Motor racing legend Steve Richards nearly bought a fast food franchise before honouring his true business calling | #408

Steve

It’s not too bad. There’s always plenty of good stuff to reflect on but now it’s funny because you say that but through my career some of the best results haven’t necessarily been the ones where you’ve got the trophy you know. The ones where you really grounded out and fought hard and at the end of the day you’ve got a sense of achievement from that hard effort and work that you’ve put through. So yeah, we’ve been pretty lucky.

Tim

It’s interesting because I mean obviously we’re here to talk business and marketing and I’m really interested to see what we as citizens, as a small business landia can learn from a race car driver that has achieved so much. So that’s interesting you know it’s not always about the trophy, right? It’s sometimes the journey is important. Sounds cliché but.

Steve

I think to be honest, I think it’s more about the journey. To be honest I think the trophy is just a small little bit that you get the at the end of it that probably just gratifies what you’ve done. But you know that the self-gratification is the process that’s enabled you to get to that point.

Tim

I wonder what a small business owner listening thinks of that where the trophies the sale, getting the client for life. But hey mate, enjoy the journey.

Steve

Absolutely. I think you know, to collect more trophies you need to put in that groundwork in the beginning. That’s slight different really is that we’re talking the same sort of thing.

Tim

Through that Steve, so what point did you become a business owner?

Steve

Look I spent 16 years, well in the lead up to that I spent my time trying to get to that point and then spent 16 years in the Australian super cars championship. And then post super cars and to be honest I was a little bit fractured and burnt by the last two years of doing that. And my wife and I were sitting down talking about and there were some options to go car racing and form our own team and do some things with some commercial backers that were willing to do that. But then there was the option to step out and go and do something else and we went a long way down the road of a fast food franchise to the point where we’d gone into crowd Metropol in town and literally had all the documents in our hands to sign up and go down that path. Thankfully I think at this stage we chose the right thing. We stuck it motor racing and knew the core of what we really knew and probably weren’t that attracted to seven day or week retail.

Tim

Really? We can reveal that you were going to become a KFC franchisee Tell us about that. So that’s like 2010 or 2011. You have had an incredible racing career, you know we’ve gone through the CV, I won’t embarrass you again. But what an incredible change. You completely over the of the racing industry.

Steve

Yeah look, the two last years in the super cars championship had been disappointing from a results perspective but look just not being able to enable change to help my situation and that was from many reasons and you know, you move on from that sort of stuff and you learn from it and become a bigger person from it.

Tim

But you must have it a bad taste in your mouth?

Steve

I did absolutely I did yeah. There was no doubt about the situation that I was in. I felt you know and I was looking to continue in the super cars championship as a driver. But really it was a bit of a time a change in that period too for the industry in that. The GFC had only recently happened and there were lot more commercial realities from young drivers that had sponsorship that were bringing to the team in order to support these big operations. I mean a V8 super cars’ team can have 50 to 60 people in it. So, there’s a few mouths to feed on the.

Tim

Is there anything in particular that made you think, you know what I’m going to run a KFC.

Steve

Look, just the situation I was in at the time and not being able to make some changes that would help change my performance and that was because of the internal structure of the team. I mean I was essentially a contractor providing my services to that team. I wasn’t employed by the teams.

Tim

So you’ve got KFC, you’ve shared your thought. Okay well a franchise as many do. Looks very appealing. You’ve agreed you and your…

Steve

I Like chicken.

Tim

I love fried chicken. Ticked a lot of boxes. I think they use Chicken salt at KFC too so more boxes to be ticked. What’s your wife name is? You and Angela have agreed to going to get a KFC franchise. The documents are prepared you are hopping in the car. It’s hours out of you driving down to Crown Casino in Melbourne. What happened?

Steve

We just we came out of the meeting a bit overwhelmed and a bit.

Tim

So you went to the meeting?

Steve

Yeah we were at the meeting and we’d done the meeting and received the documentation and it was basically a here you go, here’s the stuff, have a look through it, and get back to us within the next couple of days. Get your solicitor to have a look through some things and do all that. And we were driving home and it was dark night time. The meeting was at sort of 8:00 o’clock at night and we’re driving home and we both looked at each other and the pile of paperwork we had and I think one of us just said what are we doing? We know nothing about this. You know I’m sure, we’re smart enough to be able to learn but we’ve got kids that at that point in time were 10 and 11. And we were looking to probably move away from that being that sort of busy and starting up a business at that time. You know when we were now our late 30s and going down that path. I mean I just thought you know, maybe we should just you know should we stick to what we know. You know we know the game of the motor racing in the industry. We’ve got some great connections, some great opportunities there. Let just maybe give it another try and give it another shot.

