The Accidental Entrepreneur

by Janine Allis

  Often people don't mean to tell lies; instead, they filter the truth to justify their actions. This means that the picture you get is somewhat distorted, but the truth is in there — somewhere.

  If you make a mistake, admit it. In most cases, trying to cover up an error will simply result in more problems. Trust is the first casualty of dishonesty. As a boss, I find that I get over someone's mistake very quickly if the responsible person owns up. We can then work together to find a solution. Once there's a question mark over someone's honesty, however, trust can take a long time to rebuild.

  Here's another example. Scott, one of our best ever executives and currently the CEO of Retail Zoo, had a dramatic rise through the company ranks, and this was mainly because of something as mundane as his weekly work-in-progress reports (WIPs). These reports break down responsibilities by department, outlining who is responsible for what and when. They are one of our core strategies in keeping everyone accountable and on track.

  In Scott's WIPs, I know he is giving me the whole story, without any sugar coating. We discuss the report and enjoy the positive side of the company's performance, but equally look at the dark side and try to figure out solutions. When Scott stuffs up, as we all do from time to time, he is always first to 'fess up. As a consequence, we have total faith and trust in him because we know we are getting the truth on every issue, no matter how confronting it may be to the company. Everyone answers to someone, no matter how high they are up the ladder. Even as owners, we answer to our customers.

  Honesty is the most refreshing part of business — a problem shared should lead to a problem solved.

  Pro tips

  Here's how to keep yourself honest:

  When you lie to someone, you're putting the relationship at risk. Is it worth it?

  The more honest you are in your business and personal dealings, the better you will sleep at night. Don't think for a moment you will be able to avoid your conscience constantly reiterating the guilt of having done the wrong thing. A clear conscience means a clear head — which means more room for new and exciting strategies.

  Most gains from being dishonest are short-lived. You can learn a valuable lesson from being honest about a mistake and then moving forward.

  Don't be afraid to admit you're wrong. I have seen general managers who are respected and loved by their staff because they are not scared to stand up and say, ‘Sorry, I stuffed up!' Being human is endearing; being bravely honest reinforces the character of a true leader.

  Ramping up

  Power up your honesty with the following:

  You don't have to be brutal to be honest. By carefully listening and fully understanding the issues, you will be able to tell others the truth skilfully, in such a way that they are left grateful for your honesty. Try it.

  Are you truly honest with yourself? Do you let yourself not do things you said you would by making excuses? Do you ignore ‘problems' within yourself rather than find solutions? Look at yourself honestly to discover if something is holding you back — and then find the solution to this problem.

  Ability to choose great partners

  Financial success does not create emotional prosperity, so you need to make sure the person sharing your dreams is with you all the way. The truly rich life is a balanced one — unless you keep your work and family in harmony, your economic gains will be meaningless.

  Having the right partner at home is vital. If your partner supports your dreams, your path will be a lot easier and, ultimately, success will come sooner.

  The person you rely on may be a life partner, a friend or a family member. They may not necessarily agree with you, but this person must support you 100 per cent in your goals. The last thing you need is someone whispering negatives in your ear all the time.

  Jeff and I are Yin and Yang — different people, but a perfect fit. We each have our own nuances and our own individual methods of operation, but we're highly effective as a team. He is the perfect complement to my style: an entrepreneur and the man with big ideas, but not always the attention to detail to make them reality. I am the planner and doer, the person who makes things happen. We often laugh that if it were just me in control of Boost, we'd have ten amazing stores. If Jeff were in charge, we'd have a thousand — although they might have gone broke. His backup has been integral to my success.

  When Riverside Private Equity bought into Boost in 2010, one of their primary concerns was having a husband–wife team running the company. It was their experience that such a team can quite often be a compromise of skills and expertise, so they gave us one of those long fandangled personality tests to see where we both sat. Based on the results of this test, we now have in perfect graph form what we knew intuitively — we are the perfect business couple. Every area I'm weak in, Jeff is strong in, and vice versa.

  Your partner is critical in your journey. I see lots of couples where the wife is completely underrated and the roles are set in stone — the husband is the main breadwinner and the wife takes care of the family. This set-up all seems to go well in the early years, when the kids are super-needy, but it starts to crumble as the family evolves. Hubby is still mentally stimulated at work, the kids are in their teens, or older, and are more independent, but the wife is — hmmm — lost.

  We all need a purpose, we all need to be challenged; however, in this situation what does the wife's purpose become? Women aren't just there for their husband's and children's needs.

  Just as you should seek support from your partner, you should also encourage your partner to explore and fulfil as many of their skills and dreams as possible. These skills and dreams could be anything, but the earlier you start supporting your partner, the better your relationship will be over the long term. And hey! Just like our Boost story, you never know where you could end up. I can't imagine what my life would be like now if I had fallen in love with a man who wanted a stay-at-home wife, but I think it's unlikely I would still be with him.

