Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This is a show for burnt-out fashion designers (and TDs, PDs, patternmakers and beyond) who want more flexibility while still doing work they love. As a freelance fashion designer, you can build your fashion career on your own terms. Freelancing in fashion is the only way to get freedom in your day (instead of being tied to a desk). Whether you want to earn extra money on the side, fund your fashion brand, or replace your salary, the FDGP podcast will help you get there. Listen in for actionable tips and strategies to kickstart or grow your career as a freelance fashion designer, build your confidence, and create the life you want. Hosted by $100k+ fashion freelancer Sew Heidi, the show features interviews and strategy sessions with successful freelance fashion designers from around the world who've ditched toxic fashion jobs and taken control of their own destinies. This is the only place to get REAL insights from REAL freelancers who have built REAL careers on their own terms. (Formerly the Successful Fashion Freelancer podcast.)
Heidi [00:00:00]:
This episode, you'll hear a clip from a 1 on 1 strategy session with one of my fast students, Hanan Abu Bakr. Hanan is a freelance pattern maker who specializes in modest women's wear. She has a few clients from her industry contacts, but she wants more. Hanan and I talk about why having her Upwork profile set up as a general women's wear pattern maker is actually hurting her and how she should make it more specific to her niche of modest women's wear even though there aren't a ton of opportunities in that specific category. We also go through strategies that she can use to leverage her industry connections to get more clients. It's super simple. And if you have any amount of experience working in the fashion industry, you should be doing this. If you want more freelance clients, you're gonna love this strategy session.
Heidi [00:00:44]:
Let's get to it.
Hanan [00:00:45]:
And I did find a few, modest like, 2 modest in there Okay. And on Upwork. Okay. But I don't know if yeah.
Heidi [00:00:55]:
And is your
Hanan [00:00:56]:
The first 2, I think are.
Heidi [00:00:58]:
Is your profile and your portfolio on Upwork Very niche to modest. Like, if I go look at your profile right now, am I immediately gonna be like, oh, She does modest. She does powder making for modest brands.
Hanan [00:01:14]:
On, LinkedIn, yes.
Heidi [00:01:17]:
But I'm not going on LinkedIn if I'm looking at you on Upwork. I'm on Upwork.
Hanan [00:01:20]:
Upwork, I don't, I say women's wear, but Okay. Yeah. I
Heidi [00:01:27]:
So if you're going after which I would I realized there's gonna be
Hanan [00:01:33]:
change that.
Heidi [00:01:34]:
I would change it. There's gonna be Fewer specific opportunities on Upwork for modest wear. Right? So you're gonna, like, not then apply to these other general women's pattern making opportunities, but when you are because the first thing when they read your pitch, They read your pitch. That's 1st test. Right? You then you gotta get past that test. Then they're like, I'm gonna glance at your portfolio. I'm gonna take 2 seconds to glance at the portfolio. And if you're, like, general women's wear pattern making and maybe somebody else who applied is, like, modest wear specific, All day long, they're gonna go with the modest wear specific person.
Heidi [00:02:15]:
I think especially your category. Right?
Hanan [00:02:18]:
Right.
Heidi [00:02:19]:
Your niche. Your market. So It's not that big of a process. Right? You know how you have your portfolio. Great. So get that in there. So, visually, all your projects are modest wear, and, Instantly, they're gonna be like, boom. Hanan's our person.
Heidi [00:02:33]:
And then your the written part, right, like, just edit that so it says modest. I mean, you could copy what you have here. Freelance pattern maker specialize in modest women's wear, and then you're just gonna have to modify this a little bit, but I would once you add the benefits and the results into this, like, paragraph here
Hanan [00:02:59]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:02:59]:
You can then translate that for your Upwork profile, like, into bullets or something. Right? And, obviously, you take out references for and stuff, but you've got the bones. Right. That's what you then translate, still making it super specific to modest.
Hanan [00:03:13]:
Okay.
Heidi [00:03:13]:
Okay? So
Hanan [00:03:15]:
Yeah. I think it's the fear of, oh, there's not so many modest on Upwork. So I know.
Heidi [00:03:21]:
It's it's totally. But how many jobs have you gotten on Upwork so far?
Hanan [00:03:27]:
I mean, that was that 1 client who reached out to me somehow, but, And she was not modest. She was just doing a t shirt. But these 2 are the only modest that I have found on Upwork to, propose to K. So far. And I've been checking daily since
Heidi [00:03:44]:
Okay. January. Not be a lot. I will Yeah. I will agree with you on that. But would you rather have 2 modest opportunities and land 2 modest opportunities, right, or have a 100 women's wear opportunities and apply to a 100 women's opportunities and maybe, hopefully, barely luckily land 1. Right?
Hanan [00:04:12]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Heidi [00:04:13]:
Like, the amount of work and the ultimate return that you're going to get in success and landing the clients is gonna be less work, and you're gonna have higher success. Like, that's what happens when you're niche. Because brands a modest wear brand, sure, they might hire a general women's pattern maker. They might. I'm not here to say they're not gonna, but if it's between you, a generalist
Hanan [00:04:37]:
someone.
Heidi [00:04:37]:
And you, a really specialized, all day long, You are their person.
