S1:E9 - Retail Reinvention with John Hughes Former CEO of Thorn Group Limited - Digital Discovery Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
John, thank you again so much for joining the show today.

(00:14):
Not a problem.
What I thought we could do is we start a bit about your history in retail.
One of the things I thought I would start off by saying is that one of the things about
reinventing businesses, etc., is also about reinventing yourself.
Because they are two things that are closely aligned that people can come across challenges

(00:35):
in their lives, etc.
My dad was born in 1906.
He was 46 when I was born.
He had a really interesting career growing up in western Queensland, doing driving, etc.
Then he started in menswear stores and different other things.

(00:56):
Although when the Cracker Gold Rush started, he went out there with a general store and
also took some changes in life with the Depression where he decided to get out of menswear and
other things and get into providing food, which was absolutely essential.

(01:16):
But he had a very unhappy marriage.
He made a lot of money.
When the war came along, he joined up and became one of the first commandos.
He actually was quite depressed at the time and didn't care if he didn't come back.
A lot of the commandos, well, they were all told that their chances of coming back were

(01:37):
very, very slim indeed.
Anyway, he did make it, came back from the war, found that his first wife had cleared
off with somebody else.
You might say he was a bit down in the dumps.
Yeah, he was well and truly depressed.
But he moved to Sydney, stayed with his sister in Bondi and met my mum who was 22 years younger

(01:59):
than him.
And literally from 1946, so he was 40 years of age, he restarted life and reinvented himself.
And he then went on to different other jobs, but the one that he really loved doing and

(02:21):
also created some great innovative ideas was joining a company called Rubeneff Scarves.
And he and Ruben became very close friends.
But a really interesting part that linked his life there with the army and the commandos
is that one of the youngest guys, because he was apparently the oldest in the commandos

(02:43):
and this other guy, Alan Huntington, right at the youngest end of it.
Anyway, Alan's family had a suit manufacturing organisation, dad working at Ruben Scarves.
And he came up with this idea that instead of buying through wholesalers that was so
much about the industry at that time in retail, you didn't have the close relationships that

(03:09):
there are today with the manufacturers.
So he came up with the idea, well, why don't we buy the fabric directly from the woolen
mills, John Foster, etc.
And then Alan's factory could make it and do it a lot cheaper price to bring into store.
Now people said, well, oh, this is great, we can sell them so much cheaper.

(03:31):
And they said, no, we shouldn't do that.
It just values the product.
We keep the product at the same price as elsewhere, other retailers.
But what we'll do is give another suit away for free or sports coat, trousers, shoes,
socks, etc.
And it went absolute gangbusters and did two things.

(03:52):
One it grew that business enormously.
Number two, though, it really started to put the first nail in the coffin of wholesaling
because other retailers thought, why are we dealing through these wholesalers who are
making a margin on the way through?
So it was a complete change that he created within the industry on two fronts.

(04:14):
The other thing that was, I guess you could say innovative at the time, is that yes, they
would carry a range of shoes in stock.
And I just use that as one example or shirts from a company called Paramount or Whitman.
Anyway with this two suits or the, well, the suit plus the other accessories, he would
go to people like Paramount or McMurtry shoes and buy all their ends of ranges at a much

(04:40):
reduced price.
And of course, if a salesman was able to give one of those away, rather than the fully priced
products, they got a bit of extra commission.
Same quality product.
Yeah, yeah, it's just end of line.
And that relates to something I did later on in life.
Anyway, I went to work with my dad from the age of eight, being much older than me.

(05:07):
He wasn't really into taking the school sports and whatever.
And also we lived on acres out at Moorbank and where I could even occasionally ride my
horse to school at Chipping Norton.
You couldn't do it today.
But I was my dad's off-sider and I really took the business.
And so on Saturday mornings from the age of eight, I'd go in to their school holidays,

(05:32):
particularly the Royal Easter show.
I'd go in there with the microphone and sell the details of aqua rising on the suits, which
was the 3M product.
Oh, okay.
Like a Scotch guard, was it?
Which dad negotiated exclusive rights for Australia.
Wow.
So yeah, but the scarf organization let that go at some other time after dad had retired.

(05:57):
Anyway, so my first thing into retail, etc. was with this entrepreneurial dad who unfortunately
did suffer from manic depression or now bipolar.
So during the good times, he could take on the world.
During the bad times, wouldn't want to get out of bed.

(06:18):
But anyway, it was a fabulous time.
But as I said, other kids on school holidays, go off to camps, whatever.
What did I do?
I'd go and work in the stores.
So which led me to after I became disillusioned after one term at university following high
school, now I'm going to go into retail with dad.

(06:40):
Went into there, ended up as a store manager at 20.
And I started my own little bit of entrepreneurship and doing designing of menswear, etc.
But I also started fashion shows and tied up with a local ladieswear organization.

(07:00):
And so doing I do the MC and then get guys, some of their staff involved to do the menswear
modeling and the Bell Star ladies would get the girls in and it was a cracker.
It was a great way of lifting brand, etc.
However, the downside was when you work for somebody as a father, you can become overtaken

(07:24):
by their image.
And I had to get out after a couple of years because I was never going to be John.
I was always going to be Con's son.
So that time I joined Grace Brothers and I was very lucky.
Michael Grace was the HR director at the time.
And I then started on a journey holding on to the shirt tiles of a guy called Roger Corbett,

(07:46):
who was my first real boss after orientation.
We opened up Waringham All Store and I learned a lot off Roger.
Most of my time, my 10 years with Grace Brothers was working with Roger and what a great time
that was.
An important part for people to think about, you see retailers, oh, sorry, department stores

(08:09):
today and they're literally only fashion stores.
You know, that's it.
Men's wear, ladies wear, kids wear, etc.
Back in that time, we had hardware, records.
The range of Manchester was just fantastic, toys, etc.
A supermarket.
So half of the ground floor of today's Grace Brothers Waringham All was a supermarket.

(08:34):
But over a period of time, what happened, we had consultants come in who said, oh no,
you can get much better return per square foot by getting rid of this, getting rid of
that.
And I think that was really the start of the downfall of department stores because they
just started to get rid of this, get rid of that and just changed.
In fact, what was the department store of then is now the Westfields of today.

(08:59):
Yeah, so true.
And an interesting backstory is Mr. Lowe bought or convinced the Grace Brothers board to sell
their stores to him.
Yeah, right.
Which were Chatswood, oh well, they weren't the stores.
I mean, there was Chatswood, Parramatta, Bondi, a number of them.

(09:27):
So they were, if you like, the Westfields of the time.
That's right.
You guys should stick to retailing.
I'll do the real estate bit.
Anyway, I spent 10 great years in Grace Brothers.
They were very entrepreneurial.

(09:50):
We had fashion parades all the time.
I being a bit of an MC and not afraid of a microphone, I had some terrific times interviewing
a number of international celebrities, etc.
And so if something new came to town, say there was a new book released or whatever,
then we'd have them in store.

(10:11):
A whole lot of stuff that was there.
And it was very, very customer focused.
The We Care campaign, whatever it needs for customers.
One of the things that I did when I was merchandise manager at Chatswood store was actually introduce,

(10:33):
go back to fashion parades, fashion parades for ladies underwear.
Which caused quite a sensation.
I better did.
Let me tell you.
Was it Reservatats and all that kind of thing?

