Florence Ndlovu, born in the Free State in a small town called Virginia, currently residing in Centurion, Gauteng, was the only girl amongst two boys, who are both late. Florence always had passion for business, she used to sell sweets at school and after school she would go to work at the tuck shop. At some point she lived in a shack not far from her grandmothers' for some time.
Florence always loved beautiful clothes and would dress up her dolls to look so beautiful, she would also make small doll dresses with old clothe cloths. After completing her matric, she went to study at Pretoria University, where she completed her B.Com degree after trying to quit many times due to peer pressure. “I had a friend who used to tell me that if you finish your studies without work experience, you not going to get a job” she said. According to Florence that discouraged her so much that she even dropped out and decided to work full time as a cashier at a retail store. However, she is very thankful to God that her then boyfriend who is now her husband encouraged her to go back to university to complete her degree and then get possible employment. Florence then went back to university and completed her studies, by God’s grace her spouse did indeed assist her and from there her work life journey began.
“Gaining knowledge I worked for big organizations, which helped me acquire a lot of experience”, she mentioned. Florence then got promoted to senior till management level, but that entrepreneurial passion kept on haunting her, till one day when she decided to follow her passion in business.
Please share when did you commence with MK OZIEL SPORTWEAR and what inspired you to go for it? “The birth of MK Oziel Sportswear happened in 2020, born from a pain of losing my brother whom I regarded as our elder son, we loved him dearly, "may his soul continue to sleep in eternal peace". Her late brother’s character was the kind that, they knew, he would be happy if people can be enlightened about healthy living, through his death many can be motivated and alive. To keep his legacy the family carried on with his water brand MK Water, they then sold branded masks, and later Florence changed the name of the company to MK Oziel Sportwear. The MK Oziel Sportwear brand’s mission is to promote healthy life holistically (mentally, financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually)”.
What challenges you came across when you were trying to get your gym wear off the ground and how did you tackle them? “I had just appointed my other brother to head the marketing since he was a marketing expert, unfortunately he recently also passed on in a car accident, and that affects the marketing department but we are continuing. The other challenge is to get customers to know the brand and believe in it. So, we made use of social media platforms, we asked our customers to share their pictures so that we can assure the market that we do have people believing in our brand, initially at first, those customers were friends and family only. After some time we began to acquire more clients. We thank God that it grew to more customers even out of the province”.
Your highlight moment? Like what made you say YES, I can now agree the brand is loved and welcomed by the streets? “When we started having customers who are returning for most of new collections, sending us compliments, pictures and referring others we knew we are on the right track. Also getting so many inboxes of ladies and gentlemen wanting to work with us as influencers and ambassadors. When companies started approaching us to affiliate with them. Having payflex as a partner, to give or customers payment options when buying online. And when the Award winning skin product ( PortiaM) had a #GoToGymWithPortiaM campaign and they made MK Oziel Sportwear part of their campaign, which gave us exposure to their market”.
What are you trying to achieve with your gym wear? And where do you see the brand in 5years time? “What we are trying to achieve is to make people understand that not every pain is there to kill you , when you experience pain, try to understand how can it be turned to a purpose. What you go through might be a journey to your breakthrough. Our 5 year vision is to create a manufacturing factory where we will own the entire "Supply Chain" of producing sportwear, add gym equipment’s, and training accessories to our collection and most importantly create employment by also onboarding the unskilled labors and skill them internally through the right processes”.
Lastly, when you are not busy with your fitness schedule what do you do to keep sane? “Other than fitness I spend time doing research and development of new products, offer Procurement Consultancy services, as a qualified Image Consultant, I help people and companies to look and feel good internally and outside, and play golf”.