What made you decide to start your own business?
I wanted to create a financially secure future for myself and my family. I had started a lot of businesses and sold them to competitors and I decided that I wanted something that I could take out of New Zealand and go global. I identified very early on that transport was a sector that is always going to be in demand and I thought that was the area I wanted to be in.
What has been the biggest challenge to date?
In the early years the biggest challenge was finding enough capital to keep developing and growing. I solved this by inviting friends and family to take shareholdings in the parent company. Later on I was able to buy them back but that created another challenge because it stretched my personal finances. Another key challenge has been to get franchisees to adhere to and follow the Fastway system. Whenever a franchisee gets into trouble it’s always because they’ve tried to change the system.
What do you believe has been your single greatest achievement?
Seeing people being able to earn a living from the Fastway system. But I think it’s also been fantastic to see that we’ve been able to keep growing sales and profits over the past 24 years and that we’ve emerged from a small, entrepreneurial start-up company to a large corporate structure operating in multiple countries.
What key factors have made your company successful?
I think the franchise model is the key to our success. The Fastway model is very complex in its entirety but if you break it down to each of the franchisees you can see that all the elements are complementary.
What effect has technology had on your business?
In the last 10-12 years technology has had an enormous impact. We’ve had to invest very heavily in technology since that time to stay at the forefront and because we’re a low-cost operator we had to develop software that was affordable. I think if we had gone with the original technology that was coming out 10 or 12 years ago, it probably would have been the death knell of our business. Right now in the UK we will be rolling out very shortly our track-and-trace scanners which give the customers real-time information on the internet. But in every country we’re always rolling out new updates.
How would you describe your management style?
I’m a very direct person. I’m very focused and I know what I want to achieve. I use my personal goals to drive my business goals. So if I want a new boat or a house or a car, I work out what we need to do, even weekly or daily. I’m a do-er and over the years I’ve been very hands-on. When I’m on a mission to get something specific done I have a tendency to tell people exactly what to do and then I expect them to follow my directions to the letter of the law. On a day-to-day basis I do empower my staff to carry out their roles and to work on their own but everything is very accountable and everybody has to focus back to the business plan.
Who has been the greatest influence on your career and why?
The one key input on my life was my grandfather. He was very entrepreneurial and he spent a lot of time speaking to me about the days when he travelled from Europe to New Zealand at the start of the 1900s starting businesses, and how on the ship rather than goods he took water and would sell this water and fill it up at the various ports. He was probably the person who drove me to become the person that I am today.
What is the most valuable lesson you have learnt in business?
One of the things that I learned very early on is that you don’t trust anybody in business. You’ve always got to put systems that offer accountability in place. One of the things that I learned from my grandfather is that research is very important and right throughout my business career I’ve spent a lot of money on research. Every single year I research our markets to make sure things haven’t changed.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
I don’t think anyone wanting to start up will be successful unless they do some thorough research. I spent a whole year researching this concept and prepared a five-year business plan. Research is probably the key and then you have to find a realistic way of achieving the capital that you need and to develop a comprehensive business plan. A lot of people just use the business plan to go to the bank and get finance and then they throw it in the drawer but I used mine to drive the business.
What are your plans for the future of the company?
In the last three years we were on a no-expansion plan. Our aim was to grow in all the existing 11 countries that we’ve already got but we’re now ready to recommit to expansion. We’ve found that non-English speaking countries have been very difficult for us because we don’t understand the language and if you get 10 people to translate the same manual you’ll get 10 different versions of that manual. So we’ve identified the US as our next marketplace. It’s an ideal market, it fits into our niche very well and it’s got very high consumption levels, which are what create courier services. The culture is very similar to where we’ve been very successful like New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and England.
And after 24 years we’re looking at diversifying into other associated areas. In New Zealand, with the postal market deregulated, we’ve set up a business called Fastway Post as a competitor to the New Zealand Post Office and they’ve been very successful and every one of their outlets has become a customer for the courier service. So we’re looking at expansion into other areas as well as taking the core brand into the United States.