Chapter 3

Holding all the apples

After splitting with the Sejuice partners, one thing was clear — if Jeff and I were going to create a successful business, we would need full control over all decisions. We started with our ideas for Boost, and strapped ourselves in for the ride.

Boost or bust

The same day we walked out of the Sejuice partnership, Jeff and I sat at a local cafe; tears were welling up and spilling over my face. I was crying out of pure frustration and probably no sleep. At three months since the opening, I had spent 12 very long, stressful months focusing on the Sejuice store. At the same time, I was disappointed because, aside from the partnership issues, I loved every minute of the actual set up and running of the store. Jeff and I wondered out loud what was next. We had the intellectual property in our heads — why couldn’t we start again? Yes, they had the store, but they had no idea how to put all the required parts together or how it ticked. I had just finished putting myself through the best business university in the world — a real life start-up.

Jeff and I have always loved the name ‘Boost’. We pushed hard for that to be the name of our first juice bar with the Sejuice partners; luckily, they didn’t listen. We decided, fewer than 8 hours after walking out of the board meeting, that Boost would be created and launched.

It was the year 2000 and the GST had just been introduced; we were off and running, but this time we would do it differently. I started by purchasing a copy of QuickBooks, an off-the-shelf accounting package. And I arranged to get a QuickBooks expert into my home to teach me how to use the bloody thing. I had no real idea about accounting, but I was determined to know all the technical aspects, so I would know my business inside and out.

After our ill-fated partnership, we were anxious to start again and not repeat any of the same mistakes — we would have full control over all decisions, including the site for the store. Jeff’s ‘real job’ as Program Director for the Austereo Network took him interstate two nights a week. This enabled him to scope out possible sites in other states, and he found a site he wanted to explore on King William Street in the CBD of Adelaide. It was an old building that was heritage-listed. He convinced his father, who lived in Adelaide, to sit at a table in front of the potential store and count the number of people who walked by and record specific details; he then broke this information into categories: men, women and age group. Happy with the flow, Jeff soon signed the lease and then called me with the news. This single act of signing a lease in a state that I did not live in truly shows the naivety that we had in starting a business. To be honest, I was so thrilled to get started without those partners, and create Boost the way I knew it should be done, that Jeff could have signed a lease on Mars. And it ended up being an advantage — having the business in a different state forced me to work on the business instead of in it (see lesson 1 at the end of this chapter).

We now had a site and a name, but not enough capital. We had just finished reading The E-Myth, a book about what entrepreneurs should focus on when starting a business, which discusses the idea of doing the work but getting others to invest their money. (See lesson 2 for more on what I think about this idea in hindsight.) After being burned before, we wanted to be very careful about whom we got involved with the business, and decided we only wanted silent financial partners. We created a business plan to raise the capital. Looking at that business plan today, it was really more of a marketing plan with some token figures at the back. But it did the trick, and it was Jeff’s radio friends who came to the party.

Vision to fruition

The first days of starting Boost were so exciting — this was our baby and we were about to see what other people thought of our juice and smoothie concept. Having just come off the back of opening Sejuice, opening our first Boost store was not as daunting. I’d learned a lot along the way with Sejuice, and knew what I wanted to do differently — so now it was time to put all that knowledge into Boost. I used most of the same suppliers as I had for Sejuice, so simply got the same terms (without the hours of negotiation). I was having fun, doing the business the way I wanted to do it and not having to go through committees to get decisions made. Every process was so much easier, from designing uniforms to choosing product names to the creation of the products themselves (see lesson 3).

We still made some mistakes in those very early days. We worked at the logo and deciding on the look and feel of the first store — but, I can admit, we got this terribly wrong. The colours we chose were not what you see today — the store looked more like something the Adelaide Crows might choose instead of a vibrant juice bar. (This colour scheme was mostly Jeff’s doing — but more on that later!) Jeff’s negotiating of our first site was also a bit flawed. The store had no air conditioning, in a state that regularly has days over 40 degrees. And because the building was heritage-listed, we couldn’t make any structural changes. So we spend the first summer running around getting portable air conditioning units so that the smoothies and staff wouldn’t melt.

