Career Opportunities for A Brit Down Under

Kaye Priest, originally from Stourbridge, UK saw her salary almost triple after leaving her job as a sales manager in Torquay, Devon to move to Victoria, Australia.

The mum-of-two  was in her late thirties when she emigrated down under after being offered an enticing employment opportunity with long-lost relatives living there.

However, Kaye’s plans did not work out as she had initially hoped. Listen in to find out how things have turned out for Kaye and her family.

NOTE: The views and opinions shared by the guest(s) in this podcast are the views and personal experiences of the guest(s) and are not necessarily representative of the views or  opinions of BRITstralian or the host.

This episode is sponsored by Powahaus, a business advice hub in Australia, co-founded by Kaye Priest. They run the New Business Centre offering advice and tips for start ups and new business owners.

This episode is also sponsored by Journee Relocation Agency, check out their reviews here!
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Transcript

ANNA

Moving to the other side of the world is life changing, but not just because you're in a different country. Quite often it means a career change. Or having to adapt to new working environments. 

Kaye Priest is originally from the West Midlands.

KAYE

I moved over to Australia in 2009. 

ANNA

She left her role as a manager in the travel and tourism industry 

KAYE

and I'm a BRITstralian

ANNA

Kaye took her family all the way from Torquay in Devon to Melbourne in Victoria. 

KAYE

Something we probably thought about doing for a long time, but always thought we'd move abroad, but it might be Spain or somewhere close to the UK. 

ANNA

She took a chance. Made a total career change.  And tripled her income. 

But it wasn't all plain sailing.

KAYE

I just was like, what the hell have we done? You know, let's get on the next plane home.

Even just, I think, the reality of getting off the aeroplane and, um, coming back in the taxi and thinking, what the hell have we done? 

This is not holiday, this is it. 

ANNA

But does she regret moving down under? 

KAYE

So, I came out with my family, my two children, so two boys, at the time, 11 and 18, and my husband at the time, we are now not together.

It was a good time, probably for my youngest son, and the most difficult time for my oldest son being 18 because obviously he was well established in his friendships. But that said, now that we're here, Australia is definitely their life. 

The little one is 24, is a fully fledged tradie, and just bought a house.

And then my oldest son recently bought his house down in a beautiful place called Mornington on the beach. So, both have settled very well. They have their partners, they have their homes, and Australia has been a really good life change for them. 

ANNA

So, what visa did you come out to Australia on? 

KAYE

My dad had a sister who moved to Australia as a five-pound-pom and hadn't really known too much about her and she came out to the UK on holiday and got on very, very well.

And she said, why don't you come out for a holiday?

And at the time I ran a business in England, I ran a travel company and then it got to the end of the year and I said to my ex-husband, you know, if we don't go, we probably won't go for another few years. So, we ended up booking and coming out for a Christmas and New Year, fell in love with it. I'd sort of met up with my cousins here and their partners and one of them had a business that they were running out of the garage and just starting and, And then one day in a conversation he just asked, he said, would you be interested in coming out and helping set up some new divisions of our business?

You know, it gave us the opportunity to come back out. 

ANNA

What kind of business was it? 

KAYE

So, they had, um, earthworks, um, concreting and HVAC, so heating and cooling. 

So, we made the decision to come out and do that, which. was a good decision in terms of coming to Australia. It wasn't a good decision in terms of family because the relationship wasn't great when we came out, but the actual, um, opportunity for us to be here and to continue living here with my kids to grow up here has been good.

ANNA

Yeah, exactly. Had you had any experience in that area before, in Earthworks? 

KAYE

No, nothing. It was just something when you've done sales and you can deal with people, I think you can do anything. I didn't have a degree, I didn't have a formal qualification, but I'd got experience. But because I didn't have one of the careers on, on the list at the time or in demand occupations. So what I had to do is collate all the information that I'd had over the years, um, my experience of working from other people and myself in travel. So the work that I did for that and the marketing work that I did sort of provided a portfolio if you like as evidence of what I was able to do. 

ANNA

And you said that the relationship with your family who sponsored you wasn't great when you came out here.

