March 3, 2025 • 38 mins
Self-made multi-millionaire and one time Australia's highest-paid female CEO, Maxine Horne’s story is truly one of grit, determination and passion. The iconic story of Fone Zone and VITA group proves what can happen when you truly believe in yourself and never give up. She’s also now one of the famous sharks on the new series of Shark Tank and this episode is jam packed full of amazing tips and insights from one of the country’s most successful business minds.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to another episode of Brave Always, the CEO series.
This series, we launch into the new world of brave leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Happy people create happy businesses.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
True emotionally intelligent leadership. I picked up vomit once on
our about our fourth flight, and everybody thought, well, if
it's good enough for him, I can do it now.
We will be joined by culture and leadership experts and
some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth
behind their brave leadership journeys. Today I'm talking with the
incredible Maxine Horn, self made multimillionaire CEO and founder of
(00:44):
Vita Group. She was the two thousand and six QBR
Businesswoman of the Year, twenty fourteen e Y Entrepreneur of
the Year, and Korea Male business Person of the Year
twenty nineteen. She's a mum to two, my wife and
this year she made her Shark Tank television debut.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Woo.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Maxine's so great to have you here today.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Thank you very much. As a lot wad an entrance,
you know, hope I live after that.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You definitely will so you can't see it behind you,
but obviously we've got your hair and Brave Always Today
and Brave focuses on the five elements of brave leadership
so bold, resilient, authentic, vulnerable, and empathetic. I always like
to sort of touch on how we grow up a
bit in family dynamics because it always shapes a part
of who we are. So I believe, like myself, your parents.
(01:27):
But when you were young and you live with your grandparents,
is that?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yes? Yeah, My grandparents brought me up till I was
abood eleven ah right. My father remarried and then I
moved back to live with him between the ages of eleven, sixteen, seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And that was all in UK, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of change. It's sort of
that young age. So I'm interested to know what you
learn early on about trust because of that dynamic.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Okay, straight into it. That's the last question of the episode,
not the first. I think if you were to say
to you, are you a trusting person? I think I'm
a trustworthy person, but are you a trusting person? The
answer would be no. Yeah, And I often think about
that myself. Why am I super suspicious of things? Constantly?
I always say it's too good to be true? It is,
(02:11):
you know, okay, And I do think it's as a child.
And if you read all these books by you know,
psychologists and people like that, they'll tell you that your
childhood is an imprint on your adult life. I won't
go into that because I don't want to embarrass anybody.
And I also think being a parent now, I know
how hard it is. I know how hard it is
(02:32):
to be on the ball all the time. So who
am I to criticize how I was brought up?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
My parents did the very best they could. My grandparents
did the best they could. But there were times where
as a child, I was pushed from pillar to post.
I was let down and very quickly I grew up.
At about the age of eight, I was very independent.
I sought my own stuff out, and I learned very
early on that if I wanted something, I had to
(03:01):
get at myself. When I was twelve, I lied and
said I was fourteen so I could start working, did
you so I could get money so I could buy
myself stuff because we were poor and we didn't have
enough money to buy the things that my friends had.
And so I realized I have to do this myself.
And even in the business world, when I first started
the business, it was very much I'll do it myself
(03:23):
because I can do it better and I can do
it quicker. And you have to learn that if you
want to scale a business, you've got to let go
of that and you've got to trust people and you've
got to let them do the job. You've got to
hire the expertise and sit back and let them execute
with that expertise. And that was a bit of a
tough lesson for me in the early days. The positive
(03:43):
side is I grew up very quickly. I became super independent,
I became very driven, tenacious, I wouldn't give up, and
all of those skills translated into the business world.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I agree my interview, who hasn't gone through some adversity
to be shaped who they are? So I agree there's
being in the yang of it. But it was just
sort of interesting that trust component of you give out
trust openly and then you give it out without people
having to prove it or do they have to prove.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It to you first? So I have the three strike rule.
Oh yeah, okay, So I give out the trust and
I'll give you three goes.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Once I'll have a conversation with you and I'll say,
how did that happen? I don't understand I did this,
I did this? Tell me if I could have done more. Second,
it's like, what the hell, because now it's starting to
be skill or will you know you don't have the
skill set? Tell me about it and I'll help you,
I'll develop you, or it's a will you just don't
want to do it. And then the third one is
(04:39):
you had two goes at it. You have to go
and whether that's in my personal friendship group, whether it's
in the family, or whether it's at work. I feel
that after three goes you've had enough to prove that
you're not abusing my trust.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think that's good boundaries, it's good. I love that
I read in one of the articles that you have
this need to prove yourself was like a big driver,
and how you've shown up in business. I wanted to ask,
obviously how that's helped you. I think we can kind
of see, but also how heavy is that feeling been?
Does it make feeling successful a perpetual in this goal
that you can ever reach? Or have you proven yourself well?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
The answer is the format and I still have it today.
I'm absolutely sure it's come from childhood. I always feel
the need to be better, and as a result of that,
I don't celebrate success when I should. I. In fact,
one of my team members came up to me a
long time ago and we'd hit something like, you know,
(05:36):
seven hundred and fifty million revenue in a year. We
announced it and I said, yep, good, Okay, anyway, let's
get to this meeting going. And he came up to
me afterwards and he said, you need to learn how
to celebrate success. And I said, well, two things. For me,
I never had any doubt that we wouldn't achieve it,
and b I now have the next goal, which is
(05:56):
a billion. So everyone's a juxtaposition, right, But I'm really
no effort or one hundred percent effort. I can't do
eighty percent right, And so as a result, you either
get everything or you get nothing. And I'm constantly aware
of do I have two high expectations on myself? But
then I realized that no, and you get one go
(06:18):
around this world, right, so let's make the most of it.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
What do you like being with self compassion? Like in
Maxine makes a mistake which I don't know if you
make to me?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Even if you do.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Are you hard on yourself?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yes, okay, yeah, I'm very hard on myself. My husband's
always telling me you are way too hard on yourself. Yeah,
you know. I'll give you an example. We've just come
back from holiday and I've put weight on because I
stopped exercising and I ate being you know, half Italian.
I love food, you know, and you put it in
front of me. I was eating it and I'm now
super critical of that. And he said, you just need
(06:49):
to give yourself a break. I said, no, you know,
and I'm out walking, you know, fifteen k's a day
and all this kind of stuff. But it's just my
mentality and over the years I've learned to deal with it.
What I have learnt to do is pull back and
not transfer that expectation onto others.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Okay, yeah. Do you think that if you're to take
it easy in yourself or give yourself that grace, that
you won't achieve as much? Is the distinct correlation?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yes? Yeah, I'm very much a product of work ethic.
There are way smarter people than me out there, like,
way smarter. But I work hard. I always have done,
and I always will do. You know, the most challenging
thing in my life has been when I sold the
Vida Group and I retired. I really really struggled with that,
(07:35):
and as a result, now I'm doing a whole heap
of other things, and I'm at that point where I'm
very conscious that, hang on, you're almost working full time again.
That wasn't what you wanted. So I have to continually
remind myself what were the goals.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I can imagine that transition for people would be the
biggest one.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah. I actually had other CEOs tell me and give
me advice, and I thought, oh, they don't know what
they're talking about.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
But they did operated that pace was the wrong It's
like it would feel odd. Yeah, all right, Well I'll
go back a little bit here because I think it's
important to cover off some of these big bits. So
going back to nineteen ninety five, having spent a number
of years in telecommunication business, I think it was primary
sales that you were in at that plus you decided
to take the plunge and start your own business. Yes,
phone zone, so selling phones direct to consumers. If I'm right,
(08:20):
you're pregnant at the time as well, Yes, just as
something else, just.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
To challenge yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Do you look back and consider that that was one
of the most bold decisions that you've ever made that moment.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I think the most bold for me was leaving the UK.
