#awinewith Nikki Parkinson
MEET Nikki
Nikki is the Founder of Styling You and Styling You The Label.
Find Nikki here:
Styling You website and Instagram @stylingyou @stylingyouthelabel.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:08):
Amazing. Nikki, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Nikki Parkinson (00:14):
I am so excited to be here, Danielle. It's been too long between chats
Danielle Lewis (00:19):
Too long between chats and wines. Wine. Wine. Amazing. Well, I think the best place to start is maybe from the start, and I know, so you've gone, you've had an amazing career slash business journey journalist to blogger, to author, to now, fashion designer. I think I met you in the blogging days, but all the way back then. But I'd love if you could share with the Spark community a little bit about how that journey unfolded
Nikki Parkinson (00:52):
All by accident.
Danielle Lewis (00:54):
Excellent. I love that. I'm writing that down by
Nikki Parkinson (00:57):
Accident, by accident. I think at the crux of it, when I look back on it is a couple of things and things that may be for my generation. So I'm turning 55 in June. I'm not sure when this is going to publish. And I'm still of that era that traditionally had one job and a lot of women my age might've been forced into different roles, but I never thought, definitely never thought at 39, 40 that I would not be a journalist right now. And then a lot can change very quickly. And I just had a now or never moment and jumped out of the career of 20 years. That was all I knew into Was there something
Danielle Lewis (01:42):
That triggered that?
Nikki Parkinson (01:44):
Yes, just general toxicity in a workplace. I really loved what I did, but at the end of my journalism career, I was editing a weekly glossy magazine in the weekly newspaper, but the squeeze on mainstream media had started. And in my whole career, I'd never seen any redundancies in editorial. And suddenly there were, unfortunately I didn't get one the way
Danielle Lewis (02:17):
Yes,
Nikki Parkinson (02:18):
But I could see that the bits that I like to do, like the magazine and the lifestyle thing, they were going to be the first to go in any kind of number scrunching resource kind of thing. So I went, and this all happened at the same time as we were living on the Sunshine Coast at the same time as my husband took a job working in Brisbane, so commuting, and I had a toddler and two upper primary beginning of high school kids. And I went, I don't even know how I'm going to do all
Danielle Lewis (02:49):
This. Now is the time,
Nikki Parkinson (02:51):
Now is the time. And I wasn't happy and the bitterness was coming home and I thought, I'm bitter. I'm going to try and somehow juggle a roster that can change every week with this. And if something happens to one of the kids, I'm the only person who's around to pick up. And it all just fueled at the same time. And people were made redundant. Another friend who I'd worked with for a long time accepted a completely different role somewhere else. And I went, oh, what if I just jumped out? What if I just leapt and see what would happen? And in leaping, there was a lot of naivety. Starting your own business without any business experience, probably not something I would recommend. But having said that, I think if I was too rigid, this is 2008, if I had been too rigid in business planning and expertise, I would not have ended up accidentally falling into the online space because 2008, Facebook was kind of just starting.
(04:05):
I think I still had a husband and wife account really bad. I love that. That's cute. It's not cute, it's not cute. But there were so few people on Facebook at the time that we just did, and I think we had one computer when Facebook and I don't know, something, I gravitated to social media very easily and quickly. And I think the journalism base, yes. But I think what was missing in hindsight from the journalism piece was the ability to start a conversation. And suddenly social media allowed me to share information but start a conversation. Whereas previously you might've got a cranky letter from a letter to the editor written about something that you wrote. And that's not immediate. Obviously in mainstream journalism that's changed now with online journalism. But back then it was very one-sided broadcast. And I just love a chat. So it was actually Twitter that brought a really beautiful relationship to social media for me.
(05:10):
But I can't remember the last time I was on it, but back in the day when it first took off in 2009 in Australia, I connected with so many people who I'm still friends with today. Some I went on to meet in real life. It was like a cocktail party every, well, actually whenever you wanted to jump on during the day while you were doing something else. And that gave me the thirst for social media and it made me understand these people called bloggers. And I went, Hey, I think I've got one of those blog things. And I just started, started phrasing how the accidental blogger. Yes. Well, the website I had built was actually a WordPress blog, which is still the, that sits there today. And I feed it once every month maybe now. But I had the platform and I just changed the way I wrote.