KAYE

It was a bit of a surreal thing when you make those plans and especially with family it can be quite difficult because we're the best one in the world. They are trying to do their best for you, and I think there might be some times, certainly was in my case, there's a little bit more hype than the reality of things. So, when we got here, things weren't exactly as promised. 

ANNA

So, it was quite difficult when you first moved over. 

KAYE

Very, very difficult. I mean, so I got the 457, came out and because I started work almost immediately, like within a week. So, I was trying to find a house to rent and I stayed with my family for about eight or nine weeks when we first got here and it was really hard because once we left actually staying with them, within probably six, 12 months of that, we lost all contact.

It just... And when we moved here, we sold the house. I’d made the decision to sell the house, not rent it out because I didn't want a safety net. Because I knew that things wouldn't always be good, or easy and I didn't want to be able to run away. So I knew that if there was a safety net home, if things got bad, maybe that would be a consideration.

So, I took that away and I'm glad I did because I think that made us, You know, nut some stuff out that wasn't easy at the time. But I literally just thought, well, you know what, I'm here, I've got to do it. Let's just make the most of it. And we did really. 

So yeah, we ended up with a really beautiful house on a pretty new estate and with a lake in the middle and the kids just loved it, you know, used to walk around the lake at night and it was beautiful.//

It was a beautiful home to settle into Australia. You actually felt like you were in a hotel. It was so big and compared to our semi-detached three bedroom in Torquay, it was like, ‘Oh my God, we're in a mansion’. The fact I had a butler's pantry, I was like, Oh my God, my kitchen wasn't this big. 

ANNA

Yeah. The houses here are pretty decent.

So you came out on a 457 visa?

KAYE

It took a couple of years actually to get the 457. 

ANNA

So were you working for your relatives when you first came over for two years on that visa? 

KAYE

Yeah. Once I'd been here for the two years, I could apply for my permanent residency. And that was again, difficult because of the situation, but I'd made the commitment, not just for our family to move, but also to them and the business.

And, you know, if I had left there, then that would have meant two things; I've let them down and I don't want to let them down, but also I would have to find another sponsor, which isn't that easy or wasn't that easy at the time. 

ANNA

And what happened when your two year work visa with the family business was up?

Were you able to stay in Australia? 

KAYE

I left to work for another employer and they ended up doing my permanent visa sponsorship for me as well. So. 

ANNA

Yeah. Fantastic. 

So, is that when you came up with your idea for your home automation app, the one which hit the headlines in Australia? 

KAYE

During that time, I met someone that worked at the same place.

He had, um, great vision. He'd been in that industry for a number of years. We ended up developing software and a company for home automation. Back then, there weren't really too many platforms that enabled you to control, you know, multiple products in one place using one, one app. So it was very unique. 

And we actually ended up doing, um, the Melbourne home show and profiling this there. And we didn't realise, but there was a guy there from Microsoft. About two weeks after the home show, we get an email from a guy at Microsoft in Melbourne. And we're like, what's this about? So anyway, this guy basically invited us in to, to demonstrate to them what we were about and what we were doing. We built a really good relationship with them. And off the back of that, they invited us to Seattle. 

ANNA

Wow. 

KAYE

So yeah, it was, it was very surreal meeting those sorts of people and getting the opportunity even to present who we were and what we were about. We had a write up in the financial review. I think we had a couple actually. We were on Sky News or whatever. And we were named one of Westpac’s Top 200 Businesses of Tomorrow. 

But it happened very quickly and it happened, you know, at a rate of knots when things started kicking in. It was like, we're here, we're there, we're presenting to these. You know, we had people there literally saying, you know, I'll invest a million. Just like, oh my god, you know. And we hadn't even finished it. They wanted to do an IPO with us and gave a valuation of $20million and all this stuff was going on. 

So you get caught up in that. And we would have scenarios like that all the time with people looking at it, wanting to be a part of it. And very soon you get involved in things and with people and in meetings where you've got to be so careful because when people sniff an opportunity or sniff a potentially big deal, they all want a part of it. And the shareholder group that were here in Australia relaunched that same product but under a different name and that ended up in a court case and that was settled but the product from this side never came to market. 

ANNA

So essentially you lost that business idea? 

