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Cathy Haley


With more than 25 years’ experience under her belt and a passion for customer service, Cathy Haley realised that customers were receiving less than desirable customer service and not enough access to the full range of products available—Cathy’s Sunshine Coast-based independent telecommunication company, EcoComms, was born.

“Through my diverse work experience in the industry, I witnessed the lack of service and product availability in the market; there was a clear opportunity both for me and for the customer: provide the customer with the choice of products and some ‘old fashion’ customer service”, Cathy says

Dealing with a large Telco can be a challenging experience, especially if you are a small business owner. Cathy wanted to be able to provide the customer with better experience when discussing their business. Her want and desire for this to be a reality has led to her own business to thrive. Cathy and her business partner, Paul employ eight staff and have a vision for future expansion.

EcoComms source and recommend highly-skilled service providers and reputable brands ‘We recommend brands that we use in our own business that we knew were tried, tested and great value for money—not just cheap, good products with support if you need it”, Cathy says.

Cathy describes EcoComms as a sales focussed and results driven organisation. “We are a sales company but back that up with great service”.

“We are a technologically-advanced company in that we are doing things with our customers and our installations that our competitors will not do for years”, Cathy says.

Her wealth of experience in the telecommunication industry has enabled her to establish an organisation that prides themselves on quality products and services. Her customers certainly agree; EcoComms rely solely on word-of-mouth referrals as they do not advertise. Their product is widely talked about in the Sunshine Coast community; her local customers are her biggest fans. “Our goal has always been to build a word-of-mouth, referral based business”, she says.

To date, Cathy’s biggest challenge was rapid growth; it put strain on such a small company. “In those initial years, there were some extremely long hours before we had the team that we have now. There was no work, life balance—it was pure business for Paul and me for two years” Cathy says.

Talking about her best business decision, Cathy says it was to be independent. “It was probably the scariest one, it meant that we were really out on our own—our products and our service had to stand up against the big names”.

If you are looking to start a business or pursue a dream, Cathy advocates the need to be focussed and to give it your all in the initial years of the business, even if that means sacrifice.

“It has to be an absolute passion”.

Cathy’s credits her greatest achievement as being in control of her own destiny. “Paul and I, we are making it happen. We are getting paid on results, which has always been really important to me. I have never wanted to get paid on the number of hours that I worked, but to get paid on the results that I made”.

Another standout achievement for EcoComms is winning bigger customer deals. ‘It has been very rewarding and provided Paul and me with a great sense of achievement to have big customers wanting to work with us”, Cathy says.

Cathy’s tip for women is to be fearless even if you’re not. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable—make a point to do it.

Visit www.ecocomms.com.au