Have you ever thought about starting your own business in the fashion industry? Maybe you always wanted to create your own shoe line, a PR agency or even a high-end jewelry brand. If your answer is yes, make sure to keep reading because we’ll give you some golden advice on how to start and most importantly, how to surround yourself with people that can help and assist you as a mentor or an advisor.
Be Prepared & Gain Experience
You can’t start a business overnight, you need a good idea, a strong business plan and you’ll need to be prepared to give 100% of your energy into the project. Most importantly, you should believe in your idea and be super passionate about what you’re starting.
Setting up a business without any own experience is not a good idea, so go in the field and find a job as an intern or an assistant in a business that is similar to what you want to start. Experience is worth a lot and is a great way to learn about the real deal. When you have finished your time at another business, and you feel like you gained some insights of the business, go chase your dreams and set up your business.
Find a Mentor
As we mentioned before, setting up a company in fashion isn’t easy but not impossible either. However, the environment is a very different than working in an office with colleagues – if you decide to start the brand without a partner it can get quite lonely. That’s exactly why you should surround yourself with people who can guide, advise and help you. These people are usually called a mentor or an advisor, and can be very helpful to you as an entrepreneur. But don’t be fooled – it’s not easy to find that person. We’ve listed a few items that can be helpful to you in your search to find a mentor.
First of all, we need to mention that a mentor isn’t going to be your ticket to having a successful business, it’s still you who will have to do the job. Mentors are involved to guide and help you on certain aspects. Nowadays everyone has a free mentor available, it’s called the internet. There’s plenty of information out there for you to find and use to grow your business or help you out in difficult situations. That said, having a mentor can be a great addition to you and your business and they might be able to share real experiences that you won’t find online.
Secondly, you can’t go and ask plenty of people what they think about a certain aspect of your business. Everyone out there has an opinion and it might not be the right one, don’t listen to people who claim to know it all without being sure they have actual experience. You should only ask people that are relevant in the industry, people who have proven themselves already, those are the people that can help you a lot.
A great way to find a mentor is through your own network: friends, ex-colleagues, people from school or even family. Don’t simply email people and ask if they want to be your mentor, it comes across as unprofessional. Instead, you should meet up with them, talk about your business or ideas and see if they’re interested, then build a relationship with them and gradually you’ll be able to ask them if they want to help or assist you. You need to understand that successful people are also very busy and they might not necessarily have the time to help you out.
Sometimes a mentor can be someone very close to you, such as a spouse, your parents or your siblings. It’s great to bring them along on your journey and ask them advice on things that they are experienced with.
Our last advice is to join groups, online or in real life, with people who go through the same as you. Share your experiences, setbacks and gains as the other people will do, and that information can be very useful for you and your business. There are some great things out there to help you out, such as our own membership program at Glam Observer to help girls in the fashion industry.
In the end a mentor should be someone you trust, respect and you look up to. It should be one of your goals to become as successful as they are and maybe in the future, you’ll be able to help and mentor young people starting their own new business. But don’t forget that they are not superheroes, don’t be disappointed if things don’t go as planned. A business is never easy to set up let alone make it a great success, all big businesses have had major setbacks at some point
Never forget that Walt Disney used to be broke and lived in the streets before he created the successful Mickey Mouse cartoons.
