The Little F-Word in Embroidery: Using Harsh Feedback to Win Billion-Dollar Clients

A Massive Opportunity and a Potential Mistake

I nearly lost a massive client that could bring me huge income, like one that I've never had before. Not because of bad work, but because I handed my expertise back to them. Not on purpose. I thought it was being helpful.

I'm Hope Yoder, this is the Embroidery Prophet podcast. This story has no ending yet, but there's a lesson too good to wait. So I want to tell you a story that happened to me this week.

I got a referral from a good friend of mine. And he sent me a message saying, Hey, I'm sending you a client that's my client that I do personalization stuff for. And I don't trust many people out there for embroidery, but I trust you. Wow, that was pretty cool.

He told me that the client was particular, it had huge potential for me because he had other companies. And that I want to get my foot in the door with him because that could really grow my business. And you guys, I gotta be honest, that's something that I pray for daily. I have big dreams, and I always say that God is my source.

The Spreadsheet That Changed Everything

So listen to this story. There's a lesson to be learned. I got excited. So listen to how this true story unfolded.

I'm on a Zoom call and I have my computer on focus, which means my phone doesn't ring. I see a text message that pops up. I missed a phone call. I missed a text.

I saw who it was and I realized, no, this is that big client that my friend referred to me. So I immediately pick up the phone and I call him back and say who I am. And I apologize. I was on a Zoom call and he is a very serious client.

And he said to me, Hey, I don't know if you saw the email I sent, but so-and-so introduced us and I just sent you an order that I want to get a quote for. Now, after I got off the phone, I looked at this order and it was five pages long. And he actually emailed it to me and then within a minute called me and another minute later text me.

That shows intent and that he's serious. And I was heartbroken that I thought I would miss this opportunity. All right. The cool thing is I just bought a fourth head, another embroidery machine, and I thought, woo, this is it. This is gonna help me pay for that sixth head machine that I want to add to my fleet of machines.

Where I Went Wrong: Handing Back My Expertise

So let me tell you where I went wrong. Number one, as I was excited and I didn't fully process the spreadsheet that he sent me. And on that spreadsheet, this is a big global billion-dollar company. I've really not dealt with anybody this big before.

And so they had very specific RGB codes for their thread that has to match their branding. And you know what? Most of the clients that I've dealt with, they're big or they're smaller businesses. And a lot of times they'll let me substitute a thread color.

For instance, if they have black in their logo and I'm embroidering on a black shirt, we substitute it out for white. Well, this company on the first spreadsheet went over all of the RGB colors for every color in their branding. And you know what? I know that to my knowledge, there's no embroidery polyester thread company out there that will match the RGB colors.

I was looking at it and looking at my real thread chart and trying to find something that matched. So here's what I said to them in an email. I thought it was being super helpful. So I sent them a link to my thread supplier for the polyester thread, and I said, here's where I order threads from.

I'm happy to order any and all threads that you think match your brand. Right? Doesn't that sound like a good thing to say? Well, I got off the phone, I was feeling like a genius. I wanted to pat myself on the back thinking, Wow, I wasn't afraid to send in the supplier for the thread.

I went to bed feeling good and hopeful and expecting good things. I went to sleep. I woke up. Email number one.

The Email That Stung: The Little F-Word

The client sent an email to the support team at the thread company where I had sent them the link asking for the RGB colors for their branding. Why didn't I think of that? Okay. I know that they have Pantone colors, and I know that sometimes you can get CMYK colors, but not RGB.

And I didn't even think about that. I just thought they could pick it that way, they would get what they want and we'd all be happy. 30 minutes later, I'm sitting in BI. I check my email discreetly, and there's a second email from my prospect himself.

And I'm just gonna read this from my teleprompter right here, word for word. Okay. This was an email that took me by surprise. I'll paraphrase it.

Basically, the email said that he was surprised that I couldn't get the RGB codes from the supplier. He said their website says that they're happy—he told me their website said they were happy to help with precise codes. He also mentioned that it took a lot for him to look through the website.

He didn't basically have time for that and he didn't know anything about thread and assumed that I had a standard operating procedure for picking threads because I am the expert. And he ended the email saying he wasn't trying to be critical. He was just flagging a concern that he saw about my attention to detail.

The F letter word in embroidery, you guys. Feedback. Why would it be a bad thing? Well, if they're telling me how great I am and I'm getting those five star Google reviews, that's great feedback. It boosts my ego. It encourages me to do more.

