Monthly Archives: March 2020

Capturing Award Winning Success

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They started out with an office in their kids’ rumpus room at their home in Clive in 2015, now Nicky and Kane Grundy have a Chamber of Commerce Business Awards trophy in their high-profile space at the Tech Collective in Ahuriri. The entrepreneurs, who have always owned their own businesses, have ticked off numerous goals since starting their video production company in 2015 including being a part of The Icehouse Owner Operator Programme.

Kate de Lautour spoke to Nicky Ross-Grundy about the opportunities for the business and how Grundy Productions are creating a shift in the way we think about recruitment.

You were the 2019 winners of the HB COC Small Business Award – just 4 years after starting the business. How have you done it?

The Icehouse has been a major contributing factor to the development of our business. The 12 month programme covered all the major areas of business which made filling in the business awards entry less daunting. It’s allowed us to be more conscious and purposeful in what, how and why we do the things we do and given us invaluable knowledge and structure.

The judges said they were impressed with our focus on quality in everything we did from all interactions with clients to ensuring that our staff are working in a brilliant environment. An important factor has been bringing the right people on board who share our values and vision. Suden and Ally are both talented, creative individuals who care deeply about what we do and our clients.

Recruitment videos for companies like Central Districts Pest Control have been incredibly successful with thousands of views. What are the key elements to good recruitment videos?

This is an area that really excites me because who you hire has such an impact on your business and the results our customers achieve are so positive. In today’s world recruitment is more about culture fit. Skills can be taught but matching the right values and mindset can ensure you’re hiring for the long term. The more our clients share with us the more real and creative we can be.

Also having a strategy to share your video and designing your recruitment process with your candidates’ experience in mind goes a long way.

How do you get that vision to portray each company in a way that captures people attention?

We start with researching the client to understand what makes them different and special. Then we drill down into who they want to speak to and why. That involves researching the potential target audience and then tailoring the client’s messaging to their audience.

With video we’ve found it far more impactful to keep the messaging simple, clear and targeted. For example, a brand video, telling the story of who you are, what you do and why is different to a recruitment video which articulates why talented individuals should work for you.

What are some of the challenges you face?

Working from home was challenging and, in the early days, when we didn’t have clear boundaries, we were trying to do everything. Kane has joined the coaching part of the Owner Operator Programme and he’s happy for me to work on the business while he works in the business although Kane does tell me not to talk about work at home! Finding that ideal balance isn’t always easy.

At a point last year I felt I needed to focus on our kids instead of spreading myself

too thin at work. The Icehouse coaching gave me the confidence and expertise to prioritise what was important. We can now be comfortable that we can say no to the projects that make room for the best opportunities.

What kind of growth are you experiencing ?

Financially we’ve met our targets and experienced year on year growth – a 244% increase from our first full year FY2017 to FY2020 and physically we will need extra office space. The Tech Collective has been really good for our brand, clients have enjoyed coming here and it’s a nice environment for the team so it’s likely we will be staying close to Ahuriri with Wallace Developments.

What is on the agenda for 2020?

We are seeing more and more export food businesses wanting to tell their story with visual impact. We are about to embark on training videos for large corporates. Rather than nuts and bolts training, these projects will be a story telling function to allow employees understand the “why” around the training they’re doing.

Charlie Wallace – rocking to success

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The hard work has paid off for musician and online entrepreneur Charlie Wallace, who now has the financial freedom to realise his dream of becoming an international rock star.

It’s a ‘high school dropout becomes a success’ story for the former Taradale High School student, who has created a multimillion-dollar online business before the age of 30.

His teachers may have doubted he would be successful but Charlie has gone
from leaving school at 15 years of age to creating the world’s leading online learn- to-play guitar business, Guitar Mastery Method.

So successful has Guitar Mastery Method become that Charlie can now afford a rock star-like house high on the Taradale hills with fast cars, a swimming pool and a studio for his band Black Smoke Trigger. The band is also paid a salary so that they can put everything into becoming the world’s biggest hard rock band. Think Metallica, Alice in Chains and Mötley Crüe.

“I was busy being a teenager and playing in a band but when I realised that if I wanted the band to be huge, we were going to need a lot of money. I couldn’t borrow any so I had to come up with a money-making idea.”

Charlie’s first money-making scheme was to publish an e-book teaching people to play the guitar, but success didn’t happen as fast as he had hoped.

