MEET THE HUMANS BEHIND BEPARTNERREADY.COM®: PERKO
It was 2018. I was burned out and on the verge of walking away from the business I’d built up over 23 years. I’d moved from Melbourne to a small country town in Victoria (for love and a balanced lifestyle). Let the team go, working alone for the first time in years, struggling with technology & loneliness. I hated every minute of it. The worst-case scenario – lose the business, sell the house that my husband had built with his own hands, buy a caravan and travel around Australia – was looking very appealing.
But fate had other ideas. As a last ditched attempt to try and ‘get with the technology’ program, I put a post on the local Warburton facebook page to see if there was anyone that had the skill set to create videos.
First message and enjoying Hailey’s gin cocktail
Kate Perkins AKA Perko, responded. Kate had spent 4 years as a senior relationship manager at LinkedIn and did brilliant music videos in her spare time, for fun. I suggested we have a chat – it went for 90 minutes. Not only was she a pom, like me, so we could laugh about silly things only pom’s laugh about (muttley’s laugh), she loves gin and she also had a cottage in Warburton that she frequented on weekends. It turns out Kate was looking to leave the corporate sector and had an interview with non-profit Smiling Mind, so whilst I picked her brains on video production, she picked my brains about the sector.
We became firm friends immediately. Whilst walking one day on one of the beautiful Warburton trails, I shared with her my woes and she was incredibly supportive. I’ll never forget the kindness and uplifting words she provided during that dark time.
A year later, Kate was working at Smiling Mind as manager of Workplace Wellbeing. I’d met Georgia and hatched a plan to take my modular training program online, I told Kate we were looking for investors. I had approached a few philanthropists to no avail and asked her advice on how to secure capital for a new business. To my surprise, and without hesitation, she offered to kick in some hard cash, even though I knew she wasn’t ‘rolling in it'.
Kate with other shareholders
This simple and generous gesture completely shifted my thinking on who might want to invest. Instead of trying wealthy people and angel investors, I thought, why not reach out to some friends, people who get me, trust that I’ll make this work, and want to see me succeed? Within 3 months I had the $100k we needed to develop the online business BePartnerReady.com®.
Despite going through a divorce, cancer scare, and losing her mum, Kate’s support of the business has never wavered, and she provides so much more than just attending shareholder meetings quarterly. She is brilliant at marketing and we tap into her expertise as often as we can. She is also deeply spiritual and will often remind us of why we do what we do, and the impact we make, when in tough times (and we’ve had plenty of those in our 4 short years of operation).
Last year Kate moved back to her homeland (UK) to care for her aged father. Leaving her home, dog, career and friends behind. A tough call, but then, that’s just who Kate is. She is one of the kindest people I know. And we are so privileged to have her as not only a shareholder in BePartnerReady.com®, but team member, mentor to Georgia and dear friend.
Photo: Kate with the BPR team L2R: Danni, G, Kate and Hailey
BePartnerReady.com® would absolutely not exist without people like Kate, who believed in Hailey & Georgia and not only invested hard cash without hesitation, but continues to provide guidance and mentoring to Georgia and a close friend & confidant to Hailey. We’re thrilled to introduce her to our community.
The team behind BePartnerReady.com® are a great demonstration that when you find the right partners, anything is possible.
More on Kate here