(06:09):
It was more of a connected, engaging way of writing instead of a factual informational, they still had all the information I was writing about style and style advice, but I just changed the way I wrote. And suddenly I got comments because all the comments happened on the blog and people weren't on their phones or anything like that. And it was quite a fun period of time to be at the forefront of all of this. And particularly in Australia, there's probably only a handful of us from back in the day who are still actively doing something on social media or making a living in relation to it. So yeah, so there was a few things back then. It was a very small community, and the blogging conferences started and I won an Australian Blog of the Year award and just crazy stuff now that you feel like a grandmother Ethan talking about it. But it was really a pioneering part of social media. And then Instagram came, and you can go to my account, I was there on day.in 2010 just about, and I went for the filters,
Danielle Lewis (07:20):
All the memories,
Nikki Parkinson (07:22):
But stayed around because it was suddenly a very instant visual way to build a different kind of community. So that's a kind of nutshell, the accidental part was realizing being in a good place to realize different opportunities and not being afraid to adapt to them.
Danielle Lewis (07:50):
So accidentally fall into the online space after having a career in media essentially and traditional publishing, how then did we get to being a fashion designer?
Nikki Parkinson (08:05):
So I did a lot of paid sponsored work and gifted collaborations with fashion brands from, not from 2008 really, but definitely paid collaborations from 2012 through to 2018. And you wouldn't always get clear stats on sales, but the fact that I kept getting re-contracted, it kind of said to me, well, I'm clearly selling some things and a few brands would let me in on the knowledge how much I was actually selling. And I went,
Danielle Lewis (08:49):
Why am I selling
Nikki Parkinson (08:50):
People products
(08:54):
And a fortuitous meeting with my manufacturer who planted the seed? And honestly, if someone plants the seed and it sparks a little something, it's impossible for me not to think about it. And this person made it very easy for me to get started in terms of it's made in Australia, she has the expertise, so was able to help me understand what I would need to do to get that rolling. So that was able to come off the ground. It was probably about a year from the seed being planted over wine and cheese. We always joke about that
Danielle Lewis (09:34):
To launch. That's where the best ideas happen.
Nikki Parkinson (09:36):
Yes, they do. They absolutely do. And I'm still with the same manufacturer, and we have been through really hard times during Covid, like any business, but a product-based business. It's been a very strange couple of years, let alone if you're still in the startup base and you're still trying to work out who your customer is, what they want, and then they go, oh, there's half our customer base in lockdown. Oh my god, time.
Danielle Lewis (10:09):
Yes.
Nikki Parkinson (10:10):
So that's how I ended up there. And at the crux of it is the online community because yes, you can go and start an online business product-based business, but I didn't have to build up the following at the same time as launching because I was able to bring followers from styling you over to styling you the label. And not everybody comes over. It's not going to be for everybody because we're not fast fashion. It costs a certain amount to produce in Australia. So that's reflected in our price. And it's also might not be everybody's style, but definitely you have an advantage by having that readymade audience to market to. And
Danielle Lewis (11:03):
Would that be one of your pieces of advice to somebody who's thinking of starting something to start with the audience or the community before the product?
Nikki Parkinson (11:12):
Yes and no. You kind of have to have a reason why you're building a community in the first place. And mine was always to shake up and disrupt how fashion is marketed because I am not of a traditional model shape or height, but I've always loved fashion. So that's why I started showing clothes on myself, Jux, side by side with a photo of a model wearing the same outfit. Not to say I was better, but just to offer one other alternative.
Danielle Lewis (11:52):
And I absolutely that because I have a really hard time shopping online because you don't look like the model and you get it and you're like, wow, I really don't look like that picture that I bought that from. And so I love, I've obviously seen it with your brand, but I do love it when brands offer that variety of, I think you go above and beyond. I've never seen a brand actually photograph the same item on such a range of sizes. I love that because it really does help you as the consumer kind of know what you're going to be in for.