Hanan [00:04:43]:
Right. I really like that.
Heidi [00:04:45]:
They get you. Like, it just makes sense. Right?
Hanan [00:04:48]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Heidi [00:04:49]:
So True. And that's one of the hardest things about being niche is that it does feel like, I'm turning away these other people.
Hanan [00:04:59]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:04:59]:
I promise you, the more people you turn away, the more of the right people will come to you. Okay? Yeah. And what I would I would like to see you doing instead of, you know, looking for general women's wear Opportunities on Upwork is just looking for the modest ones that come along, and then you can focus on reaching out to these brands these cold brands.
Hanan [00:05:26]:
Okay.
Heidi [00:05:26]:
K. Yeah. I
Hanan [00:05:32]:
I definitely Also need to reach out more, like, cold pitching to modest brands that that I find I I found so many. It's like Yeah. It's just I couldn't get myself to, like, do the 1st page.
Heidi [00:05:47]:
Do you think that anyone is reaching out to them and saying, hey. I specialize in modest wear. How can I help you? Nobody.
Hanan [00:05:54]:
I I doubt it.
Heidi [00:05:55]:
Yeah. Literally nobody. Okay?
Hanan [00:05:56]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:05:57]:
So your pitch doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to be perfect. Nobody's perfect. Like, at the end of the day, you get it good enough and you hit send, and your heart's gonna be like right? But, like, that is where I genuinely feel you're gonna start seeing success. We'll look at these Upwork pictures in a second, but I I also wanna be conscious that you have 14 years in the industry. You know people. Like, how much strategic work have you done in terms of, like, talking to people in your community, in your network, in the fashion industry, and and not just like, hey. I'm Doing freelance now, like, not that, but, like, genuinely engaging with them and offering value and your LinkedIn profile.
Heidi [00:06:50]:
Sounds like your LinkedIn profile is predialed in for modest Freelancing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't know how much engagement you're doing with the people that you have in your back pocket from all these years.
Hanan [00:07:02]:
You know, I it seems like the companies have went out of business. Like But
Heidi [00:07:08]:
there's still people that were involved in those companies. And unless those people have all died, maybe some have. I don't think they all have. They might then be working for other brands or they know people. Right? Like, people know people.
Hanan [00:07:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. I the few clients that I have right now, are through people that I know in the industry. But Yeah. For some reason, like, even the designer, she's no longer a designer. She has a bakery. Like, if you have any be the case.
Hanan [00:07:39]:
That's how yeah. Yeah. So But I'm just
Heidi [00:07:44]:
I just wanna be mindful that, like, you don't forget to continue to nurture those relationships. Right?
Hanan [00:07:51]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Heidi [00:07:52]:
And and I've talked about this on many, many, many of the podcast episodes, but, like, it's really as simple as, like, Pinging them everyone's like, wherever you're hanging out. I don't know if you're hanging out on Instagram or you're on LinkedIn or whatever, or maybe you're not in any of those things. That's fine, but, like, pinging them periodically with something. It can be, like, on LinkedIn, like, Hey. Congratulations on your job. It's really exciting. Not like just congrats. Like, be like, do something substantial because nobody else does that.
Heidi [00:08:28]:
Everybody's like, Congrats. Congrats. Right? Hey. That's so exciting. I remember when we used to blah blah blah. It's so cool to see this that you're doing right now. Like, be really genuine. Give it some effort.
Heidi [00:08:39]:
Nobody gives effort. So whether you're doing that on LinkedIn or you're doing that on Instagram or maybe you have, like, something of value, like an article or a podcast or Something interesting going on in the modest wear community that, like, you wanna share, share that with them. And it doesn't have to be, like, all day every day. This is, like, just, like, a touch base, like, periodically. A lot of people do this very organically, very naturally. A lot of people like this becomes a little bit of a muscle that you have to build. But this is what, like, keeping in touch and networking with Air Quotes looks like is really just kinda, like, genuinely being engaged in the person and what they do, like, almost just from your soul. Like, I care about you as a person, like, as a human being.
Heidi [00:09:26]:
And this thing came up, and I thought about you. So I'm gonna share it with you, and I'm gonna tell you why it was so great and cool. Yeah. Right? And though that's what, like, often sparks conversations, and then they see your LinkedIn profile, and they're like, oh, she's freelancing. And then they're like, oh gosh. I was talking. Then all of a sudden, you are top of mind. Right? So it's a little bit of a muscle if you don't have it naturally.
Heidi [00:09:53]:
Yeah. You can even reach out via email to these people. Right? Like, if you're not on LinkedIn and Instagram, that's fine too. Like, reach out via email and, hey. I Saw this thing and blah blah blah. Right?
Hanan [00:10:04]:
Okay. Yeah. That's you're right. Definitely. It's something I need to do, which I haven't done.
Heidi [00:10:10]:
It's it's, again, it's, it's just a muscle that you need to build. K?
Hanan [00:10:16]:
Okay.
Heidi [00:10:16]:
So we can let's look at these upper things, but I wanted to be I wanted to be conscious to talk about that because you do have this base in the industry. And just those relationships and those friends and stuff can go a long way.