Believing in Miracles // Living Your Dreams, Part 13

Anyone who sets out to follow a dream, soon discovers that they need a miracle or two along the way. In today’s program I’m joined once again by a special guest – Peter Irvine the former Managing Director of Gloria Jeans Coffees.

I'm joined by Peter Irvine, the Managing Director of Gloria Jeans Coffee. Ten years ago, Peter and his business partner, Nabi, had this crazy dream of opening a chain of coffee shops across Australia. And today there are over 250 Gloria Jeans Coffee shops right across the country. And, in fact, they've taken over the brand worldwide. It's easy for us to sit here, at this end of the equation and assume, “Wow! These guys are so successful, they must have had a dream all along the way. The whole thing must have been so well-planned that it just locked in brilliantly along the way.” Was that the case, Peter?

Peter Irvine: Well, we would have loved for it to have been like that. But, in fact, Jesus never promised that we wouldn't face problems or obstacles. He said He'd find a way through them with us.

Berni Dymet: What was the first crisis you hit? You know, you opened the first store in Miranda, I believe, in the southern suburbs of Sydney, I believe and then fairly quickly thereafter in the eastern suburbs of East Gardens.

Peter Irvine: That's right.

Berni Dymet: OK, you open a couple of stores. You are serving coffee. What happens?

Peter Irvine: Well, there are a number of obstacles you come up against. One of them is always cash flow in business—and that's in the early days. But even today it can be an issue unless it's being managed really carefully, the whole business. Secondly, you have people who don't want to deal with you because they don't think you are going to amount to anything; you won't succeed; you're going to fail, so, they don't want to be involved with you. That's changed today, now, they want to get on board. But we looked for partners who are part of the family. We see the whole business as a family; and who want to be with us, you know, long term. And if they are in for the short ride, they are not being part of the journey. But that's one issue. Then in 2002 we had a fire. It burned our whole building down.

Berni Dymet: That would have been fabulous!

Peter Irvine: It was. At eight minutes past midnight I got the call. I thought I was still dreaming. The whole building, our training, our support, our roasting and all our supply burned to the ground, it took three days to burn. You stand in the car park and say, "God, we have 92 stores open, what's Your plan, because I haven't any?” And He started to remind me of some of the stock we've got based elsewhere. We could fly stuff in. And we've got the people, which was the Henry Ford story we spoke about yesterday, I heard that two weeks before the fire. So, we started to rebuild. Within 24 hours, we were starting to supply stock to stores. Our competitors and the media all thought we would close up. That never entered my head; it was just, “Hey, we've got a big obstacle. How do we get through it.” One of the key things is I believe in miracles because I've seen it in business where God brings people, brings situations, changes peoples hearts that need to be changed. It might outside your dealing with people, but their hearts need changed and you see a whole turn around.

We have just seen it again this weekend in a major thing in South Africa since taking on the business.

Berni Dymet: Even early on you struggled…cash flow was an issue. I remember hearing you once speak at a conference where you talked about the fact that you were getting out of business by the next Friday if something didn't work.

Peter Irvine: That's right.

Berni Dymet: What was God's role in that? I mean how did God get involved in that?

Peter Irvine: Well, during my morning walk and jog, I was saying to the Lord, "It's about time something happened, like now, because we aren't going to last past the next couple of days.” And it was within a couple of days that we got a call from someone who wanted to become our first franchisee, knew we were struggling and said, "I'm prepared to work with you through all the risks and whatever." We were reluctant to do that. It's not the way we want to do business. But he kept insisting so he came on board; and he helped build the brand; and we moved on from that stage. You see, when I was in my thirties, it was one Sunday afternoon; I remember it. I was having a time with the Lord; and I sensed there was something in my spirit saying, "You really realize that your Bible is very small." And I said, "Lord, what do you mean?" And He said, "Well, you are mentally crossing out verses and chapters and books because people have been telling you and books you've