A Little Bit About Me!

Leave a Comment / My Real Estate Story

My second love was founded in sales. I recognised that my inherent abilities to talk confidently and listen attentively to people (we have one mouth and two ears for a reason), had the impact of subconsciously drawing in a captivated audience. Once I had them engaged, selling them on an idea or a concept seemed to be a natural progression. 

Having been armed with these skills, I was able to work across a number of industries in my early professional days, ranging from small telecommunication products to hand-held power tools to office automation products, and found stability within two years with a company called Pertech Computers Limited (PCL).

I was blessed with an exponential career growth rate at PCL, having been promoted every year since I was under their employment, and culminating in being branch manager. Looking back, I was very proud of this journey. Following PCL, I joined UDI, a database company, as a zonal manager, and had the duties of overseeing 180 sales executives and managers. At the time, this represented the largest sales team in Bombay. These two work placements helped me sharpen my sales skills, and gave me my first taste in another, being management.

My First Taste Of Professional Failure

My career up to this point felt like a prolonged honeymoon. However, like actual honeymoons, this euphoric period didn’t last forever. My successes to date gave me the confidence to set up my own business – a small sales and marketing operation comprising 11 personnel, which sold telecom products in a large yet underserved market. There were very few competitors in this space, which allowed us to grow exponentially and establish ourselves as one of the six licensed manufacturers and sellers in the country for this product (STD/ISD public call office machine, for those interested).

Business was booming! Like Icarus, my business partners and I wanted to reach even greater heights… but also like Icarus, this part of the story does not have a happy ending.

A few years after receiving our license to be a certified manufacturer/seller of these products, there was a change in government regime. The incoming government passed sweeping regulations that, in effect, rendered our product sales riddled with bureaucratic red tape. This was a gut punch felt across the business, as at the time, we had expanded to 27 locations and had a staff/dealer contingent of approximately 170 personnel.

Following the legislative change, our income was reduced to low-margin service contracts. We had inventory that we physically could not move. Prior to the legislative changes, we were in the process of setting up a factory to meet existing demand, which dried up overnight and left us with a huge bill for existing capital costs.

These were dark days.

My professional struggles were compounded further by the fact that I had to take care of a young family. My wife had quit her job around the time our son was born – this coincided with my business doing very well, so we didn’t need the second income. However, when it all came crashing down, we certainly felt the pinch (to put it politely). Some of you reading this may relate intimately with this part of the story, and can empathise the insurmountable weight of failure. What is an even harder task is trying to pick up the pieces and start again, which after many painstaking moments, is what I eventually did.

Starting Again in a New Setting

I’m sharing this with you, not to garner sympathy, because it is certainly not warranted. I wish to highlight that darker days are shortly followed by brighter ones. The setbacks as I experienced in my own business led me on a pathway to consider immigrating to the developed world – my brother relocated to Australia with his family in the early 90s and had been pestering me for some time to immigrate… but when the going is good, why go anywhere else! Alas, once I shook off the failures of my business and refocused myself, a new start in a new country was exactly what we needed. Little did I know at the time, was that shortly after moving to Australia, I would run into my third and final professional love – real estate.

A final thought on failure – speaking on behalf of my generation, failure has been heavily stigmatised and has a tendency to cast people out as social pariah. Those days when my business was failing were made worse by the fact that I was embarrassed to face my family. This is where I feel that the younger generations have a healthier disposition towards failure and its consequences. In hindsight, if I were to go through the same experiences again and know that I was heading into failure, I would be willing to pay top dollar for it, as it ushered me into the best phase of my life.

* * * *

I hope the above lends some context to my subsequent blogs, dealing exclusively with the expansive realm of real estate. This phase was not bereft of setbacks, but it was filled with numerous positive experiences and life lessons, that I feel compelled to share with you all. I’m grateful to have you share in my journey. I would also love to hear your experiences, and if anything mentioned above resonates with you.

The content outlined above was written, edited and published by the Lost Realtor. The author has over 20 years or real estate sales and investing experience in the Australian property market. He has held senior positions in Australian building companies, including being the General Manager of the residential sales division of Collier Homes. His qualifications include a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Graduate Diploma in Building and Construction Law.

10 Minute Read

Hi everyone! Hope you all are staying safe and healthy wherever you are in the world. Also hope that you are finding the time to appreciate what matters most in your life.

Welcome to my inaugural blog post! Whatever reason that brought you to this side of the Internet, I am grateful that you are here! I’ve spent the past few weeks reflecting on the highs and lows of my ordinary life. However mundane it may have seemed at the time, there were always extraordinary moments that influenced my life trajectory.

Through this process of reflection, I’ve documented some of the key experiences, learnings, mistakes, failures, and growing opportunities during my career in New Homes Sales (which I was a part of for 16 years). I suspect that some of you reading this may have stumbled upon this blog for a variety of reasons:

  • you may be considering purchasing your first home;
  • you are looking to gain a stronger foothold in real estate investment;
  • real estate may present a viable career opportunity for you; and
  • or you might be searching for insight on guidance on existing home ownership.

My life experiences have been intrinsically linked to all of these areas, and I feel some of the moments that had the greatest impact on my life might seem interesting or noteworthy to you.

Real estate and new home sales was not the start of my journey… I promise this will be one of the few self-indulgent posts in this blog, but I feel it necessary to describe my past experiences to provide authenticity and credibility to future posts. To be honest with you, the potential for real estate as a profession did not dawn on me until much later in life, but it was for key moments and experiences that led me down that garden path, of which I am forever indebted. The following is a synopsis of those earlier experiences.