So we arrived in Brisbane in nineteen ninety two. When
I lived in the UK, I had a really good
job with Mercury Communications, who are the equivalent to Optists,
so the Challenger brand of the Telco networks was earning
heap of money. Had two houses in London, so I
(08:50):
was very well paid and I worked hard and I
enjoyed London and my husband at the time we got
married and we've been together a couple of years, and
then we started talking about family and I said, oh, look,
I don't want to raise it's in London. He was
from New Zealand, and being the typical palm I thought
that everywhere in New Zealand, in fact, all of Australia
(09:13):
is like Brisbane. So you can imagine my shock when
we got to Auckland and it was blowing us southerly
and I just said, I'm not living here.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Because he flew all the way there and there we
came over for the Commonweth Games to test it out
and to see his family and we arrived in Auckland
and it was dreadful weather and I just said, I'm
not moving here, and he said why.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I said, Oh, if I wanted to live in a cold, wet,
windy city, I'd stay in London. And then, as luck
would have it, we actually came via Brisbane and we
had an eight hour stopover in Brisbane and instead of
staying in the airport, we came out, grabbed a taxi
and said take us to the nearest swimming pool and
he actually took us to Centenariy swimming Pool on Gregory.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Tailor that's from Hill.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, you're right, And we stayed there for six hours
and the weather was gorgeous. Right. And when people say
to us, what made you move to Brisbane? I go
Centenary Baths on spring Hill.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Wow. Yeah, don't you know?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Like, because I'm a real believer in fate, And I
think like, if we'd have gone to New Zealand and
they had a great in Auckland and the day we arrived,
or even the week we arrived, the weather was great,
we'd probably be in New Zealand now, yeah, you know,
Or if we hadn't had an eight hour stopover, in Brisbane. Yeah,
and did what we did. We wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
But obviously because if he's from New Zealand, you're from
UK nine, if you had any family or friends here
and you're really starting fresh, absolutely yeah, absolutely, Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
So that was probably the boldest thing that we did.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Okay, So starting phone Zone, the point that you started that,
was this a moment where you took a leader. Did
you weigh up all the rest because obviously you were
entering quite a new market before phones.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And we had a company called Queenslan Network Options, which
was an Optu stealer. I'd come over, I'd got transferred
and I took up a job with Optus Communications. When
they very first started, and when they first started in
the industry, they were given advantages by the governments. So
for example, Telstra couldn't compete with them, they had to
(11:08):
let them get a foothold into the market. So the
Optus network in those days utilized Telstra's network. You kept
your same mobile phone number, same mobile phone. The only
thing that was different with Optus is that your bill
was twenty percent cheaper. And also I had the advantage
of knowing the telecommunications industry in the UK so I
(11:30):
knew what was going to happen, and I was at
a barbecue one night telling a friend, you know, I
don't understand why people are making all this fuss about
having this retail net when it's not about the physical handset,
it's about the network and selling the network. And so
we established this business that you didn't need any stock,
You just needed salespeople that would go around and get
(11:52):
people that were already on Telstra and switch them to
Optus and we got paid for doing that. So we
did that for a couple of years and built up
a recurring revenue base. And then what happened when how
our phone Zone was born was we realized that the
market was changing and that it was becoming consumerized, and
the handset became important, and so you did need to
(12:14):
be in retail. And where do retailers go in Australia.
They go into shopping centers, and that was how phone
Zone was born. So that process that we moved towards
that just seemed very logical to us because we knew
so much about the industry. We had friends in the
UK at that time. We were traveling back to the
UK probably once every eight months because our friends were
(12:36):
getting married and things like that, and we could see
what was happening, so we would come back here and
work out, how is it going to happen in Australia.
Let's start it now. And you know, one of the
best things that we ever did for the Phone Zone
brand was to open up in shopping centers. We were
the first to open and we had fifteen stores before
anybody else started putting mobile phone shops in shopping centers.
(12:59):
So again we got ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yes, I mean it was bold. You probably knew it
was going to work.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, it was bold, it was planned and we had
mitigated a lot of risk.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, okay, great. Can you remember a time during that
period when you're sitting up Phone Zone where you felt
really vulnerable, like where you were sort of, oh god,
I'm feeling bit overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I can absolutely remember. It was about eighteen months after
the first phones at store. And going back to what
I said where I used to think that I was
the only person that could do everything, and if it
wanted to do it right, I could do it myself.
So I literally used to do everything, you know, from
recruitment to accounts payable receivable to payroll to dealing with suppliers.
(13:40):
And I had an eighteen month old baby, and eighteen
months in I was driving home. My husband was driving.
I was in the car, and I turned to him
and I said, I don't want to do this anymore.
We were working seven days a week, five in the
morning till midnight. My son, poor thing, spent his life
in either my office or the storeroom of a retail
(14:02):
store in a little portable car. And he said to
me what he mean. I said, I'm done. I am done.
And we took a week off. And I don't know
what the poor people at the office fat they because
we were always there and they must have thought something's
going on here. And during that week, we basically sat back.
We reflected on everything that we'd done, what we had
(14:25):
to give up, what we thought the opportunities were, and
how do we go forward because the way we were
doing it wasn't good enough. We would kill ourselves. We
were still paying ourselves something like fifty thousand a year,
like we weren't living the CEO business owner lifestyle. We
just decided that we needed to recruit people that were
(14:45):
better at running businesses than what we were. We were entrepreneurs.
We were entrepreneurial. We would come up with the ideas
and our ability to take risk was huge. So we
needed someone that would a stop us going over that line,
going too far, but would also start to build and
shape a proper busines business. And that's what we did.
(15:07):
We went out and our first recruit was a CFO
and that was really a mind changing thing for me,
in particular around the power of a team is so
much greater than the individual.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah. Right, So if you think about vulnerability now in
your life, I talk about vulnerability as and speaking from
the messy middle. You don't have the answers, and I
imagine the beginning of phone zone exactly that moment, right,
You're quite vulnerable to tell your husband, I don't think
I can do this les something different. How comfortable are
you with vulnerability now when things aren't going well?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
It depends who I'm with, and I think if it's
in a work environment, I'm very open around what I
do and don't know. I'm very aware of what I'm
good at, what I'm not good at, and I don't
have any shame in saying I have no idea about that.
I need someone to help me here. I know I'll
pick it up, and i know I've got the smarts
to work through it, but I still need someone to help.
(15:59):
From a vulnerability perspective. As a leader, people do look
to you to pave the way. I always come back
to being honest and saying, look, I don't know either,
give me time and I will find out. Trust me
to have your best interests at heart. And that's how
I've always run the business. I've been very upfront. I've
(16:19):
said to people, even when we went from private to public.
When you're a publicly listed company, you can't tell everybody
everything right because you have to tell your shareholders first.
And I would say to the employees, I can't tell
you that now, but when I can, I will. You
will be the second people to know. And that's just
because I'm under a legislation to do that. And I
(16:41):
used to say to my team, stop treating people like mushrooms.
You know, keep them in the dark and feed them
on bullshit. Yah, don't do that. They're smart, they know
where you're lying to them. Be authentic, Tell them the truth,
even if you know they're not going to want to
hear that, make sure you deliver it in a certain way,
but don't pushy foot around because they're smart enough to
(17:03):
work it out. And so I've always done that, and
there's been a number of instances in the development of
Phone Zone and Vita Group where I've been upfront with
people and it's paid off and it could have you know,
you talk about bold moments as a few bold moments
that we've had where I've gone, oh, should we do this?
But I guess my personal core value set has said no,
this is the right way to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I love that. I mean, I think that's the biggest
thing with people. You don't have to have the answers.
The vunderbility can speak exactly what you just said, being
able to say actually, I don't know, but I come
back to you. I think that's missing so many times
where leaders will just not talk at all, and then
the rumor starts. You lose the narrative then completely. So
I really love that. So Phon Zone began an incredible journey.
Do you sit now as see your Vita group still.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Or you No? No, So the Vida Group's been sold. Yes,
So I'm officially retired, officially retired, but I do dabble.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You do dabble.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I'm a dabbler, so obviously.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Your entire journey would been filled with obstacles and challenges.
But was there a single experience that you think had
the biggest impact on where you're sitting here today.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I think people under estimate the value of having mentors.
I in every life span, I believe we have at
least five mentors and their personal and business. You know,
my grandfather was one of my personal mentors as a
young child, and I'm pretty sure he's the one that
installed work ethic contemty. Now, if I think about business,
(18:24):
When I was in the UK and I was working
in sales, my boss left, an incoming boss came in.
She was a female, and he had given her a
list of the salespeople and by my name was a
big black cross, which meant get rid of her right.
The lady that came in. Her name is Trisha Wilson,
(18:44):
and I often think I wonder what would have happened
to me if she had taken his advice. Luckily for me,
she chose not to take it, and over the next
two to three years we had this real love hate relationship.
