01. A fashion expert who wants to monetize
Episode transcription
Phil: Hey there. Welcome to brand therapy. I am Phil.
Lauren: And I am Lauren.
Phil: This is our new podcast. It's our first official episode. We're so happy you're here.
Lauren: So happy. So before we get into this episode, let's break down for those kind of control freak listeners what people can expect.
Phil: Our goal is to give you tangible, actionable advice that will make your brand better. Now you're going to be hearing throughout this season from all different kinds of people in careers with all different challenges. A lot of them are relatable and applicable to the types of challenges that we all face within our businesses every single day.
Lauren: Yeah, it's really good, because even though we work with people who are just across all different industries and have all different types of challenges and problems and blah, blah, blah, I would like to think that our strategies are applicable to any industry.
Phil: We certainly try to make them that way. Today is one of those very relatable challenges.
Lauren: Is it ever?
Phil: It is. It's about making money. So you're going to enjoy this episode with our new friend to Tamiko and I also encourage you to check out my website, philpallen.expert/therapy where we have detailed notes from this episode that you can download as well as an interactive pdf to be able to fill in the exercise that we discuss in a few minutes.
Lauren: All right. Are we going to start episode one? Are we starting?
Phil: Let's do it. Click play. Here's our conversation with Tamiko.
Tamiko: I am a fashion biz and style expert and a media personality.
Phil: What's your goal for 2018?
Tamiko: So my goal for 2018 is to increase my brand awareness and also do more TV appearances. Really do more table tops, segments and style and trend segments. I love morning TV on some talk shows, hosting, I absolutely want to do more hosting. So I'm working on that part of my career. So that's my goal.
Lauren: And you know it's interesting because a lot of the goals that you just said are breaking fashion down for the average person, the average TV viewer, the average magazine reader. So who would you say your audience is and has this always been your audience?
Tamiko: I actually have learned because I grow by listening. I learned by listening and I've learned through one-on-one engagement, personal engagement, and also Facebook specifically that my audiences are mostly women who love fashion, who have the income. They just don't have the time. They don't have the time to read all the blogs, they don't have time to read magazines, they don't have time to stay up on the trend, but they will spend the money. They want to look great, they want lifestyle hack, they just need it all in one place. And so my goal is to create a brand and offer that person all the information that life curated online in media in one place.
Phil: What was that term you just called it? Say That again? What was that?
Tamiko: I called it life curated.
Phil: Oh…
Lauren: I like that.
Phil: Can we go back for a second? I want to come back to that phrase, that pivot. What were you then, what are you now why?
Tamiko: When we met, I was working as a sales and marketing director for a brand based out of New York that worked very closely with a couple of retailers in the LA area and we were essentially really growing the brand and that was at a time when blogging influencers were really at their peak and it was new and it was really important to obviously give your brand a voice, which it still is, but you know like three or four years ago it did explode in terms of Instagram and imagery and actually being able to have to have all the pieces of the pie available and telling an accurate and consistent story.
I was working with a brand doing that, which I absolutely loved. I've been in fashion and media for a long time, 15 plus years. So I've been in the industry in a myriad of areas. I really have a unique perspective on how people consume that kind of style information, so to speak. My passion is communicating it and being on camera. So my work was to find a way to marry the two. My love for storytelling, communicating about fashion and lifestyle and my love for being in front of the camera and what I did I over the last three years was really kind of take baby steps to how I was going to rebrand myself to be, to be the brain. Right?
So, shifting all of my branding strategy, focus from individual brands to myself, which I have to say was actually a challenge in the beginning. Much more than I had anticipated. But I do have a lot of influence on the wholesale side, you know, so I may not be a blogger with 200,000 followers, but I still have a lot of boutiques like the one we talked about in LA and actually all over the world that will reach out and say, okay, who's that you posted? What's hot? What's going on in the market? What are people looking at, where do you think it's going?
I actually even get calls from corporate companies that manage IPOs for major fashion companies that are publicly traded, to ask me, what do you think about this brand bag or are they overstaffed or base, where do you think it's going next? And so I do a lot of that on the back end where my influence is really strong now. My goal is to share it with the world.
Lauren: What I like about what you just said is that you aren't approaching fashion just as a stylist, you're actually thinking about the business of fashion and educating people on it, which is fascinating.
Tamiko: That's actually really important to me. I studied fashion at the University of Maryland, so I studied fashion merchandising for a time. I'm also a really big believer in education because I think like once you understand and you know something, that knowledge is what makes everything else floats on. So even if you have to pivot or recreate yourself, if you've got a core competency or a basic understanding of what it is, you can maneuver whatever life or the industry for that matter brings your way. That's number one.
