RED Steel managing director/owner Bob Hawley said he had "absolutely no business training at all" when he bought his business in 2002.
"Like a lot of people in our industry we end up owning businesses by default," he said.
His industry makes steel structures, mainly for buildings.
He was an employee of the Napier business, then called Woolaway Steel Structures, but moved to the Bay of Plenty.
In 1992 he returned to buy Woolaway.
He sought assistance from David Cushing, an "old friend of years gone by".
The Cushing family are NBR Rich Listers and active investors.
"I explained I was buying the business and I showed him the books."
He said it turned out well - he ended up with an experienced board.
"It is very low key but it's a very good family to have on board - we can bounce ideas off each other and if you want to fill in a credit application form it is quite handy to put their name down."
He changed the company's name to Red Steel and operates mainly in the North Island with some earthquake-recovery work in Christchurch.
The constructions industry was "very tough".
"We compete in the tender market which is crap, really. Everything is price-driven - it is very hard to prove to our customers why they should deal with us and not someone else."
He said going from employee to employer in a few days "was quite a learning curve".
"I am a quantity surveyor by trade so am quite interested in the dollars and cents of construction. I think of having gone down this track I would have been an accountant, but I am quite pleased with this route.
"Right from the outset I had absolutely no business training at all, so The Icehouse was a good thing to do."
In 2005 he attended a two-day seminar at Black Barn in Havelock North.
"It was a full-on couple of days. We started early and we went into the night. It ended with a dinner, we had guest speakers and there were some Hawke's Bay people there that I had heard off. Conroy [Removals], Furnware and FPG were there.
"We had a few interesting speakers. One flew in on a helicopter, that was quite impressive. So he sat down and told us his story. He was on the bones of his arse and the helicopter was the last thing he owned. It wasn't rosy stuff - in some aspects it was how not to do business."
He said the event was a pre-cursor to The Icehouse's owner manager programme.
"It took me five years to pluck up the courage to do it.
"It is a pretty full-on course. It goes for five months - three days a month you're in Auckland, basically locked down. We started early and you go through to the all-hours.
"You get some great guest speakers and you meet some fantastic people. On our course the people ranged from a naturopath, a used car salesman to some very successful businesses that you see around like Cardinal Logistics - it was brilliant.
"Block three in the third month you stand up in front of your peers and tell them about the business.
"We worked in small groups and they brought in a facilitator from outside The Icehouse - in our case he was an accountant - and they tore my company to bits. But they also showed me things I was doing really well - a lot of that was on the financial side.
"We signed confidentiality agreements and I got the financial reports of the other three people in our group - so there was a lot of interesting information shared."
Later in the course he developed and presented a strategic plan for his company, something he regrets doing without including his staff.
"You can't just chuck it on the table and say, this is what we are doing. You have to involve people in the process."
The Icehouse has since set up a business hub in Hawke's Bay, the first outside Auckland, where he has worked with programme facilitator Peter Wogan on a strategic plan.
"It has been invaluable and we now have regular management meetings and everyone has a role to strengthen the business."
He has also completed a customer experience module locally "understanding why our customers are coming back to us". "That's pretty neat - and very good."
He has kept in touch with his owner manager course alumni.
"There is a core group and we travel throughout the country. We have things organised for us to do - we socialise a fair bit. But it is really good to catch up with them and see how their businesses are going and sharing our stories."
He said the main pre-requisite for employees was attitude.
"If they have the right attitude we can turn them into anything."
He said his staff get treated well, with 11 of the Woolaway staff of 17 in the Red Steel team of 28.
"I am amazed when I walk through workshops throughout the country, usually with the business owner, and the staff don't have a thing to say.
His workshop had a lot of " fun and happy" yelling. "It is the culture we have in the business and that's our strength and what sets us apart from others.
"Look after your staff because they have got us through some tough times."
Looking after his staff led to a transtasman adventure.
"In the early days I said to the boys, what goes in the scrap bin we can spend on a few drinks.
"It probably goes against any business lesson you've learned - I was promoting scrap by giving it to them."
But the price of scrap steel soared. "We had to go to Australia to get rid of the money, so we went to a Warriors game in Sydney. Man, they really remember that. I get it back tenfold every year."
Attitude of staff key to thriving company
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