Latest / Exploring Fashion Futures With Dr.HB / 4 Skills For Fashion Entrepreneurs
Transcript
- mehr: In this episode, we will recap what we learned from Lovell last week, and then we'll think about four skill sets you should be thinking about developing if you want to be a fashion entrepreneur. Okay? First, I think she said it three or four times throughout our conversations. That she said, I always had this drive. And she had this vision, even when she was a little girl, that she's gonna be in New York City, being in the fashion industry, doing something about fashion and designing and being in New York. Sh even as a little girl, she had this vision about herself. And then she had that drive and determination. And she said, I always had that drive. I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna sort it out. And that was that was so interesting to see her saying that over and over, even though she had no idea where she was gonna go and how she was gonna get to. She sounded like she never lost that vision and she always had that drive, right? Having said that, is having a drive and vision. Is there a skill set that you can develop, or are you born with it? Meaning either you have it or not, right? That's an interesting question, isn't it? let me ask you a question. Do you have a vision about yourself for yourself 10 years later, 20 years later, 30 years later? You're 20 years old, you're 21 years old. Do you see yourself what kind of person you're gonna be? Professionally or personally, when you are forty, when you are sixty, can you even imagine that? Do you have a vision for yourself? Who do you want to be? You know, if you're talking about career, where are you? What kind of work are we doing? How do you see yourself? Do you have a picture about yourself in your mind? In my capstone class at Mizzou we do read a leadership development book. And one of the chapters talk about visioning skills. So apparently the literature and the researchers think we do have skills to vision, and those skills we can develop, right? You you might never have had an opportunity to even think about it. But that doesn't mean that you don't know how or you can't vision. Meaning, yes, you can practice visioning, you can develop that visioning skill. So, how do we do that? I I really do think that. You need to first of all try and you need to know what's out there. You don't know what you don't know. You don't see what other people see from you or in you. So, how do I see how do I identify who I can be from that? You need to talk to other people like your friends, your employers, your friends, and your parents, and say, Mom. You know, my brother or sister or my friend, what what do you see in me? What am I good at? When you know, when do you have the most fun w when you are spending time with me? When am I most effective when we're doing things together? What am I good at? What area can I be better at? You need to start asking questions. obviously you have your own you know, assessment about yourself. Like I do think I like doing these things. When I do these things, I completely lose to track of time because I enjoy so much. Of course, you have your own assessment, but you should also ask other people. And then, you know, especially older people who have more experiences in this life, you can ask, hey, I'm good at this type of things. I like doing this type of things. What do you think I can become? And your professor might know. I mean, I have a vision for every single student of mine. As I get to know them more throughout the semester, as I see how you collaborate with other students in your team, as how as I see how you ask questions to me or to other people, and as I see your interaction with other teammates and how you show your leadership, I suddenly like I can see you doing this. I think you have a good. you know, skill set in this. And you should consider this type of area. I mean, this podcast is all about that. Try to, you know, uncover what's in you and and then by learning or listening to other people's career trajectory, you can start think about, thinking about your own career trajectories, right? this podcast itself is all about trying to help you. improve the visioning skills about your own career, whether it's personal or professional, right? So do you have a vision? You're 20 years old. what kind of work do you want to do in the 40? I'm not talking about job title. I'm not talking about, you know, what specific role. But do you see yourself being in New York City doing fashion design and doing some sort of fashion director or owner or anything like that? Or do you see yourself being in St. Louis, Missouri and having these boutique stores and traveling the country to buy the right kind of products and talking to your customer so that you can match make between what's available and what they want and let them, find the products in your own stores. So I want to have my boutique store. Do you see yourself as a corporate managers, right? Working for a large company, managing your team of people and try to make whether it's merchandising or planning or strategic planning done. Are you a more strategic person? Are you a extrovert, so you meet with people all the time. Are you are more creative thinker? So that's Let's explore who are you, what are you good at, what's your vision. And once you have that vision, do you have the drive? Do you have the determination? That leads me to the second skill that Lovell was talking about so much. I think she also said this two to three times. She said, I always had long-term outlook. I knew it was