Show Notes
Welcome to Designers, Plans, and Coffee Podcast! If you’re passionate about fashion, design, and entrepreneurship, you’re in for a treat. We’ll dive into a recent episode where Naima, Zahiyya, and LaTisha, the dynamic trio behind the podcast, share their experiences, insights, and advice for aspiring designers and entrepreneurs in the fashion industry.
Starting the Business: Passion, Creativity, and More:
The podcast kicks off with a crucial piece of advice from Naima – “don’t quit your day job until your business starts to pay for itself.” This sets the tone for a discussion on how each of the hosts started their journey into the fashion business.
Zahiyya and LaTisha emphasize the role of passion in fueling their creativity. For Zahiyya, it all began with a personal need – not liking what she had to wear, which led her to learn sewing. LaTisha, on the other hand, discovered her passion for sewing and design while solving problems in the industry, ultimately transitioning into teaching and more.
Naima shares her perspective, highlighting the synergy between passion, creativity, and the business. She believes that your passion will always fuel your business, emphasizing that starting a business requires genuine love and investment in what you do.
Evolution of Passion:
The conversation delves into how the hosts’ passions evolved over time. Zahiyya explains how her passion for sewing led her into other aspects of design, such as textile and screen printing. LaTisha emphasizes her role as a problem solver, constantly learning and evolving in the fashion industry.
Zahiyya’s journey showcases the dynamic nature of passion, with sewing becoming a means to an end – a way to bring her designs to life. The hosts collectively stress the importance of adapting and expanding your skill set as your business evolves.
Finding Your Niche and Ideal Customer:
The trio advises aspiring entrepreneurs to understand their niche and identify their ideal customer. LaTisha stresses the need to create a customer profile, emphasizing that not everyone is your customer. This knowledge is crucial for shaping your business strategy and tailoring your offerings to a specific audience.
They recommend researching where your ideal customers shop and understanding your competitors. This knowledge helps in crafting effective marketing strategies and pricing your products appropriately.
Preparing for a Craft-Based Business:
The hosts share valuable insights into preparing for a craft-based business. Naima advises distinguishing between a business and a hobby, while Zahiyya stresses the importance of understanding the structure of your business, especially if you’re selling physical products online.
They delve into the significance of collecting emails, the importance of an email list, and the necessity of registering your business appropriately. Practical advice on taxes, structuring pricing, and preparing for different sales channels adds depth to this comprehensive discussion.
Starting Your Business – Pop-ups, Websites, and Word of Mouth:
The podcast hosts discuss their diverse approaches to starting their businesses. Zahiyya recalls a time before social media dominance, relying on word of mouth. Naima shares her experience with pop-ups and the gradual shift towards online platforms as the internet gained popularity.
LaTisha’s unique journey involves word of mouth and teaching seminars, showcasing that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to starting a fashion business. They highlight the power of word of mouth, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and personal connections.
Promoting, Running, and Maintaining Your Business:
The hosts wrap up the episode by sharing what has worked well for them in promoting, running, and maintaining their businesses. They unanimously agree on the effectiveness of word of mouth, emphasizing the importance of testimonials and referrals.
Zahiyya suggests implementing a referral system, while Naima advises being your own brand ambassador until you can afford to hire one. LaTisha shares the power of exposure, citing examples of lending items for photoshoots and doing makeovers for church groups.
The Designers, Plans, and Coffee Podcast provides a refreshing and candid look into the fashion industry, offering practical advice, personal anecdotes, and valuable insights for aspiring designers and entrepreneurs. Whether you’re just starting or looking to take your fashion business to the next level, this podcast is a must-listen. Subscribe on YouTube and your favorite podcast platform to stay updated on their weekly episodes. Stay inspired, stay stylish, and keep brewing those plans over a cup of coffee with the Designers, Plans, and Coffee Podcast!
Transcript
Naima
I always say, don’t quit your day job until your business starts to pay for itself.
Zahiyya
Welcome to the Designers, Plans and Coffee Podcast, where we discuss how to succeed as a designer while staying true to yourself, finding peace in the process, and making money doing what we love. Subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
Naima
Let’s get into it. As you can see, we are all dressed up because it is fashion Friday Q&A. We’ve talked about sequins, so guess who decided to wear them today? I am Naima, along with Zahiyya and LaTisha. We are your hopefully fashion guru. Today, we are going to address some of the questions we got in our fan mail. We got a lot of questions from the episode we did previously about how we started our business. We have a question I’m opposed to you, ladies, that says, When starting your businesses, did you allow your passion to fuel your creativity and your craft? Or did you just do it and say, I’m going to make something, toss it out there and see if it works.
