The anecdote reveals two important things about the Lomases: their willingness to take risks and their dedication to keeping promises, both of which have contributed to the Destiny brand. Part of Destiny’s success has been the structure of the company. As a qualified financial adviser, Lomas was appalled to find that the property investment sector was unregulated, exposing the market to sharks. Destiny, she says, uses the processes that govern the financial advice industry in a property context.“Unless there are some small companies who haven’t come to great public attention, I think we’re the only company in Australia offering property investment advice under a financial advising framework.” This enables the company to operate “honestly and ethically” in a visible way.
In addition to structure, Destiny attracts clients because they provide advice based on experience. “We would never teach anyone anything that we hadn’t already done and proven ourselves. That way our clients know it’s real,” states Lomas. “A person will walk away from a consultation with a report that says ‘in year 15 you can expect to derive this much net income from a property strategy’. Most advisers say ‘you can own X amount of properties or X value of properties’, which doesn’t mean anything because you might not earn anything from them—our clients want to know what they’re actually getting.”Further value comes from ongoing support and education that the business initiates.
This includes software training for Destiny Track, a program that helps clients manage their budget and their properties, as well as weekly property focus groups and one-on-one mentoring, if desired.“People have to learn basic financial management skills, we aren’t taught them at school,” says Lomas of the focus groups. “But education is the secondary benefit, the main benefit is the gathering of like-minded people.”There haven’t been many mistakes in building Destiny, but Lomas says that if she had her time again she would have borrowed more money.
“I’m much more comfortable with debt now that I have a lot of it and I realise it hasn’t killed me. I should have backed myself more in the beginning,” she says. “We’re very successful and we’re a national company but a lot of people have done it more quickly. We probably would have done it more quickly had we wanted to borrow money. My business never borrowed money until six months ago.”She considers this before adding that there have, however, been a lot of benefits in the time it has taken. “When we first started to franchise, we only opened a couple of branches and spent quite a few years getting the model right. There is quite a lot to learn when you’re a franchisor. So many franchise networks grow really big, then fall flat on their faces.”
Author of several books, Lomas has also conducted seminars, contributed to publications, appeared on television and radio. However, she is working on ensuring that the Destiny brand is sustainable without her profile. Although she admits media exposure has been advantageous for the business, she says it’s “a double-edged sword”.
“When someone buys a franchise they’re responsible for getting their own leads and building a presence in their community. What my media presence does is create a reliability on me to bring in the leads,” she explains. “So, for the last few years we’ve been all about brand building, and building a strong network that doesn’t need me to have my name in the paper or run a seminar.”
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