But I had to sit on that one. That feedback isn't what I expected. And I certainly didn't enjoy reading it. I had to let the email go, breathe in, breathe out, and focus on the meeting I was sitting in.

Processing the Blow: Failure vs. Inexperience

Now I'm smart enough to know that I should not have a knee-jerk reaction and reply to that because it probably wouldn't have been nice. Instead, I was humbled. Okay? I'm not gonna pretend that it felt good. It didn't.

It was definitely not the highlight of my day or my week. I went to bed feeling like good things are gonna happen. I'm gonna grow my business. I'm gonna get this huge job and I'm they're gonna send me more, and then I can buy that next machine.

And I woke up thinking, I'm a failure. All right. That was my first reaction. It upset me and I feel like a failure. And then I had to think, wait a minute, I'm not a failure. All right.

And I didn't want to think that I don't want to work with a company like this because really they had every right to send me that email. And if I was smart, which I ended up being smart, I had to say, let me just think about how to respond to this email. And all day I kept thinking about why didn't I think about getting the RGB colors and then requesting that from the supplier?

Just because in my head I thought no thread goes by RGB. And just because I didn't think about emailing them directly before my client did, I'm not a failure. I just didn't have experience with this type of opportunity before.

So I said to myself, All right, stop feeling sorry for yourself. How can we turn this into a positive? I was literally driving to a doctor's appointment and I was just kind of processing this and I was thinking. How do I become better from this feedback?

It really wasn't criticism. I guess it was, but I think honestly they were really trying to test me to see how I would respond and to tell me that they were a little disappointed that I didn't think how to make picking their client colors easier.

The Reality of Working with Large Corporations

You know, I had to put myself in their shoes and I had to think when he received my email, what did he think of it? I thought I was being a genius and telling them, pick your own colors. But he probably rolled his eyes, side, and thought, I do not have time for this.

That's why I'm hiring you. Large companies hire vendors so they don't have to do the work. They can trust someone else who's an expert, me in this case. To work smarter for them so they don't have to put in all that legwork. And I did fail at that.

But you know what? I'm actually glad. Three days later, I am really glad that happened to me because I never want to get too comfortable in my own skin. You guys, if you're comfortable where you are, your status quo.

Now, I'm talking to myself. I sound like I'm talking to you, and I am, but status quo, that's such a terrible term. And I never ever want to be status quo. That's generic. That's average.

I don't want to be average. I want to be above average. And I can't get there without feedback. Even if it stings, I need to get above average fast. And that feedback is going to help me do it.

So I had to think what would I do different now that I got the feedback? Number one, I would slow down. I would have processed his spreadsheets. I would have looked over it and I would have seen how important the color was that was mentioned every single sheet and every single line.

That probably should tell me that they worked with companies in the past who didn't go the extra mile to make sure that that color was the closest match humanly possible. Number two, mmm, expert answer. You know, color matching is my job, not their job. All right.

They wanted to make sure I was gonna do my job, and I put that monkey on their back instead of taking it for myself. Step three I should have emailed the support for the closest matches and code. But for my client did, that's just darn right embarrassing. I moved too fast.

The Professional Response: No Excuses, Just Results

Really what it boils down to is working with a big client like that, I have a smaller margin of friction. They're paying me to remove their problems. So how did I answer that email?

Are you wondering that? Well, here's some things that I didn't say and I would never say. I would never make excuses. I would never say, I'm a smaller company. I don't need to explain why I did what I did.

I don't need to say, well, I thought that would be helpful if you picked your own colors, because that shows that I'm probably not as professional as what he originally was led to believe. You know what? I believe after I thought about this all day, I really think that he probably was testing me because after I would do this, if I was hiring someone, I would give them some test.

And I really don't care if they screw it up or they mess it up. What I care about is how did they handle it? Like how was I gonna respond to his email? All right. That's the real audition.

I don't know that it's necessarily going to be price point. I'm not gonna price that out and race to the bottom and be the cheapest person just to get the job. It's a huge order, and we probably will have to buy more embroidery heads soon if we keep getting repeat orders, which I'll be like, thank you, Jesus, for that. Okay.

But how did I handle my mistake? That's where relationships are built, not necessarily on cost. But on am I gonna take action, own what I should have done the first time, not make excuses and do better and build that relationship. Am I a critical thinker? Am I a critical thinker? Am I a critical thinker? Well, that first email I wasn't, but now I am.

