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Meet Unsung Business Hero, Jim Craddock, CEO Modern Star
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Transcript of Meet Unsung Business Hero, Jim Craddock, CEO Modern Star
Born in 1975, Jim grew up in Armidale, NSW. “I grew up
in a loving family. My dad’s a pretty special guy - he was a
radiologist - and my mum was a pre-school teacher, which
gave me what I would deem a really good early childhood
with no lack of love.”
Following his three elder academically capable sisters meant
Jim’s education was probably a little bit more frustrating for
his teachers. He looks back on those early days realistically.
“I wasn’t a bad child but I was a somewhat distracted
one. My family was part of a closed secular religion which
meant I had a predefined pathway, so I didn’t really focus
on school as much as I should have. Religion was a very
significant part of our lives, and it was my parents’ absolute
reason for being.”
Jim openly admits that “I don’t think you ever truly
complete your parents’ expectations, I don’t think anyone
ever does. Perhaps parents expect too much of their kids at
times. Most certainly, a lot of values that I have today, and
that I’m now sharing with and guiding my children, have
been derived from my parents.”
Who Jim has become, and how he has come to be there,
are mostly definitely the product of his parents’ input. “My
dad’s an incredibly bright man and he has an incredible
humility about him. Very few people would truly understand
his capacity. My mum was always positive, and told us to
count our many blessings one by one, and she also worked
on the principle of do unto others as you’d have them do
unto you. So a lot of those things have certainly affected
who I am today.”
CEO – Modern Star Group
At just 20, Jim Craddock left his family home and church behind, drove four hours to Sydney with no money, no job and no idea about his future. It was a tough start, but twenty years later, Jim has gone on to be the CEO of the most successful educational resource supplier in Australasia.
Businessheroes
Unsung
Jim’s parents are community-minded
and caring people who didn’t seek
recognition. As Jim recalls, “for example
they’d recognise families in need, and
drop off groceries on their veranda, not
knock, and not look to be recognised
or take any credit. That sort of stuff is
pretty powerful.”
As a country medical practitioner,
Jim’s father is highly respected, which
came from treating all people equally,
irrespective of who they were. “Dad’s
now 78, but he still goes out of his way
to help people every day. He probably
helps more people every hour than I
do in a week.”
In retrospect, Jim was always going to
work for his dad’s business. His father
had set up a business for his sons
and son-in-law Graeme, in hospitality
supplies in Armidale, and Jim went to
work there straight after school. Jim
says “I remember my dad coming up
the stairs the following morning after
my last high school exam, and he said
‘James I think the Lord would expect
you to go to work today’. Further
education wasn’t part of the church,
you just got on with it.”
At the end of 1995, Jim had a parting
of the ways with the church - as he
puts it “a coming together of heads,
more than hearts.” Jim regrets the
bridge with his family won’t ever be
mended, given the church is pretty
defined in their views. “It’s a challenge,
of course, because my kids don’t have
grandparents as such, but it also
makes you who you are, so you’ve got
to embrace anything that makes you a
little bit stronger.”
Jim admits to desperate times and
desperate actions to make that move
away from the only life he’d known.
“I broke into my parents’ house
one Sunday, when my folks were at
church, because I had no food, no
money, and I knew my Mum would
have prepared a feast, she simply
was the best cook ever. While there,
I opened the Sydney Herald and as
the pages fell open, right there was
an advertisement for exactly my job
in Armidale, but based in Sydney. I
rang the owner, who responded that
if I could be in Sydney the following
morning, I could have the job, if I was
as good as I said I was.”
Having coerced one of his dad’s
workers to give him a company car,
Jim drove to Sydney, got the job, and
drove the car home the following
night, only to then hitchhike back to
Sydney, and the rest is history.
The company which took Jim on
was called Northpak, then owned
by Lindsey Galloway and George
Stavropoulos. Jim worked there for
about six months, selling hospitality
supplies to cafes, recalling that “they
were very good to me. I followed
one of their employees to a company
called G&M Packaging, working for
Burt Johnson and George Sofokleous,
for two years.”
In time, Jim had heard about a
company called Modern Teaching Aids,
which sold great products to schools.
All that quiet time in the school
holidays sounded too good to be true
to Jim at the time! Jim responded to
a recruitment ad for that company,
however the sales manager, Graham
Kapinga told him he’d already had
70 applicants and didn’t really need
anymore. Jim recalls “I really wanted
that job, so I just made sure that he
absolutely knew I was his guy. I made
sure I was the person that influenced
his day, and influenced his sleep. You
do certain things out of fear and need,
and basic competitive behaviour.
There’s no downside in going hard at
it and making sure you’re there to be
counted; last man standing principle.”
