Bunny Yan has been working in the fashion and marketing industry for over 20 years. She is a fashion marketing strategist specializing in storytelling and sustainability. After experiencing first-hand the large-scale waste problem these industries produce, she started her company Leftside of Fashion with a focus on ‘Upcycle’ & ‘Storytelling’.
Her accomplishments have been featured in Forbes and WWD to name a few. She is also a successful keynote speaker for fashion and sustainability events all around the world including the MAGIC trade show and the Global Retail Forum.
Bunny’s creative, out-of-the-box marketing campaigns have allowed her to work with brands such as TOMS shoes, Ann Taylor, and Sephora.
5 Steps to continue to sell and promote your products in an era where resources are different, changing or non existent.
1. Refocus your goal
- Chat with friends about frustrations. This will allow you to not blindly follow a goal and collect new information.
- Dale Noelle of True Model Management, has been collaborating more and is able to contact people who might not have been reachable before. She is busy working on new projects. However, the pandemic has brought out more innovation in people and given everyone time they didn’t have before. She is using this time to clean up her contacts and look through her contracts. Doing this will help her sell her service better in the future.
- Fashion Business Attorney, Shirin Movahed is helping her clients reevaluate the foundation of their businesses. Like most people, all of them had to pivot due to COVID-19. She is trying to create new opportunities like being on a panel, to reach out to the community, give information and sell her services. The use of these channels has allowed her to increase her efficiency because she is able to reach more people with fewer networking platforms.
2. Get out of your comfort zone
- Bunny doesn’t like to do the promoting for her business but she does enjoy strategizing. She isn’t good at building up her brand’s community, but she was honest with herself and is aware that promoting is a necessary skill in running a business. To fix this, she looked into seeing who could help her with this side of the business.
- Catherine Schuller is facing problems with switching over to the virtual world. She went through powerpoints and tutorials to teach herself how to use the features of online platforms like Zoom. The pandemic is forcing her outside of her comfort zone. “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”
- Melissa Shea, Fashion Mingle CEO says: “Don’t be afraid to try something new with your business because you don’t know how.” Melissa recommends you watch a webinar or sign up for Hubspot to learn new things. You can also check out our resources on Fashion Mingle for more guidance or chat with us using our online chat system. We can connect you with experts in all different fields of the fashion industry.
3. Do less, but do better
- Figure out your weak spot and find something or someone that can work in place of it.
- Hire people using Upwork to complete specific tasks for you.
- Use interns; Many students near first hand experience and are willing to work for it. You can get people to help you with your work while also mentoring new people in the industry. It’s a win-win! (Check out Fashion Mingle’s internship program now!)
- Dee Rivera, of DCG Media Group, goes by the motto: “Work smarter, not harder,” which she recommends that everyone should be doing.
Use programs to increase your efficiency; Being more efficient will help you sell and promote more of your product/service. Here are the best programs Bunny recommends you use:
- Twinsy.io is a virtual assistant that is low cost and high efficiency.
- X.ai is an artificial intelligence that can help schedule meetings. It is a big time saver!
- Preview app allows you to organize your Instagram posts in advance.
- Hootsuite allows you to schedule your social media posts in advance.
- TypoRama app creates type based social posts.
- Photofox app is a photo editing tool that has a great user experience for mobile phones.
- Videoleap app is a video editing tool that is easy to learn.
- Canva.com is a website that allows you to build graphics, create a pitch deck, flyer or business card in an instant. It is an easier version of Photoshop.
4. Collaboration
- Adaptation is great but you don’t have to force your comfort zone before you’re ready.
- Wise collaboration is being honest with yourself about things you don’t want and/or like to do and finding someone who is good at those things.
- Now is a good time to get back into the way of bartering. It is also a learning opportunity for you to learn more of a skill that you don’t like or don’t want to do. This could allow you to sell and promote yourself in the future.
5. Be positive
- Figure out what is causing your negativity.
- Think about one positive thing that you accomplished today.
- Give gratitude.
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