Working from home is a dream shared by millions. There have been thousands of books written about how to start your own home business.
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.
Dont get me wrong, I still believe in my own home based business. I still believe people can make a living without a job. I assure you, I am not some rich guy either. You see, I still believe in work too. I just like to work from my house instead of driving to some factory job or office.
Since the late 1960s my wife has operated an intermittent sewing business from our home. Now she did not get rich, but the extra money did help. As a small church pastor for over 30 years, we had to pinch every penny. By working only a couple of hours per day, Donna was able to bring in a few hundred dollars a week. When she didnt want to work, she didnt. Her business activities were a bit hit and miss. She would go for a year or so, and do no business at all. If she was teaching school, she did less sewing. It was her choice. When we needed extra money, she would let her friends know and maybe run a small classified ad in the newspaper. In a matter of a few days, she would have work to do.
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.
When opportunity knocks, you can either say yes or no. In this case, after saying no for several months, I decided to see what it would take to start doing sewing machine repair as a business. I traveled to a training in Denver. I found a mentor. I started learning. In a matter of a few months, I started doing sewing machine repair from my garage. Soon, I was doing five or six a week. Then we expanded. We opened a full service sewing store with fabric, sewing machines, and sewing machine repair. The repairs grew. We expanded again, and repairs grew. Today we service about 150 sewing machine per month.
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.
So, if you are looking for a doable home business, check out sewing machine repair. You can do it from your kitchen table or workbench in the garage. You do not need any overhead, large investment, or employees. Start part time and only do as much as you want.
Begin by servicing machines for a few friends free of charge. Then repair a few more at a nominal fee. Let word of mouth advertizing work for you. Then print up and distribute a thousand or so business cards to let people know what you do. Run a small ad in the classifieds. Send special offers to community clubs, churches, sewing shops, etc. Let people know you do sewing machine repair. If you have competition, and most communities you wont, find out what they charge and charge a bit less. Increase your pricing as your skills and numbers grow.
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.
But what if you get aggressive. Maybe you are not satisfied with one machine a week. Maybe you decide you want to work your business say ten to fifteen hours a week and do say 5 machines a week. The numbers stay the same, but you multiply them times the added machines you do. In short order, you could be earning a part time income of better than $20,000 a 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.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.