New business has eyes wide open

 

Optometrist Tran Nguyen has started her first business here in Docklands after seven years working for other people.

Tran graduated with honours from the University of New South Wales in 2002 and has worked in South Australia, Queensland, News South Wales and Victoria.

She said working for others left her disconnected with her patients as she was never quite sure how the next optometrist would respond to her patient care regime.

“I would never get to follow up with patients and I really want to give my patients the best possible care,” Tran said.

“There needs to be continuity to get the best out of our service.”

Kaleyedoscope offers a full range of optometry services as well as a style range of frames.  The splendid “cigar lounge” décor is a hint that this business is focussed on only the best and classiest glasses.

Tran says she is not impressed with top brand names per se.  She personally selects only the frames that she likes, regardless of brand.

Since opening on May 4, she says, business has been good at her Bourke St, Victoria Harbour location.

Apart from meeting more residents, she is hoping to make connections with other medical practitioners as well as tapping into the corporate market.

Kaleyedoscope is at 831a Bourke St, Victoria Harbour. Ph: 9629 5495.

 

These women are streets ahead

The latest real estate agents on the block are the charming Street sisters, Cheryle and Julie.

Older sister Cheryle is the “officer in effective control” for JC Street Real Estate.  But younger sibling Julie laughs that this has always been the case within their large family.

The Streets says they want to bring a badly-missing element of personal service and compassion into the Docklands real estate scene.  Both have strong Docklands connections, having sold many NewQuay properties for other agents in the past.

Cheryle said:  “When I first started here there were just paddocks.  It’s gone from tumbleweeds to towers. I was based at a city agency and people didn’t even know where Docklands was.”

Since that time both Cheryle and Julie have worked in real estate in other suburbs.

The idea of a Docklands agency came two years ago when Cheryle moved to Yarra’s Edge to live and kept bumping into people she has sold property to.

“They all said ‘you should do something down here’,” Cheryle said. “So really, the community has asked us to set this up.”

The Streets are located in a smart new office under LifeLab on Harbour Esplanade.

The classy fit out is no accident.  In her other life Cheryle is an interior decorator and JC Street Real Estate offers this as part of the service.

In fact, one of the differentiators between them and other agencies is a end-to-end service which includes removals, cleaning and presentation services.

But the sisters say their real strength is being personal and caring about the people they work with.

“Business for us feels like family,” Julie said.

JC Street Real Estate is at Suite 10, 198 Harbour Esplanade. Ph: 9600 4988.

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