Young in age or in business, these entrepreneurial hot shots give a whole new dynamic to the concept of focus – We celebrate some of Australia’s fastest-growing businesses, finding out how they got their start, maintained growth, and continue to score goals in their competitive industries.
Aconex
The Aconex story begins over a game of squash, with on-court rivals Leigh Jasper, 33, and Rob Phillpot, 34, becoming the founders of a web technology company. The friendly weekly matches soon became a business partnership and by 2000 the pair had started Aconex, a collaborative project management system that allows a work in progress to take shape using an online platform.
The system was developed to assist construction companies in sharing and managing information through a user-friendly interface, making all stages of a project accessible to people who need it, allowing users to track, search, archive, and report on documents and correspondence. A consequence of its popularity is that it replaces paper-based management systems, reducing paper use by, literally, millions of sheets.
In the 2006/07 financial year, Aconex racked up 139 percent growth and now boasts some 200 employees in their 27 worldwide offices, as far flung as the Philippines and Algeria. Future growth will come through consolidating relationships with the growing construction industry in the Middle East, particularly Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates.
The company is also keen to apply the system to other industries that use a project management structure, exploring opportunities in engineering and the resource sector.
DealsDirect.com.au
Is there life in online retail after eBay? There certainly is. When ‘Auctionbrokers Australia’– Paul Greenberg and Michael Rosenbaum–became too big for the auction site, they were ready, moving straight into their own domain and upsizing their warehouse from 1,000 to 7,500 square metres.
Armed with a customer base accrued over five years on eBay, the pair started DealsDirect.com.au in 2004 to meet the demands of consumers who wanted to stop bidding and start buying fixed price goods. DealsDirect.com.au became the first Australian bargain shopping website of its kind and remains the model that most other bargain websites imitate.
The site encourages customers to make a profit by bulk buying wholesale goods and selling them through other avenues, including eBay. The secret to this success is not just the low prices but also the delivery service that helps customers drop-ship to different locations from the warehouse if they do choose to onsell the items.
DealsDirect.com.au attracts plenty of repeat customers and big sales, which has helped the business bring in a $40 million profit for the past financial year. The company now has 45 full-time staff to keep up with demand, and strong relationships with Chinese manufacturers who will continue to provide stock at competitive prices.
Inlink
Oliver Roydhouse’s business goes up, even when it goes down. The 30-year-old is the brains behind Inlink, a media and technology group specialising in elevator information.
Characterised by stylish LCD screens, Inlink Media uses lift travel time to advertise to a captive audience of around 700,000 business professionals a month, attracting major clients such as BMW, Nokia, and Qantas. The media division has just installed screens in their 100th building and is looking to install more screens that will push figures to one million viewers a month by the end of the year.
The research division, Inlink Technologies, enables monitoring for lift companies with the recently launched surveillance and safety product, Intellicam. This features a two-way video communication system between the lift and security staff as well as footage archiving, analysis, and search technology.
With just 14 staff, the eight-year-old business is still pushing a healthy 43 percent growth rate and is set to hit $10 million per annum over the next few years. In addition to growing the advertising sector by installing more screens and signing on more clients, Roydhouse says that “exporting Intellicam forms an important part of our medium-term growth strategy”.
Maxum Foods
No matter how big Maxum Foods becomes, founders Ben Woodhouse, 30, and Dustin Boughton, 34, will never forget the little guys. The two started Maxum Foods supplying dairy products to small businesses that the industry giants overlooked. Soon, their client base expanded along with their reputation for good customer service.
Established in 2003, Maxum Foods is a food and nutrition company with two main divisions, one for stockfeed and the other dealing with products for human consumption. Their animal nutrition range now includes grains, pulses, protein meals, oil, and probiotics, while the human nutrition division provides ingredients to manufacturers and has just branched out with health products under the brand Pure Balance.
Even after acquiring another small company earlier this year, staff numbers just 14, which belies the company’s $38.5 million turnover–more than 300 percent growth on the previous year.