But this all came later — at the opening, all I felt was excitement. Our first Boost store opened on King William Street in Adelaide at 11.15 am and, to my great delight and shock, over 50 people were waiting to come in. We had queues going out the door! With no marketing! (That was planned for later.) I could not get the smile off my face. I couldn’t believe the number of people, so I asked one of the customers how she’d heard about Boost and its Grand Opening. She asked, ‘What opening?’ and then explained that there was a bomb scare next door and the building was evacuated, so ours was the only cafe on the street not affected! I laughed so hard. A bomb scare is no laughing matter, but we had one of the strongest launches ever in our very first store!

For the next 12 months, I was forever on a plane to Adelaide and Riley was still only just over a year old. I visited Adelaide once a week, then less frequently as the business got up and running. Nine times out of ten, I took one of my children with me, while Jeff was at home with the others. I was very fortunate that my mum was also there to help out — she would come over to our house to look after the children. Without her consistent help, I just would not have been able to cope. I wanted it all — kids and a career. I made sure I got it, but had to work hard for it.

We were also extremely lucky to find a great manager for that first store. A real diamond in the rough, Sharryn did not have any retail experience, but she had the passion and drive we needed and this was clear even when we interviewed her. When looking for a store manager, most people hire someone with an enormous amount of retail experience, and so I was often questioned why on earth I hired a person who had never worked a day in retail in her life — not to mention while I was living in another state. My reason was simple: she had that fire in her stomach that we needed. She had determination and she understood what we wanted to achieve, and, like us, she did not have a history of bad retail habits. A sign of her determination emerged when she told us she was a champion speed waterskier. You need enormous mental resilience and courage to be successful in her sport, and these were just the skills I was looking for. At 6 am, Sharryn and I were up promoting smoothies and wheatgrass at SAFM, the leading radio station in the state. We also collected email addresses to use to increase our brand awareness. Back then, this wasn’t used that much and so was powerful, because people did not get a hundred marketing emails each day like they do now.

Young businesses are usually hungry for cash so, like most young businesses, cash was usually in short supply for us. This meant we were always looking for the most cost-effective option, for everything. We needed to look at what resources we had available that might help, and that did not cost the earth. We were lucky that at Austereo Jeff used to get free CDs from the music companies, and these ended up becoming our prizes for joining The Boost Club.

We did everything we could to get our brand out into the marketplace. But we also wanted to use The Boost Club to create a sense of community around the brand. Every month, we would have great offers and competitions, as well as providing health and fitness tips, and this continued as our brand expanded. And I was involved at every level — I personally typed our first 10 000 Boost Club names into the database.

When you’re starting something from thin air, you have to oversee every little detail: from the distance the blenders should be apart (so they don’t blow up) to making certain the managers have a checklist. This kind of attention to detail was not Jeff’s strength — it was mine. I was in my element but I still felt a tremendous amount of pressure at a very micro level to get everything perfect.

My biggest mission was ‘the customer experience’ and nothing was too much trouble. If the customers did not like a drink, we would change it. I wanted Boost to be the business other businesses strived to be regarding customer service. My dilemma was how to find out if we were not delivering on the customer experience, so we could then change what we were doing. We needed the right mechanisms in place, so we started with the idea of detailing on every store wall the experience the customer should have. We called this the Boost Guarantee — every store still has one, and it covers everything from the kind of ingredients we use, and our focus on friendly service and healthy living, to giving people a reason to smile.

We then invited people to tell me, personally, if we did not get it right. This gave us a chance to change a negative customer experience into a positive one. Aussies generally are not big on complaining, but I invited them to do so and made it easy for them, thus allowing us to find out how we were measuring up. With every single complaint, it became my personal challenge to convert that customer into a raving fan. I did it, every time — by thinking as a consumer and keeping it simple. At the end of the day, people know that things can and will go wrong. What made the difference? We acknowledged any mistakes, and then fixed the problem. Right a wrong — simple. My customer experience mission gave our customers a reason to choose Boost and still keeps them coming back today.

From the beginning, we were never going to be happy with just one Boost Juice store; we thought big from the start. Thinking bigger made us act bigger, and this influenced suppliers and landlords to believe in our vision, give us good prices and take us seriously. It turned out that starting the first store in Adelaide was brilliant. We were able to get the concept right without the eyes of the larger cities on us.

