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Stefan Angelini is Joined by Damien Roylance to discuss investing into his Business. It is common for Business Owners to get to a point where they need to decide to either grow by reinvesting profits back into the business, or if they're happy with the current state of things and want to pull their money out.
Stefan Angelini
Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the Investor Types podcast. I'm Stefan Angelini. I'm sitting down with Damien Roylance from Entourage Finance. We've got a special special on today. We're basically talking to business owners or people who want to start their own business. People who want to grow their own business and grow it to a point where you have to keep reinvesting to grow the team to ensure you can grow profits and essentially have a big, big, big business.
Damien Roylance
That's the plan. Hopefully, I can share some insights.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. So it takes different sort of investor types to do these kind of things are thought to be great to get Damien on because he's growing a business in the finance space. And you get to a point sometimes when you run a business and you get the choice. Do I pull money out and start my own investment portfolio on the side or do a double down and try and grow this thing and grow big?
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Why Damien think? Why I think he's so special is because he's one of the only Congress partners I know with a mouthful of take and a die hard of that.Why Damien think? Why I think he's so special is because he's one of the only Collingwood supporter I know with a mouthful of teeth and a die hard of that. I'm sorry Buddy. I'm calling to Collingwood supporter as well, but I'm really pretty
Damien Roylance
This year. Twenty twenty. Yeah, I say that every year.
Stefan Angelini
So Damien was living in London for a long time and twenty, twenty ten. If a lot of people remember 2010 where there was a draw in the grand final, Collingwood versus St Kilda. You're living in London. What did you do?
Damien Roylance
I had a bet with my old man before I went to London earlier in the year that it kind of made the grand final. He thought there was no hope they were going to make the grand final. You'd fly me back. So we made the grand final. I had a job interview on that Friday, which I had to cancel. And I flew on the Friday from Paris. I was in Paris that time and then flew to Melbourne, got in Friday night and then went to the grand final with no, no, no sleep. And then we drew, as we know, as one of the greatest games. But then I had to fly home on the Monday. So I missed the win of I think I've seen four Collingwood losses and a draw and still haven't quite say in that win, which is hopefully this year we know we win on. We won ninety nine in 2010. So hopefully 2020 is see every 10 or 20 years.
Stefan Angelini
Such a love story as such a heartbreak. You poor bugger.
Damien Roylance
Yeah. Yeah. So good.
Stefan Angelini
So coming from London and what we want talk about your finance business. I want to know from people that they are thinking about starting a business
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
How did you get started with with your company? With Entourage?
Damien Roylance
Yeah, well, I guess we gotta go back to when we got back from London was around June 2012. And so I was in discussions of coming back to a previous employer, which I started mortgage broker in 2006. So I could went back as an employee, income which was great after being in London for about 18 months or and other pathways to know. Mark, who was a buyer's advocate, to start a brand new business. Mark, I used to work with Mark. Whose you know, we knew each other really well. But he goes, well, you get no income. You know, there's nothing here for the next six or so months until I start earning income, which was probably pretty challenging. I had my lovely wife, Amy. We got engaged before I went to London and we were planning our wedding probably in March twenty twelve. So we had about three months for the wedding. I had a lot of debt like you and I. I love my love, my property. I bought three properties in my 20s and carried that
Stefan Angelini
before you took off to London.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
2007-2008 we had had about one half million of debt somehow managed to get to London and the rent's gonna covered most of it
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
And yeah, we took the plunge into the offer of no income. I don't know why at that time. Had to live at home with mom and dad.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
Because we couldn't afford to move back into one of our other places.
Stefan Angelini
With your fiance
Damien Roylance
Yeah, we lived in there and we lived in a we swapped parents a little bit.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
And as we got married, I think we don't know where we moved into the house. So that was after the wedding March. But the funny thing is, when I look back on it now, why my my boss or my partner at the time, Mark says I've got this other little side business going on. It's an Internet. He'd been working on an Internet business in real estate. And he guys are you can have a you can have some of this as well as we kind of grow the mortgage broking property business. So that was that was in my back pocket. So, yeah, whatever that turned out to be okay. Which is looking back eight years later, I made the decision knowing you're you're your start up man like yourself. All these internet things don't always work. But luckily.
Stefan Angelini
I had a few that have gone wrong.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
I wonder what nearly got there.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
But yeah that's that's a fantastic story. But I think what I took out of that was when you start a business, don't expect to make money straight away. You can have to sort of bite the bullet for a little bit and moved back home with your parents, even if you've got if you've got debt, if you really want to do it yet be prepared to knock out or not get paid really well.