Woodhouse says their secret is that their products have value-added features, which do what they’re supposed to do, but do it more efficiently, saving their customers money. To maintain growth, Maxum Foods will focus on building their ranges and growing each division independently, while overseas interest may well be the icing on their fifth birthday cake.
McRae’s Gardens
Plant selection and lawn selection are just two of the many services offered by McRae’s Gardening, led by 26-year-old managing director, Don McRae. You could almost add client selection to that list, the horticulture service sustains enough demand to let McRae pick and choose jobs.
McRae’s Gardening specialises in strata and commercial landscaping, only working with existing gardens that need a McRae makeover or maintenance. Clients include councils, commercial premises, apartment complexes, schools, and prestige residences rather than homeowners with a waning backyard.
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of McRae’s Gardening making this list is that in the past year the business has not grown at all, despite emerging from the blocks pretty quickly since 2001, when McRae was a 20-year-old solo operator. McRae says this has to do with a little pruning in his own backyard, taking time to consolidate his team before the next push.
Now with 11 employees, McRae’s Gardening is “poised to grow again”. The Central Coast company is looking to increase business in Sydney by aligning themselves with more strata properties. “Word-of-mouth does the rest,” says McRae.
Sumo Salad
Sumo Salad customers are known for their big appetite for healthy food, which is just as well because the Australian-made franchise has a big appetite for business growth. Founded by Luke Baylis, 30, and James Miller, 32, in 2003, the franchise has a firm foothold in the Australian market with 35 stores in operation, and counting. In addition to local outlets, they’ve taken advantage of international opportunities, sparking plenty of growth overseas such as in the United Arab Emirates.
The ingredients for success are a bit like the ingredients for a salad–take something fresh, dress it up with cheeky marketing (on a low-fat budget) and serve it up with a smile. This formula has given the company a healthy intake of $14.2 million in the last financial year and plenty of accolades, such as taking home the 2007 Westfield award for the Best Food Retailer at the recent National Retail Association Awards. The brand is also a popular franchise, recognised as a fast-growing franchise by topping BRW magazine’s annual franchise list last year.
They plan to double the number of stores in Australia in the next couple of years and push into international markets, including starting a UK franchising arm.
Wagamama
Forget instant noodles, Wagamama is fast food with style. Modelled on popular Japanese ramen bars, Wagamama took noodle soup to the masses and thrived in a market hungry for quick and tasty meals.
Wagamama is Japanese for ‘wilful child’ and so it is fitting that the business has the tenacious Luke Fryer at the helm. Fryer began his own business at the age of 12, washing cars for executive clients. At 22, he was the youngest franchisee to own a Burger King store. Now 31, Fryer has swapped burger meals for noodle bowls, commanding some 400 Wagamama employees at 13 locations across Australia.
The franchise operation slurped up around $20 million in profit in the last financial year, proving that Australia’s taste for noodles matches that of the UK and the US, where the Wagamama noodle bar concept also prospers.
Taking his own advice–“you can’t do everything yourself”–Fryer has taken a year to build a highly experienced executive team, ready to tackle the next challenge. And the next challenge? To double the size of the Wagamama Australia franchise within five years.
Noodles, anyone?
Wild Cards & Gifts
With a name like Wild Cards & Gifts, you’d expect the retail franchise to be out of control after five years’ running. But partners, Sandra and Lawrence Boyle, have meticulously planned the company’s growth from the start.
Sandra started the franchise in 2002, after more than two decades as a franchisee with other companies. Husband Lawrence, no less experienced in the retail industry, joined her soon after. The couple took what they learned as franchisees to become savvy franchisors.
The Boyles now have 26 stores across Australia selling their upmarket range of greeting cards and giftware. The formula of charging a low franchisee service fee and providing a good product mix has seen a 38 percent growth rate over the past financial year–exceptional in the competitive giftware industry.
Lawrence says they want to add six stores a year until they hit 45 stores, and then they’ll stop.
