The Eight Mistakes Independent Designers Make
The Biggest Mistakes Independent Designers Make
If you are just embarking on your indy design business journey, or even if your business is a few years old, I welcome you to explore the biggest pitfalls and common mistakes to avoid. Ask any fashion or jewelry designer who has been in business for 5 years or longer and they will tell you “I wish I knew this way back then, I could have saved so much time and more importantly, so much money!”
Through the designers I have consulted with and to the many I have spoken to directly over the past 3 plus years, you can avoid these common and very costly mistakes! I know you have big dreams and goals! I support you 100%! But you need a system in place to achieve those goals. A lot of what many people do is approach the goal without a system, (a.k.a precise steps to get you to where you want to go - that is right for you!) and get frustrated and go back to old habits and the “same old”. Then they try to do something else (which yields the same exact results and a lot of frustration.) If you are a more established designer and still making some of these mistakes, not to worry, you can correct them! Remember your last New Year's Eve resolution? You set out to do it and then ...xyz happened...this is why the majority of people never ever fulfill a resolution. A huge goal without the steps to get there. Sound familiar?
Let me explain this in very simple and basic terms you probably can relate to : You need to lose weight and go on a diet. Or I need to (fill in the blank) and do (fill in the blank). You can use this format for most everything you wish to achieve.
Goal : Lose 10 pounds
System: I know I need to lose weight. Tomorrow instead of eating the 5 little pieces of chocolate I snack on, I will limit myself to one piece and will do that continually for the next 30 days. After 30 days I will reassess my progress.
You absolutely need a system to achieve your goal, it’s proven over and over as the “what gets results”.
In order to layout the eight biggest mistakes, I want to start with mistake Number #2. It really should be Number#1, but you’ll understand why after reading this story.
I connected with Louise online and we totally hit it off! Her designs were absolutely beautiful. After getting to know her, I realized she had so many wonderful qualities. Hard working, organized and kind. Her social media was beautiful and she had a good following that seemed to genuinely be interested in what she was doing. What didn’t she have? A great website. Her website was not interesting at all and did absolutely nothing to entice anyone to visit , let alone buy anything. After working with her on a few projects, I finally had to lay down the ugly truth “Louise, your website is absolutely awful! And you need to change it immediately”. I know sometimes truth can be painful, but it’s often necessary to grow - plus, I don’t sugar coat anyone and allow them to get lost in the many mistakes you’ll discover below. Deep down Louise knew it and was super hesitant to allow me to take over her web account. All relationships require trust, and although Louise trusted me, she was still resisting. ! I held firm that the only way to improve her site was to allow me to take it over. She finally (and nervously) agreed. What happened? Her site went from zero identity to a defined brand that received numerous accolades, including an unsolicited huge compliment from the web hosting’s support staff (when she had to contact them to ask a question). After that, she realized she could coordinate her content from her website and use it as the foundational tool to enhance her social media accounts and her email marketing. What happened after that initial elevation? Her social media account grew even more and she started to get inquiries from stores and personal clients that previously passed her by, prior to making that all important leap of faith. After that she had a newfound confidence and after the second elevation and web refresh she really started to soar!
These are not all - but they are the 8 most common and costly mistakes that I hope you will stop immediately! You must unlearn the old adage of “throwing spaghetti on the wall, hoping something will stick” mentality, if you are really serious about having a business (vs. having a very expensive creative hobby).
Here are the Eight Biggest Mistakes Designers Make
1) Not clearly defining a niche : Most designers start out by having a whole bunch of amazing creative ideas and start creating “ a little bit of this and that”. The “logic” is to test and see what someone might gravitate towards and buy. Their creativity knows no bounds and they get carried away. Ultimately they wind up with a bunch of pieces and many times no collection. That's because they never clearly defined who they were designing for in the first place. It’s very rare that you can be all things to all people - so if you made this very common mistake, you must dial it back and fully define who exactly is your customer. Your audience is not defined solely by location and income level (another common mistake). You really have to drill down to describe this person in the fullest detail possible. Write it down and cover every aspect of their life. This should be your guiding light every time you get one of your elaborate design ideas. After all, it probably is amazing, but is someone going to buy it? Once you have done this intensive and necessary baseline exercise, you will have newfound clarity and the next part of designing is to actually design a collection. This means you have a range of products that look like a family vs a bunch of 3rd cousins once or twice removed.
2) Social media first - wait, a website? What came first, Instagram or your dotcom? Let me jump on (insert your favorite social media platform here) and once I get attention I can focus on a website (maybe). Never, ever treat your website (and its maintenance) as an afterthought. Your website, which is your primary identity (therefore the most important) is the source by which you branch out your content to social media. Consider it the great Mother of All Trees by which everything else flourishes and grows! The social first - website last mindset is upside down thinking and planning. It’s the reverse of how a system works. Of course if you are just launching a new site, you can start to show yourself on social media and create a presence. This is for those of you who spend all your time trying to drum up attention and sales on Instagram, without realizing your website is your number one destination (not a roadside stop!).
3) Competition : Out of insecurity and/or fear of failure, many designers start looking at what other designers are doing and decide to copy them. It’s very hard to shut off the desire to peek into someone else's world and figure out how you can incorporate these ideas into your own brand. Or, the desire to compete and win is sometimes so overwhelming, it literally takes you off course and away from what makes you truly unique. If you want to stand out in the crowd (the one “big wish” expression I hear all the time) you have to be authentic. Trying to be something you truly are not will eventually lead to a crash and burn over time, and you will be back to starting all over again, attempting to craft out your own unique identity (and send you straight back to step #1).
