Kylie Martella from Vic Performance Parts is our first ever Mum of the Month!
As part of our Mum of the Month section, we interview the winner and find out a bit more about them and publish it here.
This month we asked Kylie what its like being a Mum and also running business.
How long you have been in business?
We started business in March 2010 with a 6 week old baby girl!
How many kids you have now?
I have two kids – Kyle 5 who is at primary school in Preps and Molly 2 who is at home with me most of the week but has also just started family day care two days a week
So what’s the history of Vic Performance Parts and how did it all start?
We started the business to compensate my part time income and to save having the children in permanent creche care and also as a bit of a hobby for some extra income. We started with one online store on eBay with 30 items, but now this has progressively grown to having 750 items and we should reach our goal of 1000 by the end of the year. We also now run three online stores being eBay, quicksales and our own website.
It has been great to have the flexibility to grow a business slowly and with not too many overheads as all run from our family home. Our focus is to provide great customer service although that comes with its own challenges as I primarily run business on my own at home. We hope to continue to grow and expand our range of products available on our online stores we also encourage customers to call if they cannot find parts they are after as most times we can get it in and get them a price asap.
What are some of the challenges you have faced running a family as well as a business?
The challenges of running a business and family well this is the biggest question!! The balance between work and family when you work at home when to stop is my hardest I have to just walk away… (which is) very hard when you are in a train of thought and I am slightly addicted to work he he.
Also keeping motivated and positive I find hard at times probably more just trying to keep improving things rather than staying at one level. I feel bad a lot of the times when kids want my attention and I’m on the phone so that is a hard one but I just try to get them to understand by explaining if I didn’t work we wouldn’t do as many fun things. I try to do different activities after school pick up and only do phone queries and try hard to stay off the computer!
I think as a parent you have lots of guilt anyway for various decisions so I just hope that our kids are appreciative of the decisions we have made and chosen to hopefully make there lives easier in the future. Friends and family say to me all the time money is not everything but I say to them yes but unfortunately it does make life a lot easier if you are more financially secure. Our family has become very accustomed to small business life and I think they have both pretty much just got used to it being so young when this all started. I regularly put them to work doing little things which they love and helps them feel involved. Our customers have regularly received colored in invoices, packaging why I have been getting there order ready the kids have done a little pic for them which I think is great shows we really are a family business and most customers laugh when I am on the phone and some one has a tissy they either say “oh that sounds familiar” or “I’m glad I am past that stage he he”.
Thanks Kylie! If you’d like to check out Kylie’s business, click here.
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