How to Keep Your Fashion Business on Track

This is a downloadable checklist to help guide you through the Masterclass, "How To Keep Your Fashion Business On Track".

Running a business is hard, and the key to keeping any business on track is organisation. One element of this organisation is, for instance, having a calendar to tell you when your taxes are due, or the date of trade shows you will be attending, or maybe a weekly planner to note individual tasks and upcoming meetings. These to-do lists are your glaring accountability.

For this Masterclass, we focus on all you need to grow and scale - whatever that looks like for your business. A handy checklist is ideal when specific timelines are required, and you have to pull in those organisational and time management skills. We recommend you refer back to this checklist every six months to ensure that nothing is slipping through the net of your conflicting priorities and demands.

So, head below to download the checklist. Pin this up somewhere noticeable to remind you, and get excited rather than overwhelmed by these tasks.

This lesson - featuring a wide range of industry experts - is designed to help you feel grounded as your business grows, and ensure that your mind stays healthy.

Ensuring that your mind is strong and healthy is crucial as you build your business. From combatting negative self-talk, to ensuring that your office is a healthy, happy place for your employees, your outlook as you approach your work is as important to the success and growth of your company as your business plan. It can be easily overlooked, however, particularly when facing stressful situations.

Featuring guest experts: Clare Evans, Lila O'Farrell, Kerrie-Anne Bradley, Jo Garside, Tristan Harris and Ralph Fernando, Jen Gale, Natalie Hall and Zoe Partridge.

Increasingly, different frameworks and tools are available for businesses to track their stock, sales, and growth. In this Lesson, we work through the tools available and give scenarios to aid understanding of best practice and effective use.

Featuring industry experts: Natalya Makulova, Gordon D'Silva, Kat Lucock, Mikulas Hurta

Exhibiting at fashion shows and trade fairs is a natural step toward growing a business and increasing sales. Daunting though it may seem at first, exhibiting at shows and fairs is a rewarding way to improve customer relations, particularly in a world as digital-centric as the one in which we live. Showcasing your products and meeting customers in real life is one of the best ways to combat our increasing reliance on digital media. 

Hosting events that may not have a product focus at their core is another way brands are growing their customer base. Particularly as a brand with a sustainability-driven ethos, hosting events - such as workshops or talks - that aim to educate and inspire about sustainability is a perfect way to share your ethos with your customers. 

This Lesson will take you through all you need to know about preparing to exhibit at a fashion show or trade fair, or hosting other events. 

Crucial to our understanding of the market and our customers' preferences, trends drive every industry globally. And nowhere else can the direct correlation between trend forecasts and decision-making be seen more clearly than in the fast-paced fashion world.

Rather than being the antithesis of why you are here - to recognise, understand and implement responsible business practices - trends will give you the freedom to assert your unique selling point and business purpose. How will your product or service support what your customer requires? What will your product or service bring to the world? Why does your product or service deserve to be used ahead of your competitors?

In this Lesson, with the guidance from entrepreneur Charlie Bradley Ross, we look at the importance of trends in fashion and how to conduct trend research to suit your business proposition as you develop and grow.

Communications are all the channels you use to present your product or service to the world. As a responsible business, you could be even further scrutinised in your endeavours to deliver a sustainable or ethical product. Therefore, being confident in creating compelling copy that sells, understanding how to approach journalists, and knowing what to do when working with a PR agency will all help strengthen your business's communication.

In this Lesson, with the guidance of guest experts, we explore the fundamental considerations for ethical PR and communications. Hear from strategic copywriters Tom Hunt and Sabine Harnau, PR agencies Lacuna Lab and Orchard and Broome, journalist Bel Jacobs, and FinTech expert Lenna Lou.

Managing your online presence can be daunting, particularly for brands that are more used to selling in a brick and mortar shop than online. However, leveraging your online presence is one of the most powerful ways to increase sales - if done correctly! This Lesson will help you uncover how your online presence can support sales and build a reputable brand with longevity.

As always, we are joined by guest experts to bring real-life advice, including renowned bloggers Francesca Willow and Holly Rose, social media guru Sam Burgess, and tech wizard James Bradley.

A key element of keeping your business on track is retaining those customers you have already worked so hard to claim. So understanding the best approaches to customer service is one way to build trust, maintain loyalty, and increase your positive reputation. Customer service covers everything from before a customer chooses to shop with you to the procedures after they have long since shopped - and especially for a sustainable brand, you want to know that the effort in developing a kind product has not (literally) gone to waste.

In this Lesson then, we address customer service methods, including customer support, tack back schemes, loyalty programs, and repair services. We have case studies from brands implementing these top practices, including MUD Jeans denim brand, online marketplace Staiy, and footwear brand VYN.ONE. Plus additional resources for further guidance.

Do you feel both overworked and under-utilised? Do you feel busy, but you're not productive? Like you're in constant motion, but you're not getting anywhere? 

If you answered yes to any of those, it is time to declutter your life and become more efficient.

We've been taught from a young age that hard work is the key to producing results. In fact, many of us are rewarded for productivity. The problem is that this has led to a cultural norm where work equals good. It's a work-equals-good cycle. We've lost sight of the fact that certain types of effort yield higher rewards than others. And we end up working for work's sake.

In this lesson, we're exploring the concept of "Essentialism" and putting it into practice. We'll get laser focused and eliminate the stuff that's just not helping you reach your goals. This is not a time management strategy. It's a system for deciding what is essential. By focusing only on the essentials, we can regain control of our choices and focus on the things that matter. 

Whether you're a one-person band or managing a team of ten, it can be easy to lose sight of your finances with the day-to-day juggle of running a business. Research from the JPMorgan Chase Institute found that many small businesses exist month to month, and the average small company has only enough cash saved to last 27 days. Small and medium-sized businesses don't have the deep pockets that large enterprises do, which is why even short-term cash flow problems can sink an otherwise successful business.

Inspired by Mike Michalowicz's book, "Profit First", this lesson is about getting a handle on your business's finances. With cash in the bank and, most importantly, a company generating PROFIT, year on year.

In this lesson, you'll leave with a financial structure and system to build and grow a healthy, profitable business. It's suitable if you have not yet started your business or are years in. If your business is facing financial strains, this will be a fast way to identify what the issues are so that you can fix them.