Had a nice moment on the weekend. We tend not to meet our clients all that often, seeing as most are many thousands of km away. But we had lunch at the Manila Club with a client couple on Sunday. He said that he always felt like he was emailing a friend when he emailed me.

I was delighted to hear this, because this is exactly the end-result we try to foster at Down Under Visa. I purposefully chose not to present the “stern face in front of shelves of books” image when we started. It doesn’t go over very well with Aussie blokes, and “maarte” stuff can be overwhelming to Filipinas. Friendly wins out every time. And it’s just the way Mila and I are!

And the fact is, we relate to our clients. We’ve been there before, and we know what it’s like. We know how anxious you get. But I stress one important point. We would rather put in a thorough application than a quick application. We haven’t had a refusal yet, and we would like to keep it that way. We will get pedantic, and we will tell you in no uncertain terms if something isn’t good enough, or if we need something more. We do this because we know what is required to achieve a desirable outcome.