(10:54):
They were quite revealing.
And VA Grace had a number of letters on his desk because Chatswood was the number one
store.
Then of course, it really grabbed the headlines.
So when this young merchandise manager decided to start these fashion parades with ladies

(11:15):
underwear, yeah, a little bit of infamy with the bosses.
Anyway, it all worked out.
It worked out really well.
I then went into the buying offices and in ladies wear, ladies fashion.
And it was interesting.
My first wife was pregnant at the time.

(11:37):
And she couldn't find a decent maternity wear.
Anyway, I'm thinking, hang on, I'm the buying controller for women's fashion.
My wife can't get anything in our stores.
So I fixed that problem.
Yeah.
So hence started a maternity wear department, which ended up being the highest gross profit

(12:01):
department in Grace Brothers.
And then also recognize an area of the market.
And a guy called Carl Dowd from clothing company came up with this idea of the Maggie T range.
So not only did we launch this maternity, but I love the fact that we were going to
then get into this other larger size market spearheaded by Maggie T brand.

(12:26):
And Maggie was absolutely fantastic to work with.
And again, ladies really took off enormously.
One of the great lessons from that is that if you can make a lady feel good about herself,
then she will pay a right price and it won't need to be discounted or whatever else.

(12:50):
It's that really, really good quality.
What they want is something that is going to make them feel good.
And hence the success of that.
Unfortunately, Grace Brothers then were going into a merger with Meyer.
Now Meyer, I had a fair bit to do with their buying people, their buying office, because

(13:14):
we would do strategic buys internationally, et cetera, go on trips to Hong Kong, et cetera,
together.
Did not like the culture.
We were very much working with manufacturers, long-term relationship.
They were about, do you know who I am?
Oh yeah, right.
Yeah.

(13:35):
And I have seen them do some, or I had some of those times, do some terrible things.
So I decided, no, I'm out of here.
This is not right.
Toxic.
And my father said something very important to me one day.
He said, son, if you ever wake up in the morning and you're not happy going to work, buy the
paper and find another job.
Yeah, it's true.

(13:56):
Isn't it?
Yeah.
It is.
Yeah.
100%.
Why are you still there for?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, I got a big move into going from fashions, et cetera, to Sharp Corporation in consumer
electronics.
Yep.
And that was my first introduction of going into a company where someone, and by the way,

(14:18):
they deliberately, senior management deliberately brought me in as a fresh set of eyes because
they understood that the industry as a whole was quite incestuous.
Nothing's changed.
Everybody does the same sort of stuff.
It's just same old, same old, you know, every day of the week.
What was that great movie with Bill Murray?

(14:39):
Groundhog Day?
Groundhog Day, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it was my first experience of somebody saying to me, now, John, what you need to
understand is this business is different.
So, oh, really?
Say, oh, so do you have customers?
Yeah.
Marketing?

(15:00):
Yeah.
HR?
Yeah.
I went through half a dozen different things.
Oh.
So it's really different.
And they just look at you like, well, no, no, no, you just don't understand.
Anyway, Sharp was great.
We were down about four or five as far as the brand in the marketplace.

(15:26):
Had absolutely fantastic product.
And we were number one in microwave.
Now, one of the things and being in the marketing role for the organization come up with something
different.
Well, we had a net agency who was very creative, and they came up with an idea for selling

(15:46):
videos, which was a video players, of course, which was to give away a video called the
history of cricket.
And it was narrated by Ian Chappell.
Up until the thriller video by Michael Jackson, it was the number one selling video in Australia.

(16:07):
But what it also did really importantly was lift the brand.
Yeah.
Lift the image of the brand.
Yeah.
It creates a nice association.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, just as an aside to that, previously, we had Bernard King pushing microwaves and

(16:27):
we had Greg Chappell pushing TVs and audio.
And we did a survey of customers and we said, do you know the products that these people
are pushed by?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you know the brand?
No.
And it's where sometimes a personality can be bigger than the brand that they're promoting.

(16:51):
Yeah, that's right.
And so I said goodbye to them.
And I forgot his name now, the great management consultant.
Anyway, he was Greg Chappell as one of his and Harry, I nearly remember him, he rang

(17:12):
me and abused me.
Do you know what you have done?
Blah, blah, blah.
We moved on.
Yeah.
The best thing though was to stand back and look in this industry and say, what can we
do something different?
And what I found was that we're retailers in themselves, in the fashion industry, we're

(17:33):
doing these big sales and everything else Christmas, but also you'll remember the New
Year sales.
The whole consumer electronic industry was asleep.
And everyone said when I started to ask questions, they'd say, oh, no, no, no, nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
So anyway, I went to the managing director and my boss and said, look, I've got this

(17:56):
crazy idea that we should go out there with a major campaign in January.
Oh, but nobody ever does anything.
I said, well, look, I've got this, as I said, crazy idea.
I believe that I can do some close out buying of products that customers really love, like
Corningware for microwaves.
But a little bit of a left field approach was things like champagne glasses with a TV

(18:21):
or Scotch glasses.
And I'm talking crystal.
Scotch glasses with a video.
Oh, are you going to pay for this and do it?
I said, well, there's an interesting thing.
All of our products at that time had 30% sales tax.
All this stuff doesn't.
Yeah.
Okay.

(18:41):
I said, well, let's say something retails for $45, but I've only paid 15.
I said, yeah.
Well, what we can do is we can charge the retailer $45 for that product, but we will
give them a $45 rebate on the TV or the video.

(19:05):
And 30% is pretty much 15 bucks.
So the rebate we got off the government in the sales tax paid for the product.
And we launched in the January, it went absolute gangbusters because everybody else was asleep.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(19:25):
And again, and you had something great in the market.
It's what people sort of the association with the two products, it's the complimentary,
you know, they go really well together.
Yeah.
You'd sit and have a Scotch while you're watching your TV with your new short video as well.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, mum's using the microwave and got some free Corningware.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it was all top quality product, which is important.

(19:52):
But again, it really lifted our brand and positioning in the marketplace that really
along with the quality of our product and our other work, et cetera, took us to an equal
number one in the market along with Panasonic.
Also your brand recall would have been much higher, John too.
I'm just assuming he obviously, but you know, you're not, as you said, in the first instance,

(20:14):
your association with or your affiliation with the person, you know, promoting the brand
became sort of overshadowed your brand, but here you've got a representation of a really
high quality product, but there's no rule.
I mean, Corningware obviously is a brand, but they're so far apart from each other,
you know, like there's real, you're from a brand positioning point of view, you recall

(20:39):
on your brand, it's going to be really quite high.
Yeah.
And it was.
Yeah.
And if we'd have given away cheap unbranded glassware or whatever, reverse effect, wouldn't
it?
Correct.
But it was also interesting.
We literally cleaned out the warehouse with container loads of this stuff.

(20:59):
And obviously the boys in the warehouse thinking, what are we doing with all this stuff?
Anyway, it was a real game changer.
Yeah, move on a number of years and I really needed to make another change because I'd
hit a glass ceiling and the glass ceiling was in a Japanese company, even though I'd

(21:22):
spent a couple of years learning the language, et cetera.
I was basically told, look, John, we'll pay you whatever we need to, to keep you, but
you're a guy, Jim, you're an alien.
You're not going to go any further within the organization and you're certainly not
going to get an international transfer, which I'd been asking for.

