Knowing her SCORE Brownsville entrepreneur scoring pointers from mentor as she builds business
SCORE volunteer Ed Trees and Michele Hajduk talk monthly to discuss ways Hajduk can grow her business, Hilltop Embroidery.
Details of goats from a Vermont client that Michele Hajduk embroiders onto tea towels for the company’s gift shop
BROWNSVILLE – Like a lot of small business owners, Michele Hajduk’s business, Hilltop Embroidery, is based in a garage.
And like many small business owners who have tasted success with their endeavors, Hajduk is ready to take her business to the next level – adding customers, employees and production space.
Because she wants to proceed, but take on the challenges of growth prudently, Hajduk has enlisted the help of SCORE, a national organization of retired executives that provides free-of-charge business advice to small businesses.
Hajduk purchased the business – which included screen printing and embroidery – six years ago from a woman who operated it the former Hilltop Garage in Brownsville for many years, but who had closed it for two years before selling it.
Today Hajduk and her daughter, Amanda, 30, who is her only full-time employee, operate a business that draws customers from across Western Pennsylvania and as far away as Maryland and Vermont. They include schools, nonprofits and businesses that are looking for ways to promote their teams, organizations and companies with screenprinted T-shirts, sweatshirts and other apparel.
The work has included pillows embroidered with the question, “Will You Marry Me?” to high school football jerseys, promotional signs and duffels for the natural gas industry.
“If I can get it on a machine, I can do it,” she said.
Between doing designs, providing custom embroidery and offering screen printing services, Hajduk said, “I consider myself a maker; I consider myself an artisan.”
She also received a bonus in the purchase of Hilltop Embroidery. Amanda had worked for the previous owner part-time while in high school. “She’s been a real help to me,” Hajduk said, noting that her daughter was already aware of many of the operations.
“She picks up on things that I show her. She’s very detail-oriented.”
But she’s also a businesswoman who is constantly seeking new business.
She’s quick to acknowledge the support she receives from the Brownsville community.
“They like to keep the business local,” she said, adding that she’s also developing additional accounts in Uniontown.
While often working on multiple jobs simultaneously, Hajduk has seen her business grow over the years, but has found an invaluable resource in Ed Trees, a volunteer with the Southwestern Pennsylvania SCORE chapter, in managing the growth.
“I couldn’t do what I do right now without him,” she said of Trees, a retired administrator of Fayette Area Vocational-Technical School, who also operated an electronics business in Connellsville for many years.
“She needed assistance in organizing her receivables and accounts, and wasn’t set up with any software to help her,” Trees explained. “First, I set her up with Quicken, then showed her how to use the program and suggested she retain an accountant.”
And although it wasn’t part of his SCORE assignment, Trees also helped her when her computers shut down. He was able to retrieve her stockpile of hand-drawn artwork, and taught her how to use a flash drive, all of which went toward saving her myriad creative efforts.
“She’s got good ideas,” Trees said of Hajduk, who added that he wants to help her to grow her business without taking any undue risk.
“You have to keep your risk to a minimum,” when operating a small business, he said.
Hajduk made an expansion lately, renting a storefront in Uniontown where she could meet customers who need a convenient place to pick up their orders.
She’d also like to eventually purchase newer equipment that would enable her to expand her order sizes.
“I can’t take on a 10,000-piece order because we’re not that big.”
She is capable of handling 1,000-piece screen printing orders and can turn out an embroidery project of 50 to 100 pieces at a time, depending upon its complexity.
When Hajduk purchased the business, she got the equipment and the previous owner’s patterns, as well as the right to continue to use the name. That allowed her to retain many of the existing customers.
“A lot came back, a lot had already moved on during the two years it was closed, and I picked up new customers.”
A couple of years ago, during a slow period, Hajduk, who had been doing screen printing work for a New York company that provided her with orders from other businesses, discovered that some of her work was bringing in substantial amounts of money.
She took to Craigslist, and made contact with a company that was seeking various people in the emerging “maker” industry who could contract with designers. After she filled out an application lising her embroidery skills, she was referred to a woman who was a designer of purses who needed embroidery work, and eventually began doing embroidery for a Vermont couple that operates a goat farm and produces goat-milk candy.
The couple operates a small gift shop at their retail site, and Hajduk got the job of embroidering etchings of the goats onto tea towels sold in the store.
Hajduk dreams of the day when she can steer the business without having to commandeer orders on the machines.
“I’d like to get to a point where I can have a secretary and an accounting department,” she said.
For now, though, she’s benefitting from the help of an intern from California University of Pennsylvania graphic arts program.
As for the help Trees provides, Hajduk said their sessions have been under way for three years and have been indispensible.
“We talk about the business at least once a month,” she said.
Kelly Hunt, who directs the Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Small Business Administration, noted that SCORE members “not only bring their extensive real-world experience to small business owners, they often meet clients during evening hours for added convenience.” She added that in Pittsburgh’s 27-county area, there are six SCORE chapters offering free, confidential counseling services, as well as moderately priced business classes.
She noted that in 2016, SCORE volunteers in her district assisted more than 900 start-up business owners and hosted 170 workshops with more than 1,800 attendees.
“I’m so proud that SCORE is an official SBA resource partner, because it’s mentoring that enables small business owners to double their survival rate.”
Hilltop Embroidery, 503 National Pike East, Brownsville, provides customer embroidery, screen printing, signs and decals and decorative flags. For more information, call 724-322-0449 or hilltopembroidery@yahoo.com