How do you get someone to pay you money to be associated with something as intangible as your brand?

The first time doing this is always the most difficult, but below are some tricks that you can use to drastically increase your chances of being successful in the endeavor.

Plan your fashion show

The first step is having a plan that’s as concrete as possible. Know exactly how it will be, what your budgets will be, etc. It is unlikely that you’ll have every detail planned, but do a realistic budget which gives you an idea of how much sponsorship you need to raise.

This is as much for your own sake as for the sponsor’s sake. It will give you the confidence to go out and know exactly how much you need to ask for.

Research sponsors

Now that you have a plan for how to proceed it’s time to find the sponsor. This is where many people give up. Where should you start? A great place to start is to look at who is sponsoring your competitors’ shows. In some cases one company will sponsor a number of shows and you can approach them. This is easiest because they already know how it works and realise the benefits since they already done sponsorships.

This is not always possible. For a start, companies only have limited sponsorship budgets and they might well be tied up with your competitors already. A clever trick is to approach the competitors of whoever sponsors other fashion labels. For example, if Champagne house X sponsors shows, approach Champagne house Y with a proposal. Even if you have never worked with a sponsor before, you can point to the benefits enjoyed by X as proof that this really works.

Negotiating with sponsors

This is the point at which you really have to show that you know what you’re doing. Approach them with a clear proposal and make it as easy as possible for them to write you a cheque. Writing sponsorship proposals is an art in itself

Figure out what they want and give it to them. What’s important to them? What type of prominence can you give to their brand? Be careful of giving them too much, you don’t want every single photo of your show to be plastered over with the sponsor’s logo. On the other hand the sponsor has to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth for the sponsorship.

Corporate sponsors love getting free tickets to fashion shows so that their executives can take their partners along to a glamorous evening. They like when there’s going to be a lot of press around. They like it when there are lots of ‘influencers’ who might have a positive impact on their brand. All these things matter. Do a quick breakdown of who will be there.

Getting the sponsor’s money

After focusing on what you have to offer them, move on to what you need from them. If you have done a good job of selling the benefits in the above step, this will be much easier and the sponsor will actually want to give you the money.

To avoid a deadlock it’s a good idea to have a few different scenarios planned. For example, if you pay us £10,000, you’ll get your logo on invitations, logo on a backdrop to the catwalk, etc.

A great trick is to start with presenting a very expensive option. If this proves to be too much for the sponsor’s budget, you can move on to alternative scenarios for less money and less exposure.

Following up with your sponsor

This is a step that fashion labels often neglect after taking sponorship. After the show, you should put together a brief presentation pack with pictures, press coverage of the show and the like. This will allow the person dealing with the sponsorship to justify the expense to his superiors. The better this look the better your chances of getting repeat sponsorship from that sponsor and the easier it becomes to approach new sponsors in the future!

Tell us about your experiences with sponsors and share your tips in the comments.

It’s been an exciting year for World on a Hanger. The highlights were moving out of beta and launching our sponorship of the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN designers.

We’re excited that every day more and more designers from around Europe are signing up to try WoaH.

Having more users means that we get more feedback, and we’ve worked hard at quickly responding to your suggestions and making the system better tailored to your needs. Here are some of the major improvements from the last six months.

More powerful sales

Invoicing has become much easier to manage, and you can create multiple invoices and quotes for all your orders. There are also due dates to help you chase up payments and better manage cash flows.

Sales groups mean that you can now invoice from different locations and give your sales agents access to their own orders in WoaH.

Better stock management

Multiple warehouses is a feature that many of you asked for. It’s proving very useful for managing stock as it moves around. It’s also great for managing consignment sales.

The newly introduced stock transfers between warehouses are great for monitoring items in transit and keeping better track of where stock is.

Easier to use

Finally, we’ve made big improvements in making the system easier to use and taking the pain out of entering large amounts of data. The goal is to make all your data accessible in an intuitive way with the minimum number of clicks.