Damien Roylance
I think everyone thinks the grass is greener. There's, you know, like, what is it, one in only one intensive survive the first 12 months or 24 months.
Stefan Angelini
Would you did you also got involved in a startup? I love this. So the startup was not making money to start. It is now big company ASX listed.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Tell us about how it started. What it is.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
What it is.
Damien Roylance
It was an idea that Mark and Damien, it's the two property guys had they actually started auction tipping contests like this called property tycoon, where you had choose five properties and People love property to be a sport in Mount, especially Melbourne. And you could kind of pick, you know, which property, what do you think they would sell for within a range? If you got it with 100 grand or go into your portfolio. And that was one. It was really hard to monetize was it a bit of fun. Then, the other idea was right my agent, which is you know, taking from the trip advisers and lots that travel when whatever it is that everyone was writing everything but real estate agents were getting away with everything.You know, I probably started being a negative around that agent that he screwed me kind of thing. But in the end, it's become a real positive sight for agents to promote themselves. And so I read and write. My agent developed, as we kind of worked in our property plan, was the mortgage broker business. These little startups? You know, I kept growing a bit of legs here and then we started to hire more people. But the profit or the income that we're learning from the business, we just put back onto the startup.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
So that's probably the advantage we had, I think, over a lot of other startups where we had a functioning business which was making money.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
And you could kind of, you know, direct income to the startup.
Stefan Angelini
So you it's got to be capital raising at the start, you know, own funds. You knew what you wanted to grow and you could yet reinvest into the tech and running a tech company that cost money.
Damien Roylance
Yeah. Yeah. And the three three of us. And look. Oh, I was more in the mortgage business and the two guys kind of got more involved. The property side of things that none of us are tech heads.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. So eventually so you had a little push with this company.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Which is now ground to something massive. But you made the decision to say I'm not going to go along for the journey and dedicate all my time going to keep the broking and doing what I'm good at. You had to go through a split with your partners.
Damien Roylance
Yeah, well, look, I guess as I got, they were doing less of the buyer's advocate, more on the website. So I had to keep you know you have get always working to keep money coming in the door because we all had families. Yeah, well, by then I had family and said it's a remarkably so. I was there to fund a lot of it while I could build it and concentrate on it more. Which was great. And then in 2015 that raised a bit of money by the end and probably done a second raise and they gave oh, I think this is a serious thing. We're going to dedicate this. And we had a we had a good split, which was really amicable. The only funny thing now when I look back is I bought them out of the trial income. So the trial commission was only what they were. The business was worth a percentage of the trial. I think I I said that as worth two as well as worth three. And Mark was in the middle too. And a half so although we all had different minds, we didn't have an actual shareholder's agreement in writing down.
Stefan Angelini
Like most businesses done at the start. Yeah.
Damien Roylance
We did all this on a handshake at the old Hilton Hotel
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
Even about these shares, which are worth a bit of money now as I didn't have anything in writing about it. But, you know, the guys at the hand, there is still good people out there that honour the handshakes. But yeah, we ended up in the middle two and half times of what the trial was and just bought them out. And then at that time, that was December 2015.
Stefan Angelini
So in order to buy them out. You would've taken on more debt to do that?
Damien Roylance
Yeah, I think there's because we had been paying ourselves much. I didn't have the money.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
The capital myself to just pay cash. We we borrowed the money and that was fine cause you get you get recurring an income in the interest is quite low. That worked out well and then I had to rebrand, had to change the name because it was all connected to the one of the business partners. He's kind of family company. And so we came up with the name Entourage. Well, I kind of the name Entourage I like tv show
Stefan Angelini
In the creation of Entourage.
Damien Roylance
Yes.
Stefan Angelini
So tell me a bit about why Entourage, why you started it.
Damien Roylance
Yeah. Like
Stefan Angelini
When when was that? When name was rename?
