The secret of business

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

Aristotle Onassis (The Economist 1991)

Property Project – Day 2 The Men in White

Well, Day 1 went pretty good. Not too many hassles.  The shed had been emptied out of all contents (and they now all sitting in a friend’s garage feeling very lonely). Whatever didn’t fit there either got thrown out or put in a corner, hopefully out of the way of the contractors.

The Men in White arrived bright and early. And by lunch time, the shed was GONE ! Good to see that they wore protective gear … One cant be too careful these days with asbestos. I know of one case where the asbestos removal went very wrong and the contractor ended up having to pay over $40,000 to fix the asbestos contamination! Yep! You read that right … over $40,000! So its best to get it right first time.

Property Project – Day 1 Goodbye Shed

Its all about managing the property project. Take a deep breath and jump in -  just one step at a time and making sure each is done properly. (Actually, its never as scary as it looks … Honest!)

So Day 1 and we say Goodbye Shed … One could get sentimental about it (or not) – but its got asbestos walls and roof – not exactly the ideal material to have around the house. BTW the graffiti was painted by my daughter and her friends. They were let loose on the shed since it was being demolised.

Sub-Dividing Your Property

Is the land that your house is on getting too large for you to handle? But you LOVE the area and you don’t really want to move to another house … Why not have your cake and eat it too? Instead of moving, sub-divide the land build yourself a new smaller house on a much smaller piece of land.

I’ve done just that … My house currently sits on 845 sqm of land and I HATE gardening with a passion. What better way to kill 2 birds with one stone. So I set about getting approval to sub-divide the land. That was the easy part – getting the paperwork was relatively painless (well, it is if you know what you’re doing).

Now for the REAL fun.

Rather than opt for the traditional double brick home, I’ve decided to go for the new alternative building material – Energy Lite panels to be precise. I’m told it will be a much quicker build time than with brick and with much higher energy rating.

Journey with me on my trials and tribulations with the building – and read all about the frustrations (I’ve been told that building a house is grounds for divorce!), the costs (I expect my pocket is going to suffer from this!) and hopefully the celebrations when I get to move into a brand new home.

Refugees or Just Illegal Migrants

How any country deals with asylum seekers is a hot topic that arouses the righteous across both sides of the political fence. In the battle over border protection, our political leaders offer up quick fixes, stunts and slogans to prove that they are “right”.  This is a debate that splits a country.

On the one hand, we want to be compassionate and look after those who cannot look after themselves. On the other hand, we are perceived by many to be a soft touch. Is it fair that a group of people can land itself on a country with no papers and no money and expect to be granted permanent residency in a country whilst many others “do the right thing” and make sure that they apply for migration properly. Then when they arrive, they get a job and contribute their skills to their new country.

The boat refugees to Australia has certainly made this a hot topic for the forthcoming election.  On a personal note, I would have to question why some of these illegal boat refugees throw their paperwork overboard so that their identity cannot be proved. Do they have something to hide?  Tony Abbott’s suggestion of “no paperwork, no visa” would certainly put an end to this!

Another question – if these refugees are so desperate to leave their homeland because of persecution, why is it that when they arrive they insist that their host country must now conform to THEIR rules. As a migrant myself, my desire was to integrate into the way of life of my host country as quickly as is possible – to my mind, if I didn’t wish to integrate then I should not have migrated!

You Know You Have … Great Customer Service

You know you have … Given great customer service (and built trust) when an old client takes the trouble to hunt you down even though you haven’t done any work for them for 4 years and your surname has changed! Just this week I was on the receiving end of this and it sure does give you a boost. Ultimately, customer referral is the best (and cheapest) way of growing your business.

So often, businesses chase new business by going out of their way and spending lots of $$ to attract new customers. Yet, they don’t look after what they already have. So how do you give great service … and have your customers become advocates for your business?

At the heart of it all, we would say it boils down to just one thing – Caring! So many businesses only see the mighty dollar. Yet if you take time to stop and treat you customers as real people with real needs, and you go out of your way to help them with their needs, you will build yourself a loyal fan club who will tell all their friends about your business.

Leader

A good leader inspires men to have confidence in him;
A GREAT leader inspires them to have confidence in themselves.

~ Unknown ~