Tim

Because you know, that’s like saying to the bride’s father whether we going to call this one off. And obviously there was some stuff to consider, losing face. You know, any legalities whatever but you didn’t regret it?

Steve

No, no, not at all. And so, from that moment on, we put our heads down and we went back to the people that were going to support us. And in the side to that is that as a coming out of the super cars racing championship as a full-time driver meant that for the three-endurance event at Sandown Bathurst and the Gold Coast, as a driver you’d be in high demand. So there the opportunity there to get still have some good driving in the super cars but then look at what other opportunities within the motorsport game could be exposed.  And I already done a little bit research on the Porsche-Ferrari Cup Championship. And that’s a well-supported, it’s probably the fastest single make chairmanship in the world it’s held in nine different countries and we thought that was a good way to step back out of professional driving into professional team ownership.

Tim

This is you and Angela going, okay there’s a business to be had in motorsports to get you identified the Porsche Cup as the place to do it. And is that when Steve Richards Motor racing is launched?

Steve

Yeah, look essentially Steve Richards Motorsport as my business was launched.

Tim

Sorry to interrupt, Steve Richards Racing is a horse guy? Isn’t it mate? We need to fix that. Anyway.

Steve

So that company was formed back in 1999 when I come, I’d actually been over in the UK doing some racing. And we came back and then I got a drive with a team. So, we formed that company but that was really as a personal services slash contracting for my services as a driver, not as an operation that actually perform motor racing services. So, Steve Richards motorsport then became a motor racing services business that provided service not only to us but to other potential customers that wanted to have a solution. I mean not everyone wants to go and buy the big Trent racing transporter and doesn’t want to spend their weekdays working on their cars. They want to have someone that can do that for them and someone that’s experienced and has some runs on the board.

Tim

So the average become a driver?  So that your foreign to small business Steve. Big change because essentially, I mean you might have heard me talk as a listener passes through the show, I talk about the cubicle escapee. That people who are listening in corporate, working for the man, dying to start their own business. Not dissimilar to you. You’re sort of utterly trapped in a racing car and but you are an employee. And you’re going like, I need to do something else, I need to run my own show, I need to take control.

Steve

Yes, that’s absolutely spot on and there’s not too many you know there are few teams out there that do a similar sort of thing that we do but there’s not too many out there that have taken it on a lot of you know a lot of the super cars drivers when they’re finished driving competitively, they move on to other things outside the industry. So, I think it’s just like anything.  You ‘re just out there looking for opportunities and if you’re willing to scratch around and work hard, you can find them and we were very fortunate in a couple of cases of meeting the guys at laser plumbing and that was a significant moment for us and we’re still we’re still working together today.

Tim

So just tell us about that Steve. Kyle being a past guest of the show. In fact, introduced us. He found you in the early days. It was he kind of almost one of those, what do they call them Angel investors or somebody who just come along, so much potential.

Steve

We had a group of people that were involved in the first year. And you’ve got to remember that Steve Richards motorsport in 2011 was me and Anj and having a background as an aircraft mechanic back while I was building a career as a hobby in motor racing. I had the hands-on tools to be able to work on my cars. So Steve Richards motorsport Porsche-Ferrari Cup in 2011 was me preparing the car in the workshop, driving the car to the track and then getting some contractors involved on the race weekend to help the preparation of the car while I was out there driving. So that just gave me some space in my life.

Tim

That’s a micro business.

Steve

Yeah. And then and then that evolved into what we have now which is you know, associations with fantastic corporate partners and BMW and BP and laser plumbing electrical and that continues. But the initial meeting with Steve was through some of our connections that actually a guy called Chris Pasmenti who was there doing some business coaching there .  He was doing some coaching for some of the laser franchise members and gave me an introduction to Steve and then Steve I had a chat. Steve wasn’t a motor racing guy at all but he could see some synergies in what in the model that we were trying to create and how he could adapt it for the business that was laser plumbing.

