Читать книгу AWARE - A Business in a Book - Lucille Orr - Страница 6

Believe in others and they will reward you.

It was pitched black and very lonely the night I drove back to Adelaide from Sydney across the flat, boring Hay Plain. I felt sick in the stomach, worried about leaving my son Steve to finish his Higher School Certificate (HSC). Steve was helping me pay his way through his final year in high school by working three nights a week and all day Sunday at Coles.

We were so broke in 2000. We had been living off credit cards and I was having trouble finding a commercial tenant who could make a business pay in Adelaide. The two tenants I had rented my shop and warehouse to had both left owing rent money. The current tenant walked out owing me $13,000.

Steve got sick of me nagging him about studying for his HSC and he knew I was really worried about paying the mortgages.

“Why don’t you go back to Adelaide Mum and stop nagging me about studying; I’ll pass my HSC,” he said one night when I was telling him about my financial problems.

If you are a mother you will know how I felt all alone that black moonless night. I wanted to turn the car around and drive back to Sydney, but I knew I had to keep going. I had to make money to pay for my commercial property. I needed to start a new business.

Suddenly I heard a man’s voice say, “Go into real estate.” The voice seemed to come from over my right shoulder and I turned around quickly, feeling slightly foolish because I was alone in the car. But there was a warm, comforting feeling in my stomach. I felt safe, peaceful and protected. I realized the voice had come from my heart. “Could God have spoken to me?”

Real estate, I never wanted to work in this industry. I couldn’t think of anything worse than standing in other people’s homes all weekend while they are out enjoying themselves. It was at least another eight hours before I’d reach Adelaide so it gave me a lot of time to think.

I arrived at my city shop/warehouse around 7.30 am and the first thing I did was have a cold shower. I had installed a small camp shower on my toilet wall soon after I bought the property in the mid eighties. I was very grateful it still worked, even though the electricity had been turned off and the water was freezing.

After changing into fresh clothes and eating a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs at Carrington Café, across the road from the office, I got back into my car and drove straight to the Real Estate Institute to ask about studying for my license. The receptionist said, “Our next course is a Traineeship sponsored by the Government and you have to be employed.”

“Book me in, I’ll find a job and let you know who my employer is next week.” I confidently told her. The rest of that day, with no sleep, I sat on my mobile phone in my empty shop making appointments with real estate agents.

I had a very restless night trying to sleep on an old, lumpy couch in the cold, draughty, warehouse and being disturbed all night by a rustling sound. I finally got up and turned on the light. I’d managed to have the power reconnected during the day.

As soon as I turned on the light a big, fat brown rat ran out of some cardboard boxes behind the couch. I hate mice and to be sharing my bedroom with a rat gave me such a scare that even though I was dead tired, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I made a mental note to pick up a box of Rat Sack in the morning.

The next day I managed to get rid of the rat, buy a bed and attend appointments all day and for the rest of the week. By Friday I had seven job offers. Because parking had been so difficult to find in Sydney I chose the firm that offered the largest staff car park.

Business Club Australia

The course started on the 2nd November, giving me just enough time to publish a book titled, “Networking Games – Making Profitable Connections”. A book I had co-written with John Rich about “Business Club Australia”. Austrade had set up a virtual club on the Internet two years before the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games began and had invited thousands of international companies to join the Club and attend Club functions for the 17 days of the games.

I was so proud to call myself an Australian and thrilled to be a Club member. For 17 days Australian companies introduced their services and products to thousands of visitors while they attended breakfasts, morning and afternoon teas, luncheons and dinner meetings. We were served the finest foods and Australian wines all day long. I must admit I didn’t attend many of the sporting events, but I had wanted to be in Sydney for the games to meet business people and this Club was an unbelievable answer to a prayer.

The amazing thing about the Club was that, I could have missed it! A client, who owned a shop in Darling Harbour, introduced me to the Club membership a few days before the games began. I met John Rich each day at the functions and we decided to write a book about it because we were so overwhelmed by it all.

