A Melbourne-based fashion designer has achieved rapid growth and a family friendly company structure using a very basic management tool: how it feels to her.
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Entrepreneur: Catherine Manuell, Designer/Director
Company: Catherine Manuell Design
Business type: Fashion accessories design, manufacture, wholesale, retail, and export business
Founded: 1997
Employees: 5 full-time; 7 part-time
Turnover: (2003 - 2004) More than $1M
Head office: Melbourne (Fitzroy North, Northcote, Melbourne City), Stockholm (Sweden), Arizona (United States)
Contact details: +61 3 9482 4877
Web site: www.catherinemanuelldesign.com
The Catherine Manuell Design Story
Catherine Manuell believes in trusting her instincts. The founder of the fast-growing women's fashion business, Catherine Manuell Design (CMD), says: "I always ask myself, 'Do I like it? Would my sisters like it?'" It has been the right growth recipe for a business that depends on taste. And it has also got Manuell distribution in more than 300 outlets in Australia and overseas, customers such as the Hollywood actress Sandra Bullock, and a feature luggage role in the Big Brother reality TV series.
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Key learning points:
- Cost control - Budgeting makes you aware of each step of the design, production, distribution and sales process. It forces you to consider how much value you have got from what you have spent.
- Instinctive management - Love what you do and follow your instincts.
- Know your staff - Find the right people and then fit the job around the staff member’s lifestyle.
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Manuell started the business in 1997 with capital of $5000. She says: "I kept putting the profits back into the business until I had enough to set up the next range." After six months, Manuell (pronounced “manual”) was able to give up her casual jobs and concentrate solely on making hats and scarves. “This set me on track to grow the business without any debt and I learned to budget tightly.”
With her first range of hats, Manuell again followed her taste and approached stores with goods that she personally liked. “I started very gently with just ten stockists.” Manuell’s products are now stocked in over 300 stores around Australia and her brother opened a store, Spirit of Oz, in Stockholm, Sweden in late 2004.
Manuell says: “It feels like the next move has presented itself just when we needed it. We were ready to start selling to America when an American woman walked into our store and said 'Can we talk?’” As a result of that meeting, a retail store and distribution point in the United States has been established in Arizona.
Manuell has also developed her company’s child-care policies based on her own experience. In 1998, just as the business was starting to take off, Manuell welcomed a baby daughter into her life. But she did not want her daughter in child care so she set up a nursery within her studio. It was a challenging time. “I would have an appointment about Spring Racing Carnival hats, then rush back to the office, feed the baby, rush to an appointment, then back to pick up the baby and then off to mother’s group.”
When her daughter was six weeks old, Manuell found herself with too many deadlines to meet, exhausted from being a new mum and in tears on the couch. She placed an ad for an assistant in The Age and hired the three best applicants because each was as good as the other. She says: “The business was at the point where I was able to draw a nice wage, but then I couldn’t keep going without help.”
Manuell has developed her business around family life - hers and the staff. The office has a DVD player and various children’s titles, office hours are 9.30am to 5.00pm and if staff work late too often, their hours will be adjusted to suit their lifestyles. Manuell, for example, makes no appointments before 10.00am and always takes a day off mid-week to spend with her young son. “We make sure the business works around us.”
Staff at Catherine Manuell Design work as a team and are multi-skilled. Manuell says: “I like to employ people who are bright, have initiative and I can trust. I closely direct people but I strongly believe that for them to enjoy it, I have to step back and trust them.”
Manuell believes that staff should not have to do jobs or work hours that she would not do herself. “Occasionally, we have to stay late. This is appreciated but not expected. If I see that this is consistently happening, then I know it’s time to hire someone else.”