Inspiration from the Woolrest man

Press, 25 July 1986, Page 14

Inspiration from the Woolrest man

By

HUGH STRINGLEMAN

The man who founded the company which .now consumes one per cent of New Zealand’s wool clip annually, employs 200 people and wants to open 1000 “New Zealand” stores world wide, apologised to West Coast farmers for possibly sounding arrogant. He was happy to address the annual West Coast Farmers Conference, he said, and help motivate farmers who were down on their luck. If economic times had been better on the Coast he might have sold a few score Woolrest sleepers in the Regent Theatre, Greymouth, as an antidote for the cold and the seats. But Mr Hall dispensed inspiration.

The Hamilton man, whose company and products have attracted endorsement from Sir Edmund Hillary and Selwyn Toogood, explained how Woolrest came about and outlined the vision which will keep it expanding.

The closest he came to mentioning a sheep was to dismiss his own farming diversification into deer, goats and Simmentals as ego tripping — a bysway made attractive by taxation policies but which had lost r

Perhaps he got a little closer to the Coasters’ own experiences when he mentioned gold mining and tourism ventures which had also come unstuck, contributing to a

total $1 million loss on diversification which led him .to rediscover one rule of business.

“Stick to the knitting,” he strongly advised, or in his case to the woollen underlays. The next speaker, Mr Tony Tristram of Whataroa, heartily concurred. He was going to stick to dairying, determined to secure a future for his family, and resist the seduction of goats, deer, forestry, bees, nuts, blueberries and kiwifruit, or whatever else might grow on the banks of the Whataroa River.

Somebody else could produce the great new Kiwi products for Mr Hall’s international retail chain of New Zealand stores. Mr Hall said he wanted control of every facet of Woolrest production and

marketing and that included having retail stores overseas, where he might condescend to stock other uniquely New Zealand goods, as long as he was still in control. But that didn’t mean he was a one-man band at Woolrest

In just six years since the virtues of the woollen underlay were almost accidentally discovered, the Hall venture has grown to 200 employees and annual sales over $5O million. And 20 years ago Bill Hall was a commission salesman making canvas and leather goods in his garage. Hallmark leisure goods, sold nationally, was the result of his first expansion.

Mr Hall likes to hold to “his values” of innovation, integrity, quality, flexibility, aggression, style, service and control. The staff must also hold to these,, with an almost religious fervour, and the good ones are rewarded with profit-sharing schemes, European cars and high salaries.

The ones that don't measure up, including some of his own family, get fired. . Nothing wrong with the farmers of the West Coast having visions and identifying goals, as other speakers emphasised to the conference, but it might be more difficult to fire the family. At Woolrest they break

big messes down into little messes and take a collective responsibility for success or failure. Having assessed that a disaster could not have been avoided and the company executive was not culpable, the rest “form a scrum” around the unfortunate and push together. Now that was something right in the province of the West Coasters. Several other speakers hammered togetherness, community care, and selfreliance —. it would, have made Mr ' Kerry Burke proud to hear it Mr Hall got a rousing acclamation from the depths of the darkened Regent when he had finished. Everybody was probably thinking “Why couldn’t he have been a Coaster?”