The Apparel Plan Revisited
You're at a meeting with your accountant reviewing your year end financials. Your accountant is going over areas of growth when surprisingly, they mention that your retail is "up 43% from the previous year-specifically-apparel. What did you do differently this year? Whatever you did, keep doing it".
At first, nothing comes to mind and you continue with the year end meeting.
Then you're driving home and you realize you spent less time worrying about apparel this year than any other year. Every order felt pretty smooth and easy. The timing felt right on every order. The designs were different and this kept members coming back for more. There were no issues with sizing and there were no surprises when you went to open the box. You get back to the gym and realize that half of your members in each class are wearing an apparel item from the last year. Your coaches have a professional look. Your closet is full of your own business apparel. Finally, you remember: you were on an apparel plan this year.
The apparel plan was hammered out on a 10 minute call with one of our account managers. We helped you schedule 6 projects for the year. We looked at the calendar together and leveraged some unique themes throughout the year and planned orders around seasonal changes. In the months we had something planned, we sent a friendly and simple e-mail reminder to get started on a new project. We presented a variety designs and garments for you to pick from. The design was set within 1-3 business days and the item was posted for presale soon after.
Before the days of being on an apparel plan, you played a game of hot potato between you, your spouse, a coach, and a member about who is going to design this next apparel project. You weren't that confident in the process because you feel like creativity isn't exactly your strong suit. A coach finds a "cool design" on social media and gives it to your member to try and recreate. Your member is doing this as a "side hustle" and is inconsistent with showing you mock ups and you've been waiting a week to see the latest round of revisions. They have been super busy at their day job but they will send it over to you when they can. Your spouse is very picky when it comes to hoodies. He claims that the hoodie sample you ordered online feels cheap. You weren't sure which one to pick. You just picked the cheapest one. All of this managing and juggling while trying to focus on your actual business which is coaching others and empowering them to live a healthy lifestyle. The member finally shoots back the design and it's not what you asked for. The member apologizes and promises to resend it "ASAP"... After much back and forth 4 weeks later, the design is finally set. Your spouse is happy with the 3rd round of samples you purchased. Now you need to figure out where to get it printed. You bring it to the "local guy" but they are short staffed right now and their turnaround time is 3-5 weeks. You give them the file and they tell you it's not the right format. You have no idea what a vector image is and you're not sure where to go from here. You wind up giving up on this project because we're just around the corner from a major kickstart program. You don't have time to play apparel designer during these times. Looking back on it, you only ran one project that year. One tee project you ran at the beginning of the year that you bought for inventory. 75% of the shirts are still sitting on the shelves. You decide to give up on apparel until you go on social media and see someone post about Forever Fierce and thats when things change.
You sent an email to us with your name, gym name, and phone number. Someone responded the same day introducing themselves and requests a phone call to get to know more about your business and struggles. After explaining the game of hot potato to one of our account managers, we make a recommendation to pick one of our best seller designs, we send out free garment sizing samples and your "typically" picky spouse approves the first garment we send. Not long after that, the item is posted on our website for your members to purchase. You promote the link for a "short" 7 day window. About two weeks later the order ships. Your profit check is deposited into your paypal the same day the order ships. The apparel arrives organized, labeled, and packaged ready for distribution. Your members are thrilled to support you. Some are running into the bathroom to put on their new tee. Feels like Christmas in July.
After you realize how easy it was, you decide to take advantage of our yearly Apparel Plan service. Which brings us back to this: a 10 minute call can save you a massive headache when it comes to apparel. Working with a company who can provide simple solutions to common problems and keep things low stress on your end is our main goal. We know you are not an apparel company. We know you have other things to do. Our promise to you is to keep the project moving forward on every interaction.
We forgot to mention: this plan is free. It is non-contractual. It is simply a free planning tool to help keep you organized. If you're ready to simplify your retail, now is the time to send us an email to get started to figure out how we can increase the amount of apparel you do each year, keep your members coming back for each and every sale, and make it profitable along the way.