How I made my first million : 26 self-made millionaires reveal the secrets to their success

N
ick
 G
ardNer
GolDen ruleS
1. Do something you truly love—your excitement 
and energy motivate p eople around you.
2. Have a clear vision and create a solid company 
culture where employees feel valued, heard 
and rewarded.
3. be self- confident but humble, and commit 
yourself to a life of constant learning and 
development.
4. Treat p eople with dignity and respect, and
maintain uncompromising integrity in every-
thing you do. giving honest value earns you 
respect.
5. be recession proof. Don’t be at the mercy of 
fashion or fickle trends.

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Success On The Line
John Ilhan
Crazy John’s; 
established 1991;
800 employees;
$200 million turnover
Think about how much 
of your working life is 
spent sending and reading e- mails, then try to 
guess how many hours a day a platinum- level 
chief executive like ‘Crazy’ John Ilhan is tied to 
his keyboard.
Try none. And that’s not because the mobile 
mogul has chosen to retire and consume some 
Photo: Alex Coppel

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98 HOW I MADE MY FIRST MILLION
of his 
$
300 million- plus fortune. No, the 
Melbourne- based Ilhan simply refuses to use a 
PC, hasn’t had one in his office for more than 
five years, and blows a raspberry at the idea of 
a BlackBerry. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t even know 
how to turn a computer on any more. If I 
pretend to use one at work the guys all start 
laughing because they know I’ve got no idea,’ 
he explains.
Ilhan booted out his computer because ‘I was 
losing so much of my day on it, losing business 
partners, losing staff,’ he says. ‘I like to com-
municate by vision, by sight and verbally, and I 
thought, I can’t keep doing this. So my executive 
assistant, Amanda, took over. She reads every-
thing. She knows what I’m thinking and how I 
do things.’
E- mails are presented to him in point form, 
and Ilhan says everyone gets a response of some 
kind—he just doesn’t have to write it. He’s not 
big on paperwork, either. ‘I’ll never read any-
thing longer than three pages. I’m not good with 
detail,’ Ilhan admits. Avoiding both forms of men-
tal clutter frees him up for the important stuff: ‘It 
means I get to spend time doing the things that 
really matter. I’d rather go around and visit stores, 
meet with staff, get involved in training, be with 
the guys on the front line, give them motivation. 

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SUCCESS ON THE LINE 99
That’s my drug. I was tied to the office. Now I 
enjoy my job a whole lot more.’
For Ilhan, it’s 
always been about 
the personal touch. 
He has the patter 
of a lifelong sales-
man but little of the 
impersonal 
fakery 
most p eople associ-
ate with that role. In 
short, he’s convinc-
ing. He must have been compellingly so back in 
1991 when, aged twenty- five, he set up his first 
mobile- phone shop. It contained precisely zero 
mobile phones—except his own. ‘I only had 
$
1000 in my pocket. I borrowed about 
$
2000 
off Mum and Dad to buy a phone, and a lot of 
my mates were tradesmen so they helped build 
the place, which was basically just a bench with 
brochures,’ he says. ‘I had enough money in my 
pocket to buy one phone at a time—they were 
thousands of dollars each still at that stage. So I 
just sold off brochures. I’d sell a phone, shut the 
shop and drive to the city and buy it for the cus-
tomer. I had to sell myself, because that’s all I had. 
I was a bit naïve and young and stupid because, 
when you worked the numbers, how could it 
‘
‘
It means I get to spend 
time doing the things that 
really matter. I’d rather go 
around and visit stores, 
meet with staff, get 
involved in training, be 
with the guys on the front 
line, give them motivation. 
That’s my drug.

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100 HOW I MADE MY FIRST MILLION
work? But when you believe in yourself it’s not 
the numbers that matter, it’s about, “I can sell. 
P eople like me.” It’s that young, naïve attitude, 
and you just work like crazy.’
Ilhan, the Turkish- born, fiercely proud Aus-
tralian whose real first name is Mustapha, hasn’t 
eased up on the work ethic since. Initially, he 
laughs off suggestions that he once worked 
eighteen- hour days. ‘No, it wouldn’t be that 
much. Let’s see: I start at 7 a.m. and it would only 
be, um, sixteen hours a day. But then I do usu-
ally go until midnight, so it probably is eighteen 
hours. Oh my God! That’s a lot . . .’
But it’s mostly recreation, he explains: ‘When 
you do something you love, it’s not really work. 
And I’ve been doing it for sixteen years—it’s just