Tim

Wow. We all need a Steve. We do. I mean whether what form that comes in I just remember years ago when I was in corporate desperately trying to get out and not knowing how to do that and start my own business because I have no business owners in my family tree, I’ve checked it out. My Steve was more, I ended up getting a contract for six months with Smorgon steel and it seems like it was almost like a slippery slope out of corporate. Once that contracts I had to start my business. But what happened is Smorgon Steele said listen your contract’s up but we’ll go and start your own business and we’ll be your first client. And that was my story yeah. So, you know they are blessings to have that kind of that backing or belief.

Steve

Yeah look there’s belief but obviously there there’s been something seen in the character of the person that you are or the way or the way that you’re going about your business and maybe some credibility in talking to someone about what they’re trying to do and I think at the end of the day for me, you know making sure that you absolutely fulfill your obligation to someone once you’ve created it and that to me I think has been a big thing.

Tim

Big jump going from being probably a pampered racing car driver for other people’s teams. We had everything done for you. You were the mechanic, you were a driver you weren’t anyone but you were the driver. That’s all you were.

Steve

Turn up with your helmet.

Tim

Turn up with your helmet, sign autographs. You know, I’m Steve Richards, get out of the way. How did you, just interested in your mindset and Angela’s. Because you know I’ve spoken to other people who’ve done this and their partners are kind of critical they didn’t even get their support. So how did you manage that in both your minds as, Ok, we’re now back to for want of a better term ground zero and we’ve got to work our way back.

Steve

That’s probably a pretty good question because in motor racing, you know all the drivers that compete at that level have. Well not primadonnas but they’re very confident in their ability and personality wise, everyone’s a bit different and for some people there’s absolutely no question that having to take a step back for that and then become the guy that drives the truck or the car to tow the trailer and the race car. But then also in the workshop getting his hands dirty, working and preparing the car. That wouldn’t float with some people, there’s no question about that. But you know look that’s a personal choice and that’s one that we’ve always we’ve always been hands on in the roles that we’ve had within some of the teams. You know my first professional drive was with a team Gary Rogers motorsport and I was employed as a mechanic during the week to drive the cars on the weekend so I have no problem and no issue at all. Either. Angela and in taking a step back and getting our hands dirty. And it’s exciting. We’re starting to build something new. One part of my career had finished. And you know in a lot of cases drivers go on to become team owners. In the super car championship now, I’m not saying for one minute that that’s something that I want to do, but I think building something credible on the back of what you’ve done in as in your professional career as a driver. It was something pretty exciting to do

Tim

You’d come out of adrenaline kind of industry anyway. But when I hear of these people who’ve left corporate and started their own business, they often talk about the notion of feeling alive. Did you feel that or you or probably felt alive because of bloody racing around?

Steve

I mean,  it’s look it’s hard to think back then because you know things were tough. You know it was hard getting back to working on the cars and doing all that I hadn’t done it for about 15 years. But I think it was exciting at the same time. It’s exciting to say okay you know, we’ve done this for many years and it’s been fantastic but now let’s see what we can create. Stupid as it sounds, it was a legacy for us for the future. But to still be involved you know, interested in seeing the development of younger drivers in that sort of thing. I mean, I know I’m not going to drive forever. But I’m hoping that when I do stop, I’ve got something that’s bubbling along in the background that we can introduce our partners to and they can take on and help some other young bloke realise his dreams.

Tim

Do you feel like you’ve got that now? Seven years on.

Steve

Yeah.  It’s evolved enormously. You know we started very simple, we sort of grew to a two-car customer operation. Then at one point we were running in two different categories as well as doing the V8 Supercar co driving role with at first Mark Winterbottom and then Craig louds. And then now we’ve changed categories into probably what’s seen at the moment as the second tier of motor racing and a global formula with the GTA 3 category and that probably doesn’t mean much to most people, but we haven’t a have a say an association a commercial arrangement BMW Australia, with BP, with laser and all these great brands and I think that’s what we always hope to do. We hope to bring I guess the credibility of what we’ve done in motor racing and get people involved through a very different sponsorship model and that’s worked really well.

Tim

I want to talk about that before we do. By the way we’re talking to Steve Richards who is a motor racing legend, four-time Bathurst winner and plenty of other trophies in the pool room. Your dad Jim won Bathurst seven times. I’m not a racing guy so I don’t know what kind of bloke Jim was but what are the impact to you that you’re now using in your business?

