Business View Oceania - Jan-Feb 2017

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future career path. Sandra, who had a
background in civil engineering, had
decided to stay at home and take care
of the children while Paul was working
in IT, an area he has been involved in
for more than 20 years. Because San-
dra was always urged by her family
to get into real estate, she started a
course through correspondence. The
couple then decided to switch roles
which meant that Sandra soon found
herself working at Ratcliff Mathews.
After a couple of years, her boss of-
fered to sell the business to her as he
wanted to retire and the rest, as they
say, is history.
Though Ratcliff Mathews was already
an established business, Sandra and
Paul were faced with a host of challeng-
es in the beginning. Soon after they de-
cided on acquiring the business, they
learnt that the existing facilities were
set to be leased to a competitor agen-
cy. The couple, however, managed to
find a new place in a mere two weeks
even though they had never done an-
ything similar before. Despite the dif-
ficulties they encountered, they man-
aged the situation very well. This also
allowed them to establish themselves
and to let their clients know that the
only change would be in the base of
operations.
According to Paul, going from being
employees to owning a business was
a big transition. It came with a whole