KEY POINTS:
Keith has been honoured for his special contribution to the Marketing Association and the marketing industry in New Zealand. The former Ceo of the marketing association still holds a number of directorships and is as busy as ever. A sometime boxer (ok way back), and all round sports enthusiast, Keith has been a broadcaster, salesman, insurance senior manager and business consultant. He is a remarkable human being who has touched many New Zealanders and their businesses in his own way- by showing drive, empathy and fairness for everyone he comes into contact with. He also has a sharp business brain - and may just write a book one day.
I didn't know that marketing was an option for me all those years back in the UK. When I left school I wanted to be a jet fighter pilot and I went to the Royal Air Force Pre-selection School and I got through fine and they said get through your final exams and come back.
So that's what I did and got through all the intellectual and the co-ordination tests and all that sort of thing. I went through the medical and that was very thorough and I had a bit of a sinus problem and the doctor said, you had a bit of a sinus problem last time, you said it was a cold. I said, yes and he said, do you get them often? I said, yes and boxing hadn't helped.
I boxed. I had 56 fights, as a junior, up until the age of 17.
I boxed because I was the only scholarship kid in the area. We lived in a working class area and to get to the bus I had to walk through this area. Well I got beaten up just because I was -you know -a top scholarship kid. I thought this was crazy.
Once I started boxing nobody ever picked a fight. They heard, the neighbourhood heard. Maybe it was a sort of confidence, the way I walked and my attitude.
If you take your life into your own hands somehow it shines through. Nobody ever said, "I hear you have taken up boxing lessons" or anything like that. Nobody ever picked on me after that.
I'm not sure whether it was playing rugby or boxing but my nose was broken a couple of times. I've had sinus problems since I was nine so that probably was not material but it wouldn't of helped either. So I wasn't selected. I could have gone as a navigator but not as a pilot.
So I had to do National Service. National Service in England finished with all those born on February the 1st 1939 or after. I was born on January the 26th. I got five days inside.
Two years in the national service was very good for me as a person because I was thrown into a situation where you were with working class lads from all over the country and there is a great mixture. One of the interesting things for me was that I thought about myself as a thinker but I was an observer. I observed how some of the young guys, - chartered accountants had been able to stave off their National Service until they got their qualification. They were obviously from a different socio-economic demographic sector and how hard it was for them to integrate into service and adjust into service life. And I thought if I don't learn how to do this then this is going to be a miserable experience.
You have to learn quickly how to relate to all different kinds of people. Robbie Burns said "How we wish we could see ourselves as others see us" and it's very true -you can't. In the end you build up an image based on other people's feedback. But when you are young you don't have that. Well I was the opposite. Coming from a small town, a relatively sheltered background and my father was one of the few professional choristers probably in the world. So I hadn't really experienced that side of life and certainly never mixed.
Learning not to prejudge people and to respect some of the strengths that they had and to be able to encourage them and talk to them and learn about them. I would have never had got that if I hadn't gone into the services.
In business today, learning that empathy is a huge winning characteristic. It never used to be. It wasn't recognised, particularly under the English order management style.
They desperately needed a flyhalf, so I was posted to RAF Innsworth in Gloucester. Not for my intellectual or academic or trade skills - but because of the game!
The truth outs.
Yes. The RAF Innsworth was the administrative centre of the whole Royal Air Force. All the postings, all the records, all administrative records, all of those things were held there, done there for the whole of the RAF. That meant that certainly people that I met in rugby had all quite important jobs within the administration centre.
I got a phone call one day from a guy - he was actually our number 7, who said, "Keith I have good news and bad news" and I said what is it? You better give me the bad news first. He said "Well you have drawn an overseas posting". I said, well that can't be so bad. He said "Its Aden".
Its where?
Aden. Which is in the Persian Gulf. It's partly Iraq, partly the Yemen.
So what's the good news I said? It's a two year posting. Is that the good news? No that was still part of the bad news. He said, "I can't do this for anyone else but there is also a person needed with your skills. By then I had already learned the double entry accounting and that sort of stuff. He said they needed someone for double entry accounting desperately on Christmas Island. I said Christmas Island, where the hell is Christmas Island?
Well this was the Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean-Kiribati. I said well where is it? He said "It's in the Pacific". I thought that can't be bad. All right, fine, bring it on.
