Being a buyer for Littlewoods, Selector for M&S and a Senior Buyer for Principles for Women I would know within in the first five minutes of meeting a designer if they had what it takes; honestly it's that quick. How they present themselves in the first five minutes, how well organised they are, how they treat their garments (with reverence please!), how t heir garments look on the hangers – all of the ambience that surrounds the designer are all tell tale signs of their professionalism. Here is your checklist to help you make the right impression BEFORE the meeting takes place. Next week we will follow up with what to do at the meeting and then the follow up.

BEFORE THE MEETING

• Price points are very important to remember and retailers will be operating on margins around 2.7 to 3 sometimes higher for the up market sections. Hence if a garment is selling for £29.99 divided by 3 is £10 selling price ex vat on a three margin but on 2.7 its £11.10. This is your price point selling bracket and you need to make sure that you can make to this price sensitive point. If you can't then you shouldn't have contacted the buyer in the first place. Comparative Shopping is absolutely imperative to success.

• Don't be content to do a comparative shop on just the retailer you are seeing – look at their competitors too. Again name drop when you see the buyer and make sure she knows you have done your home work on their behalf.

• And don't stop their either go that extra step further and do a Directional shop on their aspirational market and designers. It makes all the difference when you can effectively show you know their market and products.

• Research the retail company. Go on Google and read about how many branches they have, are they successful; are they working on new initiatives that are inline with company ethos, can you help the new product areas in anyway? You have to prove your worth and existence. There are 100s if not 1000s of  "you" out there so you have to make yourself special and hot property.

• Before the meeting ask the buyer what she wants from the meeting. If she is a quality buyer she will be specific here she may be very targeted and explain that she wants to see a cross section of high summer linens or she may say that she wants to understand your handwriting. If you don't ask you won't know and you both could be wasting your precious time.

• Be prepared with your own paperwork. Have a list of the garments you want to show and portray them in a logical and easy to understand fashion e.g. a buying sheet that has a picture of the garment, fabric composition, colours available, sizes and rations BUT NOT PRICES at this point. Don't put them in tablets of stone it makes negotiation much harder later. Remember the garments you show then be in the order of this checklist and during the presentation you should have a copy of the checklist plus the buyer so you go through the styles together. Remember to make notes as you are going along e.g. often the buyer may comment that a particular garment is a good style "but"….write down the but comments and offer to remake the garment if you have too. This is very common as the buyer may be working to themes that are set by the Design Department and garments often have to be engineered into place.

• Don't go into that meeting unless you know you can fulfil each garment order if it arrived. Each order has to have fabric availability; you know who is going to make it and what the CMT price is (cut make and trim) and the full costed price with fabric, grades and trims. It's not easy and don't rush the costings. If you get it wrong now on the wholesale prices you may just about giving your business the kiss of death.

• Do the full costings sheets. This is what a costing sheet looks like and it itemises the components of the garment in detail so you can perform accurate costings. Do not buy in the business to get your foot in the door. It is virtually impossible to hike up your prides once you have confirmed the first batch of prices. It is easier to start high and come down and "engineer" a garment into price. This is a common term for buyers. This is when you start taking off detail of a garment to reach the buyers target price point e.g. on a blouse you may take off the double turned hem and make it a pin hem because this is quicker and therefore cheaper in production.

• Make sure you have a selection of information available abut you and your company for review. Again please be prepared here. You may need a company overview, a press book, profile about yourself and sometimes the buyer may want to see a mood board or sketch book from you too. Many designers struggle with a press book. They can't afford a PR agent and they can look very weak in this area. So think outside of your box. Will the buyer study the press book in great detail…not normally…but she wants to see the pictures and the look and feel of your collection. This is where you can use sites such as http://www.fahsioncpital.co.uk/ where we can offer you a free upload on your profile, press book and for members a free ecommerce boutique too. You can start a blog and regularly update it and then you can download each and every piece of work and put it into your press book. It's a good start to show 6 or 7 pages of you and your collection.

• Below now shows a selection of work that some of our designers have used in the past to preview their range. This gives you an idea of what you need to show.

• Get the garments perfect before you go to the meeting. Are the colours right, no threads, buttons all matched. Each garment is correctly swing ticketed with a reference number that you can remember e.g. when I had my designer range of Retro UK Ltd I had a unique reference numbering system whereby RB 100 was a Retro Blouse ref 100, RD 200 was a Retro Dress, RJ was a retro Jacket . Each garment t hen had a sketch with it and there was a product reference book that had the references number printed on the top. When the buyer called and said we want to repeat RB101 I knew straight away it was a Retro Blouse and looked in the book for the style. Keep it simple and easy to understand. You can double up here actually with technical sketches.

Ok are you ready for the next step? Let's get going on that meeting then. Next week we cover the actual meeting itself. Remember you have just 5 minutes to win over that buyer.

Jenny Holloway

Director