#awinewith Jayne-Anne Power
MEET Jayne-Anne, Founder of Kennedy Parker.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Jayne-Anne welcome to Spark tv.
Jayne-Anne Power (00:10):
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. It's really cool to be here.
Danielle Lewis (00:13):
I'm so excited to share your story. Let's dive straight in and tell everyone who you are and what you do.
Jayne-Anne Power (00:21):
My name's Jane Ann Power. I am the owner and founder of a men's shoe brand called Kennedy Parker. It started out online. I've now just opened a bricks and mortar store about a year ago, and that's what I'm doing at the moment.
Danielle Lewis (00:37):
So let me ask you this. Why men's shoes?
Jayne-Anne Power (00:41):
I know people are always interested in that. It does seem like an unusual thing to get into. It started out because I was in marketing, I got a marketing role at a men's boot brand here in Adelaide and worked for them for a number of years, and as part of the work there, my manager sort of said to me, I think that instead of just focusing on the marketing, I think that you might be a merchant. I think you might be someone that understands what customers want. I had a background in fashion retailing and design, et cetera. So it was kind of just something I enjoyed and it was like, oh no, why don't we try this kind of design or that leather's beautiful, maybe we could find it with that design. And so he just saw something in me and said, I think you're a merchant.
(01:34):
I think you're someone that understands the commercial side of design and product. Put me in charge of design and brand, sorry, design and product development. And what that did was led me on a journey of learning all about how shoes are made because not only was I working in a factory every single day with shoe makers, but I was also traveling to factories and tanneries around the world and learning all about the craft and how things are done. And I needed to understand when I was designing something or if I had an idea for something that I wanted a factory to create, how are they made? What components, what are the effects on the wearer of any of the design ideas that I might have? So during my period of time that I was working at the boot brand, I noticed at one of the factories, they were making these really, really beautiful high quality, what we call good year weed shoes, which is just basically fully stitched primo, num, num, leather shoes, really amazing, beautiful men's shoes.
(02:39):
I kept thinking, gee, I just love those. I'm sure I could do something with it, but it just wasn't right for the people I was working for at the time. Eventually, the years went on and the family sold the business and there wasn't a role for me in the new business, and I thought to myself, I now have this unique knowledge base. It's very unusual to get a knowledge base like that in Australia. Normally you'd need to be in Italy or Spain or China or Portugal or something, but here in Adelaide to get kind of experience is so unusual and I just decided not to waste it and started my own shoe brand.
Danielle Lewis (03:17):
That is incredible. I absolutely love it and it's really interesting. I think sometimes we romanticize the idea of having our own businesses and figuring it out along the way, but I actually love learning on somebody else's money.
Jayne-Anne Power (03:34):
Honestly, I never thought I would have my own business. I never did, but I've always been a voracious learner on the job. I have always, always worked for other people as though it was my business. I've always applied myself and gone. That's interesting. I reckon I get no one's solving that problem. It's not in my job description, but I'd love to have a go. Can I fix that? This has just got to be done. I'm just going to do it. I've just always been like that. And in the end, what it did was with all the various roles that I've had, I'm a real professional Mong girl. I've done so many things and in the end, just applying yourself to everything with that attitude, you end up with a really decent skillset. And it got to the point where I thought, there's nothing in this business I haven't done for someone else except accounting, and you can get an accountant for that. So
Danielle Lewis (04:32):
There's a person for that job. Yes,
Jayne-Anne Power (04:34):
Right? That's right. Yeah. So that's how it started.