LaTisha
It was more of my passion fueling my creativity. I say that because I was doing it before I ever thought about a business. I just love to do it. It was so easy for me to do, and I would do it for my family and it’s like, Oh, yeah, this could be a business.
Zahiyya
For me, it was pretty much the same as Tish. I got into it because I didn’t like what I had to wear, so I learned how to sew. I was sewing for my family. Like I said, I’m the oldest of seven kids, and being a Muslim, there’s two kids every year. It was always the night before I’m senior sewing for seven kids. I’m just insane. Every kid, all of us were lit. That’s what we did until the community started asking questions like, Oh, did you make that? Yes, I did. Then I started getting clients. Then because my father sowed for other brothers in the community, and he was the entrepreneurial one, so that’s how I got into entrepreneur and sewing for people and that stuff. But that was just the sewing aspect.
Naima
Yeah, I think for me, it’s a little bit of both. I’ve always been passionate about fashion and sowing and creating things. And so I let that passion and that creativity turn into a business. So it’s two-fold. So my creativity became my passion, which became my business. I think we’re all speaking the same language a little bit. You can’t start a business and not love or even like or even want to be invested in what you do. So your passion is always going to fuel your business. That’s some.
Zahiyya
Good point. I think it’s on the journey because when I started the sewing, the passion of designing and creating my own clothes led me into the textile design and the screen printing and the fabric design, all that stuff. So yes, it was the passion. It was also creativity because I was always trying to make stuff before even sewing came about. But then I think I mentioned this in the previous episode, I learned everything around the sewing and creating clothes just to fuel that. The textiles and everything. We can get into how I got into textiles another time. But the passion, the creativity is what fueled the business.
Naima
It sounds like for you that sewing led you into other parts of your passion, your creativity, which have now overtaken the sewing as your passion. Exactly. Because you do more design. You don’t sew as much.
Zahiyya
Yeah, I just sew so that I can design. I do textile, so I can design. It gets so that I can get the designs out the way that I want. I say, Okay, I’ll make the first piece. Okay, now somebody has to make it. Because I don’t like doing multiples of anything.
LaTisha
Since you mentioned it, as I’m thinking back, I would say once I started learning about sewing, then learning about pattern making, and then with pattern making, making sure and technical design, I’m really just a problem solver. A problem solver of and really like, which is crazy because I hate math, but I have a lesson. But with the problem solving, with technical design, I also discovered over the years being in the industry also meant as a manager, you having others under you, I’m showing them how to do things. Then that came into me, wanting to show them. That also came into teaching. But I’m also now teaching fashion and then realizing that as a professor, I’m always a student. There’s other things that I wanted to get into and learning like hand embroidering and learning timber and beading. I hunted my professor down, Hey, Professor Robin Havie. I had been held because I wanted to take this timber beating class, so I went to Philly. I left just for this class because I really wanted to learn it. But in discovering the embroiderry and the stitches and noticing, This is the same stitch that we do for hand sewing.
LaTisha
Then going to the beading class and, This is the same stitch. Also, it’s the same stitch for crotchet. It’s the same stitch for those who have those lace front wigs.
Zahiyya
Same stitch. Side note, Tish helped me with my wedding dress the night before because the beads… I’m serious, the beads on the skirt were coming off in the scene. So she was there, I don’t know what time of night, but she was in there with the beads, sewing the last bit of beads that I didn’t have a patch of skirt.
LaTisha
Oh, my gosh.
Naima
Oh, my goodness. That is a flashback.
LaTisha
And that’s where the passion comes from, because just doing that for family, doing that is how the business came about. That’s how I can definitely say look for your passion.
Naima
We had an episode where we talked about finding our niche. Your passion is going to lead to that niche thing that you love.
LaTisha
And your passion will help you for the rough days.
Zahiyya
Yes. Because there will be some rough days.
Naima
There will be some rough days.
Zahiyya
And you need that passion to fuel you.
LaTisha
Through.
Zahiyya
Those.
Naima
Times. Check out episode two where I talked about those rough days and how many times I’ve quit in my head and just something happens and I keep coming back to it.