Nikki Parkinson (12:26):
Yeah, because you hate it if you fail at online shopping. I mean, one of the boxes behind me is my own failure. So I understand what happens when I go to a site and I can't get the information that I want. So not only do we give you a visual cue, but we've got the measurements for all of those models. So you are going to be able to match one or two. And even just a simple thing like height can impact, you can't actually tell where a dress is going to fall on you when it's always photographed on a six foot model. And it could be a sample that's not ended up being the production run. Whereas you can go and match your height to one of our models and you can see where that mini dress is going to come to or that mini dress, or we don't do minis, but short dress is going to come to, and that's just going to give you more confidence because you do feel like you've failed. Even you can return it, you just go, oh, I really had a vision of me wearing that. And
Danielle Lewis (13:24):
Then it's usually you had a vision of borrowing it that weekend, and so then it's a giant, so then you're out of options and you have to go through the pain and the bum of actually returning it.
Nikki Parkinson (13:33):
Yeah, I
Danielle Lewis (13:35):
Feel you.
Nikki Parkinson (13:36):
All of those things. I just wanted to not only shake up the way fashion is marketed, but actually connect the customer with the product. And surely that's the aim of someone selling fashion. They actually want the customer to buy the product.
Danielle Lewis (13:54):
You would think that you would
Nikki Parkinson (13:56):
Think that you would, but often there's a disconnect. I mean, there's still brands who really don't want people over a certain size wearing their label. They either don't make it or they definitely never show people over a size eight or 10 in their marketing at all.
Danielle Lewis (14:17):
And it just blows my mind because I have no idea on the stats. You might, but I'm a thousand percent sure that the majority of the population is not fitting into a size eight or 10.
Nikki Parkinson (14:28):
No. And a straight size eight or 10 is very limited. No curves, no boobs, bums. So from our point of view, our top sellers are 12, 14, 16 average, and that's built for curves. So yes and yes, we will attract women in that size who maybe struggle in a straight size to find something to suit that suits their shape. But definitely if you look at the curve, that's where the sales are.
Danielle Lewis (15:05):
So has this approach been a challenge? So I mean, I feel like you've made a whole lot of work for yourself.
Nikki Parkinson (15:15):
Yes. So every photo shoot is not about hoping that the two models turn up for the one model. So we just had our final photo shoot for the season, and we had two out because of Covid, so that's not so bad. So at least we still have six others, but that's just the way it is. And so I'm counteracting that with influencers in the sizes that we've missed out on shooting that day so they can produce content. Because particularly as we've given this pattern of being able to show on all these different sizes, as soon as you don't have it for reasons you can't plan for it, because obviously you're going to find that out the day before or the morning of, and that's just our new world that we're living in, and you've just got to keep pivoting. So there's that. There's more coordination, there are more samples needed in advance,
Danielle Lewis (16:14):
Of course. Yep.
Nikki Parkinson (16:16):
There's a greater photography cost, there's a greater logistics cost all the way down the line from photo shoot days through to getting everything implemented onto the site. So yeah, it's more challenging, but I believe we wouldn't be getting the sales that we've gotten over the last three years without going to those steps.
Danielle Lewis (16:45):
And perhaps it's, whilst it shouldn't be a point of difference, whilst this should be available to everyone, I guess it is worth it because it is your point of difference in the market.
Nikki Parkinson (16:55):
And I also didn't feel I could go to market when I've just been championing about showing fashion on different body shapes. I couldn't have started. Well, I could have, but I just felt like if my underlying why is to shake up the fashion industry at the same time as making women feel welcomed by fashion and feel great in fashion, then I need to do things that will reflect that. And maybe I was a little, and I used to really used to not really understand budgeting for photo shoots when I started
Danielle Lewis (17:42):
Always learning. There's always learning,
Nikki Parkinson (17:44):
Oh dear, there's always learning. But we streamlined that and we just make it happen and we can sell out of a product. So a lot of that marketing material could be dead in the water if it's not something we can reorder. So you have to get smart on, if I'm going to commit to all these models, how can I maximize that content so that it's going to work for us in the timeframe we need and not be a complete waste of money?
Danielle Lewis (18:15):
Well, and I guess that's the point though. You're always optimizing. There's literally every kind of stage of business. There seems to be a challenge that you have to navigate, learn, overcome, and then 12 months later there's something else that goes along. Yes,
Nikki Parkinson (18:32):
Always.
Danielle Lewis (18:33):
It's a never ending process.
Nikki Parkinson (18:36):
And if someone had told me that I'd be doing this 20 years ago, I've laughed. I would not have known what to do for starters 20 years ago. What year are we talking? 20 years ago? 20. I don't think there were any Australian online fashion retail business in 2002.