“When we first started as franchisees, we were store number 322–we want to stop at 45 because then we’ll still know everyone’s name,” he explains. “There are only about 45 good locations in Australia anyway.”
Investment Evolution
Starting his first business at the ripe old age of 12 has paid off for Paul Mathieson, who at 31 is taking the financial services industry by storm.
It was only in 2002 that Mathieson founded his company Investment Evolution, and devised a specialised structured equity derivative product, from his bedroom. Backed by $150,000 seed capital, he offered maximum returns with limited risk. The result? An instant success. Soon after, Mathieson founded Amazing Loans Limited Business and began providing loan approval in less than 30 minutes. In 2006 the company was listed on the ASX. Within a year, Amazing Loans and Investment Evolution merged, bringing the group’s market capitalisation to approximately $285 million.
Mathieson recently won the Young category of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
Flix Institute Of Makeup
At only 24, Angela Waugh’s magical makeup touch has benefited beauties such as Nicole Kidman, Eva Longoria, and Paris Hilton. Waugh founded Angel IFX in 2001 and tended to the makeup needs of brides, models, and actors. Within one year she was swamped. Soon realising the desperate need for makeup artists, especially those also able to provide special effects makeup, Waugh began working on Hollywood blockbusters. After gaining confidence and experience on films like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, in 2006 she launched Flix Institute of Makeup, offering courses in advanced special effects and creature workshops. Flix and Angel IFX have since merged. Leaping over the original hurdle of finding artists to share their “secrets,” Waugh now finds her biggest challenge is keeping up with the 300 percent growth Flix has seen in the last year. With a staff of five full-timers and 56 subcontractors, she is pushing the limits of the makeup artist industry and has secured a six-feature film contract in the US. But Waugh has no intention of stopping the growth there, and plans to open an institute in Sydney within 12 months and another in Melbourne within 24 months.
Propertybuyer
In operation since 2003, Propertybuyer offers an alternative to real estate agents who only represent vendors. Founded by Richard Harvey, the company sources, evaluates and negotiates property sales for buyers, investors, and developers. Propertybuyer also makes the process of home buying more efficient by working side-by-side with related service providers, including financiers and specialist mortgage brokers.
This unique approach to real estate has seen Propertybuyer grow 35 percent in the last financial year, and 176 percent the year before that. Originally a home-based business, Propertybuyer now has office premises and employs five staff.
At 38, Harvey has seen his business win the Australian Government Micro-Business Award.
Ezygas Conversions Australia
Three years ago, Demetrios Carakitsos and Jason Tresider were working out of their cars. Now, not only do the 24-year-olds have multiple offices but their company EzyGas Conversions Australia clocked an annual turnover of $1.3 million. What’s more, they’re on track to reaching their new target of $4 million.
The entrepreneurs launched EzyGas in 2004, after identifying a lack of professional LPG conversion retailers. Initially they were only referring customers to LPG installers, who used EzyGas parts, rather than physically doing gas conversions. But emerging environmental concerns and rising petrol prices changed all that. The Federal Government’s $2,000 rebate for LPG conversions further fuelled their growth, and before long Carakitsos and Tresider had to form their own group of 20 LPG converters.
Finalists in the Telstra Business Awards, the dynamic duo now have plans to open additional stores in New South Wales.
Imoda Group
Jay McAlister has always been pretty gutsy. Starting a building company only two weeks after finishing his apprenticeship as a carpenter wasn’t enough. He then jumped into founding an advertising agency, after 12 months in the industry. Now McAlister owns four businesses, each listed under IMODA Group. Although IMODA Group is only two years old, it has spread across a long list of industries, including: marketing, communications, advertising, property construction and development, project marketing printing, multimedia and branded content.
At 32, McAlister is reaping the benefits of a company that has grown more than 88 percent and needs 52 employees. How does he keep track? The companies are vertically integrated, so it’s not an impossible task. Nonetheless, it is a feat that makes him worthy of being shortlisted for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
While McAlister is currently consolidating to control this speedy growth, he has plans to launch a fifth business next year.