I thought she was picking on me and she was
constantly on my back. She would send me to seminars
and I would have come back and present what I've
(19:06):
learned to the other salespeople. And you know, when you're
twenty four and presenting to your peers, that's a big deal.
Well it was in the eighties, yeah, particularly when they're
all older than you. Like I said at the time,
I really thought she's got something in for me. But
the reality was she was developing me, she was mentoring me,
and she made me the leader that I am today.
(19:29):
And I was really fortunate enough her and her husband
came out to Brisbane or maybe fifteen years ago and
I got to say that to her, And now, even
now it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I wanted her to know just what a tremendous impact
she had on me, both professionally but also personally, and
(19:49):
I just wanted her to know that. So that's a
huge thing for me. And I also had another mentor,
my chairman at Vida Group, a gentleman called Dick Simpson.
He was very skilled in handling me the qualities that
it takes to be an entrepreneur, to be a founder
of a business, to get in you know, the trenches
and fight for your business are very different to the
(20:10):
qualities that you need to be a public CEO. And
without him, I would not have been able to achieve that.
He guided me in a lot of areas. And even
you know today he still calls me his polished rough dye.
What he used to call me is rough dimond apparently
now unpolished. Now. I like that.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I like that. Oh that's wonderful. Yeah, mentors, I think
it's a huging and so many people miss out and
don't have those.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, all think it's a wank. You know, they just say,
oh men, oh that's a big wank. They'll just get
me to do stuff that they will let me do.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Maybe it's a time thing or people willing to be
able to do it, or the capacity or whatever it is.
I potentially it's a lot of organizations putting it in
as a program. But I think it's a very very
beneficial thing. It's still a fixed you today.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, I love that, considering the fact that you are
now semi retired. Yes, I think part of resilience, in
my view, is having a clear and defined visual purpose
that you commit to beyond the role you're in now
or the experience you're having. People of fen figure that.
So do you still set long term goals for yourself
now even though that that part of your career is over? Yes?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I do. Yeah, And my kids hate this. So every
New Year's Day, which I know it goes with you know,
resolutions and things like this, but I make them write
down three personal goals, three health goals, three work goals,
three family goals, and then we review them on New
Year's Eve. So we go through that process and it
(21:32):
doesn't matter if you don't achieve them. It's like what
happens to cause you to not achieve them, you know,
And that's what we talk about. I'm very much on
goal setting. I'm a list maker. I'm a prolific list maker,
and I set goals both short term and long term.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah. Amazing. Empathy. I feel like it's one of the
biggest challenges I find in my work for leaders, their
ability to hold space for people's emotions. Do you feel
like empathy is a strong space for you or is
something challenging having been the person at the top all
the time or with the profile you have, Like when
people say Maxine Horn empathetic lead out. Do you think
it comes with what people know of you.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I think it comes as caring. I think they would
say the word caring and is really interested in me
and my career as a person. I feel like even
now I get emails from people at Vita where two
weeks ago I got an email from a gentleman up
in cans who's just taken on his Harvey Norman franchise.
Basically the crux of the email was, I just wanted
(22:31):
to reach out and thank you because if it wasn't
for you, I wouldn't be here today, you know, and
that's what makes me do what I do. You know,
people used to say to me, why do you work?
You don't need to, and I said, well, that's because
you associate work with money. I said, I work for
other things and helping building things. And if that's building
people and helping them with their careers, which subsequently helps
(22:55):
them with their private life, I get a real buzz
out of seeing that. So I think they would say
I'm empathetic to a degree. But then that three strike
rule comes in strong boundaries. If I think you're taking
the piss, yeah, I will also stop that and I
will shut it down, and I've said to people, I'm
going to give you leeway here. You know the three
(23:15):
strike rule. I said, you break that eye will come
down on you like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
But they know where they stand with you.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Absolutely love it. I think that's yes, they all know
exactly where they stand with me. Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Being in the public eye or high profile that of
role has its challenges when being truly authentic all the time, Yeah,
because there's always a fear that if you say what
you really think, or you open up, that you could
be rejected or judged. Do you feel looking back that
you were able to be truly yourself. Have people had
a chance to know this or if you had to
hold back?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I feel there have been instances where when I get
angry and disappointed with people, I really want to tell
them what I think, and I've held back because I've
also been aware that I am getting emotional here, and
at the height of emotion people say things that they
don't really mean. I've chosen to just shut down, and
(24:05):
that's been my way of dealing with it. So there
have been instances where I've wanted to be a little
bit more truthful what I think I've chosen to do.
Of what I've managed to be successful at doing, is
that at a later date, I've been able to come
back to that conversation yeah, and say this happened, and
this happened. I'd just like to explore why, because that
(24:27):
made me really angry, or I was disappointed in that behavior,
or I'd like to understand what caused that from your perspective,
because that wasn't normal. So I've always tried to come back.
There are times in the moment where I haven't been authentic,
but I've tried to readdress it later.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I don't know that you weren't being authentic, though, because
I think it's that both of the Taling backgrounds right
fit fire enough, right.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
The fact that you'll pause to just not let what
I want to say, all the emotion come out with it.
I don't know if that's not authentic. I actually think that's
really great. I think if you come back and still
say what you need to say, but maybe it's calm
and tempered.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I yeah, because I am very aware. I go from
zero to one hundred and two seconds, yeah, but likewise
I go from one hundred to zero in the next
two seconds. And I've moved on, and in the early
days and probably still in some cases at work, I
would move on and I would leave these people that
i'd spoken to absolutely decimated bits and thinking, oh my god,
(25:26):
she hates me, and I A right, no, I don't,
you know. So it's really interesting. I think the biggest
thing as a leader is being very conscious of your traits,
your behaviors and the impact that they can have or
the unintended consequences of them on your team, and being
very aware that I can't do that, you know, And
(25:49):
I used to say to the guys at VITA, I'd say,
people watch what you do more than what they listen
to what you say, So be very conscious of your behavior.
The other thing I talk about is the shadow of
a leader. Your shadow is long and it casts across
your team. They will do what you do.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, oh, great nugget.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I really think that's important. Either you can be honest
with the team about your style and yes, so that
they know that. Hey, sometimes I can get quite passionate.
I'm not upset with you because you're absolutely right. You
could even think everything's fine. Yeah, I think it's a
great nugget. So on the other side of a very
successful career is the fact that you're a mum to
two yes at four, and you're your son and your daughter.
Was being a mum or showing up in the way
(26:31):
you wanted in terms of work, something you had to
sacrifice in order to be successful. How do you balance
at all?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Did I have a whole heap of guilt? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
I was constantly feeling guilty, particularly you know when they
come home and say, oh, the other mums are doing this,
and the other mums were doing that. It's like, oh, okay,
you know, And I went through my speller, doing tuck
shop and reading and all of those things to be
the same as the other mums. I think I was
(26:57):
really fortunate in that it was my business, so I
got to call the rules. My kids would come home
from school after school and they'd come into the office.
They'd sit on a desk, they'd do their home work
in the office. My son grew up in phone zone stores.
I also had the flexibility that, if you know, they
had an assembly and they were getting an award, I
(27:17):
could go in at ten thirty in the morning knowing
that I'd be working till nine that night. Anyway, I
would flex my hours accordingly, and I would show up
to as many things as I could. But there were
times when i'd be traveling, you know. I can remember
instances where I was in the States and I'd get
a call and one of the kids had broken their
(27:37):
arm and that was it. I would just jump on
a plane and come home. And people would say, oh,
why are you doing that. I said, Oh, I just
for me more than anybody. By the time I get there,
they'll be fine because their grandmother's there.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I feel like I was really fortunate enough to, I guess,
set the rules. But what that also enabled me to
do with Vita is to have a lot more compassion
and empathy for working moms because I was going through
it and they'd come and I was so and so sick.
I said, go just go. I know you'll work it up.
As a company, we worked from home before COVID, did you.
