The first module you'll learn how it's important to present your collection at the right time. In the second module, you found out about the right set of materials that buyers are expecting from you. In this module, you will learn how to find the right stores for your collection and the right people who will make a decision about your brand. This model will teach you how to be effective while reaching out to stores. Meaning how to get the biggest number of responses from the stores. I don't want you to reach out to 100 stores spend your time and get responses from only 20%.

I want you to reach out to 30 stores and get responses from 70 to 80%. Again, the secret is pretty simple. It's quality rather than quality that matters. I want you to reach out to stores that are relevant to your brand positioning, the better the quality The list of contacts you create, the more effective your calls and emails will be. Now, let's review how to create such a list. Again, it all starts with your target audience and its demographics and psychographics.

You need to understand the age group and the level of income, whether it's low middle, upper middle, high or higher level of income, at what price range do they buy brands? Is it budget, moderate contemporary bridge or designer level? What is their knowledge about fashion? Are they trendsetters or fashion experts or fashion followers? What is their style, minimalistic and disciplined, classic and particular or creative and artistic? rock'n'roll or chic glamour?

What are their social attitudes? Are they status seekers Fashion victims, or free and open minded? What is their lifestyle? What is their common purchasing behavior towards your product? Do they shop online in small indie boutiques? Or do they go to the malls?

You have to create a complete profile of your target audience, because it will help you create the profile of your ideal store. Let me show you how. First, let's read this description of the target audience. Daniella 22 is in her last semester at the University. She studies fashion merchandising and works as a part time intern in a new fashion startup have leather shoes. From the duration of babes cool, independent, free spirited, chic, sexy, feminine, romantic, sensual.

She's a fashion expert. She knows what is hot and cool but tries to apply trends to her style, a combination of bohemian glamour and rock and roll. Choosing an outfit she can go agile, but it's always authentic and free spirited. She loves accessories she can't live without them. earrings, rings, little cups. Without them she feels naked.

She prefers online shopping looking for great deals from the brands that she likes. Zara revolve Toby misguided. After reading this profile, we can imagine a concrete person with a concrete character's style and taste level. We can also imagine what merchandise shoe looks for. Let's assume that we are a brand of dresses and we can create the following profile of an ideal store. Our ideal store should sell a fashion forward trendy merchandise within the price range of 60 to $80 per item The merchandise that they carry should be for young and trendy girls between 20 to 25 years old, who want to look sexy, chic and romantic.

With the touch of a bohemian rock'n'roll ideally, this store should have a good ecommerce website, as most of the target audience likes to shop online. However, small independent boutiques in a trend a shopping area can work as well. So we clearly understand the price range, the visual aesthetics and the demographics of the store. Now we know the major criteria by which we will define whether this particular store is worth our time and effort, or we can skip it and look for something else. Defining the image of your ideal store is the first step in the process of creating the right list of retailers for your brand. Remember, you don't need all this stores.

You need your store. Now, your next question is, do I know any such stores? Do I know this stores in my area national wide? Do I know international stores like that? If you know perfect create a list. If not, here are some tips for how you can find them.

First, start with analyzing your competitors. That's the easiest way. Some of them provide a list of retailers which sell their collections. That's what you need. Sometimes, they try to hide this list and put it at the bottom of the website. For example, you need to scroll down the website of the bV their quarter brand to find their store locator.

As I said it will be at the bottom so when you click you will find a list of all the stores that you may want to approach. Look at this beautiful, isn't it? It actually saves you a lot of time because you understand that your brand is rather similar in terms of image and aesthetics. And this means that these stores should be interested in selling your merchandise as well. Here is another example on the swimwear brand called pace shorten. Their business model is completely wholesale.

So they also provide a list of retailers on their website. They did the whole thing for you. Look at this, they divided the stores into online brick and mortar and international retailers. Another beautiful thing. So now if you sell women's or kids swimwear, within the price range and in a style similar to this brand, you have a list of stores to reach out to. The next way to find stores is through Instagram by simply putting in keywords such as Independent boutique or women's wear or swimwear boutique, you can get a list of stores in any city and country.

You can also search using the hashtags and find stores with relevant merchandise. Remember, the whole point is to find the stores with the relevant style carrying similar merchandise. Overall alike how social media gives you instant access to seeing a huge amount of data right away through the profiles and Instagram you can immediately see what the store sells what type of merchandise where its eyes are, how big the engagement is, and what type of audience they have. You can visit the profile of the followers and see if it is the right audience for your brand or not, what they like what questions they ask and so on. Another way is old school Google. It also works really well.

If you need to come Like data and find similar stores. read the reviews from the local fashion bloggers. Now the stores are being opened and closed every day you should be aware of all new openings in your area. Another way and sometimes this works even better is to make real store visits. As I said stores pop up every day and sometimes they don't have a website yet or may not be active on social media yet. So go and check out the shopping art and design areas.

