Latest / Exploring Fashion Futures With Dr.HB / 4 Things To Learn and Develop If You Want To Be In Production Or Sourcing.
Transcript
- Episode 2c - Recap Sourcing: welcome. I'm Dr. HB. I hope you enjoyed the episode with Hillary last week. her career story was so fun I'm sure a lot of you nodded your head. I'm like, I was like that too. you know, nobody's perfect, nobody starts with the perfect path. And I thought Hillary had a great story. So I hope you enjoyed that episode. So in this episode, now we're gonna recap. what should you do now to be prepared for the type of careers But don't forget, even if you're not in the sourcing or production field like Hillary, you will work with people like Hillary. It means you will work with people in production and sourcing because otherwise you can't scale your sample making into a $50,000, $5 million order, right? you will work with somebody who's in production or sourcing. whether you know you need to have this type of skill set for you to be in that field or for you to be able to work with people in that field. So these are the good lessons to learn about. today we're gonna talk about four critical skills that we should hold and and be prepared for. Number one, if you're wanna be in production or sourcing, right? So number one is organization. And she was saying about how critical this organization skill is, right? Think about it. back when I was in industry. each season, like if you're gonna have a one like a fall back to school season, we we might have 25 different styles. Each style has two, three different colorways. and then each style and color might have 10 different sizes. let's think about it. We have a shirt, pants. Long shirt, you know, shorts, for example. And then each style has each style has four different colorways. And then that t-shirt and black color may have 10 different sizes. Can you imagine what that SKU is gonna be? SKU is the is basically like white short sleeve shirt size two is SKU number one, for example, like one option of SKU. White short sleeve size number four will be two. So if you could calculate all of that, that's a lot of SKUs So that's a one season, but Out of those 24 styles, not every buyer wants those 24 styles. Like for example, my buyer Macy's might only one style number 1, 5, 7, But they want more colorway and shorter sizes. What that means is like more colorways, like instead of four colorways, I want six colorways, cut different colors. But the sizes instead of 10 size, I only won four different sizes, small, medium, large, extra large, or something like that. Meantime, my, I don't know, what other stores we got? Dillard's might want out of my 24 styles, they want six styles, but they want it in four different colorways with like six different sizes, right? So can you see that? And then I have more buyers. So on average, I I've done some research and I actually published this article. I surveyed all these brands and asked how many retailers they're working with, how many suppliers that they are working with. So they on any given, you know, on average, all these companies that I survey, they deal with about 25 different retailers whether it's small, online, whatever. the big small big store, small store, all together, 25 different. But even 25, each of the buyers, they want different things in different ways and different sizes and different colorways, right? So I gotta I gotta deal with that. then you now have to combine them all and then I have to talk with the factory to make sure that they cut the right sizes of the right color for the right buyers. Right. So For the right color for this color for Dillard's but Dillard's wanted these sizes. And that color is for Macy's, and they wanted a different size. So you have to communicate that. But also, that's only fall. Meantime, you need to start developing what's coming, which in holiday season, that means, I need to develop new fabrics or new pom-poms and new embroidery, new metallic whatever effects. So now I have to go and look for new factories who can do these new designs, new capabilities, and new interesting things, right? So I have to deal with that. Meantime, the actual production is being sold in summer. So on any given day for a person, you know, I'm dealing with summer season with the fall. Production with the product development for holiday and then conceptual idea for next spring. Like so in the four seasons, you're working in your head. And so the organizational skills is so important because people might jump around the idea because everybody's working on different things. And then when they talk about spring product, now they're talking about holiday product development, now they're talking about fitting for fall production. So it's the organizational skill is the key. Like how do I manage information organized in a way that I can make that information a usable data so how do you do that as a student every time I meet students some students come to my office with notebooks okay When their notebook, the physical notebooks with some color-coded tabs or flags, or so this is for this class, the pink is for this class, that's for that class. I see that. Like, wow, you're organized. Some students come to my office with notebook, like you know, computer. notebook also have their to-do list. I can look at your notebook and see how well organized you are. Some of you are using. note techniques. some of them are using different software system or just your own note taking, whatever that it is, the more