Sarah Stowe
So Maria, welcome to the podcast today. You’ve been with Mister Minute for more than 20 years, which is a fantastic record. And last year you stepped into the CEO role. I was interested in what it is about the brand that encourages such loyalty from you.

Maria Walton
Thank you Sarah, nice to be here. Yeah, in terms of the 23 year tenure in the brand, I’ve certainly enjoyed, obviously my working career has been retail over 35 years and certainly has been more in product or grocery supermarkets. So when I joined Mister Minute in 2000, it was more of a service retailer and I think that’s certainly that making a difference or being involved in fixing stuff and doing real stuff for people really has kept me entertained for the last three years because you’re really, you’re not just selling a product, you’re actually selling your hearts and to harden the mind and you’re really sort of engaging and really fixing someone that’s something for someone that they love so much.

So there’s a bit of a pride in it, I guess a, hey, this is neat, I’m making a difference in someone’s lives. And I think that kind of philosophy through our business, whether it’s team members or customers, has certainly given me joy for the last 23 years in Mister Minute.

Sarah
Can you just explain to us what Mister Minute is and how the franchise model works? Because it’s a little bit different from some of the other…

Maria
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. And very proud. We started franchising in 2002. In actual fact, when I joined the business, you know, it was sort of like, aren’t you franchised? And we said, no, we just want to make sure that we know what we stand for, that we have a need for the market. We sort of fix our business model and then we’ll provide true ownership. And that franchising model started in 2002, 2003. And that model was really around employing our own team, developing their skills and then giving our high performing team members an opportunity to really do something different that they may not otherwise have been given the opportunity.

And what I mean by that is we have a low entry fee. So obviously we provide a leg up to our team members. Our team, we trust them, we know them, they’re performing. So we’ll take it to the next step and provide ownership of that business. So no entry fee, which means, you know, it’s sort of…allows our team to get in without sort of the financing side of things.

And then the beauty of that model is that it’s a fixed fee. So unlike many other models where they use variable sales, this one’s a fixed fee. So obviously everything that you do beyond the breakeven or the target, most of it just sticks to you because the fee is the same every week irrespective of the sales that you bring.

So there’s no, so the motivation here is hey, you know, give your customers the best service ever, do the right thing by the customers, get repeat business, increase your sales, we don’t take any more from that, it’s yours. So you, the model really rewards efforts to performance and rewards rather than, you know, we have a bonus plan in our company, corporate shops, but that’s only up to 10%, whereas the franchise model, the heart and soul you put into it, you reap your rewards because of the fixed fee.

Sarah
So if you want to become a franchisee, do you need to work with Mister Minute to start off with?

Maria
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. We like the model where we want to get to know the person we are working with and also get to know the person that’s serving our customers that’s going to be part of our long-term brand relationship. And we provide the technical skills – that takes up to a year. And then they operate their own shop as well. We call them a semi-owner because they’re still in the corporate structure.

And then it’s sort of quite a natural progression that they’ve been in that shop building their customer base and then they take that base to a franchise model. And, you know, most of our team are a hard-working team, younger, who don’t have that business background. So we provide, I guess, extensive tools and processes to help them be successful, whether it’s cash flow balances or even like doing the lease, we hold the head lease, we’ve got the equipment.

So essentially what they’re doing is buying their stock and paying a low entry fee and going into their own business and really overnight the customer wouldn’t know any different. There’s a plaque saying you’re now a franchisee but it’s really just a continuation of the service that they’ve been providing to their customers.

Sarah
It’s interesting because the internal recruitment process is becoming much more prominent in other franchise brands as a way to recruit. And I think what you said there about getting to know the people, the sense that once they’re on board, they’re part of the mission, they’re part of the brand, it’s a much easier transition, isn’t it, into kind of ownership if you already have that relationship.

Maria
Absolutely, Sarah. And the other point that I will make on that is that because they’re already part of the team and they know who’s who and they’re also working in the business when they move into franchising, it’s not unlike an investor relationship. They’re actually, the owners are actually hands-on working in the business.

And obviously they’ve been employees of Mister Minute or team members of Mister Minute. So they know, they know the trade, they know their customers. And if we could just, and we do this, if we could just take that relationship further into account in terms of pure ownership and provide them with good financial returns and certainly their pride in terms of where they’ve been to where they are, that’s super rewarding for ourselves but also our customers receive better service because it means something different to them.

I can see someone running a shop as a company employee for three, four years and they take it over and we think they’re working super hard but obviously the psychology of the mind, they’re saying it’s mine, I’ve got a stake in it, just pushes that individual to a different level and that’s great for us, great for the customer, great for the team member, all stakeholders win in that relationship.