After the first store, I took total control of the brand look and feel. I realised the first store’s design was terrible because I was using other people’s views, mainly Jeff’s. The new look for the brand actually originated from a massive picture of sliced tomatoes I saw in a store in Singapore. I know it may seem odd, but the picture was beautiful and it really showed the life essence of this fruit. So we experimented with other fruits — I had our photographer cut oranges, lemons, watermelons and so on. He then stuck the images on glass and let sunlight come through. The effect was amazing — the simple beauty and life of the fruit was captured in the photos. We used these photos as the core of the design concept; we chose the colours from the fruit and the early stores all had 3-metre images of sliced fruit all over them. The design was a winner — and, needless to say, Jeff will now openly tell you that he is not the one to talk to about design. (Again this relates to lesson 3.)

I gained many lessons setting up our first Boost stores and during the first 12 months after — see lessons 4 and 5 for more.

Making the decision to franchise

Jeff and I decided to franchise quite early, though at the time neither of us knew much about franchising or how it worked. Our vision was always to grow the brand and we realised we had a small window to do so before bigger players came into the marketplace. We just wouldn’t be able to hire enough quality managers to expand that quickly — and that’s where franchising offered us the solution we were looking for.

Through a friend of a friend we stumbled onto Rod Young, who was just opening a franchise advisory business after having worked in franchising and business his entire professional life. We were his very first clients in his new venture and he became a small shareholder in ours.

Our first meeting with Rod was before we had completed a full year of trading. I remember this because Rod explained we would need figures for a full 12 months before we could begin. Even so, we were clear on our direction. It was 2001, and this would be the road we headed down.

Keep in mind, I was learning on the go and had three young boys at home; every day presented a new set of problems to solve. Thank heaven for my mother! Not long after we had made the decision to start franchising, Jeff (who looked after leasing) came home one night with a smile like the Cheshire Cat. I knew that grin; it comes out when he has done something that he knows will freak me out — and he had! He had just signed an 18-store deal with Westfield, complete with a $5 million liability in our names! Like most early (okay, mid–) thirtysomethings with a young family, we had no money. After a seven-second calculation, I knew the equity in our house was not worth a tenth of this figure. We needed to open 18 stores within 18 months and, at the time, we only had two stores open. This deadline didn’t just give me a little kickstart; this exploded me into the world of franchising — without a parachute.

But, despite my initial shock, franchising did work for us, massively. We had so many franchise enquiries we could barely manage the load. Fortuitously, we’d recently hired a very young head of human resources (HR), Jacinta Caithness. (On her first day, Jacinta was greeted at the front door by Molly, our massive Great Dane. I could see in her eyes that she was wondering whether she should stick with the job or make a run for it. Thankfully she didn’t run, and I immediately stopped letting Molly greet recruits.) While Jacinta started as our HR manager, she quickly became our franchise manager, and she did an amazing job recruiting the right people for our franchise businesses. On the leasing side, I also worked closely with Kristie Piniuta, a lawyer who would later come to work for Boost.

Surrounding yourself with greatness

The business grew from strength to strength, and we were able to employ some other key people to help run it. I still proudly take my hat off to our young team in the early days, and I’m amazed at everything we achieved together and the amount of daily problems that we solved. The success of the business was a real credit to them. I was in my thirties and my team was in their early twenties: Kristie Piniuta, a lawyer; Naomi Webber, an accountant and our savvy CFO; and Jacinta Caithness, the franchise manager.

Kristie had a large care factor and a thirst for knowledge that helped keep us out of trouble. When I first met her, Kristie was a junior lawyer working in the leasing department of a law firm. I would spend hours with Kristie going through the leasing contracts line by line, asking her to explain exactly what every clause meant. After she came to work at Boost, Kristie went from only looking at property leases to needing to know everything related to business law. She was in her element. Through diligent research, she ensured that every decision made was the correct one, creating order and building a strong foundation on which this fast-moving beast of a business could grow. Very early, we had good corporate governance, unusual for such a small business at the size we were. We have made many mistakes in our business, but, largely because of Kristie, fulfilling our legal requirements was one thing we got right. And this was a critical part of the foundation of the business.

Naomi was presented with an absolute mess to fix (which she did). Naomi was a young accountant recommended by Geoff Harris (more on him later in this chapter) and we hired her as the CFO. The accounts at the time were in a terrible state but, to Naomi’s credit, she built up a strong team and after many months of all-nighters she got the accounts back in order. Accounts tends to be that boring area that entrepreneurs tend to think of as unimportant, but not having correct numbers and clarity on what your business is doing means you’re running your business in the dark. The numbers tell you exactly where to put your focus, which team members are thriving or struggling, and, more importantly, give you a solid business in which you can trade. Naomi helped give us that clarity.

