The Designer CEO Podcast

If you’ve been dreaming about quitting your 9 to 5 to start you own fashion brand but feeling hopelessly frustrated that your dream may never become a reality - then listen up.

I’m thrilled to be chatting with a good friend of mine, Amanda Ergen-Jennings, Designer CEO of Love Lives Here Bridal.

Amanda and I met over a decade ago when we were both grinding our way up the corporate ladder at The Bon-Ton Store Group. We were learning the ropes in product development and finding our footing but quickly bonded over our mutual dreams of entrepreneurship. But as I put my dream on the back burner until “later” and spent my evenings and weekends hanging out with my friends and generally avoiding too much responsibility (as 22 year olds do), Amanda was moving forward with making her dream come true. She started her first brand 15 years ago as side hustle and worked day and night to quit her corporate design job and make it a full time reality.

Today, Amanda Ergen-Jennings is the Designer & Owner of Love Lives Here , a bridal gown design and production studio based in Milwaukee, WI.

She has combined her life-long passion for creating garments from scratch and 15 years of corporate product development and technical design experience with her genuine love for her hometown to build a bridal brand focused on bringing a high-quality, artisan-focused approach to local manufacturing.

Join Amanda and I as we discuss her journey - from design school to quitting her corporate design role to now owner of her very own bridal gown brand. You’ll also hear tons of entrepreneurial advice, her take on balancing work life and family life, and a few words of wisdom and motivation specifically for new Designer CEOs.

We’ve all been there.

Every creative person knows that some days you are cruising through your work, ideas are coming from every direction, your vision is just popping and clicking right along, and you are feeling so excited and passionate about what you are creating. Those days make you love the work you are doing, feel confident that you can take on any project with ease, and generally on top of the world!

And then there’s those OTHER days...

Those days where you stare at your project all day long, put in tons of hours and focus, and just can’t get your creative mojo flowing. You end up doing and redoing the simplest of tasks in search of perfection, questioning every decision you’ve made, and ultimately make pretty minimal progress on it. Eventually you reach that final frustrating point. You know what I mean - that feeling of being creatively STUCK - leaving you bored, tired, and generally just apathetic about getting it finished. It’s creative burnout - that “meh” feeling that leaves you without any inspiration or motivation to keep you on task.

It’s a miserable feeling and happens to the best of us.

But that’s just not going to work Designer CEOs -- your creativity is your money maker and is what makes you and your brand well....YOU! And there’s no time for this nonsense, you need to get back to it - fostering inspiration through your business and vision, brainstorming next season’s collection, and designing the line you’ve always dreamed of. So we need to get those creative juices flowing again STAT!

In this episode I’m sharing my favorite ways to boost your creativity and covering 16 different ideas that you can do RIGHT NOW to re-energize yourself and help you when you are feeling creatively stuck so you can move past your burnout, start creating again, and get back to business.

Imagine with me for a moment...
You are surrounded by complete strangers in a room where everyone seems to know everyone else, chatting merrily and exchanging business cards. You however, are clinging to the bar taking in your surroundings and people watching, studying each of the different cliques starting to form and hedging your bets on where you may best fit in. As time ticks by (and all your networking opportunities) you find yourself hoping that some kind extraverted soul takes pity on you and comes over to chat while simultaneously wishing you were ANYWHERE else but here. You’ve finally worked up the nerve and unclench your hands from the bar as you walk over and attempt to introduce yourself to the group of strangers you’ve been watching for the past 20 minutes.

As you stand there barely eking out your name, business, and short elevator pitch, you suddenly feel all those sets of eyes staring at you and go red in the face. You fall silent as you begin to worry about your next attempt at the perfect professional, engaging, or witty comment. You listen to the group as they chat with each other for a few minutes and end up silently ghosting the discussion, heading back to the bar for a bit of recovery. The process repeats 3 or 4 more times (on a good day) as networking slowly sucks the life out of you and every single interaction leads zaps energy until you’ve had enough and head home.

If you are an introvert, you know the unspeakable horror of of networking. What seems like an innocent evening of meeting new people and simple conversation suddenly becomes a painful and torturous ordeal. There’s a different set of rules for introverts if you want to make the most of networking. I’ve gotten much better at playing the game but it’s taken me a long time to learn how to effectively network as an introvert.

Much of my own networking success was from fantastic advice and tips from my podcast producer Doug Howard. He is a master of networking, genuinely loves people, and is a true extrovert in every sense of the word...but his advice to introverts isn’t what you’d expect.

Join us as we discuss the differences between networking styles, tips specifically for introverts, and how you can use your strengths to make the most of your networking experiences. So stay tuned for my interview with “introvert whisperer” Doug Howard on this episode - Networking For Introverts: Expert Tips from An Extrovert.

Are you blogging yet for your fashion brand?

A blog strategy is one of the best ways to create brand awareness and in time will generate sales for your fashion business. Blogging increases your search engine optimization, improves conversion rates, and supports content through additional channels like your social media or email strategy.

Not to mention it also humanizes your fashion brand, is a fantastic strategy to niche down and reach your dream customer, and strengthens your relationships with new and returning customers.

In fact did you know??

• Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.
• 95.9% of bloggers promote their blog posts via social media.
• 57% of marketers say they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging.
• 60% of consumers feel engaged/positive with a brand or company after reading custom content on their blog

Often the hesitancy to commit to “another” thing as a Designer CEO and independent brand owner can feel overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be.

This week’s episode I’m chatting with Kristin George - Founder of Dotted Comma, a copywriting and content specializing in creating connections and co founder of The Edit Effect, tools to help small businesses simplify content, copy planning, and creation.

She is a professional copywriter whose niche is working with female owned small businesses and is a big believer in the power of blogging for fashion businesses.

We are talking all about all things blogging including why it’s one of the best marketing strategies out there for fashion brands, why you should consider blogging for your fashion business, how to create a blog strategy that will resonate with your dream customers, where to promote your blog to create brand awareness, and tons of tips for getting your blog started. Join us for this episode, “Blogging for Beginners - For Fashion Brands, with Kristin George”.

It may seem like the fall season is just getting started, but that means the holidays are quickly approaching.

Are you and your fashion brand ready for the holidays?
Do you have a strategy and plan in place to fully maximize all your sales and profits?
Have you created a product, merchandising, and marketing strategy that will make your brand standout amongst ALL the competition?
How will you make this holiday your best yet?

The upcoming months are very significant for many fashion brands and are often the difference between making or breaking annual numbers and sales goals. In fact, depending on your brand niche, the holiday timeframe could represent approximately 20-30% of sales for many brand owners, and this year will be no exception.

With so much at stake, it’s no surprise that the holidays are often a very stressful time for many Designer CEOs. But the holidays don’t have to be overwhelming or anxiety inducing -- IF you begin before things get too crazy and hectic. Instead of missing out on potential sales because you’re scrambling to keep up, set yourself up for success by getting your brand in order and ready for the holiday timeframe NOW.

It’s time to make sure you have strategies in place to not just survive the holiday but THRIVE during this crucial time of year. With a bit of planning and strategy, you’ll be organized and ready just in time to start seeing those orders rolling in and make this holiday your best season yet.

I’m sharing a holiday roundup or my final must-do’s, along with a few creative ideas that you can still implement before the holidays are here to make sure you are primed and ready for your best season yet in today’s episode, “How to be Holiday Ready - For Fashion Brands”.