what are the first steps I need to take to start a yoga clothing line?
Filed Under (Small Business) by admin on 29-11-2009
girl asked:
I have great ideas for a yoga clothing line, I’ve got the name, designs and business cards , now what? I am not a business person. Do I take my designs to a clothing factory and have them make me samples? Then take the samples I had made to yoga studios and clothing conventions to sell?
I have great ideas for a yoga clothing line, I’ve got the name, designs and business cards , now what? I am not a business person. Do I take my designs to a clothing factory and have them make me samples? Then take the samples I had made to yoga studios and clothing conventions to sell?
Don’t try it. Apparel manufacturing is a complex, cutthroat business. Get some experience working for a clothing manufacturer in sales or marketing before you try it or you’ll get eaten alive.
first, you’ll need about 6 miles of rebar. take a set of gardening shears, four pillow cases and a bottle of floda. mix the floda with instant concrete and pour into the pillow cases. set these aside, they will be used later.
now, with the gardening shears, start cutting 4 foot sections of rebar. insert the cut sections, four at a time, into the pillow cases of concrete/floda.
you’ll be doing yoga in no time.
contact me, i will help you market your clothes line
1. Find yourself a mentor.
2. Do nothing with your designs until you have professional advice.
3. Go work for a sports retailer. Learn from the ground up for 6 months. Competition is really tough out there.
4. Take your time, if you rush in, you’ll get burned and probably very upset
5. Start calling yourself and thinking of yourself as a business person – no-one will deal with you if you don’t
6. You need a business plan to take to investors (or the bank) to show how you will make money. Just preparing this will force you to answers all the questions that you should be asking like:
a) Who can make these items? Locally and globally
b) how much will they cost me including freight and duty if applicable?
c) for how many?
d) what will distribution costs and other overheads amount to?
e) how much will get spolied and stolen?
e2) what if they are defective?
f) who am I selling to? Businesses to resell or retail customers directly? Where do these people live, what demograpic profile do they have?
g) what makes me different from Reebok or any other established Yoga clothing seller? Why would people choose me? How do I educate them about this Unique Selling Point?
h) How much will I be able to sell them for? How many can I sell?
i) Will that make me enough money (after you buy the computer, new vehicle (image is important), offices, warehousing, secretary, website, hotel accomodation, brochures, travel to manufacturing sites and conventions) to live off?
j) Who will buy my company when I’m tired of running it myself.
k) How long until I begin to make a profit and where does the investment come from until then? Can I afford to/ am I prepared to put everything that I own on the line?
Just a few of the questions that you absolutely need to answer before you spend a penny on production.
If you are in the UK go to you local Business Link. I did and I decided that my idea, whilst exciting, was a total dud in terms of a money maker. Saved my thousands of quid and at least a year of my life.
By the way, a name means nothing until you’ve registered it and business cards…that’s a bit cart before the horse in a very, very dangerous way. You need fundamental building blocks to run a business, cards are just the veneer, the coating. If you’re good enough you can survive without cards, you won’t survive without a full vision and a plan.
Bon Chance