Damien Roylance
In December. December. I think about the first day of Entourage is December 2015. But obviously had had some time to prepare like it was a good we knew it was coming, so I had time to kind of set things up and I don't know I started a name and now we kind of just have a beautiful angel name like yourself. That's like part of the last name. Mark wanted Royland Finance and it sound. That is really bad. But look, I don't want my name on the door. I want it to be a brand that you could build a brand around. So that's not all about you. I think a lot of people in finance and real estate like to have, you know, their name on the door. Bit of an ego thing. That's not what I wanted to correct for myself. And yeah, Entourage, I think the move was at the time. And then I mentioned the domain name Entourage dot com that I knew for a couple of grand to win because I had all other forms of entourage that my entourage and different things. But when I got onto other that well, that's a sign I can I can run with this and then you can kind of build the meaning of Entourage is, you know, a band of people supporting an important person. So I really felt if I did could build this team of advisors, then clients could come in and get really good quality of us. And so I worked really well. And people love the name. It's been good. They always ask me about the TV show. Of course, I probably hear probably pretend to be Ari Gold. Sometimes I'm like, Ari Gold, we do have tv in the offices. He's thinks he's quite Vincent Chase, but he's a long way from that as well.
Stefan Angelini
He’s charming
Damien Roylance
He’s charming. That’s alright.
Stefan Angelini
So the business then when you started it, how many people did you have? Was just yourself? Did you have someone else come along with you?
Damien Roylance
It was Hume. So Hume's been there for 8 years. He said he was at the start of almost a started in that first year. In 2012, we are properly planned. And so he became a partner with the business is because he is so loyal and so good. It just got equity in the business. I think last year before. Yeah. He's the nicest person you'll ever meet, support his family and just a genuinely great human being.
Stefan Angelini
He really is.
Damien Roylance
So. So it was Hume and was my brother in law, Brett, who moved away overseas a couple of years ago.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
There's three of us. And as has been it's been fun. I think there was a window. It has to be. I think we've we've got we've hired a lot in 2000. So that 2006 there was that kind of first year of business. We had to get our office. We moved into Cremorne, which has kind of been an amazing real adventure.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
It just keeps growing. And then we worked hard that year to try and, you know, before I could really hire more people, we had to go. And I said we had to have a good year. So I was really focused to just smash that year and we did over 100 million out in our game of mortgages. There's that. There's a bit of a barrier it's like doing a tunnel, I suppose.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
And so we did. We got over 100 mil in that 2017 financial year. So 16, 17. And we've got number 20. We're at twenty three in the country of brokers.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
And then we thought that we could break really hard year were just two of us doing that. Just Hume and I.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
And then next year we started hiring. And so that
Stefan Angelini
Bringing on staff. 2017
Damien Roylance
Yeah. So
Stefan Angelini
Went from two to more two now you're at 16. I'm was gonna pause it for a bit there. We're gonna come back after this. And we're gonna talk about what it means life in finance and being a business owner, what it means to your life. See you in seconds. All right. We're back to what we're talking about with Damien is about how life changed when you're a business owner and how finances changed your business owner because you haven't got that steady stream of income coming in. Unless if you decide to pay yourself. But how how is your life adapted to being a business owner? And even how does your wife and kids have to adapt to that as well?
Damien Roylance
Yeah, well, look at we had we have gone through phases like it's been four years now having Entourage and controlling the money. And, you know, you have good months and you think, oh, you take some money out. And then my lovely accountant Shaun will send me the tax bills for the quarter like I'm a shit. That's the 80 grand I got, I got to adjust it again. So you know there's been times I've just haven't taken money at all. I look, I, I manage the money in the household the with the family based on the finance experience. But there, there is times when there's no money in the accounts early days because I've been investing a lot into the business. And, you know, we've we hired we hired four or five people in 2017 from but might gone from three to eight, which is just a big jump, just a big jump. And I do a stupid thing sometimes I go, I go all in and I just I just hope it works out at the end. All those guys.
Stefan Angelini
You gotta to believe in yourself
Damien Roylance
And we've got good people. Like I didn't try to hire these people but we had good applicants come in. Yeah, I had three brokers within six months, which is what we wanted, probably one maybe two.
Stefan Angelini
Did you have the money to fund them like the the ongoing revenue stream? Or did you have to say we need to bring in more money in order to pay for these people.
Damien Roylance
I think it was of the back of the really good year 2007 when we were really skinny.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
I like it so much more profitable sometimes when if you just want to do all the work
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
And like we had a really good 2007 was that real good year as well. Then this kind of went into the 2008 19s with these, the market kind of crashed a little bit with all the changes in lending
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
So you kind of assumed you back to yourself that business will keep growing. If you bring more people in, you'll earn more money or the business will earn more money.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
So you kind of assumed you back to yourself that business will keep growing. If you bring more people in, you'll earn more money or the business will earn more money.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
But you can't handle some of these market changes sometimes like.
