I'm new to footwear. How do I help you, the shoe designer to help me, the newbie? (Part one - USP)

I'm blogging on this subject as it's 02 January 2017 and for us freelance consultants, this is always a peak week for enquiries from potential new footwear businesses.

We all make new years resolutions and mine happens to be to do more sketching and transform the list of blog post ideas into actual posts. So here is the first one!

Many of the enquiries we receive from newbies are quite vague and throw up more questions than answers. But the most common one is when we don't know what your USP (unique selling point) is and perhaps you aren't sure either. Well, we can sometimes help you to find it!

We work with a lot of existing fashion companies to develop product for them (as the photo above) , they are generally clear of what they want and will come to us with lots of ideas.

What we like to see is a clear vision of what your brand or collection should be.

Do you have a unique selling point for your brand? What is different about it that we cannot get from somebody else? The photo above is from a brochure for Saira, a brand which we helped to launch. The USP of Saira is their use of exclusive, limited edition fabrics that you will not see anywhere else.
Why is this important for a new business? If your brand has its own USP, then it will mean that buyers are more likely to select yours rather than someone elses existing brand.

Your USP does not  necessarily have to be a crazy invention, for instance Homeys who we worked with (pictured above) has the ethos, 'finally cool slippers!' Your USP could be selling a shoe at a different price point, making it in a certain way or making it out of unusual materials.