The real prize

This article first appeared October 18, 2011.

I love a business award for so many reasons.

Much of my “profile” has come from winning the Telstra Australian Young Business Woman of the Year (when I was still one of the youngest people in our organisation; today at 32, I’m the oldest in my office).

Our real estate agency Elephant Property was just named the Real Estate Institute of Tasmania’s Property Manager of the Year. It’s a significant award, where we were up against much larger companies, companies that have been in business much longer than ours and companies that were named like real estate agencies are “meant to be” named after surnames.

The best part about winning this award for me? Was it the added credibility winning a great award gives your company or the boost to our team morale or the great fodder for press releases or the amazing people we’re sure to meet competing for the national award or the congratulations coming in from our clients?

It was actually a text from one of my business partners. She’s been doing an amazing job lately working long hours, pushing herself outside her comfort zone and trying to fit that in with being a great mum and wife (she was seven months pregnant when we started the company).

Her text simply said that winning the award helped her realise that what we’re working towards was worth some of the short-term sacrifices we’ve been making along the way and that she hadn’t been able to get the smile off her face since she heard the news of the award.

Now that’s the truly great prize.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.