Stefan Angelini
We talk about horror stories when when people when people, I guess, start businesses or run businesses.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
You got a few things sort of sometimes shit hits the fan. You've just got to scramble and make it works. You got you came from London to get into this business. You had no money. Debt everywhere.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
So you went now I'm gonna to make the decision. Go live with my parents that sorted out then you have things like government changes, the legislation, changes it. What happens in our industries which happen in 2018, which sort of would affected your business? No one was buying no one borrowing.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
You had a lot of staff you had to get through it.
Damien Roylance
So that's probably the time when I would always sacrifice my own income for their income. I had you know, the tough thing is you if you start not paying people, they're probably going to leave me. I was lucky that I've got the other investments, so I'll just pull money from that to live off.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
If I needed to
Stefan Angelini
Clever.
Damien Roylance
All on the same.
Stefan Angelini
All on the same shop
Damien Roylance
I mean. I know, I know other business owners might want to pay themselves first. I was probably the last one to get paid and then if there's any left I might take it out of the business when the, when the times are tough. And that's kinda of how you see the goal is always brand and build this brand, this culture that you've got a good office environment to work for and you got to get them, get them the money first, because I've got really good staff, they're good brokers. Good admin. I mean, they're just a dream team. And I'm hoping they will come up to them third year work to get through that last kind of one or two years of tough times in the market. And, you know, all the expenses we're balance, we can kinda of see the light now.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
Because, you know, it's their their doing record numbers. You know, rent in this new office and
Stefan Angelini
A good team culture is so important to growing a big business or a good business because, you know, good people stay on.
Damien Roylance
Well, you read all the books. It's culture seems to be one of the biggest things for, you know, retaining good staff. And, yeah, I just I like things to work it out. If you go to office over, you know, really nice computers, sit, stand desks that everything needs to work. I've been in offices before. I'm sure that everyone has like you kick in the photocopier and shit doesn't work. just frustrate yourself. the goal is to try to create environment where, you know, we can do everything for them so they can just concentrate on clients and bringing the work. Everything else just has to work seamlessly behind.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
and that's been expensive, but it's kind of I don't know how you would ever, you know, a retention of a staff member, how that whatever what dollar figure you put on that, you know, like, you know you know, Vincent in some of the guys and Mickey and Nicole they're all three experienced, they're all doing, you know, some of the best numbers I've ever done. But if I didn't put that money into him and sacrifice for myself in the last, you know, last couple of years and you wouldn't have any of them.
Stefan Angelini
So you get frustrated. They leave.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Something's better out there
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
So you've got growing businesses obviously hard because you dedicate funds, resources, your time.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
And there's a common misconception out there that when you run a business and especially you got a growing business and you upgrade your offices like you've recently done, you killing it
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
ever looks at all your mates told you to go, you must be killing it. Look at you You get all the staff coming on board.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Tell me about that. How do you feel about that? That misconception. And when people say you must be killing it
Damien Roylance
I think people in business would know that that's not always the case. You know, I speak to other people, you know, whether in real estate I go more staff just sometimes creates more headaches and more more expenses. So, you know, we're young. We're still only four years old. And, you know, we've gone through a lot of changes and we are buying we've bought a business last year and we've done a new office. So that's all very expensive stuff that, you know and
Stefan Angelini
And it puts stress on you sometimes as well, because if things don't work out like one, you've got to have you've got to have the balls to do it.
Damien Roylance
Yeah. You know what people don't think. You go and shit. So, you know, I kinda mind that I think we're killing it but, you know, like what we're doing very well from an industry point of view. But there's not millions of dollars fund around everywhere.
Stefan Angelini
But you've got to give up things like you've got to be on your phone all the time, which impacts your brain. You have to be able to answer calls on Saturday nights, Sundays.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Work on long hours sometimes.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Work on long hours sometimes. And then you still wanna make sure your health and everything that is.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Sustaining.
Damien Roylance
Yeah. On these channels and the phones, I, I'm, I'm probably pretty bad on my phone, you know, like it's, you know, it's an email, it's a text. I don't, I don't, I only have emails and texts come through notifications. I don't have any social come through a blocked all that stuff.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
But you know when you're with your daughter and you got a client call on a satellite because they had auction, it's it's been hard to you've got to take the call because it's pretty urgent stuff. And and then she doesn't quite understand this shit. Dad, why are you on the phone we're playing basketball, so.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
So there is those challenges of doing that. But you got to do it. I've got to say that I'm available for my clients and I've got to do it.
