Small businesses now. They are the backbone of our country and I know firsthand how tough it is. Long hours, constant hurdles, and too often feeling like you're in it alone. And what I keep hearing from you is that small business owners don't feel heard. My team and I are paying close attention to our small business community and the feedback that comes to us through the Mental podcast. Now,
one thing is clear. You want to hear from more businesses beyond Sydney, from across the country, and especially those that are doing it tough. That's why my team and I are launching the Small Business call Out. The Small Business call Out, which will be under the Mental Channel, will talk to business owners all over the country every single week, no matter where you are. We want to hear from you. What's working, what's not working, What do
you need from the government to actually succeed? What other things can you enlighten us about what it's like being in the small business community. This is your chance to make your voice count. We want to hear from all industries, from those struggling, from those who feel overlooked, or those who have something to say but haven't had the platform to say it. I'm going to continue hosting the Mental podcast, but the Small Business call Out will be uploaded between episodes.
So let's get into this week's edition of the new Small Business call Out. What's the name of your business and in simple terms, what does your business do?
So it's Kate English Designs and it's English with an I, not an E. I get it all the time, all the time. So I am a baby boutique. Up until so the last fourteen years, I've been Keating's Design's baby boutique, and then we had a beautiful retail shop down the ste South Coast, and then in December I shut that after nine years and I'm now exclusively online. But I am still a baby boutique, but focusing more on my
baby hampers. It was just I noticed sort of the last eighteen months it started to drop in sales and the walkthroughs, and it just kind of got to the point where I would have had to sign on for another three years, and the current economy and the lack of spending just scared me and I just couldn't commit to another three year lease, just not with not knowing
what was going on in the future. Yeah, so we're going from about twenty five to thirty people a day in store, which is fabulous, but then on the bad days it dropped to about four, and then on a
good day you might have had about ten. So it was quite a dramatic drop, and it had been happening over time, but I just thought, I can't start twenty twenty five again just not knowing, and it was starting to take a bit of a hit on my mental health, and I just decided to drop it all and just continue going online.
Where was your business founded and where is it located?
So we're in the Narrow CBD, so it's about two two and a half hours south of Sydney. Originally found it in my garage and then we went from there and then I did local pop ups, and then I did my six years of market stalls every weekend, which was a lot of work, but that's how I got my customer base and I got my name out there. And then I moved into a pop up shop, which I outgrew within eight eight months. And then I moved into my dream shop and then actually outgrew that as well.
And then I moved directly opposite the other shop into a bigger space, which is great but then I out grew that, so I knocked the wall down in between two shops and I expanded that as well. So we've done the progression over the years.
And what inspired you to start your business.
So for me, I was living in Narra, away from Melbourne where I grew up, and my husband at the time was in the Defense Force, so he was going away on trips, so I was up by myself in there, and then every time i'd go to work, i'd get a phone call from school for my daughter's day care to say she's said you need to come and get hers. So then I'd have to say to my boss, I'm really sorry I can't work today, and it just wasn't fair.
So in the end I sided, well, let's just do some things on printing and some hampers and stuff like that, and then it just took off from there. I didn't expect it to, but it just went gang buses from there. So then I started doing more hampers and hampers for businesses, so got my name up that way, and then we
started at markets, which is great. But then when my daughter was five months old, she was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy, so I took a bit of time off, and when I came back, I'd realized that the flashing plastic toys that you can get weren't suitable for her and her epilepsy. So I started to do old fashioned wooden toys. And when I first started, there weren't many people doing that side of the business, so
then I grew from that. So everybody wanted, oh my gosh, I had this for my grandchild, or I had this when I was a little girl type thing. So that's how it all sort of took off from there as well.
What is one thing you wish you knew before you even started your business?
Small business owners we were all talking and we were just like, what are we going to do? How are we going to survive? How can we survive our small business and keep it alive? And it was so incredibly hard. But I was very, very fortunate to have Sam Mack, who I know has been with Mark shout me out on Sunrise, So that was an incredible milestone. So for that,
I'll be forever grateful for Sam for that. But yeah, it's not a lot of people had the opportunity, but a lot of people really struggled through that.