organized you are, even for class activity. You have a class activity for for each class. These are the things to do, and these are the due dates, and then these are the my friends activity or sorority activity. This is the deadline, these are the to-do lists, these are what I need to do. This is my student organization activity. This is what I need to do. This is my scholarship application activity. And this is what I need to do. And this is my deadline. you, even as a student, you have four different competing deadlines and to-do lists and things to do. And I can see from the day one, even in my office, based on the way you come to my office, based on the way you talk to me, or based on the way you take notes. I can already tell whether you're organized or not. So you develop the skills now, now and today. And that and then as things get bigger and more complicated, there will be more system or software will be there to help you. But if you don't have organizational skills or idea or roadmap, then it's gonna be harder. So that's number one. Number two, she was talking about, do you remember she was talking about? Communication skill. you know, communication skills can mean anything to anybody. Like different things to do. Some people think oratory skills, or some people very dramatic way of saying things. Some people are like, you know, singing. Okay, everything is communication anyway. But the way she was describing communication was, especially the bras, bras can be a very technical Product she said. average bra has 28 different components. It's just mind-boggling. I can't believe 28 different things in my bra, right? it's a very technical, it's like a diagram as to this is the fabric, it's gonna look like this, and then you got to Put the bone in it, and the bone's gonna look like this, and this color, and this frame, and this fabric, and this component. That detailed description, 28 different items, and then you need to be able to explain that, and then you need to be able to tell the factory how to assemble them together. And especially those factories are in overseas, although many people Who are dealing with the American buyers, US buyers, they tend to speak English very well. But still, English is not their native language. So it's very hard to communicate. But even if they speak perfect English, sometimes even I can't explain things in my head perfectly. you have to have attention to detail, number one, and then you describe what that is very specifically, and then you find a way to communicate that with your business partner, So can you explain very complex idea into a very plain either language or by showcasing, by drawing, you know, that's very important. she was talking about because of that, group assignment, group work that she did at school was one of the most valuable experiences she had. Because that's true, because when five of you yes let's say in my group, I have five of us, Everyone has a different idea about what that means. Like you might think, let's have some fun creative marketing idea. So what's fun to you may mean different to the other four? And what does it look like visually? how do you communicate what's in your head to the other four people so that it could actualize what you have in your mind? you know most verbally or you know in terms of picture or or drawing anything no matter what so how do we develop this communication style number one you need to we need to start working with people who think differently from you so that even though you thought you communicated the other person didn't get it then that's not a communication right So let's have a group project more and more The more different they are from you, actually you are now sharpening your skills more. if you just work with the same kind of your best buddies all the time because you finish each other's sentences, because you know each other so much, then your communication skills do not develop. Okay. So that's the communication skill. And then number three is when she was talking about you need to have both scientific but also artistic eyes. I think that makes fashion major different from any other just typical business majors. you saw this engineering part of how to assemble let's say instruction okay but sometimes even though when we imagine this is how it's gonna be it could still look Weird or not as pretty as we thought. We imagined this fabric will look beautifully if we assemble it this way. But it turned out for whatever reason, whether it's draping property or fabric strength, whatever reason, once we and engineer we made a garment, it doesn't look right. It's not pretty. If something's missing in this sample, things like that. So you also have to have those creative mindset. So you don't just follow the instruction blindly. You also need to have a creative mindset. And that's where she was talking about you need to have both the science and art for it. So how do we do that in today's like in your classroom or right now? First of all, you do learn the the product development processes, but then Once you follow all the instructions, think about it. Like, is it really pretty? Is it really good? Is it really visually appealing? How do we also solve this? Like, something doesn't sit well here, something doesn't drape well here? How can we what can we change so that the draping will change, the sitting will change, the location of this embroidery will change and all of that? So that's a creative problem solving, right? So you gotta know the