Psycare
Work-related stress conditions can seriously debilitate a business. Peter Stebbins and Danielle Lees co-founded PsyCare, after identifying the severe lack of support for employees in this area. The 33 and 29-year-old psychologists put their business skills alongside their skills of rehabilitation and treatment, and now successfully provide community and corporate psychological services. The company’s revenue grew from $900,000 to $1.25 million in the last financial year, a growth they describe as organic. In the five years since PsyCare was founded, the business has grown through word-of-mouth, rather than advertising. Growth has only sped up since word got out that they provide training in leadership, development strategies, and retention processes as well. PsyCare now has three offices with 16 psychologists, and plans are underway to increase the company’s presence in Sydney and Melbourne.
Cre8tive
James Wilson started his communications company Cre8tive in 1999, offering “total brand solutions” to a variety of businesses around the country. Seeing the potential for growth in the digital media landscape, the 34-year-old young gun turned his attention to offering solutions that include web portals, online television, and web conferences for clients. The biggest of those clients, at the moment, is Defence, with the health industry following closely. The business now employs 28 staff, with offices set to open interstate. Growth in the business over the last financial year was 30 percent, which Wilson says is a stabilising result from the previous year’s growth of 194 percent, a figure that got the business onto BRW’s fast 100 list.
This year Wilson was also named a regional finalist in the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
Unistraw International
Peter Baron developed a prototype for his innovative and award-winning straw in 1997 (with a pair of women’s stockings), but it wasn’t until 2005 that the business was launched, with CEO Martin Chimes in charge of taking the technology to the world.
That technology for delivering a healthy alternative to flavoured milk was named Sippah, and since its inception Unistraw has produced 400 million Sippah straws filled with ‘UniBeads’, or beads of flavour released as liquid is sipped through the straw.
A massive coup came in the form of a contract to supply McDonald’s 747 Australian stores, and some international stores, as well as 100 percent penetration into supermarkets. They now distribute to 103 countries, which is unheard of for such a young Australian company in this industry. Chimes says success has come on the back of a product that is “on trend”, hitting the market when childhood obesity demanded healthy options around the world.
In less than two years, the business has experienced phenomenal growth, with the most recent figures (not audited at this stage) reflecting an increase of 400 percent to $32 million dollars, up from $8 million the previous year.
These results saw the company take out this year’s category awards for both Telstra Business and Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
Stratsec
In the current climate, security is in forefront of many businesses minds. And since founding Stratsec in 2003, it’s certainly been top of mind for Doug Stuart and Peter Lilley.
The specialists in security consulting and technical assurance services, including ICT security, risk management and personnel security.
Launching in Canberra, the business has a presence in the ACT, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, with 18 full-time staff, and achieved growth in the last financial year of almost 90 percent.
This kind of success saw them take home an award at the recent Telstra ACT Business Awards. And with recent additions of big name clients like Microsoft and IBM to their books, and offering services that include computer forensics, growth is set to increase.
“From a business perspective, creating and opening our Stratsec lab, and being granted a license by [the Government’s] Defence Signals Directorate to perform IT security evaluations under the Australasian Information Security Evaluation Program (AISEP) has been a major milestone and success for us.”
AION Diagnostics
While many of us couldn’t begin to understand what goes on in the field of biotechnology, one thing’s for sure, Australia’s biotech industry is one that is on the rise, with interest coming from around the world. And Dr Anna Kluczewska, 31, was one person to sense this rise at just the right time.
In 2004 Kluczewska founded AION Diagnostics, a subsidiary of nano-technology company, pSivida, to help lead the charge in the concept of prevention being better than cure. Her team were able to exploit new technology that makes it easier to detect and diagnose a range of early-onset illnesses on a range of imaging tools (x-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI scans).
In a highly competitive and innovative industry, AION’s crowning achievement came when Kluczewska and her team of 50 (full-time staff and world-leading consultants) were able to commercialise the new technology and complete a spin-off from pSivida, with the wholly owned AION listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
And while you mightn’t understand her product, you’ll understand the growth, with results from the last financial year showing a 93 percent increase from the previous year.