Danielle Lewis (04:38):
Wow, that is awesome. And as I said, I do love that because I think sometimes we think we've got to just start it all and learn it all for ourselves, but leveraging other people and other opportunities is so good even as you are deciding to start a new business. I love it when people stay in their full-time jobs and keep learning and keep developing and bringing it up on the side. So I always love when people have a great story around leveraging their day job for learning because it is such an amazing path. I think I
Jayne-Anne Power (05:16):
Do too, and I also think that people underestimate how much that's a gift to you. You really apply yourself in the work that you're doing for other people. I know nobody, I don't believe in exploitation or what have you, but sort of the trend of the quiet quitting kind of idea that came out of covid me so mad, any of that, because I think don't shortchange yourself live your life and sometimes a working life can be really enjoyable and really interesting and it develops. You are the one that grows if you allow yourself to grow and if you keep aligning yourself with the right kind of roles. So I don't know, I just really believe in that.
Danielle Lewis (05:59):
I love that so much. I could not agree with you more. I love that you just said don't shortchange yourself. To be honest, that really sums up how I feel about it because that's been the biggest thing for me is I look back on my corporate career and I think all of those skills I have transferred into my own business and did I like my job every day? No, I did not, but I got the most out of it. I did every training. I worked my way up, I figured things out, and then I could bring that all into my businesses. And so it just really worries me when people talk about quiet quitting and people want to jump on this trend because I think of exactly that. Well, I'm like, well, there will be people who don't mind going a little above and beyond and they will get the benefit of those opportunities. And if those opportunities are things that are free because your employer is paying for them, your employer is paying to help you grow, that is priceless.
Jayne-Anne Power (06:57):
I think it is too. I think the other mistake some people can make is kind of going off track here, I suppose, but I feel quite strongly about this for people who are really wanting to develop. I've always been a career person. I've always wanted to work. I love professional development. It just is my jam. It always has loaded my boat. When I was quite young, I worked out that it's not a good idea to work and when you're working, expect your boss's approval to work for them and think they should thank you or what have you. A lot of times I've been in roles where I've been underappreciated and undervalued and I still walked away with an incredible skillset and an amazing experience because I chose the work I was doing and I chose to apply myself in that work and I chose to get something for myself out of it, and I worked to my standard. I knew when I was doing good work and when I wasn't and I didn't allow the games or the opinions of others or what have you to push me around, it really was about what do I want out of this? Is this place right for me? Is it not right for me? And if it is right for me, this is how I work. I work as though this is my business.
Danielle Lewis (08:20):
And I love that because you are in charge of the story. You think about, I know we are getting off topic here, but I love this topic, but I was just thinking about reflecting on my own career, looking at other people's careers, even me as a boss now, having to hire people and thinking about the way people pitch themselves and their stories. You can rock up to the next job so you can have your career path that you are interested in following, and you can rock up to the next place and you can tell a story about your last job. You may have hated your boss, they may have not appreciated you. You may have been paid shit wages that's
Jayne-Anne Power (08:58):
On your cv.
Danielle Lewis (08:59):
Yeah, exactly. They're on
Jayne-Anne Power (09:00):
Cv. You're on your cv. It's yours.
Danielle Lewis (09:03):
Exactly. Exactly. You can that story in any way. You could have been the rock star in that organization and have learned every skill that is now taking you to this next step up that you want. And at that, I think it's just transferable in life, isn't it? We are all in charge of our own stories and we can choose to get anything we want out of a particular situation. Sometimes it just comes down to giving ourselves a little bit of a pep talk and okay, I've got to have a bit more of an objective view here and separate the things that aren't serving me and just double down on the things that I can get out of this experience.
Jayne-Anne Power (09:43):
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.
Danielle Lewis (09:45):
I love it. So tell me then, how did you go from employee to business owner? What was that process like for you?
Jayne-Anne Power (09:56):
Like I said, I never thought I'd have a business. I mean, I did in the sense that I started a side hustle and I was like, yeah, I'm going to sell millions of shoes. And I guess what I'm trying to say is I did not see it as I will start my own business and I just went, I can't waste these skills. I love this product. I enjoy this customer. I want to create something of my own and I don't want to waste this opportunity. So I put the range together, put a business online, did all the Shopify stuff, made my own website and did my own photography. And seriously a very, I don't want to say homegrown project because it's not like I don't have the professional skills to make it a good standard, but it's
Danielle Lewis (10:53):
Bootstrapped you, hustled, you bootstrapped. Yeah, I hustle. I think you have to do that, right?