LaTisha
I’ve sown a blazer the wrong way. I’m like, I just want to light a match.
Naima
It happens. So that will lead into our next question, which is, what should an entrepreneur prepare for when starting a craft-based business? I will say you have to distinguish if you are doing a business or a hobby. That’s number one. Are you doing this to make money? Are you doing this to get into stores? What is your reason for doing this? So that’s what I would start with. What else should you prepare for? Taxes. Uncle Sam, his statewide cousins, your county sisters, everybody is coming for their piece of your pie. So if you’re not quite ready to get a tax ID, because once you get that, it opens up a whole new thing in business. We have more questions about the tax ID and stuff, which we’ll address on the next Fashion Friday. But really, you know your P’s and Q’s. Be mindful of what you put out and what you bring in, because that’s where you get into that sketchy hobby versus craft versus business territory. Because if you’re just selling enough to buy more fabric and make more things, you’re not in business. You’re fueling your hobby. So you want that income to be sustainable.
Naima
And it’s going to take a while to get there, trust me. You are your first year. You may only be making enough money to buy more fabric or make more things, but it gets better.
Zahiyya
Once you learn that this is actually what you want to do, take some time to figure that out before you spend the money to establish your business. Naima says the EIN number, you have to get that. But then you should register your business as an entity. So either people do sole proprietary when they first start, but I would always do a LLC at least. Then there’s ways to file your taxes as an LLC. We’re going to get into that on another episode when we start talking about the back end of the business. But that is something that you have to do. Also, when you start the business, you have to know whether you’re going to be selling retail, wholesale, to online or shipping, all that stuff. You really have to work that stuff out because that hinders your pricing and how you price your product. Because if you’re selling wholesale and you’re selling retail, you have to sell retail on your website so the wholesalers don’t get mad. I think that that’s the point. Because when you’re getting started, you really have to understand the structure of your business, especially if you’re selling products like physical products online.
Zahiyya
You really have to understand how you’re going to structure your pricing and getting into margins. You really have to understand how you’re selling your stuff so you can price your stuff well.
Naima
We’ll get into the math later.
Zahiyya
We talked about math in.
LaTisha
Another episode. Yeah, we’ll get into the math on another episode.
Zahiyya
Because that can go on for days.
LaTisha
For real. It can. It really can.
Naima
That’s three episodes. Any thoughts about starting your craft-based business, LaTisha?
LaTisha
I would say you also need to understand who your customer is because everybody is not your customer. You really have to come to terms with that and being okay with that that everybody is not your customer. They’re just not. But you need to know without a shadow of a doubt, who your customer is and literally write up a customer profile. Who are you marketing to? And that will help you to answer all of the other questions about your business, about the because you know who this person is. Also, once you know who your customer is, find out where they shop. Who is your competitor? Because that’s also, once again, that’s going to help you. But you also need to understand when you have a business, some of the items, this is not a business where you’re going to sell everything that you like, okay? It’s not. Really understand that, because otherwise we could just be shopping in your closet. But you’re trying to reach a broad range of people, and you really need to do your research on who this customer is. Because some of the items that that customer loves you may not like.
Naima
That’s a very good distinguishing point. There are a lot of times when I make something and I was like, What in the world was I thinking? This is hideous. And it’ll be the first thing that sells. And I’m like, Okay. I think identifying your customer is a very good point because it also takes away from that self-doubt when people are saying, No, this is too much. I don’t like it. It’s not worth it. They’re not your people. And your people will come. You will find your people. You will find your tribe. I have had customers who have been my customers since I was selling at Pop-ups out of a Beatle, and they still will order things faithfully and wait for something new to come out scarfs. But yeah, so any other thoughts.
Zahiyya
On that? One thing that I add, it’s a process. It is. It takes time. It’s not going to be an overnight thing. The Instagram life is not like, right overnight. I mean, when people pop, they’ve been working for 10 years before that, and then you just going to top. It’s just like it’s a lot of work and just be ready for it. It can be fun. You can cry.
Naima
You can have.
Zahiyya
Fun, do everything, but just be ready for the work because it is a lot.
Naima
You can take a break. It’s okay to take a break. If you are feeling overwhelmed and you’ve had a horrible season, take a winter break. Every January, I take a break. I take all my sewing machines in for cleaning. I do nothing in January.
