Business Owners' Wisdom. Brett Kelly

the job specifically to figure out how the hell Craig did what he did. How did he cope with all the problems I had. I wanted to know how to motivate the team, how to train them, how to get the culture and the standards. Actually, I probably didn’t even know what culture was back then. I didn’t know the word ‘culture’. I probably felt what it was, though.

      I have to say – and I’ve told Craig this – I was absolutely the number one casual that he’s ever had. I sold like there was no tomorrow. And I loved it. I loved it even more because I didn’t have the pressure of running my own business.I was there to see how they ran their systems, how they ran their cash registers, how they ran their training.

      I even snuck into a store managers’ meeting, which frightened the hell out of me. I was a good, honest, country boy and I was sweating. I sat next to someone and I told them, ‘I’m from the Wangaratta store,’ you know, hoping like hell. I had my eye on the door in case I had to bolt. I felt like a criminal, like I was doing something awful.

      But I sat in one of those meetings just to see how the national retail manager ran it and how they communicated. I knew we were onto something. I knew that I was capable and I wanted to grow my business more and more. The opportunity sure was there for me to do that. I did that for three to four months.It took fifteen years to tell Craig Kimberley that I had done this sort of covert–

       BK: Covert operation.

      BB: Yes. I was shitting myself when I told him. It was eating away at me. I saw him at a function one night and I said, ‘I’ve got to tell you something.’

       BK: What did he say when you told him?

      BB: He laughed and laughed. By that time, we were starting Bras N Things and we were a success story in our own right. Then he started to tell people, ‘I taught Brett Blundy everything he knows and we’re great friends.’ He’s a great guy. We’re good friends.

       BK: So, you did your apprenticeship in a Just Jeans store. you’ve got five stores. What happened then?

      BB: Even though I wasn’t any good at school and essentially failed, I’ve got a great capacity to want to understand how things work. I’m curious. I’ve always been curious and it doesn’t have to be about retail. It’s just, ‘Take me to a factory.’ I love it. You know, ‘How does that work? How does that get made?’ I enjoyed that and I’ve taught myself to take advantage of that.

      That is why things like the YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) have been so very helpful in my life. Even today, it’s a commitment and a goal of mine to take two weeks off. I go and learn. It can be straight business conferences or the YPOis wonderful for non-business things, but learning just the same. I still do that today because I believe that you never know what you don’t know. You’ve got to keep going forward.

      I encourage all my guys. It’s a cultural commitment to continuous improvement. I’ve always been like that. It was part of the Just Jeans thing, thinking, ‘How did somebody else do it?’ or, ‘That’s a good idea. We’ll put that in place.’ So out of that came the training manuals and induction manuals. I started to understand what culture was in terms of excitement and parties and making sure the team were engaged. Fortunately, I was in the record business, so it was pretty easy.

       BK: To do a good party.

      BB: I started to learn that culture was everything. You needed an excited, motivated, committed team with an attitude that was about ‘we will win’. So you look for those people who are competitive, you look for those people who want to move up and I just got on and started to systemise. I started to look for electronic cash registers–

       BK: So the latest technology that you could use to get the best systems in your business.

      BB: Just Jeans was very good. They committed way back then to the first AS400, which is now obsolete technology. So really, I found good ideas and put them in place. I would communicate to the team and then run around like a madman, ensuring that what we decided to do got done. That really was how I did it.

      The other half of my role was to find the next store. I would simply keep putting all the earnings back into the next store. Wonderful, wonderful experiences, bad experiences too. I was this young guy starting to grow.

      I’d come up against something I’d never heard of, like credit limits. They’d say, ‘We don’t trust you,’ and I’d say, ‘What do you mean, you don’t trust me? I’m paying.’

      ‘You know, it’s not that you haven’t paid your bills, it’s just that you’re growing too fast.’

      I wondered, ‘How can I grow too fast?’ I started to hit normal commercial things that I didn’t understand. So that was my next challenge. But I thought,‘Hang on. We’re a good group. We’re running well. We’re profitable.’

       BK: We pay our bills. Do the right thing–

      BB: Then the business community and the banking industry were all starting to shackle us. It really was a very frustrating time.

       ‘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