“I released the e-book when I was 16 and it made $20,000 over five years. I knew that if an e-book could make me $20,000 then I would be able to make a lot more money from developing an online video course.

“I told the guys in the band that I was going to put the band on hold for a year, develop the guitar course and focus on making as much money as I could so that we could go full-time.

“I had no idea that it would end up taking me eight years to get into a position for us to go full-time.”

During those eight years the band also changed in both name – from Horresett to Black Trigger Smoke – and members, with only Charlie and Josh ‘Baldrick’ Rasmussen being the originals.

Charlie put everything on the line to make a success of Guitar Mastery Method.

It took three years to develop the online courses and he spent many sleep- deprived days building the website, the member login area and payment process; editing video and photography content; as well as being the anchor tutor.

“It was a lot of work and what made it harder was that I didn’t have any funds to get any support, so I had to learn to do everything myself.”

Charlie believes he was destined to be successful from playing guitar strings.

“I always knew that I was going to do something with a guitar even though my teachers thought I was destined for not a lot.

“I started playing guitar after hearing a Black Sabbath song and I wanted to try and learn how to play it.

“I heard that you could illegally download it on the Internet, so I went online but failed to find it. But I did find this website called Guitar Tab and that gave me the prospect of playing this kick-ass song that I had just heard. I looked at these six lines [guitar strings] that had numbers on them and it just made sense to me; from that moment I stuck with it.”

Learning was a slow process, and Charlie had to search the Internet for different ways to learn instead of just relying on the one website. In doing so he was able to develop a unique teaching style that has become the secret ingredient to the business’s success and seen over 50,000 guitar wannabes subscribe and become guitarists.

“When I started to learn guitar it was about trying to get as much information as possible from all sources and then trying to make sense of it. I had to do
it the hard way and piece the puzzle together.

“I started to get really interested in how the brain learns because I wanted to learn faster, I wanted to absorb as much as possible.

Charlie also attributes Guitar Mastery Method’s online marketing success to what he’d learned from marketing guru and author of top-selling book ASK Ryan Levesque. Ryan has since become a close mentor.

However, when Guitar Mastery Method went live at 10 am on 5 August 2014, success wasn’t as instant as Charlie had hoped.

“I had been up all night getting it ready and managed to get just a couple of hours sleep on the broken fold out couch before 10 am launch time.

“I clicked the email ‘send’ button to say it was live and my heart started to pound as I was wondering whether I had just wasted three years of my life. I had no idea whether it was going to work at all. I kept hitting the browser refresh button over and over hoping for a sale yet nothing was coming in.

“It wasn’t looking good and although the website had been live for only 15 minutes, it seemed like an eternity waiting for the first sale.”

Charlie went for a walk outside to think about his next move: would it be going back to one-on-one teaching guitar, or working in a music shop?

“I went outside and pondered what would be next if this failed. I took a deep breath, walked back inside and hit refresh again, and at 10.17 am I had $47 dollars come in; it was the biggest $47 dollars I have ever earned.

“The first order was from the US and I was in celebration mode as it felt as if I had just made a million bucks.”

In the four months remaining in 2014, the business made just $13,000 – a long way from getting the band back together and paying them.

In 2015, turnover reached $80,000, then nearly doubled in 2016 to $150,000. In 2017, Guitar Mastery Method exploded with earnings reaching $1.5 million, then $3 million in 2018 and a staggering $5 million last year.

“The fastest earnings totalled $75,000 in 45 minutes. Our next target is to grow revenue to $15 million as soon as we can.”

Success has enabled Charlie to bring on staff and support agencies, including a social media firm run out of Vancouver, as well as to prepare to step aside to join the band.

Thanks to mentor Ryan, Charlie decided in 2018 to set a deadline for the band and its members Josh Coyle-Te Maro on drums, Dan Fulton on bass guitar and Josh ‘Baldrick’ Rasmussen on vocals to go full-time by March 2019.

Charlie said the early vision was to build up the business to sell, but he’s since seen it change peoples’ lives as well as realise the initial aim of funding a band.

“I’m not running any of the business day to day now. Ryan advised me to set a date to step away and that’s what I did, and the team has stepped up.”

Close friend Johnny (last name), a former builder, has risen to the ranks of chief operating officer – “he’s my right-hand man,” says Charlie.