(28:11):
We had that work from home policy before COVID, and
it was really aimed at getting mums back to work
and allowing them the flexibility so that they didn't have
this burden of guilt, but I could keep them in
the workplace. Yeah, and particular in my workplace because they
were good, so I think we had quite a very
family friendly We would always have kids running around the office,
(28:33):
delivering things from the copier and things like that. So
it was very much encouraged that if your child's or
you stay home.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I think what I like also here is like the
encouragement for women if you can, or you're driven, or
you're able to think about starting your own business. I
think your points really bang on there. There's a big
difference to when you work for somebody else and you
said obliged those hours, then yes. I think I've spoken
to many women who've said huge sacrifices. I couldn't go
to any of the kids things, I couldn't do that,
(29:00):
And you know, myself running the same thing, it might
be massive hours, but it's my hours, and I think
that's a big valuable thing for women to take it loutly.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, the flexibility that you have around your own business
is huge, particularly when children are involved.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
You know, I love that our Brave Leadership model is
based on the premise that putting yourself in situations that
test you or make you uncomfortable, So what do you
do to get out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Oh well, shark Tank.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I was gonna jump. I'm skipping through my pages here,
but I have to ask about shark Tank because I
know all my listeners want to do that. So firstly,
was that an easy decision to make? Like, how did
they come about?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
No? Basically, they contacted me a few times, and my
first instance was to say, no, my private life's my
private life. I like to stay under the radar. If
I wanted to be out every single night at functions,
I could be, but I just don't do that. It's
not me. I like to have my family life. Yeah,
I treasure it, I love it, and I'll protect it fiercely.
(29:57):
Even when I was CEO of a public listed company
and one of my KPIs was I needed to do
more pr and my chairman always used to say to me,
why aren't you at these functions? Why aren't you doing that?
Why aren't you doing that? And I'd say, because it's
my home life you're approaching on and I don't want
to do that. As the CEO and the sixty percent owner,
I got to have that call. So when they contact me,
(30:18):
the answer is no, and then they come back a
couple of times have a meeting with the producers, and
I said, oh, okay. So I had the meeting with
the producers. I said to them, look, I want to
be really upfront with you. I said, I'm split. I said,
because half of me wants to do it. I feel
I have a lot to share. I've got a lot
of experience. I've made all the mistakes that anybody could make,
(30:39):
and I could help people avoid those. I'm interested to
understand how television works the media side, and I also
want to meet budding entrepreneurs. I feel like entrepreneurs are
the lifeblood of any country and we should be absolutely
supporting them, not just on an individual basis, but on
(30:59):
a national basis and also from government support too. And
then the other side just really does not want to
be on TV. I just don't want to put myself
out there. I don't want people to recognize me. I
don't want any of that. I talked to my family
and I said, lord, let me think about it. Let
me speak to my kids first. Because when my kids
were in school and I used to get into the newspapers,
(31:20):
they hated it because obviously.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
They got teased at school.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
So I went to them and I said, oh, I've
been offered this. What do you guys think? And they
both said that's great. You should do it. And I
said why, thinking you were so against me even having
something in the newspaper in the past. And I said, oh, well,
we're older now and we don't care. And I said,
oh okay. And then I spoke to my husband and
he said, yep, agree. I think it's a fantastic opportunity
(31:44):
for you. You'll be great. And the last thing is
I was at the gym and so I've had the
same personal trainer for fifteen years. Oh wow. I was
chatting to him and he said, you should do it.
I said why. He said, well, Maxine, I've spent the
last ten years. People come up to you in the gym,
they tell you stuff, and you say to them, when
opportunity knocks at your door, you should open it up
(32:05):
and let it in. He said, why aren't you doing
the same thing. And that made me think, yep, I
should practice what I preached, and so I rang them up.
I said, okay, I'm in. But I was really uncomfortable,
and even the first two days of filming, I was uncomfortable.
I felt so out of my depth. But I was
more concerned about doing the right thing by the entrepreneurs. Oh,
(32:26):
and I was taking all the business notes down and.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Because it was pretty quick decision making, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
It was very yes, And I was very interested in
the business and you know, and I was so focused
on them that I kind of forgot about all the
other stuff that we're supposed to be doing. And Robert
Hirschowitch actually came up to me and he said, Maxine,
your problem is you think it's a business show that's
on TV. It's not. It's an entertainment show that happens
(32:51):
to be about business. And that really for me. And
then I started having a bit of fun with it.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, I could say. So when you see people
coming as an entrepreneurs, what's kind of the biggest pitfall
that you seech time? Like when individuals pitch, like, is
this sort of a common mistake that they're making.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
They don't know their numbers. It's not that they don't
know their numbers. We're not all number people, right, But
what that tells me is behind that is that they
don't care that much about whether their business is successful
or not. You know, it's not all consuming. They're not
focused on one hundred percent of the time. They're not
doing this, they're not doing that. It's what that flows
onto as opposed to not knowing the numbers. They're just
(33:32):
drifting in business.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Are you sort of sold now? In the future series,
We're going to see you.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Oh if they do another series, yes, I'd go. Yes.
So it all comes down to viewing chaps, ladies and jens.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So please, everyone loves watching Shark Tank. I mean, do
people feel intimidated? Like is there an element of it?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Can I tell you? I would be absolutely peeing my
pants as an entrepreneur, wouldn't you just panel of walking?
They've got this music that is like Jaws and you
get pummeled of this and during editing they cut it
down a lot, but you're pummeled for forty five minutes
to an hour. Is it that money? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Wow, there's no mercy, is there no?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
You know, someone will ask a question around the financewers
and then one of the other sharks will pick up
on something and it will be a totally different question.
And there are a couple of times where I said,
slow down, let them answer the first question, you know, right, Yeah,
So it would be really nerve wracking and the number
of entrepreneurs that they've practiced and practiced and practiced the
(34:36):
whole pitch.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, amazing. All right, So I want to ask you.
This is going to be curly one. I love giving
a couple of I found this question the other day.
It was from some Harvard psychologists, and every time I
ask it, most people sort of pause, will they answer.
But I'm going to throw it to you. What I
want to know is why should anyone be led by you?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh? Okay. I'm very good at listening to where they
want to take the business, where they want to take
their career, what they're wanting to get out of, and
bringing it back to a realistic goal. And then I'm
very good at having that goal at the back of
my mind in what I'm doing to enable to develop them.
(35:16):
Because you know, I'm a real big believer that people
work because they want to upskill themselves. If you think
about us as human beings, we constantly want to upskill ourselves.
That's why we learn how to drive a car, so
learn to play the piano, learn how to surf. You know,
all of those are skills and it just makes you
a much more rounded human being. I feel that I'm
(35:38):
very good at taking people on that journey and showing
them how much more they've got in themselves than what
they think they have. The number of times are sat
at meetings and yes, I will push you. I will
absolutely push you, and I will make you think that
I'm the worst thing, and you'd wish you'd never ever
met me, because I'll push you way harder than what
you'll ever push yourself. But it's because I know that
(36:00):
you're able to do it, and the number of times
that I've been in meetings and I've said, if only
you guys believed in yourself as much as I do,
So I think that's why I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
So I guess, throughout everything we've talked about today, would
it come down to the fact that you really believe
in yourself as to why you've been able to do
this so well?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah. I remember being interviewed by Journa a few
years ago or twenty eight years ago, and they said,
did you always know you would be successful? Immediately I
said yes, and he said you said that really quickly.
I said, yeah, No, I always knew that i'd be
successful at what I didn't but I knew that when
I finally found my niche, that I would work as
(36:40):
hard as I had to work, and I'd never give
up before I achieved it. And I said, that's just
my mindset.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
So gosh, I resonated with so much. I mean, I'm
much later in life than you. I wish i'd found
my niche at twenty four, but nevertheless at forty. I
think when you do feel like you found it, You're right,
it's kind of unshakable, right, Absolutely, It's not a if
it goes well, it is happening.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I think it's this is going to happen, going to
have hurdles along the way, absolutely, but I know that
I can get over them. Yeah, So I love that well.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I mean I could talk to you forever. I'm going
to finish on one question. If you could go back
then to probably maybe before Maxine leaves the UK, even
what bit of advice would you give her now that
you think might have made the journey even easier. What
did she need to know.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Learn to tell people to fuck off earlier?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Even earlier? Brilliant?
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I think it comes back to that opinions a mother,
everyone's got an opinion. Yeah, most people that have got
an opinion, aren't going through what you're going through, you know,
and haven't got the tenacity, the energy, the desire, the belief.
Why would you care what their opinion is. No, we
do do yeah, So for me it's yeah, learn to
(37:56):
use the big.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Big F a lot earlier.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Love it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I'm going to take that on board. Thank you so much, Magsie.