(21:42):
So that then led me to joining a guy called Jack Cowan at Hungry Jacks.
A bit of an interesting story, again, this industry's business, but did some promotional
campaigns there that really lifted it.
Yeah.
But a few things happened, including a very, very close mate of mine coming along and saying,

(22:06):
I want you to join me as managing director of a business I've bought.
I said, yeah, what's that?
And he said, Domino's Pizza.
I said, oh, okay.
But I said, Chris, you don't know anything about the food market.
And he said, no, that's where you come in.
So we worked together for a couple of years, but the unfortunate thing is that the relationship

(22:31):
soured relative to things that he did, and it caught me in a maelstrom effect where I
lost everything.
So the interesting part about this is that I was 40 at the time.
The good thing after I extracted myself out of that was that I joined Thorn EMI Rentals

(23:00):
and started my journey with Radio Rentals.
But during 1992, I turned 40 and I went broke and my dad died.
And I got terribly depressed because I lost everything.

(23:20):
I trusted someone who I thought was my best mate.
They sold me down the river.
And it was a dreadful time.
What saved me thinking about my dad, at 40 years of age, he came back from the war and
started again and reinvented himself.
If my dad could do it, I could do it.

(23:45):
And a very big object lesson.
And look, I know people go through very, very dark days, etc.
Yeah, they do.
And it was good that I also had a couple of close mates, one in particular, who really
stood beside me, gave me support, etc.

(24:06):
And then moved forward from there.
Anyway, getting back to Thorn and Radio Rentals, I joined that organization.
I'm a recommendation and one of the first things was going in there and looking at the
business and saying, oh, okay, put on the entrepreneurial hat.

(24:29):
What about this?
What about that?
And I met a couple of guys, one called Ken Wolfendahl and another one, Ian Simpson, who
unfortunately has passed.
And I'd go up to these guys who are very long serving and say, hey, what about this as an
idea?
No, it won't work.
I said, why not?
I'll try that in 86.

(24:50):
Well, why didn't it work?
I said, okay.
And then I go and I say, hey, boy, what about this?
Oh, yeah, that'll work.
Well, why aren't we doing it now?
There's this new marketing person that came in in, you know, 83.
And the one thing you learn about marketing people and CEOs, etc. when they move into

(25:10):
a new company, what's the first thing they've got to change something?
It's like they've got to put their initials in the sand or pee in the corner.
Yeah, 100%.
They do.
Yeah, I've experienced that.
The number of times I walk into a supermarket and I see a brand change and new packaging
and everything else, I'll say, I'll bet there's been a change at head office.
Oh, and you'd be probably spot on.
You're probably 100% right every time.

(25:32):
Yeah, it's just crazy.
What I learned from my dad is never expect anybody to do a job you wouldn't do, including
cleaning the toilets.
And number two, talk to the people at the front end of the business and find out, you
know, really dig into their knowledge and experience and everything else.

(25:52):
So anyway, with these two guys, I called him into my office one day and I said, I need
a favor.
And they said, what?
I said, can you go and lock yourselves in the boardroom and write down everything that's
worked and everything that hasn't worked?
I said, I'm tired of asking you guys.
One by one.
Tell me what's a good and the bad.

(26:14):
And I'll stop asking.
That taught me an enormous amount.
I mean, my learning curve just shortened significantly.
But there was also another thing we went through and we did, you know, a SWOT analysis, et
cetera.
And what was one of the threats to us and one of our major competitors, et cetera, were
these people renting secondhand product, old product at cheaper prices in the marketplace.

(26:41):
And I said, but where do they get that product from?
And they said, from us.
I said, what?
I said, yeah.
I said, see, what happens is we have a budget for sale of end of year or end of life product.

(27:03):
So when something becomes zero written down value, the appreciation, we sell it off and
we might get 150 bucks for it.
That goes to the bottom line profit.
I said, yeah, but we're feeding competitors.
They said, yeah.
So what I then came up with was a second brand, which was Ready Hire.

(27:28):
And what it was, and I said a lady into it, Robin McEwen, and she did an absolute cracker
over the job with that brand.
It's probably the only brand I've ever seen have or any business to see have an infinite
return on capital employed because all the product that we transferred into there was

(27:50):
all the written down value product that we would have sold off.
And when they take a first month's rent upfront, et cetera, even if people clear it off with
it, I mean, we'd only have to rent it out for a couple of months, say three months,
plus the first month that they've paid.
And we've already got more than what we would have sold it to for these other people to

(28:13):
be competitive.
I mean, amazing, isn't it?
I mean, what a turnaround.
And it just went gangbusters.
You said you put the other business out of business overnight without one decision.
I said, you essentially put the other business out of business overnight because you cut
their supply.
Yeah.
And I've got some very nasty phone calls.

(28:34):
Yeah.
I was looking over my shoulders.
Sorry about this.
No friends in business, as they say, sometimes, you know, you got to look after your pay.
Anyway, with that, so what we had to brand strategy, which I'm a great believer in as

(28:54):
long as you position it correctly.
So we had radio rentals as the senior brand, if you like.
And if anyone was rejected from radio rentals, they'd get a phone call from somebody from
ready hire.
Have you ever thought about renting?
We all have, but those mongrels at radio rentals wouldn't do it with me.

(29:15):
Well, we will.
Yeah.
So you just broadened your net massively.
I mean, essentially there's no way they could not be a customer.
Dealing with people who are really doing it tough.
Yeah.
So you set an expectation for people and say, look, you're in this difficult situation.

(29:36):
You know, you've got really, really bad credit.
Radio rentals won't touch you, but we'll give you a go.
But you got to set expectations.
And Robin and her team were extremely good at that.
The second thing was to create a brand called Rent Try Buy.
The first thing that I'd heard was that, and with the price of consumer electronics going

(30:02):
down, that you needed to consider that people wanted ownership.
So we started Rent Try Buy and again, it went absolutely gangbusters.
Now in a period of time from 1992 to 1996, we went from $9 million worth of EBIT to around

(30:29):
$25 million worth of EBIT.
It's sensational.
And we won two worldwide awards for best business for Thorne EMI worldwide.
Again, pretty good.
And we were really flying.
The interesting thing though is that we get to 95, 96 and the worldwide board wouldn't

(30:51):
let us reinvent again because myself and some of the other country heads were saying, we
just can't keep doing this rent to rent.
We have to make it far more affordable for people to do the buyout.
And unfortunately, the worldwide board said, no, no, no, no, the pricing is inelastic.

(31:13):
These people have got nowhere else to go, et cetera.
And I didn't believe in that and I ended up leaving.
And four years after that, the business was in negative territory.
Wow.
So in one four year period, we got from $9 million to $25 million EBIT.

(31:37):
And it's reversed.
And four years, it went to minus one million.
Incredible.
Yep.
And of course, what didn't help and Nigel, you know how I operate, the managing director
who took over from me never left his office.
Meetings, meetings and more meetings.

(31:57):
Didn't care about the people in the field, et cetera.
And the whole culture and everything else of the organization just declined at a rapid
rate.
Anyway, I went off to join Rural Co in the rural sector.
And it had or it was a member cooperative that had become a publicly unlisted company.