Black Smoke Trigger’s success to date includes spending three months in Nashville recording an EP (extended play record) with one of the best music producers, Michael Wagner; making a music video for “Caught in the Undertow”, which has had more than 1 million views on YouTube; and reaching Number 9 on the US heavy rock billboard charts with “Set it off”. The band hopes to produce an album and tour the US in 2021.

All the while, Charlie has no plans to move permanently from Hawke’s Bay.

“It’s the best place to live. Most of our business is in the US, both with Guitar Mastery Method and the band’s music, but there’s an airport 15 minutes from my house and it’s only two or three flights to a US destination.”

Doug Ducker – an industry icon retires

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Doug Ducker has seen more than two consecutive forestry plantations grow to full harvest, having worked for Pan Pac for nearly 46 years. Doug started as a process engineer and in 2004 became the businesses Managing Director.

Pan Pac began as a Joint Venture involving Carter Holt (60%) and two Japanese companies, Oji Paper and Sanyo Kokusaku Pulp in 1973 and under Doug’s leadership it operates one of New Zealand’s largest sawmills with lumber output around 500,000 m3/a, a pulpmill producing 270,00adt/a, retains tree ownership for around 35,000Ha and supports harvest and util- isation of over 1.5 million tonnes of logs. In 2016 it established a second sawmill, currently producing 100,000m3/a in Milton, Otago.

Total assets involved are close to S1Billion NZ with annual sales around $400Million/a. The business which is now owned by Oji Paper employs around 420 staff and has over 450 people involved as full time contractors through our forestry planting, harvesting and cartage programs.

Doug has been a significant contributor to the Hawke’s Bay Business community serving on the board of the Chamber of Commerce and Business Hawke’s Bay. Pan Pac is also the lead sponsor of the Chamber’s business awards.

Tell us about your career?

I joined Pan Pac in December 1974 and, save a brief period working in Sydney, Australia in 1984, have been with the company since then.

I was initially employed as a process engineer to support the expanding pulp mill operation and over the next 30 years assumed roles covering technical services, environmental management, project development and production management. In October 2004 I became Managing Director (CEO) of the company taking responsibility for our Forestry, Sawmilling and Pulping operations.

Pan Pac is Japanese owned – what were some of the challenges in bedding down the relationship in the early days?
The relationship with Japan has always relied strongly on TRUST eg original contracts for the formation of the company were very simply written.

Over the first 20 years as a JV company executive direction came via Auckland, in the latter years and particularly since 2007 the management relationships are direct between Whirinaki and Tokyo. On occasions the processes of Japan, particularly the need for detail, are frustrating for the New Zealanders however the outcomes are generally stronger for it.

Pan Pac has maintained a program of continuous growth over the decades with annual capex spend exceeding $30 million a year over recent years.

What have you learned in a business sense from the Japanese partnership?
A strong characteristic of the Japanese has been the long- term commitment to their investment. While there is the deep monthly analysis of company performance, it is underpinned by the understanding that our products are subject to commodity pricing rules. These can see cycles that on occasion may cause one to question viability to continue; however, a capacity to ride through the low is usually applied. Having said this, the drive to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary cost is always there.

Pan Pac has always retained some secondees from Japan to support liaison and technical/administrative understanding – results of which being some lifelong associations between New Zealand and Japanese people have developed and cultural understanding enhanced.

Pan Pac has been a keen supporter of the community – both in general and business – why has it been important to contribute?

Most of Pan Pac’s markets are conducted on a Business to Business level with over 85% to export customers. As such we do not maintain a strong market presence in either Hawke’s Bay or New Zealand. We are however very dependent upon the support of locals for log supply, engineering services, transport capacity along with a trained and capable workforce. As a result support of local activity has been exercised as appropriate – this includes over 15 years sponsorship of the Rescue Helicopter, sponsorship of the HB Business Awards, participation on the HB Chamber of Commerce and Business HB along with community support over the greater Hawkes Bay region.

What have been some of the toughest challenges you’ve faced?
Responding to the need to ensure from the managing director’s desk that our employees and contractors are secure both in terms of their financial position as well as their family needs. Stable employment conditions are key to this objective, with many staff working with the company for more than 20 years.

In 2013 the company posted an operating loss, which resulted in a need to review some conditions. This was a difficult time but the outcome has seen ongoing security for all.