gonna take time. See, she had that patience. So yes, I have a vision, I have determination and I have drive to work hard, but I also understand it's gonna take time. So I'm gonna be patient. I'm gonna have a long term outlook. That is, I think it's also skills, you know, like are you Do you have that long-term outlook and patience and not comparing yourself with somebody else? For example, your best friends got a job in corporate. They're getting promoted from assistant to associate, full something. Meantime, I'm doing my own business here. You know, I don't know when I'm gonna have that break. I'm working all the time. I feel like I'm never good enough. Or when am I gonna, when am I gonna be able to? get to that point, for example, and you may or may not have that patience or confidence or not like, you know, comparing yourself with somebody else. So do you have that like really knowing your core strength and identity so that you don't compare yourself with others, you're patient, you are consistent, you don't get nervous, you don't get discouraged, you Stand back up again, you learn again, you start again, you control yourself again. Cause entrepreneur, you doing all by yourself, because it's your idea, your drive, your vision. Every morning you wake up in the morning, you need to have your own schedule. Like I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna today's goal is to drive this, today's goal is to drive that. While if you're working for a company, your boss will a lot of times to tell you what to do today or your team, the problems there you're discovering will tell you what your day is gonna look like today. While entrepreneurs you constantly have to deal with like, yes, I put out the fire today, but I also need to spend my time today for my future. Like I gotta plan, I gotta build a system. See that? So that leads to the third skills we should develop as Lovell said, I need to build a system. Remember she was saying, when her first GMA, Good Morning America episode was shown, her business took off. But she said she didn't even have a CRM system, the customer relations management system. Like there was no system to respond to that surge in the demand of her products, right? Her businesses. She also now, like not only I'm having to deal with the email that she gets or inquiries, but also I need to spend my time to build the system to scale up and automate certain processes or build a system to make this process to be consistent. Like when I'm happy today, I'm gonna have a wonderful email response to this inquiry, but tomorrow morning I'm just you know, today morning I'm just too busy. I I don't have time for you. Like you can't do that, right? You need to build consistency. So then you need to develop a program or systems and step by step system as you hire somebody to help you doing certain things, then you can say, when this this type of problem or questions come in, you should answer it this way. When this type of inquiry comes in, you should answer it that way. because you can't do it all by yourself, right? You're gonna hire somebody to do it, you're gonna have some other helps to help your businesses. then you need to build a system. So then you also need to dedicate that time not only to solve the problems of today, but also to solve problems of tomorrow, right? So that's system building skills, right? How do we do that, right? Earlier I was telling you about visioning skill. I was telling like first of all, you need to know more about it. You need to explore more opportunity ideas. You need to talk more. So the more you know, your vision will be more concrete, more specific, right? And then the patience and long-term outlook, you need to really believe in yourself. Like my time will come if I work hard and so forth. How do I be patient? You know, I personally do a a lot of yoga and meditation or solo. Like I need to have my own solo moment. Per day, at least 30 minutes to an hour a day, because I can't just be dealing with people or other things all the time. I need some time to myself to organize my thought, come up with the idea, plans, and all of that. So, do you have that? Can you build that kind of patience in your day? Like even today, even as a student, will I have you know, ten minutes, thirty minutes a day, just to myself, not talking to nobody, not looking at the text message, not looking at your phone. Every five minutes I see students looking at the phone. Sometimes you come to my office and I'm talking to you, you still checking your phone. And I think that's rude. You were not paying attention to the matter that we're discussing. That's not good. But we're so addicted to it nowadays. So that's difficult. Not using phone for 30 minutes. So just thinking to myself and meditating and planning and and organizing my own thoughts, that's how you also build patience and having a long-term outlook. That's another way to you can practice that today. The system building is the finally is that you can start practice it even when you make calendars. For example, when you make a semester plan, okay, I'm taking four classes this semester and First week, I'm gonna look at all my syllabi and then I'm gonna put all the deadline in my calendar. So if once I know I gotta do this in September, you know, first week September, I gotta do this by third week of September, once you know those goals, you now start building the system. Like for me to finish this assignment by this week, this day, like say for example, September fifteenth, that means you gotta start this project in the, you know, at least one week before. And