Sarah
It’s inspiring, isn’t it? You mentioned obviously that when you started the business wasn’t franchised and that’s obviously been a significant change over the last two decades or plus. Have there been any other changes to the way that the business operates either in terms of the kind of internal structures or in terms of the retail locations and offers, is there anything particularly striking that has changed that’s made it more effective?

Maria
Absolutely, every year brings new sort of changes and challenges.

I think one of the highlights, and it took us 12 years to work this through, so it was 2000 we joined and so 2012 we came up with what is now is our true line and they’re the four most important words in Mister Minute. And it took us quite a bit of time to actually come up with this. But that true line that everyone sort of knows themselves by, Real People Fixing Problems, I think has stood us to where we are today and I cannot believe it took us 12 years to sort of really work that through but it’s been the best thing that we’ve done in Mister Minute, the fact that we have our positioning, our true line and everyone, everyone in the business and we keep using that, whether it’s support office or whether it’s a front line, we keep using that to really drive what we’re about in terms of being real people.

You know, we’re not on the call centre, we are real people, what you see is what you get and we’re fixing people’s problems and making differences in people’s lives. And I think engraving an heirloom or repairing a feather pair of shoes, we’re not going to cure cancer. But I think we are making differences to people’s lives in terms of their own needs and satisfying and putting a smile on their face. So I think I’d like to sort of say that that is that true line or that unified approach has really pushed the business where it is today.

I would say certainly, sort of back at the turn of the century, it was really around getting the brand to mean something in the marketplace. We’d certainly lost our way in terms of what we were trying to provide.

So there was quite a bit of, hey, let’s reduce, you know, we have four subsidiaries or four key banners to the brand. And, you know, that sort of got a bit confusing. So let’s just go back and focus on our Mister Minute operation. What is it that we do? We’re in the business of personal household services. We’re about fixing problems and we’ve sort of got that down pat in terms of ensuring that we had a foundation.

And then from there on really, it’s been around exactly that. It’s been around sort of the category innovation around those personal household services. For example, we introduced watches in 2003. That was never part of our business in 2000. And had not we introduced watch repairs, we would probably wouldn’t be talking today.

So that’s significant. And that’s sort of a big one. We also introduced car key duplication, whereas your traditional house key now became a computer chip microchip for car remotes and car keys.

Over the last, say six or seven years, we’ve certainly, you know, obviously with the changing customers profile, we’ve had to sort of go online and sort of do a bit there. We’re nowhere near there. But what I am proud of that we’ve got about 23 vans on the road where we basically go to customers houses to program garage remotes or they can’t bring their car to the shopping centre because they’re stuck or lost a key. We go out there and cut all their keys for their car so all keys lost. Now they’ve sort of got the keys for the car.

And we’ve only started in that car auto sort of environment but as we expand, who knows, we could be doing an engraving or a laser engraving job at someone’s house because there’s a need for that. So we’ll just..we’ll just anticipate what those needs are in the market and we’ll respond to those needs.

And the franchise is a franchise and it’s attached to the store so there’s obviously a continuation of what we expect in terms of the whole physical and the mobile. So basically you’ll have a franchisee who has a physical store presence but is also able to drive the van to wherever the customer is to provide them the service because that’s where they want it and we’ll do that.

And I think businesses today cannot turn that away. We just need to be where our customers are and we’ll do everything that we can. We’ve been thinking about vending machines in some remote parts of Australia that we’re not in. So again, examples of reaching out to our customers and reaching out to our targeted customers where we don’t have physical store network will be there. Probably not today, but we are looking to be there.

So those innovations with the technology or with the needs of the market has certainly, and we’re very big on that innovation pace in terms of not only responding, but anticipating those customer needs. And then, doing sort of the research and development around that.

And there’s these little, what I call the one percenters, whether it’s basically a pressure testing or watch or soldering, there’s these little one percenters that we sort of innovate between the subcategories, which again is just responding to our customers needs.

I think if I had learned something in terms of being business and being sort of in the position that I am is that never forget that you might be so good at what you do but if you can’t provide a need for the customer then you’re only as good as the next customer. So they’re very strong on that but also very strong in ensuring that we’ve changed the way we do things in terms of our own culture and our own people. We always say our people plan is our business plan and it has to be in a business where everything is around that relationship.

You’ve got to work on ensuring that your team are super happy, super motivated and that will come through in the delivery of the offer. So very big on people investment and I’d say very big on service and subservices innovation has been the bigger changes for the last two decades.

Sarah
So that focus on people, I mean, your background, I think, was HR. So is that, has that brought particular kind of, is that an area that you lean into, do you think, in terms of your leadership?