(32:22):
And the original company, Combined Rural Traders, had bought another one called Town and Country.
And they brought them both together under the Rural Co banner.
And the managing director who was before me was very much an accountant.
And every Monday, he would get these massive reports on his desk that he would go through
and look at all the various figures, et cetera.

(32:44):
Anyway, I came along.
One of the first things I did was go to the CFO and say, Frank, just give me a one page
of all this stuff.
I just don't have the time.
Get out, visit members, do all of that.
Writing a long story short, during the next 10 years, what we did was really position

(33:06):
two brands in the market.
One was CRT for the big farmers.
And the other one was to recognize that there was a growing market of hobby farmers.
And that was really what Town and Country was all about.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I do, there were a lot of people there who thought, oh no, this, and you had to get

(33:29):
some people to drag them screaming into the more hobby farm market.
I remember one sad case where I said to a guy, the market has changed around you.
There's no more broad acre cropping or, you know, beef farms, et cetera.
This is all about mums and dads, five acre blocks.

(33:49):
No, no, no, no, no.
This is the way the business has always been.
The business eventually went broke.
The people who bought out the business, a couple of young guys, what did they do?
They turned it into a hobby farm market store and did extremely well.

(34:09):
Yeah.
So again, there's something about reinventing yourself, not only your business, but reinvent
your business, you've got to reinvent yourself and look at what it is, et cetera.
We then also recognized that what was the business?
Oh, and my apologies, just back to Thorn for a moment.

(34:32):
The other string of it was recognizing that Thorn wasn't just radio rentals or a consumer
rental business, it was a finance business.
Yeah.
So therefore we started Thorn Business Services and that was a fantastic part of the business.
Anyway, moving back to rural co, it was to stand back and say, what are we really?

(34:56):
Oh, well, an independent member group of independent rural merchants.
Well, why can't we be an independent member group of a whole range of rural services?
So we took a leaf out of West Farmers and Elders and then started to develop the business

(35:17):
on all these other platforms.
At the same time, what we did was absolutely change the whole logistics offering to members.
I was going to say, you've got the infrastructure there.
What did surprise a lot of people was that the old model when I joined actually helped

(35:41):
support, well, over inflate the support of big members.
So we would have small members saying, well, this isn't right.
I can buy cheaper off this big member than I can buy directly off you.
Because we were paying these members such big rebates that they were making so much

(36:01):
margin they could sell to the smaller members.
And it might sound quite counterintuitive, but after a lot of hard work, et cetera, we
actually said goodbye to a lot of those big members and concentrated on the small members.
We were never going to be able to keep everybody happy.

(36:22):
And it was one of the best decisions we could have possibly made.
And the business just grew because we were able to do more for those small members.
And then we developed into woolen livestock.
We developed into real estate and the business just grew.
Now in 1996, when I joined, I mean, that's a, sorry, don't take that in there.

(36:45):
That's an amazing story, to be honest.
I mean, the diversification of the business, it went from being, I'm not going to say lazy,
but sort of just doing what it would normally consider as its core business and then saying,
okay, well, here's an opportunity for us to, we see a problem.
We can reinvent ourselves now.
And you've got the infrastructure, you've got the contacts, you've got all of the cost

(37:08):
structure in place to, once you sort of got rid of that proverbial monkey off the back,
so to speak, you were able to then say, okay, well, let's branch into some more interesting
ideas, grow the business, grow, you know, grow essentially the diversify the revenue
streams.
I mean, that's, that's incredible.

(37:28):
And one of the things I use the old analogy of peeling back an onion, yeah, to look at
a business like an onion peel it back.
What's our real core competencies?
What are we good at?
So if there's logistics, how can we diversify?
Yeah.
Yeah.
How can we build on that?
And it's something that so many businesses like recognizing that thorn was a finance

(37:51):
company recognizing that rural co could be this whole suite of services delivered by
independent members.
And from 1992, there was rural co was one of 21 rural merchandising groups.
In the end, we're one of only three or four, I think it was when I left in 2006.

(38:15):
But even further on, it ended up being only one of the big three.
And then it got observed by absorbed by nutrient is really one of the big, big two nutrients
to suck a number of them up in the market and go from being worth $9 million in 96 to

(38:37):
being worth around $150 million in 2006 as a publicly listed company.
Yep.
Yeah.
Fertilizer, we did how we got public listing is we did a reverse takeover of a company
called Growforce, which was very, very strong in fertilizer.
They're already out.

(38:58):
Yeah.
So it's about looking at things differently.
Anyway, after 10 years, I retired from rural co because there was a merger and I was tired
10 years of doing work with independent members.
Yeah.

(39:18):
It's tough.
Yeah.
Sometimes it's a bit like, and I mean, it's the nicest possible way.
It's a bit like herding cats.
Yeah.
Your greatest strength of the business, the independent members, the greatest weakness,
trying to get them all to think in one direction.
And it is tough.
But if I can just touch on one other thing within that made a significant amount of difference

(39:45):
to the business and its culture.
When I came in, it was management versus the members.
So I took a leaf out of the book of McDonald's and a guy, Peter Ritchie, real doyen of the
industry, and formed the member groups around Australia.
And what we did was regional business development group, state business development groups,

(40:11):
and a national business development group.
And your regional chair would sit on the state committee and the state committees would sit
on the state committee chairs would sit on the national committee and the chair of the
national committee would sit on the board.

(40:31):
Makes sense to break up the power structure and the decision making process.
It actually created a better power structure.
Yeah.
Better unity.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you an interesting example.
I can remember one particular case.
There had been this member in New South Wales who hadn't been playing ball.

(40:54):
And I got a request from our general manager, not a request from him, through him.
He came in and he said, you're not going to believe it.
He said, this group in New South Wales want to get rid of this member.
And I said, why?
They said, well, he's not coming to meetings and he's not getting involved in the marketing
and he's not doing this and he's not doing that.
And I said, well, Greg, I think you got to calm them down, et cetera, and see what they

(41:18):
can do.
Put their arms around him.
So listen, like, you know, da da da da da.
And he said, yeah, he said, you want to know the interesting part?
I said, what?
He said, go back before we had this structure.
And if I'd have gone and talked to that member, I would have been in the worst person in the
whole world.

(41:38):
Now that the members have the power, they're giving the guy so much grief, they just want
to get rid of him out of the organization.
So it was a whole different change of attitude and empowerment of the members themselves.

(42:01):
So after 10 years with Rural Co, I was going to retire and become a non-executive director.
And I got a phone call saying, John, would you like a trip back to the future?
I said, what with?
They said, well, you know, Thorn got taken out by a private equity firm.
I said, yeah.
They said, well, they'd like you to come back, take the company public and you can do with

(42:22):
it what you always wanted to.
I said, oh, okay.
Let's go.
So I was doing a throwing negotiations.
I rejoined and part of it, they said, we want to take the company public.
And I said, okay.
By when?
And this is the September.
Oh, by Christmas.
You want to take the company public by Christmas.

