Les Calvert

Name:

Les Calvert

Business:

Property Abroad Ltd

Web site:

www.property-abroad.com

Years in business:

Number of businesses:

I started the business whilst employed as an IT Manager for a large North East travel company back in early 2000. I had always thought that travel companies should be selling or at least advertising overseas property because of their captive audience. I’ve been involved in other business like overseas coach travel, shops and a local taxi company but none have even scratched the surface of this business for job satisfaction and financial reward.

I originally put together my first website and never really went back to it until I received a call from the FT (Financial Times) asking to speak to our press office – obviously I didn't have one and was still working for my employer at the time. I asked the FT how they had found us and they told me they had found us in the 1st position of Google for Overseas Property – from that moment I started to take the business seriously.

A personal challenge I faced was the fact that I had to run the website from home and in my spare time whilst still being employed. But once I started to take the business seriously I knew it could become something huge as the generic name of the website was sufficient to catapult us to decent rankings in the search engines.

Our biggest initial challenge was getting people to visit the websites but we soon learned that generic domain names and quality SEO (search engine optimisation) was paramount to the success of our internet presence.

The successes we’ve had have just been unbelievable. Upon initial interest of the search phrase “property abroad” we have been able to maintain and expand our prescence in the online overseas property market in an increasingly more competitive market place.

It’s difficult to set targets in the area of our expertise as they are all influenced by external factors but we are able to react with speed to any technological advances and global domestic trends. Our company has seen tremendous year on year growth every year since we began.

We’ve built the company up to over 350 websites dealing in the sales, rental and auctioning of property around the world. We’ve got an office in Tenerife selling and auctioning property and I have set up another company that delivers bespoke websites to the real estate industry www.propertywebmasters.com with one of my developers. We’re about to open up a shop in York Road in Hartlepool and have recently bought the company Homes Abroad Ltd.

Having the business has meant that both my wife and I have been able to leave our previous jobs some years ago and we now employ 2 other staff and are actively seeking new employees in database development.

Our biggest mistake has been relying on specific people for some of our software development – we now employ the services of a number of outsourced developers and are actively looking for in-house personnel to join our team.

To be an entrepreneur takes a lot of hard work and some long hours, but if you are determined to succeed, research your idea, believe in what you are doing and follow your gut instinct.

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