Grill’d
When Simon Crowe realised there was a gap in the market for healthy, gourmet burgers, he was quick to act, calling on a couple chefs and organising the lease for his first restaurant. Then the lease fell through. In hindsight, Crowe says it was the best thing to happen to his business, leaving him to concentrate on finessing his business plan and becoming “operationally-focused”.
This focus has meant the business, which started in 2004, has expanded to an impressive 15 stores—eight co-owned and six franchises—with system sales in the last year picking up more than 60 percent on the previous year.
Currently there are 19 full-time staffers on board in the business, plus a number of casuals and part-timers in the restaurants, and Crowe is confident this will grow even more as his interstate expansion continues. (Grill’d has recently expanded to Queensland, and the wheels are in motion for New South Wales operations.)
While the growth is impressive on its own, Crowe says his crowning achievements were his courage in leaving the security of the corporate world to start his own business, and creating a brand that is “owned” by his customers. “Their passion and ‘love’ of our people and product keeps us honest and motivated to improve and grow.”
TSG Key Group
Established eight years ago, his business doesn’t quite fit the start-up category, but at 32 years of age Dave Simmons certainly fits the bill for one of our fast-growing young guns.
The Simmons Groups (TSG) is a multi-disciplined engineering, contracting and construction company offering 24–7 service, including onsite maintenance, recruitment and commercial diving services. In a nutshell, TSG provides complete project management and maintenance services to markets that include mining, food and beverage, shipping and defence.
Being just 24 when he started, there were plenty o
f obstacles along the way, the single most significant obstacle being his age, with “senior” peers making it tough for Simmons to succeed. “The challenge has been continually sidestepping these people with the occasional head-on ‘attitude adjustment’ session.”
It obviously worked, with a win in this year’s Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, western region. But even more significant is TSG’s growth, with the most recent figures indicating an increase of just over 400 percent in the last year ($3.5 to $14.5 million).
THE PERFECT BREW
Di Bella Coffee
Phillip Di Bella
Phillip Di Bella’s interest in coffee wasn’t fostered by his Italian heritage, but by his 10-year job with Cosmopolitan Coffee. In fact, he admits that before he started there as a 17-year-old, he didn’t even like the stuff. But he continued to work there while completing his commerce degree, working his way up to sales manager and then general manager.
Di Bella, now 32, knew he was going to be a business owner from a young age, though he admits he didn’t think he would make his fortune in coffee. But this was where he saw a gap in the market. The coffee industry in Queensland was fairly new in those days, and he saw a gap not just in providing great coffee but also for creating a great brand, starting Di Bella Coffee in 2002. “I played a role in spreading the word about coffee, so to speak, in the days when people thought coffee was instant coffee!”
Starting out with just two wholesale accounts, and $5,000 behind him, Di Bella grew his customer base to 30 in one year. “Di Bella is about great coffee, great service, reasonable prices, but it’s also about a company full of people who are passionate and are all heading in the one direction. And that’s to become Australia’s biggest boutique coffee company.
“We’ve turned away more business than we’ve taken on. We’ve turned away all the McDonald’s business, the supermarket business, because we don’t want any of that—Di Bella is boutique, top-line café/restaurants. I want to be the Ferrari of coffee.”
In the beginning, it was pretty hard to stay true to his ideals for the brand and continue to pay the bills. It wasn’t strange for him to spend two hours in a potential client’s café making free coffee for their customers. “That’s how I got in there. Firstly by pinpointing the accounts I wanted to get my product into, and secondly by walking the talk and showing them what I was about.”
With growth in the business hitting a peak last year of 127 percent, the most recent figures indicate another healthy 95 percent growth. And the business now consists of 800 wholesale clients, expanding into Sydney and Melbourne markets, and establishing a roasting house. There’s also a technical arm that handles services, repairs and maintenance, for Di Bella and other coffee companies; the new online ordering system (coffeecentral.com.au); a new franchise system and signature cafes; and a Melbourne office set to open shortly, offering training for local baristas and home users.