What is the most rewarding part of being a small business owner?
How to say, meeting people. Some of the people I've met have been absolutely incredible. Watching for me being the baby industry, watching people come in and tell me they're pregnant, and then watching their pregnancy develop, and then watching them or not watching them have their baby. But they've come in after they've had their baby, and then they're saying,
we're pregnant again, So you're watching that whole milestone. So I've been a part of many, many lives within that and creating beautiful gifts for them to pass on to other family members. So that's been wonderful for me. When I'm creating, especially a baby hamper, it's especially if they're ones where I get full creativity. So if people can come and say, I trust you, here's the budget, here's
a gender, I want you to create something beautiful. I think that for me is the most rewarding thing because they don't know what they're receiving, so it's all on me, and I think that's very exciting, and I get to put my passion towards creating something beautiful that they'll pass on to though ither keep for their children for when their adults and having their own children, or they'll pass on to friends and other family members. So I think that's very, very exciting. So I do get a major
buzz out of doing that. And then also when people send me their gender reveals and I do the little gender reveal boxes, it's literally myself and the scenographer or the doctor that will know in the whole world of what their gender of their baby is. So that's I do get emotional when I do these, but that's you opening up the end velope and then you see that it's a boy or it's a girl, and then you're like, oh my gosh, I get to create this beautiful thing.
And then knowing that these parents are opening up this hamper on their day of finding out the general's baby and they'll never have that moment again, and I want to make it super special. So that's really rewarding for me as well. I've been finalists in quite a few business awards, so that's been lovely as well, just showcasing my hard work. And obviously the whole scenario with Sam mcin Sunrise was out of this world, so that was great.
But meeting lots of people and finding out all different ways of life for different people has been probably a wonderful thing.
What challenges have you faced as a small business owner and how do they impact your business.
There's been a few. Obviously, lockdowns was a big one, and increasing in like finding once my family star members that were great, but then obviously we just went up. Electricity went up, then all of our rent went up, and then just little bits and pieces, you know, you stock supplies, everything like that all went up. But then being a retail space, there's not a lot of room for movement with some things because you've got to be able to be selling enough online that you're not comparable
with other businesses. So that was been a bit tricky and just constant amount of cash flow, always cash flow. It's like it's such a big thing. But when I first started, I was like, oh no, who got this?
But then laid on down the track, You're like, oh no, you actually really do think that it is one of the biggest things for small business and me personally, I have found the good old shopping network TEAMU has definitely affected a lot of businesses and I know it's hurt me, and then I know for a lot of people, their artworks and all that have been good to tread carefully what I say, but yeah, there's a few businesses that have found their products on certain websites which are their
originals and stuff like that. So that's been really hurtful and that's been sad to watch businesses stuffer that as well.
And how did you overcome them?
Mainly for me, yeah, we're in fight mode. You're in absolute fight mode. So you could have the morning where you feel pity, but then by the afternoon you're like, snap out of it. This isn't going to get you anywhere. What are we going to do? So then you write another plan. So I'm forever writing out plans. Okay, this week, we're going to do this, and they know that didn't work,
Let's try another one. But yeah, I know lots of people are taking everything back on board, back in house so they can try and save some money, either to put it towards the grocery bills at home or other bills. But once you start learning things, and for me, I've been watching lots of YouTube videos so that's definitely helped with things. But then just reaching out into your business groups and saying, hey, I need some help. Is there anybody out here who can help me with this thing?
And then you'll find that lots of people are like, hey, yeah, I actually know that, Yeah, I can help you. I was always having to put myself on my business products on sale, which was detrimental, like, I don't like doing it. I used to do a sale once a year and that was great and everybody knew that and they would
shop up big for Christmas and everything. But then when you're having to compete with other places that I've seen, you know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, all of that, and then constantly on sale, You're like, well, how am I going to stand out amongst all of that? So it became a little bit tricky. So I've been on sale more times than I would have light and better. Yeah, and then stuff like Australian posts like that's that is
quite a lot of money into our profit. So if you charge nine ninety five, it's never nine ninety five. You might lose out two dollars, three dollars, ten dollars up to on each order, so that's all your profit gone as well. So yeah, it's very tricky.
