Issue link: https://docs.hic.us/i/403552
discovered Niche Markets to be the most profitable sector of our company. I preach this to other Embroiderers, "develop a Niche!" You don't have to quit everything else, but you should have a specific market that you can really focus your efforts on. Niche Markets are not a cure-all for boosting profits, but they do have some really good advantages. Foremost, is the increased profit potential, since you will typically be able to charge more for your goods and services. In addition, there is less competition, and Niches usually allow you to fine-tune your offerings, so that you spend less time sourcing, and more time selling. And, as an added bonus, you end up with customers looking for you instead of you looking for them. So how do you develop a Niche Market? Its not something that happens overnight, it does take some thought and experimentation. Start by examining your interests and hobbies. For me it started out with boating. I really wanted to own a Marina, but it was just a bit too costly. (Like way outta my league!) So, I opened an Embroidery Business instead. (I'm sure you can see the similarities) Immediately, I begin to call on boatyards, marinas, tackle shops etc. This was very appealing to me since I not only had a love of boating, but quite a bit of knowledge in the subject as well. Basically, I could "talk the talk", and "walk the walk", as the saying goes, which is very important when it comes to opening doors and closing sales. Very quickly, I found a large demand for embroidery within this market, so we begin to focus our products, and designs in this direction. As business grew, we identified the fact that there were very few, really good, fish designs available. So our next step was to create a collection of Saltwater fish logo's that were unique, realistic and accurate. This was a huge success. Suddenly, I was getting calls from up and down the East Coast for my fish. To further increase our exposure, we begin to exhibit at Boat Shows and Fishing Tournaments. We even took along a machine for good measure, and did quite well. The Shows added yet another dimension to our Marketing strategy. People would buy a custom cap with their boat name at the event, then call us later to order products for their company. We also started picking up business from the other exhibitors as well, many of whom were large international companies. Over time, we added many lucrative accounts as a result of our efforts. Then our Niche took another turn. Some of our coastal clients begin asking for "tourist -oriented" designs other than fish. Many of these resort shops sold a wide variety of merchandise along with tackle, so they wanted additional offerings. One of the requests was for a North Carolina Lighthouse design. So we took a look at the possibilities. What we discovered was that there were plenty of screenprint designs, but very few embroidered ones. And on top of that, most of them were incorrect in terms of detail and color. Accuracy was a key point in developing our fish collection, so we begin to research the Lighthouses of North Carolina. It took some effort, but eventually we collected pictures as well as history and trivia about each one. (Knowledge of the subject is quite useful www.hsi.us care@hsi.us 115