Of course, Jim got the job working for
Modern Teaching Aids in 1998, and
was soon selling educational resources
throughout a large area of Sydney and
country NSW. Jim looks back on those
days with great fondness; “I had the
privilege of seeing some of the most
extraordinary places, and meeting the
most extraordinary people, many of
whom are still good friends.”
“Maximise the moments, and the rest takes care of
itself.”
Unsung Business heroes Jim Craddock
allows customers to create some of the steps for children to
take toward adulthood.
Jim oversees a company of some 230 staff in all. “The
human component is never easy, because everyone’s world
is their own. People everywhere want to be valued and
acknowledged. They want to be part of a greater purpose,
have some clearly defined objectives and understand why
we are who we are, and where we’re going, and no one
should be precluded from that. It doesn’t matter where they
are in an organisation, the process should be enjoyable.
I love seeing my colleagues having fun. It’s important.”
When asked how he motivates his staff, Jim goes back to the
fundamentals of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. “It starts with
a sense of belonging, safety, security and certainty. Being
part of a team and understanding the business is going well
and that it’s sustainable is all important. Allowing people to
feel they’re contributing, and how that can be measured
so they can understand their own success, is also critical.”
The overall sense within the business is that “we’re a team,
we work to a common goal.” Jim’s delighted to boast that
“we’ve got an incredible array of staff here. My colleague
Len will celebrate 40 years with us next year. He’s been with
the company since I was 8 months old! We’ve got long-
serving reps on the road, like Harry in Adelaide, who last
month celebrated 35 years, and other reps with 25 years.
There are so many good, long term relationships.”
The underlying principle is that “business is about
partnerships, it’s understanding what your customer really
needs to achieve their outcomes, and also understanding
what your suppliers can bring to you. If you have a vested
interest in what your customer’s trying to achieve, you can
find it, or create it and this business does it really well on
both counts.”
Jim’s proud to claim that 63% of revenue last year was
from either exclusive products or those which have been
fully developed in-house. He notes “there are products
in the business continually supplied up to today, from
partnerships from before I was born. You then become a
custodian of those partnerships and relationships. It’s that
blend and respect of continuity that makes this business
really successful in what it does.”
Of course, it’s not smooth sailing. Some big contracts have
been lost over time, which really hurt; particularly when it
can ultimately affect the ability to employ certain people
or teams. As all small business owners know, “having the
economic climate move around you and having to make
hard decisions, that’s never easy.”
Success in Jim’s life is determined by multiple parties. He
has investors, and other people to whom he answers, who
obviously measure success in terms of profitability, but also
want a good sustainable business. Jim explains his own
view; “Wellbeing and working in that principle of ‘doing
unto others as you’d have them do unto you’ means success
in my mind isn’t purely monetary. People who are truly
content quite often are happy with less and so my measure
is more of a fabric. It’s about getting lots of little things
right, feeling good about it, and making sure that you’re
not burning anybody or anything on the way through.”
Jim believes there’s no substitute for hard work. “You can
have all the degrees in the world, but if you’re not willing to
put in the effort, it probably won’t transpire into anything.
I don’t expect my daughters to go to university. I assume
they will, but it’s certainly not imperative to their success.
The school of hard knocks is where common sense comes
from, for sure. That’s probably one of my dad’s comments.”
In 2002, the business was bought by two English brothers, Neill
and Simon Wiston. “They asked various layers in management
about who they thought had a good eye for new product,
and I was very fortunate that the previous owner, the sales
manager and the state sales manager all put my name
forward. I suppose it was just those little things that you do
along the way which delivers that extra mile. The old owner,
John Herrington, was leaving the business and he was taking
with him a lot of good product knowledge and that critical eye
for good product. I was fortunate… right time, right place.”
Jim was promoted to a product management role on the
education side, and soon after that the retail product
manager left suddenly, so he was asked to take on the
entire product management role across all their channels.
“That gave me a chance to be fully integrated into the
business and to thoroughly learn all the aspects of it. That
was in 2004. After more than a few all-nighters, and a lot
of long weeks, I was offered a more commercial role, and
joined the board in 2005.”
Jim has never asked for a pay rise. “My view is, if you work
hard, focus on making your boss rich, that’s going to pay
dividends for you.”
From 2005 through to 2014, Jim worked very closely with
owners Neill and Simon, and a colleague, CFO Rob Davis.
“We worked hard at building a really good business, and in
that time, it more than quadrupled in size. Neill and Simon
decided it was the right time for them to exit.”
Jim comments “this is a business totally vested in its customers’
needs. We have three core customers; educational institutions
in our education channel; toy retailers in our toy channel; and
parents and kids in our consumer channels. And our aim is
to maximise and efficiently deliver what they’re all trying to
achieve as their ultimate outcome.”