When the games ended I told John we had two days to write the book. He and I sat all day for the next two days at my rental home in Sydney. He did a lot of talking and my fingers flew over the keyboard of my laptop computer. Now back in Adelaide, I had just enough time to bring out the laptop, meet with my editor, Nancy Flannery and organize the printing of the book with Peacock Publishers, before my real estate course began.

It was a busy time and even busier once the course began. I was pleased though, because it helped me to keep going, and stop worrying about Steve in Sydney. How he got through the HSC I’ll never know, but he did manage to gain his certificate. I was very proud of him.

I started my new job in late October, the course in November and went back to Sydney in December to pack up the house and bring Steve back to Adelaide. I felt so young and full of energy, no wonder clients were amazed when I told them I was 55 years old when I started in real estate.

After completing the twelve-month Traineeship, I immediately started studying for my full Manager’s license so I could open my own business. Six months later I had completed all the subjects and was just waiting to receive the official certificate from TAFE so I could start my business in my own offices and shopfront.

I knew if I found another agent willing to be my Licensed Manager, I could go into business before I received the official Certificate to hang on my office wall. I was getting very frustrated because I was nearly there and I had worked so hard. In only 18 months I had achieved what was almost unheard of in the industry.

I was sitting in the office of a business client discussing his need for tenants for his warehouse and how much he may get for the building if he put it up for sale when I happened to mention how frustrated I was working for a boss. I told him I wanted to start my own real estate company, but I would need to have a fully licensed manager for my company.

This businessman is a great networker and as soon as I mentioned I was looking for a woman with a real estate license, he gave me the telephone number of Jill Luscombe. I couldn’t wait to meet her, so instead of ringing her, I drove straight to her office after our meeting finished. Jill’s business was in an adjoining suburb. She was wonderful, everything I had been searching for in a business manager. She owned six businesses, one of which was a property development company with her husband.

“Let’s get on with it!” was her immediate response when I told her my story. She picked up the telephone and rang her accountant. Early the next morning the wheels were in motion, her accountant Craig came to his office at 8 am to meet Jill and me. He gave me a few jobs, which included collecting government forms, completing them and returning them to him for processing. Then I had to get a police clearance organized. That took a few weeks. Nothing happens quickly enough when you’re ready to start.

The process of starting your own real estate company with a licensed manager can still take some months to organize, mainly because of government red tape. But eventually we had it. My company, AWARE Properties Pty. Ltd. would finally open. It was late in May 2002 when the license came through. It took just over a month setting up my office and visiting clients before I officially started AWARE Properties on the 1st July. My ex boss was very upset. He didn’t want to lose me because he’d been enjoying a very lucrative income from my property sales.

I’d offered him the chance to become my company’s licensed manager (so I could be paid as a company and not an employee as I was losing too much money in PAYE tax), but when I suggested it he thought I was crazy.

“Lucille, why would I want to become your company’s licensed manager when I have my own real estate company? Why don’t you wait, I want to retire soon, you can buy my business,” was his response.

Goodwill for Business

I didn’t want to pay goodwill for his business, especially as he and I never agreed on anything. I believe goodwill walks out of the business with the previous owner. I love the challenge of starting my own business from scratch. I had so many plans and couldn’t wait to start my own real estate company.

I remember telling him, “I’m attending the Diploma of Business Management - Real Estate course at the Mawson Institute of TAFE, four nights every week, two days a week and sometimes on Saturdays, so it won’t be long and I’ll have the four year part-time course completed. I plan to have my real estate license in nine months. So I’ll have my own business whether you support me or not!”

“It will take you years doing it part time, four maybe five years. When I got my license I took a whole year off work and studied full time, and it wasn’t anywhere near as much study in those days.” He said smiling to himself. He looked so confident that I would be employed with his firm for at least another 3 to 4 years. No wonder he was shocked when only three months after this conversation I was telling him I was leaving to start my own business. I always warn businessmen not to underestimate the power of a woman, especially when she’s focussed on a goal!

