How Do Successful Fashion Designers Run Their Business?

 

Usually it is a combination of several things:

1. Luck (being in the right place at the right time);
2. Talent (absolutely essential);
3. Financial backing (putting together a collection and getting your name known can take quite a bit of cash);
4. Organisation (and good business practices);
5. Persistence and strong will (never give up!);
6. Learning from your mistakes.

Most of these things are down to you to a greater or lesser extent, even luck. It is possible (but not guaranteed) to make your own luck. For example, the more people you talk to about your collection the more likely you are to be noticed.

One thing is certain – you can increase your chances of success by knowing how to go about the business side of things.

This includes knowing where to get your garments made, how to get the most out of your manufacturer, how to make sure your manufacturer gets the quality right and delivers on time. It also includes making sure you don’t run out of money, making sure your prices are right (will people buy your creations at a price that you can afford to sell them for?), keeping your bank manager (and your suppliers) happy.

And, of course, it helps if you know a bit about sales and marketing. Most people who run their own business make the best sales people – it’s the passion that convinces buyers.

Tips:

Successful businesses spend a lot of time and effort on their sales & marketing. Annual marketing plans will identify exactly what promotion is going to be done and when it needs to be done – photoshoots, look-books, shows, PR, social media etc will all be planned out and costed.

As well as promotion, sales campaigns will be planned – target customers will be identified and how to approach them.

If you want to learn more about sales & marketing, Fashion Enter are running a workshop on sales and marketing in November as part of the ‘Business for Creative People’ series – see details at the bottom of this article.

Pricing your garments correctly is critical to success. Pricing needs to suit what your customers will pay – too high and they will go elsewhere – too low and you won’t make any money. So you need to do your homework on what similar garments are being sold for.

You also need to make sure you can make money at that price (see finance section below).

Finding the right manufacturer is also important. Managing the relationship with the manufacturer is absolutely vital if you are going to be successful.

There are a lot of manufacturers in the UK and a high concentration in London (contrary to general opinion), but they are in great demand.

If you are looking for a manufacturer the two most helpful website directories are: www.fashioncapital.co.uk – look under ‘Industry’ and ‘Manufacturers Online Showroom’

www.fashionalliance.co.uk – look under directory

When it comes to managing the relationship you need to be professional and have clear specs and information. This is the subject of another Fashion Enter workshop – October 13^th – as part of the ‘Business for Creative People’ series (see below).

All successful businesses have strong financial management. But you don’t need to be a city whizkid to understand the basics of finance for small businesses.

The main things to understand are:  how to work out your garment costs (materials + production + packing and carriage); how to work out your running costs (including marketing costs, development/sampling etc); how to make sure your price covers your costs; how to work out how much cash you need.

Good businesses create an annual budget at the beginning of each year and then monitor progress as the year goes on, so they can take good business decisions based on sound financial information before its too late.

This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. There are simple tools and techniques that can be applied fairly easily – again there are workshops covering this in the ‘Business for Creative People’ series (see below).

Workshops:

All of the elements mentioned above are covered by workshops run by Fashion Enter. A new series of workshops starts in October.

For full details go to www.fashioncapital.co.uk – learning – seminars.