Ilona Barry from LJ Hooker Mudgeeraba, one of our Australian Changed Agents Award 2017 finalists shares her story of hitting rock bottom in her personal life yet coming out stronger.   Ilona Barry knows what rock bottom looks like. She’s been there. A little over two years ago the mother of two suffered the ultimate heartbreak with the sudden death of her husband. “I lost the love of my life of over 20 years,” she said. “At the time we had lost everything financially too and I had just made the commitment to go into commission only sales in real estate after working as an assistant up until that time.” With no family on the Gold Coast, two words got Ilona through her toughest days - “keep going”. Keep going she has, more than doubling the number of properties she has sold in the past two years and increasing her GCI by over 100 per cent. The LJ Hooker Mudgeeraba sales specialist said the turning point came just days after returning to work following bereavement leave, when she attended one of Josh Phegan’s training days.

“Josh soon realised I was a bit of a mess and pushed me to write down my goals no matter how unrealistic they seemed at the time,” Ilona said. “I did so amongst floods of tears but do you know what? I am so incredibly grateful to Josh for this as 90 per cent of it has come to fruition.”

With a fear of making cold calls, Ilona said Josh’s advice was that if she secured five listings she’d never have to cold call again and he was right.

“Josh Phegan’s training has been the backbone of my business,” she said.

“The simplicity of his systems, the scripts and dialogues, the goal setting and KPIs have worked incredibly well for me. They have enabled me to stay on track and focused upon what I need to achieve each day. I religiously listened to the listing presentation CDs, put in place Track Record sheets and marketing plans.” Ilona hopes she can be considered a role model for other agents and that was one reason she entered the 2017 Changed Agent of the Year Award. “I have a very strong work ethic and believe that if you do the right thing by others it will always serve you well.”