I gotta book myself like your own calendar to book yourself and say, I'm gonna dedicate these two hours to do this homework, and then I will need some time to get feedback, and then so and so, so that I can submit it by that day. So you can build your own system to complete your assignment on time or actually do it earlier and have time to get feedback. So that's your system. If you have that skill set and then you become an entrepreneur. Then you have your own deadline, right? Like I gotta I gotta have this design done by this date. I gotta have that production done by that day. I gotta have the marketing done by that day. I gotta have the finance meeting by that day. So you have your calendar. So then you start doing your project to a certain date, and then you have a time to complete and get feedback and then launch and whatever that process. The system is the same. What I'm saying is you don't suddenly, I'm gonna wait until I become an entrepreneur and then I try to find a way to build my system. No, you can still build that skill, you can still enhance that system building skill now by managing your own calendar, by managing your own workload, by anticipating what does it take for me to do this work by this date. And then how early can I do so I can have enough time to get feedback so I can submit the best possible products, right? So you can do that even as a college student right now. finally, if you remember, she was saying she was initially when she was student, she had no idea she was gonna be a wedding dress, especially accessory designer now, and she had no idea. But she said when she was in college, she liked dresses, she liked prom dress making and dressmaking and all of that. She just had no idea. But once she got into the wedding dress internship that area, she just realized that I love this. I this is my thing. But even at that point, she thought she was going to be a designer. She didn't think it's going to be a redesigner, meaning you already have an heirloom, your mom's or grandma's dress. And then you turn them into something different, whether it's clutch bags or handkerchiefs or a short rehearsal dress, right? So it's basically recycling, upcycling idea. But that idea, she realized when somebody reached out to her, she said, that's a cute idea. That's a really interesting idea. Nobody's else doing it. What that means is that she was already having this market idea, right? Like who's doing it? This is a white space. I think I can take advantage of it. Which she did, right? She did so. But then once she's building her business, she realized quickly, I have so many leftover fabric, what about making more accessories or hairbands or whatever? The customers asked, and then she responded to it. So, what this story tells me is that if you want to be a designer, fashion designer, which Lovell is. But she's designing for her customers, she's not designing for her. She's designing for the market, she's not designing for her. What this means is a lot of people, I like to design, I like to wear this. So I want what I want to do what I want, meaning I want to make what I want, I wanna design what I want, I wanna sell what I want to sell. No, if you really wanna be a successful entrepreneur. You gotta design what customers want. You gotta make what your customers want to buy. You wanna buy what your customers gonna buy, right? So it's not about you at the end of the day. It's really about the market and your clients and your customers, right? So how do I know that? This is where Lovell said, One of the biggest the blessing in disguise was the COVID and she had to go back home in Dallas. And then she found this wedding dress store. And she learned from the two women owned that store. And she learned from those two owners. And how do you do your own business? Number one, number two, by being a salesperson for two years, she directly talked to the brides every day. Day and night for two years. That's how she understood truly what the brides want, right? Once you know what they want, what brides want, all she did is just design for them, made the products for them, transformed the old garment, the heirloom dresses into the modern, you know, bride's rehearsal dress or accessories. See? So that skill we teach you all the time. Every fashion merchandising and design and product development class, the first thing we talk about is target consumer. Understanding target consumers, right? But those target consumers are not just college students all the time. College students are a very small segment of this entire US population. There are a whole big population out there want your creative product. So go beyond your age group, go beyond your friends. Go beyond yourself and then start reading what's out there, who they want, what is not out there. So find that gap in the marketplace and then try to build a business to fill that gap. Open your eyes. Go beyond your everyday life. Try to understand other people's lifestyles and what they want and how they want to present themselves in this world by wearing your clothing. And that's how we start. That's how you become a fashion entrepreneur. And I hope you learn these four really important skill sets by listening to Lavelle's story. And if you haven't listened to the podcast, please go back to and listen to it because I learned so much and I was so impressed by her drive, her vision, and her determination and system building skills. I hope you learned a lot. I hope this was helpful. And I look forward to the next guest and I can't wait to share that next week. So we'll see you then. Bye bye.