Company: The Audacious Agency, Australia
Company Description: The Audacious Agency empowers and supports women in business to enter business awards. Their mission is to help women embrace owning their successes and shine the light on all they do. Using their decades of experience in PR and branding, they educate and guide women to leverage the process to stand out and be well known, well paid and wanted.
Nomination Category: Company/Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Company of the Year – Consumer Services – 10 or Less Employees
 Nomination Title: SIMONA MIGRATION
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2020 of the nominated organization, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the appropriate spaces below:
- Briefly describe the nominated organization: history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 186 words used.
Coming from Italy in 1997, Simona Gacina arrived in Australia on a student visa. She came to study, but that changed when she fell in love with the country.
Simona wanted to make Australia her home. She wasn’t alone, many of her friends wanted to stay. But she watched migration lawyers misleading they. One by one, their applications were declined, and the costly process resulted in them having to leave the place they considered home. Simona did her own visa application despite being told by three other migration agencies that she wouldn’t be successful. Her success motivated her to set up a migration agency to give honest migration advice and she studied migration law.
At that time she had 2 children under 4, had no family support and a spouse working interstate so she had to work late at night in between feeds. With no connections or knowledge of the industry, driven by a huge hunger for fairness and handling a steep learning curve. At Simona Migration she works with clients who arrive at her agency in a state of stress, desperate to get immigration approval.
- Outline the organization's achievements since July 1 2020 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
With the Australian government changing migration rules during COVID border closures, Simona Migration didn’t skip a beat. The number of visa applications actually increased. Their point of difference is that they look after their clients, their needs are paramount, the team doesn't stop until they have a positive outcome.
Simona Migration’s most notable achievements include:
- Bringing people together via family visas and managing to have work visas approved where other big firms have failed and charged top dollar for impossible pathways and by making basic mistakes.
- Having worked with close to 800 clients since opening in late 2015, the company has gotten 100% client applications approved - way above industry standards when every three minutes someone gains permanent residency in Australia, but every year more than 40,000 are rejected.
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Financial achievements: growth in the 2019/20 years went from $151k to $222k the following year. In 2021/22 they are set to achieve $265k.
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Word-of-mouth referrals - every client assisted refers to people because they are happy.
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Competition is fierce. Growth without marketing is a testament to the company’s success.
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Consistently achieving a 100% conversion on sales after an initial consultation
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Successfully delivering seminars to local international schools, educating them on visa processes and pathways, answering student questions.
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Successfully growing her team to three plus Simona in the last 12 months
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No longer working from a laptop at home, the company is now in a beautiful office ready to be of service to more people than ever before.
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
The importance of lived experiences gives a new dimension to how to handle the challenging processes to get an Australian visa. Simona Migration's work changes lives by keeping families and loved ones together. This comes from a place where clients' needs come first; it's not about making money. Simona and her team's genuine dedication has paid off with business growth. Their growth is ALL organic, with no marketing and advertising as opposed to competitors who market aggressively. Their growth is based on the fierce reputation of honesty, integrity, knowledge and professionalism.
Simona’s first client came to her when she had just finished her degree, after being messed around by a prestigious immigration consultancy that had charged him $800 on the spot, and came up with a strategy that would never have resulted in a positive outcome. Simona worked out a pathway to keep him in Australia, and she was successful. Today, he is still here, married with a child, and that is Simona’s first success story.
As someone who never speaks about herself, reflecting on the business’s accomplishments over the past two years highlights the importance of her work - they’ve helped almost 800 people secure an Australian visa. Growing a business from her home with a newborn baby and a third-year-old with no family support structure, and a husband working away, to having an office space and a turnover of $265k is a testament to her ethics and values in an industry where many have a bad reputation.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 70 words used.
Explore Simona Migration's support document which digs deeper into Simona's story about why her migration agency is filling an important place in Australia's migration process. Whereas many migration agencies focus on incoming migrants, Simona Migration focuses on internal migration - students and people already living in Australia who want to stay.
The support document showcases her team, financial growth in graph form, services offered and testimonials from very happy clients.
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