"If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them,
maybe you can hire the A-Team."
Everyone in business needs to have their own "A-Team". A group of crack commandos in their fields of expertise. I may appear to be a solopreneur, but the reality is that there are many people making sure that your chair is easy to design, perfectly made and delivered on time.
Let me introduce the web development team, headed up by Steven and Jo. From the moment I met with them, in Feb 2012, when I was putting the site build out to tender, they were infectiously enthusiastic about my product. Bingo! It is a non-standard site with no existing templates to build on. You need people who "get it". And they continue to help me improve the site and keep it up-to-date.
The pre-production preparation of my fabric designs and the chair illustrations on the site require Photoshop/Illustrator intervention. Being a "paintbrush and pencil girl", I hired Neha who is a whizz at putting my ideas into digital reality; preparing files for the printers in Portugal and the web development team here in Sydney.
The best chairs are sourced from a family-run furniture wholesaler who import the carved wooden frames from factories in Indonesia. Located just outside Sydney, and easy for me to drive the van to, Jill and Darryl are great to work with.
Our master upholsterers, a team of 3, are responsible for transforming your designs into stunning reality. This is Rachel in the workshop; Oz and Tony were out when I visited last week. I love the workshop; design alchemy occurs here. From the chaos of chair frames, bolts of fabric, tools, machinery and blaring music, emerges exquisite and beautiful furniture.
And then when it's all wrapped up, our friendly delivery man collects your chair for distribution across Australia. He really is very nice (a lady's man, I suspect!) and he understands how important these chairs are to me and my customers; "They are precious, like children."
So, there you have it. My A-Team. Who's on your A-Team?
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