Scaling your clothing brand - TITAFIT Manufacturing
So…you have started a clothing brand. You may be a few months in, or even a few years in. Now, how do you scale? You first need to take a step back and look at your company on a macro scale.
Where are you now and where do you want to be?
Once you answer that question, you can then choose your path to scale. There are a lot of factors that go into scaling a brand. I have seen TOO many people scale when they were not ready. Think of scaling a brand – as actually taking a scale on the table or ground and adding more. Think of a bowl of rice with just a cup filled. Now add 2-3 more cups. That scale is going to get heavier and the weight will go up. You need to first make sure that you have a large / heavy enough scale to hold the 4 cups of rice. The same goes for business. You need to make sure you can handle the extra workload before going all in.
My biggest advice is to scale slowly. Test the waters and see what you can truly handle. This is a long-term game. You do not need to get rich in 2 months. If it happens quicker, then great! Don’t rush the process or you will fail. You need to build systems, people, and processes to hold the workload.
Okay…enough of the nonsense scale. Lets actually talk about how to scale. Lets put this in real terms. Say you are doing 2-3K a month with your clothing brand and you can’t seem to get passed that. Maybe you are always running low on inventory, or you can’t seem to get any new customers. I always tell all of our clients to think 6-8 months in advance. Having product is a #1. You need to have enough product to sell, but you don’t want to order too much that you have 1,000 pcs sitting on a shelf. You are the only one who can determine inventory and how much you sell / predict to sell in a month. Your goal should be to have a launch every 30-45 days. Anything longer than that, will make your brand stagnant. Thing of something new. I am not saying re-invent the wheel because our biggest sellers were shorts and tees. Just think of unique ways that are cost effective – yet different.
Customers get bored very quick. You should be posting every day on all social platforms…period. Have you ever taken a vacation and came back to the gym after 2 weeks? Pretty tough, right? That is because your body is not used to the gym and it got relaxed. The same things happen with customers online. You need to spice it up! Keep thing creative, new, relevant. Follow trends – social platforms, etc. We live in a fully digital world. Start using trends to your advantage. Here is a great example: One of our largest clients noticed the TikTok platform was growing at a rapid pace and it wasn’t crazy hard to go viral. With solid content, you can attract a new following base. That is exactly what they did, and now they have tapped into a whole new pool of people – not to mentioned they grew their revenue, following, and overall brand image. Now they are working on their next 2 launches before the first launch has even went live. Because, they know as videos keep exploding, so will their website and inventory.
TIP: Thing about your next launch – before you receive the items you just ordered. This will help your projections and able to scale in a quicker time period. The worst thing a brand can do, is become stagnant then expect to sell out on launch day 180 days later. Market, order, think next, sell - order, market sell – repeat.
Lets say you are at the 6-7K range/mo and you really want to get to 10K+ in sales…YOU NEED TO ADD PEOPLE. I can’t stress this enough. You need to build a team. I don’t care what anyone says. Building a team large and in scale is what you need. Think about it…would you rather sell to a 10 person ambassador or affiliate team and hope they sell to others? Or would you rather sell to 1,000 people and know they will order each launch?
When we started TITANIUM Fitness, my goal was to grow people vs. the brand. I wanted as many people to join our movement as possible. Not for profit, but to just have an amazing team full of motivated people. In return – those loyal people grew our brand 100% and we scaled organically. I never ran a SINGLE AD…this is probably crazy for some of you to hear. We scaled to 100K+ after 10 months due to our team. Nothing else. Our team helped us scale naturally and organically without spending a dime on advertising.
KEY: Build an ambassador team. Offer them a discount to order. Give them a 15-25% off coupon for themselves + a 10-15% coupon to pass out to create sales and traffic. (THESE ARE YOUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS) they will order every time you launch…IF and ONLY IF you provide value. You can’t offer them a spot on the team, then throw a code and never talk to them? Why in the world would they buy anything? I sure wouldn’t. Make your team feel loved, build a program, provide value. This is the fun part!
Think about this for a moment. 100 ambassadors – you launch. Let’s say even 20% of these people order – 20 order – avg sale = $40 = $800 EASY. This is a numbers game. Now lets say 500 ambassadors – you launch. Lets say even 20% of these people order – 100 orders – avg sale $40 = $4,000. WOW. That was a pretty quick scale, right? $800 to 4K just by adding people. This does not even count for any of the sales that these ambassadors make. They make have shown their friend, mom, dad, cousin, teacher, etc. the brand and made 2-4 sales. Boom there is another $160. Imagine if everyone sold 1 item? That is another 500 sales…the power of building a team is INCREDIBLE and no one talks about it.
Sure, you can run ads. But why run ads when they are increasing in costs and everyone has a clothing brand to choose from. Why are they choosing you? Lets say you have a KILLER marketing team and they make LEGIT videos and ads – you may be successful with ads. Go for it. Try it out. But, don’t forget about the free avenues that we can take advantage of as well. I think a brand should try it all, until they find their niche and what works for them.
Takeaways to scaling:
- You can run ads if you want. You do not need to. Ad costs are rising like crazy. If you know a Google expert and they can help you flip a nasty ROI then do it! GO FOR THAT!
- Build a TEAM. You will grow like crazy over time if you can build a loyal team and provide value.
- DO NOT scale too quick. Make sure you have everything in place before you scale.
- Think bigger. Think longer term. Look 6-8 months in advance before you do anything else.
- GRIND. This is not going to happen overnight. Just put in the time every single day and treat this like your baby, and you will become a top brand.
I hope you were able to grab 1 nugget out of this. Thanks for reading! As always, I am here to help with any questions. I want to see a million brands succeed. EVERYONE NEEDS CLOTHING!
P.S. If you are interested in custom cut & sew clothing, please reach out to us! You can reach us via email below or at our Instagram handles. Thanks so much!
-Mike Smith // CEO – TITAFIT Mfg.
titafitco@gmail.com