What’s your story? That’s a question every brand owner should be able to answer succinctly and without hesitation. After all, your story is why you’ve gone down the entrepreneurship road in the first place. Ensuring you have a compelling story that connects with your customers is going to help drive your sales. What if you don’t have a story that sounds interesting enough? Don’t worry, it’s there. And it doesn’t have to be that interesting. It just has to have meaning. And you have to identify it.
For some brands, telling their story is easy, especially if they are providing a product or a service that is for a good cause, has a giveback component, or some other aspect that might tug at the heartstrings.
But what if you simply built a clothing brand that encompasses the clothes you most wanted to wear? How do you make someone care about that?
Start with you. Who are you? What makes you tick? What do you want to wear and why?
Are you a busy mom who not only works but also volunteers whenever you can fit it in, and it’s important for you to create clothing that could handle a multitude of situations while still making you feel confident and put together? There are lot of other busy moms who would connect with that.
Are you a college student who takes pride in your hometown and you wanted to build a brand that celebrated your city but with a distinctly youthful vibe? Your fellow students, as well as the young at heart, and city fans everywhere, may very well be waiting for a line like yours to come along.
Are you a middle-age woman, who is just as into getting dressed as you were in your twenties, but now want to design pieces that are a little more age appropriate while still being fashion forward? There’s a whole market of women who want to look like that, too.
Your story doesn’t have to be dazzling. It also doesn’t have to be multiple paragraphs in length. It only has to resonate with your market.
What’s important is that you identify your why, write it down, and then polish your words until you have a clear statement that explains your reason for creating. Read it to a variety of family, friends and/or co-workers who you can trust to be honest with their feedback. And then put your story on your website and in your social media profiles. And finally, memorize it so you can say it comfortably over and over again any time you are talking about your brand.