You never know you can discover a lot of new stores that you have never heard of before. A store visit will give you a lot of advantages. You will get an idea about this store merchandise you will see what brands they sell and at what price. You will learn how many customers they have. And if you're lucky enough you can meet an owner and ask for a meeting or talk to salesperson who will guide you to the right person. In fact, this simple way of doing research is my favorite.

When I do sales rep services. I try to spend one day of the week seeing the new stores and getting in touch with these salespeople or managers. And many, many times this visits were so successful for me. As I got a chance to introduce myself and get in touch with the owners who were the stores that day. I do really recommend going into the field. And this is a special word using in marketing.

Going into the field means visiting the stores to check out the real retail situation and define if this is the right store for you. While you are doing your research and defining the stores that will be right for your brand, you should look at the following things First, you need to check the price. And the brands that they carry him. What is their merchandise assortment? What is the layout of the store in visual displays? What merchandise do they promote?

If this is an online store? Check what brands they promote on the homepage at what prices? analyze their customers? Are they the same as you defined as your target audience? How many of them by the way to check the number of visitors online, you can use a website called similar web.com I really recommend it. Then don't forget to review your competitors and their assortment.

Check the racks with items on sale and see what merchandise doesn't sell well in the store. This is a signal for you not to offer the same items. Overall, your goal is to identify two things first, to see if this stores feed to your profile, and second, is there a gap in the assortment plan that you can use as an advantage and opportunity for your brand. So once you have a conversation with the buyer, you can present your findings and offer how your brand can actually complement the stores assortment. You can also gain additional respect in the eyes of the buyer while demonstrating your knowledge and your serious intentions. So, you identified your ideal profile of the store and you create it at least of the stores that you want to be in.

What's next. The worst thing that you can do is to start sending emails to the general email such as info@boutique.com beginning your email with dear sir or dear team or dear customer service. By the way, you can use this in mail but Only with the purpose of finding out the right contact for a buyer. Remember about your goal to send the right materials at the right time to the right person. And the person in our case is the decision maker, a buyer or the owner of this store. So how to find the right contact.

First, simply call the store. In 90% of cases, they're ready to give you the email of the buyer and her name. Second, make a store visit. If you're lucky enough, as I said, you will meet the bar there. If not, the salesperson will give you the contact information they always do. Sometimes even after making a call or visiting the store, you still have to send a formal email what to do in this case, I stress to try to find the name of the person, you can go to LinkedIn and search buyers in this store that you need.

Most people indicate their position and the company they work for. So I'm 99% sure you will be able to find the name. Way number four is to use the power of social media. Start with the popular hashtag, like fashion buyers, then check the names of the store with the combination of words owner, buyer and commercial director. Many people who work in the fashion industry put their titles on Instagram as well. small boutique owners manage their Instagram accounts themselves.

And then check the likes and identify the owner among them. It's really really easy. You probably already know that fashion industry is all about connections and knowing someone who knows someone so networking should be your bread and water, your goal is to be introduced to be introduced to someone who knows the owner or the buyer of the store that you need. Your goal is to find the right person who can refer you to the decision maker in this store. So please forget about being shy. That's not the time for this.

So at the end, you should build a list of stores with the names and emails of the buyers or owners that you know make decisions on brands to purchase. Sometimes you may get their cards but I recommend having a special file where you should put all the information don't trust cards or emails. It's better to have a file with phones and emails that you can open at any time. Plus, this file will later on be used as your master map when you start contacting them. We will talk about it module five, I made a simple template for you that you can start using today. It's attached to this module.

So once you finalize your list, prioritize the stores and put the stores with the last priority in the beginning. Why? Because you need practice and experience before you will be able to approach the stores that are really big and important for you. Once you start pitching retailers start with this small local boutiques. Why? First National retailers are very complicated you will need to be Egi compliant which is expansive and complex.

And they have so many restrictions and if it's your first season, it will be so difficult for you to fulfill all of them and plus it's expansive, and local stores they're more open to local brands. Their rules are not So streaked, so it would be easier for you to get in, you will train your muscles, bolster your confidence and get more experience with the small local boutiques. And then when you are ready and have some track record, you can approach big stores. The same thing with the independent online stores. They are more approachable and easy to contact and negotiate with. They have less bureaucracy, so they're more flexible.

That's why I really recommend to try them as well in the beginning. Okay, let's recap. If you want your sales pitches to be effective, spend time on qualitative research. Identify your customers and their style and purchasing behavior. Select the right stores for you and get the names of the people who are responsible For the buying in this store, get introduced and present yourself. You will see that it will give you a routes and provide positive results as you reach out to the stores that have common images, price positions and value aesthetics to your brand.