4) Listening to everyone and believing in some of the worst possible advice : Many advisors, industry gurus and some marketers will tell you the only way to get in the door with a store (your big dream- am I right?) is to consign your goods. Because “that’s the way the industry works”. Well, it may work for them, but it doesn’t (or rarely will it) work for you. Sorry, but this is not a business model. No legitimate business hands over their goods without getting paid and then sits back hoping and praying their drained bank account or massive debt will suddenly turn around to see a profit. There are some instances where consigning may help you (i.e. a store that's a fit for you, that is in your neck of the woods, where you can develop a relationship with the owner and their clients with a trunk show, or a pop up, to test the market). Unless you have an enormous bank roll, or your business is really a vanity project, consignment is - for the most part - a road to nowhere! I have helped some designers get out of this trap. You have to be willing to undo the poor decision and be willing to accept the outcome!
5) Incoherent presentation : I can't tell you how many designers have poor quality imagery and no sense of how to properly write a brand statement or create a product listing on their website. Presentation is everything - from your images to your message, to your written copy. This is not an easy task. Most likely you are not a professional photographer (kudos if you are), a prolific writer (unless storytelling is your forte, most likely don't like this at all and/or don’t want to be bothered with it - and consider it a chore) and the last point is incomplete descriptions on your website leaving your visitor with more questions than answers.
6) Falling for the one-hit wonder - there is rarely one single event that will springboard you to the success you desire - it’s akin to arriving in Hollywood and hanging out at a coffee shop, hoping to be discovered. While this may have happened to some A - list celebs you know and love, this is a rarity. It’s also very illusionary, since we don’t know all the details behind the scenes. Therefore, if you decide to invest in a very expensive trade show, or get a press feature, or someone well known buys your product, or you are featured by a heavy duty influencer, not one of these events as a singular event will be the ultimate “I made it” event. You literally have to have a number of these things working at the same time (think of the acrobat who spins 5 plates at once without dropping one of them). I know designers who have constant and continual press and their actual sales are not reflective of the amount of features they’ve had. You also cannot realistically expect to send one email and be disappointed when there are no results. Your expectations are not in alignment with reality.
7) Not having a mailing list - what’s a mailing list you ask? I do everything on social media or you treat sending email marketing as some necessary evil, hence sending out content in a rush, that is not formatted, or thought out, with no call to action or defined message. Your email subscribers are the most valuable asset you own, because they are not followers that may disappear due to a platform shutdown, loss of visibility due to ever-changing algorithms or loss of account altogether. Start building that list today! And (best tip) please don't call it a newsletter! No one wants to read those. If you are trying to collect emails, you have to provide some value to someone who is truly interested in receiving your content. So it can be a way for an interested audience to find out about new arrivals, special events and promotions and/or (my personal least favorite, offering a discount. I know this absolutely works for many brands. I’m a firm believer in “how you start is how you finish”, so this is akin to training your new customer to have this expectation on a continual basis. It also gives you that guilty feeling that when someone does want to make another purchase, you have to honor a discount (see where this is going? - once you start, it's very hard to stop!) It’s always a bit easier to offer a “deal” but as you grow into really catering to your defined niche, you will start to realize that desire is the driver and price is secondary.
8) Not understanding the business world or how stores function and who manages what in their corporate hierarchy.. I would like to close this with another story. I had an interview with Susie for a jewelry project I was working on. Susie had a great IG account! Great visuals and presentation! I was wowed! So before speaking with her I went to her website - it was frankly, a giant mess...blurry photos, missing descriptions. It almost seemed that her website was her worst enemy or an outright abandoned project! We spoke at length and I was asking her specific questions about what she was currently doing and what she wanted to do.
Me : So where do you see yourself in a few years? What is your dream?
Susie: My ultimate dream is to have my jewelry in Neiman Marcus.
Me : That's an impressive goal, how do you think you will achieve that?
Susie : Well, somehow I hope to get in front of the buyer and maybe they will ask me to do a trunk show.
Me : Oh - and after that?
Susie : Then I would hope they would put my jewelry in the store on consignment.
Me: OK, so let’s say that does happen - do you have enough inventory to fill a case and replace what sells quickly?
Susie : Huh? Um, no I don’t think so, but maybe I could manage that.
Me : OK, so let’s say that you get this case and you have some inventory that sells, but then they analyze your sales over a short period of time, and determine you are not turning the inventory at the expected rate to meet their expectations. They now want to return everything that isn’t selling (most of the inventory) and in order to keep your case, you have to refill it with other goods.
Susie : Dead silent pause…..
Finally, she said : No, I am not prepared for that at all - it would put me out of business!
It was then I realized that Susie had absolutely no idea as to how business worked. She was caught up in her dream and fantasy and didn't understand that businesses don't operate on dreams and wish lists.
Now that you have read all eight, are you free and clear? Or guilty as charged? Not to worry, even if you are a bit more established, we never stop learning (isn’t that what mistakes are all about?)
If you would like to find out more about how to stand out in the crowd and start seeing some progress in your business you can book a 30 minute consultation.
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