But number two, quite frankly, most the average person does not understand the fashion business and the difference between a merchandiser and a marketer and a sales director and a designer and they really don't understand how that there are a myriad of jobs in this industry, that everything's not designed, driven, everything's not sales driven. We all do work in tandem. I've had conversations with bloggers that have had that have millions of followers and they want to be in the fashion business and do a friend of a friend who called me and like, I want to be a buyer because I love putting outfits together. I love, well they're still laughing cause he knows that's not a buyer, you know. And so 40 minutes in I'm like, you know, sunshine, that's not a buyer, that's a merchandiser. And actually what you really described as a market editor, and I used that as an example, but so many times I do speaking engagements and I get so many people ask me how you got into the fashion business? What does it really take?
Do I actually have to live in New York? Do I have to have a design degree? But more importantly, how much money do I need? And there's just so much lack of education I could go on and on. So part of my passion is to really empower young designers, the stylists and image makers and merchants, whatever it is you want to do and understand the business. A large part of who I am and what I want to do is really empower people education so that they can make the best decisions and be successful.
Phil: I want to shift the conversation into brainstorming on what the heck we're going to do with you this year.
Tamiko: Yes.
Phil: You know, let's talk about that. Okay. I have a fun question for you. How do you make money?
Tamiko: Actually, this has been the challenge. My biggest challenge has been how to monetize on my skill set, my ideas and my information. I'm learning how to make products that scale my information. So I'm in the process of writing an ebook and I have a couple of other digital products that I'm creating so that now I can basically put everything I've said in writing and I, instead of working with two or three clients, I can now market that.
So I can, if there's a young kid in Shanghai that wants to learn about the business, they can go to my website and under the education portion there'll be e-courses and then there'll be some, some will be free, but a range of prices so that no one is left out. It'll focus on the fashion business, the importance of merchandising and some other really like basic sales strategies, templates for setting up your wholesale business. And that's my plan in that sense, to monetize my knowledge.
On the other side of it, I'm talent, you know, I'm still auditioning. I just had an audition for a really big shopping channel with three letters that I won't say. But to do some hosting and I'm really not sure how to monetize that.
Phil: I did not know how hard that was, especially in industries that are competitive and crowded and you, my friend are in one of them, right? Just like you described. Yeah. People think fashion, that's sexy, that's shopping all day. I want to plan out, but in fact you've hung in long enough, you've done the work, the research and you've gained the experience to know what the industry actually involves. And obviously there's something about it that you like because you continue doing it and your business continues to grow. Has your business financially grown? Has it continued to grow each year or are you at a plateau? What does that look like? Because we know, we already know that 2018 is going to be your year.
Tamiko: In full transparency. My business has actually regressed financially in the sense that once I pivoted, I knew that. But can we just, can I just be real.
Phil: You can be super, yeah, go there.
Tamiko: Okay. And now I'm just going to go there. I'm just gonna rip the bandaid off. And here it is. When I was ready to reposition myself, it took me at least a year of vacillating mentally. And even emotionally I knew that I was going to have a financial shift, but I also knew that the clients that I had it was going to shift the relationship. And so also, and this was what happens with just I guess, experience and age and wisdom, you start to learn that, you know, things pivot when you pivot the things around you move as well. It's like taking that the tablecloth off, without removing all the dishes. So if you pull the tablecloth and everything moved like I'm not sure I'm magician.
And that said, I knew that my business relationships would change because I will be in a different position because now my brand is the priority. And I have always been a very dedicated and hard worker and committed almost to a fault. And so when I decided to shift, I knew that just by the nature of the amount of bandwidth that one has, it would, it would affect the relationship. So I was mentally prepared for my finances, you know, to shift. I want to say I was financially prepared too, but I wasn’t, cause you never are. I just don't think you aren't thinking until you deal with it. Then you're like, oh yeah, this is what that feels like.
Phil: Yeah.
Tamiko: Yeah. So that said, it's been a challenge for the last eight months, but I knew that that would be par for the course. Right.
Phil: I was going to say, let's take this by the reigns and do something about it. Right now it's a brand new year. You've got tenacity, you've got perseverance. These are two qualities that I think are almost essential for people who start brands that need to continue them. A lot of people get excited to launch something and then six months a year down the road when they face challenges, it's like all of a sudden like, oh no, I can't do this. You can. And you're proof of that. And thanks for sharing that because that's pretty vulnerable. You want to be able to say, well, yeah, of course my business has doubled every year, but guess what? It doesn't, sometimes.