It's been a pleasure having you here.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Today, no problem. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Thank you, thank
Apoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to another episode of Brave Always, the CEO series.
This series, we launch into the new world of brave leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Happy people create happy businesses.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
True emotionally intelligent leadership. I picked up vomit once on
our about our fourth flight, and everybody thought, well, if
it's good enough for him, I can do it now.
We will be joined by culture and leadership experts and
some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth
behind their brave leadership journeys. Today I'm talking with the
incredible Maxine Horn, self made multimillionaire CEO and founder of
(00:44):
Vita Group. She was the two thousand and six QBR
Businesswoman of the Year, twenty fourteen e Y Entrepreneur of
the Year, and Korea Male business Person of the Year
twenty nineteen. She's a mum to two, my wife and
this year she made her Shark Tank television debut.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Woo.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Maxine's so great to have you here today.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Thank you very much. As a lot wad an entrance,
you know, hope I live after that.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You definitely will so you can't see it behind you,
but obviously we've got your hair and Brave Always Today
and Brave focuses on the five elements of brave leadership
so bold, resilient, authentic, vulnerable, and empathetic. I always like
to sort of touch on how we grow up a
bit in family dynamics because it always shapes a part
of who we are. So I believe, like myself, your parents.
(01:27):
But when you were young and you live with your grandparents,
is that?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yes? Yeah, My grandparents brought me up till I was
abood eleven ah right. My father remarried and then I
moved back to live with him between the ages of eleven, sixteen, seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And that was all in UK, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of change. It's sort of
that young age. So I'm interested to know what you
learn early on about trust because of that dynamic.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Okay, straight into it. That's the last question of the episode,
not the first. I think if you were to say
to you, are you a trusting person? I think I'm
a trustworthy person, but are you a trusting person? The
answer would be no. Yeah, And I often think about
that myself. Why am I super suspicious of things? Constantly?
I always say it's too good to be true? It is,
(02:11):
you know, okay, And I do think it's as a child.
And if you read all these books by you know,
psychologists and people like that, they'll tell you that your
childhood is an imprint on your adult life. I won't
go into that because I don't want to embarrass anybody.
And I also think being a parent now, I know
how hard it is. I know how hard it is
(02:32):
to be on the ball all the time. So who
am I to criticize how I was brought up?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
My parents did the very best they could. My grandparents
did the best they could. But there were times where
as a child, I was pushed from pillar to post.
I was let down and very quickly I grew up.
At about the age of eight, I was very independent.
I sought my own stuff out, and I learned very
early on that if I wanted something, I had to
(03:01):
get at myself. When I was twelve, I lied and
said I was fourteen so I could start working, did
you so I could get money so I could buy
myself stuff because we were poor and we didn't have
enough money to buy the things that my friends had.
And so I realized I have to do this myself.
And even in the business world, when I first started
the business, it was very much I'll do it myself
(03:23):
because I can do it better and I can do
it quicker. And you have to learn that if you
want to scale a business, you've got to let go
of that and you've got to trust people and you've
got to let them do the job. You've got to
hire the expertise and sit back and let them execute
with that expertise. And that was a bit of a
tough lesson for me in the early days. The positive
(03:43):
side is I grew up very quickly. I became super independent,
I became very driven, tenacious, I wouldn't give up, and
all of those skills translated into the business world.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I agree my interview, who hasn't gone through some adversity
to be shaped who they are? So I agree there's
being in the yang of it. But it was just
sort of interesting that trust component of you give out
trust openly and then you give it out without people
having to prove it or do they have to prove.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It to you first? So I have the three strike rule.
Oh yeah, okay, So I give out the trust and
I'll give you three goes.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Once I'll have a conversation with you and I'll say,
how did that happen? I don't understand I did this,
I did this? Tell me if I could have done more. Second,
it's like, what the hell, because now it's starting to
be skill or will you know you don't have the
skill set? Tell me about it and I'll help you,
I'll develop you, or it's a will you just don't
want to do it. And then the third one is
(04:39):
you had two goes at it. You have to go
and whether that's in my personal friendship group, whether it's
in the family, or whether it's at work. I feel
that after three goes you've had enough to prove that
you're not abusing my trust.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
I think that's good boundaries, it's good. I love that
I read in one of the articles that you have
this need to prove yourself was like a big driver,
and how you've shown up in business. I wanted to ask,
obviously how that's helped you. I think we can kind
of see, but also how heavy is that feeling been?
Does it make feeling successful a perpetual in this goal
that you can ever reach? Or have you proven yourself well?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
The answer is the format and I still have it today.
I'm absolutely sure it's come from childhood. I always feel
the need to be better, and as a result of that,
I don't celebrate success when I should. I. In fact,
one of my team members came up to me a
long time ago and we'd hit something like, you know,
(05:36):
seven hundred and fifty million revenue in a year. We
announced it and I said, yep, good, Okay, anyway, let's
get to this meeting going. And he came up to
me afterwards and he said, you need to learn how
to celebrate success. And I said, well, two things. For me,
I never had any doubt that we wouldn't achieve it,
and b I now have the next goal, which is
(05:56):
a billion. So everyone's a juxtaposition, right, But I'm really
no effort or one hundred percent effort. I can't do
eighty percent right, And so as a result, you either
get everything or you get nothing. And I'm constantly aware
of do I have two high expectations on myself? But
then I realized that no, and you get one go
(06:18):
around this world, right, so let's make the most of it.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
What do you like being with self compassion? Like in
Maxine makes a mistake which I don't know if you
make to me?
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Even if you do.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Are you hard on yourself?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yes, okay, yeah, I'm very hard on myself. My husband's
always telling me you are way too hard on yourself. Yeah,
you know. I'll give you an example. We've just come
back from holiday and I've put weight on because I
stopped exercising and I ate being you know, half Italian.
I love food, you know, and you put it in
front of me. I was eating it and I'm now
super critical of that. And he said, you just need
(06:49):
to give yourself a break. I said, no, you know,
and I'm out walking, you know, fifteen k's a day
and all this kind of stuff. But it's just my
mentality and over the years I've learned to deal with it.
What I have learnt to do is pull back and
not transfer that expectation onto others.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Okay, yeah. Do you think that if you're to take
it easy in yourself or give yourself that grace, that
you won't achieve as much? Is the distinct correlation?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yes? Yeah, I'm very much a product of work ethic.
There are way smarter people than me out there, like,
way smarter. But I work hard. I always have done,
and I always will do. You know, the most challenging
thing in my life has been when I sold the
Vida Group and I retired. I really really struggled with that,
(07:35):
and as a result, now I'm doing a whole heap
of other things, and I'm at that point where I'm
very conscious that, hang on, you're almost working full time again.
That wasn't what you wanted. So I have to continually
remind myself what were the goals.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I can imagine that transition for people would be the
biggest one.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah. I actually had other CEOs tell me and give
me advice, and I thought, oh, they don't know what
they're talking about.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
But they did operated that pace was the wrong It's
like it would feel odd. Yeah, all right, Well I'll
go back a little bit here because I think it's
important to cover off some of these big bits. So
going back to nineteen ninety five, having spent a number
of years in telecommunication business, I think it was primary
sales that you were in at that plus you decided
to take the plunge and start your own business. Yes,
phone zone, so selling phones direct to consumers. If I'm right,
(08:20):
you're pregnant at the time as well, Yes, just as
something else, just.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
To challenge yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Do you look back and consider that that was one
of the most bold decisions that you've ever made that moment.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I think the most bold for me was leaving the UK.
