Archive for the ‘setting up a home business’ Category

Hi there…Horsey Gal here with another great tip!

If you are thinking about starting your own horse blanket repair business, or if you have your own business right now, a great add-on service for your horse blanket clients is waterproofing.

It’s really easy to do.  Sporting goods stores carry waterproofing sprays that are easy to apply.  And what I have been running into are clients that are afraid that the laundering will ruin the waterproofing of the their blankets. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you charge Travel Charges when starting a Horse Blanket Repair Business? This has been a debatable thought for me.

I put some fliers up, and I put the word out with some friends of mine that I had started this blanket repair business. And most everybody that I have done work for is around this area.

However, a lady called today, who is 35 miles away. That’s quite a distance, but I asked her how many blankets she had, and she said that she runs a training stable, and with all her clients together, she has about 25 blankets. YIKES!

Wow! I was stunned for a minute…and was trying to do the math in my head. How many miles versus how much with all the blankets.
I always try and be fair about what my charges. This is considered upper level math! I had to get a calculator and started doing some calculating. So 25 blankets for washing at 12.00 per blankets, minimum would pay $300 just for the washing, and she said just about all them had some kind of repair. At a minimum that would $125.00, but usually it’s about twice that, if I am charging $6-$15.00 per blanket for repairs. The estimate was around $675.00.

Now the thing I had to consider was that it’s not just one trip, but two round trips, that adds up to 140 miles. Geeze, and then a couple of hours of driving. Those two hours of driving, could translate into getting a couple of blankets done at home with washing, and repairing.

Well, I thought I would strike a compromise. I told her I would waive the trip charge if she picks the blankets up. They would all cleaned and bagged. Otherwise I would have to charge 25.00 to 30.00 for a trip charge. Well, there was no second thoughts on that suggestion. She said yes!

That was a win win for both of us.    I was glad I thought of it!

Boy, this is amazing.   I have already made a good amount of money in a short amount of time, and it’s fun!

Find out where I read about starting a horse blanket repair business by clicking here.

Hi All…HorseyGal here again, reporting to you live from my work room!  Let me tell you…I just love this new blanket repair business!

I’ve been telling friends how much fun it is going to different barns and meeting new people.  There is nothing better than being appreciated for fixing blankets that look like they are beyond repair!

If gives such a sense of accomplishment, and pride to make something look so good when you are done!  I think sewing has become a thing of the past because of how cheap clothes are to buy.

I learned to sew from my mom when I was really young.  She made all my clothes because “off the rack” clothes were too expensive.  In fact she teases me that she would hate to sew patches…and I say give me a patch over button holes and making sleeves fit any day!

So here I sit with the smell of clean horse blankets, and see the accomplishments I have made and how happy my customers will be when they see their dirty old blankets looking pretty darn good!

I would say the trickiest ones I have come up against are the ones that have ripped the belly surcingles off.  Because you have to remove some of the heavy webbing in order to reinforce it so you can reattach the surcingle strap.

Those take a little more time and more fabric for patching.  I charge accordingly.  But if it looks like the repair is going to be more than what the blanket is worth, I call the customer to make sure they want it repaired.  I only do this if it’s going to way too time consuming to fix it.

I’ve had one complaint so far, and that was that I had used black webbing to replace a leg strap on a blue baker blanket instead of a blue strap.  So that taught me I had better have a variety of webbing on hand so that everything matches.  When in doubt, match it!

Okay…I’m going to sign off for now.  I will keep you posted on the horse blanket repair business!

To learn more about starting a horse blanket repair business…click here.

HorseyGal here today to report what  a great day I had with my new blanket repair business.

I was able to get my new blankets washed and repaired and delivered to my very happy customers.  I really wanted to impress them and to make myself available for new business.

Well this barn manager was so impressed, that she immediately referred me to a friend of hers.  It’s a really well known barn in the area, and to get that barn as a customer is huge!

So I went by there on the way home, and stopped in and introduced myself and let her know that a friend had referred me.  She was so excited to hear there was a new horse blanket lady.  It’s so fun!

So she went around and gathered all the blankets hanging on the stalls that needed repairing and we tagged them and bagged them and got them into the car.

Wow…I couldn’t believe how easy that was!  So when I got home I counted another 15 blankets!

Okay…I know this is hard to believe, but really it is that simple!  Now tomorrow my intention is to go by a couple of the feedstores in town.

Karen explains how she got the feedstores excited about her work.  So that’s what I’m going to do…take a sample of my work in and show them what I do, and drop off some fliers for them to hand out.  Maybe I can talk them into being a dropoff spot for customers.  Hmmm….

If you would like to more about how to start your own blanket repair business…click here.

HorseyGal here, and I am getting my horse blankets prewashed today during a break in the rain.  It has been cold and rainy here, so it’s been a bit of a struggle getting them outside and prewashing them.

You’ll remember I picked up those 15 blankets at the barn where my horseygal girlfriends were visiting.

I’m going to hang them on my fence so that I can hose them down and scrub them before putting them in the washer.  Getting the hair and dirt off really saves the washing machine.  I really recommend buying a second hand front loader washer so you can dedicate it to just washing the horse blankets.

I got half of them done today…and then hopefully I can get the other half done tomorrow. It goes pretty fast when you have them all hung up in a row like an assembly line.

For getting the hair off, I used an old horse brush, and then I bought a little portable shop Vac and it works great for vacuuming the hair!

I got the work room all set up for repairing the blankets.  I was going to do it out in the garage, but it gets too cold out there, so I decided to turn the spare bedroom into my work room.  I will have lots of room to work and places to store my hardware and fabric.

I found a local fabric wholesaler today that gave me a great deal on rolls of fabric that were considered irregular.  Nobody will notice when you’re using small squares of fabric.

Well, that was a huge score, and I’m sure if you decide to tackle a business like this, you will know how profitable it will be for you.  I just talked to somebody in Virginia, who has a huge business traveling and picking up horse blankets all the way into Washington, DC.  Amazing!

So I’m pretty excited about my new business…in case you want to know more READ HERE