From Shepparton to Southeast Asia: what a country town teaches you about business

Everybody knows who turned up

In a town like Shepparton you cannot hide. People know who showed up to the working bee and who did not, who paid their account at the hardware store and who is still owing. Reputation is built by hand and it follows you. When I started selling rooftop solar on the Gold Coast at 19, that was the only thing I had going for me: I turned up, I did the work and the customer could see it on their roof.

It is also how business works in an Indonesian village. In Buwun Mas, where Kinnara Capital has its land, everyone knows whether the foreign company's people are around, whether they come to the community days and whether the promises about the school and the playground were kept. The scale is different. The rule is the same.

Nobody is coming to fix it

The second thing a country town teaches you is that when something breaks, you fix it. The council is small, the city is two hours away and the problem is yours. I have leaned on that more than I would like, most heavily in the years I write about on the record, when two businesses failed and the only honest way out was to close them, refund people and take the consequences.

What the country does not teach you

It does not teach you contracts. A handshake works in a town where you will see the other person at the footy on Saturday. It does not work with a supplier in the United Kingdom or a developer in Lombok, and it took me two expensive lessons to accept that. Every agreement I sign now goes through a lawyer first. The rules are on how he runs companies.

Why the Australians who buy in Asia are often from places like this

Many of the people who find Indonesian property through Kinnara are not from Toorak or Mosman. They are tradies, farmers and small business owners from regional Australia who have done well and want a place in the sun. They are also the buyers most likely to be caught out by a system they cannot read, because the handshake instinct runs deep. The guide for Australians is written for them.

Still a Shepparton boy

I ride motorbikes, I fish, I watch Essendon at strange hours and I still measure people by whether they turn up. The Shepparton page tells the rest.