We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cary Dyer II a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cary, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you find your key vendor or vendors? Maybe you can share the backstory and share some context and the relevant details to help us understand why you chose them, why they chose you, etc.

The first manufacture I worked with for my brand I found directly through Instagram. Starting out there are a lot of manufacturers you will find through social media. Those manufacturers have low MOQ ( minimum order quantity ) and it’s perfect for someone just starting out & making it affordable. Now with manufacturers I work with now I found them through connections that I have. The ones I work with now pays more attention than detail, craftsmanship, & quality which I am big on.

Also what I’ll do differently knowing what I know now is a solid payment process & agreement. With manufacturers it’s best to do split payments with them versus paying the full payment up front. And learning about the sample process, wait time, & turnaround time.

Cary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I pursued being a designer because it’s something that I have always been interested in. By my mother being into clothing and her managing a denim shop, to my grandmother making her children’s clothing when they were younger, to father being a fashion model when he was my age, it’s cool that I’m doing what I do now. I started off by doing personal hand painted customs for myself such as jackets, Air force 1’s, and jeans. Then when I started going to Texas Southern university a lot of students there was liking the way that I dressed and wondered where I get my stuff from. when I told them that I customized most of the stuff I used to wear at the time it was up from there. So I started doing it more and more then started to get a buzz on campus. But one night me and my sister was talking and she said I should take it to the next level and start taking it more serious and have a official release. Then after that conversation i did just that.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Honestly just being myself, doing so will take you a long way. Just by you being who you are and not changing that for anything people wouldn’t have a choice but to respect that. That goes for you personally, your business, & etc.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

It’s really just always being consistent. It doesn’t matter what your field or your passion is or if your selling a product or service you have to market yourself 24/7 & keep it in people’s face as much as possible.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sixtyeightcontinues?igsh=cjZmMzRhdWoxZ2Fl&utm_source=qr
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@skill_livefree?_r=1&_t=ZT-91eiB089RZl