It wasn't as if I had gone out of my way to make friends with this guy but because we played rugby together and obviously thought this is an opportunity. So I went to Christmas Island. And was still young and naive then. I was 20 years old with all these hardened people. They just finished letting off H bombs and A Bombs. That was the testing centre for the UK. This was as far away from civilisation as possible.
This was an island with 5000 men from army, navy and air force, US, Fijian, Commonwealth and right across the board. We were actually winding down, the whole operation, they had finished letting off the bombs.
The toughest thing was this was an island, there were very few women, there are 5000 guys, there are a few Gilbertese Islanders who are there to harvest the coconut harvest and there is the social life, the structure of life you had to make for yourself.
The fact that there is 5000 other people and that there is an infrastructure makes it easier but you are still in a totally different environment and you start to notice there are no cows. There are no green fields. So everything is imported in. The island has just grown up out of the sea. It's coral.
I had to find stuff to do at first to keep me sane. It's a wonderful place, but really "out there" .You walk out any side of the island and you catch fish, they had a radio station which was an open wave length radio station. So I went along and auditioned as a news reader.
I honestly didn't think I would get it. The radio station was all manned by certain staff who seemed to be "in the know."
I thought this might be a starting point; I might be able to make production assistant or something. It was another interest. The day after I did my audition, I read the news and they questioned me about current affairs and the next day I got a call from the officer in charge of the radio station and the senior producer. They said, we would like you to come on board and I said that's excellent. I said will I be reading the news? They said no, no we don't want you to read the news. Well you can read the news that's fine but what we want you to do is come on board as our projected senior producer and I said what does that mean? They said, well it means you run the place.
I said, but I have no experience and they said, we think you will manage, we think you will be ok.
Subconsciously you are probably making them happen, but at the time -it seemed like I was lucky. Positive things seemed to just happen for me at this stage.
I began to realise if you control communications and you are responsible for the money flow, this puts you in a very powerful position. I was also the one who did double entry accounting. It meant that I did the officers pay, the senior NCO's pay and their missed bills. There was one other element that I found out was important and that is I had two of the senior military police who were there who had very good voices so I auditioned them and took them on. That kind of gave me an in.
After about three or four months, even the CEO used to dock his hat to me and of course the rest of the men laughed at this. They said, you have got to be the only guy the officer's solute around here.
The first adult realisation that communications was a path for me occurred at 12 o'clock one night. It dawned on me that if you have the law, the money supply, and communications - they make you a powerful person even without actually having to be powerful.
That was the turning point.
The next realisation was you mustn't let it change you because I realised that I was privileged and I could have whatever I wanted. I had room to myself where as every other airman on the island had to bunk in with eight others and things like that. But it was not to flaunt that. It was to let other people share it. So I learnt a little bit about how humility can help and how to use it.
I came back and finished my stint in the RAF and I ran my father- in- law's milk and dairy business as he got taken sick with TB. You can't go anywhere near a milk and dairy business with TB and I ran his business.
We didn't come to New Zealand until I was 35.
It wasn't a business I wanted to be in permanently and so he sold it and I looked for a job. I went for interviews and basically I was looking for a sales job because people said you understand people you will get on well. So I looked for a job and I got offered three in a week. I ended up working for the Nestle Group which offered great benefits
Later I was recruited into Cross and Blackwell, which is an iconic English brand. Branson Pickle, Baked Beans, number two to Heinz and a lot of those. I had a wonderful trainer. The training program was superb. I believe in training.
I learned the importance of goal setting very early. The Nestle organisation along with Procter and Gamble at that time were probably the two leading international organisations. Everything you did was goal set and objectives and being young and impressionable I didn't question any of the objectives and goals. I just took it as this is what I have to do, right go and do it.
So the next thing I knew was my regional manager was ringing me up and saying well done Keith and I said what for? He said you have just won the group sales competition. Really? Gosh I said did I beat all 12? He said, you did not beat all 12, you beat all 220. So then I was selected to go on a management training course and they had their own country house training centre. Nestle was very good. So this was people from all over Nestle. There were 20 guys on the course.
We did mock interviews and situations and initiative tests. They work you from six in the morning till 12 at night. There are some things I can remember about it. When I arrived I looked at the other the other 19 people on the course and thought, what am I doing here? These are all such impressive people. I thought, I will just do my best and not get too upset if I get a bad report.
I learned the value of contacts and relationships, goal setting and objectives and interpersonal skill at this ten day course. It had a lasting impact.