Health and safety performance remains an ongoing challenge and is a continuous process as the risks, while minimised, remain high in various parts of the business.

What are the things you’re personally proud of in your involvement with Pan Pac?
Participating in and then providing for sustained growth of a greenfield development in my home region with the securing of shareholder support not only for the region but also for the country.

The respect for our company amongst the local community, suppliers, customers and local and national government has had to be earned and feedback indicates that it is there.

What’s the future look like for Pan Pac?

Pan Pac has a bright future with substantial regional log resources available with staff and plant capability strengthening across the board.

Adaptability of products for markets will always be needed; however, the use of a sustainably managed resource will assist in expansion of the existing base.

Are there any transformations on the horizon?

It’s always a difficult call; for example, the advent of the smartphone has decimated demand in Japan for newsprint (the end use of Pan Pac pulp) and saw a significant $70 million development to make a higher-quality pulp for markets in China and India. The transition was successful yet demand patterns are still volatile.

On another front, a recent visit to China saw the use of 3D printed veneers being applied to doors, which could enable substitution of the frame to our lumber.

The management of carbon issues both for forestry and energy has new focus.

What does retirement look like for you?

The freedom to make the call on how my time is spent. As I approach my 70th birthday, it feels right to pass on my corporate responsibilities and to explore (and in some cases complete) new projects involving family and friends.

Hawke’s Bay Airport achieves first step towards carbon neutral status

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Hawke’s Bay Airport has succeeded in its first step towards carbon neutrality, gaining Level 1 of the internationally recognised Airport Carbon Accreditation programme.

Hawke’s Bay Airport chief executive Stuart Ainslie said the airport has completed the mapping stage of the Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Carbon Accreditation programme and is well underway to becoming New Zealand’s first carbon neutral airport.

“We are very pleased to gain Level 1 as we work towards realising our aspiration to be New Zealand’s most sustainable and innovative airport,” Mr Ainslie said.

The programme independently assesses and recognises the efforts of airports to manage and reduce carbon emissions through 4 levels of certification – Mapping, Reduction, Optimisation and Neutrality. Two other New Zealand airports – Palmerston North and Christchurch have also joined the programme along with around 300 others from around the world

With the mapping stage now complete, the focus moves to reduction and optimisation. Since it began tracking its emissions the airport has already seen a noticeable improvement due largely to design improvements delivered by the redeveloped terminal.

“Although it’s early days, the new building is already delivering some impressive results in terms of energy efficiency. In January our electricity usage was down significantly on the year prior, due largely to LED lighting and efficient cooling systems being operational in the new arrivals and departures halls. We expect this trend to continue beyond completion of the project at the end of the year,” Mr Ainslie said.

The airport will be moving to a carbon neutral certified energy supplier and is currently undertaking due diligence on a large scale renewable energy solar farm onsite, which Mr Ainslie said will greatly contribute towards carbon neutral status. There are also plans to incorporate carparks for EV’s and charging provision and parking for E bikes.

The Airport Board has committed to an ambitious Sustainability Framework which is underpinned by the four key pillars of financial return, environmental excellence, social responsibility and operation efficiency, he adds.

“Our aim is to be New Zealand’s most sustainable airport and our framework is at the forefront of us achieving this. It anchors our medium and long term strategic imperatives and provides the foundations to our updated masterplan that will be released for public comment over the coming months. Sustainability will be at the heart of everything we do.

ABOUT Airport Carbon Accreditation

ACI launched the Airport Carbon Accreditation in 2009 after member airports adopted a landmark resolution on Climate Change to reduce carbon emissions from their operations with the ultimate goal of becoming carbon neutral.

Airport Carbon Accreditation is an independent, voluntary programme administered by WSP, an international consultancy appointed by ACI EUROPE to enforce the accreditation criteria for airports on an annual basis.

Airports applying to become accredited must have their carbon footprints independently verified in accordance with ISO14064 (Greenhouse Gas Accounting). Evidence of this must be provided to the programme administrator (WSP) together with all claims regarding carbon management processes which must also be independently verified.

The definitions of emissions footprints used by Airport Carbon Accreditation follow the principles of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) “Greenhouse Gas Protocol” Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard. When considering the emissions from aircraft within the airport perimeter and on final approach and initial departure, Airport Carbon Accreditation uses the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) definition of the Landing-Take Off cycle and requires airports to comply with these definitions.