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Entrepreneurs – How To Establish And Market Yourself As A Fashion Designer
| Guest post by: Lee Lister |
Article Overview: You’ve been to college or have the fashion skills and you now want to establish yourself as a fashion designer, so how do you get started?
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Free Download - What Type of Business Should I Start? By Lee Lister |
Entrepreneurs – How To Establish And Market Yourself As A Fashion Designer
You’ve been to college or have the fashion skills and you
now want to establish yourself as a fashion designer, so how do you get
started?
1)
Set up your brand to ensure that you and your
designs are recognisable. Establish a good label on your items.
2)
Design a few small items that you can give away
or sell cheaply. These will be your introductions to your brand.
3)
Set yourself up a website with good photos of
your designs. This is your shop window.
4)
Set yourself up a store on etsy and eBay. Set up
a regular advert on CraigsList. Mention your website in both stores and the
ad. This is to give you good links and
get you internet exposure.
5)
Get yourself a market stall or mall kart to sell
more. Attend regularly to establish your
brand image. This gets you know locally.
6)
Get yourself a good brochure designed. Use a
photography student if need be - they get good exposure, a reference and a
portfolio and you get no cost photos.
7)
Offer small items to big charities etc. This
gets you exposure.
8)
Offer talks to local large clubs and set up a
small table with your brochures and small items for sale. This is called "back of the room"
sales.
9)
Set up adverts offering bespoke tailoring. Connect with wedding planners and similar to
offer couture.
10)
Get a business plan together and explain what
sponsorship and sponsor remuneration you are seeking within the plan.
11)
Keep making small items to introduce your brand
and range. Send some off to potential sponsors with your brochure and an Introductionary
letter and your business plan.
12)
Contact big companies and ask if they want to
sponsor a fashion show. Offer a fashion show to charities. Send them your
brochure. Offer charity auction your
small items to auction.
13)
Keep expanding your range as you can afford.
14)
Contact small boutiques and offer to supply
their shops.
15)
If this is in your area then offer uniforms to
businesses, clubs and sports clubs. Do an internet search and tender for this
work.
Put the above into a marketing plan, make your own personal
adjustments and work on it weekly and daily.
Good luck.
Lesson #4: For Better or For Worse, There is Always Something to be Learned
PR for Fashion Designers
African fashion features on Fashion Television
Mademoiselle Coco Chanel
How Promotional Caps became a Fashion Trend
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About the Author: Lee Lister RSS for Lee's articles - Visit Lee's website From an early age she began an unparalleled journey through business consulting that continues to span across the UK, USA, Europe and Asia. She has consulted for a considerable number of companies all over the world. Specialising in business change management, start up consultancy and trouble shooting. Lee's experience in marketing and internet marketing is also keenly sought after. She is a prolific published writer of books, ebooks and articles and can easily be found on major search engine and Amazon. Her books include: FastTrack Bid Management, Proposal Writing For Smaller Businesses, How Much Does It Cost To Start A Business, Entrepreneur's Apprentice and a series of Start My New Business books that do as they say in the title! Her major web sites are: Click here to visit Lee's website   Your Mailing List How to Get Sign Ups Entrepreneurs Meetings Make Them Effective And Profitable Entrepreneurs Testing Your Product Ideas Whats A Unique Selling Point And Why Should I Have One What Is A Media Kit And Why Do You Need One |
Related Forum Posts
Re: Fashion
- Nana,
At you choice you may choose to research the fashion industry a bit more. There is obviously a Business side to it as well as a creative side to it. Find out all the types of roles that exist in the industry. Some that come to mind merchandiser, Window dresser, floor plan organizer (someone needs to determine the layout of a retail store to best sell the goods), fashion consultant (Yorkdale mall has fashion consultants that take you around and tell you what looks great on you - you also get a cut from the sales). This is what I've observed from the business side, you may know more.
All these roles I've written about will help you grow as a business person and make the contacts in the industry...possible stepping stones.
But further more you'll also notice that you need to develop some business acumen possibly tailored to the fashion industry.
When I was at Ryerson I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur someday too. I knew I needed some basic business courses to get a foundation to build from.
I was in a Tech/Business Major (I'm sure Fashion has something similar - Fashion/Business Major) and then started to create my own minor.
Here are some of the courses I took: Marketing, Law, Entrepreneurial, Management, consulting.. and a few more .
Also, I'm sure that within the Fashion Major there are also courses you have to take where you can use your creative side and create designs. Typically within a Major there are focuses you can choose - ask the program coordinator.
Your next step is to do some research.
1. Visit Commercial retail outlets like H&M, Banana Republic, or jacob. Tell the Manager your doing some research for University and would like to know what types of Corporate roles exist aside from the roles on the retail floor (like sales associates). If she asks you to elaborate then you can use some of the roles I mentioned above.
2. With this information in hand you can visit the Ryerson Fashion department and inquire with the Program Coordinator on what focus within the Fashion Degree would help you the most. In my program there were 5 different focuses within the Tech/Business program.
Just a quick aside. A good friend of mine too has a dream of fashion. he want to create a niche fashion line tailored to skinny men (I can't mention the style). He's in Business school but not in the Fashion program... He's in International Business but all his Minor courses are tailored to running a successful business ... similar to the ones I mentioned above for myself.
I have no doubt in my mind he'll make it 'cos his vision is that strong.
Facebook: Personal or Business Utilisation?
- In regards to using Facebook I only use it to catch up with friends and old school mates. In saying this rarely do I add many applications as you are always "flooded" with requests from your friends so I simply delete 99% if all requests due to lack of commitment.
At this stage I don't believe you would see much adoption for a commercial application for Entrepreneurs on Facebook due to the way it is currently utilised as more of a personal tool.
Most people think of Facebook as a "social networking" site rather than a "professional networking" site therefore a lot of people will use it as a personal tool to display photos etc rather than using it strictly as a professional business tool.
One thing that has impressed me about Facebook in regards to business opportunities is the marketplace. I have viewed heaps of items and even one proposal for a Designer to redo a website, which I could of easily taken an interest in but chose not to due to lack of time so that was slightly exciting at the time.
What are everyone elses thoughts on facebook?
Re: How should i promote a new website?
- ignore this message IF it's already been stated. I haven't had a chance to read all the replies and i have to jet from the office...
I suggest marketing where ever your Target Market congregates. If it's a forum of concerned parents - go there. Strike up a deal with the forum owner (JV) and have him promote it to the list of members (Integration Marketing).
If you want to go with Forums then i would partner with a parent who is a frequent poster/moderator on a particular Target Market Forum and have him/her add your link to their signature.
That was just a thought but it's not as intense once you get buy in from the Forum owner or high ranked poster/moderator.
Hope that sparks some new ideas.
Re: Ideas For Business
- Hello Lucy,
you may consider this list for Ideas for Business: (Top 23 list)
Rank Company
1 Google
2 Genentech
3 Wegmans Food Markets
4 Container Store
5 Whole Foods Market
6 Network Appliance
7 S.C. Johnson & Son
8 Boston Consulting Grp.
9 Methodist Hospital Sys.
10 W.L. Gore & Associates
11 Cisco Systems
12 David Weekley Homes
13 Nugget Market
14 Qualcomm
15 American Century Invest.
16 Starbucks Coffee
17 Quicken Loans
18 Station Casinos
19 Alston & Bird
20 QuikTrip
21 Griffin Hospital
22 Valero Energy
23 Vision Service Plan
Re: Do Women Play the Stock Market?
- I also play Stock Market.....
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