the We are Handsome team did a talk for Pedestrian Coach a little while ago, & as a fresh design graduate, i got a lot out of it !
my take-aways:
- appear [company size] bigger than you are - it will seem more professional
= speak in 'we' - unless you a branding yourself / you as a service
= it makes it sound as though you have a team
= create multiple email addresses - e.g. have accounts different to the founder
- spend less money
= e.g. fly elsewhere for photoshoots - get airline partners, leverage advertising, etc
= it can be cheaper to fly elsewhere for a photoshoot than to do so locally
- emulate people - e.g. really great marketing
= not necessarily your competition / from your own industry
= e.g. people / businesses that have won advertising awards
- don't get obsessed with just one social media channel
- be clever with spending a little bit of money - it saves a lot of time
= e.g. to find stockists - have sales agents for different states / continents
- you can pay people to just do any jobs that you assign to them (e.g. WaH use a company in the Phillipines)
= e.g. to find stockists or email addresses / data entry - you can give them stockist links from your competition
= e.g. a virtual assistant
- you need to talk about all social media accounts on the other accounts
= this way, people will know how to get to them / you can ensure that they will know about them
- if you are a converting 1% of site visitors into sales, this is very very very good (this is the case for the big players such as Amazon, Apple, ASOS..)
- be wary of over-designing your lookbooks & linesheets - this is very easy to do
= avoid doing this
= keep it simple - e.g. front / back shots of the looks & 1 sentence about the style/s
= give buyers enough info to attract them to the brand
= don't give the buyers too much info so that they can't be bothered reading it
- the Alibaba site can be useful for finding fabric manufacturers / possibly some fabric suppliers
- the Elance site can be useful for people to bid for your services - similar to Ebay
- travel to places for short periods (such as Spain for a week)
= you can speak to buyers, agents, stores, PR
= this can give you info about that market
- you will go through a lot with your first manufacturer/s at the start
= they are working for you - tream them like an employee
= ask lots of questions; treat it like an interview
= you have the power & the money - you can drag the interview process out as much as you want - e.g. ask to see a lot of samples
= the more questions that you ask, the better your relationship will be
my take-aways:
- appear [company size] bigger than you are - it will seem more professional
= speak in 'we' - unless you a branding yourself / you as a service
= it makes it sound as though you have a team
= create multiple email addresses - e.g. have accounts different to the founder
- spend less money
= e.g. fly elsewhere for photoshoots - get airline partners, leverage advertising, etc
= it can be cheaper to fly elsewhere for a photoshoot than to do so locally
- emulate people - e.g. really great marketing
= not necessarily your competition / from your own industry
= e.g. people / businesses that have won advertising awards
- don't get obsessed with just one social media channel
- be clever with spending a little bit of money - it saves a lot of time
= e.g. to find stockists - have sales agents for different states / continents
- you can pay people to just do any jobs that you assign to them (e.g. WaH use a company in the Phillipines)
= e.g. to find stockists or email addresses / data entry - you can give them stockist links from your competition
= e.g. a virtual assistant
- you need to talk about all social media accounts on the other accounts
= this way, people will know how to get to them / you can ensure that they will know about them
- if you are a converting 1% of site visitors into sales, this is very very very good (this is the case for the big players such as Amazon, Apple, ASOS..)
- be wary of over-designing your lookbooks & linesheets - this is very easy to do
= avoid doing this
= keep it simple - e.g. front / back shots of the looks & 1 sentence about the style/s
= give buyers enough info to attract them to the brand
= don't give the buyers too much info so that they can't be bothered reading it
- the Alibaba site can be useful for finding fabric manufacturers / possibly some fabric suppliers
- the Elance site can be useful for people to bid for your services - similar to Ebay
- travel to places for short periods (such as Spain for a week)
= you can speak to buyers, agents, stores, PR
= this can give you info about that market
- you will go through a lot with your first manufacturer/s at the start
= they are working for you - tream them like an employee
= ask lots of questions; treat it like an interview
= you have the power & the money - you can drag the interview process out as much as you want - e.g. ask to see a lot of samples
= the more questions that you ask, the better your relationship will be