And Jacinta, a woman with no franchising experience, learned all aspects and helped make the franchising tactic a success. Jacinta had great tenacity in achieving the required goals, no matter what it took. I remember her telling me once, 100 per cent seriously, that she did not understand why people missed deadlines. She rationalised that if your head was going to blow up if you missed the deadline, you would make sure you met it. So, really, no-one could have a reason for missing a deadline. From that time onward, we had a saying that something was a ‘head-exploding deadline’. The other saying that got us through those times was ‘eat that frog’, from the book of the same title. Every day it seemed there were hard calls to make, and no-one likes making hard calls, no matter how tough that person seems. So we often referred to those days as ‘eat that frog days’.

Seeing Jacinta develop over those years was incredibly rewarding. While at Boost she achieved the AFR Boss Young Executive of the Year award as well as the Telstra Australian Young Business Woman of the Year award, both of which she deserved in spades. I have travelled many frequent flyer miles with Jacinta over the years, setting up Boost international. From meeting with sheikhs in Dubai to looking for sites in the snow in Estonia, it has been a remarkable journey.

Together, Kristie, Naomi, Jacinta and I worked out the problems as they occurred. All of us were learning and doing things for the first time, but we had an enormous care factor to get it right. It truly was girl power! And in the high-pace growth of Boost, we never would have achieved what we achieved without the strong girl power from these three young, smart passionate women. We often laugh that a year at Boost was like working five years anywhere else. It was both scary and exhilarating pulling the business together and we had a ball. Many nights were spent with pizzas working into the early hours of the morning. Sitting at a round table with these women, there was always a feeling that any problem could be solved, and when we all went in our different directions in the business we all knew that no-one was going to drop the ball — we would achieve what needed to be achieved.

Everyone in my small initial team played numerous roles. We had to — we didn’t have a team of people sorting out the various solutions to problems. We all wore various hats: the accountant, the secretary, the publisher, the negotiator and the cleaner. We did everything behind the scenes. For the first two years, I worked from the kitchen table at home, while my first two employees (a PA and a part-time bookkeeper) used the dining room.

Having the business operations in my home also allowed me to be around for my three boys. I have always been a great believer in the idea that children should be in your life, not you in theirs, and they will have a richer life because of it. That is how I resolve the guilt that comes from being a working mum. But I also had a secret weapon (then and to this day) — my mum, Joan. I honestly could have never achieved the level of success I have without her. People call her ‘Saint Joan’ for good reason — it’s with her help that I manage to maintain a balance between home life and the passion for my businesses.

Almost every day, Mum drove from Boronia to my house in Malvern East, a 60-kilometre round trip, to help me with my children. Not only did she do the drive and dedicate her life to helping me, but she also did this without trying to produce any guilt in me whatsoever. When I told her in a moment of guilt that I was asking too much of her, she told me that she loved every minute of it and it made her life complete.

I remember a day when I was in Sydney and Mum called to ask what time Jeff was getting home to look after the kids. I didn’t know, so I told her I would call her back. I eventually got hold of Jeff to discover that he was in Brisbane for two days. (Nothing like great communication between the two of us.) I then called Mum back to let her know about my incompetence — that neither Jeff nor I were within 1000 kilometres of her and I was not going to get mother of the year that year. Mum just laughed and told me the kids would be fine.

Mum also had that ability to not cross from the grandmother role into the mother role. The second I walked in the door, she would defer to me for everything. She is the perfect grandmother and, for me, the perfect mother. She has eleven grandchildren and has a special bond with each and every one of them. So much so that at Christmas every single one of them flies from interstate to Melbourne, bringing their current boyfriends and girlfriends with them, for Mum’s Christmas lunch. Mum didn’t know what she got when I was born. Even now, she openly wonders where I came from. But she has been the most amazing support for me, and I love her from the bottom of my heart.

If my mum is the perfect grandmother, my father is the perfect grandfather. I take my hat off to him to be able to sit for hours and hours playing games with his grandchildren, letting them paint and even plait his hair. He has a great attitude to life, he is 83 and still umpires cricket and plays golf twice a week.