Steve

I think probably the biggest attribute was just the way that he went about his racing. He loved and still, he’s got a factory in Ringwood and he’s still today at 70 years old is still racing and I think just, now he’ll tell you that he didn’t know any better. But over the time you know he had different businesses, a couple of Bob Jones teammates doors and things that he did but

Tim

Franchises. You’ll have a KFC one day.

Steve

Maybe laser plumbing electrical.

Tim

Yeah well there you go. I couldn’t do worse than that.

Steve

But look I just think his attitude and you know he went I remember him going through some tough times a lot like I did in his professional career and he came out the backside of those okay. So I think just from you know, just from standing at the back looking into how he and mum went through that period was helpful. And look you know earlier on, there’s always the assistance from him and advice out how to get better but never really business advice so to speak.

Tim

You’re a celebrity Steve, which I know will get you blushing. But you know does that helped you build your business?

Steve

There is no question that going out walking and going to the table with some results and some standing within the game. Definitely gives you a foot in the door but then you’ve got to.

Tim

Have you actively used it?

Steve

No, I haven’t but I guess it comes as part of the landscape. When you’re going to meet someone. It’s like Steve Richards you know what have you done, what are you involved with. And you know putting together over the years you know personal sponsorship things back when I was a driver and doing proposals and presentations and talking at corporate events for our various sponsors and things. I mean that’s not unfamiliar to me. I’ve felt quite comfortable walking in to talk to a CEO or a marketing director or a CFO.

Tim

I love it. I worked for a long time, not long, for two years a charity called Rich Jimson the AFL footballer and Jim had an idea he wanted to bring to life and that’s why I came along and helped him with it. But Jim would unashamedly use his celebrity to open the boardroom door and then stand inside but not to the point because the CEO, they wanted to meet him. So, he did actively use it and you know some would say, oh that’s you know that’s wrong. But I mean it’s an asset.

Steve

Yeah, I think it’s an asset and I think you know when you take on this, for me a monstrous task of setting something up for yourself, you’ve done the hard yards in the past and why shouldn’t you use the assets that you’ve created to be able to move your life forward and move your business forward.

Tim:

I think it’s a great exercise for any business to do is go, what are the assets I have and all these hard-physical assets. But there’s also some intangible assets like relationship, partnerships, networks that you know, are invaluable. So maybe we should call on them more. So okay, so now you’ve got this business Steve Richards motor sport that is humming along your driving and you’re setting up other car teams to have their drivers come and drive on the day. That’s all going along beautifully but there’s another part to your business, which is the sponsorship part which you couldn’t live without but you do it differently.

Steve

Well I guess as we’re just discussing try it tried to look at all the assets that we have as a group in a business and you know naturally driving a race car quickly is pretty special and it’s an experience that we’re lucky enough that we can share with other people by putting a passenger seat in. I know you came for a ride with us Tim a few years ago and that was a bit of fun. And then we try it you know, we don’t try it, we capture that experience for the person now. That’s one thing but then it’s also about using the car and using your profile as a tool for these businesses to utilize for their assets. So being able to I guess off shoot and create almost, we created with laser like a share program and laser plumbing electrical at that point in time and they still don’t have a huge marketing budget. There are plumbing electrical services industry provided through their group and we had to get down and dirty with the members and actively get those guys involved so we created. We created some share opportunities for them. So one share was a reasonably basic thing. It revolved around a couple of rides for that member to use these days and we did five of them a year two in Victoria, one in South Australia, one in NSW, one in Queensland. So we then got the National Network essentially all of those businesses to be able to be actively involved. And we raced in all those states so the opportunity then was to enable to get those guys, not those guys more importantly get their customers to the events that we were doing including the ride days. And what we want to provide them is the opportunity where they could, the laser plumbing electrical network are very close and they share lots of business around Australia with different members you and now. Now some of those memberships and franchisees have got national contracts for big providers and they utilize the network to be able to expose the web of their business to those services. So for me it was also about getting those guys together for the day. Getting their customers together and actually learning. I mean I know how hard it is to pick up the phone and talk to one of my commercial partners when they’re really busy you know. You’re lucky to get a two or three-minute conversation with them. But I know for a fact that when I actually get in to meet these people and meet the guys on the ground and meet the sales guys. All of a sudden, making phone calls and getting a response became a whole lot easier. That whole objective was to encourage the members to get their customers to these days. Sure, use the rides it’s exciting if you want to jump in the car. But the real tangible benefit for them is to actually get their customers and clients in the car but more importantly come and host them for the day. Come and host them for two or three-hour window where they’re going to be at the track and they’re not talking business, they’re talking about their kids, and they’re talking about the favorite things they like to do on the weekend. And we know from a fact that, that in the end has been a great way for them to continue to do business. Now picking up the phone and talking to a big customer or small customer that has been to one of our days has made it a lot easier for them. And it’s been really good for us.

