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| DGG's fabulous board of directors. |
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| Karen MacDonald giving her workshop on elevating your brand |
Lauren Kirsch Weiss -- Buyer at Freeds of Windsor
"Trade Show Survival Guide"
Lauren grew up in Metro Detroit where her mom owned a jewelry store. This is how she got her start with trade shows: she loved going to them with her mom when she was younger! She also lived in Manhattan for eight years.
She says trade shows are essential for growing your brand and company. Trade shows are a place for people to view the latest trends. Here are some tips for what to do before and after tradeshows:
Before:
- Read show materials
- Take advantage of show specials
- Get educated
During:
- Never leave the booth
- Follow up leads
- Smile and look people in the eye
Lauren also suggests to have people help you. This will alleviate some of the stress. When prepping for a show you'll know you're ready when you have a concept line down, samples created and production lined up. Before any show make sure to email and call buyers, have flawless line sheets, business cards, order forms, look books, and make sure to have a takeaway. You should also send an e-blast before any show.
On the buyer's side of things, here are some tips: plan out every place you need and want to see, have booth numbers down, preview lines before the show, make sure you make appointments at necessary places, if you're going to write, write it there -- budget is important but your time is more valuable as a buyer, if you love it, buy it, and nothing is done until it's sold out.
You can still save money when attending shows too: be your own sales rep, share a booth (not all shows allow this), attend local/smaller shows, include wholesale on website and whatever you do, make it easy.
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| Dresses through the decades on display at FashionSpeak |
Amy Dietrich, Product Development Expert/Design Consultant at Restoration Hardware
"Determine and Develop Your Best Product
Amy started off with a degree in biology. She moved to the Bronx to teach while taking classes at FIT and Parsons. This helped her get back on a creative track.
When it comes to determining your best product, Amy gave many helpful tips:
Do your homework. Determine trends vs. fads, watch what influencers are doing, watch TV shows, movies and fashion shows to see what themes are, look at street style and utilize resources like Business of Fashion and redef.com
Know your customer. Buyers know their customers by name, your target customers are buyers and consumers, figure out how he/she spends her day and evening, where does he/she live, age, income level, where does he/she shop, lifestyle, kids or not, do they work? Ask where they shop.
Know your competition. What do you like that's in your price range? Look at everything -- fabrics, signage in stores, colors, take note of how things do in different departments, visualize where your product is going to belong when developing, figure out how something will look on different sizes, read 'about' pages if a company/designer has one -- what's their story? Amy talked about how well Anthropologie does in their market. They have a bigger range than Urban Outfitters and Free People and have excellent stores. Do your research in stores -- look at what customers are doing, wearing, looking at, etc.
Trend forecasting. There are many services that offer trend forecasting for every category. Some examples are trendtablet.com, edelkoort.com and pantone.com
Know your pricing. Pick what's going to set you apart from everyone else -- you want to stand out to consumers and buyers.
Know your fit. This goes along with knowing your customer, but figure out what your ideal fit will be and what sizes you want to cater to.
Quality. Always have this in mind -- use the best with whatever you can afford.
Timing. Give yourself deadlines, and make sure the calendar is your friend. You don't want to be stressed out 24/7!
Communication. Never assume customers know what you're thinking.
Merchandising. All of the items you're offering have to be "friends." They need to make sense to the buyer.
A last and final tip from Amy: Turn it off sometimes. You need time to refresh, recharge and restore. Connect with yourself and loved ones, and have a life outside of fashion.
Karen MacDonald, Public Relations Expert
"How to Elevate Your Brand"
Karen created Wrapped in Love, a company that makes ponchos and headwraps for loved ones affected with cancer. They also donate proceeds to charities. This was created after her mom became ill. Here are some tips she has for really elevating your brand:
Great photography and a strong website. Both of these items will attract more people and keep people. You don't need to use large firms for these either -- recruit someone local to save money. Make sure to share your story and utilize SEO.
Develop your press release and speaking points. Define your value proposition. Make sure to talk about any charity work you may do. Also utilize any current events. Karen talked about bakeries making Clinton and Trump cookies for the election. Everyone has a story to tell, so do this in a way that showcases your brand. Is your product unique or new to the market?
Start local. Leverage your local media. They're a good way to get practice with interviewing reporters. Define your target market. From this you can identify which media you want to target.
Research contact information for your targeted media. Figure out which media covers what and who to contact -- fashion editor, business editor, etc. Decide if you want local, regional or national media and if you want an exclusive story or mass coverage.
Prepare to pitch the media your story. What are the three key points you want to get into the story? You never know how much or little time you'll get with a reporter. Are there any difficult questions that may need to be prepared?
Press release and visuals. After you've prepared your pitch and figured out the media you're targeting, it's time to put together a well-written press release with visuals. Email this to reporters, along with your pitch. After this, it's extremely important to follow-up. Make sure you know their deadlines.
Interview time. Once your story is accepted, it's interview time. Practice, practice, practice!!! Prepare yourself with any and all questions that could be asked. You want your brand and story to come off as clear as possible. After the interview is over, share the story and say thank you. Then get ready to do it all over again.
Some final ideas to generate exposure: Donate to charity, donate items to a charity auction, utilize product placement, network with organizations and embrace social media opportunities.
Karen also brought out RJ King, editor of D Business Magazine and Rebecca Voigt, style editor of Hour Magazine to talk about what they do and to answer questions from the audience.
Annette Repasch, Group Vice President, Softlines of Meijer
"Get Your Foot in the Front Door: Developing Relationships with Larger Companies"
Much of this workshop was centered around being confident in yourself. You shouldn't let anyone put you in a box because once that happens you aren't going to have anything unique to offer to your customers. It's extremely important to put your own spin on things.
You also need to get your resume out there and get a professional to do it. Your resume should tell potential employers what you want to do in your first line and make it creative.
Also, when you're pitching to people to take your product or line, get it done in 20 seconds. You don't want to ramble on about nothing. Get out the important facts first.
Select FashionSpeak attendees also got the incredible experience of pitching to Annette and her team in hopes of getting their products to sell in Meijer. This gave this lucky people the chance to practice on pitching to actual buyers and showcasing their products to a big company.
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| The Meijer Merch Search |
Jeffry Aronsson, founder and CEO of Aronsson Group
"Keynote Speaker"
The grand finale of FashionSpeak was a big one: Jeffry Aronsson. He has served as CEO for Oscar de la Renta, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and many other successful designers.
He's a Detroit native and graduated from Wayne State. He originally wasn't even in the fashion business but finance, rather. However, that changed when he met Oscar de la Renta.
He gave so much important advice to aspiring fashion entrepreneurs that we had to of course include it:
Jeffry stressed that passion and interest are key. It's not always going to be glamorous, so you have to really want to do it. His key advice is that it all starts with a vision -- what are you doing differently and better than others? You also always need to be prepared. A great source Jeffry offered was wwd.com.
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| Our first annual fundraiser, SPARK.
For those that had the chance to attend FashionSpeak and SPARK, we hope you gained a wealth of knowledge. There was something in every workshop that everyone could take away, no matter what you do or want to do. We're already excited for next year's festivities!
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