Danielle Lewis (18:52):
No,
Nikki Parkinson (18:55):
Maybe a couple of very That didn't exist anymore at Birds Nest hadn't started by then either. So yes, I feel like
Danielle Lewis (19:04):
That's it. There wasn't even a template for you to follow.
Nikki Parkinson (19:07):
No. Wow. No.
Danielle Lewis (19:09):
So what have been some of the biggest challenges then over the last, gosh, decade?
Nikki Parkinson (19:18):
Decade in business? I think the biggest challenge, but it's also a challenge that I happily rise to is even before Covid and the word pivot, you've got to be able to adapt all the time. Every time there was a new social media, I would jump on and grab my branding handle
Danielle Lewis (19:36):
Because you
Nikki Parkinson (19:37):
Actually didn't know whether it was going to take off. So I think I do have TikTok, but I've never been on it because it's not a demographic. And that could change. So maybe I will have to get on it. Remember Periscope, back in the day, that was a video thing, and I was so annoyed that I wasn't quick enough. And some hair stylist in America got styling U, so I had to add something else onto styling U, and I didn't want to, but it didn't take off. Lucky.
Danielle Lewis (20:05):
That's the why it didn't take off. Yes.
Nikki Parkinson (20:08):
But it's actually good advice. Even if you think you're never, that's not going to be your thing. It's almost like grabbing the domain name.
Danielle Lewis (20:18):
Yes. Real estate, it's like real online
Nikki Parkinson (20:20):
Estate, so you don't want to cut off your own options. And then just adapting to every technology. When I started online, everybody was accessing via a desktop or a laptop, mostly probably in work hours, let's face it, unless they had a laptop while they were watching tv. And then suddenly there were smartphones that kept increasing and probably camera quality I'm really talking about here. And that's why I needed the filters on Instagram because the phone camera quality was so bad in 2010 that you needed a filter to kind of just make it look a bit better to the point. Now I actually shoot all our videos on my iPhone using the cinematic mode and I edit them. And in shot, someone asked me the other day, who does your videos? And I went
Danielle Lewis (21:18):
The jack of all trades over here. Yeah,
Nikki Parkinson (21:21):
Well, it's kind of necessity, but also something that I find easy and fun to do.
Danielle Lewis (21:26):
But also if it works and the quality is there, why spend thousands of dollars outsourcing it? There's no gain to the
Nikki Parkinson (21:34):
Business. There is no gain. And especially if six of those products are sold out on launch day, great problem to have. But also you've spent all this money on something that is useless to you now.
Danielle Lewis (21:46):
Yeah, wow.
Nikki Parkinson (21:50):
And my days as a journalist, you had to do everything. You'd get handed a camera on the way out the door if there wasn't a photographer available, you just had to do that. And that set me up. We also, I started as a journalist on a typewriter, and so we had all the technological changes all the way through. So that set me up for that adaptive personality that I could, I didn't get scared of technology that I would just embrace it and go, Hey, this is going to make my life easier. So every step of the way, there's always something like that going to happen. And probably quite strange for someone my age to have that mentality, but I think it's just because it's what I've grown up with literally my whole working life
Danielle Lewis (22:39):
And the mantra of adaptability and constant change. I think that's probably the only lesson I've learned in business is just be okay, so everything will be okay. You've just got to go, okay, cool. How will we overcome this new thing? And we have responsive to it.
Nikki Parkinson (22:59):
And having said that, sorry, 2020 was really hard for me. I can adapt, but the unknown
(23:12):
Really took its toll on me. I was here financially invested in a new part of my business. I had no idea if anyone was still going to be buying clothes. I was committed to massive orders. Well, we're still in it, so we don't know what it looks like. And I burnt out it really, I just felt like this hamster on the hamster wheel, keeping people employed, taking on all that stress as well as keeping your business afloat to fulfill supplies, orders, all of that kind of thing. And anxiety and burnout just all combined and it was just horrendous. But I saw a psychologist realized what was happening, and I have better tools to deal with that now. But it was an insight into my personality that yes, I can adapt, but sometimes it can be at an expense to my own personal health without realizing how I need to manage that a little bit better.