As the course went on I realised that I did probably deserve to be there because I did seem to be able to hold my own. Still 21, I got called to the regional mangers office. We had district managers and regional managers and there were six regions. So this was the West Country Bristol. So I got called into the regional office and I hadn't been employed by the regional manager which everyone had up until then. I had been employed by the top sales person who he had handled all the major accounts and I had been employed by him because Jim Coleman, the regional manager, had been away on holiday. It was an unusual occurrence. Then I learned actually that they had gone right outside the normal protocol and there was an element of well you are not quite one of my boys but when I got called into the office I thought well here we go, I'm obviously in bloody trouble now, what have I done?
They said well done Keith. Both the Jims were there. The guy that employed me and the regional man, with big grins on their faces. I said, why? They said, well you were top of the course. So then I became a manager and they appointed me straight away to a manager's role. I had only been in the job for 6-9 months. I had never managed, well I had because of the broadcasting but I had never thought of it as management. I was just a leader.
This was a real test because I had 14 sales people, all of them considerably older than me. One of them was the previous district manager who had been demoted. That was a challenge.
I did that for a year and we won another national competition and only by a normal naïve fixation on goals and objectives. I set goals. We set goals according to the region.
It was all just intuitive really. I had learned that through the boxing. All of these things had built up. If you set goals and if you say, I want to achieve this, you have a reasonable chance of achieving it and even if you don't you would probably do a lot better. So then I got promoted to the top region in the country. Once again I was ten years younger than the next youngest regional manager. It was an interesting period of life.
Over the next few years we had 12 homes in our first 11 years of marriage all because of promotions and moves. We did really well. We ended up building our dream home and the family too. There were two Jaguars in the garage.
I am actually believe it or not quite a shy person on social occasions I still find difficult but I do it because I know it is important and other people have an expectation of you. If I feel like that, I'm sure a lot of other people do. There are things that we all dislike doing, whatever they are. So I forced myself to do those first. Get it out of the way and then the other stuff that you want to do you just get on with because otherwise it sits there like a little cloud, niggling at you. So I always do those things. The more I dislike it the more I force myself to do it and get it out of the way.
When I wake up I get up. I never lie in bed. I must say it is partly because of the injuries with rugby. I don't like to just lie there. I don't particularly like reading in bed. I prefer to sit up and read and at night I am usually pretty sharp between 9 and 12. So I can easily do some quite productive work late in the evening.
I have a down time around about 2.30-3 pm. I try to avoid meetings, in particular boring meetings at that time.
I had two sons that I very rarely saw. When you have been driven by these goals and we were driven. Even though I had never written them down, well I wrote some of them down. When you achieve all of these things there comes a point when you measure your life.
By this time I was in retail as well and retail is a seven days affair. We were opening new stores at a rapid rate and I at this stage I was a director of the company that is just going public. Everything is in the public eye. By this time you should be of an age to be able to assess life.
We sat down and evaluated our life and worked out that we were very happy but there were also a lot of things that we were dissatisfied about. I think I must have arrived on a Saturday night and I had to leave at 3 o' clock on Sunday afternoon and I desperately want to play golf and I couldn't because how could I just see the kids for an hour.
We were being driven rather than doing the driving and so we said. How do we overcome this?
Then I got made redundant. I was a major shareholder and it was a family company. We had just taken the company public and we were a star company but there was a serious lacking of professional management skills at the middle level because it was a family company. We were expanding into furniture and that sort of thing and so they took on a marketing director that had these skills who nearly sent them into liquidation. By then I was gone. It was great. It gave me the opportunity to really evaluate.
So we made two decisions. One-we wanted to see the world because we hadn't really travelled. Take a year off. Two -get to know the kids and try somewhere new. Then we did a process of elimination. You know English speaking countries because it is a bit old in the tooth to learn new languages and new customs. So then we ended up in New Zealand.
1974. 34 years ago. We arrived in New Zealand. There was one licensed restaurant in the whole of Auckland.
We went to Dargaville. Dargaville is on the northern Wairoa which is called the upside down river because all the mud is at the top. We went up there because my sister lived there. They had moved there just temporarily and that was part of the motivation to come to New Zealand. Not because I wanted to be with my sister but they had written such glowing accounts. She was married to a Kiwi from the Lewis family. That's Lewis Path and Arthur's Path. So an iconic Kiwi family. We went to Dargaville. Going to Dargaville is still quite an experience. I loved it from day one. I just loved it. We only stayed there for three of four days but there was something about it that was totally different.
