A top young entrepreneur shares how she picked herself back up from failure to make it big in broking.
Picking yourself up after a business failure is never easy, as the winner of this year’s Anthill Top 30under30 Award knows better than most.
Tish Naughton survived the failure of two businesses before finding success as the founder of Black Sheep Finance and corporate advisory firm Square Projects, and she admits there were times she thought she may have chosen the wrong path.
“I guess the only thing that stopped me quitting was my pride, because when you’re at your lowest and you’ve got debt and no income coming in you think ‘Why am I doing this?’. But there were people in the industry that said ‘Don’t give up, you’re good at what you do, just keep going’, and I guess I’ve always believed that if you don’t give up you’ll make it.”
At one point Naughton took up work at a friend’s building company to make ends meet, having had experience renovating her own properties.
“There were times where at the start of the day I was helping lay stormwater trenches and then I would go home, shower, and go meet a client, and they’d have no idea what I’d just been doing.”
Naughton puts her past struggles down to differences in “ethics” with her partners, and offers the same advice to new business owners as she does her clients.
“Prequalify the people you are taking advice from. I met someone and just assumed everything they were telling me was the truth and they knew best, but it turns out they didn’t. You’ve always got to challenge and qualify the person who’s giving you advice.”
Naughton also encourages new business owners to be proactive in seeking advice, as what is available is often vague and of variable quality.
“The information that’s out there is too general, and the people offering advice at places like the local business centres are not actually in business and never have been. You don’t really know if it’s good advice until you do what they tell you to do and you’ve learnt enough to figure out they didn’t know what they were talking about.”
She also suggests entrepreneurs step back and thoroughly analyse their full situation before going down the path of self-employment.
“People jump in because they get excited and they’ve got an idea and they’re so fixated on that idea that they can’t see reality. If you’re willing to risk everything that’s cool, do it. But most businesses fail because people jump in too quick and don’t do the research.”
Underestimating the required capital is also a common pitfall, says Naughton, and the mortgage broking industry is guilty of encouraging this.
“I’ve been to seminars and they say ‘It’s awesome being a mortgage broker, you can earn 100 grand’, but they never tell them how hard it is or what you have to do to get there.”
If you come into trouble as a business owner, Noughton says you will need to assess whether you really have the passion to make it work, or if the business is a “dead duck”.
“If it’s what you’re good at, and you’re really passionate about it, then don’t just give up because people will see that. Everyone likes passion and that dark horse thing so if you keep going it will work out.”
Naughton reached success against the odds, but warns the path she chose isn’t for everyone.
“What I’ve done, I would never advise someone to do. I’m the sort of person who’s willing to do whatever it takes, I’m willing to lose everything, but not everybody is. You have to weigh up that risk for yourself.”