Danielle Lewis (24:26):
Well, look, I don't think you are alone in the roller coaster. That has been the last couple of years. And I know people listening to this, whether they're listening in on YouTube or a podcast or whatever, may have suffered from the same. And I know absolutely I have been there questioning whether I'm there right now. Okay. So you kind of mentioned going to a therapist. Were there any other strategies that you put in place that you might be able to, I guess offer up as some wisdom? So if someone's sitting here watching, going, oh my God, I think that I'm about to lose it, things that they can do to self-reflect and perhaps I guess see a way through.
Nikki Parkinson (25:11):
I think definitely if you're feeling that, get to your GP straight off the bat. And it took me, two goes to find a psychologist who I clicked with. So that's important and that's hard. If you are really in a state that's just too hard to make that call to the GP or to find a psychologist who is a fit with you, then I feel like get a buddy to help you.
(25:39):
Even someone who can make that as appointments. It just depends how low you are. I think the fact that we talk about it now is really good that we talk about that. It's okay, we'll go in. I had a broken wrist at the beginning of the year last year, so no one has a thing about saying I had to go and get this mended, but when it comes to your head, and then it really became keeping up the psychologist appointments, but also doing things that nurtured myself away from this, away from the computers, away from the phones. And that's going to be different for everybody. It might be running for some people, that was actually the worst thing that I could do. And yoga. And I'm not good at meditating, so I'm not even going to say meditation because I'm shit. I'd love
Danielle Lewis (26:39):
Meditating, but it just doesn't vibe with me.
Nikki Parkinson (26:43):
You end up meditating because you have it trick you, it tricks you
Danielle Lewis (26:48):
Way. I love yoga because it trick you into meditating
Nikki Parkinson (26:51):
And at the end of the class you get to lie down. So there's a lot of incentive for that. And just walking without schedules. So I don't have a schedule for walking except a couple of mornings a week I meet up with girlfriends and that's just the walking talkies. But other than that, it's just getting out of the house. And I do yoga through a program, which means I can do it whenever I like. And I know that's not for some people that they want that, but I really couldn't take something else being scheduled in my life because everything else was scheduled and had deadlines and everything, but I just needed to. And that's something I've just kept in place now, but I can still, you can feel it bubble away at certain times. And I just make sure I switch off. I make sure sleep is a priority.
(27:42):
It's so hard to get quality sleep. And it's worth pursuing that with your GP as well, because sleep is a steroid. And if you can get quality, good quality sleep or finances to why you might be not having good sleep, and for me, tied up with everything was my last year in perimenopause. Another thing that everyone's talking about now, and you never know it's your last year, but all of those things come together and you can see why some people would end up, I was nearly rocking in the corner, but it was just this cocktail of crazy. It really was. I wasn't sleeping. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety and then you tell yourself that you've got really good reasons to be anxious because, and you dunno whether your business is going to survive and all that kind of stuff. So I got help with that too. It's not accepting that that's normal.
Danielle Lewis (28:42):
Oh, I love that too, because you're right, it's really interesting. As a business owner, I had a whole lot of experiences through Covid, obviously trying to keep the business afloat, trying to manage the team, trying to keep everyone employed, all that kind of stuff. And it was just really interesting watching everyone's experience and the things employees would say to you and their personal experiences that they were going through and then yourself and not looking after yourself. And then the external, oh, looking at these businesses are actually thriving and how come I'm not? Like I just blown up because of covid. So it was just this moment of all of this, too many inputs. And actually I love how you said it was a cocktail of things that all, because that's what it's like. It's you get to that point sometimes, oh, well, I actually haven't made time to move this week. I've probably had too much wine. There's this issue going on with the product, there's this happening, there's this happening. It is so easy actually for time to pass and forget to check in on yourself. And I think that that's something that we kind of need to remember as business owners, that we're human as well, and we're going to have human problems like sleep, health, mental health that we actually need to address for our business to thrive.
Nikki Parkinson (30:02):
Because I think it's too easy to just put it down to, well, I'm busy. I haven't got a choice in it. You
Danielle Lewis (30:08):
Might feel guilty sometimes. Yes. I'm like, well, I shouldn't be looking after myself because I haven't hit those goals.
Nikki Parkinson (30:14):
And the already is, if you look after yourself, you probably will hit the goals.
Danielle Lewis (30:19):
Exactly.
