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Hi everyone! The following post is somewhat self-indulgent, but nevertheless well-intentioned. I was motivated to write this post by some of my friends. They had either recently quit or were let go from their positions, and felt a tremendous amount of dread in restarting their careers. Their stories encouraged me to reflect on my own past and the various pathways I travelled to get me to a successful real estate career, albeit beaten up and bruised from the journey!
As I write this post, I have been happily retired for 4 years. I live a comfortable, stress-free existence, and remain devoted to the key priorities in life – health, happiness and family. There were many times where these priorities were a distant second to my real estate career or one of my business ventures. I frankly wanted it this way because I was young and ambitious… well, it is more accurate to say that I remained ambitious despite being defied by age. I also wanted to excel in whatever I set my mind to, and to hopefully set a strong and positive example for my family. Suffice to say, I set my bar quite high.
My Career Beginnings
My professional career started as a sales representative for a company called Pertech Computers Limited (PCL). I had limited experience in sales up to this point, but I was eager to learn the craft and seek out opportunities to develop. Starting my career in a large-scale organisation gave me a fair amount of latitude to make mistakes without considerable downside, as I operated within parameters of authority, and had managers who encouraged such behaviour as a learning tool. As I advanced to managerial positions, I fostered that same culture with my subordinates and team members.
I credit my fundamental sales skillset to my time at PCL. In my junior years, I was afforded strong and constant mentorship, as well as boundless opportunities to grow. In my later years with the company, I was given a generous amount of autonomy to run my team and achieve results as I saw best. PCL were placing me on the fast track to assume a leadership role. However in doing so, they moulded me into a very attractive target for other sales outfits.
After five years at PCL, I left to join United Database India (UDI), which was India’s largest Yellow Pages/telephone directory company at the time. I spent my tenure at UDI honing my managerial skills – on average, I was overseeing close to 250 people at any given time. As this represented one of the largest sales teams in India at the time, it came with its own local media attention, and my sales and managerial skills became front and centre. I enjoyed my brief time in the spotlight, and saw it as a way of free marketing for the company and brand promotion for myself.
The Highs and Lows of Working for Someone Else
There are plenty of benefits with working for an organisation. You get swept up in the culture, the camaraderie, and hopefully, the sense that you are contributing towards a common goal. But for all the upsides, there are notable downsides. Namely, as an employee, you are not bigger than the organisation. It is also very difficult, if not impossible, to showcase your entrepreneurial spirit, if that is what you possess or are passionate about. The strengths of an organisation lies in its structure and its reputation, built over years or decades. You’re unlikely to be successful if you were to fight against that organisational current.
I fell victim to one of the downsides of corporate life, in that I couldn’t resist the urge to scratch my entrepreneurial itch. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was limiting my potential if I were to work for someone else for the rest of my career. I obviously had no evidence to substantiate this view… just a head full of confidence and a healthy appetite for risk.
What I Learnt About Having A Professional Network
Upon leaving UDI, a parting gift (or so I thought at the time) was that I would continue to benefit from the years of professional relationships I had procured and cultivated while I worked for the company. My team at UDI was very successful. We were frequently recognised as one of the best performing divisions across the national organisation. A byproduct of being successful in sales is that you cultivate a sizeable professional network. I innocently, or perhaps foolishly, expected that this network, who were quick to sing my praises in good times, would be more than willing to follow and support my independent ventures. That thought process gifted me one of my most valuable lessons, although I didn’t realise it at the time.
What I failed to recognise was that my network was not created solely by my own performance, but also, in large part, through the reputation of my company. Most of these individuals felt comfortable dealing with me because I had the backing of my company. However, when I left to pursue my own business ventures, I lacked this support.
So it is not that surprising that some members in my network didn’t feel comfortable offering the same level of support that was made available during my corporate career. I can’t begrudge them for their lack of support, nor do I hold any ill will to others who have been absent in times of need. I can understand that, in most cases, we don’t make decisions simply for ourselves, and that some decisions may be too risky to take.
Starting over... for the First Time
My first run at entrepreneurship was to establish a telecom sales and marketing operation. I, along with two friends who became my business partners, oversaw a humble team of 11 personnel. We focused on a bespoke telecom hardware solution to a market that was currently being underserved by other suppliers. We recognised the opportunity but didn’t have a straight way to capitalise. It was not until a fateful plane trip where I sat next to a senior official within India’s telecommunications department, that our little business registered its first major win.
That first win was monumental – it resulted in us being a licensed manufacturer and reseller of our portable telecommunication units. That license was our ticket to play, and gave us a competitive advantage over other suppliers. We sought to ride this newfound exuberance by doubling down on our initial bet – we hired more staff, expanded office locations and made an investment into additional factory space.
