04 Dec 2015
Words Damon Harvey

A golden chance takes Ian to the top

Not long after The Profit launched in 2011, we received an email from Ian Crooks in Australia. Ian had picked up a copy of the Profit and was impressed by the range of stories within the magazine. He wanted to become a subscriber.

Since then we have kept in contact, via him continuing to subscribe. I recently received a press release about Ian’s business, Resort Brokers Australia, which was celebrating 30 years in operation. Unitl then I didn’t realise how successful Ian was. Fortunately I was heading over to Brisbane and I suggested we catch up. We met on the Gold Coast at his regular café hangout. It was one of the most enjoyable breakfast meetings I’ve had. He is a genuine nice guy, who is proud of his roots – Waipukurau and Hawke’s Bay. He’s also loving life in Australia, and as his career winds down, the business continues to grow from strength to strength.

Asked for words to describe Ian Crooks, those who known him will almost always come up with ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘energetic’. These are the signature characteristics of a property industry veteran who hails from Waipukurau. Ian has revolutionised motel investment in Australia and built a market-leading agency dedicated to tourism and accommodation property, since moving across the ditch more than 30 years ago.

Ian worked out early in his career in stock and station agencies in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne that he was a dab hand at sales.

Having established a successful motel brokerage, Chevron Real Estate based in Tauranga, as well as owning and operating a few motels with his wife Karin, he convinced her to give Australia a go.

“Motel leasing was accepted practice in New Zealand,” Ian recalls. “In the eighties, lots of Kiwis were shifting to Australia for better opportunities and warmer weather. The two countries’ economies were the opposite then. Things in New Zealand were tight, while Australia was going great guns.

“Just 12 months is what I was allowed and we’ve now been here for 30 years!”

Australia was and still is in Ian’s view, a land of huge opportunity, for those that are prepared to work hard.

“I think most people shift to Australia for the weather. Here we are in the middle of June and it’s 20 degrees (at 8am) and it will get up to 23 degrees today.

“I think there are some who believe that although they haven’t done so well in New Zealand, they can move here and make it. But if you can’t make it in New Zealand you certainly won’t make it in Australia, as business is far more ruthless than in New Zealand.

“You can still do business in New Zealand on a handshake, but you wouldn’t dare do business that way in Australia. It’s more cut and thrust environment. Over-riding this through is the unbelievable opportunity that comes down to the bigger population.

“A lot of New Zealanders have done well because we have a very strong work ethic.’

For Ian, he had a huge appetite to work hard. Business went well, thanks to his relentless effort and discipline. A typical day would start at 4am with a one-hour run, then he’d record correspondence on a Dictaphone, leave home at 6am, and drop the tapes at a typing service before hitting the road.

In the evening, he’d pick up from the typists’ after-hours box and, after a quick dinner with the family, it was on to the phone. Every night from 7pm – 9pm, Sunday to Thursday without fail, non-stop calls, building his incredible network of contacts.

“I remember looking at pages of motel ads in the newspaper and wondering how on earth I would break into the industry,” Ian says.

What he did was drive 2000 kilometres a week, knocking on just about every motel door across Queensland and most of New South Wales.

“I knew virtually every motel. Someone would mention a town and I could tell them all the motels there, how many rooms they had, how big the manager’s residence was. I gathered every bit of information I could and memorised it.”

Ian’s exhaustive knowledge was one thing, but it wasn’t all that set him apart. He applied the same meticulous approach to his goal of introducing motel leases to Australia.

“We had motel leases in New Zealand, but there was no formulas for setting them up and pegging values. Before I came to Australia, I gathered all the motel Profit and Loss I could lay my hands on. I studied and compared hundreds of them to calculate some sort of industry average operating costs.”

He vividly remembers the first motel lease he set up, the 17-unit Mary Ellen Motel, in Ipswich, just west of Brisbane. Today, thanks largely to Ian Crooks, more than 70 per cent of Australia’s motels are split into active leasehold and passive freehold investment components.

Now the nation’s acknowledged motel specialists, resort Brokers was soon in demand across the accommodation spectrum – management rights, hotels, caravan parks, B&Bs and backpackers too. When it was suggested we sell management rights, I was initially unsure, given the lower returns compared to motel leases,’ Ian recalls.

“But we found a vast pool of people from New Zealand and throughout Australia eager to take up opportunities and live between Coolangatta and Noosa, where they were concentrated. Management rights were a real revelation to me and now they represent 50 per cent of our business.”

Now in its 30th year Resort Brokers Australia, is stronger than ever, Ian says. But he does admit to a couple of “financial reversals” along the way, thanks to some brutal market downturns. True to form, though, he bounced back.

“I have always managed to stay optimistic. In business, you always have setbacks, so being able to recover quickly is a valuable skill. I always tell our new recruits how important it is to keep looking forward and not take the knocks to personal.”

Ian still puts great store in the qualities that have driven his entire working life: hardwork, willingness to take a calculated risk, the ability to learn from your mistakes, and think outside the box. “There’s always more than one way to do a deal.”

Being a Kiwi, Ian is passionate about Rugby, he proudly supports the All Blacks and he attends every Bledisloe Cup match on both sides of the ditch.

He’s also attended the last two World Cups, and he’ll be in England to back the men in black at this year’s World Cup.

Resort Brokers is now a family business, with Ian, close to 70 years, slowly passing over the reigns to his children and their partners.

“I couldn’t be happier to now have the perfect business succession plan, with Trudy, Carla and her husband Alex, and Tim in key roles in the business. We have the strategies and expertise to really take Resort Brokers forward and a clear vision of where we are headed.”

After all, Ian says, accommodation properties remain very strong investments.

Resort Brokers just sold the management rights to one of the Gold Coast’s most visible landmarks – the Soul complex along the front row of the Gold Coast, for an undisclosed amount, but which is reported to be over $20 million, a world record.

“We’re now negotiating another which will surpass this.

“The motel business is still outstanding. If you were able to borrow 100 percent to buy one, you could pay it off in 10 years and still enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle along the way. Management Rights are now different.

“That’s the essence of what we do – help people to enjoy a great lifestyle and financial security through the accommodation industry.

“I still get excited to get up every morning and give it a go, but I’m also ready to pass on to the kids now.

“I’m keen to spend more time in Hawke’s Bay. I love going back and I’ve probably had some of the best times of my life in Hawke’s Bay, going back and seeing the guys I haven’t seen since I was at Napier Boy’s High School,” Ian says.