SUCCESSFUL country baker Tom O'Toole has a simple maxim for business success.

"Our business is 5 percent about the product and the rest is all about people,"
         "It's as simple as that."
 

Mr. O'Toole has built his bakery business from a single bakehouse in historic Beechworth to a chain of six dotted as far afield as Echuca, Bendigo, Healesville and Ballarat.

Along the way, he has built a career for himself as a well-regarded corporate motivational speaker.

Yesterday, he was booked to inspire the South Sydney Rabbitohs, the team part-owned by movie star Russell Crowe. Next week he is off to Fiji and later in the year to South Africa.

Mr O'Toole started working as a baker 35 years ago. He started turning over $100,000 a year and the businesses now turns over $10 million.

Basically, the business is not rocket science, it is very simple," he said. "There are no secret spices, I even wrote all the recipes down in a recipe book that we sell."

Mr O'Toole said people should not confuse simple with easy.

"People come here and say: `the buggers are desperate to give you their money, what do you do to them?'," he said. "People want it fresh and they want it now."

"I can only grow one pie, one pastie, one donut at a time. They are looking at the big picture but they should be looking at the little pic­ture."

He said in-house training, often eschewed by small business, was important.

"People will say to me: `what if I train them and they leave' and I say `what if you don't train them and they stay?'."

Many of his staff go off to univer­sity but came back to work during the holidays. "It is a career path for lots of people. They stick with us for a long time," he said.

Mr O'Toole said even in the early days when he ran just one bakery he sent staff off to trade shows to enhance their skills.

Day-to-day running of the business has been handed over to Marty Matassoni who started as a appren­tice. He is now a 25 per cent share­holder.

Mr O'Toole said he still popped into the businesses to see how staff were going.

      Rise up: Tom O'Toole built his bakery business from a single
       bakehouse in Beechworth into a chain of six.
 

What's cooking

TOM O'Toole is the guest speaker at a free Energise Enterprise event at Ballarat on Thursday, August 28.

Mr O'Toole will speak at an evening which is aimed at providing opportunities for networking and building business relationships.

He will speak at the Beechworth Bakery, Grenville Street, 5.30-7.30.

www.business.vic.gov.au/energise

I am one of 200 and I am the most useless one."

He said people thought he was crazy to spread the bakehouses from as far as Beechworth to Healesville.

"The logistics are a bit hard but we are not on every corner," he said.

He said Healesville and Ballarat stores opened around two years ago. Healesville has boomed and Ballarat, is starting to hit its straps, he said:'

He said the Echuca site was a lucky rind. Another person had built the restaurant but after four years was unable to make a go of it.

He said another key to the success was that the Beechworth Bakery offerings were "middle of the road" and the restaurants were family friendly. He said innovation was important but getting ideas into place was always hard work.

"We have pages and pages of stuff we would like to put in place but we get so busy," he said.

He said it was important to think positive to achieve success.

"There are a lot of dream taker$: They are energy suckers ... they suck the energy out of you. Often they can be our partners and our friends," he said.

But, he repeats, the bottom line, is the customer. "Our business is 5 per cent technology and 95 per cent psychology," he said.

"It is so bloody simple. We get so busy with flow charts and spread­sheets, but all people want you to do is `look at me, greet me, talk to me, and thank me'. It is simple," he said.

Mr O'Toole said when he goes to five star hotels he wonders how long it will take a person to look up from their screen to serve him. "Often, it's far too long," he said.