It's that time of year again. There's just something about spring that kicks you out of your hibernation funk and puts you mentally in a place to clean house. But what about your business? We rack up just as much clutter in our business as our home but unlike our personal life we may let the clutter in our business stick around. Both physical and mental clutter can make it's mark overtime and begin to decrease your productivity and profit without you knowing it. So to prepare for continued growth, here's 10 spring cleaning tips for your fashion brand you can do today. 1 | Notifications
The biggest distraction of them all. Do you really need to know every like, comment, and thought put out in the world? No. To Do: Turn off all notifications on all unnecessary apps. That means all social media, podcasts, and news. We promise you will still check them on your own accord, you don't need the extra reminders. 2 | Phone Time Let's be honest, our will power sucks when it comes to our phones. To Do: Check your phone usage and start by placing a time limit on your most used apps by 20% and see what happens. By just having the barrier in place you may notice there are times you don't actually need to be on them (ahem...Instagram) and are just checking out of compulsion. 3 | Receipts Expenses are the world but luckily today there are great platforms like Wave that provide handy apps so you can snap a picture of that receipt, file it away and do away with the shoe box, thank God. To Do: Sign up for Wave (free) or Expensify (not free but good) and start going digital with your paper trail. 4 | Books If you're a business person, you are alikely a reader of many books like Start With Why, Lean In, and Dare to Lead. Why not impart that knowledge on someone and pass it off to a friend? To Do: Go through your book shelf and gift your already read books to a work friend. 5 | Merchandising Props As a fashion brand you've no doubt accumulated your fair share of random props and branded signs over the seasons for reatail pop ups, trade shows, and photo shoots, and really what are you doing with them now? To Do: Assess your prop pile and recycle or donate the things you no longer need. 6 | Ongoing Scraps There's two types of pre-consumer fabric waste you encounter as a fashion brand. One is fabric liability, the other is fabric scraps way too small to repurpose. To Do: Sign up for Fabscrap and begin getting your fabric scraps collected to reduce your brand's waste. 7 | Sell Your Fabric Liability You're not using it and someone can and that larger leftover fabric is worth something. To Do: Post it on Deadstock District today and offer it up for a bargain to clear your space. You can also donate it to Fabscrap if you just want to be done with it now. 8 | Leftover Stock and Samples You are sitting on product that hasn't sold. It's a common problem in the industry we are still trying to work out. But just because you haven't sold it, doesn't mean you can't. Why not get creative and put it into your marketing budget? To Do: Host Spring Cleaning giveaways on your social media and get rid of your samples and leftover products from past seasons. You can even make it a contest. It's a great way to gain followers and engage with your fans and they get to win product! 9 | Anxiety Anxiety affects your health, slows down your business, and all that worry literally amounts to nothing. It's time to go. To Do: Download the Calm app and start implementing daily meditation into your schedule. Incorporate scripture and prayer if that's your jam, tap a friend for accountability if you need to, but you cannot afford to not start each day from a place of clarity for your business. 9 | Doubt It's hard building a brand. It's REALLY hard. And you shouldn't be doing it alone. You need toget yourself in a mastermind or a circle of fellow entrepreneurs if you haven't already, to help you sharpen your business, as well as have a place to air out your emotional baggage from carrying this business. Seriously, it's a thing. To Do: Get yourself in a community of like-minded people who have been in your shoes and can offer encouragement, support, and connections to help you grow your business. If you need to find a community of sustainably-minded fashion professionals, many who are fellow brand owners, join Deadstock District and start getting support and answers today. 10 | Emails So many emails, so little time. There's first the problem with how many you get but then there's also keeping track of the ones you send. Remember that time you were motivated to get press, emailed 30 journalists with pitches, and then just now are realizing you never followed up? You need a better system for this. To Do: Unsubscribe from any newsletters that aren't serving the growth of your business. Do you really need to know Kate Spade is having a sale? Then, sign yourself up for a CRM system like Hubspot to track your sales/press outreach and remember to follow up. Need help with this? We have a solution launching THIS MONTH to help with this so stay tuned to our newsletters for the first announcement. We want this to be your best year yet, and we know how those lofty New Year's goals can get derailed by midyear, as we mentioned we have an exciting announcement coming soon that will help you get serious about your business strategy to grow your fashion brand. Subscribe to our newsletters so you can be the first to know! And again, if you need any other help with your business, join our Deadstock District community for free and start getting help today. Comments are closed.
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