So I want to share some stuff. Lauren and I encounter this pretty often. There's two immediate challenges here. You're in an industry where unfortunately a lot of people get away with doing work for free. That makes your life more difficult, right? There are up and coming stylists and buyers and all different kinds of careers within fashion where people are willing to do the work for little to no money and unfortunately it becomes even more difficult when you need to negotiate that deal or send that invoice, right? Hey, by the way, this isn't free. Unlike a lot of other people that worked for free. Of course you've encountered that. I think a lot of people can relate to that, but where I want to kind of go with this is to give you an idea simply on organizing your services and empowering you. You've used that word a little bit, but empowering you to take this and run with it.
Tamiko: Okay.
Phil: This is an organizational challenge and it's one of those moments where we get all these ideas, they pop into our minds, well, we could, you know, I've heard of this person taking their business in this direction. They have online courses and this person does promoted content on Instagram and this other person has this, right? There's 5,000 things that we could do, but guess what? We can't do 5,000 things well, we can do a handful of things well and to Tamiko, I have the creative branding expert, Lauren sitting right beside me and we're going to freaking come up with this right now. Does that sound good? Sounds amazing. Okay.
Tamiko: Okay.
Lauren: Okay. We got to stop for a second. Take a breather. Phil, why do you think people hire us for a brand audit?
Phil: I think that we are that mirror. When people look in the mirror, when they're getting dressed in the morning and the mirror says, this is what you look like, this is who you are and this is why you're awesome. You might, this is why you're not.
Lauren: Yeah, you might not like it, but this is the truth. This is the truth. Exactly. We are that mirror and this is what we do for a living, so if you're enjoying this, this is only a fraction of the detail that we get into with people when we're doing a brand audit, which is private,
Lauren: It's totally private, not recorded, which is a bonus to many people and it's a service we offer all clients. It's really, it's how we start all working relationships. We take a deep dive into what's working and what isn't in your brand and if you have a really great idea and are looking for a bit more direction or a plan to follow, to feel and experience success, then the brand audit might be you
Phil: https://philpallen.co/ . There's a link there where you'll get a special discount, 15% off your brand audit if you want it
Lauren: And you got to spend time with us, which I think might be, I don't know, is a fun. Yeah, it's fun and productive.
Phil: Lucky you. Let's get back to the show. Okay, we're going to freaking come up with this right now. Does that sound good?
Tamiko: Sounds amazing.
Phil: Okay. Here's how I want you to think of your business. You're a personal brand. You're a boss, you, your business is set up in an upside down triangle. So take a normal triangle and flip it upside down where the wide angle is at the top and you work your way down to the point at the very bottom, the top of this triangle is the widest accessible point. That is where you can obtain the most number of people, the widest accessible point, and that's through something that you offer for free. So as we work our way down this triangle, there are, let's say, I dunno Lauren, how many would you say? Like four or five levels?
Lauren: Yeah, I'd say anywhere from four to six.
Phil: Yeah, four. Let's work with four to six. So there are four to six levels as part of this triangle. Okay? And so the top one, the widest accessible point is where you'll house the most number of people. So offering something for free is a great way to get people in. It could be an opt in on your website to your email list. It could be, you know, being active on social media, four tweets a day is sometimes all it takes. As we work our way down this triangle, you start to monetize each level. And so the next level is not something expensive. It's something that's inexpensive, but it still requires someone to take out their credit card. This could be an ebook that you sell on Amazon for $2 to $5. It doesn't actually cost you to print. So once it's made you sell it and you earn, you know, a great profit on that and that's where we're going to figure out for you. We're going to leave you with at least four or five distinct levels that you can go and implement this year.
Tamiko: Amazing.
Lauren: So I'm thinking Tamiko you're clearly a very, very passionate person and like Phil mentioned, I think that passion is going to help you get and push through these tough times. But there's kind of a double edged sword with passion and I think especially when you're a personal brand and you're trying to satisfy multiple groups of people at once, it's easy to not be as strong with your message. So I think before we get into the triangle, I'd be really interested in knowing what your offering is like what your competitive edges to the average person even further. Would you say that your bread and butter is giving people a lot of expertise on how to get into the industry?
Tamiko: That is actually a really, really good question and that is where I am now really trying to get clear on. My concern about coming in as a or really pushing this out, promoting the style expert portion of it is, I just feel like so many people do it.
Lauren: It's done.
Tamiko: You know? And yeah, I just feel like so many people do it. Everyone has a blog or the style expert to some degree to their audience. So I just didn't want to reinvent the wheel so to speak or go into a really noisy place with like you know, the triangle to try to make noise where there's a lot of noise already being made. So I've been working on trying to figure out what exactly is my essence like again, what do I offer?