Nikki Parkinson (30:20):
Particularly on the sleep and the movement. It is terrible to think that you have to almost go to rock bottom to then realize how you wouldn't treat someone else like you're treating yourself. Yes,
Danielle Lewis (30:38):
I know. Why do we do
Nikki Parkinson (30:39):
It? Why do we do it? And I dunno. And I think before we came on the call, I was talking, it was about last year and the year before, just this whole, I also felt the pressure, oh, I've started this new part of the business. So it's got to be big. It's got to, that's what success is. And then I thought, but who says that it was reinforced for me last year and I'm going, but it's great. I can have a profitable business that allows me to have a lifestyle that allows me to sleep at night. That is
Danielle Lewis (31:14):
Success.
Nikki Parkinson (31:15):
That is success.
Danielle Lewis (31:16):
That is more than the headline people. I was saying that I was like, we see these headlines of raised millions of dollars. They're unicorns, they're this, they're that. But those businesses oftentimes are losing so much money and the people in them are so stressed. And I'm like, why does success have to look like that?
Nikki Parkinson (31:35):
And I think I just would like to give particularly female business owners watching this, that if you are happy with how your business is operating and the size that it is that you don't have to scale. It's okay if you want to, but it's also okay if you don't. And I feel like we've only ever had male role models.
(32:02):
Not completely, but generally that's how all business information has got passed down. And it's almost like female founders came in and a chunk of them thought they needed to be just like men to succeed. And I would say the most successful ones have just gone their own path, whether that is massive, but they've kept the core and the heart of it. And that's what the difference is with female founded businesses. That there's a heart, there's a reason why they're doing it and they're not just doing it for the money. The money obviously helps because otherwise you won't have a business. But there's a why to it because otherwise why would you risk financially risk what you're doing?
Danielle Lewis (32:54):
That's it. Because it's not easy. Business isn't easy. It's really hard and it impacts everything. So if you don't actually care about what you're doing, what are you doing?
Nikki Parkinson (33:05):
Yes. So if I didn't care about what I was doing, how would I walk down the corridor every day and sit at my desk
Danielle Lewis (33:12):
Exactly
Nikki Parkinson (33:13):
Without just mindless scrolling through Instagram. I care and I really enjoy it.
Danielle Lewis (33:18):
And the fact of the matter is if you don't care, go get a job because that's less stressful and more secure. Yes. So what does business look like for you today? What do you do in the business? What does the team look like? What hats are you wearing? How does it all look today?
Nikki Parkinson (33:37):
It's quite streamlined and it's about to change again. So for this year, 2022, it's just been myself and one full-time between us. We handle all marketing operations and customer service. So there's just a split on different jobs within that. But I'm doing the little jobs as much as the big jobs.
Danielle Lewis (34:02):
Are you sending orders as well or do you have fulfillment?
Nikki Parkinson (34:04):
No, that's us working remotely. We come together one day a week in coworking space. And then I have a very efficient warehouse team based here in Brisbane, Lexington Logistics. I'm going to give them a shout out because they saw,
Danielle Lewis (34:22):
Yes, Diane's amazing.
Nikki Parkinson (34:24):
They saw an opening in the market for warehousing for small to medium businesses and typically has attracted fashion and lifestyle businesses. But they allow me to sleep because orders still go out and they're very efficient and personalized and it is so reassuring, and I wish I'd done it from day one. Dianne will actually tell you she likes all of her clients to have packed their own orders before coming to her because it isn't an easy task, it's not a challenging task in itself, but there's so many things that can go wrong. So I understand that. And
Danielle Lewis (35:08):
Feeling the pain first before you outsource a time I think is actually really important as well.
Nikki Parkinson (35:14):
And also then you never dismiss that part of the business has been something that is beneath you or that doesn't take much, that isn't an important part, but it's crucial in the customer journey and absolutely. Our orders we only send express, and if you order before 12 on a business day, it goes out that day. Most people get their orders the next day. It's almost instant gratification. We can't compete with the iconics with their three hour, some cities delivery or whatever it is. But most people go, I can't believe it.
Danielle Lewis (35:53):
Yeah. Wow, that's
Nikki Parkinson (35:54):
Awesome. We've got the order. And
Danielle Lewis (35:56):
That is critical. I like that. To your point, that is critical in the customer journey that they get that experience.