Jayne-Anne Power (10:58):
Yeah, you got to do it.
Danielle Lewis (11:00):
You really do. And I think there's a lot of value in it as well. I mean, we do, again, romanticize going out and raising millions of dollars of capital and getting all of the fancy things, but sometimes you waste a lot of money doing that because you don't actually know what's involved. And someone will say, it will cost $10,000, a hundred thousand dollars for a web platform to do X, Y, Z. And then when you do it for yourself, you realize you can do it in a day on Squarespace or Shopify for 30 bucks and yes, it probably won't be as fancy schmancy, but it will be shipped and you'll be out in market connecting with your customer.
Jayne-Anne Power (11:36):
Yeah, I think that's so true. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So that's pretty much how I got started. I then ended up, it was sort of bouncing out of covid and everybody coming back to work. I went into, I had it as basically as a hustle. I went into women's fashion. I went in and managed a couple of brands, so I was the general manager of a women's label. I then went in and became a GM in a bigger organization with multiple brands and had that as a side hustle on the side and completely neglected it. I completely neglected it. I loved it. I knew I had potential, but I don't think I'm very good at splitting my attention. It was a, it's hard job with the part-time website maybe, but a full-time gig with an outside hustle. I can't be that I'm all in when I'm in.
(12:40):
So I tell you what happened. It was a very interesting and sort of traumatic time. I got made redundant from my job and it was not nice circumstances. At the same time I turned 50 and at the same time I realized that the kind of roles I was interested in apparel and the business side of apparel, oh, there's hardly any of them in Adelaide. And I had known for a while that I'd had this wonderful opportunity to sort of express myself in businesses like that and learn the skills and kind of stretch out in apparel businesses for 12 years or something. And I just knew that I'd reached this level of seniority where there was really no more jobs unless I wanted to move somewhere else. And even then, they're not guaranteed in Adelaide people who had the skillset that I had, well, they've got their own businesses and they don't need someone like me.
(13:45):
So I kind of had this whole thing happen where I thought to myself, you're either going to have to change careers and change focus, or maybe you could keep developing this career in apparel by doing it yourself and being a CEO and starting your own company. And I sort of got to the point where I thought, Howard, do you think you need to be? How grown up do you think you need to be before you can do your own thing? Just the window was there. The timing was right. The feeling that I had walking away from that last job was I just knew in my heart that it was going to be really impossible for me to sit down in front of another employer and say, I would love to be part of what you're doing. Here's what I can bring to the table. I just knew I didn't have it in me. I just wanted to be in charge of my own life and build something for myself and use my skills and my passion and my abilities to serve me. That's what I wanted thought. I don't want to give that to somebody else anymore. I want to see what I can do by myself.
Danielle Lewis (15:04):
My God, I'm so impressed. I just love it because it's really, that takes a lot of guts. I know I just talked to a lot of women in business who've taken that leap, but I just know how tough it can be to actually back yourself. And I love that you did come to that realization where you went, you know what? Pretty awesome. Why would grow something for myself?
Jayne-Anne Power (15:38):
Look, that's the kind of self-talk that I'm trying to develop. I can't say that that kind of self-talk
Danielle Lewis (15:45):
With that. I'll just pat you up. But I
Jayne-Anne Power (15:47):
Certainly did know that the last
(15:53):
I knew that I was ready to really test myself and say to myself, this is your moment to show yourself. You can actually do the things that you want to do. It was also the other thing that was a real driver was throughout my career, I have been in various workplaces where the culture just wasn't kind. And over time, I had come to learn about myself that I had views about the importance of building people up in business, importance of valuing the people around you and not just the human importance and the sole importance, but the business importance. Absolutely a sense. And I'd worked with a lot of people for a long time that had not worked with that ethos, and I kind of got to the point where I thought, I've been around that stuff and I've tried it out for a while, and I don't think you guys are doing it any better than I would do it if I was just nice to people. So I decided that another part of what I was doing, creating my own business was creating my own culture, the culture that I could turn up to work every day. At the moment, that culture is just me, but it doesn't matter because I am creating It
Danielle Lewis (17:23):
Starts with you.