Finally, we’ve made big improvements in making the system easier to use and taking the pain out of entering large amounts of data. The goal is to make all your data accessible in an intuitive way with the minimum number of clicks.

Find out more about these and other improvements in the What’s New section of our website. We look forward to working with you in the New Year and wish you a prosperous 2010!

Let us know in the comments if you spot any omissions!

1. NewGen. (London) Created by the British Fashion Council in 1993 it was the world’s first scheme to support emerging designer talent, NEWGEN is the most sought-after competition for fashion designers in the UK. Winners are given sponsorship to put on catwalk shows, presentations or exhibit.  Their alumni list reads like a who’s who of London fashion and includes Alexander McQueen, Boudicca, Giles Deacon and Jonathan Saunders – among others.

2. Fashion Fringe at Covent Garden. (London) Fashion Fringe, sponsored by IMG, is dedicated in promoting British talent. Finalists are given a budget to cover their expenses (living expenses, fabric, technical staff) in creating up with a collection. The winner receives business training, industry mentoring and marketing support from Fashion Fringe partners.

3.  International Talent Support. (Trieste, Italy) ITS is divided into three competitions – Fashion, Accessories and Photography. It was put together eight years ago for new talents all over the world. ITS gives its winners financial opportunities, work placements and occasions to have their work shown to a jury of industry professionals.

4. Fashion East. (London) Fashion East is a great way to get large amounts of PR and an entry to London Fashion Week. It’s a non-profit organization based at the Truman Brewery, the creative hub of London’s East End. With an impressive 8-year track record, Fashion East offers financial support to the winners as well as catwalk show production, PR support and expert advice to help them come up with a label.

5. ANDAM Paris International Fashion Award. (France) ANDAM is a prestigious European fashion competition, having launched the careers of Martin Margiela, Viktor & Rolf, Jeremy Scott. It offers a bursary worth 150,000 Euros (2008) and industry support in France. The competition is open to fashion designers of any nationality under the age of 40. Entry forms are available at their website.

6. El Boton – Mango Fashion Awards. (Spain) A joint effort between button set company El Boton and retail giant Mango, with support from prestigious design schools all over Europe: Central Saint Martins, Escola Superior de Disseny, Institut Français de la Mode, Istituto Marangoni  and the Antwerp royal academy. “These schools will form part of the First Jury, which will shortlist the 10 finalists out of the 50 candidates previously selected by the Mango Committee.” The prize is 300,00 Euros!

7. Plus 46 Awards (Stockholm) +46 Awards aims to bring out Scandinavia’s next biggest fashion designer. The sole winner will given the opportunity to present their collection at Stockholm Fashion Week. The winner also gets a deal to sell the collection to one of Scandinavia’s biggest department stores, PUB.

8. International de Mode et de Photographie à Hyères. (France) The Hyeres Festival is an annual competition for both fashion designers and photographers. Eleven fashion designers showcase their collections and compete for three major prizes: The 1.2.3  Award – opportunity to design an entire collection that will be produced and distributed by 1.2.3. and a grant of 15,000 EUR. The L’Oréal Professional Award – 15,000 EUR additional financial support. The Punto Seta Award – four designers are invited to Punto Seta’s production facilities where they are given free rein to create and use any type of fabric.

Although you can’t apply for it, the Swiss Textiles Award is worth mentioning. It’s aimed at designers who have already had a fair amount of exposure, with potential to grow. Every year the award is presented at the Swiss Textile Federation’s event, the Stella Fashion Night. The winner receives a prize worth 100,000 Euros, of which 10%  are earmarked for the purchase of Swiss fabrics.

Apply to these events. Even if you don’t make it the first time, it can be rewarding to stay on their radar and update them regarding your successes.

This means that we’ve been selected from over 1,500 applicants to take part in a one week event where we’ll have access to  “400 mentors from a top-tier network of company builders; including seed investors, serial entrepreneurs, product experts, HR and PR specialists, marketers, lawyers, recruiters, journalists and venture capitalists.”

