#57 Peter Ishak - Consistency, Clarity & Leadership
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, Raj is joined by Peter Ishak, founder of Ishaks Conveyancing, for a grounded and insightful conversation on business, leadership, and the realities that come with building something meaningful over time. Peter shares his perspective on what business owners often underestimate - from the pressure that comes with decision-making to the importance of structure, discipline, and long-term thinking. Drawing on his professional experience, he unpacks how clarity, good advice, and sound fundamentals can help founders...
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#56 Rich Coombes - Funding Growth Without Losing Control.
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, Raj sits down with Rich Coombes, Partner at Nexus Advisory and long-time Emajin Platinum Member, for a powerful conversation about how business owners can unlock smarter capital solutions to fund growth, protect cash flow, and reduce financial stress. Rich’s story spans the worlds of finance, entrepreneurship, and creativity. From his early career in investment banking with UBS and Investec to co-founding iconic Australian beverage brands like Batlow Cider and Will & Co Coffee, he’s built, scaled, and...
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#55 James Leslie-Watt - How to Structure Your Business for Success
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, Raj sits down with James Leslie-Watt, Managing Partner at Corson Fiske Group, for a deep and practical conversation about how business owners can effectively manage risk and future-proof their companies from day one. From his unconventional start in hospitality to building a career spanning law, finance, and advisory, James shares a wealth of experience on what truly makes a business resilient, from getting the right structure in place, to safeguarding intellectual property and planning for a successful exit. He...
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#54 - Josh Hallam - Beyond the Numbers: Growth, Grit & Golf
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, Raj sits down with Emajin member and business advisor Josh Hallam from Falanga & Co. to uncover insights from his fascinating journey from sport to business and the powerful lessons he’s carried into his work as a chartered accountant with hundreds of Australian companies. Josh’s path has been anything but linear. A passionate footballer in his youth, he quickly transitioned into sports coaching and delivered programs to over 120,000 participants each year. From there, he pursued an MBA and expanded into...
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#53 Julian Fayad - "Resilience, AI & Family"
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, Raj sits down with long-time friend and Emajin Platinum Partner, Julian Fayad, the founder of LoanOptions.ai, to uncover his remarkable journey of bootstrapping a fintech business built on resilience, innovation, and family values. Julian’s story is far from ordinary. Originally passionate about technology, he studied web and app development before unexpectedly landing in finance. Over nearly a decade in the industry, he combined his love for tech with financial services—eventually launching LoanOptions.ai...
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#52 Rebeca Bern - B2B Marketing's Strategy-First Approach
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, we’re joined by Rebeca Bern, a digital marketing expert, for an insightful conversation about her career journey and her business, Somma Digital. Rebeca, originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, has an unexpected background—she wanted to be a vet and started riding horses at the age of five. This passion for horses taught her discipline and motivation. After moving to Australia and studying marketing, she eventually founded Somma, a B2B digital marketing agency. The name "Somma" is an acronym for "social media marketing...
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#51 Bernard Kassab - Stop Selling What You Do: True Business Value
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! In this episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Bernard Kassab, Head of Marketing and Strategy at Emajin, to join Raj in an eye-opening conversation about branding, clarity, and the often-misunderstood path to business success. Bernard started as a graphic designer but quickly realised that design alone wasn’t solving his clients' deeper challenges. It was this realisation that led him to co-found Ucidity, a firm focused not just on creative output, but on building clarity across messaging, branding, and marketing strategy. His...
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#50 Irwin Hau - Boost Your Sales: Data-Driven Marketing
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th! We're incredibly excited to have Irwin Hau, the Director at Chromatix, join Raj to dissect exactly how the right approach to marketing and advertising can dramatically increase your leads and significantly boost your sales! Before he became immersed in the advertising world, he spent years as a dedicated "coding-nerd," having studied computer science. This technical background is what initially led him to a Melbourne advertising agency, eventually inspiring him to open his own successful firm, Chromatix. From Data to Demand: Patching...
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#49 Kane Dury - Aussie Property Secrets Revealed!
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Join Raj in an engaging conversation with Imagine member Kane Dury, the owner of Discover Buyers Agency! In this episode, Kane shares his fascinating journey into the property market and how he's leveraged it to build a successful investment portfolio. Whether you're looking to step onto the property ladder for the first time or aiming to maximize your investment returns, this is an episode you won't want to miss! Kane breaks down and shares: His unexpected entry into the army and the valuable skills he gained. The pivotal moment at 22 that sparked his passion for property investment. The...
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#48 Benji Kushwaha - The Secret to Scaling in Cleaning
Emajin Golf: Beyond the 19th
Welcome back to the Emajin Golf Podcast: Beyond the 19th. In this episode, we have the pleasure of featuring Benji Kushwaha, the Managing Director of White Spot Group. Benji, a valued platinum member of our Emajin Golf community, shares his remarkable and inspiring journey of building a thriving cleaning empire after moving to Australia from Nepal. Benji's story begins in Nepal, where he harboured dreams of becoming a pilot, aligning with his engineering. However, his father's entrepreneurial spirit ignited a passion for business and accounting. This led him to Australia as a student, where he...
info_outlineIn this week's episode of the Emajin podcast, Beyond the 19th, we catch up with Graham Shannon, Managing Director of National Sign Build and a key figure within the Emajin community, who shares the evolution of signage and provides some great tips on creating brand visibility through signage.
We learned that Graham grew up in the West, where sports were huge. He did anything he could outside, including his early days with friends in the street, setting up golfing challenges. Initially, he wanted to build houses. His carpentry apprenticeship was completed, and he became a skilled cabinet maker, but seeing the bending of neon tubing for the first time shifted his course into signage, and he became a business owner at 23.
A very proud leader of his talented team, National Sign Build provides end-to-end solutions that include consultation, design, manufacturing, and installation locally, and internationally. Fully equipped with the latest technology, the team has delivered innovative projects in retail, corporate, finance, construction, and health sectors, often in high-risk and complex locations.
Graham shares the transformation of the sector from high-tech equipment that bends metal and paints to creating impact with public art (check out the recent award-winning Public Art). Experienced in bringing brands to life publicly, he offers the following key advice to any business owner:
- It is vital to continuously re-invent your brand image to ensure you are attracting new business and re-capturing the attention of those who know your business well
- Explore creative options - technology has enabled the design process to go beyond the letters, it is easier now to experiment with colour, texture, lighting, and specialty finishes to capture eyeballs and get people talking
You will never take for granted a sign you pass now that you know what goes into the process. Of course, we also learn about his dream four-ball team, the must-have 19th-hole drink, and his favorite club, his irons—what is your favorite club?