Maria
I hope so, I tend to think so. I think I’ve got sort of the psych and HR background and it’s funny, I sort of think that’s my strength and I don’t know if it’s an innate or the psych, you know, do it for me or is it just that I love but I have a passion for bringing the best out in people and I’m a true believer of this, that the capability, the performance, the motivation and the productivity of our people is a critical success factor in all of what I’ve just said and having a successful business.

And if you get that stuff right, I think the other things just follow. And certainly coming from sort of the human resources planning background and ensuring that, hey, you know, people want to work for you. People understand their purpose, what they mean for the organisation and really going back and redefining why the context, why are we doing this. And it’s always around people, behaviour and customers.

And I’d like to think that’s got the 20 plus years of background, but also in terms of just the fact that I like improving on myself and I like developing people and I get just the sense of utmost joy when I see people grow and believe that they can do something that they never thought they could do and that’s our franchising story.

We have our team who when I interviewed them as an HR manager, could barely say boo across an interview table, but now run their businesses and are the king of their local community, so to speak, the Mister Minute man. And that creates choices for them in terms of wealth, but also I think for them, it gives them a sense of pride and ownership and hey, the development and the growth in that person is what satisfies me.

Sarah
So is it the development and growth that took you into HR in the first place? Did you have a goal when you started out in your career, in your business?

Maria
When I finished sort of my HSC, I sort of had the business and the psych sort of two angles and I remember, I remember having to go from, I was at Sydney Uni, I remember having to go from the business, the economics campus, right through to the psychology, the science campus. And that was very rare because you just either had to pick that or that. So I always knew that I was going to end up in a behavioral-type role. But I also love, I’m a very competitive person, I love the competition of business. I just love thriving and pushing through and sales competitions get me and I was always working in retail whilst studying.

So I sort of couldn’t choose and at the end I did clinical psychology to be fair and sort of did that for a couple of months and thought, well, I miss the business aspect. I miss the human industrial sort of pushing business motivation aspect and sort of then went through in terms of that field and haven’t sort of looked back since just love what I do. And I get a sense of satisfaction in that, you know, I have touched so many people’s lives with.
I guess that strength and seeing what they achieve, it just makes me wake up every morning and go, hey, who else am I going to sort of touch today? So yeah, absolutely. It’s very rewarding and satisfying.

Sarah
And in all that time with the different dealings with people and working across different kind of retail brands, what has been the biggest learning for you? What do you feel is one piece of business advice that you’ve been given or that you would share that has really shaped your performance?

Maria
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think sometimes we can get too caught up in the strategic and strategy and you know, we’re going to do this and the planning and we’ve got a very orthodox, don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a very orthodox prescriptive planning processes. But I think what I’ve learned over many years is that never, never underestimate the power of communication.

I think what I mean by that is, you know, that the assumption that the team are on my wavelength because I’ve communicated to our senior team. That power of actually that face-to-face or that visible leadership, going to their shops and being with them, and I can’t do the trade but I tell you what I can certainly inspire them, give them confidence, give them hope for the business is going and how they fit into that brand.

So I think if I had to sort of do things forward is get out more and visit these shops and be with our team. I think that visible leadership cannot be done through emails or Zooms or phone calls. And certainly after the pandemic it called for that but even today calls for that. It’s just a requirement of doing business today that you have to be out there, you have to be a hands-on CEO out there with your team hands-on executing on strategy because strategy alone won’t fix everything. You’ve actually got to go out there and do the hard yards and work hard and the rewards will come. You know that that’s just what life is about and welcome to it.

Sarah
It’s interesting because we talked earlier about transition and this move of corporate staff into franchisees and your move into a CEO role was also a transition, wasn’t it? There was a transition period. I just wondered how useful you found that, if that was a particularly good approach to moving into the big seat.

Maria
Yeah, yeah, I mean, certainly Mark, who is our CEO now the chairman, he’d been at the helm for 23 years. And I joined the business with him. So obviously there was already history there in terms of the relationship. And we came in to sort of do something. And certainly, you know, obviously the business, you know, where most CEOs today are sort of tenure is about three to five years, 23 years is a very long time.

And I knew , so importantly, it doesn’t matter if it was myself or anyone else that came to that position, that you cannot just turn that switch off and say here comes a new CEO. So I was very adamant that that continuity of shared like-mindedness was there and you know I’ve come in and I’ve sort of added a whole new aspect in terms of the people that are working with me in terms of the leadership position and made a couple of changes there and I think there’s 13 new leaders only two have left.

