Chapter 1 Where To From Here?

Greetings from rural Australia.

Do you ever wonder how you got from ‘A’ to ‘M’? By the way, you don’t get to ‘Z’ until you die.

And been completely gob smacked by what’s happened in between?

If you look at the route of most people today, it’s pretty tortuous. Gone are the days when you die doing the same thing you did at age 15. And I think we’re all happy with that change in direction.

Flexibility is the new buzzword.

But sometimes flexibility is forced on you.

As it was with us.

Us includes my partner, Victor Pleshev, an architect, who also designs our products.

This is what happened to us.

And it’s a lesson in ‘be careful what you wish for’. There is an angry god who sometimes says, “don’t be too successful”.

My background is market research. Which is a great profession for those of us who are insatiably curious.

You know the type. On a road trip, there’s one in every car.

We always ask what’s this, what’s that, how far till we get there, look at that building, I wonder how old it is. Can we just stop for a minute and have a look at this?

My curiosity got the better of me and I did an advanced degree in marketing.

Which is a different set of skills.

It takes your questioning to a new level.

From, is there a market for pulverised nails set in concrete to convert into roundabouts, to, who would be interested in roundabouts, to, how do we convince them roundabouts are a great idea for traffic control?

Each level of questioning requires a different set of skills.

And I’ve never shied away from a challenge.

How do I know about roundabouts? I did one of the first studies on roundabouts before there were roundabouts in Australia.

My partner, Victor Pleshev, is an architect. Brilliant at design, but not very good at marketing.

He asked me to wave a magic wand over his practice long before architects embraced the concept of marketing.

What did I know about architecture?

Nothing.

And neither did most of his clients.

So at first contact, I could talk to prospective clients at their level of understanding. Which was a bonus for them and me.

Over time, I learned some jargon and could talk to more educated clients.

By the time we had ‘the recession we had to have’ starting in 1989, Victor’s practice went from 2 staff to 16, with a coterie of clientele that would today read like the BRW’s Top 100 Companies in the property industry.

My marketing prowess surprised even me.

And like the sub prime mortgage debacle today, and the Opes Prime collapse, and ABC Learning Centres margin call, all of our high profile clients went under. From being over ambitious and over extended.

Every morning the Australian Financial Review had yet another story of a client going belly-up.

One morning in 1992, we drew a black wreath around the edges of the front page of the AFR and knew we were next.

And we were.

We lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid fees. And we owed almost as much to our creditors.

We closed everything down a few nanoseconds before the bank did it for us.

Our business. All our staff. All had to go. It was a crushing blow.

We put our two story terrace house in Balmain up for auction so we could pay the bank and our other creditors.

And we had to start anew.

With very little money and a small lingering debt.

But with a definite plan.

To go bush and start all over again.

We packed the car with two adults, two dogs and two cats, and drove off into the wild blue yonder.

And have some fabulous stories to tell.


Take care,

CAROL

Carol Jones
Director
Interface Pty Ltd
Ilford NSW 2850 Australia
Designers of The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover
Our simple design solutions change your attitude and make every product a joy to use

The Fitz Like A Glove™ Ironing Board Cover, Roadworks Apron, Log Lugger, Travel Bug Shoe Bag, Mr Chin’s Laundry Bag and Sweet Shoo are all simple solutions for difficult problems. And every one is a joy to use.

We’ve developed markets for these 6 products without national or international retail distribution. To see what we’ve achieved, click on our website at www.interfaceaustralia.com.

Read the story of how our business began on The Ironing Board Cover Lady. No sales hype. Just a down home story about how we started our business on the dining room table of our rural property, driving on ‘L’ Plates, without an instructor.



A comment about LinkedIn. If you’re not a member of LinkedIn, when you click View Full Profile, you’ll be asked to join. It’s free and the option is yours. There are benefits to joining. Once you’re a member, you can key in the name of any person you do business with. If they’ve taken the trouble to complete a Profile, you’ll be able to assess their background, their capabilities and the calibre of person they are. You might be, as I am, often pleasantly surprised. So go have a look.