(42:44):
Right.
Okay.
That was your first challenge.
Massive, massive.
Fortunately, when I was at Grace Brothers, I did part-time mainly a bachelor of commerce
degree majoring in accounting and finance, et cetera.
When I, why that happened was I spoke to Roger Corbett and Michael Grace one day and they

(43:07):
were saying to me, well, Husey, what do you want to do?
I said, well, I'd like one of your jobs.
Right.
And as directors of Grace Brothers, they said, well, you better get off your behind and go
and finish the university degree you never did.
And I said, oh, in marketing.
They said, no, you learn marketing in the real world, go and do accounting and finance
because every business comes down to dollars and cents on the bottom line.

(43:32):
And it was great experience, particularly when you get into managing a public company.
Of course.
Rejoin.
Dawn.
One of the first things was to get out the stores.
So I had a chat to our then general manager of radio rental.
I said, I want to go out and visit some stores.

(43:54):
Let's hit the road tomorrow.
So he comes along, three piece suit, BMW, file of facts.
I roll up in a store manager's uniform.
We go out to store and he walks in and he's going through his KPIs and everything else.
I said, yeah, can we just put that aside?

(44:16):
I said, who'd like a cup of coffee?
Go and buy a cup of coffee for everybody.
Come back into the store, a few little cakes, et cetera.
Okay.
Now tell me what's wrong with the business.
People just looking at you like, hang on.
This guy's the boss.
And he, and he wants to actually listen, listen.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Breaking down barriers is important.

(44:39):
By the way, that general manager was made redundant a week later because I thought I
know this business better than anybody.
I want a flat structure.
I'm going to spend vast amount of time out there in stores, listening, learning, et cetera.
Being a sponge basically, just absorbing all of the issues.

(45:00):
Again, like the Ken Wolfendale and, oh, Ian, Kenaneean, you know, the thing there.
Learning from the people that are doing the job and have the experience, et cetera.
What's worked, what hasn't worked, et cetera.
One of the biggest learnings was when I was talking to some delivery guys, I said, what's

(45:22):
your biggest beef?
I said, oh, if we go out there with multiple units, say we've got five units of deliver.
I said, yeah.
They said, we've got to get 15 signatures, three per product.
You run out of ink by the end of the day.
You can't be serious.
He's got a box of burrows and he's trying.

(45:44):
Anyway, I called a meeting of the executive and everybody had blamed the lawyers.
So I get the lawyers in, you know, sit them in a room and I shut and locked the door.
And I said, no one is leaving until we sort this out because it's absolutely ridiculous.
And I turned to the two lawyers, two, a couple of good guys.
You've got a hostage situation.

(46:04):
Yeah.
I said, and it's all your fault.
What?
What?
I went through the whole thing.
I said, now that's the problem.
They said, well, nobody's asked us to fix it.
They've just asked us for new different contracts and everything.
Yeah.
So they didn't even know about the problem.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(46:25):
I said, well, how long is it going to take to fix it?
Oh, we could have some new contracts drawn up by this time next week.
So you left him in there for a week.
No matter how many, no matter how many units were delivered or whatever.
And from signature in store to delivery, the whole exercise was only three signatures.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(46:45):
So much better customer experience hands down.
I mean, correct.
But the frustration of the people in store.
One of the other funny things about rejoining Thorne, imagine that I'd left rural co and
we'd invested a whole lot of money in IT to the point at that time in 2006, a member

(47:10):
could literally do everything online, no paperwork, all their rebates, everything.
An interesting part of that as well, not only great for them, but if anybody ever decided
to leave, we'd say, okay, well, we've got to take our system back.
And they'd say, but all of our information is on the system.
So yeah, but you want to leave.

(47:32):
So you got to go and buy yourself another system.
I didn't have second thoughts then.
Yeah.
Anyway, so another hostile situation.
A rejoin Thorne.
Thorne.
Consumer electronics, dealing with the likes of Panasonic and NEC and everybody else.
Toshiba.
Yeah.

(47:52):
Yeah.
And I saw somebody putting fax.
I said, what are you doing?
They said, oh, we're faxing off orders.
Hang on.
Yeah, what?
Yeah.
It was so interesting that consumer electronics industry was so far behind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talk about digital transformation.
I mean, it's there, isn't it?

(48:14):
Paperless.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Get rid of that.
God.
At that time, Thorne again, was very low in value.
And in fact, its value when we took it to market was $50 million.
Eight years later, when I left, it was over 300 million.

(48:35):
Now, what was that?
Stop faxing today.
And a few other things.
Just a few.
When I joined and I spoke to a few people about the culture of the organization, I heard
an interesting story that one of the international heads of the private equity group that owned

(48:59):
Thorne had come out to Australia and said to the then management team, well, how would
you describe the culture?
And his words were, well, probably a bit of fear and directness.
Oh, well, if it works.

(49:21):
I mean, it was just terrible.
That's crazy.
Really, really terrible.
And people at stores hated seeing anybody from head office because it was all about
driving KPIs and everything else.
And some of the ways that they were treated in management meetings were absolutely horrible.

(49:45):
And I've heard stories about people vomiting before going into a review meeting, et cetera.
It was something that shouldn't be done.
Yeah, that's right.
Anyway, a guy that you knew well, James Marshall, promoted him to national ops manager and he
did an absolutely brilliant job.

(50:08):
And together, God only knows how many stores we visited and the time we spent at stores.
One of the first things I did was to tell everybody to go out and buy a barbecue so
that at least once a week they'd have a barbecue breakfast at store.
If James and I were traveling around and it was the first store of the day, we'd be there

(50:31):
at seven o'clock in the morning and we cook the barbecue.
If it was morning tea time, we'd buy, you know, we could put on a lot of weight because
we'd buy lunches, we'd buy morning teas, afternoon teas, et cetera.
But if you want to create a different culture, you don't have to wander into a store.
You go in there and you do something different.

(50:51):
Okay.
That's right.
And they appreciate it too.
Nothing.
I mean, the smell of a bacon egg roll in the morning is nothing better.
Oh, boss, you're the best.
You know, a cream bun or whatever for afternoon tea, you know, the whole bit.
Peaches for lunch, which was the norm, et cetera.
And one of the other things that we did when James and I were going around was that if

(51:15):
we went into a store and we were found it was getting hammered, we would clean a fridge.
We would help serve customers.
We would hop on a delivery truck.
And you don't have to do that too many times before the word gets around to the organization
that things are different.
Yeah, like to be hands on.
And people care.

(51:37):
And sending out birthday wishes.
If somebody did five year, 10 year or whatever, I'd personally call them and, you know, thank
them for the job that they were doing, et cetera.
And the number of times I'd talk to say a field rep or a delivery driver, I think they
nearly run off the road.

(51:58):
I've got the bosses ringing, et cetera.
And by the way, nobody ever called me Mr. Hughes, as you remember, it was always John.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And sometimes they call me, Hey boss.
But you do that.
And then they tell somebody else and it just starts to build such a good, positive culture.

(52:19):
And you attract the talent too.
I mean, people who tell other people, they might want to come and work for you.
And you know, you end up with a good fleet of really good people that love the business
as much as you do, you know?
Yeah.
And if things get tight and you need help, et cetera.
Yeah.
They will say, I've been treated right.