My Higher Purpose for Women

On the very last page of my book “How to Ask for What You Want and GET IT!” I wrote;

When you find your Higher Purpose in life, you’ll be living your own vision for life and you’ll be continually increasing your mind power, which in turn will energize your body. You’ll be at peace with yourself and the world, there’ll be no struggling and your heart will be full of love because you’ll be giving, and it’s always more rewarding than receiving. But to reach your Higher Purpose you have to first learn to ask for what you want in your life and get it, before you can teach others how to find what they want in theirs!

I knew when I wrote that book that it would inspire women who weren’t already operating their own business, to start one. And for women to earn good money, I needed to help them invest and make more money. I had a passion to see women independently wealthy so they could support their children, especially if their partner in life had let them down, and they found themselves alone, having to rear their children and provide for them. It was these thoughts and the thousands of telephone calls I received from the women who read my book that drove me on to find a business that I could share with the women who wanted to invest in real estate and work in the industry. Property is the investment I’ve always trusted throughout my life, and it has never let me down.

My Receptionist Came with the Front Desk

I was so lucky to gain the support of one of my vendors. I’d just sold his office and he wasn’t sure what to do with all the office furniture or his mother who worked for him. So I suggested he store the furniture in my office, let me use the reception desk and employ his mother.

So this is how I managed to save money and set up my office on a limited budget. I’ve always said, If you do good things in life, you gain your rewards and they don’t always come in the form of money. Barbara was such a wonderful help to me, answering the telephones, receiving visitors and together we set up a whole new Rental and Buying Search service for international students, interstate clients, country clients and locals - people who were busy and didn’t have the time to shop, to find the right properties to rent or buy, themselves.

Servicing Clients’ Needs

It’s important to write a business plan and know where you intend to go, but I also like my new businesses to evolve. By this I mean I like to create services that match people’s needs. If I get asked often enough for something, I introduce the new service to make sure I can supply what my clients need. The location of your business has a lot to do with this. In our case, being in the heart of Adelaide’s central business district (CBD) we were in the perfect location to help visitors to our city. The country folk soon heard about our service and locals, too busy to spend the time looking for themselves began using our Rental and Buyer Search services.

Creating a prototype in business is fun and very rewarding. AWARE Properties quickly gained an excellent reputation for providing services not available at other real estate offices. It’s been a continual process of developing new services and doing things differently, that has given us so much referable business and saved us thousands of dollars in unnecessary advertising.

AWARE Properties’ major income will always come from the sale of homes, flats, townhouses, commercial buildings, vacant land, new developments and businesses. The Rental and Buyer Search Service we provide is Goodwill, we don’t make a huge profit on this service but business comes back to us because we care.

Marketing AWARE

My intention was to create a unique real estate business that would appeal to women and this is why I called the business AWARE. I’ve always created my own publicity and marketing campaigns and I know the power of burning one word into the mind of the consumer. I chose the word AWARE because I knew it would be easily remembered and it started with an “A” which would put us at the top of the list when using our company name at the beginning of small two-line advertisements in the newspapers. Interestingly our two-line advertisements in the press have become our trademark and were initially read by more women than men and it was the women who rang out of curiosity asking us what AWARE meant. When I told the women that AWARE was short for Australian Women And Real Estate they were thrilled. Women do things differently and this is why women like to deal with other women in business. I’ve always been able to communicate better with female accountants, solicitors and doctors as they explain important facts to me in a way that I understand. Some of the male solicitors and accountants I’ve used in the past made me feel dumb. I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me. But for some reason I never have to ask my female professionals to repeat what they are saying or explain anything to me a second time.

Communication needs to be simple. I try to put my feet in the shoes of my clients when explaining a situation and maybe this is why I get so much ‘word of mouth’ referral business!

Why Real Estate?

I love this industry because I have the freedom to choose the hours I work and have no ceiling on my income.