Jayne-Anne Power (17:25):
Well, that's right. And I'm creating connections and partnerships with others and landlords and a community of shops around me, and I have people, agencies,
Danielle Lewis (17:35):
Manufacturers,
Jayne-Anne Power (17:36):
And that's exactly right, partners of all kinds and kind of business that I run. It is a kind business and it's a business that's all about genuine connection, whether that's with my customers or with my partners. I've had a couple of interns, et cetera. I just realized that I just wanted those beliefs to take the forefront in my life and in my work, and that's another really big reason why I decided to start my own business,
Danielle Lewis (18:04):
And it is such a great reason. It is difficult to, as employees, no matter how senior we are, it is difficult to impact the culture as a single person, especially if you're coming into a workplace that already has a bit of a toxic culture going on or a culture of that's kind of set in their ways. It is really hard to spark change. But yeah, I love that because you get so much more done when you are nice to people. I
Jayne-Anne Power (18:38):
Couldn't agree more. What a waste of energy it is for people to sit there stewing on the crappy thing that just got said to them, or I mean, jeepers. I just do not understand how people think that that leads to productivity, cooperation, appreciation, building people up, being genuine, giving them genuine feedback, even if that feedback is feedback that lifts them up into improvement. I mean, come on as if that's not better.
Danielle Lewis (19:09):
No, I completely agree with you and I love that. It is one of the genuinely amazing things about starting your own business is that you get to design it, right? You get a say in every piece of that puzzle, which is so, I don't know. It's inspiring. I love that part. I remember I always tell this story about a few years ago, I was so over the business that I had created, I was so miserable, and I was like, well, that's pretty stupid. You are the boss. You are the one that gets to change all of this stuff.
Jayne-Anne Power (19:43):
So you had to be your own HR department in
Danielle Lewis (19:44):
This way? I did. I did. I did. I had to go, well, okay, well, you're the boss, so how about you start implementing change? I was like, stop whining about it. You're the one in control here. So I do love that. I do love that we actually get to design the business. We want design the life that we want. I think it's so exciting. And tell me about a product business. So we have on here more of a skew towards service-based businesses, less product. So I always love asking this question, if I wanted to become the next fashion design extraordinaire and I wanted to create a physical product, what is that process like? If you're just starting out with an idea? It strikes me that it's really difficult to bring a physical product to life.
Jayne-Anne Power (20:38):
All I can tell you is what I know from, I've worked in shoes and leather goods and clothing. Those are the two areas I've worked in. I have to tell you that all of these young guns on TikTok that are selling fricking water bottles and stuff like that, I don't know how they're doing that shit. I have no idea. What I do know about garment manufacturing and footwear manufacturing is that you've got to go out there and find good quality manufacturers. There are ways to do that. There are trade fairs and things like that where you can see the factories turn up to those trade fairs and show you what they make, and you can go to them trade fairs all around the world. There's a couple in Australia actually for footwear. Excuse me. So yeah, the critical thing is getting the right manufacturing partner, and that's about quality. It's about relationship, it's about pricing, consistency, reliability, all of that sort of stuff. It's absolutely critical to have manufacturing partner or partners that you can really work with. You can trust. I mean, when you're buying a container of shoes, it's a very expensive thing to do. Oh, I can imagine. You don't want them rocking up on the boat here in Adelaide and they're all rubbish. You've got to know that you trust your factory. You've got to know you've got that relationship with them and that the quality of what they do is there.