(52:40):
You know, I've been given this, I used up all my holidays because my kid was sick or
whatever else.
And you know, I'm a sick leave, et cetera.
There's been an issue in the family, but they've just given me this extra one week.
Well, that's great.
It just enforces the positive culture.
So does.
And you were the recipient of an occasional Mars bar or Kit Kat, which we walking around

(53:05):
with delicious.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Walk out of Coles or Woolies with these big bags.
I remember you carrying those big bags and lollies around.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Everyone loved it.
That was good.
It was nice touch.
Even just going around to the office with a cup of coffee and sitting on the corner

(53:25):
of somebody's desk and saying, Hey, guy, tell me what you're doing.
You know, hey, enjoying things, et cetera.
And that does build a really positive culture.
And you get it back in spades.
The really sad thing about Dawn later on, and it really hit after I left, was that we

(53:51):
had done so much for so many hundreds of thousands of consumers out there.
The consumer action groups and ASIC, et cetera, really took a dislike to consumer leasing.
They have literally legislated Dawn and every other rental business out of the market.

(54:11):
And these are people who are credit and cash constrained.
They don't have two bob at the end of the month.
They have got bad credit and no one is going to touch them, let alone people say, Oh, but
it's so easy to get a credit account at Harvey Norman or whatever garbage.
It's not true.
It is.
It is not true.

(54:32):
Yeah.
And the number of customers I personally saw who would come in and they'd been in a difficult
situation and they were just so thankful.
One lady I remember from Cranbourne in Melbourne, who Saturday morning and I was serving her
and just to take a payment actually.

(54:53):
And I said, Oh, you've been a customer for a long time.
She said, yeah.
She said, you know what, if it wasn't for radio rentals, I wouldn't have anything today.
She said I was a single mum.
I had to get out of an abusive relationship with two small kids and the only business
that would help me was radio rentals.
And it feels good.
I mean, as a, you know, the managing director of the business, I mean, you, you, you've

(55:18):
got purpose.
I mean, you're helping people who don't have options.
Correct.
And yeah, I mean, I, I don't know much about the legislation.
And as you say that, that with ASIC and whatever else, but they, what I do know and what I
have experienced is that sometimes just, you know, they don't understand people are fragile.

(55:39):
You know, they just think of, think of the, the, the broader picture or they've got some
idea in their head that, you know, they shouldn't exist and they just go for it.
I just doesn't, for me, I, I don't understand why, you know, they would legislate something
like radio rentals out of business.
To me, it doesn't make any sense.
They didn't understand it.

(56:01):
I had a channel seven today, tonight, contact me once about doing an interview.
I said, yeah, sure.
Come in.
And my executive team were like, yeah, what?
You've got to be kidding me.
Yeah, I could picture it.
Anyway, I had them in for about an hour and a half, I think, the guy in my office and

(56:22):
the cameraman, et cetera.
And after going through and what we did and talking about the mum test, I said, well,
how was that?
And the reporter said, it won't be going to air.
And I said, why not?
He said, well, there's nothing here.
I said, there's a good story.

(56:42):
He said, yeah, but we were there after a good story.
No, you, they wanted the bad PR.
Yeah.
The stuff that goes viral.
They were trying to catch me out.
And it wasn't.
And they said, there's just not a story here.
And as the camera guy walked out, he said, no, you guys are doing a great job.
He said, I never understood.

(57:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was misunderstood.
I think, wasn't it really?
When you think about, I mean, I, after working there for a while, I mean, I realized how
much the business was helping people, genuinely helping people, you know, that are in these
sticky situations that don't want to buy a secondhand one off, you know, what would
be Facebook marketplace or something.
Now they actually want something of quality.

(57:25):
They need it.
They have a certain need, but that just don't have the means in which to financially get
to whatever it is.
It could be a child going to, you know, TAFE or whatever, and they, they need a certain
type of laptop.
They just can't afford it.
You know, it's not, everybody thinks that, oh, you can just go buy one or just get one
off a friend or a secondhand or whatever, but it doesn't work like that.

(57:46):
The people who need and, you know, take pride in the things they own as well.
I mean, it's comes down to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really sad.
When I came back, I, I found that they'd walked away from Rintri by, so it was also reinventing
that.
It was also saying that, well, they'd walked away from thorn business services.
We really invented that.

(58:07):
Then we did cash first, which was cash loans, because again, we looked at the business and
said, Hey, it's a finance company.
And went and went down that path.
A really important thing that I touched on a moment ago was the mum test that James Marshall
came up with, which was telling stores to do, if you've got a customer who's in trouble,

(58:30):
do for them what you would do for your mum.
Or if you're talking to your mum tonight, that you can be proud of whatever you've done
for that customer.
And the number of stories that we had as positives from stores.
I remember one, I think I've spoken to you about before up in Mariborough and the store

(58:51):
manager up there rang me nearly in tears that there was this older couple and upgraded a
year or so ago, et cetera.
And the husband had died.
And I said, Oh, that's terribly sad.
I said, so what did you do?
She said, well, boss, I hope you don't mind.
She said, I wrote off the TV and I took them around a bunch of flowers.

(59:13):
So yeah, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
You just don't get that anymore.
No, I mean, what that did for her, the staff, and of course every store in Queensland knew
the story within 24 hours.
I put the same thing, can we really do something like, well, in exceptional circumstances of
this old lady in her eighties, who's been a customer for 20 or 30 years or whatever

(59:38):
and upgrading and she'd done rent try buys so many times.
It's about loyalty.
Exactly right.
Yep.
If I'd have been still with Dawn and with James when he took over from me when I retired,
unfortunately due to my wife's help and he'd have been CEO and I'd have been chair, I reckon

(59:59):
we would have beaten ASIC because there was a case of ASIC versus Westpac where the judge
said there's really nothing wrong here because there's no defaults, the arrears and everything
so low.
We would have been able to present in my view an extremely strong case to say we are not

(01:00:23):
over committing customers.
We are not taking advantage of customers and how many companies in the world, finance companies,
have something like the mum test?
And we could have showed example after example after example.
I mean, what options do they have?
Some sort of crazy loan shark with pay super crazy interest rates and you know, I mean,

(01:00:46):
by the way, they allowed the buy now pay later into the market.
They just thumb their noses and found a nice little way to get into the market and I think
it created massive issues.

(01:01:07):
Just sad how things go.
So that's so much of my journey, etc.
But looking at other businesses, etc. and what they've done in reinvention, one of the
best examples I could give would be of LG.
Now when they came into the market in the 90s, it wasn't LG.

(01:01:30):
Of course it was lucky gold star.
Yeah, I actually had a lucky gold star TV.
We didn't cover off big brown box, which I'll come off.
Oh yeah, we could.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe at the end.
Yeah.
Is that LG or lucky gold star completed completely reinvented itself.

(01:01:51):
Yes, it was an amazing rebranding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's been a number of others around the world that reinvent and you have to keep your
brand relevant to consumers.
You've got to keep reinventing.

(01:02:11):
You look at a group called Accent, which is a car that offers athletes foot and their
expansions and new brands and everything else.
Younger demographics.
Look at Lavisa as a brand.
Absolutely brilliant.
Lavisa, oh yeah, yeah.
In the jewelry.
Jewelry.
I mean, the margins would be phenomenal.
I mean, that best me and that's always packed.