Lauren: Honestly you are such an approachable person and you kind of defy the standard like standoffish fashion person, no offence to your friends in fashion, but I really think I see you as that cool friend, that cool expert who's in the know and can get someone who's interested in fashion into the mix as a career. I see you as the middleman between that really intimidating fashion world and someone who's trying to figure out how to infiltrate.
Tamiko: Okay.
Lauren: So to paint that a little bit clearer for you. Obviously the way that you present yourself when you're going into fashion and the brands you choose to represent and all that knowledge you have, that's part of getting into the industry and that's something that you can teach people is how to find those brands. Then how to set yourself apart and how to figure out what your expertise is. I see specific courses on how to present yourself as a potential merchandiser and how to get those jobs to teaching people where to draw the line between interning and actually charging people for work. Phil, what do you think?
Phil: I think it's useful. I think people are attracted like a little, um, what are those bugs called that fly to the light?
Lauren The firefly?
Phil Yeah, I think of people that want to work in fashion, like fireflies that head towards the lantern and get there and get stung. But you sweetheart, have hung in. And in fact anyone that I know that works as a stylist who works in fashion that works in merchandising and has done so for at least five years impresses me because it's a really tough world. It not only requires skill, talent, tenacity, perseverance, these words that have come up a few times, but it also requires positivity. You have to be someone that is happy and wakes up with a smile and knows that the day is going to be tough, but you're going to come out on top.
I love the angle and I think it's not as sexy as what other people do and that's why it's less crowded. But this idea of this space for you in this world of fashion meets education and we're seeing now, all of the different forms of short form content rather than people going and studying fashion for four years. They'll go on Udemy and take a course or they'll go on masterclass and take a course with a celebrity or someone who's qualified to teach it. That's I would say where I'm most excited to see you go in this world where fashion meets education and to explore the opportunities to monetize this. See how I'm bringing this back to the upside down triangle. You know, I'm obsessed with it, Huh?
Tamiko: Yeah, and I like it and I as a beauty of that is that I actually have been working, I just finished three opt in. I just finished what I call as a tripwire. So an inexpensive ebook on merchandising and then also, how to get into the fashion business.
Lauren: That's perfect. That's perfect.
Tamiko: Yeah. It's loads of information. I even list all the jobs that you can get in the fashion business and then as another trip wire or lower price purchase, you can get basically a list of all the jobs and their primary responsibilities and their knowledge set. So I think I'm moving in that direction.
Lauren: You can, be, the resource that you wished you had when you were starting out.
Tamiko: Exactly.
Lauren: Phil, let's get back to that upside down triangle that you love so much.
Phil: Let's do it. What can people get from you Tamiko that's free?
Tamiko: So they can get my freebie is before you enter the fashion bid, seven questions you should ask yourself. It's like a self assessment quiz. The next one is five ways to know if you have a brand or if you just have a product for designers. So that's targeted more, more designers. And then the last one is basically what is the fashion biz, and I talk about what's the difference between the business and the industry.
Phil: How are you deciding who sees these?
Tamiko: My marketing strategy is I have been spending a lot of time in facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, looking to a hashtag on instagram. I've been looking at reddit conversations to find out where these people are. I also through facebook groups have researched different young, regional market weeks, New York and La people can get the information. I'm really starting my strategy in smaller regional markets and these places that they have a real interest in fashion because they're spending money twice a year to post the fashion week. So now my goal is to reach out to administrators on facebook as how I could either digitally connect or come and attend either as a judge or do a speaking engagement or a hosting workshop, a paid workshop.
Phil: Love it. Let's move to the next level. What are people going to pay a few dollars for?
Tamiko So I think people will pay up to $17 for the techniques.
Lauren That was, he makes a lot of sense to me.
Phil: Would your $17 offering be physical Tamiko would it be digital? What are you thinking?
Tamiko: Digital downloadable ebook or workbook that once you, once you filled in the answers, you could have the foundation for your strategy, right? Then the implementation tools would be again, a next level of service of pricing.
Lauren: I like that because I know that in fashion, whenever you interview for a job, you have to bring some sort of portfolio for whatever the role is, right? So I like the idea of you having a workbook that actually kind of holds people accountable who want to get into the industry and kind of breaks down the steps of getting what's required to actually nail those jobs.