What does this mean for our users? It means that we’ll be brainstorming how to improve our service to you with some of the most brilliant business people in Europe. We’ll also be learning from the experiences of other promising startups.

All this will help us achieve our main goal: to better solve the problems you face in running your fashion business. We have big plans for the future, and Seedcamp is one of the best stepping stones imaginable to realising those plans.

And, as always, if you have ideas (no matter how far-fetched) for how technology could make your life in fashion easier, let us know!

Established fashion labels for instance, are marketing themselves on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, according to an article posted on the Business of Fashion blog. But while these sites might prove to be useful, their popularity with the public may lead to a loss of exclusivity.

A good alternative is provided by more focused social media such as fashionbusinessclub.net where you can link with industry professionals and promote your business. You may also find useful contacts in myfdb.com which claims to have “built the largest credited fashion database on the web”. It is, at this point, still in closed beta but you can request an invitation on the site. We’re still waiting for our invitation!

Iqons.com, a social network with a magazine, helps promising fashion designers get the exposure they need by featuring members on the website and publishing their works and accomplishments. Nineteen74.com is also very useful in this respect, in particular due to their powerful events and announcements functions. Members in the network updated with events, projects and job opportunities.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for more specific information about emerging fashion labels, want to develop your career, are recruiting simply want to build your network without having to put time into creating profiles on social networks, fashionunited.co.uk (international), fashioncapital.co.uk, and manchesterfashion.com are the places to join the discussion and connect with other people and companies.

These fashion focused social networks are invaluable when seeking to establish yourself as a new talent, whether you’re building up your own business or looking to work for someone else. The world is at your fingertips. All you need is tech savvy.

But how do you figure out the best price for your products?

New eco friendly denim label Reco Jeans did an interesting experiment: They did a Dutch Auction for jeans, where bidders could suggest how much they’d be willing to pay. Then, 300 winners were chosen. Winners were those bidders who fell closest to the average between the highest and the lowest bids.

For some products this approach works very well. Radiohead released their 2007 album In Rainbows with the announcement that fans could download it for any price they wanted. About a third didn’t pay at all. Average price paid was £4, although some paid as much as £20 or more. The marginal cost of selling an extra album is near zero. Fashion is different. Production and materials require an up-front investment. You need to be sure that you can at least cover your costs.

How did the Reco auction end? Most of the winners ended up bidding $100-200, more or less the price range they had aimed for all along. In this FT column Vanessa Friedman speculates the reason for the surprising result is that Reco gave bidders information on competitors’ price points. These were similar and customers probably adjusted their bids accordingly. Thus, it’s very important that you put your brand in the right category, giving customers a clear points of reference when judging whether your prices are good value.

So beware of slashing prices just to please buyers who are hit by the recession. Pricing is as much a long-term strategic decision as it is a short-term one. Pricing is an integral part of your label’s identity. Consider the long-term repercussions before changing prices, and separate what is temporary (economic climate) and what will remain (buyers’ expectation of lower prices, repositioning of your brand).

This is not to suggest that you shouldn’t consider changing it. Just make sure you’re careful about it.

This is a top place for seeing what young designers from all over the world are doing. I’ve been told it’s more vibrant and edgier than London Fashion Week.. It’s billed as a ’stepping stone between graduate shows and the mainstream fashion industry’. It’s my first time going to Alternative Fashion Week so I don’t know what to expect. I’ll keep you updated!

Another reason why I find it interesting is their emphasis on ethical and sustainable fashion. There was no shortage of this at London Fashion Week AW ‘09 (see Esthetica). However, it’s encouraging to see how fast the emphasis is shifting in favour of sustainability.

We’ll be around in Spitalfields over the next few days. Get in touch if you want to meet – or tap us on the shoulder if you recognize one of us from our profiles.

Expect lots of musings about

1. The fashion business
2. Reflections on the technology that is revolutionizing the industry
3. Features on designers who are using tech in exciting new ways
4. Updates how we are progressing with development
5. Anything else that springs to mind!

… Enjoy!