KnowKnockers
All women are justified in wanting to find undergarments that fit. Properly fitting undergarments make a difference in how your clothes fit and can dramatically effect your overall appearance. Sheila Holdsworth saw a real need to establish a business that could help women and embarked on the creation of KnowKnockers in 2004 with Alison Hoyland.
KnowKnockers is not the typical lingerie business, first of all, they are based online; utilising the efficiency of the Internet to receive orders, save costs, and deal with their suppliers. Secondly, they specialise in smaller bra sizes, but they do provide knickers in all sizes.
KnowKnockers has been a Centa client from the outset. Sheila and Alison both have had no formal business training, and in working with Centa they found the right advice, support, and encouragement they needed.
"Our business advisor is Kevan Dunne. We feel he's really guided us every step of the way. He's provided us with an enormous amount of info and was always on the other end of the phone or an email. He has been nothing but supportive but with a sense of realism of what it's really like out there in the big bad world."
Sheila and Alison have been overcoming all of their challenges with consistent motivation. They have just won the 2004 Tycoon Idol Competition run by the Oxford Brookes University's Business School in association with Take a Break magazine. They were awarded a £1000 cheque, one year's free mentoring by the business school, a place on the Business Boffins support programme for small businesses, a celebration lunch, and tea with Prime Minister Tony Blair!
KnowKnockers has done an outstanding job this past year and from the looks of it, will continue to repeat their early success in years to come.