by Brigette Mashile, founder of Roka Roko
Last week, I got an enquiry on my phone about us making a dress for a collection on Thursday - the problem was this message was coming in on a Tuesday. I immediately responded with the message that we unfortunately wouldn’t be able to make a dress by Thursday. This, of course was not a lie. The entire process of making a dress is just not possible in 1 day. Even one week is not enough. So many things can and will go wrong.
Then my heart started playing the same trick I go through each time in such situations. I started thinking about the person who enquired. I started feeling so sorry for them, playing various scenarios in my head. All alone and confirming them. Is it a bride? Is it a graduation? Did the dress they planned to wear burn while ironing, or it is not delivered on time, or wait, is it not fitting well anymore??? My goodness, what could drive a person to enquire about a dress being made two days before the day they need it? Surely it must be something serious and out of their control.
Anyway, I decided to ask a few people if my response was too harsh. It turns out I was well within my rights and absolutely correct to have said no. Those outside of me, outside of the business, with clearer heads, are able to see this for the madness it is. I on the inside am sitting here wanting to play hero and saviour of the day. I am wondering how do I make that customer’s day a better day.
I finally realized that I have been making business decisions based on my heart, based on fleeting things such as feelings. I totally ignore my head and opt to hear my heart first. No wonder I have ended up with it broken. I mean clients need a specific dress done on time, they are really not bothered about feelings, etc. I blame all of this on being more of a creative than anything else. It’s the unicorns in my head that make me care and believe in magic. Sadly, magic only happens if there’s someone to execute it.
I have decided to start leading from my head. After all the education, experience with fashion, with clients, and countless magazines, sites, blogs, posts about fashion and business I have seen, I am more than capable of executing this from my head. I need to dedicate my heart to something else, maybe a new hobby! There is simply no way of being briefed, negotiating a price, invoicing, receiving payment, going fabric sourcing, doing measurements, making a pattern, making a dress, doing a fitting, and having it collected/delivered to a client in 1 day. It is a recipe for a stressful day, builds unnecessary pressure, and definite disappointment for the client.
I know most of us are first time businesspeople in our families, some first time in the careers in which we are running businesses; so, we have to learn as we go. But our biggest challenge is IQ. Navigating between being dealing with grateful people who want your product/service; and needing the work to make your targets; to letting bad clients slide, etc. Most of us have put up with experiences we regret and are hurt by because we are foolishly passionate about our businesses. But at some point, we have to become CEOs. We cannot run businesses to be kind servers all the time, we need to be achieving servers also. For our sake, our employee’s sake and for our business’s sake.
Brigette Mashile is the founder and creative force behind Roka Roko, a custom fashion design business based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The company passionately delivers quality tailored and trendy fashion to make their customers happy, and specializes in styling women by creating unusual combinations with fabric, culture and style. Brigette has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Witwatersrand and a Fashion Diploma from Studio5 School of Fashion. She’s a former fashion buyer for a major retailer in South Africa, and an international direct selling company. She’s been passionate about fashion since the age of 10 and gained invaluable experience in the fashion world running informal fashion creation businesses until the day her own Roka Roko brand was born. Find out more by visiting the Roka Roko website www.rokaroko.co.za
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