The business would also not be the success it is without Jeff — he has been with the business every step of the way. I lean heavily on him for advice and guidance. Particularly in the first couple of years, I was terrible at firing or counselling people, so I used to go to him for anything that was confronting. His greatest attribute was his absolute confidence in what we were doing and in my ability to pull it off. When I walked in the door completely stressed, he would calm me and tell me everything would be fine. This was largely because he was such a ‘big picture’ guy he had no idea of the day-to-day problems or cash flow. His full-time job allowed him to only keep his thumb on the macro picture, and sometimes stepping back and looking at this bigger picture was exactly what I needed. Seventeen years on, he is still my best friend. Together we make a wonderful team, in business and in life. Jeff unlocked many things in me that helped create Boost.

Running at full tilt

At the end of 2001, we had survived our first year of trade. There were four Boost stores, including one in Melbourne’s Jam Factory (a popular shopping and entertainment complex). Boost had reached the point where the business was truly taking over the house. I was using the kitchen and dining room as offices, our master bedroom was the CFO’s office, and Jeff and I were sleeping with the boys in their rooms. Jeff used to complain that the only action he got was me doing the laptop dance, as I typed until all hours of the night. I remember walking past the dining room one day, looking in the room and realising I’d reached the point where I hated not getting away from the business. I was working 17 hours a day. For my sanity and for my family, I decided Boost would have its own proper home. Up-and-coming, young businesses need a great deal of cash, so moving from my home to an office was a huge step financially, but it was also a big decision emotionally. While the move meant my boys would no longer be running under my legs while I was talking to suppliers or working out a solution for a customer, I had really enjoyed still being so close to them — and there is nothing like a child’s hug anytime of the day.

In 2002, we thought it would be a good idea to join forces with our competitor, Viva Juice. They had four stores and we had four stores. At the time, I was feeling things were getting over my head. The business was taking over my life and I needed some of the work taken off my hands. We met with the owner of Viva and discussed a deal. Perhaps not surprisingly, they wanted more than what we thought was reasonable; in hindsight, though, not being able to merge the two businesses was the best thing that could have happened and it was a real turning point for me. I realised I had no-one else to turn to — the net didn’t exist. It was up to me to nail this business. Jeff was great with securing new sites and helping me develop the marketing plan, but the nuts and bolts were all on my plate and we had everything on the line. I loved what I was doing and the adrenaline that came with running a new business. I was not always 100 per cent confident in what I was doing — okay, that’s an understatement, I was not even 50 per cent confident in what I was doing — but the reality was I was the biggest expert out there in this specific area. I had no-one else to approach and I just had to work it out along the way. (More to come on the Viva story later.)

It was also around this time that the media really started to get interested in the Boost story. Basically, it felt like I was two people — I had Janine, the founder of Boost Juice, and me, the person who was employed to get PR for Boost Juice. I had to see ‘Janine’ as a tool to use to get people to understand what Boost Juice was about. Through my experience at UIP, I had sat through dozens of hours of interviews, and one thing I learned was that you have to be yourself — you cannot fake it. So that is what I did; I was just me, in all the interviews. I was always honest and transparent, and told the truth about Boost’s journey and any mistakes along the way. What made talking about Boost easy was that I was (and, of course, still am!) genuinely so passionate about the company and the brand, so it was easy to talk about my favourite topic.

As time goes by, and with each problem solved along the way, you cannot help but evolve into a more confident business person. During those early years, I made sure that I understood every aspect of every decision I made. To me, the fact I cared so much about the business justified my behaviour. I painstakingly took the time in every area to get it right, from dealing with the franchising and trademarks to working on supplier relations. I was obsessed with the business. We rarely used outside companies for areas such as franchising, legal (where possible), marketing or advertising. I wanted to make sure everyone who worked on something for Boost had 100 per cent focus on Boost at all times. I was a total control freak, needing to know everything. I found it hard to trust that the job would be done well by other people. The reality at the time was no-one on the team, including myself, had been in the business long enough to know exactly what to do all the time. Back then, it would stress me to my core if I went on holidays because I thought the business would fall apart. Clearly it did not; we had great people doing great things (see lesson 6).

