Almost everything we do as individuals require certain levels of skills. From everyday activities like taking a bath to more complex activities like driving, skills are needed. As a fashion entrepreneur, you also need some hard and soft skills to run your business successfully.
While hard skills like tailoring skills help establish your business, soft skills determine how far you will go. Here are the top 8 soft skills every fashion entrepreneur must possess;
Soft Skills Every Fashion Entrepreneur Must Possess
1. Communication
Running a fashion business requires plenty of communication. From communication with your customers to communication with employees, vendors, and other fashion entrepreneurs, you cannot help but communicate.
As a fashion entrepreneur, effective communication skills are a must-have. Without them, you cannot communicate your values or brand story to anyone. You also cannot win over investors, customers or loyal partners and employees to your brand without communication skills.
Communication is not limited to speaking verbally alone. It also includes writing, both online and offline, and presenting, all of these done in a way people can understand and relate to. To make you comfortable expressing yourself, communicate with as many people as possible, in different forms, daily.
Remember, to be able to communicate effectively you must also learn to listen actively. How else would you be able to see problems or improve on flaws?
2. Integrity
Integrity is a work ethic that should not be ignored. Any fashion brand that must be trustworthy has to have integrity. Integrity is that quality that makes you deliver what you said you will deliver when you said you will deliver it.
Since many fashion entrepreneurs are known for always failing on their promises, this is a skill that will stand you out from the competition. And without discipline, you cannot gain integrity.
Read More: People Work: Temitope Ogunyemi Talks About The Work Ethics That Have Helped Him Grow His Business
3. Stress Management
The life of an entrepreneur is filled with stressful situations. So many things need your supervision and you can easily burnout overseeing it all. This is why you need to learn to manage your stress levels.
Since stress can lead to you ultimately giving up on the dream, you must learn to stop it before it takes over. Not only will you need to manage your stress levels, but you will also need to manage others stress levels. This includes employees and customers.
When you have learnt to manage your stress levels it’ll be easier to help others too. This will help you curb frustration and conflicts more easily.
4. Negotiation
Everyone loves a good bargain. And because people love a good bargain, you must learn to negotiate. Negotiation is a skill that helps you reach an agreement with someone who isn’t quite seeing things from your perspective.
To effectively negotiate with people you have to understand where they the coming from. From there, you can take them by the hand and lead them to where you are coming from. Negotiation is all about learning to communicate effectively so you both can get what you want.
Learning to understand body language is a plus in this area. It helps you know how to approach people and win them over.
5. Teamwork
No entrepreneur is an island. You cannot build a successful fashion brand if you don’t know how to work well with people. This includes employees, business partners, and other brands you hope to collaborate with.
Working in a team requires a combination of other soft skills. Communication skills, leadership skills, problem-solving skills, and so on come together to make teamwork work.
6. Time Management
Lost time cannot be regained again. This is why no fashion entrepreneur can afford to overlook time management skills. You have to learn to prioritise each task and know which to do now, postpone or delegate.
In all your business activities, managing the time allotted to each is essential. Knowing how to use your time and stick to a timetable can help you make better decisions and increase productivity.
7. Leadership
Every fashion entrepreneur is a leader. Even if your team consists of just 2 people, you stand as the leader in that team. Knowing how to lead right makes the difference between building a strong brand and building a failing one.
Leadership means motivating your team members and helping them find the best version of themselves. This can only happen when you know and understand your team members.
As a leader, you also have to imbibe a positive mindset. When unfavourable situations surface, everyone is looking at you to see how to will react. Having that resilience and can-do attitude towards solving problems encourages your team to do same.
Also, being confident and believing in yourself helps inspire your team. You need to get comfortable in awkward and uncomfortable situations and portray to your team how you want them to handle issues.
8. Problem Solving
Problems will surely surface as you run your fashion business. So you need to be ready to solve any problem you might face. A customer order gone wrong? An unexpected crisis? Late delivery of supplies? Whatever it is, you have to be on top of the situation swiftly.
Problem-solving requires both creativity and great analytical skills. You have to learn to remove yourself from situations and look at them from different angles to come up with the right solution. Some other times, you have to find unconventional means to solve problems.
Based on the opinions of 10 people, most agree that stress management, time management, and integrity are the hardest skills to obtain for entrepreneurs. Teamwork and communication were voted as the easiest to master. Regardless of which you find hardest, remember that all of these soft skills are essential in running a fashion brand.
