Small Business
Business made easy
by Peter Switzer
Success leaves clues, and the winning story of a guy called George Holman – who went from garbage trucks to health clubs to running a multi-million-dollar automatic billing business – is one worth noting.
When trying to work out how Holman did it there are no big surprises if you have studied the usual practices of many highly successful Aussies.
Thinking outside the square gave this country-boy-turned-gym-junkie an edge, but also travelling overseas was another smart move.
The end result was the billing company called Ezypay, which turns over more than $150 million worth of transactions each year.
“It was sitting around the sales yards with nothing to do in the drought of 1981-82 that sent me to Sydney,” says Holman, the ex-Orange boy and founder of Ezypay.
“I set up a rubbish removal business called Rapid Rubbish Removals, but I found I had spare time sitting in the office waiting for calls.”
How did he do it?
Not being a time waster and hungry to grow his business opportunities, which is typical of entrepreneurs, Holman looked around for a business that he could do while running his rubbish removal business and settled on a struggling health club in Sydney’s Pennant Hills.
“I thought, with some smart business processes I could turn the club around,” he said. “I was wrong.”
But like many entrepreneurs looking down the barrel of bankruptcy he looked at what the market thought about his industry and found an opportunity.
“Many people had been stung by annual memberships where clubs had gone broke,” he said. “So I put on a trial of one-month memberships and actually made it a little more expensive to turn people off, but they went for it.”
To take away the inconvenience of his customers having to write out cheques each month he introduced automatic debiting and it also worked a treat.
“Not long after, I went to a trade show in the US and came across a company called Check Free, which was doing a similar things to what I was doing and so I knew I was onto something.”
What’s its growth history?
The time-honoured trek of Aussie entrepreneurs heading for the US to look for ideas has proved a very successful ploy for many modern day business success stories.
Ezypay is an outsourced billing management service that uses direct debit to collect funds on behalf of a client business.
The business has experienced exponential rates of growth since Holman founded the company in 1996. It has made the BRW fastest growers list for Australian companies several times since 2001.
At first, Holman shared and flogged his idea to his own health club industry at annual conferences and industry get togethers.
“At the first conference we launched at, we had a little three-metre by three-metre booth and we had long queues all day with other club owners wanting to understand our billing system,” he said.
How do you get noticed?
Speaking at conferences is a great way to tell your business story and to excite a potential market. A while back, at the Small Business & Money Expos in Melbourne and Sydney, those talking about their businesses found a big queue of would-be customers. This is a trick you should look at to give your business a push along but you have to have a story or an edge.
He and his cousin, Andrew McLaughlin, an IT expert, expanded the software program so that Ezypay could offer automated billing services across any number of industries.
This is another typical characteristic of successful business builders — know where you have weaknesses and go looking for experts to shore you up.
Holman’s next tactic to create a customer base was smart, really smart.
“I went looking for other industry associations where their members could benefit from automatic billing and it really took off,” he recalled.
Basically, he put his hand up to speak to members of various associations and probably put his hand in his pocket for a bit of sponsorship, but the point is he got himself in front of the right audience to grow his business.
The electronic age has played into George’s hands, with cheque writing less popular and cheque payments halving to $7.1 billion per day over the past eight years.
Do the entrepreneurs stay in control?
Like many entrepreneurs, Holman eventually surrendered the chief executive reins to career company manager in Trent Brown, with Holman assuming the chairman’s role.
“We went through a process to see what we had to do to keep growing the business,” he admitted. “Replacing me as CEO was one decision we made so I am now more focused on strategic stuff.”
And the timing was right.
“My wife and I received a surprise package in the form of a baby daughter, so it’s good to have a little more free time,” he added.
Any tips?
- Look to others for inspiration
- Speak at conferences to get your business out there
- Get people in who know what you don’t
- Know when to hand over control.
Important information: This content has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. It does not constitute formal advice. For this reason, any individual should, before acting, consider the appropriateness of the information, having regard to the individual’s objectives, financial situation and needs and, if necessary, seek appropriate professional advice.
Published on: Monday, January 25, 2010
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