Layla’s Recipe for Business Success: 11 Tips to Trailblaze in Your Own Right

Layla Kaisi Collection began with humble beginnings and has grown exponentially in just 5 years; now having international clients, features in world-recognised publications like Forbes, and working with celebrities like Minnie Driver and Radwa El-Sherbiny. While reflecting on all of this growth, I have decided to put together a list of 11 tips for aspiring entrepreneurs who hope to achieve success in their own business and trailblaze in their own right.

 

 11 Tips From Layla:

 

1) Think less, do more. Not that achieving success requires no thought, but more that you should not let analysis or apprehension stop you from just doing what it is that is calling you.

  

2) Just start. You do not have to wait for the perfect logo, the perfect brand image, or a following of 10,000 people before you actually take the first step. When I started, I had no logo, half a website, and a very small following on social media. The point is to just start, and you can adjust on the way.

  

3) On that note, do not be afraid to adjust. When I began, I started with very delicate, very simple fine jewellery designs. As I grew, I began to create more complex concepts, use more unique precious stones, and refined the way the brand voice communicated.

 

4) Pick a social media platform and dedicate nearly all of your time to it when you start. As a brand owner, your job is two things: sales + marketing. When you start, you still don't have sales, so dedicate everything you can to marketing. Talk with your audience, see what they respond to, share why you are around, give them insight into each part of what it is that you are doing and aim to achieve. These early followers will be your biggest supporters down the line.

 

5) Learn from others. When I started I looked at the brands that I absolutely adored that had nothing to do with fine jewellery and would spend hours dissecting why it is that I loved what they did in the first place. How they made me feel, why I felt compelled by their content, and what they do to keep me interested. My earliest inspiration was from a skincare brand.

 

6) Do not just plain sell. Give your audience a sense of purpose and really bring them into the fold of why they are following your journey in the first place. You each have your own unique story, don't be afraid to share it.

 

7) Listen to feedback. Become a brand that is build from the ground up. Do not talk at your audience, ask them what it is they really love and want, constantly and with the intention to use it.

 

8) Get obsessed with the idea you are building. Creating a successful business is not a half in, half out scenario. You either put your all into it and keep going even when you are the only one who cares, or pick another route in life. Business is difficult and you need to be ready for it to be so.

 

9) Do not give up. Everyone feels like giving up, especially those who don't. Starting out, you may have 1 week to 1 year of absolutely no traction. No sales, nothing. You have to have the will to keep going even when your beginning is nothing but crickets.

 

10) Do not undervalue yourself. 

 

11) But let them underestimate you. Because when you are playing in the big fields and the big names think you are creating silly work, you are busy building a foundation so strong, one day they are going to wake up and find you everywhere when they weren't paying attention.

- Layla x