Newcomer had to be smarter at job

JAMES BROOKE

Director and founder of Gaulter Russell, an Auckland based recruitment firm specialising in sales and marketing.

Staff: Nine full-time.

Age: 32


What makes your day at work?


My day at work focuses on success. We have annual budgets that are broken down into monthly and weekly budgets and it's all about successful completion of those budgets. When we have successes in the office everyone knows about it and it creates a great atmosphere. That success then relates to the client.

How did you get where you are today?


The major thing was having an objective and being absolutely single-minded in achieving that objective. When we started out we didn't have the back-up that a lot of other organisations have in our industry, so our only option was to specialise in something - sales and marketing.

In seven years we have not taken our eye off that objective.

I worked extremely hard too. You have to be prepared to sacrifice in the short term to gain in the long term.

What was the most important lesson you learned on your way up?


To listen, basically. That's enabled me to find out about what services our customers want, not what I thought they wanted. It's very easy when your running your own business to do what you think is right and half the time it's not. To actually absorb and understand what people are telling you is an asset and a real skill.

How have you dealt with any pitfalls you have come across in your career?


Probably the biggest pitfall we've had was a lack of capital. When we started out seven years ago we only had $1000 capital and we were going into a market dominated by giants. We overcame that learning how to solve problems on our own. We initially worked for no money and survived on basically nothing for six to eight months.

We found clients that were prepared to invest in our business by giving us work and paying us when we needed to be paid. We found a bank manager who was prepared to listen to our needs and helped us with a plan, although we've never had any debt.

What advice would you give to a young person starting out in business?


I believe the main ingredient to being successful is goal setting. I'm an absolute believer that if you do set a goal you will succeed.

You have to have a strong belief in yourself, confidence and patience.

The one other thing I would tell people is to have an exit plan for the more risky decisions. If you're going to take a risk make sure it's not one that will take your business down.

What's the biggest challenge for your organisation in the present economy?


Technology, without a doubt. Technology's moving so fast and it's such a big part of the future for most businesses and you need to invest a lot of money in it.

Our competitors have a potential advantage because they have the capital behind them and we've had to get around it by being smarter. A lot of the systems we've installed ourselves.

What one thing would you have done differently?


I would have sought more advice from professionals, especially financial and general business advice.

We had the mentality that we had to do everything ourselves to save money and that held our business back. I feel we're a very entrepreneurial business but we still lack a bit of commercial acumen because we haven't been around for long enough.

What ambitions do you have?


One very clear goal that our whole organisation work towards is we want to be the most successful sales and marketing human resources company in the country. We're probably about three quarters of the way there. Now we've got to continue to develop our technology and our brand.

How do you relax?


I'm lying on the balcony at our beach house at the moment in Hahei. I play a lot of golf and generally I just hang out with my wife and my little boy, Has.

* James Brooke spoke with Libby Middlebrook.


HERALD PICTURE / BRETT PHIBBS