So are you wondering what reply I hit? What here's what the reply ended up being. A little paraphrase, but I said something like, Thank you for your attention to detail.

It's so clear to me that you care about getting this right, and so do I. I'm gonna be transparent with you. I've never had a client come to me and ask for RGB specs to match the thread. That's not an excuse, it's just the truth.

Your email this morning was something I truly need to hear. I can see that your team reached out to the supplier. If no reply comes from the thread supplier, I'll call them directly. I really want to say I appreciate you saying something to me not everyone would. Kind regards, Hope Yoder.

Do you see that? I owned it. I was real, I was authentic, I didn't make excuse. I left room for grace if he wanted to extend it to me. And I made a commitment that I would do better. That's it. The little F word, feedback.

Building Systems for Long-Term Success

That's a word in business that we all need to welcome. Most of us are terrified of negative feedback. We get defensive. We want to fire back, or we want to fire that client, or we want to say, you know what, they're going to be too difficult to work with.

But in all honesty, that's gonna make me grow. It's gonna make me better, and it's gonna get me to where I my dream is and my goals are faster, handling conflict, handling resolution, growing, taking time to think about where I failed and how I can do better. Feedback is one of the most valuable things that can happen to you, especially when it's not you're the greatest.

Hey guys, let's take a quick break. Are you still winging it when a client calls you or a job comes in? Well, I develop these three forms that we use in our business every day, and I wanted to tell you about them. I don't want you to guess or stay stuck. I want you to have a real system and a workflow to start with.

There's the client disclaimer. If they bring you a form and your machine eats the garment, that's the kiss of death. And you can have a disclaimer to protect you from that. Also, there's the client approval form. When you get that perfect looking logo digitized and you email a picture to your client, you want them to sign off on it so that you have their approval, proof, and writing.

And third, this is the most important form. When a job comes in, you're gonna write down everything from the mighty hoop to the thread colors to the needle, the stabilizers, just everything. So when they come back a year from now or two years from now and say, I want that exact same thing, same polo, same bat station, same bat channel, you don't go, my gosh, I have no idea what I did.

You can find the forms on our website, hopeyoder.com under the download embroidery section, or they'll be linked in the show notes below.

Conclusion: Choosing to Grow

I have 30 years of experience in the industry and I gave him homework and assigned him the job of finding his own threads, even though I didn't see it that way. His email didn't break my confidence in the inn. It recalibrated. That's a big difference.

If this happens to you, be like me. I don't want you to carry this. I want you to pick it up, learn from it, and move forward. Real growth holds someone up to a mirror. You can change what you see. You shouldn't argue with it.

So if you guys are multitasking, stop. Come back to me. If you were me and you were in my shoes and you got that email, how would you respond? How quick would you respond?

Would you fire off with a defense? Would you let the prospect go and say, I don't need that hassle. It's not worth it. You can't pay me enough. Would you ignore it? Or would you sit with it and look for the truth in it?

You know, only you guys will have that honest answer. And I feel like I passed the test. He's still letting me build on the job. I got several emails from him. And the last one, he said, I appreciate your attention to detail.

So far, so good. That tells me that me taking time, taking some deep breaths, that I answered him correctly, being honest, owning it, and moving forward. When you get that next feedback, will it sting or will it leave you unchanged? Or will it shape you to become who you want to be?

I'm choosing to grow. I'm gonna build a better process. And I'm gonna be that person that he chooses to build a relationship with who takes his problem of having different embroiderers not reflect his brand. I'm not there yet. I'm close. I'm closer today than I was yesterday.

And you know what? That's enough. So if this happens to you, don't beat yourself up. Use that feedback in a positive way to do better. This episode has no ending because I'm still in the works of trying to get that relationship built to get the job. So stay tuned. You might hear me talk about that on a future podcast.

If you've liked this podcast, do us a favor and help us reach more people by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. That helps more than you know. And I want to invite you all to join me. In my studio in Sarasota, Florida, we have an Embroidery Profit Academy, and you can come two ways.

You can come in a group setting where we take eight or less people and we spend the whole weekend getting your systems and your framework and your techniques so you can go back home and you could start making money today. Or if you want it to be all about you, we have a one-to-one training where you can come over a weekend, and we're gonna dive deep into you and build your niche and your systems and your framework.

I'm Hope Yoder. This is the Embroidery Profit Podcast, and I'll see you here next time.

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Ready to stop winging it and start scaling?

Join me at the Embroidery Profit Academy to build the systems you need for results. https://hopeyoder.com/