So we arrived in Brisbane in nineteen ninety two. When
I lived in the UK, I had a really good
job with Mercury Communications, who are the equivalent to Optists,
so the Challenger brand of the Telco networks was earning
heap of money. Had two houses in London, so I
(08:50):
was very well paid and I worked hard and I
enjoyed London and my husband at the time we got
married and we've been together a couple of years, and
then we started talking about family and I said, oh, look,
I don't want to raise it's in London. He was
from New Zealand, and being the typical palm I thought
that everywhere in New Zealand, in fact, all of Australia
(09:13):
is like Brisbane. So you can imagine my shock when
we got to Auckland and it was blowing us southerly
and I just said, I'm not living here.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Because he flew all the way there and there we
came over for the Commonweth Games to test it out
and to see his family and we arrived in Auckland
and it was dreadful weather and I just said, I'm
not moving here, and he said why.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I said, Oh, if I wanted to live in a cold, wet,
windy city, I'd stay in London. And then, as luck
would have it, we actually came via Brisbane and we
had an eight hour stopover in Brisbane and instead of
staying in the airport, we came out, grabbed a taxi
and said take us to the nearest swimming pool and
he actually took us to Centenariy swimming Pool on Gregory.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Tailor that's from Hill.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, you're right, And we stayed there for six hours
and the weather was gorgeous. Right. And when people say
to us, what made you move to Brisbane? I go
Centenary Baths on spring Hill.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Wow. Yeah, don't you know?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Like, because I'm a real believer in fate, And I
think like, if we'd have gone to New Zealand and
they had a great in Auckland and the day we arrived,
or even the week we arrived, the weather was great,
we'd probably be in New Zealand now, yeah, you know,
Or if we hadn't had an eight hour stopover, in Brisbane. Yeah,
and did what we did. We wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
But obviously because if he's from New Zealand, you're from
UK nine, if you had any family or friends here
and you're really starting fresh, absolutely yeah, absolutely, Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
So that was probably the boldest thing that we did.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Okay, So starting phone Zone, the point that you started that,
was this a moment where you took a leader. Did
you weigh up all the rest because obviously you were
entering quite a new market before phones.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And we had a company called Queenslan Network Options, which
was an Optu stealer. I'd come over, I'd got transferred
and I took up a job with Optus Communications. When
they very first started, and when they first started in
the industry, they were given advantages by the governments. So
for example, Telstra couldn't compete with them, they had to
(11:08):
let them get a foothold into the market. So the
Optus network in those days utilized Telstra's network. You kept
your same mobile phone number, same mobile phone. The only
thing that was different with Optus is that your bill
was twenty percent cheaper. And also I had the advantage
of knowing the telecommunications industry in the UK so I
(11:30):
knew what was going to happen, and I was at
a barbecue one night telling a friend, you know, I
don't understand why people are making all this fuss about
having this retail net when it's not about the physical handset,
it's about the network and selling the network. And so
we established this business that you didn't need any stock,
You just needed salespeople that would go around and get
(11:52):
people that were already on Telstra and switch them to
Optus and we got paid for doing that. So we
did that for a couple of years and built up
a recurring revenue base. And then what happened when how
our phone Zone was born was we realized that the
market was changing and that it was becoming consumerized, and
the handset became important, and so you did need to
(12:14):
be in retail. And where do retailers go in Australia.
They go into shopping centers, and that was how phone
Zone was born. So that process that we moved towards
that just seemed very logical to us because we knew
so much about the industry. We had friends in the
UK at that time. We were traveling back to the
UK probably once every eight months because our friends were
(12:36):
getting married and things like that, and we could see
what was happening, so we would come back here and
work out, how is it going to happen in Australia.
Let's start it now. And you know, one of the
best things that we ever did for the Phone Zone
brand was to open up in shopping centers. We were
the first to open and we had fifteen stores before
anybody else started putting mobile phone shops in shopping centers.
(12:59):
So again we got ahead of the curve.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yes, I mean it was bold. You probably knew it
was going to work.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, it was bold, it was planned and we had
mitigated a lot of risk.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, okay, great. Can you remember a time during that
period when you're sitting up Phone Zone where you felt
really vulnerable, like where you were sort of, oh god,
I'm feeling bit overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I can absolutely remember. It was about eighteen months after
the first phones at store. And going back to what
I said where I used to think that I was
the only person that could do everything, and if it
wanted to do it right, I could do it myself.
So I literally used to do everything, you know, from
recruitment to accounts payable receivable to payroll to dealing with suppliers.
(13:40):
And I had an eighteen month old baby, and eighteen
months in I was driving home. My husband was driving.
I was in the car, and I turned to him
and I said, I don't want to do this anymore.
We were working seven days a week, five in the
morning till midnight. My son, poor thing, spent his life
in either my office or the storeroom of a retail
(14:02):
store in a little portable car. And he said to
me what he mean. I said, I'm done. I am done.
And we took a week off. And I don't know
what the poor people at the office fat they because
we were always there and they must have thought something's
going on here. And during that week, we basically sat back.
We reflected on everything that we'd done, what we had
(14:25):
to give up, what we thought the opportunities were, and
how do we go forward because the way we were
doing it wasn't good enough. We would kill ourselves. We
were still paying ourselves something like fifty thousand a year,
like we weren't living the CEO business owner lifestyle. We
just decided that we needed to recruit people that were
(14:45):
better at running businesses than what we were. We were entrepreneurs.
We were entrepreneurial. We would come up with the ideas
and our ability to take risk was huge. So we
needed someone that would a stop us going over that line,
going too far, but would also start to build and
shape a proper busines business. And that's what we did.
(15:07):
We went out and our first recruit was a CFO
and that was really a mind changing thing for me,
in particular around the power of a team is so
much greater than the individual.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah. Right, So if you think about vulnerability now in
your life, I talk about vulnerability as and speaking from
the messy middle. You don't have the answers, and I
imagine the beginning of phone zone exactly that moment, right,
You're quite vulnerable to tell your husband, I don't think
I can do this les something different. How comfortable are
you with vulnerability now when things aren't going well?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
It depends who I'm with, and I think if it's
in a work environment, I'm very open around what I
do and don't know. I'm very aware of what I'm
good at, what I'm not good at, and I don't
have any shame in saying I have no idea about that.
I need someone to help me here. I know I'll
pick it up, and i know I've got the smarts
to work through it, but I still need someone to help.
(15:59):
From a vulnerability perspective. As a leader, people do look
to you to pave the way. I always come back
to being honest and saying, look, I don't know either,
give me time and I will find out. Trust me
to have your best interests at heart. And that's how
I've always run the business. I've been very upfront. I've
(16:19):
said to people, even when we went from private to public.
When you're a publicly listed company, you can't tell everybody
everything right because you have to tell your shareholders first.
And I would say to the employees, I can't tell
you that now, but when I can, I will. You
will be the second people to know. And that's just
because I'm under a legislation to do that. And I
(16:41):
used to say to my team, stop treating people like mushrooms.
You know, keep them in the dark and feed them
on bullshit. Yah, don't do that. They're smart, they know
where you're lying to them. Be authentic, Tell them the truth,
even if you know they're not going to want to
hear that, make sure you deliver it in a certain way,
but don't pushy foot around because they're smart enough to
(17:03):
work it out. And so I've always done that, and
there's been a number of instances in the development of
Phone Zone and Vita Group where I've been upfront with
people and it's paid off and it could have you know,
you talk about bold moments as a few bold moments
that we've had where I've gone, oh, should we do this?
But I guess my personal core value set has said no,
this is the right way to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I love that. I mean, I think that's the biggest
thing with people. You don't have to have the answers.
The vunderbility can speak exactly what you just said, being
able to say actually, I don't know, but I come
back to you. I think that's missing so many times
where leaders will just not talk at all, and then
the rumor starts. You lose the narrative then completely. So
I really love that. So Phon Zone began an incredible journey.
Do you sit now as see your Vita group still.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Or you No? No, So the Vida Group's been sold. Yes,
So I'm officially retired, officially retired, but I do dabble.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You do dabble.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I'm a dabbler, so obviously.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Your entire journey would been filled with obstacles and challenges.
But was there a single experience that you think had
the biggest impact on where you're sitting here today.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I think people under estimate the value of having mentors.
I in every life span, I believe we have at
least five mentors and their personal and business. You know,
my grandfather was one of my personal mentors as a
young child, and I'm pretty sure he's the one that
installed work ethic contemty. Now, if I think about business,
(18:24):
When I was in the UK and I was working
in sales, my boss left, an incoming boss came in.
She was a female, and he had given her a
list of the salespeople and by my name was a
big black cross, which meant get rid of her right.
The lady that came in. Her name is Trisha Wilson,
(18:44):
and I often think I wonder what would have happened
to me if she had taken his advice. Luckily for me,
she chose not to take it, and over the next
two to three years we had this real love hate relationship.
I thought she was picking on me and she was
constantly on my back. She would send me to seminars
and I would have come back and present what I've
(19:06):
learned to the other salespeople. And you know, when you're
twenty four and presenting to your peers, that's a big deal.
