Growing and Scaling Your Design Business

Nick Howe is a NatWest Enterprise Manager and works with agencies, charities, councils and universities across London to provide support and advice on getting started in business. He's also an expert in the ways of growing a business and adapting to the changing environments. In this video, he talks through the different methods for scaling a business, including hiring, acquisition, exports, and making the right funding decisions for your growth plan.

We invited Nick back for this Growing and Scaling masterclass after his brilliant segment all about Funding. Return to the Funding masterclass to watch Nick’s video, where he talked through the funding options available, things to consider before you look for funding and where to apply for it.

Ambition is always a key factor when growing and scaling, but keeping your feet on the ground and making a solid plan will yield firmer results than just being able to dream big. Scoping the market, doing your research, and understanding precisely what it is you want to achieve will lay the groundwork for your business to thrive. 

Helen Roberts is the founder and Director of CPG Executive Consulting, Richmond Foodies, and StartUp Richmond. Helen is a Fast Growth Business Strategist for SMEs, using her incredible experience of growing a million-pound business within 12 months to help young companies build effective growth strategies. She is also an entrepreneur and investor herself, with first-hand knowledge of growing companies to yield six and seven-figure turnovers. In this video, she talks through how to plan your growth around your product and your market, the steps to growing a business, and common mistakes to watch out for.

Your website is the most powerful sales tool available to you, and this checklist is designed to make sure that you are making the most of the opportunities it presents for drawing in new clients and making sales. Here, we bring you our checklist of everything to consider to optimise your website for sales. From the homepage to the very depths of the back end, we leave no stone unturned, so dive in to make sure your website is working as hard as it possibly can for you.

Whether it's purchasing stock, opening premises or taking on a new employee, one of the primary ways to grow your business is with investment. For this lesson, we've highlighted a past video from leading UK bank Natwest's Enterprise Manager, Nick Howe, who talks through all the available funding options. He explains what they mean, things to consider before you look for funding, and where to apply for it. 

If funding is the way to grow, head to the dedicated Masterclass, "Funding Your Design Business", to find out more.

As your business grows and sales increase, you might find it helpful to outsource the packing and shipping of orders to a fulfilment centre. In this 15 minute lesson, we talk to Dan Russell, owner of Choice Fulfilment, a South West based fulfilment centre that specialises in working with small and start-up businesses. 

Maria Pesin has grown businesses to over a million dollars in revenue and is a senior apparel industry executive with over 30 years of field experience. She founded Vibe Consulting to help entrepreneurs make sense of the massive changes taking place in the fashion industry. 

According to a report by Nielsen, nearly half of US consumers say they would "definitely or probably change their consumption habits to reduce their impact on the environment", making the US market a consistent growth opportunity for sustainable business.

Crossing the Atlantic may seem like an overwhelming challenge when you don’t know where to start. Our webinar with Vibe Consulting covers many practical tips for preparing to break into the US market.

Maria Pesin is a senior apparel industry executive with over 30 years of field experience and is responsible for launching and growing several multimillion-dollar fashion businesses, including Sienna Studio and the Jessica Simpson brand. She is the founder of New York based sales consultancy, Vibe Consulting. 

In this lesson, we build on Maria's previous lesson, which gave a comprehensive introduction to launching into the US. Here, she updates that information for a new, post-Covid shopping environment. 

Merging with or being bought by another business might be a natural step in the growth of your company - and one that you might want to seriously consider. However, it does not come without its potential challenges, most notably, the legal considerations necessary to ensure that both parties are happy with the arrangement.

In this video, corporate lawyer Paul Taylor, from Fox Williams, a law firm specialising in fashion business law, explains the basics behind being bought by or merging with another business. 

Are you a social entrepreneur delivering incredible social or environmental impact but struggling to get your voice heard, fretting over what to measure and not quite sure how to communicate your story to the world? Your social impact is too significant to go unnoticed. Kat Luckock, the founder of Share Impact, shares her knowledge of social enterprises and why it's so important not just to measure your impact too.

One of the most vital steps you can take before considering business growth is scalability. And for scalability, efficiency in operations is critical. 

The benefits of streamlining processes and workflows are manifold, from freeing up time, improving cost-efficiency, increasing productivity, improving communications and minimising your risk.

A process has been streamlined when it has been simplified. This simplification process is usually achieved by removing complex or unnecessary steps. There are several ways to streamline a process that includes various approaches and modern business information technology platforms that help organisations thrive.

For this lesson, we highlight a past video from fashion tech consultant Natalie Makulova. She talks us through a wide range of the applications, software and programs you can use to make daily tasks more efficient. 

For a deep dive into maximising efficiency in your business, head to the Masterclass "Technology and Systems To Maximise Sustainability and Profitability".