Jenny Folley’s advice to others who are contemplating starting their own business is to first consider the consequences if it doesn’t work out.
“You really have to think it through before you start your own business. Think about the financial consequences if it doesn’t work,” the founder of serviced office business Corporate Executive Offices (CEO) says. “If it didn’t work for me I would have lost everything. I had to make it work.”
Starting her own business was the hardest thing Folley has ever done – something she says she wouldn’t have taken on, back in 1989, if she’d known any better.
“We did a business plan, which seemed wonderful on paper, but nothing worked out that way. If I had any business knowledge I wouldn’t have done it but I was very naïve,” she says of the initial struggles the business had and her unrealistic visions of running a business involving “nice suits” and “long lunches”.
With everything on the line, the former schoolteacher was forced to make her business work, despite it being challenging to combine with raising two young girls. When her daughters were both at school Folley started to look for some part-time work. The search was fruitless and the idea for her business began to evolve.
“My husband was in manufacturing and he used to export; he had a serviced office in Hong Kong and I remember being really impressed. I knew a lot of people who worked from home and I thought I could open serviced offices. The concept evolved in my head as somewhere that people could come and have a professional front,” says Folley, who came to Australia “with nothing” when she was just 17.
Starting the business with a girlfriend, Folley struggled to get funding – “no bank was going to give us – two housewives – money” – but eventually the business was up and running, with thanks to some very long hours, help from family and learning on the go.
“We had to work like dogs, really long hours. Then it all hit me and I thought, ‘What am I doing?’ We couldn’t employ anyone. We had to do everything,” she says of the initial struggles her and her business partner faced.
Eventually her business partner moved on, leaving Folley to help the business survive on her own.
“I had to stay. I had to make it work, so I worked like a dog for endless hours. I worked the business and it turned around. We filled the offices up and we opened our next centre and gradually it just grew … It was a lot of hard work. I was determined to make it work,” she says.
More than 20 years later CEO is now Australia’s largest privately-owned serviced office provider with 14 locations in Australia and overseas. And now Folley’s two daughters, Alesya, 27, and Mariska, 32, are two of the company’s 80 employees.
Although Alesya and Mariska initially had no intention of following their mother into the business – having studied marketing and business at Bond University in Queensland – they both started working at CEO while they sought out work elsewhere. However, they never ended up leaving, later becoming an integral part of the business’s success.
“Back when I first started the business, after school the girls used to wait for me to finish work in the office. So to pass the time they would complete odd jobs like emptying the bins and cleaning the photocopier for pocket money.
“It was something that just evolved,” Folley says of her daughters’ involvement in the business. “They were so involved for so long, it’s like they grew up with it, so it was a natural progression. We’re like best friends. Sometimes we don’t have to talk, we just know [what each other is thinking]. They had a lot of bright ideas and we work really well together.”
Although the business is now a success, Folley says running her own business with two young children was the hardest time of her life.
“Going into business sounds easy but it’s so hard. It’s a lot of hard work and your family does suffer. As my daughters will tell you, there were times when I forgot to pick them from school,” she says.
“But we enjoy the fruits of our labour now. I was very lucky. My parents would drop everything if my kids were sick. My mother-in-law was there too. I couldn’t have done it without them.”