Let’s Start At The Beginning…

I was born in a ‘little town’ called Bombay (now renamed as Mumbai). For those of you familiar with that city, the ‘little town’ reference is a cruel joke! My early days were spent traveling and living across India, due to my father’s high position within the Indian railways. When I was 12 years old, my family returned permanently to Bombay, where I completed my education and was exposed to my first potential career interest: catering.

After my final year in secondary schooling, I was able to secure admission to India’s premier catering institution (Institute of Hotel Management; now IHMCT&AN). This was news that I couldn’t wait to tell my father. Sadly, my father did not share my enthusiasm for this profession, and instead guided me towards tertiary education in the commerce and economics disciplines. 

Nowadays, the Indian culinary industry is an incredibly lucrative and publicised profession. However, back then you were somewhat subservient to the whims of your parents, who for their own bias, may have undervalued the opportunity of less traditional work placements.

Following the initial disappointment of not pursuing a future in culinary education, I completed my graduation in business. Shortly after graduating, I was presented another opportunity to educate myself in food (at Sophia Institute of Catering), which I was now encouraged by my relatives to accept. However, I was already at the stage where making money had a stranglehold over my life priorities, at the expense of my first professional love. Now, the downside (well, some may see it as that) of being young and inexperienced is that you lack perspective.

Pivoting to my Second Love

At the time, I had quite upset for not pursuing a culinary career, but I could not appreciate that food would remain a key staple in my life journey. To this day, I am able to experiment heavily in food, albeit based on my own research and learnings, and using my wife and son as guinea pigs (thankfully, I’ve not received any complaints to date!) 

The point I’m trying to make is that you are not constrained to one calling in your life journey. I view life as being a sampler plate of opportunities, experiences, highs and lows, a culmination of which defines you as a person.

My second love was founded in sales. I recognised that my inherent abilities to talk confidently and listen attentively to people (we have one mouth and two ears for a reason), had the impact of subconsciously drawing in a captivated audience. Once I had them engaged, selling them on an idea or a concept seemed to be a natural progression. 

Having been armed with these skills, I was able to work across a number of industries in my early professional days, ranging from small telecommunication products to hand-held power tools to office automation products, and found stability within two years with a company called Pertech Computers Limited (PCL).

I was blessed with an exponential career growth rate at PCL, having been promoted every year since I was under their employment, and culminating in being branch manager. Looking back, I was very proud of this journey. Following PCL, I joined UDI, a database company, as a zonal manager, and had the duties of overseeing 180 sales executives and managers. At the time, this represented the largest sales team in Bombay. These two work placements helped me sharpen my sales skills, and gave me my first taste in another, being management.

My First Taste Of Professional Failure

My career up to this point felt like a prolonged honeymoon. However, like actual honeymoons, this euphoric period didn’t last forever. My successes to date gave me the confidence to set up my own business – a small sales and marketing operation comprising 11 personnel, which sold telecom products in a large yet underserved market. There were very few competitors in this space, which allowed us to grow exponentially and establish ourselves as one of the six licensed manufacturers and sellers in the country for this product (STD/ISD public call office machine, for those interested).

Business was booming! Like Icarus, my business partners and I wanted to reach even greater heights… but also like Icarus, this part of the story does not have a happy ending.

A few years after receiving our license to be a certified manufacturer/seller of these products, there was a change in government regime. The incoming government passed sweeping regulations that, in effect, rendered our product sales riddled with bureaucratic red tape. This was a gut punch felt across the business, as at the time, we had expanded to 27 locations and had a staff/dealer contingent of approximately 170 personnel.

Following the legislative change, our income was reduced to low-margin service contracts. We had inventory that we physically could not move. Prior to the legislative changes, we were in the process of setting up a factory to meet existing demand, which dried up overnight and left us with a huge bill for existing capital costs.

These were dark days.

My professional struggles were compounded further by the fact that I had to take care of a young family. My wife had quit her job around the time our son was born – this coincided with my business doing very well, so we didn’t need the second income. However, when it all came crashing down, we certainly felt the pinch (to put it politely). Some of you reading this may relate intimately with this part of the story, and can empathise the insurmountable weight of failure. What is an even harder task is trying to pick up the pieces and start again, which after many painstaking moments, is what I eventually did.

Starting Again in a New Setting

I’m sharing this with you, not to garner sympathy, because it is certainly not warranted. I wish to highlight that darker days are shortly followed by brighter ones. The setbacks as I experienced in my own business led me on a pathway to consider immigrating to the developed world – my brother relocated to Australia with his family in the early 90s and had been pestering me for some time to immigrate… but when the going is good, why go anywhere else! Alas, once I shook off the failures of my business and refocused myself, a new start in a new country was exactly what we needed. Little did I know at the time, was that shortly after moving to Australia, I would run into my third and final professional love – real estate.

A final thought on failure – speaking on behalf of my generation, failure has been heavily stigmatised and has a tendency to cast people out as social pariah. Those days when my business was failing were made worse by the fact that I was embarrassed to face my family. This is where I feel that the younger generations have a healthier disposition towards failure and its consequences. In hindsight, if I were to go through the same experiences again and know that I was heading into failure, I would be willing to pay top dollar for it, as it ushered me into the best phase of my life.

* * * *

I hope the above lends some context to my subsequent blogs, dealing exclusively with the expansive realm of real estate. This phase was not bereft of setbacks, but it was filled with numerous positive experiences and life lessons, that I feel compelled to share with you all. I’m grateful to have you share in my journey. I would also love to hear your experiences, and if anything mentioned above resonates with you.

The content outlined above was written, edited and published by the Lost Realtor. The author has over 20 years or real estate sales and investing experience in the Australian property market. He has held senior positions in Australian building companies, including being the General Manager of the residential sales division of Collier Homes. His qualifications include a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Graduate Diploma in Building and Construction Law.

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