If you were somehow unaware, I opened a clothing company a few months ago! We are now in our third month of business and I am so grateful that so many of you are supporting us. It’s also amazing to see my dreams and aspirations come to life. But I’ve also learned a lot on these few months. Starting a business is HARD, and there’s a bit of a learning curve. I wouldn’t trade any of our experiences, though, even the ones that were hard. Because we’ve learned so much through them.
Don’t let your expectations get too high
This seems like a dumb and discouraging point, but I promise it’s not. If your expectations are too high when you first start your business, you’ll get disappointed and end up quitting. You hear success stories all the time of people starting companies and selling out of all their product in the first few hours. Those stories are incredible and inspiring but not the norm. I’ll be honest, I half expected that to happen to us. We got 8 orders the night we opened, which was incredible. I went into the next day, which was the first full day, hoping to more than double the amount of orders. We got a few more, but I was sorely disappointed that we didn’t sell out of our inventory.
One of the biggest challenges to me during this journey, is reminding myself to have realistic goals. Starting a business is exciting but it’s work. I have to keep my expectations in check. I set small goals, and then once I reach them, I set a slightly higher goal. For example, our goal right now is to send out 25 orders a week! My original goal was 100 a week, but I realized that I needed to work my way to that number.
Don’t let the setbacks of starting a business discourage you
Part of starting a business is just that things aren’t always going to happen the way you planned. Take these things in stride, and keep working hard. We’ve had items show up that are damaged, in the wrong size, or the wrong color. It’s so easy to get frustrated when something like this happens, but you have to keep a calm head and try to rationally fix it. We’ve had customers try to take advantage of us, other bloggers try to take advantage of us, and wholesale companies try to take advantage of us. These things happen, and you just have to keep a smile on your face(after your mini break down, it happens to all of us) and move forward.
You don’t have to do it alone
I’ll be honest, I struggle to delegate my responsibilities. Seth is my business partner, and I have a really hard time assigning him tasks to help lessen my workload. I bet you all didn’t know that he runs our Instagram account! Most of what you see on there, comes from him! Even if you don’t have a business partner, find a way to delegate when things get too stressful. Whether that means getting a babysitter so you can leave the house to work, or it means asking a friend to help with a task for a day.
Write out your business plan
I know not everyone finds it helpful to physically write things down, but it’s been so helpful to me! When we were starting a business, I wrote down the steps I had to take. I wrote down the articles of clothing I wanted to buy, how much it would cost me, and how much I’d be selling them for. I wrote out marketing strategies. And I wrote out bloggers and models I wanted to work with. And honestly, I still do. Whenever we order new arrivals, I write them out in my notebook and name them, and assign a price, before they arrive. Having something physical to refer back to is so helpful for me. I have so many things going on that there is no way I could remember them all, which is why writing them down is so important!
I hope these tips were helpful! And I know they’re not specific to any type of field, but I think that they are valuable to anyone who wants help starting a business but thinks it may be too difficult.
If you didn’t know that I started a business, go check it out here!