Stefan Angelini
But if I want to go to big business, you've got to be willing to do it and obviously while willing to do it.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Cause you've got the same goal insight.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
But having growth means you've got to reinvest into the company. You've got you got it. You get to a point where you say, right. We're going to pull out the profits, I'm going to build a property portfolio. I don't want to sit back and relax.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Oh you go now. I'm going to grow the business. I may have to buy more businesses. And there's only three ways you can grow your business.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
You can use your own cash.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
You can use debt from a bank or you can just use a profit. That's the businesses turning over to grow the business from two to eight to 7 6 9 staff.
Damien Roylance
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
What's the main track you've taken on growing your business?
Damien Roylance
Because I've done so much probably that I've actually done all three of them, to be honest. Like I think initially when I started on Entourage, I borrowed money to pay out the business partners for that. That trial commission from the bank and that was security and a property. So that was kind of cheap money.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
I'll probably use my own money at different stages just to pop up income when I needed to. And then last year, with the office, I borrowed a little bit of money just for the office because this ended up being well over budget. Office fit outs are very expensive
Stefan Angelini
If you're ever going to do
Damien Roylance
Well I'm not experienced, If you ever think ng about filling out an office. Yeah. That can really blow the budgets, but it's good fun. And that's you know, that I've got covered down all three, come and see around
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Roylance
So I go now. There's no more real big expenses coming. I'm not probably looking to buy any more business at this stage. So really look to get some of these other debts that is hanging around for another year or so, just paid off and just become. You know, get rid of those yucky debts.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. I mean, you got a good term of business revenues, good profits.
Damien Roylance
In sometimes there's there's two thoughts. You can always keep the debt and use the money to pay off your home loan. But
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
because it's one of those loan, it's quite cheap.
Stefan Angelini
You've got home loan. I remember May with Mark with me, but with my business, I've got my investment.
Damien Roylance
Most people have home loans but this guy
Stefan Angelini
I don't have a home loan anymore. I got plenty of investment. Look, I've got my investment portfolios. I've got properties, developments, shares in other businesses that I've invested into in the past. I'm going out on my own to start my business that I wanted to grow.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
I sold my home to reinvest some money to
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Buy into my project, which is my business. And then hire my first staff member when when that was I used the profit of my business to hire the first staff which is what you essentially did as well.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Well, looking at the growth I get to a point we like, we need to grow by using debt or using my own funds to fuel the fire to get it to take off.
Damien Roylance
So money can come from anywhere. I think it's whether he where you got it
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
If you don't have it, you'll have to borrow it. But yeah, we've done all three kinds of those things over the journey.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. Hey, good. Good. And then when people say, oh, we're going to reinvest back into the business,
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
We've got a long term goal or a long term plan. We've got a business plan. This is how we want to achieve it. We're we've people like yourself and entrepreneurs sort of just go getters.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
I think that you just laid the business plan to the side and just say, oh this is where I want to go and how I'm going to get there.
Damien Roylance
Yeah
Stefan Angelini
Have you ever sat down and go a long term goal, business plan?
Damien Roylance
It's gonna be the bad answer for business owner. So I read enough books that I've got to have these goals and business plans in place. But I did a business plan 2015. I don't know where it is. There's different mo There's there's different motivations and goals that are entirely my head. And our staff have their own KPRs in that.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
you know that the one that people ask where you are wanna be five years after I'm like I don't know, like I you know, I know I want to be in this office, which we've just built for the next 10 years. I want to have you know, I've got a legal business and a property business. I want them to be up and running and going well. But in terms of do we want to be the biggest in Australia? Probably not.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
You know, my thing is really about the team. I got I really love seeing them grow now. Vincent who's, you know, came on as a partner last year's bought into the business. Humes a partner now. This is
Stefan Angelini
Good
Damien Roylance
This is my kind of a passion. I want to say them kind of in their name, in lights.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
I think next month, in the March 12th, we've got Vincent, Crystal and Nicole and the business up for awards. So having those two, I won't be any up for any awards anymore. My times done as a broker, but these guys say name go win awards, which is kind of new for them is the exciting part. That's that's my that's my ultimate goal, to keep training these guys and getting them to go to the next level.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
In business and life. And, you know, we talk a lot about their lives as well like that. We're with these guys every day like we we took him to the gym on the big session and group session and personal trainer. We've got him doing some meditation, writing journals, all kinds of things to help with their well being within the business. I think that's pretty important.
Stefan Angelini
So as long as you you get you're getting your staff to be happy to keep generating money and you care about their long term success and your business going to keep growing.
