Alan Carter
Brendan Taylor met with Alan Carter of Landchoice Developments at morning smoko onsite at a small residential development in Albany.
Tell me about your business?
As you can see, we are an earthmoving contractor specialising in civil works and surveying of property developments.
We also do our own property developments, the main one being the large special rural estate on Norwood Road, King River.
You have had many business and work changes along the way, (some quite colourful), tell me about that pathway and your business choices.
I grew up on the family farm at Woodanilling and did my first four years primary school at the tiny Woody school.
Then we bussed to Katanning until year 10 for school before moving to boarding school at Wesley in Year 11 and 12.
In 1984 I started four years of surveying study at Curtin Uni.
While I was studying, I worked part time selling Insurance Bonds for Friends Provident, and also buying cheap wholesale cars, doing them up and selling.
They were great money spinners for a student. I managed to buy a house at 22 with my soon to be wife Dale, just as I finished study. Dale was studying Nursing at Curtin.
I worked in Perth for Carlton Surveys for a few years cutting my teeth on small suburban subdivisions.
Then in 1990 I was given a great opportunity with Harley Hedderwick Webber surveyors in Albany. I worked there for five years learning a lot, before we took a complete backflip and purchased the Cash Converters franchise at North Road, Albany in 1995.
Now that was an interesting time. In 1996 we moved the shop into York Street, we then opened Audiocom, when mobile phones started to take off. In 1998 we dropped the Cash Converters franchise and operated independently under the name The Cash Shop.
We sold the business a year later.
While at The Cash Shop, we purchased a farm on the King River and set about developing a special rural residential estate. This has continued for 17 years so far. It was while developing, and paying contractors, that we started buying machinery and doing our own earthmoving and civil works, and surveying. This part of our business evolved over a number of years to where we are now.
Who have been the key influential people and characters in your work and business life?
My dad, on the farm, had an eye for detail and also taught me to work hard.
Eric Harley at Harley Hedderwick & Webber was a genius. His maths skills were exceptional and his accuracy with pen and memory taught me the importance of doing it right the first time. He had very high expectations of his staff.
Bruce Doig, a bank manager at Westpac, went above and beyond when we really needed some help a couple of times along the way.
Terry Martin, a mature grader driver, who worked for us for many years. He was a perfectionist, once again showing the benefit of getting it right the first time.
Paul Adamson, had the Bunbury Cash Converters. He was a clever business person and gave us rookies in business a lot of assistance and advice without reward. He just enjoyed helping out.
What have been some of the big changes during your work and business life?
With surveying, technology has been amazing. GPS has revolutionalised this task and mobile phones are quite handy as well.
However from a negative point of view, especially with developments, the bureaucracy has grown enormously.
Only 15 years ago, we had to deal with six approvals and clearances. Now there are up to 45 approval and clearances required.
This has vastly increased the approval time and cost of developing land for residences.
While this is disappointing and annoying we just deal with it.
What challenges do you see facing the new generation starting out in business and what advice would you give them?
I think it is getting more difficult to borrow money than 20 years ago. You almost have to prove you don’t need it before they will lend you the money. So my advice is… the new generation should try to buy their own home early and build up equity quickly. This requires sacrifice and effort. We never travelled and didn’t often eat out. We worked extra jobs to save to pay off that first house.
How have you handled your business workload and balancing family and lifestyle?
We have both always played sport and we have supported and coached our kids through sport. We just fit it into the schedule. Dale and I worked full time in the Cash Converters business together. Somehow we juggled the school duties and sport commitments around the business.
Visit
Alan Carter
Landchoice Developments
M: 0428 421 797
E: landchoice@westnet.com.au
