Sarah Ali-Khalid has always been an entrepreneur.
At the age of 11 she used to pinch stock from her father's knitwear factory and sell it on the school field. At 16 she ran a stall in her home city of Manchester and made more profit than her mother.
Now 28, she owns two clothes shops in Glasgow, a growing global online business and works with celebrities to design and market her clothes. And she's calling on other young women to share in her success by joining her thriving franchise scheme.
Honeyz, Sarah's brand name, has boutiques in Dumbarton Road, Partick, and Pollokshaws Road, Shawlands, selling a unique range of clothes, shoes and bags to suit every price bracket, much of it designed by the west-end based entrepreneur herself.
Honeyz.com, meanwhile, is an online range designed alongside Geordie Shore star Vicky Pattison which is building up a loyal following throughout Scotland, the UK, Europe, the Middle East and China.
According to Sarah, who moved to Scotland to be with her husband Fiqander and is now mum to Inayah, five, and Liyana, three, success is all about confidence, having knowledge of every part of the business, coming up with ideas and knowing how to implement them.
"I've always had the banter, and I've always had an eye for fashion," she tells the Evening Times. "I know how to dress people, and how to communicate to customers, which is just as important.
"Glasgow is a great place to run a fashion business - it's right up there with London. Fashion is about who you are and Glasgow has everything, such a variety of people and different trends and looks."
Next up for Sarah is taking a bit of Glasgow's glamour to the other side of the world with the launch of the Honeyz.com brand in Australia.
"The internet has changed everything," she says. "These days if you're not online, you're not anywhere. Launching the website was a really big thing as it allowed us to sell overseas as well as offering a better service to our local customers.
"Obviously having a celebrity like Vicky on board has opened our market around the world, but it's a long-term thing for us. We take so much time and effort over all our designs and the business side of it."
Following on from her teenage business ventures and a degree in advertising and finance, Sarah opened her first shop at the age of 23. She now employs 15 people across a range of jobs.
And she's keen to get more women involved in running their own business, by offering a franchise scheme. Sarah says those who get involved will get her team's help every step of the way - and the chance to change their life.
"I've built up my business over a long time, and I'm still expanding. But I can't do it all myself. The franchise idea means people can set up in a local area where they really know the market. If they find the right location we'll help them set up, give them the name, help with advertising, and get our celebrity contacts involved. The market is out there.
"This is a great opportunity for organised, entrepreneurial, hardworking people to change their life around. Councils and other agencies are offering lots of help to people to set up their own business, and of course I can share my expertise. We'll hold your hand you every step of the way."
But the franchise offer certainly doesn't mean Sarah will be taking a back seat from now on. Following the Australia launch, she'll be launching men's fashion and homeware.
"I like to think big," she smiles. "One day I'd love to be up there with M&S."
Honeyz , 464 Dumbarton Road, Partick, and 1079 Pollokshaws Road, Shawlands.
Anyone interested in the franchise opportunity should contact Sarah at wholesale@honeyz.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article