Business Owners' Wisdom. Brett Kelly

       ‘Don’t tell me it can’t be done. Tell me how I can do it.’

       BK: So how did you get through that in terms of building the credibility of the group and understanding how to negotiate with the banks and others?

      BB: Well, I worry about answering this question because I was a bit brash back then. I couldn’t understand. I almost didn’t take no for an answer. You know, I’d say, ‘Don’t tell me it can’t be done. Tell me how I can do it.’ But I would have to tell you that it was partly just being tenacious.

      I’ll give you a story about the Doncaster store. A music store in the shopping centre had done a runner – they’d just closed up overnight and gone. So I rang up and said, ‘I want to take that store.’ They said, ‘No, we’ve got it earmarked for somebody else.’ So I said, ‘No, you don’t understand.’ This was in the days when in Westfield shopping centres, the centre manager also did the leasing and he lived in the shopping centre. None of that happens now, but that’s the way it was back then, thirty-odd years ago.

      So I said, ‘I’ll be there at 7.30 am for half an hour, I’ve got to be back at Parkmore Keysborough to open the store.’ Not thinking that somebody might not want to get up at 7.30 am let alone meet someone at that time I said, ‘I’ll be there.’ I think it was part excitement and enthusiasm, but sure enough, he was there. He tried to tell me again that it wasn’t available but I said, ‘What? No, I’m taking this store.’ And it worked.

       BK: That enthusiasm, that level of energy.

      BB: Just not taking, ‘No’, for an answer combined with, ‘We’re going to do it.’When I look back on that, probably in part I didn’t realise that people saw that it was going to be OK. When they met me, they could see the dedication and commitment. I was absolutely focused, deadly.

      So we got that Doncaster store and I was working there one night when this cocky little sixteen-year-old came in and said, ‘Have you got any jobs?’ I said,‘Sure. What are you doing right now?’ I remember it just like it was yesterday. I put him behind the counter and said, ‘Work here for a couple of hours. Let’s see how you go.’ That was how we interviewed in those days. There are so many laws and restrictions and things now, but that’s such a perfect way.

       BK: Like a work test.

      BB: Yes. He did a good job so I said, ‘You did an excellent job – you’ve got the gift, Daniel. You’re on.’ He was sixteen at the time and I could see that he was going to be a great retailer. I could see he was going to be a great leader. So I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He said, ‘I’m going to go to university.’ I asked him why he was going to uni and he said, ‘Oh, because my dad says I should.’ I said, ‘I reckon you’d love to manage a store.’ He wasn’t even eighteen at that stage.

      We’ve since become great friends of the whole family, but at the time, I said,‘Daniel, would you ask your dad if I could come out and visit you one night?’ His dad said yes, so there I was, aged twenty-two or twenty-three, and I’ve got all of five shops. I said to his father, ‘Your boy’s got a great career ahead of him, he’s going to go places.’ We drank some homemade vino and the next day, I rang up Daniel. ‘How did I go?’ He said, ‘We’re right. Full-time. When do you want me to start?’ He didn’t like school, he didn’t want to keep going.

      Daniel ended up running the entire music group, Sanity, and retired at the ripe old age of thirty-four with several million dollars in the float, like more than several, a real fortune.

      I had lunch with Daniel, his mum and his sisters two weekends ago in Victoria. I ended up employing all his sisters. And he married one of our regional managers. But you can’t retire at thirty-four so he went back to work at thirty-six. He doesn’t work in the group anymore, but he actually retired at age thirty-four. That’s the sort of approach I had back then. We laugh about it now because Daniel’s father says it’s the best decision he ever made. So that gives you a sense of the way in which whatever the issue was, there was a solution.

       BK: So, where does your competitive streak come from? The drive? The deadly focus?

      BB: To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that. You’re not the first person to ask me. My father was a hardworking, determined, wonderful, wonderful man. He died five years ago. My mother was really quite ambitious. I think it’s a combination of both those things, probably. But it’s hard to know. I’ve got four brothers and sisters.

       BK: All different?

      BB: We’re all different, but what I will tell you is that we grew up in a very loving, close, country family. I think that was very important in giving me the confidence and the self-esteem.

       BK: So it was a get-up-early kind of family life in the country?

      BB: Oh, my father would be banging pots in the kitchen at bloody 5.30 am. You know, ‘You get out of bed, life’s for working, let’s go.’ He was a hardworking guy.He had his own farm. It wasn’t a big business. It was himself and his kids as cheap workers – surely the classic story.

      There were a mixture of influences, but I had the confidence to do it. But when I said, ‘I’m off!’ they told me, ‘Don’t do it.’ I mean, I had to defy every bit of advice that was coming at me from people who cared about me. ‘You’re lunatic!’ they said. I look back and think, ‘They were pretty right.’ I had no formal training. I didn’t know a thing about retail. There was just no reason in the world that it should’ve worked. But here we are today.