Well it was in the eighties, yeah, particularly when they're
all older than you. Like I said at the time,
I really thought she's got something in for me. But
the reality was she was developing me, she was mentoring me,
and she made me the leader that I am today.
(19:29):
And I was really fortunate enough her and her husband
came out to Brisbane or maybe fifteen years ago and
I got to say that to her, And now, even
now it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I wanted her to know just what a tremendous impact
she had on me, both professionally but also personally, and
(19:49):
I just wanted her to know that. So that's a
huge thing for me. And I also had another mentor,
my chairman at Vida Group, a gentleman called Dick Simpson.
He was very skilled in handling me the qualities that
it takes to be an entrepreneur, to be a founder
of a business, to get in you know, the trenches
and fight for your business are very different to the
(20:10):
qualities that you need to be a public CEO. And
without him, I would not have been able to achieve that.
He guided me in a lot of areas. And even
you know today he still calls me his polished rough dye.
What he used to call me is rough dimond apparently
now unpolished. Now. I like that.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I like that. Oh that's wonderful. Yeah, mentors, I think
it's a huging and so many people miss out and
don't have those.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, all think it's a wank. You know, they just say,
oh men, oh that's a big wank. They'll just get
me to do stuff that they will let me do.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Maybe it's a time thing or people willing to be
able to do it, or the capacity or whatever it is.
I potentially it's a lot of organizations putting it in
as a program. But I think it's a very very
beneficial thing. It's still a fixed you today.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, I love that, considering the fact that you are
now semi retired. Yes, I think part of resilience, in
my view, is having a clear and defined visual purpose
that you commit to beyond the role you're in now
or the experience you're having. People of fen figure that.
So do you still set long term goals for yourself
now even though that that part of your career is over? Yes?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I do. Yeah, And my kids hate this. So every
New Year's Day, which I know it goes with you know,
resolutions and things like this, but I make them write
down three personal goals, three health goals, three work goals,
three family goals, and then we review them on New
Year's Eve. So we go through that process and it
(21:32):
doesn't matter if you don't achieve them. It's like what
happens to cause you to not achieve them, you know,
And that's what we talk about. I'm very much on
goal setting. I'm a list maker. I'm a prolific list maker,
and I set goals both short term and long term.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah. Amazing. Empathy. I feel like it's one of the
biggest challenges I find in my work for leaders, their
ability to hold space for people's emotions. Do you feel
like empathy is a strong space for you or is
something challenging having been the person at the top all
the time or with the profile you have, Like when
people say Maxine Horn empathetic lead out. Do you think
it comes with what people know of you.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
I think it comes as caring. I think they would
say the word caring and is really interested in me
and my career as a person. I feel like even
now I get emails from people at Vita where two
weeks ago I got an email from a gentleman up
in cans who's just taken on his Harvey Norman franchise.
Basically the crux of the email was, I just wanted
(22:31):
to reach out and thank you because if it wasn't
for you, I wouldn't be here today, you know, and
that's what makes me do what I do. You know,
people used to say to me, why do you work?
You don't need to, and I said, well, that's because
you associate work with money. I said, I work for
other things and helping building things. And if that's building
people and helping them with their careers, which subsequently helps
(22:55):
them with their private life, I get a real buzz
out of seeing that. So I think they would say
I'm empathetic to a degree. But then that three strike
rule comes in strong boundaries. If I think you're taking
the piss, yeah, I will also stop that and I
will shut it down, and I've said to people, I'm
going to give you leeway here. You know the three
(23:15):
strike rule. I said, you break that eye will come
down on you like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
But they know where they stand with you.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Absolutely love it. I think that's yes, they all know
exactly where they stand with me. Yeah. I love that.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Being in the public eye or high profile that of
role has its challenges when being truly authentic all the time, Yeah,
because there's always a fear that if you say what
you really think, or you open up, that you could
be rejected or judged. Do you feel looking back that
you were able to be truly yourself. Have people had
a chance to know this or if you had to
hold back?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I feel there have been instances where when I get
angry and disappointed with people, I really want to tell
them what I think, and I've held back because I've
also been aware that I am getting emotional here, and
at the height of emotion people say things that they
don't really mean. I've chosen to just shut down, and
(24:05):
that's been my way of dealing with it. So there
have been instances where I've wanted to be a little
bit more truthful what I think I've chosen to do.
Of what I've managed to be successful at doing, is
that at a later date, I've been able to come
back to that conversation yeah, and say this happened, and
this happened. I'd just like to explore why, because that
(24:27):
made me really angry, or I was disappointed in that behavior,
or I'd like to understand what caused that from your perspective,
because that wasn't normal. So I've always tried to come back.
There are times in the moment where I haven't been authentic,
but I've tried to readdress it later.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I don't know that you weren't being authentic, though, because
I think it's that both of the Taling backgrounds right
fit fire enough, right.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
The fact that you'll pause to just not let what
I want to say, all the emotion come out with it.
I don't know if that's not authentic. I actually think that's
really great. I think if you come back and still
say what you need to say, but maybe it's calm
and tempered.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I yeah, because I am very aware. I go from
zero to one hundred and two seconds, yeah, but likewise
I go from one hundred to zero in the next
two seconds. And I've moved on, and in the early
days and probably still in some cases at work, I
would move on and I would leave these people that
i'd spoken to absolutely decimated bits and thinking, oh my god,
(25:26):
she hates me, and I A right, no, I don't,
you know. So it's really interesting. I think the biggest
thing as a leader is being very conscious of your traits,
your behaviors and the impact that they can have or
the unintended consequences of them on your team, and being
very aware that I can't do that, you know, And
(25:49):
I used to say to the guys at VITA, I'd say,
people watch what you do more than what they listen
to what you say, So be very conscious of your behavior.
The other thing I talk about is the shadow of
a leader. Your shadow is long and it casts across
your team. They will do what you do.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, oh, great nugget.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I really think that's important. Either you can be honest
with the team about your style and yes, so that
they know that. Hey, sometimes I can get quite passionate.
I'm not upset with you because you're absolutely right. You
could even think everything's fine. Yeah, I think it's a
great nugget. So on the other side of a very
successful career is the fact that you're a mum to
two yes at four, and you're your son and your daughter.
Was being a mum or showing up in the way
(26:31):
you wanted in terms of work, something you had to
sacrifice in order to be successful. How do you balance
at all?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Did I have a whole heap of guilt? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
I was constantly feeling guilty, particularly you know when they
come home and say, oh, the other mums are doing this,
and the other mums were doing that. It's like, oh, okay,
you know, And I went through my speller, doing tuck
shop and reading and all of those things to be
the same as the other mums. I think I was
(26:57):
really fortunate in that it was my business, so I
got to call the rules. My kids would come home
from school after school and they'd come into the office.
They'd sit on a desk, they'd do their home work
in the office. My son grew up in phone zone stores.
I also had the flexibility that, if you know, they
had an assembly and they were getting an award, I
(27:17):
could go in at ten thirty in the morning knowing
that I'd be working till nine that night. Anyway, I
would flex my hours accordingly, and I would show up
to as many things as I could. But there were
times when i'd be traveling, you know. I can remember
instances where I was in the States and I'd get
a call and one of the kids had broken their
(27:37):
arm and that was it. I would just jump on
a plane and come home. And people would say, oh,
why are you doing that. I said, Oh, I just
for me more than anybody. By the time I get there,
they'll be fine because their grandmother's there.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I feel like I was really fortunate enough to, I guess,
set the rules. But what that also enabled me to
do with Vita is to have a lot more compassion
and empathy for working moms because I was going through
it and they'd come and I was so and so sick.
I said, go just go. I know you'll work it up.
As a company, we worked from home before COVID, did you.
