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Understanding the Business Side of Fashion · Closing Sales in Nigeria - Sales For The Nigerian Business Person: The Sales and Marketing Blueprint

• 0:02
  Welcome to the Fashion and Business Marketing for Success
• 0:04
  course. I'm the business growth
• 0:06
  consultant and podcaster Tavi Shima Ayede.
• 0:10
  If you're listening to this on the Learn Skills Africa site or
• 0:13
  their learning portals, then I'm assuming you've already taken
• 0:16
  all or some part of their most popular course on fashion
• 0:19
  fundamentals. That is the course that they
• 0:21
  have on the site that introduces you to the technical and the
• 0:25
  creative aspects of being involved in the fashion
• 0:27
  industry. My course on the other hand, is
• 0:29
  going to walk you through the business side of fashion so that
• 0:32
  you can turn your passion into a career or even start your own
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  business. Now, why is this important?
• 0:37
  To answer that, we have to consider two questions.
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  The first question is technical ability.
• 0:43
  All you need to build a successful business and then #2
• 0:47
  what is the purpose of a business?
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  For the first question on the technical ability and how that
• 0:54
  relates to business success, this is one thing we have to
• 0:57
  consider. The best designer, the best
• 1:00
  seamstress, the best fabricator. Being able to do all those
• 1:06
  functions in a technically competent way is not what is
• 1:09
  going to make you the best business person.
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  Look around and you'll see that this proposition proves itself.
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  You know someone who's a better designer than you.
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  You know someone who's a better seamstress than you.
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  You know someone who's a better fabricator than you, but chances
• 1:26
  are both of you are in the same boat, or you might be
• 1:29
  significantly better off than the other person.
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  So something else is needed. It's not just your designing
• 1:36
  skills, your seamstress skills, the fabricating skills, and all
• 1:39
  those other technical elements. What you need is also the
• 1:43
  ability to reach out into the market and be able to proclaim a
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  few things. You need to be able to reach out
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  to the market and say who you are.
• 1:52
  You have to be able to reach out to the market to say what you
• 1:54
  have to offer. You have to be able to reach out
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  to the market to say why should people pay attention to you.
• 2:01
  And you should be able to clearly state what your value
• 2:04
  proposition is. Now your value proposition is a
• 2:07
  whole host of things around how dealing with you is going to
• 2:11
  provide people the physical results, the financial results
• 2:15
  or the psychological benefits that you give to your customers
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  or other stakeholders or other distributors or merchandisers
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  who are going to be working with you.
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  So clearly the things that we need for business success are
• 2:28
  all other kinds of non-technical information and non-technical
• 2:33
  skills that are necessary for business growth and for business
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  success. Now on the second question, what
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  is the purpose of a business? Most people think that the
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  purpose of a business is either one, money, 2 personal
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  development, or three, social and environmental impact.
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  So there are people who get into the fashion industry because
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  they want to make more money. Then there are people who get
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  into the fashion industry because they think it's going to
• 3:05
  be an entry into the glam life and then into the fame, and also
• 3:10
  they're going to expand the areas of personal influence.
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  And then there are those who have social causes in mind when
• 3:16
  they come into the fashion industry.
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  People like that come in and then they get straight into
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  things like capacity building and wealth distribution along
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  the value chain. Those are those people who come
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  in and who might be doing high end fashion but who are worried
• 3:31
  about the spate of women in the IDP camps in Abuja and other
• 3:36
  parts of the northern part of the country and do their best to
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  help with capacity building and wealth distribution for the less
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  privileged. So all these things are good and
• 3:46
  worthy causes for a business to pursue.
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  So whether you want money or whether you want the glam life
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  or whether you want to achieve a certain level of social and
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  environmental impact, all these causes are good.
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  But this is not the main reason why a business exists.
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  The main reason why a business exists is to create a customer.
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  Because we don't have a customer, we are not going to be
• 4:10
  able to exercise our craft or exercise our passion and get
• 4:13
  these other benefits of the of the fame or of social impact.
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  It is only when we have a customer that we will get that
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  good money. It is only when we have a
• 4:25
  customer and several paying customers that we can get to
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  live that glam life and expand our areas of personal influence.
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  And it is only when we have several paying customers that we
• 4:36
  can now worry about social and environmental impact.
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  So the main reason why a business exists is to create a
• 4:45
  customer. And creating a customer just
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  means you're creating someone or reaching out to someone to buy
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  where that individual didn't exist before, or rather when you
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  didn't have access to that individual.
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  So how you create a customer is achieved through two functions.
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  There's the business function called marketing, and then
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  there's the business function called innovation.
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  The business function of marketing is where you let
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  people know that you exist and you let people know how you can
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  help. The business function of
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  innovation on the other hand is where you're concerned about
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  improvements in your product delivery, in your service
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  delivery. You have already learnt a lot
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  about this if you are on the Learn Skills Africa site.
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  So we are going to be paying a lot of attention in my course to
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  marketing, which is the function of letting people know that you
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  exist and how you can help. So all other aspects of the
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  course from here on are going to be dedicated to helping you
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  create customers and clients. It's going to help you create
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  distributors, influencers, stakeholders.
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  And we're also going to try to make sure that you learn other
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  soft skills in quote or interpersonal skills that you
• 6:02
  need to grow your business and your fashion career.
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  So what's going to be next? Over the next couple of audio
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  modules, we are going to be exploring a few things.
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  We're going to be exploring market research and brand
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  strategy. We're also going to be looking
• 6:17
  into fashion marketing and promotion.
• 6:20
  We're also going to explore how to launch and manage your
• 6:23
  fashion brand. We're going to delve into and
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  spend a lot of time on sales and conversion strategies because
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  there's no point in doing all these things if we don't know
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  how to get someone to buy when they've hit us up on the phone,
• 6:36
  when they slide into our Instagram DM, or when they walk
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  into our studio. And then we're also going to
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  have a few words about building a successful fashion career.
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  Connect with me on LinkedIn. That is the best social network
• 6:49
  for business and career development and networking.
• 6:52
  The name to look for is Tavi Shimmer.
• 6:54
  Thank you very much for taking my course.
• 6:56
  I'm looking forward to spending more time in your earbuds and
• 6:59
  meeting a couple of you live and in person.
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  Thanks for your time and attention.
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  I'll catch you guys at the next module.