  I have become the best I can possibly be because I had a husband who encouraged me to have a crack at anything and believed in me to take on the world of retail.

  Don't let your ideas be squashed for the sake of your family — you can fit everything in. And remember — happy wife (or husband), happy life.

  Pro tips

  Here are some components for perfect partners:

  To truly achieve your best, you need support from your partner or, even better, a partner who can contribute to your plan.

  Keep your partner informed and involved as your plans and dreams evolve.

  Look for a life partner who will bring out the best in you.

  Keep on the same path with your partner as much as you can.

  Thinking positively

  Rome wasn't built in a day. Every cloud has a silver lining. If at first you don't succeed …

  Looking on the bright side is not just for Pollyanna. Being positive is crucial to achieving success. Decide that you are going to be successful, and then be unfailingly upbeat in your pursuit of that goal. A firm decision makes you unstoppable — no ‘maybe', ‘could've' or ‘should've' allowed.

  You will get knockbacks along the way. Problems may arise from every corner. How do you remain positive in the face of constant negativity? By knowing there is a solution and that you will find it. If ten people tell you your idea will not work, how do you keep believing that the eleventh person will love it? Well, it depends on who those first ten people are. If Jeff or Geoff Harris were to disagree with me, I'd probably have to reconsider my position. If it were a person with no retail or business experience, I simply wouldn't listen. So many people have missed out on attaining financial freedom because they couldn't handle the knockbacks. If someone says no to you, don't close the book on the idea. It just means that the idea or request was not right for that person at that time.

  Pro tips

  Release the power of positivity with the following:

  Adopt a ‘can-do' philosophy and resolve to chase your go
al to the end.

  Don't listen to just anyone. Choose a few key people whose opinions and expertise you trust completely, and shut out everyone else.

  Don't take knockbacks personally. Meet challenges head on and learn from rejection. If you can understand the reason for a setback, next time you can find the path to a ‘yes'.

  Ramping up

  Take your positivity to the next level with the following:

  Affirmations are a great tool for positive thinking. We all have an inner voice; get yours in a constructive frame of mind by choosing five uplifting sayings or quotes and repeating them to yourself daily. Perhaps have them stuck to your bathroom mirror and start each day by reciting them. Or have them on your phone or laptop as wallpaper — wherever you have them, just make sure that you see them every day.

  When negative thoughts creep in, stop them in their tracks and change them with positive thoughts. For example, I'll never know how to do this can become If I ask the right questions, I can learn, or I will try to achieve it can become I will achieve it.

  Fighting negativity

  Negativity is like a disease that can bring down the best and the brightest. The average person can have 200 negative thoughts every day. How exhausting! If positive thinking is one of your greatest weapons, negative thoughts can be your biggest threats. They will bring you down, no matter how good you are.

  From my perspective, a service-oriented company is at the mercy of its staff's emotional moods. It's vital to recognise underachievers or dysfunctional personnel and either retrain or remove them. Some people simply do not like dealing with people. This doesn't mean they're bad, just that they shouldn't be in the service industry.

  As the boss, my mood has a huge impact on my team, and it can dictate the atmosphere of the environment around me. Every person on the team can also have the same effect on those around them. One negative person in an office can upset the whole apple cart!

  We all have bleak moments — we wouldn't be human if we didn't. But we also have the power to choose how we feel about the situations we encounter every day. Not every situation will be great, but you will see a lot more abundance and opportunity with the ‘glass half full' way of thinking.

  Throughout my journey I was driven by fear of failure, and in some ways it was a great motivator. This fear, for example, made me double- and triple-check everything I did to ensure that I did not miss anything. Fear kept my adrenaline at full speed, but there was a massive downside — you can manifest what you fear, simply because that's what you're focused on.

  I'm not sure if I truly believe in books such as The Secret, but I do believe that if you have a positive mindset and you are looking for the good, then the good follows you. The more you focus on something (good or bad), the more likely it is that what you're focusing on is going to happen.

  In the early days of Boost's success, I was a complete stress-head. Anything and everything would send me off, and everything was a drama. I was a terrible wife and mother and I was terrible to myself because I was so stressed. It got to a point when I stopped and realised that I actually hadn't eaten anything for three days. I was as thin as I have ever been and, while my mind and body was all about making sure the business was a success, I was not living Boost's ‘love life' philosophies, not even a bit. I was negative in my thoughts and my health.

  This was a massive wake-up call, so I shipped myself off to a health retreat to get myself back on track. Once there, I came across a ‘healer' (as you do at health retreats), who recommended I read Conversations with God. I'm not against religion, but it has never been something that I have wanted to be a part of. I do believe that I am quite spiritual, but I think spirituality comes from within, not from a church. The title of the book put me off straightaway, but I had nothing else to read so I gave it a go. After the first few pages, I was ready to throw the book in the bin, because the author was basically saying that he was writing ‘through God's words'. I persevered, however, and in the end I could not put the book down.