basic scientific part of the assembly, but also need to have creative, not only the creativity, visual creativity, but also creative problem solving. Okay. The finally, the fourth skill was she was talking about being open to different culture. To remember she was talking about how adventurous eater she was known to be, and then people were kind of challenging what will Hillary eat eat today. So whether it's pork feet or chicken feet, she tried. it builds camaraderie, it builds the the fact that you appreciate their culture and you like what they can offer, or even though you don't like it, you don't have to like it, but you tried it and you appreciated their culture and life of with that type of food. so that instantly give credibility and all of her vendors and business partners like going out with Hillary and you know talking more with her and that's how your communication gets easier the negotiation gets easier and overall like business process is much easier so being open to culture different cultures so how do we do that Like for example at Mizzou, we're in the middle of the country. it's not like we have a lot of people. I mean our whole town has about only what 165,000 people. So how do I expose myself? How do I learn that? You know, there are many, many different ways, typical people think about study abroad. yeah, yeah, study abroad and you go to different culture you learn a lot, whether it's Europe and Asia, Central America, whatever opportunity you have, if you can afford it, if you have a means to do so, that's a great way. But you don't have to be somewhere else to also to learn about the culture either. you know, at Mizzou we have like Asian Affairs Center, international center, There's all kinds of different international student organizations So you knock on their door and say, I want to learn more about Vietnamese culture. what is their business culture like? What is their food and traditional holidays look like? then Asian Affairs Center will help you and you will have a language partner, you might have learning partner. So you meet with that person once a week or so, you learn more about Vietnam. Or and then next semester, I'm gonna learn more about Korea. Next semester, I'm gonna learn more about Italy. Like, do we have any students from Italy so I can learn with them? Whatever it is, you go to international center, you go to, you know, any sort of international center type of organization within your campus. I'm sure there are people who are dying to interact with you and make friends with you and you know that's that's the best way to start okay and obviously you know if that's also difficult you can start learning reading and watching TV nowadays there are so many different YouTubes and TV shows about different cultures, different foods and all of that. So every time when I was traveling for business, I spent a lot of time learning about that country's basic history basic languages, for example whenever I was going to Taiwan I would study a lot about their Buddhism practice because it's back then when I was researching a significant majority of the people were Buddhists. Okay, so Buddhism is a very important part of the their social fabric. So I learned about what is a basic idea of Buddhism is what it's the temple is about When I go to temple, then you know, what is the appropriate way to be there, At least I know the basic courtesy as to like how to bow and things like that. So that just made me a better traveler, but made me a better what it called tourist, you know, even but it's a better tourist because I studied about the culture and society. obviously a little bit of study doesn't make me an expert, but at least it gives me a starting point and also sometimes give me a conversational starter. So that when I work with the vendor, when we are having business dinners then we say, Hey, I was reading about this and I learned about this temple about in your country and or or in this city right next door. What does it mean? Like how did you go about? And that's a great business conversation. So this just being interested in different culture and passion to learn about learn about what they do the way they do it and respect that so that's gonna be really fun so if you think I love traveling I want to learn all kinds of different culture I always like you know international movies or cinemas or shows or food and travel shows like that. Think about it. Sourcing might be a great opportunity for you. so from their perspective, you're the buyer, right? Like, buyers are coming from America in this case, or your brand from their perspective, you're the buyer. Not, you know, like our earlier episodes, we talked about buyer at the retailer. And you know, between buyer and the wholesale sales, but in this case, you're the buyer sourcer, the buyer from fabric producers perspective in Taiwan, sewing factory perspectives in Vietnam, you're the buyer. So this is a buyer-supplier relationship. Okay, so if you think that you might be interested in sourcing and production of fashion brands globally, so you get exposed to different Culture, different country, you get to travel, you work with people overseas all the time, but you also have a very high level of attention to detail and communication skills. This might be the career for you. So I hope this was a useful and interesting episode. And we will continue to explore this global supply chain of this amazing fashion and Textile supply chain going forward. Okay. We'll see you next week. Bye.