new clients

wow we must be doing something right,
we have interesting people contacting us, interested in our products, our look, what our people do....
in the past we have spent a lot of time with some people who were basically daydreaming about having a little business with no grounding in the reality of what needs to be done to make it real and how much time it all takes.

what has happened is we have put a lot of effort in for small orders that fizzle out....we have too much other work to do, we need to allocate our time wisely.

I have written this up- a little quiz for potential clients...does it sound OK? not too pushy?
over the last year or so we have had a few big time wasters...want a lot but don't seem to be onto it with answering questions or getting things started....etc, etc, etc,
Everyone has their own way of doing things...we want to work with people who are complimentary to our approach- we are after work

TSP New Clients

 

Hello

Welcome

Thank you for considering working with The Stitching Project.

 

About us:

Kanhaya Lal [Praveen Nayak to his mates] is Indian

Fiona Wright is Australian.

We live in a village just outside Holy Pushkar, on the edge of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan. Initially we operated a small, special interest tour company Creative Arts Safaris whose main focus is textiles. Once we had relocated permanently to our farmhouse we fell into what has become The Stitching Project – our blog tells many of our stories over the years

http://ofdaydreamsandmemories.blogspot.in

We are a limited liability partnership [LLP] registered in India. Registered in June 2011, it took us 2 years of paperwork to achieve this point, we hold an Import/Export licence, are certified with Craftmark for the authenticity of our Kantha stitch/ quilt stitching and meet all the many government regulations in operating our business.

 

Our Mission Statement

·       ethically create as much work for ourselves and as many hands as we can

·       emphasis on the work of the hand- handloom fabrics, hand block print, hand stitch

·       source materials as locally as possible

·       make choices that are as environmentally friendly as possible- unbleached handloom fabric, re-cycled silks saris where suitable to the design.

·       where the quality of modern sewing techniques are necessary use the best quality threads, zips etc and our modern sewing workshop.

·       promote fair pay for well-produced work and educate to help achieve this

·       develop work informed by traditional techniques with a contemporary twist.

 Working with you:

·       we’d love to

·       we would like to ask some questions before we get started.

·       Our workshop evolved out of a good idea….now we are responsible for the livelihood of many people, this is very time consuming, satisfying and scary some days.

·       To start with a new client takes a lot of time on our part

- understanding what you want

-working out where to get it

-making samples

-creating production sheets, costings……labels, wash tags, ...questions questions, questions

-setting up procedures to make repeats

-training people to produce the correct print, stitch pattern etc

 

·       Where are you up to in the process of operating a business?

·       Do you have experience doing this or a first timer?

·       Do you have mission statement?

·       What is it that really interests you about your project?

·       Do you plan to have your own label, sell our product, re-label our product to your brand name, or create completely new designs?

·       Have you worked out a financial basis for your business

·       Have you identified your potential client base, how will you connect with them?

·       Do you use social media to get your brand recognition?

·       We write a blog, use FB, Pinterest, a little bit of Etsy and an online shop, do trade fairs…mostly to tell our story and help people find us….we would prefer to be making and you out there selling.

·       Have you made any type of feasibility studies of your projected market, similar items out there already, similar projected price points?

·       Ethically produced work is our mandate and we are very careful of the source of all materials we use. Will you also be stocking items that do not come under this ethical mantle?

·       Will you clearly define how your goods are made? – an experience we have had: at the moment kantha stitched recycled cotton saris are extremely fashionable….most work on the wider market is produced in Bangladesh in near slave labour situations….one ex-client was buying a very few things from us and much not so ethically made stuff, using our story in their sales pitch and completely glossing over how most of their stuff was produced. Not an ethical business in our eyes. Not where we want our story used.

Punchline:

·       What is your projected timeline to get it all happening?

·       What quantities do you expect to be ordering to start?

·       In 1 years time?

·       In 5 years time and what will you do to attract that level of sales?

·       Where would you like us to start?

 We would love to help you bring your dreams to reality, from experience those that are well thought out have a chance….

We have a lot of people to look after and never enough time- we have to make the choices where we are spending it wisely.

Best wishes

Happy dreams

Fiona and Praveen