Zahiyya
That’s because you had a really busy… That’s because I’ve worked.
Naima
I’ve had a really busy season. But that’s the perfect segue into our next question, which is, how did you begin your business? Was it pop-up? Was it a website? Was it word of mouth? Was it social media?
Zahiyya
Well, I started my business before social media started.
Naima
I was thinking that, but I was not going to say it out loud.
LaTisha
I.
Zahiyya
Know we’re.
Naima
Aging ourselves. I think Facebook was out and Instagram maybe had just started. But I started with pop-ups.
LaTisha
I’m saying we’re older than Google.
Zahiyya
I’ve had multiple businesses, and I started a lot of them before social media was popular. When I was sowing for people, there was no social media. That was word of mouth because there was really no other way. I was young, so I didn’t know a lot of the stuff. But like Naima, my second business, when I got into textiles and designing graphics and T-shirts and stuff like that, I did a lot of pop-ups just like Naima. I used to go to different fairs around New York. I went to Philly. But that also happened. That’s when the internet rumor dialogue-.
Naima
We’re telling everybody- I remember a company I was working for, we got free internet because the company was affiliated with AOL and we got free internet. They gave us this little key card and it would have running numbers on it. That’s how you got to your free. You have to punch that number in. If you missed it, you have to punch that number in all of our kids to dial up.
Zahiyya
That’s what I was dealing with when we started the internet thing. Because when I had my second business, when I was doing the pop-ups, I realized once the internet became more popular, it was more lucrative to have… I had to have a website than to necessarily do all of the pop-ups. Find which ones work the best for you and you go to those because you can make a lot of money of those. But the subsequent ones, I stopped doing and I was selling stuff online. When I did pop-ups, I made people sign papers because we didn’t have phones where you can just change information. I have my list of my email list. This spiral notebook, email list. -on the email list. Right now, back to the last question, collect email. Collect email. No matter when you’re starting, no matter if you don’t have a product, start collecting email because your email list is how you sell. Email list, honestly, is more important than social media. So have.
Naima
Your email list. Because you can offer such.
Zahiyya
Tailored things- It’s more of an intimate relationship.
Naima
I need to get back to my newsletter. Thank you for reminding me of that.
LaTisha
It’s really marketing. If they think about it, when you go into a store, they ask you for your email address, and then they send you all of these ads. But they also have affiliates that send you information and send you ads and everything based on that one email address that you gave at that store.
Naima
Right now, the first thing you get when you log on to lovefearlessstuds. Com is a pop-up that says sign up for email and get 15 % off your first order. Every time I sell something and I mail out a package, I put a thank you card in there and say, Hey, enjoy 10% off of your next order. That’s the way to drive business to your website. But I am still a pop-up queen. I do them spring and fall. They are my money makers. It’s how I connect to my people. Like I said, I have people who have been with me from day one, and I have people who just met me last week. They’ve all created this community, this Fearless Threads family. I still do pop-ups. I like them. Back’s getting a little old, so I don’t know how long we can keep this up. Social media is tricky for everyone because of the algorithms and the way they do all of these things, and you have to post so much and you have to know these keywords. So if you live with anybody from the ages of, I would say 16 to 25, hire them as an intern.
Naima
You don’t have to pay them. Feed them. Feed them. Teensagers love to eat. But have somebody who can create a reel in a TikTok with their eyes closed and have them do your social media for you. Social media is a job in itself. If you Google social media manager, they make a lot of money. So if you can afford to have someone do your social media for you, I say do it.
LaTisha
Absolutely. I definitely agree with the social media because, especially with TikTok, exploding right now with the TikTok shopping. So you definitely want to get someone that is more savvy with it. But for me, how I start, I did not start with pop-ups only because of the nature of my business. Mine was more word of mouth and people referring others to me to tailor their clothing. I actually was doing and tailoring and doing custom garments and also teaching a couple of seminars on how to dress for your body, but also helping them to learn tips and tricks that a good tailor will save you a lot of money, but will also give you the look that the clothing that you’re wearing was literally made for you. So I would say, mine started out a little different only because of the business that I had.
Naima
Our final question for the night is, what has worked well for you regarding promoting, running, and maintaining your business? For me, word of mouth.