Risking it all

Any new business is hungry for cash, and Boost was no different. In 2002, we needed more money to grow and we had two choices: get other investors into the business or find the money ourselves. We decided that we didn’t want to sell down by taking on additional investors, because it would be like working for someone again and that was the last thing we wanted. However, this didn’t change the fact that we needed cash and fast.

The banks wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole because our only asset was our family home, so we had to find money some other way. My greatest fear was losing the house that Jeff and I had worked so hard for. (Admittedly, Jeff worked really hard to buy our house. While I was gallivanting around the world, Jeff was saving money. He purchased his first house as a 19-year-old — who does that? He was saving for a house and I was sailing around the world with David Bowie. The ‘Gods of Yin and Yang’ must have had a good laugh when they put us together. But he had assets and I had debt — a perfect match in my opinion.)

In the end, we risked it all. We sold our only asset, the house, and invested all the money into the business. We packed up the kids and moved into a rental for two years.

Picking the right partner

By the end of 2002, we had opened 15 stores and were going strong. There were 50 stores opened by the end of 2003. I could see a permanent frown on my brow — it seemed to have cut deeper into my forehead every morning. I was learning as quickly as I could. I did not have mentors; in fact, I did not have friends. I did not have time to sit down for a coffee let alone a chat. One morning in 2002, I was sitting at my desk when I saw a note to call Geoff Harris. I had spent most of my adult life abroad so I certainly was not up with the ‘who’s who’ in business (and these were still the days before you could simply ‘Google’ someone), but it turned out this Geoff person wanted to meet and discuss the business. Geoff was not the first person to show interest in the business, and we were very guarded about who we wanted to ‘play’ with. We had already rejected many, many offers from people to get involved.

However, Jeff and I decided I should meet with Geoff Harris at a cafe. We sat down and he showed me the latest Business Review Weekly Rich List. (The BRW is the Australian business bible.) Upon reading his name in the Rich List and his worth, I spilt my entire coffee onto his lap and note pad. Not the best start to a relationship. Now, you may be thinking, What a show off, but he simply wanted to show us that he was not a tyre kicker. Geoff was someone genuinely interested in us and our business. I quickly learned what I probably should have known already — he was the co-founder of Flight Centre, one of Australia’s greatest success stories. And, for the record, you could not find a more generous, kind, loyal and considerate man on the planet.

Over the next four months, Geoff gave us ‘precious gems’ of strategic business foresight and never asked for anything in return. By the fifth month, we were ready for him to get involved.

Some months prior to this decision, I had stopped doing the accounts and hired a CFO. I quickly discovered this recruitment decision was a mistake and I learned the first lesson in hiring the right people (see lesson 7). The CFO I hired was previously employed by a business that had gone belly up. I’d assumed this would have given her hard-learned knowledge on what not to do; I was wrong. The figures we presented to Geoff Harris to review seemed to be all wrong. When his accountant said not to move forward, because there were problems with the integrity of the figures, I was alerted to our CFO problem. It wasn’t that she wasn’t trying; it was just that the job was too big for her.

Geoff did eventually buy into the business and we hired the right person to get the accounts balanced. I was thrilled to have him become a part of Boost. Geoff’s buying into the business was simple; we agreed on a price, he handed me a cheque and that was it. I know lawyers are a necessary evil but if business deals could be done based on a handshake and someone’s word, profit margins would certainly be a lot higher.

Geoff had a goal to utilise his knowledge and share it with another start-up. He then met Jeff and me and, thankfully, it was a perfect fit. Geoff quickly became my mentor; he was so generous with information and his experiences. In the coming years, we worked closely together and the direction of Boost changed in many positive ways. I spent many, many hours on the road with Geoff, looking at stores and picking his brains. We would meet at least once a month, and during these meetings I would always bring out my long list of questions about various issues that I was having at the time. Geoff is one of the good guys; he is honest, loyal and a true Aussie bloke if ever there was one. Geoff expanded my personal business knowledge dramatically (see lesson 8).

Adding a Boost to Viva

Two years after first approaching Viva, in 2004 we ended up purchasing the Viva Juice business. At that time, we had over 80 stores and they had 24 stores, all owned by Viva and not franchised. They were the only real competitor we saw in the marketplace, and the owner had secured some great sites in the Melbourne and Sydney airports, which prevented us from getting into these positions.