In hindsight, we could have been more measured and sought to diversify our offering – this was around the early 90s, so other hardware such as fax machines and mobile phones were still early in their market cycles (at least in India). However, we didn’t care about these other technologies because we felt like we were equivalent to Microsoft. In reality, we shared more similarities with Kodak.
How My Early Failures Helped Me With My Future Real Estate Career
The one thing about failure is that it can’t be learnt or explained. It must be experienced. While we were still riding the highs of our business success, we failed to recognise that we were at the mercy of the Indian government. That came to light when a change in government regime resulted in our license to manufacture and sell being rendered useless. This was a unilateral decision with no avenues to appeal. In the cold light of day, this change resulted in us being on the hook for capital expenditure on our new facility and existing office locations, inventory that could not be moved, and the fate of 170 employees/dealers and their families in our hands.
I always possessed a healthy appreciation of balance. I knew that my initial career highs would be met with setbacks at some stage. However, I could never have contemplated that I would endure such significant failure in such a short period of time. It dismantled me. For months thereafter, I went through emotional turmoil, rethinking and overanalysing every business decision I made and whether there were more appropriate pathways I or my team could have explored. Could we have sought to obtain safeguards from the government as part of the initial grant of the license? What if we have reflected potential downturn conditions through our manufacturing and supplier contracts? These questions and countless others ran through my head in a painful, unrelenting cycle for months.
Failure has a tendency to take more than what you want to give up. In this instance, it had an influence on my health. I started overeating and exhibiting no interest towards exercising. I was already a smoker but I ramped up my daily intake following my business failure. I became increasingly distant to my young family. To put it simply, I was ashamed and my actions were showing that. I could not face myself, let alone my family members, because I erroneously felt solely responsible for the failure.
It took time and perspective for me to recognise that I was on a dangerous path, and if I didn’t make immediate changes, I would reach a point of no return. My business failed, but that didn’t mean that I was a failure. I had a setback, simple as that. What I was left with was time to heal and absorb, and reconnect with my family. It was a ground-breaking experience for me, as I no longer had the armour built up from my initial career years. Instead, I was left with battle scars which I chose to wear with honour, as well as a cautionary reminder of how I should conduct myself going forward.
What worked in my favour is that I still possessed my entrepreneurial spirit. Once I was able to dust off the sobering effects of my business ending, I slowly got back into smaller, conservative projects that were sufficient to settle the debts outstanding to our past creditors. I didn’t stop hustling until all those debts were wiped off.
Restarting Again... With a Real estate Career
This made me reflect on career restarts, particularly one involving a real estate career. In our modern society, the younger generations are encouraged to experiment with various career pathways, and rightfully so. There are so many wonderful and unique opportunities out there that you would be doing yourself a disservice if you do not explore multiple options. However, that wasn’t the case when I started my career. At that time, the expectation is you start working for a company which will invariably become the company from which you retire.
Also, general entrepreneurship and side hustling was not culturally celebrated, at least not like it was in the western world. So around the time of my business failure, I felt the added weight of cultural perceptions and societal expectations on my shoulders. However, deep down I knew that those feelings will pass with time, and while I won’t appreciate it then, I would have an opportunity to apply the learnings from that experience to future decisions. That willed me into moving forward and striving to regain my earlier success. Little did I know that it would take the form of a real estate career.
The relocation to Australia (which I discuss here) was a welcomed fresh start for me professionally. I had no expectations of the job market, or even an indication of the area that I wanted to work within the Australian economy. All that I knew and had control over was my years of sales and managerial experience, but more importantly, life experience. That experience was critical to me securing a sales position within a residential home construction company shortly after landing in Australia, thereby kickstarting my real estate career.
When interviewed, I was open and upfront about my past troubles. While that transparency could have certainly backfired, it turned out to be my differentiating factor, as I had endured and moved on from life experiences that the other younger candidates could not appreciate or comprehend. It was because of these experiences that I was able to begin a real estate career just shy of turning 40.
Despite all of my setbacks and hardships, I have been very fortunate during my working life, not to mention my real estate career. I’ve held the trust and confidence of people that I respected, I was given sufficient room to develop, and I went through experiences that some only read through in textbooks. While I didn’t envisage the career trajectory that I eventually had, I hold no regrets. What I also realise now is that, regardless of past failures, you develop skills and learnings that will be valuable to someone. You just have to will yourself into trying again and seeking out new opportunities where you can add value.
I hope you found the above to be an enjoyable read. Please feel free to share your own career perspectives in the comments section below.
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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