Nikki Parkinson (36:04):
So that's over here. We've got the warehouse and then our manufacturing team in Sydney that they're the key stakeholders. There's two of us delivering everything. And then you've got the key partners, which is warehousing and manufacturing. And so that's why I guess if you put all of those people together, that's a lot of people. But this is a very streamlined way for me to operate it and still be able to have a lifestyle. And yes, I could do things a lot differently. I could manufacture it offshore and work at volumes that you'd go to a different warehouse that maybe is cheaper, but at what cost. I come back to that personal thing and just reflecting on how I want to operate a business to still have a lifestyle, but how I want to operate so that I'm not only creating a business that supports women, I'm also supporting other female businesses in generating that. And that is important to me. That's part of my own personal ethos in supporting women.
Danielle Lewis (37:26):
And I think that to your point earlier as well, that's the stuff too that helps us sleep at night. Yes, businesses hard and all those things, but then if you create a monster that you don't actually believe in, then getting out of bed becomes really difficult.
Nikki Parkinson (37:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (37:44):
I love that so much. So last piece of wisdom, the smart community tends to be early stage female founders. If you could have told yourself one piece of advice all the way back in the day when you were starting your businesses, what would it be?
Nikki Parkinson (38:01):
I'm just going to stick with the bit that's still in the startup and that's the label kind of thing. I think definitely look at warehousing sooner rather than later.
Danielle Lewis (38:12):
Awesome. I love
Nikki Parkinson (38:12):
That. Because I think you can get caught up and go, oh, I want to do that experience of wrapping the parcel and sending it and everything. At the end of the day, you can still have the touch points with your customers in other ways. And we do that with the business with different things in our VIP program and our rewards program and just surprising and delighting with messages and different emails and things that we see as certain customers. But also you can, oh my God, I've just completely had menopause brain and forgotten.
Danielle Lewis (38:52):
Well, I think to your point, so warehousing sooner rather than later. Yes,
Nikki Parkinson (38:57):
Warehousing sooner rather than later. I know a lot of product-based businesses and sometimes you are living somewhere where you don't have access to a warehouse. It's not impossible. And I know that Lexington look after clients who don't live in Brisbane. So it is actually possible, but it's something that I've seen a lot of businesses hold onto, including my own thinking that that was essential to the customer experience. What is essential to the customer experience is efficient fulfillment of their orders.
(39:31):
And what I learned was that people, if that's their job every day, they are way more efficient than I could produce with a staff. And also the nature of the way we launch is that you can have a really crazy busy week and then the rest of the weeks in the month won't be as busy. So you end up staffing up and then what are you doing with staff for the rest of the time? So not really good monetary wise. So yeah, I think don't, don't be afraid to give up that part of the business because you can still keep the customer engaged and feel they just want their order. They really do. They do. At
Danielle Lewis (40:17):
The end of the day,
Nikki Parkinson (40:18):
They pay for it, they want the order.
Danielle Lewis (40:20):
And I think really you provide so much other value. We're not discounting how critical it is to get the order to the customer on time, but you don't add value to that piece of the process. There is somebody else that is amazing at that, let them do that. And you're right, from an efficiency and finance point of view, it doesn't make sense sometimes to have, I think we celebrate huge teams sometimes and freelancers and outsourcing and agencies and different models aren't really looked at quite the same, but it's so much smarter. If you can get someone who is amazing at what they do to do it and do it on demand and then you take your expertise and intelligence and creativity and focusing on that part of the customer experience, then that's the way to do it.
Nikki Parkinson (41:10):
And that's all stuff that we've found by doing and out by doing. And I think it's each person will make their own decisions and their own successes and failures along the way and look back and go, oh yeah, that would've been a great idea. But it's like you don't beat yourself up for not,
Danielle Lewis (41:29):
You can't.
Nikki Parkinson (41:30):
You can't because it was learning. One gets day one, no one gets it right from day one. But yes, I am very grateful that we now have this set up and it just feels like you're really supported by very strong partners.
Danielle Lewis (41:46):
I love that. Well, on that note, you have been absolutely incredible. Thank you for spending your time with the Spark community. I know personally, I'm just stealing nuggets of wisdom. I was just talking to you so I know everyone else will as well. So thank you so much for being here today.
Nikki Parkinson (42:04):
Thank you.