(01:02:31):
Every time I go past one, I mean, I've got three daughters.
So I mean, as soon as we walk past them, they immediately in there buying earrings and the
quality of the stuff is really good.
Like compared to going and spending $1,000 on a set of gold earrings, they'd rather just
go in there and buy.
So they've really got this market of this sort of teenage to early adult kind of young

(01:02:55):
adult market.
It's such a great business that.
And look, you've got to look as a retailer, how you do remain relevant.
One of the other ones that I would quickly mention Nordstrom in America.
Nordstrom.
They're upgraded stores.
They're new store in Honolulu from a few years old.
Now, one of the first things they put in was a bar and a cafe, et cetera.

(01:03:16):
Why?
Because wives go shopping and the guys go to the bar.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can be better than that.
Oh, man.
You won't find one.
When I go with my wife, we got a parameter at Westfields, for example, and you see all
these these lonely guys just walking around waiting for the wife to finish.
But there's nothing for them to do.
I mean, they need some they need this empty space in the middle of that Westfields.

(01:03:40):
John, I think you need to go there and tell them what to do with that space, right?
Reinvent it.
But he just wants to be looking at each other lost.
And look, the other thing that's really important in Australian retail is the category killers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I've said to you from me, I'm not offering anybody advice, but the only retailers that

(01:04:01):
my wife and I invest in are the category killers who really know how to drive businesses.
JB?
Let me guess.
Is that one?
Oh, JB Hi-Fi.
You've got Harvey Norman.
You've got Bunnings and Officeworks.
And there's another super cheap auto start.

(01:04:22):
Yes, super cheap auto.
That's a great business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gangbusters businesses.
Who's going to compete with them?
No, well, that's right.
I mean, I look at I mean, in the automotive space, when you look at like auto one, for
example, and it's not when you walk in those stores, and they're almost like a desert compared
to when it comes to customers compared to the super cheap stores, they're always got

(01:04:45):
specials on.
They've always got a bit of a vibe in the store.
It feels really good when you walk in lots of stuff on the shelves, lots packed.
It feels like a bit of a bargains bizarre sometimes when you walk in and you're looking
for things.
I think they're merchandising those stores really well.
And a really interesting thing is they employ people who have a passion for motor cars.

(01:05:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, it's funny you say that, John, because my local one, there's a lady working there
and she's in her probably late 60s.
And she's a grandmother.
And I was talking to her and I thought she's not going to know any, mate, she knew more
about cars than I did.
And I mean, I pulled motors apart myself and worked on cars.
Isn't that wonderful?

(01:05:31):
It's amazing.
It was so good.
Yeah.
There is a great company in America that people should look up called Tractor Supply Company
that are made of mine.
Joe Scarlett reinvented from being literally a tractor supply company to America's biggest
hobby farm store, hobby farm business.

(01:05:51):
It's now worth about 45 billion dollars.
It's one of the most successful NASDAQ shares with continual growth, etc.
Something they're heading towards 3000 stores.
And they're America's biggest seller of right on lawn mowers.
And I'm talking hundreds of thousands.
And then the Americans love their big blocks and right on miles and things.

(01:06:14):
It's just, you know, they've got electric coming in too.
So they're going to reinvent themselves when it comes to that market as well.
Isn't that it's incredible?
All of that.
But you know, you look at those category killers now just to finish.
And I realized that we've gone way over time.
I'm fine, John, if you have to, if you have to go, but I'm fine.
I know I was worried about trying to keep it to an hour.
No, no, I can cut some stuff out.

(01:06:36):
No, no, this is great.
We'll just keep going.
There's no time limit.
Yeah.
That's the great thing about podcasts.
Yeah.
The big brown box.
Yes.
Yes.
You saw firsthand.
Yeah, I did.
Looking at the radio rentals business in itself, separate from the other streams of thought

(01:07:02):
was about what have we got great relationships with supplies.
We've got all these stores scattered around Australia.
We've got pretty good IT systems, et cetera.
Online starting to grow.
Why don't we start a totally separate business being online retail?

(01:07:24):
Now in those days, the manufacturers used to carry a lot of stock.
Yeah.
So we came up with the idea.
What we will do have this website and people could go online there.
Look at all these products, order it.
We push the order through to the manufacturer.

(01:07:45):
The manufacturer would then deliver it to one of our radio rental stores.
And of course we had the fleet of trucks or to one of the metropolitan distribution centers.
And then we would just deliver it straight out to the customers.
It was a great idea.
It was an amazing idea.
And when you say online was starting to take off, I think I can chime in there and just

(01:08:06):
say just the idea of taking that and what is essentially your relationships, your supplies,
your infrastructure, all those synergies, and then spinning up a business that would
be online at that point.
Now this was early, what was it, 2009 or 2010?
Oh yeah, 2009, 2010, around that time.
Around that time, right?
So there weren't many out there.

(01:08:28):
There was only a handful, like maybe a few that were actually doing it.
So that was really at the forefront of online retail.
Yeah.
And were other retailers happy?
Nope.
Yeah.
Well, they didn't really have an online store.
They didn't have an online presence really.
It was more catalog based.
It was a bit earlier than that because it was before the GFC.

(01:08:51):
Yeah, that's right.
And what happened with the GFC is that suppliers started to really cut back on stock and they
got to just in time.
And then basically retailers were told, well, if you don't order enough volume, we're
not going to carry your safety stock.

(01:09:13):
Yeah.
So what you order is what you get, et cetera, et cetera.
And we didn't have the capacity and as a startup, we didn't really know what would be the numbers
that we could do.
Yeah.
Et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of unknowns.
It was 2008 I think I joined.
Yeah.

(01:09:34):
For us to invest millions and millions of dollars in warehouses and tape pump.
I mean, interestingly, we did give some orders or what were they called?
Reserve stocks to suppliers.
But interestingly, when we went to draw down on those, they'd been accidentally sold

(01:09:58):
or there was something wrong within the system.
Yeah.
And one can only potentially think that maybe there were some other things, not that I'm
a conspiracy theorist, but if you're a major supplier, where's your bread buttered?
And it's not on trying to start an online business startup.

(01:10:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there were major brands to be able to bring those major brands to an online store.
You know, it was just it was very, very like new, new, new territory, new ground.
And that's why I joined actually, because I just saw the potential.
It had such potential to grow into something massive, especially with the radio rental

(01:10:45):
fleet of trucks, as you say, the the radio rentals brand was so strong with its stores,
its delivery processes, its systems as well were very, very solid.
It had all of the hallmarks of what would have been an amazing business and a super
successful business.
But as you say, you have seen everything else kind of killed that idea pretty quickly,

(01:11:07):
unfortunately, with stock holdings and things.
Yeah.
Well, being there.
The the one that did work well was John winning.
Yeah.
Who used the winnings business basically, as a springboard.
He went off.
I think his dad had a few doubts about this, etc.

(01:11:28):
And other people within the winnings organizations.
But he got the go appliances online.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he did a cracker job.
Yeah.
And he bought the big brown box brand off us.
Yeah.
But the advantage that he had, he could draw down on winning stock.
Yeah, exactly.

(01:11:49):
So the big issue that we had, and they had the buying power, they had the stock, he just
needed to start the online.
And he did.
He's a great business person.
And I really love seeing his success.
And he's now, of course, the CEO, managing director of the winnings group.

