Owning your own fashion company is a dream come true for most. Having a passion for fashion and an eye for detail that most do not makes for a lucrative and popular business in an industry that is booming by the year. Outsourcing in any business is a tough one, but when it comes to a creative industry such as fashion, it can be harder to let go. You want to have the final say over every aspect of your business, while still creating, pitching and drumming up sales. It’s very tempting to be a total superhero and save yourself some cash while doing everything yourself. The issue with this is that you will stretch yourself too thin and while you’re busy juggling all those plates, it’s very easy to drop one!
You have to be able to have a deep understanding of what your time means in your business. Time is valuable asset to have and when you are a sole owner you have maximise the talents that you do have and spend time on them. Being a fashion guru is all well and good when you have a knack for making beautifully unique clothes, but if you are stuck doing accounting because you haven’t outsourced to a CPA, then you are going to get very bored very quickly! You should start by assigning a dollar value to your time. Doing this can make the decision to outsource certain areas of your company far easier. If the person you could hire to do accounting, or your website is cheaper than you would be, you can justify the cost easily. In the time it could take you to perfect your website, you could have hired an expert to get on board and do it for you. Outsourcing is all about assessing the need that you have and choosing whether you should justify your time on that need.
Enlisting the help of an agency that you are unfamiliar with or a freelancer who is looking for some work isn’t always an easy process. You want to be able to trust the people you are hiring. Your fashion business is an up and comer and it is on the line when you put it in the hands of someone else. You have to fix the rate that you are willing to pay and find people who are willing to work to that rate. This is where your networking skills will come in handy, because if you can get a recommendation from someone that you know in the fashion industry, you are going to be able to rely on them more as it comes from a trusted source.
You don’t have to outsource the creative process. Whatever your creations are, they are going to come from your own vision. However, no one will buy your clothes to retail them if they have no idea who you are. You need a slick website, a crack marketing team and an accountant to pay them all on time as well as pay your vendors and suppliers. You cannot run a business completely by yourself if you want to stay the main voice in the creative process. So, you need to look into outsourcing to the right people so that your business can continue to thrive and grow. You are the superstar of your business and your main job is to drive it toward growth, success and stardom. Bogging yourself down in tasks that could be undertaken by people who are far better equipped is not a smart way to run a business. It’s a great way to exhaust yourself, though, and the last thing that you need is to exhaust yourself any more than a new business owner should be.
Don’t look at outsourcing in your fashion business as a bad thing. It’s not something to be afraid of, nor does it make you a failure because you’re not the one balancing everything. No CEO runs the company themselves; they bring on others and experts to help! There are things out there that you are just not an expert in, so spending too much of you time on them is just a waste of it! Time management and being impeccably organised is the key to getting it all done. Fashion is an industry that changes and adapts, so all you have to do is adapt your thinking and maximise what you CAN do. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, outsource. It’s really that simple.