Learning every day, Di Bella says that although he has achieved success he couldn’t have dreamed possible, he remains very grounded, with the ability to use his natural charisma to drive the business further. This trait certainly came in handy when he came up against bidding wars from some of the more established brands that were offering freebies and undercutting prices to drive him from the market.
He was upfront with clients in telling them that while he might not be able to match the price and incentives of the bigger brands, he was able to continue to provide the same quality service and product he always had, without underhanded tricks, so his most valuable clients stuck with him as he rode out the pinch from the competition. “They’d say you’ve got guts, we want to support you,” he says. “If you can make people want to hand their wallets over to you, you’ve done a good job!”
These days, Di Bella’s happy to acknowledge the kudos from awards—he was a finalist in this year’s Telstra Business Awards—he says they are part of his “journey” to becoming great, and knows he still has a way to go. “We’ve gone from good to very good and we’re on the way to great. When will be great? When we leave behind a legacy.”
Phillip Di Bella’s Three-Steps to Success
- Set clear goals.
- Establish strategies to achieve those goals.
- Surround yourself with the right people.
HEATING IT UP
The Chef’s Toolbox
David Mills
David Mills is making his way into kitchens nationwide, proving that he and his toolbox can stand the heat.
The Chef’s Toolbox sells not only kitchenware, but an entire cooking experience. The method used to sell this experience? A unique party plan sales model. Armed with cooking utensils and a couple of original recipes, sales agents demonstrate their product through home-cooking workshops.
Four years ago, Mills realised that while a lot of people were interested in cooking, few had confidence in their cooking ability, and most were not very adventurous. He saw a gap in the industry to sell his product, but a creative approach was needed to show consumers how to improve their cooking through better quality equipment. “Cooking is fun with the right tools,” he says. But the right tools aren’t just utensils, Mills believes the tips and techniques offered are also necessary tools.
A big believer in “just jumping in and doing it,” Mills had his cooking adventure up and running within three months of grasping the idea. While his attitude is part of what has pushed business growth, at the beginning it did cause some planning problems. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to maintain procedure, Mills hired an office manager even before he hired a chef. “That’s not really my strength, so I give the people in the organisation the latitude to work.” Nonetheless, “there’s always fun and games,” he says.
Next to be hired was a cooking guru, who first developed recipes for the toolbox, then went on to train sales agents. “We have authentic but simple recipes, largely made from scratch, not from jars and packets,” says Mills.
According to Mills, the secret of their success lies in their attitude. “We don’t take ourselves or cooking too seriously,” he says. The Chef’s Toolbox has grown naturally, through virtually no advertising. The business, reliant on word-of-mouth, instead organises fun cooking events to show the potential of culinary exercises. “We build a community with a general store social aspect,” says Mills.
Human interaction has worked well for The Chef’s Toolbox. The 39-year-old founder now needs 360 sales agents just to keep up with demand. Having recently turned four, the Chef’s Toolbox is celebrating not only its birthday but also growth of 65 percent in the last financial year (it was 270 percent in 2005–06).
But relying on word-of-mouth comes with its own set of problems. “It’s a strength because it develops strong relationships with customers, but you’ve got less control and it’s harder to run a marketing campaign and harder to direct the growth,” says Mills.
Though none of this can slow Mills down. He is not only running a successful business, but is changing eating habits in Australia. “A lot of customers did have fast food and processed foods.” Mills believes people are more willing to cook at home once they are shown how. “It’s pretty much as fast to cook an authentic meal.”
THE WHITE STUFF
The White Agency
Craig Galvin
At four years old, interactive marketing company The White Agency is already driving a Jaguar and V8 supercars–well, via the marketing strategy behind them at least. Sporting big clients such as Jaguar, Telstra, and Coca Cola Amatil, the agency already has an enviable reputation and is set to blaze more trails at the forefront of the interactive marketing industry.
