Pernilla Kemp, me&i

This month we are interviewing Pernilla Kemp, Head of Sales at Swedish clothing company me&i that specialises in social selling of children’s and ladies’ wear, to find out what’s in store for anyone joining their sales team.

Who are you?

I’m the UK manager for me&i. We also sell in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germany and have a local manager in each market. I work from home so that I can work flexible hours round my 6-year old daughter Matilda. I’m lucky that I’ve found a company with such family friendly values. It goes right from the top from our owner-founders Helene Nyrell and Susan Engvall, who both work from home, down to our sales representatives in every country who fit their work entirely around their family, not vice versa.

That certainly sounds mum friendly, are all your representatives mums?

Because it’s the children’s clothes that tend to attract people to us in the first place, everyone working for us in the UK is a mum or a mum to be. As a mum you have so many networking opportunities too, so direct selling can work really well for you. Because of the flexible nature of this type of business, we have a lot of mums who sell during their maternity leave too. The next me&i baby is due in February and will be number 4 born into the UK team in the last year.

We have such a wonderful team spirit with everyone supporting each other. I think that really helps when you are a mum in business and have other things in life than work that needs your full attention too. 

What kind of support do you offer your representative?

There’s full start-up training of course. We have a kick-off at the start of every season, which is a big high light, and regular meet ups too. All events are free to attend for representatives of course. Every representative also has a coach assigned to her who helps with day to day questions, but also with help and advice on how to build and expand her individual business. Your success is our success, so we work closely with all our representatives to help them reach their full potential. We only recruit our coaches from within, so the coach is somebody who is doing well as a me&i representative and is good at sharing the knowledge she has built up.

We understand you are rather particular about the production of your clothing?

Yes, that’s right. We believe that everyone has a responsibility in ensuring that what they sell – and buy, when it comes to the individual consumer – is made with proper consideration to the environment and to the people who make the products.

Therefore, we have always made our clothes in Europe, so that we can keep in close contact with the manufacturers and ensure they live up to our standards, but also of course because we know that certain bad practices, such as child labour, do not occur in Europe. We have a code of conduct that all our manufacturers must comply with and, which among other things, ensure that the workers are paid living wages (not minimum wages), and that any sort of discrimination is prohibited. Nobody should have to work in conditions that you wouldn’t want to work in.

Furthermore, pretty much all our range is Oeko-tex labelled, guaranteeing that there are no harmful chemicals in the clothes. This also helps ensure a reduction in the amount of chemicals used in the production in the first place. For the baby range we use organic cotton and in time we’d like to be able to use it across the whole range.

Who’s suited to being a me&i representative?

In direct sales you really should be selling a product you are passionate about! So if you love the me&i range, the ethos of the company, have a good network to get you started and like meeting new people then this is definitely for you.

Why sell clothes though direct sales?

A me&i party is probably the most convenient and pleasurable way possible for a mum to shop for her kids. No need for tantrums and tired feet. The shopping comes to you and brings the best of both high street and catalogue / internet shopping. It’s also a great opportunity to have a good time with your friends! There is so much to say about our clothes that we really want to be able to do that in a person to person setting that also enables us to show all the clever design details our clothes incorporate. They all ensure each individual garment can be used for a long time.

What should I do if I’d like to know more or would like to apply to join the team?

Have a good read of all the information about me&i on mumandworking. Read our website of course, and if you google us you’ll find quite a few third party reviews from bloggers as well.

If you’d like to apply to join the team please fill in the application form on our website and we will get in touch. You’ll find us at www.meandi.eu