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part of what you do. I’ve been lucky, I’ve chosen
a field I love, so it’s not work. I love dealing with
p eople. I love the challenges of growing a busi-
ness. It’s like a work of art—you always try to
improve it.’
After dropping out of university two months
into an arts degree, Ilhan took a temporary job
on the Ford production line in his home sub-
urb of Broadmeadows, Melbourne. He ended
up staying more than three years but left after
becoming frustrated that graduates were getting
promoted and he wasn’t. A job came up selling
SUCCESS ON THE LINE 101
phones at Strathfield Car Radio, and as soon as
Ilhan started he knew he had found his calling.
He quickly became the company’s top salesman.
Then a dispute over his commission payments
made him so angry he walked out—and set up
his own shop, right across the road.
After building a loyal base of customers, he
got his big break when Telstra offered to back
his business. By 1994 he had half a dozen stores
in Melbourne, a rate of growth he now real-
ises was excessive: ‘I relied on relationships and
handshake deals rather than contracts. I grew too
quickly and then Telstra changed its strategy and
cut our commissions and I didn’t get paid for
about six months,’ Ilhan recalls.
While he was feeling the pressure financially,
his personal life also hit rock bottom when his
brother committed suicide. ‘At the same time,
the competition really hated my guts and they
used to leave threatening notes on my wind-
screen saying, “You’re finished now.” It was a
tough time,’ Ilhan says. ‘That was 1996, and I’d
already made my first million, but then I very
nearly went bankrupt. I was in administration, so
I lost all that. The first million was the hardest to
make and the easiest to lose.’
The experience taught him some hard but
valuable lessons. ‘After that I realised my own
102 HOW I MADE MY FIRST MILLION
weaknesses and I employed p eople with finance
backgrounds. I ended up being the visionary
and employing p eople who could get me to that
vision.’
The only hurdle Ilhan still had to clear was his
business name. Telstra execs were not big fans of
the Crazy John’s label. ‘They hounded me, say-
ing it was unprofessional and it wouldn’t work.
That went on for years, but they were so wrong,’
Ilhan laughs.
By 2003 he was on a roll, opening seventy
stores in eighteen months and crushing all
rivals—including Strathfield Car Radio. Ilhan
then found himself at the top of BRW’s Young
Rich List in 2005, with a fortune estimated at
$
300 million. ‘It was funny seeing that, consider-
ing what I had started from,’ he says. Success had
crept up on him: ‘You just work hard and the
rewards come. It’s not like winning Lotto over-
night—you don’t think, Wow, I’m rich! I only
really noticed it when they mentioned it but,
being a bit competitive, I did like being No. 1.
The
$
300 million figure was right at the time. It’s
a bit more now, but in the end you don’t work
for the money. At the start you do, because you
have to pay the bills. But after that it becomes
about challenges and success.’
Ilhan clearly remembers the first thing he
SUCCESS ON THE LINE 103
bought when he started feeling rich: a second-
hand, smashed up brown Porsche 930. ‘When I
was sixteen I said to Mum, “One day, I’m going
to have my own business, a house by the beach
and a Porsche!” I couldn’t afford a new one, but
I loved that car. I never did buy a new Porsche.’
Instead, Ilhan now drives a Bentley, after ditching
his Lamborghini. He’s also got the
$
15 million
home by the beach, in Brighton, but the house
he’s proudest of is the one he bought for his par-
ents, with whom he lived until he was thirty.
‘I built them a new house in Broadmeadows
because they refused to move; they thought it was
a big thing just moving across the suburb,’ he says.
‘It was wonderful to be able to do that for
them. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for their
support. They said, “If you fail, there will always
be a bed here for you—we’re always behind
you.” And that support was crucial, because I
knew if I failed they’d still love me—so I could
try anything.’
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