Phil: So we've got three levels to review. We've got something for free that you offer on your website. We've got an ebook that's available for a few dollars. We've got a more detailed digital download, maybe in the form of a workbook that could be up to $17 let's say for people to download. Let's say we walk with five levels. We know the fifth level is one on one consulting with brands. I want to brainstorm one, maybe two more levels for you. Let me throw out a few ideas to prompt this: workshops in person or like a weekend mastermind that you do with a group, some form of coaching but maybe in a group format so that it's a lower price point for people lower than one-on-one but still that you build that support mechanism. That's one idea.
Another idea I have is the online version of that which you seem to like, which could be a course on Udemy or you know there's a variety of platforms online. I have explored this fairly recently launching a brand in course on Udemy, but it is completely digital video with you know, workbook formats and all different kinds of things where you can get more in depth on a topic and have actually a course that's a few hours of video and as many modules as you want. Obviously the more detail and work that goes into it, typically the more you can charge for it. Those are just a few ideas. Lauren, anything that you think,
Lauren: I love the group coaching idea. I really do because you could target, especially in New York, you could target so many recent grads from all the fashion programs out there and try to get in touch with almost their career placement services in each of the schools and offer a one day boot camp that takes what was learned in school versus what you'll learn in the real world and it's kind of like a fast track to getting a job in the industry.
Tamiko: I love that and specifically because I have very close friends and colleagues that have gone from everywhere from Pratt to Parsons to FIT that came out with design degrees and they were like, I never, and they started fashion companies and they're like, I dunno how I got here. I never took a business class and I can't believe I went through and paid all that tuition to learn how to drape and design and no one gave me business 101.
Phil: I think if you brand it, you give yourself enough time to promote it, you can manifest this with a lot of success using the connections you have, using, you know, social media platforms, where you built an audience. Even challenging yourself to think back to who do I know or who do I know that knows people and ask those people for three people that they think could benefit from this. So how are you feeling about all of this?
Tamiko: I know we have a few minutes left, but I want you to know how super grateful I feel. So thank you for the gift because this is really, one, confirmation and then I'm also really grateful to be able to have this opportunity to have both of your expertise.
Phil: Well when you give that comes full circle and that's what brings us here today. You know? And also what makes this really powerful is it you've been really honest and candid and that's required for us to get a full sense of the scenario. When I said, did you double your business? Have you made money every year? You could have lied and said yes to sound good in front of other people, but you are honest and that honesty allows us to be constructive and productive. I am feeling jazzed. Tamiko Lauren, are you feeling jazz?
Lauren: Sure am!
Phil: Tamiko are you feeling jazzed?
Tamiko: I'm so jazzed.
Phil: You gave me the idea that we need to add a segment to the show where people call in with an update. So we're going to be hearing from you very soon with a little update on how all of this develops. Sound like a plan?
Tamiko: Okay.
Phil: Oh, she's such a sweetheart.
Lauren: The best.
Phil: We're really a productive conversation though and I'm so, so grateful for Tamiko to be that honest and to hang out with us and be that vulnerable to kick off this exciting new project.
Lauren: Yeah, it's great that she's so open when you commit to any type of creative profession that comes with such risk. And I like how to Tamiko was honest saying, I'm not making money right now and I'm willing to shift what I'm doing day to day to actually start making money.
Phil: I love it. And I think I back what I say when I describe this as being an organizational challenge, right? And I'm just as guilty of this where you've got so many ideas and it kind of stops you in your tracks. That stops you from taking a baby step. A baby step is better than no step at all and that is the goal. Make sense of this. Prioritize, organize your business, your services, be able to communicate that in an efficient way and you're off to the races. We want to know what you think. If you've taken the time to listen to this podcast, please now take a few extra seconds and do me a favor. Send us a tweet. I'm @philpallen
Lauren: I'm @thelaurenmoore.
Phil: Use #brandtherapy so that we can follow the conversation. And also this is super important. I know it's another favor to ask, but it would mean a lot to us and you get some brownie points if you take the time to go to iTunes, look us up brand therapy and leave us a five star review.
Lauren: And if you're feeling extra generous, you can subscribe.
Phil: We will have future episodes. We plan on doing this every week. That's the goal. Bringing you different conversations, topics, tangible takeaways from people with all different careers and backgrounds and challenges.
Lauren: Now, you might think that we're all like gimme, gimme, gimme do things for us, do things for us, but we actually have something for you. If you go to philpallen.expert/therapy you will have a really detailed downloadable exercise based on what we discussed with Tamiko today, and you can get a 15% discount on our brand audit service.
Phil: Absolutely. Thank you so much for hanging out with us on this first episode. We'll see you back next week, and thanks for listening to brand therapy. See you next time.