It was just about reorganising the organisation a little to bring the value out in terms of people being in. One of the things that we have is people don’t leave Mister Minute. So I’ve had leaders in their roles for 23 years, like myself as a people manager. And so I did a bit of reshuffling to bring a bit of a spark to the business and then coupled that with a number of external people into the business to help the new wave coming through.

So, and that transition still happens today. It’s sort of, you know, 10 months on, but it still happens today. Mark, our chairman, is involved in aspects of the business that I think will add value, especially when it comes to our frontline team, which is very critical. Last week we were in Perth for our annual conference. He was absolutely there in form.

And that was awesome. That was awesome for our team to see that those, you know, you don’t talk about people being important and then suddenly because someone sort of decides they’re no longer CEO, the light gets switched off.

So I think that sort of that longevity and that shared meaning in terms of that same, you know, probably boringly same, but that’s what it has to be. We have to actually say the same things and live by those same, I guess, philosophies and that’s been very good for the team to continue and also think about their future in terms of you know what’s my tenure in Mister Minute now that the leadership has changed.

And you know it was a good vibe in Perth we were there for a couple of days and you know it certainly felt excited even more excited than I’ve ever felt in terms of the vibe in the room and the fact that you know change happens and it’s got to add value in any position whether it’s a CEO position or the people position that I’ve now recruited for. You have to add value to that change. If we’re going to make a change, let’s actually add value to that change. And I think we’re doing that today. So I’m pretty excited about what the future brings.

Sarah
The scale of the business is quite significant, isn’t it? I mean, we all know our local Mister Minute, but maybe don’t have an idea of quite how big the business is. So I think 372 stores operating across Australia, and that includes a recent acquisition. What’s the challenge in scaling the business? And it does go beyond Australia. Can you just share a bit about that?

Maria
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So definitely we have a very, you know, maturing market in Australia and New Zealand. We still open a number of shops in Australia and New Zealand. Last year, we obviously had that big acquisition in Western Australia, and that was big for us. Just to give a sense of that scale, in 2015, we had three shops in Perth. Now we’ve got close to 40. So that was certainly big for us and big for us in terms of…
having a real presence in that West Coast, but also in terms of the market share, in terms of being a number three player to a number one player.

And I hate saying that because it sort of shows that we could sort of get into this sort of arrogance or complacency or hubris and I don’t really talk about that but I always talk about, hey, we’re only as good as ourselves and we’ve got to keep pushing forward and thriving for that. So that ANZ market is a mature market.

We’re now moving into our expanding market in Southeast Asia. We’ve been there for about five years and cut a long story short, whether it’s Covid or whether it’s resources to the acquisition in WA, we haven’t really given it a good go.

So this is the year, actually today, June 1st, we actually opened up our first shop in Malaysia for over four years. So we haven’t been able to open shops in that market and so today we open My Town, which is a new market for us in Malaysia. I’m very excited about opening that market. So with that comes the challenge of culture, different markets, international sort of, I guess, business. But that stuff, we’ll get through that.

I think the biggest challenge for us today, whether it’s Australia or New Zealand, Singapore or Malaysia, it’s just around having great people, having people who believe in what we do, people who want to fix more problems for people, people who want to make a difference and making sure that we provide opportunities to our teams.

I think that becomes the overriding challenge for ourselves and for many retailers out there in terms of, especially with the tight market that it is, I think the key becomes how strong in terms of capability and depth of your team. I think that’s the differentiating factor between many businesses today.

Sarah
So what’s your ambition for the business and your role? What would you like to?

Maria
I just, yeah, I’m easy. I just want to fix more problems for more people. I just think the more we can service our customers’ needs, and I mean in the existing services, but also beyond the subcategories, but also in terms of distribution channels, whether it’s having a mobile fleet on the road or the online presence. Obviously the physical store presence is our main way of doing business.

But it’s not the only way. We’ve just got to be where our customers are and that excites me just to open up those different avenues. But also just to lead a team that is passionate and we do have a lot of passion in the business. The tenure, the loyalty of the team denotes that. And to lead a team that is passionate, wants to learn, very hungry for learning and want to do well and do well for themselves their team and their families.

If I could be there and be that leader who exemplifies and helps them get there, that’s what I want to do. I just want people to succeed. I want people to have better lives and always keep improving on their lives, have some choices about their wealth and grow themselves and be pretty happy with who they are and what they’ve done. Because life’s too short after all. We sort of see day by day how life can be so short. So why not be the best that you can be?
and have fun doing it. That’s what I’m about.

Sarah
Fantastic. Well, thanks so much, Maria. It’s been lovely to chat with you and to catch up. Thanks for your time. Thanks.

Maria
Thank you, Sarah.