Meet Khali Whatley Of Ma Mère

Welcome back!

My guest today is Khali Whatley. Khali’s business, ‘Ma Mère’ sells designer maternity and nursing lingerie. Read and be Inspired by her business success story!!!!




Tell us a bit about your business – what you do, when you started and how you got the idea?


	Ma Mère is an online lingerie store specialising in designer maternity and nursing lingerie. In 2007, I fell pregnant with my son and became increasingly frustrated by the maternity lingerie available in traditional retail outlets. It seemed almost impossible to find lingerie to fit without sacrificing on style. After years of wearing beautiful lingerie I was sure there had to be an answer - and so Ma Mère was born.


How do you promote your business?

We advertise in traditional media, but also focus a lot of our efforts on new media. For example, I regularly contribute to several blogs about pregnancy and breastfeeding. It’s a lot more work than simply running a press or banner advertisement, but it’s worth the effort. We also have produced a free Guide to Maternity Lingerie that we send to customers on request.

Looking back, if you can go and change one thing then what would that be?

I would spend more of our start up capital on systems that improved the day-to-day running of the business. For example, we initially had a manual stock management system. It took a lot of time to keep updated and had a lot of room for human error. Automating as many processes as possible gave me more time to focus on growing the business.

What is the best advice you have ever received about running a business?

The best piece of advice I have ever received is ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. It’s overused in business literature, for a very good reason. I also read several business blogs religiously. My favourite is Seth Godin’s, which challenges the way I think about how I run my business every day.

What is your most popular product?

	Our most popular product is the Cache Coeur Kimono nursing bra. Ma Mère is the Australian distributor for Cache Coeur and response to the range has been better than we anticipated.

What is one business tool you cannot survive without?

	The one business tool I cannot survive without is our performance dashboard. It measures the parts of our business that influence our goals and forces us to stay accountable to the areas that really matter.


Finally, your five keys to success?

1. Surround yourself with passionate people. Their energy and enthusiasm will encourage you to stay positive. 2. Have a solid business plan with quantifiable goals. If you don’t plan where you are going it’s unlikely you’ll ever get there. Making sure your goals can be measured is also really important so you can really tell if you have achieved them. 3. Measure your performance against your goals. This will keep you on track and identify areas you need to focus on. Remember, you can’t change what you don’t measure. 4. Go further than simply listening to your customers. Hearing what your customers have to say is pointless if you don’t change how you run your business as a result. 5. Great is never good enough. This may sound a bit negative, but constantly striving to improve all aspects of your business will be what sets you apart from the competition.

To read more stories about women in the maternity clothes industry click Maternity Clothes

Sites Of Interest
http://www.mamere.com.au



This interview was published on 24th September 2009

Visit Khali’s website to get more information about her business….