Tim

I don’t think enough businesses do it. That is get out now. I remember going in, doing that episode where we had Steve Kyle and the guys went to the day at Sandown and I think I went in a little bit cynically thinking, oh here we are a bit of a corporate, another corporate day you know, few freebies.  But it wasn’t in fact because I think from memory, I think someone did 80,000 dollars’ worth of business that day because all of a sudden, there’s a different energy and vibe about the place and yeah, you might talk business but you’ve had a great day and then it’s a different way next time you see that client or prospect, you sort of connect with them differently. Because you’ve had downtime with them. So that’s kind of what you’re bringing on.

Steve

Well we have. And you know as much as it, you know we’ve sort of termed it relationship marketing. We think that what we bring to the table with our assets is something that something that the group can use and that in that circumstance to build their relationships with their customers and clients. Yes, it is sponsorship and there’s a direct payment made for us to go racing but it’s become a lot more than that then also engaging with those members and using our car and me as a tool to then an asset. But then be able to go and do some things with them at their local footy club and be able to try and bring some return on their business by utilizing us to generate interest which gets them in the door and support their local charity by doing that. The charity has a win because we sign a few posters give out some merchandise and also it reflects well on their business as well by having us involved. And we’ve had lots of the franchisees and their kids. They refer to our car as their car. It’s their car they sponsor and that’s what we want.

Tim

That’s what you want to hear. You know sponsorships are funny thing, I often hear business owners say it doesn’t work but you’ve got to work it. So no good just handing over a cheque to you and saying you know put a logo on your car and thank you. You’ve actually as the person who is doing the sponsorship. You’ve got to go I think. How do I really kind of leverage this?

Steve

And you have to really put a value against the things that you’re doing. Know we have a retail cost for the rides we do in the car. We know through you know current modern-day media monitoring of TV, we know that we can get direct value by how many times a logo is placed and compare that to a commercial value that’s used in advertising. So we build all that sort of stuff up and then the objective is, right from the word go is to bring more value than we actually receive as an investment from that partner.

Tim

That’s one way you’ve broken with convention and hosting these days for laser. Are there ways that you are doing things differently in your business?

Steve

Yeah well, I think you know some of the things that we’ve been able to do particularly with our different partners is actually group them together to enable them to do business together. That’s been a big part of what we do. You know I mean we know that Laser lost BP for some fuel cut opportunities for their members at discounted pricing. We know that some of the laser members have bought BMW and we’ve connected through a special pricing through our sponsorship. So BMW is winning, Laser is winning, BP are winning. You know we try and keep it.

Tim

This is a great idea Steve I think you know, anyone listening to this. You’ve got clients you got customers thinking about how you can connect two, three a handful of customers and then just stand back. And say well we’re going to reflect, pretty good on your business.

Steve

Everyone wants to do business and by having I guess me as a facilitator to direct people to the right areas, it’s not for me to deal with the business that’s being done. It’s just to put them together and have a connection that they’ll go in and negotiate whatever deals I can. But with me in the middle I’m sure the deals that they’re negotiating are better than what they would have been had they just walked up from the coalface. And that’s yeah, I guess that’s what we’re trying to do at all different levels whether it’s the corporate partner themselves, whether it’s their customers or clients. We’re trying to give them as much value to do business and share the product that we’re providing as possible.

Tim

Do you actively have days for all your sponsors where you bring the senior people?

Steve

We haven’t. But we’ve done them. Yeah absolutely, but we do it. You know the connection we do it anyway. But yeah for sure in the future when we’re bringing in new partners then that would be a great opportunity to get people together.

Tim

You’re out there pitching like we all are for business. Is there any particular little tip or secret sauce, the colonel’s secret sauce?