Damien Roylance
That's it.
Stefan Angelini
So do you really need a business plan? Sort of roll with punches as they come.
Damien Roylance
Like everything in the process of doing that and, you know, the mandatory goal that will come.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
I'm doing that stuff. Right
Stefan Angelini
Well, Damien what I love about your story is so there's a lot of people when they do well in business, they go for the shiny lights and they try and investments of things like the tech companies.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
I take the profit out of the business to stop that. You've had something that's worked out fantastically.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
But now you've started just to grow. I mean, that's vertically integrated. So you've got to finance with property and with a legal team all within it. So what drew you towards that vertically integrated business?
Damien Roylance
Well, that's kind of the we always know from 2006, there was always property and property in finance. Like we always had these plans. We would sit down and get someone's property strategy ended up buyers good. So the label came on three years ago. That was just a natural progression where we referred to this lady, Caroline, and she was a mom and she was leaving a legal firm. And so that just kind of came on three years ago. So I got a came on pretty early in the Entourage journey
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
And I've always been searching to get the right property adviser back on board because property is our passion. You know, I invested early in my 20s and we speak to our clients about properties so much, you know, I'm an agent rep, so I could be a licensed agent. And then in much to be a licensed agent or a real estate agent. And she's got the licence. So we've got to into it last year. And she's perfect and she's just killing it. So we've had, you know, Vinnie and the girls, they always love to talk properly so but now, the expert who is actually on the road saying everything.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
You've got that perfect trilogy of if you gonna buy a property kinda need advice about the property. Whether you buying or selling you need legally and finance generally. That's it. Unless you Stefan So it just it just works really well. You know, we're all the team.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
We all just cross refer to each other. And, you know, when your clients name one thing in this day and age and the way that mortgage is, it becomes so difficult. You need a bit of team around you now.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
A lot of people come to me, you must know asset finance. You must know the commercial finance or some random business finance. It's all quite special. So we've got different people who do different things within the in the group.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah.
Damien Roylance
Because, you know, whether it's a residential, commercial or self-made superfund or asset, it's all it's all quite different. You're not doing it everyday, but then having legal. It's great. We can just go Caroline what's going on here. And you know, the answer. I can kind of give us a review on the property. So for our clients, it provides a better experience. And so far, working pretty
Stefan Angelini
You need to build a great name.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
Great name. So what these what these podcasts video series is all about is it's called Investor Types. So we like to help people identify well, if they want to become a business owner or if they want to reinvest into their business to grow something big.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
What sort of characteristics that they need to have in order to do this. What do you think?
Damien Roylance
Yeah.Look, you've got to be me. I think you will be skilled at your craft, whatever it is at the start. You know, a lot of business I wanna be a business owner. So I don't have to work. I think if you think that you're probably missed on the wrong path of a business, don't do that.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. Yeah.
Damien Roylance
Don't ever think
Stefan Angelini
Go for passive investments.
Damien Roylance
Yeah, I work for something that's not going to work for you too well, because the truth is, you work more than you would as if you're an employee. If it's your own business, if you care about your brand and you know your staff, if you've got staff or whatever it is, you're going to work longer hours than you ever would as an employee. So you got to be you have that dedication, that hard work and be skilled at your craft. But then obviously, like after I was, I kind of had that year where I'd got that break out that I've tried to put that onto other people and laid them that way.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah
Damien Roylance
I got to be a leader as well. I guess.
Stefan Angelini
As long as you're your leader.
Damien Roylance
Yeah.
Stefan Angelini
We'll make sacrifices, need to be able to work hard and have that work ethic.
Damien Roylance
And if you if you've got some money on the side to keep it go for the first year. That's why it's always hard if you get generous parents. So you know someone to back you up if you need to. I didn't have that so I could have a big tip. If someone can give you some cash as well.
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. So I learn to sacrifice and have people around you that understand it.
Damien Roylance
But it's exciting. It's great. It's nothing better than running your own business and, you know, watching it grow. And there's gonna be so bloody hard. But once you make it, it's kind of it's pretty cool, isn't it?
Stefan Angelini
Yeah. So there we have it. Another episode talking about reinvesting into business. Damien, thanks for coming on mate. I know Collingwood supporter could be so articulate. I'm Collingwood supporter its not that bad.
Damien Roylance
2020 is our year.
Stefan Angelini
It's been an amazing chat. If you've got any questions, feel free to reach out and leave comments below. We'll have hopefully we'll bring you back for another episode pretty soon. Take care.