(01:12:11):
That's right.
Yeah.
Well, it was brown.
I mean, brown box, big brown box was mainly focused on brown goods for the listeners out
there where winnings the winnings group and appliances on numbers mainly white goods.
So he he wanted to diversify a lot into into the TVs and streaming players and all that

(01:12:33):
kind of stuff.
And he didn't really have those relationships by doing that by acquiring big brown box.
He immediately had, I think there was still quite a few customers as well.
So he not only got the business, the website, also got all of these new customers that were
basically profiled around brown goods.
It is all about reinvention.

(01:12:57):
One of the other things I didn't mention is we're now in the fortunate position where we
can concentrate on philanthropy.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So that's probably that's a good segue, John, into the Dove's Nest Foundation and the work
you've been doing.
I mean, let's it'd be great if we could dive into that.
The one that came before Dove's Nest Foundation was the Children's Tumor Foundation.

(01:13:17):
Yeah, the tumor.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
My mom had a disease called neurofibromatosis, which means that tumors can grow anywhere
on your body inside, outside or whatever.
Right.
So I can imagine that you and your wife went along to pediatrician and they say, well,
you know, the learning issues and these lumps and the cafe lay spots, et cetera.

(01:13:42):
Well, your daughter's got NF, neurofibromatosis and these tumors can grow anywhere.
Probably around 67% chance are going to have learning difficulties.
Could result in blindness, deafness, a whole host of different issues because of where

(01:14:02):
the tumors grow.
They say, okay, well, what about treatments?
Well, there's very few.
Cure?
No.
How are we going to know what's going to happen?
Well, you won't.
You just got to monitor it.
So in other words, we're living with a time bomb.

(01:14:24):
Yes.
That's horrible.
Imagine that.
Yeah.
And what was really, um, or really struck me was that my mom had showed no signs of
any lumps or whatever, uh, during her youth or first years of marriage.

(01:14:47):
My sister was born, nothing.
I'm born and all of a sudden my mom starts to just bloom in these external tumors, et
cetera.
It's terrible.
And it was just devastating, you know, and it's one of those things where people look
at you and they want to cross the side of the street or whatever else.

(01:15:12):
And then eventually what led to her death was that a number of them started to grow
internally to her.
None of them, which they didn't pick up early enough, grew to the size of very, very large
size and a hip, ate her or a hip away, et cetera.
They couldn't operate because she bled out in the operating table and she passed at just
seventy years of age.

(01:15:36):
Terribly sad.
Very sad.
Yeah.
And I vowed at that time that I would try and do something if I ever could to help others.
A little bit as a legacy to her.
When I got into a better financial position, I was back with Dawn, et cetera.

(01:15:58):
I got involved with an organization called Neurofibromatosis Association of Australia
and looked at it and thought, okay.
And the only money keeping the doors open was the last check I'd written out a couple
of months before, which helped pay for the lady who was working 20 hours a week.

(01:16:19):
And its officers were out of the Kuringa senior citizens at Kuringa.
And thinking, oh my God.
And the organization in Queensland had closed.
The one in Victoria had.
Wasn't one in WA.
The South Australian one was struggling, et cetera.

(01:16:41):
So anyway, I put on my CEO hat and thought we've got to do something with you.
Time to reinvent it.
Reinvent it.
And fortunately, I was in the position as CEO of Dawn to be able to help and got stuck
in and we found that there was this organization in America called Children's Chema Foundation.

(01:17:06):
And I met the guy who would really help reinvent that and I said, why did you come up with
that name?
He said, well, John, I call it the 30 second lift ride.
You get into a lift or you get to talk to somebody about what you're doing in your organization.

(01:17:27):
You've got 30 seconds to make an impression.
He said, you start to talk about the Neurofibromatosis Association of America and they can't even
pronounce it, let alone give you enough time to talk about it.
You say to them, well, I'm chairman of the Children's Chema Foundation.
Oh, what's that?
Open stores straight away, doesn't it?

(01:17:48):
Yeah.
Open stores straight away.
And then many people I've given a one minute pat or two and they say, oh my God, how can
I help?
And you might remember some of the things that we did in fundraising and everything
else.
Yeah.
And certainly suppliers supported it enormously, which I could go onto another topic called

(01:18:13):
sphere of influence because whilst you see the public company and suppliers are getting
those really, really big orders, they love you, they'll do anything for you.
When you retire, they take longer to return phone calls and the thousand dollar donations
go down to $500 and then you can become a cranky old man and you say, I've been chairman
for 10 years, I'm out of here.

(01:18:37):
Yeah.
It's just part of life.
I've been very proud taking the Children's Chema Foundation from nothing to where it's
a national organization supporting hundreds of families, et cetera, because support is

(01:18:57):
so important in this.
Go back to the thing of you and your wife and your daughter going along to the doctor,
et cetera.
And you think you go home, your guts and their heart have been ripped out of you.
What do we do?
But the doctor has given you a pamphlet to contact the Children's Chema Foundation and

(01:19:19):
you ring there and there's this really lovely lady who will sit for an hour, tell you about
other families, connect you with other families who can give you support.
And talk to you about the NF clinic in your state, whatever.

(01:19:39):
The only thing is that it's the whole charity sector, not-for-profit sector.
There's so many, I mean, there's like over 60,000 people trying to raise funds.
So just trying to get enough.
And fortunately, Robby and I are in a position to help enormously, plus our friends and contacts,

(01:20:05):
et cetera, plus other very, very good-hearted people getting on board.
And yeah, but it's a really, really tough road.
Is the foundation still running today?
Yes.
And I'll be sure to leave a link on the website and on the show notes for those listening.

(01:20:28):
If you want to make a donation, they can jump on and donate.
Sounds like an amazing organization.
And I know exactly what you're talking about.
That pamphlet at the end, when my mother got lung cancer, we were sitting looking at each
other when we got the diagnosis.
And one of the ladies from the hospital walked over and said, give this lady a call from

(01:20:52):
the cancer council.
She's amazing.
And just being able to have somebody there to call.
And then they've experienced before they know what the emotions that you're going through,
as you say, your heart gets ripped out.
It's shock.
You go through all those patterns of emotion.
Yeah, that's right.
And it's just so yeah, I encourage everybody listening to the podcast to jump on and help

(01:21:16):
out the foundation.
I mean, it sounds like you guys are doing amazing, amazing work.
And then once I retired, well, even before I retired, my wife and I set up the Doves
Nest Foundation, which is our family charity.
And every year we do a review who we're helping what their work, what's the money achieving,

(01:21:38):
etc., because in the profit sector, you've got to be conscious of not just writing a
check and so it's about what are they doing?
Are they meeting their commitments?
You know, are they achieving all this stuff?
Yeah.
So we do that.
But there's been some very, very long term relationships.

(01:21:58):
And a lot of them to more orphan diseases like donkey shelter.
Okay, I've heard of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the orangutans in Borneo.
So if you get the chance to go up there and visit those, etc.
Amazing.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much again for your time.

(01:22:19):
And thanks for talking to the audience today.
It was good seeing you again.
I haven't seen you for a while.
So you're looking really, really well.
So thank you.
Thanks so much.
Take care.
Take care, mate.
Bye bye.

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S1:E9 - Retail Reinvention with John Hughes Former CEO of Thorn Group Limited

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S1:E9 - Retail Reinvention with John Hughes Former CEO of Thorn Group Limited