MY FASHION SEMINAR LESSONS

Hellloooo... I just realised that September has come to an end and here we are in October!! Like how did that happen? Only thing I can say is start doing that stuff you have been procrastinating now, apparently time waits for no man. This is me wishing you a cheerful October.

So I attended a fashion seminar here in Abuja. It was organised by the British council in collaboration with the organizers of Lagos Fashion and Design Week (LFDW) and Fashion Focus. The seminar was held in 4 different states; Lagos, Enugu, Calabar and Abuja. Here's the advert I saw.

Now this seminar has actually given me all the info I need about starting up my business. Today's post is me sharing all I learnt for those of you that missed it. I hope you learn something new

The very first point that was emphasized on is the fact that there are alot of different branches in the fashion industry. That's too say that, working in the fashion industry is not limited to just being a designer, you can actually work on different sections and still make a lot of money and be famous. Here are some of the areas of the fashion industry:

Another point I took home with me was the part of company registration; Before you build any brand, make sure the name is registered. I learnt that some people register company names that they see making a wave, just so the company owners can come and pay them to get their name back. You don't want to be in that situation trust me.

Customer Service - This was an interesting one. But first let me give you the definition of customer that was accepted by the presenter : My customer is the person who pays my salary ie anybody that buys your product is your customer, that man buying for his wife, the son buying for his mother, the sister buying for her brother. Point is, any body that walks into your store and has the potential of being a customer is to be treated as one. Don't look down on any customer because that man that just paid a million Naira in cash to buy goods from you, might actually look like a brick layer when you see him. Another point to note on this is that your customer won't work on your timing, they can walk away at any point, loose interest easily or choose not to buy from you because of your tone when talking to them. They came to you at will and will leave if not treated right. Here are some points to note.

We were taught the ZARA BRAND story:
Basically the owner of the Zara brand is the second richest man in the world worth over 70 billion dollars...yes honey you heard right.
The major points to note on the brand story are:

* First and foremost, the name Zara has no special meaning or significance... It's just a name. Your business name does not need any history for the business to thrive.

* Zara creates scarcity.. If you see a dress today and think you'll order it next week, sorry you won't meet it. This makes people buy whatever they like from Zara as soon as possible.

* They are ahead of the market when it comes to trends. If a design or pattern is created in January, Zara produces and sells in January while other stores starts selling those designs in basically 6 months time.

* They don't run after unique designs.. A design you see from a Zara shop can be found anywhere, they don't mind copycats or any of those... They are too busy doing what they do best which is producing.

* Zara started business with 30 Euros...

There's a lot more to the Zara story... Just google it up and learn as much as possible.

The most important lesson I learnt from this training is to start that business now... Make sure to take at least one step each day till you get there. It might look like it doesn't make a difference but the truth is, in the end, you'll find out it did.

At the end of the seminar, we had a light refreshment and got to interact with each other before we said our goodbyes.