It’s a source of great pride that “next year is our 60th year,
and I’m merely one custodian having been here nearly 18
years. Our business has multiple positive forces. We have
really good supplier partnerships. We have great products,
and great customers, with really great reasons for being.”
Jim describes the three channels of the business as having “a
great, can-do attitude” and one where “we’re often delighted,
and we’re rarely satisfied. Across all channels we think about
what the customers are trying to achieve.” Modern Teaching
Aids in the education sector is the most prolific business
element, and the supply business into the toy retail channel
and there are also businesses like child.com.au which is an
education superstore for parents and a mail order business
which supplies direct to consumers.
A self-confessed “big kid”, Jim believes this is an integral
aspect of the business; “understanding the value in the
concept of learning through play is very valuable as part
of the overall mix. Kids like to play, and in turn when they
play they learn. Good learners have greater chances of being
strong, resilient adults who make good decisions. I like that we
can play our part in that process.”
There is plenty of satisfaction for Jim in seeing the practical
application of a product his team has developed, which
“There’s no downside in going hard at it, and making sure you’re there to be
counted; last man standing principle.”
Unsung Business heroes Jim Craddock
Giving advice to someone starting up a new business is a
tough one for Jim, “because good business is osmosis,
you’ve got to find something that you enjoy and if you
can, find something that you love. Stick with it, really it’s
never always positive, but if you focus on anything long
enough, and you become empathetic to your cause, you
will achieve success.”
When asked to nominate who he respects, Jim says, “There
are a number of people in my life I respect and have a great
appreciation for what they do. My darling wife puts up with
me no end. I’m an abstract human being, to say the least. I
also often think of my parents, and the contribution they’ve
made to me. Those important virtues they extolled which
have been instilled into me, make me who I am today, and I
get to pass them on to my kids, which is magic.”
Jim also has much admiration for the business’ former
owners; “Wim Hartman really built this business to what
it became. He was a turning point and had entrepreneurial
spirit. John Herrington, who bought a majority stake,
brought a lot of value to the business, and the most recent
owners and business partners for more than a decade, Neill
and Simon Wiston who I respect to no end.”
Giving back
The credo of ‘doing unto others as you’d have them do
unto you’ is clearly well inscribed in Jim’s psyche, and
he’s very conscious of the need to pay it forward. He says
though that “it’s difficult in a commercial business to always
support every bit of goodwill you’d like to.”
The business has been aligned for some time with Stewart
House, a nearby charity at Collaroy which works with children
who aren’t as privileged as many others. Jim notes there are
300,000 teachers around Australia, who often want to do
something even more special, so every week there are ad hoc
requests which the business does its utmost to support.
On a more direct basis, Jim recounts that “once a month
we provide a barbeque here at head office and the staff
provide a gold coin donation. The company gives some
additional funds as well, and the staff chooses the charities
they would like to support. Recently, we had an ex-staff
member who lost her premmie baby, so she asked us to
support what they call ‘cuddle cots’ which are specifically
used when you lose a baby. Our barbeque ended up
contributing more than 50% of one of those cots. We try
to be a good-hearted organisation.”
CEO – Modern Star Group
address PO Box 6614, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086
phone +61 2 9907 5279web www.modernstar.comweb www.chalk.com.auweb www.parentdirect.com.auweb www.teaching.com.auemail [email protected] http://ubh.lc/JimCraddock
www.parentdirect.com.auwww.modernstar.com VIDEOwww.teaching.com.auwww.chalk.com.au
Jim CraddockConnect With
“It starts with a sense of belonging,
safety, security and certainty.”
Daniel’s parents divorced when he was born and his early
years were quite turbulent. His stepfather was a bikie, and
not a particularly ‘nice’ fellow. Being exposed to alcohol
and drug abuse together with domestic violence for the
first 13 years of life was far from ideal. A number of his
male relatives also went to jail.
Clearly unhappy with the state of his life, Daniel decided to
turn that around and independently moved out of home at
a very young age. “By the time I was 13, I wanted to get
out. I’d had my first job at 10. From there I learnt I could
be independent and I had started earning some income.
I had three casual jobs outside of school hours and that
gave me enough money to move out of home. I just rented
a room and got out of the place. Although it was really
challenging, it was also a big relief.” Daniel recalls.
In all, Daniel attended 13 schools before reaching Year 7.
Daniel didn’t like school and refers to those years as “my
13 years of hell - like a jail sentence. I couldn’t wait to get
out.” When Daniel finally left school in 1996, like many
others, he was quite confused and didn’t know what he
wanted to do.
CEO - Gallop Solutions
Daniel Davis left home at 13 after surviving a family background of domestic violence, drugs and alcohol abuse. Remarkably, he finished school and built a thriving business. By 23 he had a seven figure income and owned three service stations. He now shares his experience coaching other start-ups.