KAYE

Yeah. 

ANNA

How did you even know how to fund it? How do you just take an idea and turn it into a business? How does that happen? 

KAYE

Um, it was really weird because with that idea I was working with a colleague and in all honesty the idea of home automation was a passion of theirs and with what the idea was and the connections I got, it meant that we could open the doors probably a lot quicker.

So the idea for that was tested, if you like, with a previous client that I'd worked with that had gas log fires. And so, they very kindly allowed me to trial what we were trying to do, which actually was a catalyst for then. controlling a gas log fire remotely. And that, that was really a platform, not just for gas log fires. Then it went on to blinds, to lights, to everything pretty much around the homes. 

ANNA

Wow. And Kay, just to clarify, sorry, so when you say that the idea never came to market from your end, are you saying that the app now exists, but it just doesn't belong to you?

KAYE

Um, the app doesn't exist as we'd created it. The partner, the ex-business partner that I had, I believe has gone on to do other things in the States using the IP we created, um, and what we developed here, but it's not as we had created it with multiple products onto one app, No. Which is a real shame, but nah. 

ANNA

How bad was it? Like, you said that things were really hard and, you know, you were paying for staff whilst you were- I'm guessing you had legal fees and all sorts of other fees. Did you have any income? 

KAYE

No, not really at that time. I'd got some savings, but what, and they were running out, um, and I ended up going back to work for someone that I'd worked with previously to fund that whole battle. I was borrowing money from my son to help pay for the legal fees so we could fight it. But yeah, we had, um, staff and everything that was still there that needed paying. Whilst I was more concerned that everybody got wages and, and got paid and everything else, I was the one riding around with my son's 50 cents pieces paying for fuel for my car.

But when they decided to, to sort of pull the rug as you call it. Um, one of the shareholders had assumed the position of director. And then I found out from the team that I'd initially employed and that were pretty loyal with me that, and they'd actually rebranded it and they were trying to market that to the existing client base that we'd been building.

So, it was literally a case of trying to get me out of it, full stop. And then go again on their own as the group that they were. That was like, to be honest, being shafted twice. It was like first time with the business partner and then second time your shareholding group. And to be honest with you, I think I was very naive. I think I was far too trusting. And I think when the pressure was on to that extent, I wasn't in a good place. And so, I wasn't making the best decisions for myself either. So I don't blame, I actually don't. And I don't think of it and go, it's their fault or, you know, what they did, they clearly felt they needed to do, and it wasn't a nice thing, but I actually take responsibility for my own decisions, which led me to trusting them.

Um, it was the best outcome for me. I think I'm actually thankful that. I'm where I'm at today, and had that not happened, I wouldn't be. 

ANNA

And so now you're using that to help other people. As part of your own business, you're now coaching other people and helping them to see opportunities. 

KAYE

Absolutely, because the only obstacle we have really is ourself.

Because we've all got the ability and the capability. And I don't believe that, you know, people go, ‘I'm no good at that’, ‘I'm no good at this’. 

I'm useless at technology, yet I had a software business, which it's like, ‘hello?’ 

My kids were laughing. It's like, ‘mom, you don't know how to work the DVD player’. I'm like, I know, but I have the ideas and I'm good with people and- 

I'm I have a client at the moment where they are, uh, they've transitioned. They've expanded, they've gone to the US and they very much treat me like almost one of their team. Now it's just like you helping us, but you're actually one of our team and it's like, it's your business. The care you show us is, it's yours. 

ANNA

And then with the business app that you, the home automation app, is that the first time that you'd started a business of your own?

KAYE

No, I had the travel business in England. 

ANNA

Is that what you were doing up until you came out to Australia? 

KAYE

Um, I stopped doing the holidays per se for myself because I knew I was coming out. So what I started doing was working with a few local hotels, teaching their staff really how to both sell but also capitalise on their room revenue and group travel.

ANNA

So, you mentioned at the start of this podcast that you could have moved to Spain. You wanted the sun and the beach. Do you think you'd have had the same opportunities in Spain as you've had here in Australia? 

KAYE

Definitely not. And I think for a number of reasons, I don't think my kids would have had the opportunities and be in a position they're in in their life now where they're homeowners and setting themselves up for their own families.