How confident are you in this Australian government's ability to support small businesses effectively zero.
I don't have any yeap, there's nothing. I don't feel. I think the small business of Australia have been totally forgotten about. And I see things in the numbers on TV in the morning and saying, oh, this is up, customer spending is up. I'm like, where where is it? Because everybody's Every small business owner that I know at the moment is gay. Where are other people? There's just nobody around. So no, I don't have a lot of confidence at the moment, and I don't feel there's enough support.
And I don't know how to really answer that in the ways of support, because at the end of the day, people just don't have the spare money by the time they pay for groceries, mortgage, petrol, daycarefee, school fees. There's lots of people there's just nothing left at the end of the day.
How's your business doing right now?
It's struggling. I'm not gonna lie about it. I don't lie about the things that I face within business. I'm always very honest. But it's hard. Like we've had Christmas, We've had January February back to school New Year's all the credit cards are coming in for people and then you've had all the school fees. But just I think everyone's waiting to see if there's an interest rate cut, and I think that will just start to give people a bit more confident and just a bit more breathing space.
But yeah, it's been it's been hard. So I've had to let my marketing team go and now I'm doing all my own marketing just to try and save money where I can. Yeah, but yeah, just being able to talk to another small business owner just say it, look, actually I'm not coping. I'm actually not okay. This is not a good day for me. But then you can check on another person next week. I'm like, oh my gosh, yes,
I feel so much better, clarity. I went for a walk, I did something, took a bit of a step back from the business, and now you can sort of see see a bit clearer. So I think talking like, I've got a good group of business owners that we talk quite often and just a major sounding board. So we're there for each other when the times are good, but we're also there for each other when the times are bad, and we can all understand So if you can sit there and go, today I had one sale, You're like, yes,
that's fantastic. But then other days you'd be like, I've had nothing for a whi and everyone's like, oh my gosh, me too. You haven't paid myself this week, goah blah blah blah. So yeah, I some small business owners, oh, I mean all Smith's business owners, we all get it.
We're all kind of in the same boat. So I think you just keep talking to each other, and you know, you can put on this thing to say, yep, everything's perfect, everything's great, but underneath you're like, oh my gosh, I cried in the shower today for an hour because I couldn't physically get out. So everything just gets a lot. So instead of trying to keep it all into yourself, talk to another person. You know, another small business understands
another small business. So I know, for me, sometimes if I talk to my family, they're like, okay, yep, we don't quite understand that. But when you've got another small business person, you can bounce things off. Oh they're relief. It's so good when you can find somebody that you can talk to things about. I know when I've done Google searches. I've been able to find videos or pod casts and everything like that have had some really helpful tips. So I think there is a good amount of information
out there. It's just going out to look for it, because not everybody can afford a business coach or to have that thing behind them helping them along the way. So a lot of small business owners will find a way to do it and google YouTube podcasts. There's a lot and there's a lot of business podcasts out there as well with other small business owners who talk daily about things. So yeah, I found that helpful.
If you could advise the Australian government on one action to take to better support small businesses, what would it be.
Oh, this is a tricky one because I don't really do politics. Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's band team, Yeah, there's yeah. I really really can't answer that one. Yeah, No, I really can't answer that one.
What is the one thing you wish more people knew about your business?
One thing? I'm really really good at creating baby campers, and I'm funny. No, I am incredibly good at what I do, and I have a clear passion for creating beautiful baby hampers. And keepsake gifts and yeah, I've just I've been as I said, I've been doing this a long time, so I know what I'm doing and I just hope that people if you need a quality gift, I have all the bits that you need.
Let us know where can people find you and your business?
Yep. So my business name is Kate English Designs and it's English with an I not an E. Catches everybody out, So just think of kid and then it's Kate English Designs. I create beautiful baby hampers and keep say gifts. And my website is www dot Kate English Designs dot com dot au and my Instagram is Kate English Designs as well, but we do lots of fun things on Instagram. I am known for my quirky reels. Also my version of the Retail Diaries where we have retail moments that are
called out. So they are one of my big hits. And thank you so much for having me