If you decide you want to outsource the digitizing of artwork, do the research to find out what the range is. Then determine if you can afford it.
Be as open-minded as you can. You might be thinking about outsourcing someone to do your books. Looking at the numbers you’re concerned about how much it will cost.
Why are you considering outsourcing in the first place? Have you made mistakes in the past that have cost you money?
Does it take too much of your time? What has doing it yourself cost you in the past (labor and error cost)? That helps to define whether the cost is worth it.
- Put a good job description together
Is this going to be a one time job or ongoing work? Do you need someone to provide work on a regular basis or occasionally and not on any regular schedule?
“I’m looking for a partner to help me develop the graphic image for my company, by producing t-shirt designs on a regular basis. Likely have 5-15 different jobs per month. Looking for someone who’s available long-term.” or “I have one big job and need help with x, y, z.”
Depending on the type of job and the task, the job description may be a few extra bullet points or may go into more details – the days of the week they need to be available or expected delivery dates of work. You can also put technical specs in the description.
If you were to hand this job description over to someone else, they would be able to find the right person for the job based on what you wrote.
- Timeframe
Define when you want the whole project done and when you want parts of the project done (if it’s a big enough project).
For example: If you’re getting a new website done and you want it to launch in two months, you don’t want to say “I want the website done by X date.” You want to put some milestones in between. – Review the outline/wireframes within two weeks. – E-commerce part ready by x date
- Communication Standards
Do you need to hear from them every day to give you a progress report? Or a weekly check-in for bigger projects.
What you want to avoid is if you need a project done in 10 days and you hear from them on day nine that they haven’t even started yet.
Now they have all these questions. Or they had another project come up, and now your project is going to be late. Or they disappear completely. You may also want to set expectations that if you email them, they need to reply within 24 hours, and you’ll do the same if they email you.
- 100% agreement of expectations
Everyone signs off on the work that’s being done, how much is being paid, when the delivery date is, and the other terms of the agreement.
One good tip is to ask the contractor to describe back to you the job in their own words. This could be formal like a contract or verbal if you are working with a local artist on a small project.
If someone does this for a living, they may have a customer expectation document/contract.
Another big thing is that friends and family do not get a pass on this process. This is where the potential for real issues takes place. It could be your son who’s doing some graphic design for you, and they mess up.
Unfortunately, now it’s a business issue. If you late pay your own family, it’s now a personal issue. You may want to give your family a shot, but you also may need a professional and the ability to fire that person if it doesn’t work out.
- Protect your private information
This includes passwords, bank account information, etc. Be wary about when it’s okay to give out passwords and to what.
Do they need access? Often you can create secondary accounts that provide contractors access to only what they need. For example WordPress, Bing Ads, Facebook Advertising, and Google Ad Words.
If you’re unsure of how to set up accounts for sub-contractors, you can always contact the service and get more information.