And for me, although I've been in Australia, some of that hasn't been great, obviously a marriage breakdown, but I'm now happily re-partnered and, and, you know, I've had business opportunities and I don't think I would have had that anywhere else in the world. I think if you, if you want to work, you would never be without work. You don't need to be without work here ever. 

ANNA

What about if you'd stayed in the UK? Do you think you'd have had similar opportunities? 

KAYE

No, I was in Torquay, but I was living in Seaside Bay. 

I didn't have that exposure. When I think back in 2000, back in England, I was earning £18,000 as a sales manager working for a group of hotels and then you come out to Australia and you know, you're making $100,000 in your first job.

Definitely when I came here, the one thing I would say is that accent opens doors. I would get more of an audience or more opportunity because of the accent, definitely. But I think if you come from the UK, it seems to be employers or people that you work with or associate with, they want you. They see it as a, that you've got good work ethic, that you're reliable, that...

If you were going to move from the UK and you're going to live anywhere in the world, Melbourne particularly, I mean obviously Australia, but Melbourne, I think is a great place to live. That being said though, it's really weird and I used to think, you know, Australia was, ‘put another shrimp on the barbie’, and all barbecues and all sunshine and coming to Victoria it's not that at all because of the changing weather and season. //

There are cultural differences. It's not just a case of we speak the same language when you get here, things are very different. And I think you don't always think about those things. You just think, Oh, I'm going to Australia. I'm going to live in the sun beach. 

And yeah, I've got family and friends still there.All my family and friends are still there really. And you miss that. You miss the familiarity of it. I miss Next. I miss Marks and Spencer's prawn sandwiches and things like that. But I would say, probably the most difficult thing about it was bringing an 18 year old son out because he went back after the first year just for a holiday. Um, and I actually thought he'd stay. He realised after going back to the UK, no, I think this is better for me. 

ANNA

More opportunities. 

KAYE

Definitely. 

ANNA

Well, they've got a nice supportive mum, so that's great. Well, when you're dragging them the other side of the world, you don't always feel supportive. You wonder what you're doing.

You think, have I done the right thing? Is this selfish? We're taking them away from their families. But I really truly believed after coming out on a holiday first that they would have. more opportunities. And it was good to try life somewhere else. And they definitely wouldn't have had the opportunities to progress in life as quickly as they've done.

But in both of them have worked very hard and, um, they love it. And obviously their partners are Australian, so they're well adapted now. And I think of all the places that I have traveled to in the world. Melbourne definitely is one of the most livable places in the world. 

ANNA

Livable or lovable? 

KAYE

Both. 

ANNA

Both?

KAYE

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. 

ANNA

It sounds to me like you, you sort of credit Australia for the opportunities it's given to you, but it sounds to me like actually it's you that's created the opportunities that you've had. I mean, from, I know you say Australia's been great for you and to you. But do you not think that that's just you and you would've had those opportunities anyway?

KAYE

I actually think it's really funny, Anna, 'cause I've really thought about this a lot more recently actually, where people have said, why aren't you doing this? And I've actually think that I've identified opportunity in probably everything that I've ever done actually. And I think that is, It's me. And you're right, that's my character.

ANNA

You are amazing. I just, for even just listening to you, I feel so inspired. I feel like I want to go out and conquer the world. 

KAYE

But you know, you know, it's like I say, when I'm making my decisions today and when I, you know, work with different people, I look at it now and I think, what's the worst thing that can happen?And as long as I'm able to deal with that outcome, then I can make a decision. 

But a lot of people sit on a fence like, I can't do, and I'm not sure, and I don't know. And the worst thing you can do is sit on a fence, but also 20, 30 years down the road, sit and wonder, ‘what if?’ //

You know, a lot of people say, ‘You're so brave moving to the other side of the world when you're pretty much 40, and you've got, you know, one 18 year old and 11 year old’. 

Had we not done it, I wouldn't have had, you know, really, when I think about it, I thought I had a lot of adventures!. And I'm more of the space now where it's life is for living. So it's like, I'm probably more at peace with life and who I am and where I'm going than I've ever been.