Smart50 rank: 48
Revenue: $2,232,321
Growth: 37.55%
Founders: Damien James, 37
Head Office: Victoria
Employees: 18
Industry: Health and community services
Website: www.agedfootcare.com
Damien James started his podiatry service for people living in nursing homes in 1997, the day after graduating from university as a podiatrist.
“Despite my parents feeling strongly that I should work for another podiatrist before hanging out my own shingle I was determined to run my own business right from day one,” he says.
“At the time there was no other aged care specific podiatry service.
“Normally podiatrists worked in private clinics and they’d supplement their income by treating patients living in aged care facilities – known as nursing homes back in those days – later in the evening or on weekends.”
James immediately started calling nursing homes to source potential clients – by the end of his first day he’d secured enough sales meetings to provide $70,000 in revenue.
“So I grabbed the Yellow Pages, turned to nursing homes and started calling potential clients to see if they were interested in what I was offering,” he says.
But despite the early success James was hit with discouraging comments from people who thought he wouldn’t be able to get enough podiatrists to work with the elderly.
Those pressures came to a head when the company was victim to a massive amount of fraud.
“As a result of that fraud I had to place these two businesses I owned – the other was a chain of sports podiatry clinics that treated several of the world’s best sport people – into liquidation,” he says.
“I went from running two of Australia’s largest podiatry companies to being broke within a few weeks. My reputation was in tatters.”
But James picked himself up and rebuilt Aged Foot Care Australia, with a new set of principles and ethics, and again Aged Foot Care Australia ruled the market.
With 30% of the market share and more than 200 aged care facilities signed up with Aged Foot Care Australia what’s for the future?
“We’ll be expanding interstate shortly so we can continue to match (our) growth rates,” he says.
“Being an effective leader is something I’m still working on.
“I don’t think it’s something that comes natural to me but I’m enjoying learning how to become more effective at it.”
