As the founders and owners of Positive Pants, a popular online ecommerce store focusing on vibrant, bold and beautiful clothing designs, the past four years of our brand’s existence have been an absolute whirlwind. Not only did we build our business from the ground up, but we also had to navigate through the uncertainty of COVID-19 and the various lockdown levels.
We know that this has been and continues to be the reality for countless women across South Africa, specifically female entrepreneurs. Many of these women who had thriving small businesses had to resort to downscaling, retrenchments or permanent closure, and those who had the intention of launching their own small businesses have been forced to hold off until the dust of COVID-19 begins to settle.
However, if there’s one thing we as Positive Pants have learnt about South Africa’s amazing pool of female entrepreneurs, it’s that our resilience, ability to hustle and ‘never say die’ attitude can see us through almost any setback or challenge in life.
With this in mind, we as Positive Pants have decided to put together our top four tips for female entrepreneurs to aid them in finding success in 2022:
1. Success takes time!
While you might have the most amazing idea or product that you want to bring to the world, it’s crucial to remember to take things slow. Being an entrepreneur can be TOUGH and making your hustle a lucrative and profitable one takes time. Before jumping straight into the deep end, you might want to start off your small business as a side hustle.
In doing so, you’re able to secure financial stability with your 9-5, whilst also committing a sufficient amount of time into exploring and planning what product or offering you want to launch, and how you’re going to take it to market. In 2021, many corporates are in support of their employees having a side hustle as it fosters an entrepreneurial spirit, so there really is no better a time to kick-start that side hustle!
2. Be the Face of Your Company
As the sisters of Positive Pants (Roxie and Monie) we have been at the forefront of our brand since its inception. Not only have we been the ones planning every step that our small business has taken, but we have also ensured that we are present in as much of our social media and advertising collateral as possible. The reason for this is that, more often than not, consumers buy into a person, and not into a brand.
This point is particularly important if you want customers to buy into your brand promise and offering. If you have a strong personal brand, ensure that you leverage that in your social media channels, as it will assist you in not only building your personal and business profile, but it will also enable you to create strong, personal connections with your followers/customers. At Positive Pants, this strategy has enabled us to build our #sisterhoodofpositivepants to a community of over 50K women across South Africa.
3. Have a clear vision
As with any goal or objective in life, success comes to those who put clear and tangible goals into place. As a female entrepreneur, this rule is no different. If you have started your own small business, or are planning to launch it, it’s imperative for you to understand what you wish to achieve with your brand, and what impact you want to have with it.
At Positive Pants, our goal has always been to create a movement of bold, brave and confident women by providing them with our fun, colourful and vibrant clothing. To this day, we work on achieving this goal every single second. This commitment to our vision has enabled us to build such a great support base over the past four years, that we have now successfully launched our brand overseas under the name Positive Pants EU.
4. Always find a way to give back
As small business owners, every sale or customer that you land, or every like, share or retweet that you get on social media is an asset. Your customer base is absolutely everything, so it’s important that you not only provide them with superior quality services and products, but it’s also imperative for you to give back to your community every chance you get. While we know budgets can be tight, and sometimes sales are not always possible, it’s important for you to innovate new and creative ways to make your customers/followers feel loved and acknowledged for the support they have given you.
At Positive Pants, we launched a customer-oriented campaign called #weareshe at the beginning of 2021. The sole purpose of this campaign was to profile and give exposure to various women amongst our customer base who owned their own small businesses. The idea for this campaign was born out of our desire to give back to the small business owners in our community who had all been negatively impacted by COVID-19 in one way or another. At Positive Pants, this enabled us to give back to our community over and above sales and discounts by making a material impact on their lives and businesses too. Committing yourself to causes like these will enable you to bolster your relationship with the lifeblood of your business, your customers.
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish all the female entrepreneurs in South Africa all the best for 2022. We know that your tenacity, gumption, and resilience will take you from strength to strength in the upcoming year.
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