Growing up, I always looked up to one of our family friend’s daughters. She had a thriving fashion design studio and managed a successful business. I always believed it was a result of her unique talent and her family’s constant support.
I recently met the designer’s mother and we discussed her daughter’s success. To my surprise, her mother revealed that no one believed she would turn out to be a successful designer. In fact, everyone expected that of her youngest sister, who was interested in attending workshops and making dresses for her family and friends whenever she had the chance.
Every summer holiday, her mother sent her youngest daughter for courses abroad to build on her talents. When she left school, she enrolled in a top British university to pursue her dream, but decided to follow a different route after graduation.
So, what about the designer I looked up to? Well, she did not enrol in as many classes and did not pursue fashion design or art as a college major. Instead, she studied business management. The designer’s sketches even seemed to be an amateur’s compared with her younger sister’s.
Her own family did not consider her to be the better designer, and hearing that was somehow liberating to me.
For all entrepreneurs, it is easy to feel inadequate at times. I know I am a good writer and when it comes to branding and marketing, I am pretty creative. But when I read books or thought-provoking articles written by the American entrepreneur and author Seth Godin, I know I am in the hands of a master.
How can I compete with him? I have a long way to go before I am even half as good. But it is easy to take a step back and think you will never be as good as someone else.
Talent alone is not sufficient to make it big. There are plenty of people, like the designer’s sister, who was extremely capable but did not make it in the industry she initially set out to conquer.
Yet few people realise that exceptional talent is not really a necessary ingredient in the formula of success. You have to be talented enough, that is for sure, just like the designer I admired as a child, but what is interesting is that her value lies not within her talent, but what she did with it.
While others may be better than her, she had a unique touch and an interesting point of view that helped her build a niche business and a large customer base. She embraced her individuality and her talent as it was.
The upside to this story is that no one has an excuse not to follow their dreams.
You cannot just sit back and say my product is not the best or I am not talented enough. The great thing is that you could succeed without being the best.
You need to be just good enough and then to build on that. Add some passion, determination, persistence to the mix and you will be set to go. Do not forget your individuality though because at the end of the day, this will be your selling point. You need to be comfortable and believe that what you are offering is an extension to your beliefs, taste and ideas.
That is how one of my favourite designers built her business, and it is also how you could build yours.
Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer and communications consultant based in Abu Dhabi. Twitter: @manar_alhinai.
business@thenational.ae
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