There were different people. A different way of thinking. These are country people and they are farmers-number eight wire people. Some were really lovely.
My first step into marketing in New Zealand- it was about eight or nine months and we still weren't absolutely certain that this was the place. I went on a few interviews. I had no trouble getting interviews but when I got there it was tough to land them for a number of reasons- being new to the shores of New Zealand.
Soon fate took a hand again. We had taken out an insurance policy for Jill before we left. A life insurance policy. Then a man came to see us because they had filled it out on the wrong form in England and then he filled out the form and got to the bit about employment and I said, well I'm not employed. He said. What do you mean? I said, I'm not employed. He said, if I may be so bold. How will you pay the premium? I said, well ok, we will pay it out of capital until I get a job. He said, what sort of job? I said, it will probably be a sales job initially so I can get to understand the country and meet the people. He said, well have you thought of insurance? I said, no, absolutely not.
I remember he showed me this book and it had pictures of people. He said, well he earn $35,000 last year and he earned $43,000 last year and he earned $60,000. I said, how? These were big salaries in those days. He said, commission. You get paid according to what you sell. I thought, I can sell but I don't want to just go out and sell life insurance.
I said, what about him. He's the man at the top of the page with the crown on his head.
He sells insurance but he does it in a different way. He sells it to business people and he sells it to limited liability shareholder companies to protect the shareholder in an event of one of them dying or having split. I said,that's interesting. So I went and saw him and said, how do you do this? He said, you either go out at night and sell mum and dad policies or you do what I do which is identify business needs. I don't go and see them. I get them to come and see me. After all they come and see their lawyer. They come and see their accountant. So I thought, I like this. I said, that sounds great. I couldn't do it out of the provincial offices. He said, well why don't you come and join me. I said, I have never sold an insurance policy in my life. He said, it doesn't matter. If you have sold anything and you obviously have drive and initiative and you set goals, you will be alright. And I was.
So for a year and a half I sold insurance and made heaps of money but more importantly I got to know so much about New Zealand and the way of life and the culture and a wide range of people. From there I was persuaded to go into insurance management.
From then I became a manager and later ran a couple of companies in the NZI Corporation. Now we are up to 1987.
I had started learning about marketing in the Nestle organisation. I used to meet the other regional managers. We would meet for coffee and tell each other what kind of week we had and what problems we had. We worked out a system of sales audits where we helped one another out. Then we started to talk about, joint promotions, why don't we try to sell a joint Nestle promotion. Why don't we put together a marketing concept? Then between us we devised the first multi-million grocery promotion. That was the first foray into any kind of marketing. I didn't do a university degree.
I was in the insurance industry for 14 years. I remember I gave a speech in Nelson at a Writers Conference. There were about 700 there and I said, you are all smiling and happy out there today. It is time you looked at your plans because this industry is going to change dramatically.
We are totally under insured as a nation but I think that it is a legacy of the structure of the industry which was grossly over paid. My first year I earned about $45,000. There were so much up front costs in the whole thing. The average policy in those days took five and a half years to move into surplus. So up until then it was negative. The average policy life was just over five years. I was a marginal business.
After insurance, I did consulting for a while and have been immersed in New Zealand marketing issues leading the Marketing Association ever since. I now run my own consultancy business and perform the role of Director of Public Affairs for the Marketing Association. I love what I do.
Keith Norris at A Glance
* Has been associated with New Zealand Marketing Association for around twenty years
* Current directorships:
- New Zealand Marketing Association, since 1992
- Auckland University Short Courses, since 1998
- Titirangi Golf Club (President), since 2002
- Advertising Standards Authority, since 2006
* Father, grandfather, mentor, wine buff, foodie, golfer and avid spectator of every sport known to mankind !
Goalgetting Tips For Today
* Take up a sport to build your confidence- you will be amazed how this can change your life
* Learn how to get on with lots of different kinds of people - get out of your comfort zone.
* Do the toughest tasks first - get them out of the way -stare fear in the face.
* Set stretch (challenging) , but realistic, goals and measure your progress
regularly
* Avoid boring meetings in your own "bio-rhythm downtime" during the day. Manage your energy levels with powernaps if you need to.
* Don't fight change -embrace it.
* Look for opportunities in every encounter with people. Small exchanges can lead to big positive life changes.
Dwayne Alexander, our goal guru is founder of LiveMyGoals, the social network for goalgetters.
