Background:
Being a part of planning, constructing and then managing a family hotel/ conference centre at the age of 23 was Tim’s introduction to business. With a staff of over 30 full-time and casual personnel and the challenge of establishing the business in a very competitive regional centre meant there was little time to draw breath in the first few years.
The challenges that Tim faced are the same ones he believes are still faced by SME’s today. “The tourism industry in Australia was the first to realise that we were now competing on a world market, even in regional centre like Albury/ Wodonga and even back in 1986, when we established the business,” said Tim.
“However the same things that made a business successful then still apply today. Customer service is a huge issue, along with streamlining your processes to maximise profit. It’s cruel to have a large turnover only to give most of it away in the form of unnecessary expenses. I know first hand how hard it can be to see the trees through the forest.”
After 10 years in the hospitality industry, Tim took over the Albury franchise of Fletcher Jones Australia and then one year later opened the Wagga Wagga Store. One of his marketing programs was to sponsor the Brad Jones Racing Team in the Australian V8 Super Car Series. This lead to Tim researching the apparel and merchandise industry and discovering that despite $30 million in sales annually of V8 team merchandise, it was only possible to purchase it at the races, online or at some of the Holden dealers. After negotiating with the teams, the owners of the marketing rights to the series and Target Stores Australia, V8 Supercars Merchandise was launched in 180 Target stores around Australia on Father’s Day 2003.
“It was a huge task to get this from being an idea to seeing it on the shelves in Target, with lots of hurdles to jump. If there was any one thing that enabled this to happen it was the ability to build and maintain relationships on both the sides of business, both with customers and suppliers. It is the same no matter what business you are in,” says Tim.
“Managing your relationships both within and outside your business and the processes that enable your business to run, are the foundations that need to be secure because everything you do is built upon them. It doesn’t need to be complex or complicated, the simpler the better.”
Having been in business most of his working life and knowing the stress of having the family home at risk if things go wrong has given Tim the empathy and an understanding of what owners of SME’s face each day.
“There are definitely very challenging days, but the buck stops with you, so you just get up and face it. Thank goodness there are also times when it’s the most rewarding satisfying thing you could ever dream of doing. Being a Business Adviser with the Enterprise Connect Manufacturing Centres is a great opportunity to ensure that most of a business owners days are good ones, that we can lay a foundation that will stand up to increased pressure from imports and other economic factors, for generations to come. This is about creating and maintaining sustainability for business owners, their families and their employees”, Tim says.