If you’ve ever thought of starting your own business, you need to read this. Theresa Harmon is a talented seamstress with many years’ experience. A chance encounter with a B & B owner led her to open her own workroom, All the Trimmings Shop. She is mom to five children, grandmom to six, loves people and service. She and her husband Raoul have served as Employment Church Service Missionaries and currently serve as temple ordinance workers.
Could you explain exactly what type of business All the Trimmings Shop is?
We make soft furnishings for the home. We make window treatments, pillows and cushions, bed skirts, anything made of fabric that can be used to decorate a home.
Why did you start a business?
I’ve always liked to sew. In 2005 I was serving as my stake’s employment specialist, and I was periodically asked to teach the career workshop and the self-employment workshop. I found I was often coaching people on how to start their own business based on principles taught by the Church employment program. I thought to myself: why don’t I start my own business? I’ve been coaching all these people on how to do it—let’s see if this stuff really works!
How did you get started?
I had just bought an embroidery sewing machine and I went back for my new owner classes at the Husqvarna store, and the ladies there approached me about a woman who had come in recently. She was opening up a Bed and Breakfast and needed someone to make her soft furnishings and window treatments. They asked me if they could give her my name and number, and I agreed. That started it. I made various window treatments for the two suites in the carriage house—it was an old carriage house, historic—and I also made cushions and such. I got the bug, and thought, why not start the business? I hooked up with a pair of business owners—interior decorators—and they hired me to do a lot of their client work. The business started to grow and I got excited. I did it for close to four years, then we moved away from that area. I started back up again here in Richmond in 2018, so we’re coming up on year six.
What did you have to do to establish your business? You had your first couple of clients, you realized that you had a business opportunity – what then?
I got on the phone to Washington County, Tenn., where I lived at the time, and asked them, “What do I need to do to get a business license?” They were very helpful, and they also offered me a business sales tax class. I went through all the things to get a license, and [I ran the business for] just under four years. When I started it again in 2018, I knew more, and I joined a professional industry-specific organization called WCAA (Window Covering Association of America) which gave me a lot of training. The people in that group are running the same type of business and have a lot of experience they are willing to share. I would venture to say there are organizations like that in most other industries. Also, each locality has the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) and the SBA (Small Business Administration), and typically those organizations will have classes you can attend: some are free, and some have a nominal charge. SCORE is another organization where they pair you with a retiree from your field, and they can coach you. There are a lot of resources out there. I learned as stake employment specialist that small businesses are the backbone of industry in the United States; overall, you’ve got more small businesses than anything else. They employ people, they pay taxes, so it’s in a municipality’s interest to educate wannabe business owners because it generates income for everybody.
What was the hardest thing about starting your business?
Coming up with how to set prices. How much does it cost to make a pair of drapes or a cushion? I want to have prices that are competitive, but I am a single-woman workroom, so I can’t compete with the prices of items that are mass-produced off-shore.
But yours are custom, though!
That’s the thing—a lot of people don’t understand the differences, so you have to educate them. Sometimes they don’t need a custom item—sometimes mass-produced is just fine. It depends on what they’re after.
So how did you figure pricing out?
I did a lot of googling of other comparable businesses not in my state, and through WCAA I’ve learned to [figure out] what I need to make per hour, then do time studies. Like, how long does it take me to make a bench cushion? Also, if you’re getting a lot of customers you’re probably charging too little; if you don’t have any customers you’re probably charging too much. (That is, if you have good craftsmanship.) It’s a sweet spot between charging enough and not charging too much. We also learned to require 50% down before we start a project. The customer has to have skin in the game, otherwise they could walk away and I’m stuck with expensive, non-returnable designer fabric.
Sounds like more art than science.
Well, the time studies are helpful. And, it depends on your brand, too. Some customers are fine with a pillow from Costco and others want to dress up their sofa with pillows made from Schumacher fabric that are $200 each. My brand is somewhere in-between. I’m not pushing the real bougie stuff, but I also want it to look nicer than something you could buy at At-Home. Some people come around kicking the tires a lot, but they can kick the tires at a retail department store. It’s not my job to save people money. Soft furnishings are luxury products; they’re not things that people absolutely have to have. That being said, I have had some people with special-needs children reach out to me and I’ve made—at as low of a cost as I can do—custom cushions that function like adult diaper-changing pads for people with children who will never toilet themselves. That’s a sector where I will try to save people money and make something at a lower cost.
So, what does running your business look like?
Well, it’s part-time. It can be full-time for a week or two if I get too much in the pipeline, but generally it’s part-time, which is where I want it. I have grandkids, and I don’t want to be so busy that I can’t do what I want to with them. I’m a temple-ordinance worker, so I’m there one day a week. There are certain things that are non-negotiable for me, and if I can’t do them then it’s time to scale back. Besides all the sewing, I will often be on my business email, looking to see if anyone has reached out to me via my website. Depending on what they’re asking for, I’ll request photos and/or measurements. Sometimes they want a measuring visit, so I have to look at my calendar to figure out when I can go over; they may want an estimate, so I have to ascertain what the job will entail, and how much it will cost, and what I should charge that’s fair—including labor and materials cost. Sometimes I’m sourcing fabric, sometimes people want to come to my house and look at fabric. I have a client queue, which is a basic calendar of the next couple of months: who’s in next in line and what their projects are. I also keep track of people who are thinking about hiring me, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel if they decide to do it. And sometimes I’ll have a project—for instance, a lady wants me to make roller shades. I haven’t made them for, well, I think I made some for myself about 40 years ago, so I had to do some research in order to figure out what to charge and the current best methods to do it. Also, I’m part of the Curtains and Soft Furnishings Resource Library, and they have Circle Time once a month, which is like continuing education. I’ll go to the Custom Workroom Conference if I can, which is a type of continuing ed., too.
Didn’t you take some sort of course last year or the year before?
Yes, I took a certification course in drapery and window treatments. It was 12 weeks. It was a killer! I grumbled about it and I had a lot of anxiety because it was just another rock on the pile, but you know what? I was able to create a Look Book, so now when designers want to know what I can do, I send them my Look Book: it’s got photos of my work, what our pillows have, what our pricing is, etc. It forced me to do some things I wouldn’t normally do, but that really [helped my business].
For more on Theresa and how she runs her business, check back for Part II of this interview!