Peter Alexander sleepwear has grown from a single man operation on a living room table to an internationally recognised sleepwear business and brand name.
GETTING STARTED
Peter Alexander started his own business at 24 after working for four years in the retail industry. He decided it was time to be his own boss.
With the support of his parents, Peter began making women’s pyjamas for the wholesale market, working from his mother’s living room table. He worked for four years like this and, in the early days, was the only person working in the company. He pretended to be someone else when the phone rang to make the business seem bigger.
Many people tried to discourage Peter because he had no formal training and no business experience.
EXPLANATION
Peter’s biggest potential set-back became his biggest opportunity when a department store cancelled a large order, leaving Peter with 2000 pairs of pyjamas. In desperation, he put a mail order advertisement in Cleo magazine. The response was overwhelming, and he was flooded with 6000 orders from the one advertisement. Since then he hasn’t looked back.
VISION
Peter saw a gap in the market when his female friends were unable to find comfortable women’s pyjamas that weren’t flannelette nighties, or lacy lingerie styles.
Peter believes in setting high goals. He says ‘someone who sets themselves high goals has more chance of achieving them than someone who sets themselves lower goals or no goals at all’.
His business success shows that you don’t always have to be a ‘high achiever’ at school at do well in the business world.
Peter was voted the least likely to succeed at his school, and a teacher even suggested that he leave school and go to TAFE. Peter didn’t like being told what to do and decided to stay at school anyway.
He successfully completed year 12 and says this is what gave him the confidence to believe in himself and trust his own abilities and decisions.
SATISFACTION
For Peter the most satisfying thing about running his business was being able to take both the blame and credit for your work. He says that ‘When you work for someone else you often get blamed for something that’s not your fault and when you deserve credit you don’t get it. When you work for yourself, you only have yourself to blame if you mess up and you can also take the credit.’
INVESTMENT
Peter sold Peter Alexander Sleepwear to Just Jeans a few years ago for an undisclosed sum. He felt that he had taken the business as far as he could. At the time of sale, the business was making $6 million per year and growing by 40% each year.
Part of Peter’s arrangement with Just Jeans was that he stay and work for Just Jeans and run the Peter Alexander Sleepwear Company for five years. He currently manages the company for Just Jeans and employs eight full time staff and twenty casual staff.
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