  I have no idea whether or not the book really contained ‘God's words', but I did like the messages. One key message was that you should not try to be better — you should just be better. Do not want to be a type of person, simply be that person. And the second key message for me was there is only love and fear — if you live in fear, you will manifest this; if you are grateful for what you have and be positive (or live for love), that will be what you manifest.

  I do believe that books and people come into your life at different times for a reason, and this book (and the others in the series) did help me change the way I thought. I let go of fear and took more control over my stress, and that helped change the way I thought. Hundreds of books can tell you the same message. Forget about what you have or have not done in the past — all that matters is what you do now and into the future. Be grateful for what you have and don't focus on what you don't have.

  Pro tips

  Here's how to get rid of negativity in your life:

  Don't be a cynic. The best way to miss opportunities is to carry around thoughts like, Nothing good ever happens to me. Having a victim mentality will kill your chances of achieving financial freedom.

  Don't waste time overanalysing what other people might think of you. Assumptions, theirs and yours, are generally wrong anyway.

  Having an ‘off' day? You can choose how you feel and react to things; it's all in your perspective.

  Have you got ‘it'?

  Not everyone can succeed in business. Do you have the winning characteristics needed to help you make it as a business owner? Are you willing to:

  Learn (fast!)

  Work really, really hard

  Fight it till you've fixed it

  Be motivated and the one person who does ALL the things

  Be straight with people

  Keep getting up no matter how many times you get knocked down

  Never give up

  Be courageous

  PART II

  FINDING A PARTNER IN CRIME

  Back in Australia after my time in Singapore and employed as a publicist at United International Pictures, I was working hard and raising my son. So I didn't have much time for love — until a well-meaning friend took up the matchmaker role and introduced me to Jeff.

  Not only did we fall in love, but Jeff also unlocked the entrepreneurial spirit within me.

  3

  THE WINNING FORMULA

  During my years at UIP, I was surrounded by movie stars, but my professional life took something of a backseat when it was overshadowed by a big shift in my personal life.

  In 1995, I met Jeff Allis. We had been set up by my girlfriend Rachel, who arranged for us to meet at the Melbourne Skyshow. I would certainly not say it was love at first sight. Jeff was late and by the time he arrived I had somewhere else to be; it was one of those days. And I thought he had bad teeth and an attitude to match. Jeff remembers not liking the jeans I was wearing. He also thought I would have been better looking from the description Rachel gave him. (In all fairness, she told him I looked like Elle Macpherson! Jeff told me later, I was attractive, but no Elle. You will never die wondering what Jeff is thinking.) We said hello and went our separate ways. And that was it — or so I thought.

  Working with movie stars and finding my soulmate

  After the failed ‘date' Rachel continued her campaign about how terrific she thought Jeff was. She kept talking about how great we would be together and, after about ten days, I caved in and called him. Jeff hadn't really impressed me, but my friend was nagging me and I figured I had nothing to lose. At the time, I was working on the promotion of the movie Rob Roy and Jeff was program director for Austereo Radio Network's Fox FM, so I rang him on the pretext of picking his brains about publicity opportunities. We arranged to go to dinner that week, but he rang the morning of our date and cancelled, telling me something about Adelaide and a sister giving birth. What was he thinking? I was this man's future, for heaven's sake! He didn't
even reschedule when he returned. He was not exactly giving off keen signals, and I was wondering whether I should just move on. I have always believed in the idea of a soulmate and I did not intend to settle for anything less.

  Jeff finally got around to ringing me back and rearranging our first date. And that's when things clicked. Although it was not love at first sight, it was love on first date. Conversation flowed, we laughed easily and we realised we both had the spirit of adventure. I remember thinking, I really, really like this guy. I'm not sure if I can call our getting together destiny, but a few dates later when we had our first kiss, the earth did move and I did see fireworks. Even today we talk about that first kiss.

  It was not all smooth sailing dating Jeff. When I was publicising the movie Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone, she took a few of us and our partners out to dinner to say thank you. Alicia was touring and promoting the movie with her mum, and she was a real delight to be around. Arriving at Alicia's dinner, I could see that Jeff was in a ‘do I really have to be here?' mood as he began to down the champagne on offer quite quickly. We were taken to our seats and Jeff was seated next to Alicia, with me opposite him. Polite conversation started and all was going pretty well when Jeff turned to Alicia and asked her what other films she had been in. She politely told Jeff that the last movie was Excess Baggage. Jeff was excited because he had seen the movie. I looked across at him thinking that his mood had improved and all would be fine. Unfortunately, we had not been dating that long and I didn't quite get the read right. Jeff told Alicia it was the worst movie he had ever seen and the only movie that he had ever walked out of! If a pin had dropped, we would have all heard it; the whole table fell silent. All heads turned quickly to Jeff. I jumped in and said, ‘Oh, he didn't mean because of your acting,' (uncomfortable giggle). ‘It was the plot he didn't like.'