(22:23):
But that would be my recommendation is look at trade fairs.
Danielle Lewis (22:27):
I love that. I love that because it strikes me that there's nothing like experience and actually going in and just figuring it out. So I studied fashion design at uni when I was a whipper snapper, and I can tell you that after a three year degree in fashion design, I would have no idea where to start for actually bringing a label to life, which always struck me as very odd that there was so much theory and design and all important stuff, but the actual business side and actually bringing something to life always struck me as odd that I really came out none the wiser. So I always like to ask people where they would start because that's such practical advice. Trade their manufacturer, getting the right partners on board.
Jayne-Anne Power (23:19):
A lot of people use Alibaba Bar and websites like that. I've had mixed experience with that. I've had a couple of good experiences on Alibaba, and I've had some absolutely rubbish experiences. You can't do anything about it. The stuff turns up, it's garbage, you can't do anything about it, and that's you spent your money and they turned up and you didn't have any way to eyeball. Anyone have a conversation?
Danielle Lewis (23:52):
Yes.
Jayne-Anne Power (23:53):
So I think that one of the reasons that I felt confident to start my business was what you said before on someone else's dime. I made all those connections. I chose this factory I could have chosen out of, there's another five that I know of or different people who make components and souls and manufacturers in different countries. I have contacts and I know who they are and I know how to tell if they're quality or not. So I went into it with the confidence, which isn't very helpful to a newcomer, but I guess how did I get that? My company sent me to trade fairs and I visited factories and actually spoke to the people, and you just cannot beat that actually meeting them face to face.
Danielle Lewis (24:43):
And I love that. It is boots on the ground, getting your hands dirty, actual experience, get out there and just start exploring and learning. I love that so much. Yeah, so I always love to leave our amazing smart community with one last piece of advice. So just reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give another woman in business as she was going through her journey with all of the ups and downs and challenges that it presents?
Jayne-Anne Power (25:19):
I think when I look back over my incredibly varied career, we've just talked about my shoe stuff, but I worked in retail on the shop floor for a long time. I've been a musician for a long time. I've done all sorts of different jobs and marketing, pr, whatever, and it's sort of when I look back and reflect on how I got here, I just followed something in here that kept saying, this is interesting. I could do that. I'm sure I could do that. And I feel like what it's done is just pulled me like this, and so I love this. And then I've sort of turned up in this spot and gone, oh my God, look at all the skills I have. Look at all the knowledge I have, the confidence that I have to start. My business didn't come because I went, yeah, girl, you can do it though.
(26:11):
There was a lot of that and also advice from other people or whatever. A lot of it came because I knew what I knew because I'd done it for other people and I knew I had the contacts and I had the understanding and the business training and all that sort of stuff, but I only had that because I just kept saying yes to myself all the time. I was clear in myself what I was in my jobs for, what I was interested in, in my jobs, and I just let the feeling pull me and I just let the interest pull me. Now, that doesn't mean I was always riveted in my job. It doesn't mean I was always happy I got pushed around by some people. From time to time, that stuff happens. But at the end of the day, if you are clear on what your interests are, oh, this is making me feel good.
(27:00):
I like this. I'm going to do a bit more of it. I'm going to study some of that. I reckon that job would be, I reckon I could do more of this if I did that job over there. Just let it pull you and be in charge of it. Don't get in the end, it'll feel like you'll have some bumps and bruises and some scratches from time to time. But if you've been true to yourself and always said yes to that feeling of I like this. I like how I'm developing. I like how I'm growing. Knowing how to do this makes me feel. If you keep following that, you cannot go wrong.
Danielle Lewis (27:39):
Jane Anne, you are bloody incredible. I am so grateful that you've come on to the Spark TV show to share your insights and your business. Yeah, I love it. You are incredible. Thank you.
Jayne-Anne Power (27:53):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been so lovely to talk to you.
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