It was 2003 when Craig Galvin and Elizabeth Joyce took advantage of a sector in its infancy. From the wreckage of the dotcom crash came the realisation that even if some commercial websites had failed, internet users were still growing in numbers.
“Despite the crash, users didn’t say ‘that’s it, I’m not using Hotmail anymore’,” explains Galvin. “So the principles of what made [the internet] a successful marketing medium were always there. We understood what the marketing disciplines were and the business objectives of our clients, and we are good at putting the user at the centre of the thinking.”
Galvin and Joyce met at Yahoo!, an experience that contrasted with their early days in The White Agency when they were nobodies in the industry.
“The big difference was, when we originally started there was no brand established, no knowledge of who we were, so we had to figure out creative ways to open the door,” says Galvin. “[But] the fact that Liz and I had worked at Yahoo! definitely reassured clients that we knew what we were talking about.”
The agency’s growth is due to a number of factors, primarily hard work but also lack of a safety net. “A lot of people said start with a sound five-year business plan with a clear exit strategy, but we didn’t have that,” says Galvin. “The plan was to make as many phone calls or contacts or relationships as possible to get in the door of large organisations.”
Galvin and Joyce also had to “skill up” on the financial side as neither had a financial background. The daunting task of the finance and legal end of business almost put a dampener on the company–“they can take away from the focus and you forget what you have to do to grow”–but now, he says, the only problem they have is finding staff in a “tight employment market”.
“We always wanted to be a successful company and it was always as loose as it could be,” he says. “Success could have been four people and that’s a perfectly acceptable number, but if we wanted ongoing success then size did matter for the scale of the projects we wanted to do.”
The agency now has 55 staff members in their Sydney and Melbourne offices, growing at 50 percent in the last financial year. Galvin sees growth in the sector, which will grow “organically”, but clearly he wants the company to grow faster.
“We always look at how fast the market is growing in terms of interactive marketing and add a few percentage points on top of that, because obviously we’d like to do better than the market,” he says. “[We can] diversify into different spaces as well, as technology evolves.”
Galvin’s advice for growing businesses:
- Dedication and hard work does pay off.
- Shortcuts have consequences.
- Always have a good business partner and a good relationship with them.
LIGHTNING PERFORMANCE
Platinum Electrical
Joshua Nicholls
At almost six years old, Platinum Electrical falls just outside our start-up mark, but showing almost 800 percent growth in their first four years the business was too phenomenal to ignore.
The story begins in 2001 with electrician Joshua Nicholls, then 22, struggling to obtain so much as a mobile phone contract. Although lenders saw his youth as a risk, Nicholls says he had little trouble actually starting the business, “because I had no idea what I was doing,” he laughs. “I didn’t have any responsibilities, so if everything went bad, I knew I wouldn’t lose much.”
The punctual, well-mannered electrician soon had an expanding customer base, adding other electricians to his business until he realised he had outlived his parents’ garage and was filling job sheets at two o’clock in the morning. At that point, Nicholls realised he was out of his depth when it came to growing the business, and so hired Steven Kay as his business coach.
“I thought that because I was a good electrician, I could run my own business,” says Nicholls. “Steve started working through the areas where I was struggling. The first area was how to get my time back and the next step was to build a management team to do everything and build business that way.”
Building a team worked. The company struggled with cash flow until Nicholls hired someone to look after that aspect of the business, allowing him to focus on his strengths–recruiting the right people and maintaining the company’s high level of customer satisfaction, which, until recently, was their only form of marketing.
Recruitment remains a key element of the company’s success, which Nicholls attributes to his philosophy of “hiring on attitude”. The company now has 30 staff, of which 21 work in the field as electricians and apprentices. With a management team behind him, he now finds he has the time to attend to problems, which also serves customer service standards.
“Because of our reporting systems I can see any communication that comes through and I’m on top of it straightaway.”
