I spoke to a young lady on Saturday.
She sews.
She has two young kids.
Caring for the kids take up so much of her time.
So her output is really low.
It takes her too long to complete one dress.
She has a few customers.
She even struggles to finish their clothes.
She disappoints some and losses some.
She is thinking whether or not to take a tailor to join her.
She is afraid if she will be able to afford to pay the tailor.
So she is just struggling.
Making very few items and having low revenue each month.
Here is my advice to her.
I will number it so it is easy to understand what I advised her.
1. Stop sewing complicated clothes immediately. They take too long and you don't have the time.
2. The goal for you is to make money, it is not to make the most beautiful red carpet dresses. You do not have the capacity, leave it for those who do.
3. Switch to making simple clothes that have no breast pad, stones, corsets and all that drama.
4. Make simple clothes that look like ready-to-wear and focus on selling to plus-size women. These women buy like mad when they find simple nice designs.
5. The 15 hours you use in sewing one complicated dress that will pay you 20k (that's if the customer agrees to pay), use it and sew 15 simple plus-size dresses with no lining and no drama.
6. Hire two tailors immediately. Buy 2 more machines immediately
7. Focus on finding simple but interesting styles, you cut, they sew.
8. Work on a daily target of maybe making 6 items everyday. They can each easily make 3 simple dresses that have no complications.
9. Learn Facebook Ads. Take some pictures and start advertising for plus-size women to come to you for budget-priced casual dresses and tops. Showcase your many designs and tell them to order in variety of colors
10. Do a pricing matrix so you encourage a person to buy more.
Example - 1 dress is 10k, 3 is 25k, 5 is 38k
11. Change your mentality from best tailor to money machine.
12. No be who sew pass dey make money. Na who get sense pass
She was soooo happy.
She thanked me and ran off to implement.
Remember, the goal in business is to make money doing something excellently well. You mustn't do the hardest thing.
You can do a simple thing excellently well.
Someone somewhere is selling only white rice and making over 500k sales daily while someone else is struggling to sell 20 items on a menu and making far less.
The goal is to make money.
The goal is to make money.
Do not forget the goal.
By all means, simplify how you make the money and go ahead and make it.
I love you!
#chiomaifeanyieze
#chiomasbusinessschool
#chiomabusinessschool