Deanne Mayocchi grew up surrounded by fabrics and beautiful dresses.
From a young age her mother skilfully sewed her dresses which she designed herself. By her teenage years, Mayocchi had developed her own love of fashion and after leaving high school she studied fashion design and worked for a local Brisbane designer in a small business.
Just over 10 years ago Mayocchi launched her own fashion brand, Maiocchi, inspired by her travels and experiences. Rather than following trends, Mayocchi says her aim is to enhance women’s assets, no matter their size or shape.
Mayocchi started by selling her products to eight stores in Brisbane. Over the past 10 years she’s established three Mayocchi stores and 60 wholesale stockists. Last year, the business made a turnover of $1.8 million, and this year it has seen a 40% jump in wholesale sales of its spring/summer 2013 range.
Women’s Agenda sister publication SmartCompany spoke to Mayocchi about her business experiences, strategies for managing a tough retail environment and finding business/creative balance.
Mornings
Mayocchi achieves her best work in the quiet of her own home, before her son and partner get up for the day.
“I’m a bit of an early bird, I often get up while it’s still dark at 4am or 5am. I’ve got a little office at home so I sneak into my office and do a little bit of work while I’m waiting for Roger, my partner, and our little boy who is three to wake up.”
Mayochhi then spends some time with her family before heading into the studio.
“I get here by 8:30-9am and then I’m either designing, I design three collections a year, or I’m overseeing the retail stores.
“We have an operations manager here and a public relations manager and marketing manager, so I’m always meeting with them and checking up on what’s happening,” she says.
Daily life
Most of Mayocchi’s time during the day is consumed with the “general running of the business”.
“I oversee the day-to-day running of the stores and the production, and a lot of what I do is being on the computer emailing and researching things.
“Once I come into the studio for the day it’s constant interruptions. People are constantly coming in and saying ‘Deanne, we have a shrinkage problem with this fabric’ or ‘this fabric isn’t available now we have to find someone else’ or ‘can you okay this design’. I think most of my job is about putting out fires or problem-solving all day,” she says.
Contrary to many retail businesses, since the global financial crisis Maiocchi’s sales have increased. Mayocchi attributes this to the unique nature of the brand and recent changes to business processes.
“One reason we’ve seen this growth since the GFC is, being a smaller boutique, we look to have a point of difference. There has been a lot in the press about e-commerce taking away business from the stores, but with Maiocchi you can’t get it anywhere overseas or online, it’s an exclusive boutique product.
“Everyone else is competing with so much of the same sort of thing out there and the one thing our customers say time and time again is ‘when I wear your dresses, people comment and stop me in the street and say what a gorgeous dress’. We’re all about the dynamic prints and colours, we’re not making plain dresses,” she says.
Mayocchi says the brand’s recent growth in its wholesale sales is due to changes to its wholesale approach.
“We’ve taken on bricks and mortar agents in each state, rather than one agent who travels. The agents are based in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland, and rather than having an agent who constantly travels and only has the range for a few days in a hotel in each state, you’ve got someone with the range there for a full two or three weeks,” she says.
Feedback from her customers and wholesale stockists inform each of Mayocchi’s designs.
“To do this customer research we recently did a survey through Facebook and our database, and had more than 800 people fill out the survey. We also conducted focus nights in one of our stores.
“We’ve always got the customer in mind, I think anyone can design for a size eight, skinny and tall model, but we’re designing for someone who maybe has a few body insecurities,” she says.
Mayocchi sets goals for the business on a six-month to yearly basis, and each day she monitors the in-store, wholesale and e-commerce sales to ensure the brand stays on track.
In the goal-setting process, Mayocchi says she has PR and marketing aims, study and production goals, and retail targets.
“I guess our challenge at the moment is managing our growth and the statistical challenges, and also production efficiencies need to be addressed.
“We have a really good team and it’s about employing the right people, addressing those issues, but also from my part staying creative,” she says.
Creating a positive staff culture is crucial for the long-term success of any business and Mayocchi says she’s endeavoured to create a flexible, enjoyable workplace.
“I try and hire people who have a similar work ethic and most of them are younger than me and are really enthusiastic. If you find great staff, treat them well, have a good working relationship and hopefully it all works out.
“We have a studio here with 12 girls and one guy, there is a lot of laughter and everyone enjoys it. We’re flexible because we know people have got kids and with that flexibility there’s never any worry from our staff if their kids are sick or if they need to go to a school concert one day.
“Being a female workplace, we’re understanding,” she says.
Balancing creativity and business
So far Mayocchi says her biggest challenge has been balancing the creative and technical aspects of running the business.
“Luckily, my dad has a background in accounting and had his own business for many years, and my mum has a background in the production side of things – she’s really particular and she knows a good fit and good quality workmanship.
“It’s sort of become a family business. My dad runs all of the accounting side and my mum is mostly retired from the business now, but she took last year off to look after my two year old. It’s been great having that support and not having to do everything myself,” she says.
Mayocchi’s sister Lauren is also involved in the daily running of the business as a retail manager at one of the stores and she oversees the online shop.
Mayochhi says her inspiration comes from travelling, shows and the things around her.
“I’m inspired by everything around me. I like to travel and I like to go and see things that are on, whether it is a musical or theatre, and I’ve got a love of fabrics from my mum. She always had a sewing room in the house and I loved going in there and looking at the fabrics.
“My ideas start with fabrics and the great thing now is we’ve gotten to the stage where we can design our own prints. This is a new and exciting part of the business which gives us an extra point of difference.”
Leisure time
Mayocchi likes to start and end her day early, as she aims to be home between 3pm and 4pm each day.
In her spare time she says she enjoys travel and eating.
“My favourite travel destination is New York and I just love that in Brisbane at the moment there’s a lot of growth in terms of bars and new restaurants opening all the time. I love trying the new place which has just opened and seeing what it’s like.
“Roger and I enjoy going out together and my parents enjoy looking after Oscar [their son] while we’re out. They’re very happy to have him for the night if we want to go to something,” she says.
Future
Over the next year Mayocchi is investing more money in Maiocchi’s e-commerce site to improve its online service.
“We feel that there is still a lot more opportunity for growth online and we’re exploring digital marketing to help improve the online business. And we are still doing our best to maintain our strong wholesale customer base.
“There are a lot of challenges in physical retail at the moment and we want to continue to improve our service. We’re doing a lot of research into what other online businesses are doing and what seems to be working for successful similar stores online to help make our website more user-friendly,” she says.
As well as expanding the online store, Mayocchi is on the hunt for a new bricks and mortar location.
“It will be somewhere down south, but we haven’t actually started conducting much research yet,” she says.
In the next five years Mayocchi intends to “continue on the path to success” and maintain the “Australian made” nature of their products.