How To Find And Pitch Investors For Your Fashion Brand

Starting a business can take a lot of money. Coming up with the capital isn’t easy. There are options like business grants, using your retirement or savings, or getting investors.

Capital isn’t easy to come up with when you are starting your own fashion brand. But getting investors will allow you to get capital without breaking your own account. Let me tell you how!

To find and pitch investors for your fashion brand you need a comprehensive business plan, set S.M.A.R.T. goals, be ready to answer questions regarding financials, narrow down who you want to pitch to in the industry, create your pitch and present your fashion brand.

Using your savings or retirement can break you before you get started, hiring a grant writer can be expensive, but getting investors doesn’t require any funds coming out of your pockets. It can be the best way to get the capital you need. So keep reading!

Knowing that getting investors is a great way to get the capital you need, but knowing how to get investors to back your fashion business is not just going up to someone and asking for money. There are things that you need to do.

Table of Contents

Prepare a Business Plan

If you have read any of the other articles, then you will see a pattern. A business plan is one of the most important items that you will need to create when starting a clothing line or any business venture. You will have to have a business plan if you are looking to get an individual or a corporation to invest in your line.

The business plan will contain market research. This research will be used to determine potential profitability, the market and the types of partners and investments you will need to get your clothing line up and running.

One of the most important reasons to have a business plan is to ensure that you know how to speak intelligently about your line.

One thing to remember about investors is that no matter how much the may like your product, for them it is about the bottom line. Their bottom line. How much money are they going to make on their investment.

Here is a brief recap from the previous article on what licenses you need to start your clothing line.

Business plans is where you outline your business objectives and goals for the next several years. You usually start with the first five years plan.

There are seven parts to a business plan.

Executive Summary
Company Description
Products and Services
Market Analysis
Strategy and Implementation
Organization and Management Team
Financial Plan and Projections

Your clothing brand business plan helps you:

Specify your business idea.

How big or how small is your business? How will your brand stand apart from other clothing brands?

Identify the need that your clothing line will fill.

Customers look for fashion based on specific purposes. How will your clothing brand fill that need better than any other?

Set SMART goals:

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. In order to run a successful business, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of you clothing line business. This will help you know where you need to make any adjustments or improvements. Clothing brands might measure things like sell-through rates, markdowns, store capacity, product lifecycles, or stock availability.

Financials:

When you think about your business finances you have to ask yourself a couple of questions and then do your research to find out an average of what the answers to the questions are. These will give you a baseline on how much money you will need. I discussed some of these in the article How Much Money Do You Need to Start a Clothing Line?

How To Effectively Grow Your Fashion Brand

Here are a few of those questions:

How much start up money do you need?
When do you think it will break even financially?
What will it take to scale the business?

Relationships and contacts are key:

In any business relationships are important. You should build a contact list and build relationships with other brands, retail stores, vendors, etc. You never know when you will need them or even when you might want to do some joint ventures.

Anticipate roadblocks and problems:

Roadblocks and problems happen whether you want them to or not. Every business will endure some setbacks. The thing is to be prepared for anything. Even the unexpected you can plan for. Just remember that you will make mistakes and that is okay. It is all a part of owning your own business.

Measure progress:

You will need to measure, how often you will look at the businesses progress and how to measure the state of your business and how you will make the necessary adjustments.

Who to Pitch Your Business To

Retail Stores

Once you have gotten your business plan created, it is time to start networking with other people inside the industry. This doesn’t mean other owners of a clothing line only. An example is to go to local retail stores and ask to speak to the owner or manager. You want to find out who the buying manager is. That’s the person you really want to talk to.

Don’t talk with associates. Talk to partners, managers and buying managers. For big retail chains, it may take you going through several people to get to the person that you need to talk to. Don’t get discouraged. Stay focused and keep your eyes on the end results. Only pitch to people who know the industry or those that have invested in the fashion industry before. If they don’t understand the business, then they will not understand your plan.

I know you have heard the statement, “All money isn’t good money”. That works in getting investors to. You don’t want to just take money from everyone that is offering it. Make sure that they share in your vision for your clothing line. If not, they could give off negativity that will affect you, your vision and your clothing line business.

How To Get Clients For Your Fashion Line Business Fast!

How to Pitch Your Business

When you go to pitch you clothing line, you need to have a well set up and defined portfolio. This should include your business plan, and sketches and photos of your clothing line. Yes, investors are concerned about your plan and market projections, but they also want to see what it is they are investing in. Is this product or clothing line something that they can back.

Now don’t over pitch your clothing line either. Be professional. Don’t start showing them your website or plans for internet advertising. Be low-key and let your confidence in your brand go beyond their expectations.

Make sure when you are pitching your clothing line that you are speaking the language of the industry. Every industry has a language. Research to learn the clothing line language. You want to make sure that there are no communication breakdowns in you presentation. Remember to be passionate about your line. Make them feel what you feel about your clothing line.

When you start to get those email replies, phone calls, or the investors ask you for another meeting, don’t rush to respond or to meet them. Don’t be available. Play hard to get. It actually does work in your favor.

Have someone else pitch your business plan for you. Someone with a MBA could do wonders for your pitch. Let them emphasize the strengths of the business plan for your clothing line and make sure they pitch is only 10-14 slides.

Rejection Happens and It’s Okay

Don’t take rejection personally. It happens to everyone. Some investors will not see your vision or back your plan. Not every investor is for you and that is okay. Don’t focus on the rejections, just stay focused and now that there are investors out there that will see you vision and want to be a part of it.

Being Humble is the Name of the Game

When you work hard and have a good work ethic, then you will see a return on all of your hard work, but all the hard work in the world means nothing if you are not humble. Be humble with questions being asked about your clothing line and your business plan. Be humble in your responses and positive criticism. Humility really does go a long way.

Customer References

Investors want to know what the people, your customers think about your clothing line. This means that they want to speak with them. It is your customers who have first-hand knowledge of the feel, fabric, durability, fading, etc, or your clothing line. It is this conversation that gives the investors a very unique perspective. That perspective cannot be seen or read from a business plan.

Investors want to know and understand that customers are valuing your business before they take a chance on you with their money. They want to know will your clothing line bring a customer base and if they base will return.

How To Get Investors For Your Clothing Line