Friday, January 16, 2009

Be The Sewing Machine Repair Expert In Your Town

By David Trumble

Have you ever heard that it takes money to make money? Have you perhaps invested several hundred dollars in a business opportunity only to realize it really did not offer results? There are literally thousands of books, courses, and programs promising a dream of working from home, but how many really pay off?

There are probably more scams promoted under this theme than any other. Some purport fantastic guarantees. Some insist there is no selling needed, no product needed, no work involved; just rake in the money. Perhaps you have tried some of those MLM, Network Marketing, or Home Business ventures only to end up broke and disappointed. I understand because I have been there too.

Yet, I assure you there are legitimate business opportunities that you can run right out of your home. I have done a few of these myself. While I do not claim to be some super rich business guru, I can tell you that you can work from home and make a living.

Working from home is exactly what my wife did for many years. Especially, when our five children were small, she would earn an extra hundred dollars a week or so sewing. We found that when she was teaching 7th grade, it just put too much pressure on the family for Mom to be gone so much. Her work from home really paid off.

Donna had become the consummate seamstress with a good reputation, but until we moved to Texas in 1992, she had only dabbled in sewing as a business. Then with the five children almost grown, she decided to get serious. With a small classified ad and a few business cards, she began getting huge amounts of custom sewing work. To our surprise, many people were calling asking for sewing machine repair too.

I took a repair course with Allyn International in Denver. I found a repairman in Austin who would mentor me. I collected service manuals. Essentially, I learned to repair sewing machines so I could collect the dollars people were trying to push on me. Yes, within a few months I was repairing five to six machines every week all from my garage part time. Eventually, we opened a small store, then expanded, and expanded again. Currently, our company repairs about 150 sewing machines monthly.

I am amazed by the number of people I meet, who know nothing about sewing or sewing machines. It appears some people think sewing is something they to in China. When I tell them that I make a living doing sewing machine repair and selling sewing machines, they respond as if I were from another world.

I explain that there are some 85 million sewing machines in use just in the United States. Another 5 million new machines are sold every year. And guess what. Every one of those sewing machines requires sewing machine service and repair annually. That is a lot of sewing machines to fix.

I am not going to tell you that you can make a bundle of money without doing any work; but from my own experience, I will tell your there is a big opportunity in sewing machine repair. Here are some advantages: you can learn it in a matter of weeks; you can do business from your kitchen table, shop, or garage; you need no big overhead; you need no large investment; and you need no employees.

Start out by letting all your friends, neighbors, people at church, and everywhere else that you do sewing machine repair. Run a small ad in the newspaper. Pass out business cards. Maybe do a dozen or so machines free of charge. Then charge about half what the city sewing machine shops charge for another dozen or so. Then set your prices just under your competition.

Nobody can guarantee you will make any money at all in your own business. It is certain that if you do not work at it, you will make no money. On the other hand, the potential for your own sewing machine repair business operated from your home is very real. For example, lets say you decide to charge $80.00 per standard service. Since you have no overheard, employees, or other major expenses the $80.00 is yours. If it takes you 2.5 hours to complete the service, what is your hourly rate? Now can you live with better than $30.00 per hour? If you did just one machine a week you would earn over $4,000 per year. All this for working about 2.5 hours per week at home.

The more machines your repair, the more money you will make. The more machines you do, the faster you will be able to complete a service. If you want to expand your business, all you have to do is increase the number of machines you repair. For example, lets say you contact a church group and agree to service twenty sewing machines in the month of January. That would be about 6 machines a week. Or maybe you decide you want to take off for vacation or Christmas holidays and do no machines for a week or two. You are in control. Remember, on average you will need to schedule about two and a half hours per machine. If you want to work twenty hours this week, you might compete 8 to 10. Now, what if you did on average 5 machines a week. How much would you earn for each one? In a month? In a year? Increase the average by just one machine per week and see an additional $4000.00 per year.

Now if you were to expand and set up a few collection sites in quilt shops, fabric stores, and other repair shops; what kind of potential do think you could achieve?

What is your maximum potential for full time sewing machine repair? Without opening a sewing store and without hiring employees, you will find that you max out between fifteen and twenty sewing machines per week. The more demand for your services, the more you can charge. The better job you do, the more you can earn. The faster you are, the more machines you can do. At $99 per machine and averaging 20 machines per week, you might see as much as $100,000 a year. Of course, this is really a pie in the sky estimate, however, you are in control. You set your own potential.

Sewing machine repair is a business you can do without ever opening a store, hiring employees, renting space, or investing thousands of dollars in empty promises. As long as there are people who love to sew, there will be a need for sewing machine repair. - 16928

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