About Us (continued)

So you think the Three Stooges were funny?

Well, duh.  And Nyuk nyuk to you.

Embroidery is a tough business.  Team Mates, if you didn't already know, is a contract decorator.  That means that we, the company, rely on them, the distributors, to sell.  We have to make it easy for distributors to sell clothing with  little sewn-on logos. You can get a really good logo from anyone.  Really.  The embroidery machines are incredible these days.  A new one will sew a logo, trim it up, do a hand stand and play a Brahms lullaby while spouting philosophy.  OH yeah.

It just takes an operator.  And a bookkeeper.  And a manager.  And the special crew who reviews your order, makes sure that the men's large pullover that you ordered isn't a women's size medium.  Oh, and a shipping department that actually send it to you, not the neighbor down the street who ordered the latest iPad online last month.

It sometimes takes a planet.  Or maybe just a well-oiled team.  

Your author here inserts a footnote.  He wants to be liked.  He wants to be perceived as a really good guy.  So he does what he can to prove that to his loyal (really, you got this far into this little About Us history and you deserve a really big bonus) reading following that he is basically okay.  His problem (the author's) is that he didn't interact well with Team Mates' employees.  So he took a deep breath and got up from his desk and, well, set off on a journey of discovery.  

He asked his employees how they felt.  What they wanted out of life.  Where they were headed.  He expected things like "I'm out the door as soon as a better job comes along."  He received compliments about the  fact that we 'seemed like we actually cared.'  It was surprising and gave us all a lot more confidence.

And E-Myth has traveled the route with us.  Suggestions.  Things like sharing our numbers, becoming open about how errors were made and how they could be fixed.  Involving employees would seem to be one of the best ways to do this, especially since we started to evolve into a business that served customers and graduated away from focusing on getting work out the door.  As a result, things improved dramatically.  Production increased.  We started meeting deadlines and pleasing customers.  We started to work as a team.  

Of course there is a next step.  It is a big one.  How, and in what way do we serve our customers?  Jeepers, you had to ask?  There's a big secret here.  Ask Your Customers.  And that is just what we did.  More about that in a second.  I have to go fill hay bags.  More on that as well.