(28:11):
We had that work from home policy before COVID, and
it was really aimed at getting mums back to work
and allowing them the flexibility so that they didn't have
this burden of guilt, but I could keep them in
the workplace. Yeah, and particular in my workplace because they
were good, so I think we had quite a very
family friendly We would always have kids running around the office,
(28:33):
delivering things from the copier and things like that. So
it was very much encouraged that if your child's or
you stay home.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I think what I like also here is like the
encouragement for women if you can, or you're driven, or
you're able to think about starting your own business. I
think your points really bang on there. There's a big
difference to when you work for somebody else and you
said obliged those hours, then yes. I think I've spoken
to many women who've said huge sacrifices. I couldn't go
to any of the kids things, I couldn't do that,
(29:00):
And you know, myself running the same thing, it might
be massive hours, but it's my hours, and I think
that's a big valuable thing for women to take it loutly.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, the flexibility that you have around your own business
is huge, particularly when children are involved.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
You know, I love that our Brave Leadership model is
based on the premise that putting yourself in situations that
test you or make you uncomfortable, So what do you
do to get out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Oh well, shark Tank.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I was gonna jump. I'm skipping through my pages here,
but I have to ask about shark Tank because I
know all my listeners want to do that. So firstly,
was that an easy decision to make? Like, how did
they come about?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
No? Basically, they contacted me a few times, and my
first instance was to say, no, my private life's my
private life. I like to stay under the radar. If
I wanted to be out every single night at functions,
I could be, but I just don't do that. It's
not me. I like to have my family life. Yeah,
I treasure it, I love it, and I'll protect it fiercely.
(29:57):
Even when I was CEO of a public listed company
and one of my KPIs was I needed to do
more pr and my chairman always used to say to me,
why aren't you at these functions? Why aren't you doing that?
Why aren't you doing that? And I'd say, because it's
my home life you're approaching on and I don't want
to do that. As the CEO and the sixty percent owner,
I got to have that call. So when they contact me,
(30:18):
the answer is no, and then they come back a
couple of times have a meeting with the producers, and
I said, oh, okay. So I had the meeting with
the producers. I said to them, look, I want to
be really upfront with you. I said, I'm split. I said,
because half of me wants to do it. I feel
I have a lot to share. I've got a lot
of experience. I've made all the mistakes that anybody could make,
(30:39):
and I could help people avoid those. I'm interested to
understand how television works the media side, and I also
want to meet budding entrepreneurs. I feel like entrepreneurs are
the lifeblood of any country and we should be absolutely
supporting them, not just on an individual basis, but on
(30:59):
a national basis and also from government support too. And
then the other side just really does not want to
be on TV. I just don't want to put myself
out there. I don't want people to recognize me. I
don't want any of that. I talked to my family
and I said, lord, let me think about it. Let
me speak to my kids first. Because when my kids
were in school and I used to get into the newspapers,
(31:20):
they hated it because obviously.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
They got teased at school.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
So I went to them and I said, oh, I've
been offered this. What do you guys think? And they
both said that's great. You should do it. And I
said why, thinking you were so against me even having
something in the newspaper in the past. And I said, oh, well,
we're older now and we don't care. And I said,
oh okay. And then I spoke to my husband and
he said, yep, agree. I think it's a fantastic opportunity
(31:44):
for you. You'll be great. And the last thing is
I was at the gym and so I've had the
same personal trainer for fifteen years. Oh wow. I was
chatting to him and he said, you should do it.
I said why. He said, well, Maxine, I've spent the
last ten years. People come up to you in the gym,
they tell you stuff, and you say to them, when
opportunity knocks at your door, you should open it up
(32:05):
and let it in. He said, why aren't you doing
the same thing. And that made me think, yep, I
should practice what I preached, and so I rang them up.
I said, okay, I'm in. But I was really uncomfortable,
and even the first two days of filming, I was uncomfortable.
I felt so out of my depth. But I was
more concerned about doing the right thing by the entrepreneurs. Oh,
(32:26):
and I was taking all the business notes down and.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Because it was pretty quick decision making, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
It was very yes, And I was very interested in
the business and you know, and I was so focused
on them that I kind of forgot about all the
other stuff that we're supposed to be doing. And Robert
Hirschowitch actually came up to me and he said, Maxine,
your problem is you think it's a business show that's
on TV. It's not. It's an entertainment show that happens
(32:51):
to be about business. And that really for me. And
then I started having a bit of fun with it.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, I could say. So when you see people
coming as an entrepreneurs, what's kind of the biggest pitfall
that you seech time? Like when individuals pitch, like, is
this sort of a common mistake that they're making.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
They don't know their numbers. It's not that they don't
know their numbers. We're not all number people, right, But
what that tells me is behind that is that they
don't care that much about whether their business is successful
or not. You know, it's not all consuming. They're not
focused on one hundred percent of the time. They're not
doing this, they're not doing that. It's what that flows
onto as opposed to not knowing the numbers. They're just
(33:32):
drifting in business.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Are you sort of sold now? In the future series,
We're going to see you.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Oh if they do another series, yes, I'd go. Yes.
So it all comes down to viewing chaps, ladies and jens.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So please, everyone loves watching Shark Tank. I mean, do
people feel intimidated? Like is there an element of it?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Can I tell you? I would be absolutely peeing my
pants as an entrepreneur, wouldn't you just panel of walking?
They've got this music that is like Jaws and you
get pummeled of this and during editing they cut it
down a lot, but you're pummeled for forty five minutes
to an hour. Is it that money? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Wow, there's no mercy, is there no?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
You know, someone will ask a question around the financewers
and then one of the other sharks will pick up
on something and it will be a totally different question.
And there are a couple of times where I said,
slow down, let them answer the first question, you know, right, Yeah,
So it would be really nerve wracking and the number
of entrepreneurs that they've practiced and practiced and practiced the
(34:36):
whole pitch.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, amazing. All right, So I want to ask you.
This is going to be curly one. I love giving
a couple of I found this question the other day.
It was from some Harvard psychologists, and every time I
ask it, most people sort of pause, will they answer.
But I'm going to throw it to you. What I
want to know is why should anyone be led by you?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh? Okay. I'm very good at listening to where they
want to take the business, where they want to take
their career, what they're wanting to get out of, and
bringing it back to a realistic goal. And then I'm
very good at having that goal at the back of
my mind in what I'm doing to enable to develop them.
(35:16):
Because you know, I'm a real big believer that people
work because they want to upskill themselves. If you think
about us as human beings, we constantly want to upskill ourselves.
That's why we learn how to drive a car, so
learn to play the piano, learn how to surf. You know,
all of those are skills and it just makes you
a much more rounded human being. I feel that I'm
(35:38):
very good at taking people on that journey and showing
them how much more they've got in themselves than what
they think they have. The number of times are sat
at meetings and yes, I will push you. I will
absolutely push you, and I will make you think that
I'm the worst thing, and you'd wish you'd never ever
met me, because I'll push you way harder than what
you'll ever push yourself. But it's because I know that
(36:00):
you're able to do it, and the number of times
that I've been in meetings and I've said, if only
you guys believed in yourself as much as I do,
So I think that's why I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
So I guess, throughout everything we've talked about today, would
it come down to the fact that you really believe
in yourself as to why you've been able to do
this so well?
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah. I remember being interviewed by Journa a few
years ago or twenty eight years ago, and they said,
did you always know you would be successful? Immediately I
said yes, and he said you said that really quickly.
I said, yeah, No, I always knew that i'd be
successful at what I didn't but I knew that when
I finally found my niche, that I would work as
(36:40):
hard as I had to work, and I'd never give
up before I achieved it. And I said, that's just
my mindset.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
So gosh, I resonated with so much. I mean, I'm
much later in life than you. I wish i'd found
my niche at twenty four, but nevertheless at forty. I
think when you do feel like you found it, You're right,
it's kind of unshakable, right, Absolutely, It's not a if
it goes well, it is happening.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I think it's this is going to happen, going to
have hurdles along the way, absolutely, but I know that
I can get over them. Yeah, So I love that well.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I mean I could talk to you forever. I'm going
to finish on one question. If you could go back
then to probably maybe before Maxine leaves the UK, even
what bit of advice would you give her now that
you think might have made the journey even easier. What
did she need to know.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Learn to tell people to fuck off earlier?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Even earlier? Brilliant?
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I think it comes back to that opinions a mother,
everyone's got an opinion. Yeah, most people that have got
an opinion, aren't going through what you're going through, you know,
and haven't got the tenacity, the energy, the desire, the belief.
Why would you care what their opinion is. No, we
do do yeah, So for me it's yeah, learn to
(37:56):
use the big.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Big F a lot earlier.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Love it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I'm going to take that on board. Thank you so much, Magsie.
It's been a pleasure having you here.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Today, no problem. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Thank you, thank
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