The other aspect of the business that enables growth is efficiency through technology, including a paperless office and electronic job sheets. “I thought if I can use technology to reduce my unbillable hours, that would be a huge advantage,” explains Nicholls. “Our system is completely web-based so if our workshop burned down overnight, all I would need is an internet connection and we’d be up and running again tomorrow.”
With Platinum Electrical on solid ground, Nicholls now aims to continue expansion with companion trade Fusion Plumbing, less than two years old but “growing faster than Electrical”, and franchising the main business.
“I don’t want to build up, I want to build out. In five years I want to have 150 vans on the road; that’s 50 franchisees with three vans. My advisers say that’s a moderate figure but it still blows my mind!”
Awards, such as the NSW Telstra Business Award that Platinum Electrical took home this year, and his contribution to the book ‘Secrets of Small Business Owners Exposed’ will make selling the franchise easier, he believes.
“It gives credibility to the business and it shows I’m serious about where it’s going and what I’m doing.”
Nicholls’ advice for growing businesses:
- Surround yourself with good mentors. Have a good business coach, have a good accountant, have people around you who will encourage and motivate you.
- Understand why you do what you do.
FUTURE CALLING
FuturePeople Recruitment
Linda Simonsen
First impressions can make or break a company’s reputation, which is why FuturePeople is Sydney’s new favourite recruiter. Headed by Linda Simonsen, FuturePeople specialises in call and contact centre recruitment, which, for some businesses, is where the most interaction occurs between staff and clients.
“Most large high profile organisations have a contact centre operation, and more and more are realising that the centre is often the first point of contact for a customer or prospective customers,” says Simonsen. “A specific recruitment methodology to attract, select and retain the right people is essential.”
It is clear from FuturePeople’s success that the method works. Established in 2002, when Simonsen was just 28, the business addressed a niche that she believed would continue to grow despite the competitive industry. Starting was the hardest part.
“The main challenge I faced in starting the business was finding the confidence to take the leap of faith required to liquidate my assets into a very cash hungry business within a highly competitive marketplace at a reasonably young age,” she says. “Fear of failure was the biggest hurdle to overcome. Once overcome, I think most operational challenges are a piece of cake.”
Growth presented Simonsen with the challenge of resource planning, which involved hiring the right people at the right time and managing cash flow, an obstacle that hinders most growing businesses. Her solution was simple–give it to financial experts to handle.
“Cash flow is king in this industry due to the need to finance the temporary payroll,” she explains. “The introduction of a debtor finance facility assisted significantly in the business moving to the next stage in turnover.”
The next stage involved the company’s profit doubling year on year, fulfilling Simonsen’s plan to build a multi-million dollar company. Although the 2006–07 financial year saw FuturePeople grow at the relatively modest rate of 53 percent (after reported growth of 128 percent the previous year), it is no surprise that this also was part of Simonsen’s growth strategy.
“I was focused on growing a large sustainable business from the outset, so I was careful to ensure each phase of growth was supported by the right processes to get to the next phase,” she says. “This has slowed our growth down to an extent but it has boosted profitability and made it sustainable, which is more important to me.”
Now, at five years old with 15 staff, FuturePeople’s next move is to expand nationally, starting with Melbourne. “Our mission,” states Simonsen, “is [to become] the first stop for any contact centre manager in Australia seeking a staffing solution.”
The only real hurdle the 33-year-old needs to negotiate now is the employment climate, where using principles such as “carefully managing debtors and being client selective” and “not being scared to drive performance and move low performers out of the business” will help the business stay competitive.
“Shortage of talent increases demand and drives up price in our industry, but it also increases the cost of sales and makes delivering on client needs more challenging,” she maintains. “[We focus on] creating value rather than dropping price to retain clients. Our mantra is deliver great service, enjoy doing it, and profit will follow.”
Simonsen’s advice for growing businesses:
- Set goals that you believe you can achieve.
- Get work–life balance into the equation from the outset.
- Build your support team and invest in developing good processes early.
- Drive high performance through goal setting and review on a weekly basis with all staff.
- Don’t neglect cash flow planning and debtor ledger management.
- Never get complacent.