Zahiyya
Word of mouth is very powerful if you have a really good system in place to do that because people trust people. If you recommend something to someone, they were like, Oh, okay, let me do that. I mean, for me, word of mouth has worked tremendously. That’s how people recommend you. I’m going to put in place for a referral system so it can be automated so someone can actually refer you to the website and maybe get a commission if it’s a sale. That’s another way that it works. I’m not very good with social media because I’m not on it the way I need to be. I don’t know. I guess it’s the nature of the social media. Introverted person.
Naima
Yeah. And see, for me, the way word of mouth has worked out for me is people will say, Oh, I know somebody who does that, and refer me to different things. I talked about one of those experiences in one of the other episodes where I ended up in a museum shop. You also have to be wary of word of mouth where it comes to doing things that you don’t want to do. Every April and May, I get 59,000 requests for prom dress. Naima does not make prom dresses that you need in two weeks. But I appreciate and I always say, Thank you for referring me. That’s not what I do. Here’s the name of somebody who does that because I’m very good at referring other people. I have no problem referring other people who want to do that. But trigger, I wear something fearless threads every day: an earring, a headband, a jacket, it in the winter. I am my brand. I carry my own grocery bags to the store. So you have to be your brand until you get a brand ambassador. Hire your friends to be brand ambassadors. Give them 10 % commission if somebody uses their code on your website.
Naima
There’s so many ways, like I said, we could talk about this for hours in another episode also. But social media in the way we communicate now has made it so much easier than what we started with. You can… You can go on to a website and they can populate your emails for you. All you got to do is hit Send.
LaTisha
So it’s a thing. Don’t be afraid to, at the beginning, look at some things as opportunities where you may not make a lot, but it’s really good exposure. I say that because I did a full makeover class for a group of women at a church several years ago. I was literally just, Okay, I’m going to put this on and I’m going to give them some tips and help them to feel better about themselves and embracing the bodies that they have. I did that, and I wasn’t really looking for a big payout. It was more of I really wanted the exposure, and I really wanted to get a lot of feedback.
Naima
That’s a.
LaTisha
Really good point. Once they actually got to see how they look after the makeover, then they took pictures and they were so happy. And that was word of mouth.
Naima
That’s a really good point. I was just approached to lend some items to a play that somebody’s putting on. They said, Oh, would you loan us a couple of pieces? And I said, Okay. I mean, it’s not something that I’d ever thought about doing. So don’t look at it as people always wanting a handout so much as, How will this be of a benefit? Will this actually give me a little bit of more exposure and bring me some new customers.
Zahiyya
But the feedback that Tisha was talking about, you can use that as testimonials for your website because testimonials add to the credibility that you have. So just like Tisha Naima, I also lended my clothes when they were doing photoshoots. My husband is into music, and when they had artists, when they do a photoshoot, I put my clothes in it and have them credit me at the bottom. You have that, you get that exposure, and then you get testimonials from those people if they already have a name or they’re doing something, and that you can use that. If it’s not money, you can use the testimonials to help you get money from someplace else. You can also barter because if it’s mutual beneficial, like you get exposure, they get an item or whatever. Sometimes in the beginning, it’s not all about money. It’s more about exposure and getting yourself out there.
LaTisha
Actually, it’s going to come back to the passion because you may not make a lot of money to start out. You may have to do things to get exposure or to barter. You really need to be passionate and do something that you are passionate about.
Naima
I always say don’t quit your day job until your business starts to pay for itself. Well, ladies, we’ve reached the end of our very first Fashion Friday Q&A. Love the sequence.
Zahiyya
Yes, Nike was rocking the sequence. Is it a whole top or is it like a dress? What is it?
Naima
It’s the top. It’s like a crop top.
Zahiyya
A crop top?
LaTisha
A.
Naima
Crop top. I did not know it was a crop top when I bought it. I ordered it. I won’t stand.
LaTisha
So yes, love the sequence. I’m wearing a blazer from the 34th, the Bella-amazing.
Zahiyya
-on 34th right now. Okay, so everybody’s saying what they’re wearing. I’m making a meemade. Basically, this is one of the patterns that’s going to be on the site. So yes. Very nice. Like Naima was saying, you always wear your own stuff.
LaTisha
Well, that’s all for now. I’m Leticia Winston of keeping you in stitches. Is along with Naima Dozer, of Feelers Threads, and Zahiyya Dukareem from Cover Me chic. Check us out next time.
Naima
We’ll see you. Bye. Bye.