The acquisition was a monumental learning process on all levels, because it was the first business that I had ever bought. I needed to know the difference between a share sale and an asset sale, for example, because if we got this wrong it could cost us thousands in tax. Getting solid advice and working with consultants and lawyers that we trusted was critical. The legal arrangements were extraordinary, and the process was painfully long and detailed — in all, the negotiations lasted six months. In some respects, however, the process was aligned with my strength of being detail-oriented. And even though it was stressful, it was invigorating to complete.

My girl power team (Kristie, Naomi, Jacinta) came into their element through the Viva Juice acquisition. As I mentioned, in the beginning none of us really knew what to do — we were all doing it for the first time. However, we all cared enough to make sure that we got it right, which we did. The research and pulling of favours from all of our contacts ensured that we made the acquisition a success. Kristie was beside me until the final sign-off on the deal. I have now watched Kristie go from being a keen and passionate young lawyer to being a married woman with two beautiful children and her own law consulting firm, and I am so proud of what she has become.

On the very last day of the Viva deal, I was called into the legal office to finalise a number of minor points. I had been having dinner with some friends, so I remember arriving at 8 pm. The Viva owners were in the other room to go through the points, and I was promised it would only take an hour or so. Issues started to go back and forth between the rooms, so we decided to get into one room to finalise these points. We left the room at 11 am the next day. In utter disbelief, I clearly remember watching the sun come up; we had been negotiating all through the night. Strategically, this was a great win for us; mentally it was OMG! We were already growing at a store a week, and now we’d thrown in converting an additional 24 stores and getting the Viva staff on board — it was a great lesson in change management. I remember hearing the Viva owners cracking champagne and celebrating the sale; all I could think about was what I had to do next to make this work.

A tired mess after the all-nighter, Kristie and I found a local gym to have a shower. Jeff met me at a cafe in the city and, I admit it, I had a bit of a sulk to my husband that day, and may have demanded that he buy me something that ‘blinged’. After four years of growing the business and realising what was on my horizon with the additional stores to bring on board, I was beyond tired and emotional. I must have had a furious look, as Jeff went straight into a local jewellery store and indeed bought me something that ‘blinged’.

Business Woman of the Year

As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, franchising worked for Boost. At the start of 2004, we went out for dinner to celebrate because the business was now turning over $1 million a week. And 2004 continued to be a massive year for us, with the Boost machine of training, building and marketing in overdrive. We were opening a store a week, and every day I seemed to be creating another spreadsheet for a system or process. The people who reported to me called me the ‘Task queen’. (I had discovered how to use the Task tab on Outlook and it was my saviour.) I could now effectively track the millions of moving parts that were Boost.

In 2004, we were also in ‘The Top 7 Businesses’ in BRW’s annual list of the 100 fastest growing businesses in the country. The hysterical thing was that same year I was also in BRW’s Young Rich list. The reason this was so funny? We had not taken a cent out of the business; every dollar made was put back into the business. For the first three years, I didn’t take a salary. In year four, I did and it was $35 000. I was one of the lowest paid staff members at the time. I went shopping the day the article came out. When Jeff saw all the bags and raised an eyebrow at me, I smugly said, ‘Have you not read BRW? Apparently I can afford it!’

And this was the same year that I won the Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year award. I was absolutely thrilled, surprised and honoured, and the award was a pivotal turning point for me. The awards ceremony was the first time in over four years that I networked. I had sourced out businesspeople here and there for lunch and their advice, but never in a larger group. With this award came the opportunity to meet some of Australia’s most amazing and inspirational women. One was Launa Inman, who was the managing director of Target Australia at the time. Her journey from South Africa to becoming one of the leading businesswomen in retail in Australia is profound. I have enormous respect for Launa — not just as a businesswoman, but also as a friend. The other person I connected with was Judith Slocombe, who started out as a vet. She had her own pathology business that was purchased by Gribbles and, while she ran this business for a number of years, she’s now the CEO of The Alannah and Madeline Foundation. What she has personally done for this foundation is quite extraordinary.

Both of these women have also won the Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year award. They too are mothers and wives facing the similar challenge of balancing their lives with their love for business. All of us enjoy what we do. We have a passion for creating and driving forward this think tank we call business. Between the three of us, we have 15 children (Judith has nine). Though we do not catch up as much as we would like, we meet at the National Telstra Awards Dinner annually and are on the end of the phone whenever needed.