Steve

11 herbs and spices. I think being genuine. To me being genuine, I’m not a sales person I just really try and walk in and show who I am. Marketing is about in some cases about hard selling. I’ve never really done that. Yeah, I’ve always tried to go in there with genuine, not asking for a dollar but offering investment. For me it’s about showcasing here’s what I can do for you and here are the things going in with a plan, going into those meetings with a plan. Not coming in and just going, hey we’ve got this really cool race car and we get lots of television and you know I’m Steve Richards and I’ve won this and done that and been that. Hey will you jump on board. It’s not about that. You know I’d like to go in and say okay we’ve got a strategy here and this is what we do, here’s a proof of what we do because here’s some video. Yearly we update our videos to be able to show actually how it functions because as you know Tim in business, it’s hard to conceptualize to someone what you do and how you do it. But being able to provide all of this content YouTube videos all of that sort of stuff. And I was going to say hey we’ve done it. We’re not talking about doing this. We have done it and here it is and this is the way we go about doing it.

Tim

You make a great point there. Having grown up in an advertising agency where the whole time presenting concepts to clients for TV ads or radio ads, billboards, or whatever it is. The penny dropped for me once which was, it’s very hard to conceive and it’s very hard to conceptualize an idea particularly for a client who hasn’t necessarily been brought up in the world of ideas, right? And so I found greater success when I could make tangible TV ad became a storyboard or you know we might even cut a little short video to say that we’re talking about this kind of thing and this kind of vibe and all that type of stuff. And I think yeah, the harder we work to make tangible ideas, the better.

Steve

And I think I always learnt to from my driving days that sure you could be the guy that turned up every weekend, did the racing then went home, went to the team and did a debrief and then went waterskiing or off on your mount bike or went and train or you could be the guy that went home and thought actually, how can I how can I utilize this space better? How can I do some things that are going to bring value to me as a person and for my personal sponsorship stuff? And that’s what I started doing. I started to create these things and do these things because it’s a competitive game and you’ve got to have a point of difference. How many guys when you’re at the advertising agency walked in and said, hey we can do this if you can give us this. There would have been hundreds and it’s no different to sponsorship in sport, motor sport, whatever it is big companies receive hundreds of different opportunities.  It’s about standing out a bit but actually being able to have the backing to say well, we’ve done this and we can create this value and here’s the market value of these particular things that we’re offering.

Tim

And that’s part of your point of difference is to actually done that legwork if you like upfront. I mean a businessmen’s saying, cheap point of difference, oh everyone’s the same you know. I’m a vet. There’s lots of vets and they’re all the same and we offer better service. I don’t know about that but the idea of actually working hard and pulling all that together upfront. It’s an ongoing basis. As I ask this question, next question Steve, I have a formula one pit crew mind because have always wondered what we can learn from them. But I’m sure the world you live in is not so far removed. What can we learn from an industry like yours where you are, when racing you’re avoiding death.

Steve

We don’t quite look at it like that.

Tim

No doubt. Because I’m sure all the hard work is done up front. What have you applied in your business life in that regard to you know, making sure that all the boxes are ticked because you just work down to very micro detail. Yeah look, I’ve said this in the past that our businesses is different. Only in that our bottom line is a stopwatch and not a dollar value. So, everything that we do revolves around how quickly we can get to the start finish line as fast as possible to get the checkered flag or whatever the case may be. So operationally, everything that we’ve worked have you know they all grown up. It is about how do you minimize time, how do you become more efficient? There’s 26 blokes out there, 26 cars out there, with 26 drivers or 36 or whatever the number is but there’s a team of 40 people behind that one guy or two guys. There’s a there’s thousands of parts in the car that need to be manufactured design, engineered, quality control and it’s all about a stopwatch. You know it’s all about how you can get from point A to Point B the fastest. And any little time losses during the whether it’s a you know your pit stops a bit slower whether it’s you have a small mechanical problem with the car, there are time lost that’s affected by your performance because all of a sudden, you’re not thinking about how to make the cargo fast or how you can be better or how you can manage things more efficiently. You then on the back burner trying to fix something. So probably for me that’s how I’ve thought about things my whole life it’s about how can I make something more efficient. How can I stop the dead wood you know?

Tim

So tell me just explain that process. Paint a picture give us an example if you like because you know again looking at a lot of businesses and there is a lot of dead wood, there’s a lot of inefficient ways of doing things. And the world has changed so much. And you know the Internet alone has opened up so many ways for us to be efficient whether it be through software or knowledge or whatever it is. Do you literally spend each day looking around going how to be more efficient?

Steve

Well it’s probably more that I keep my eyes in my ears open. You know there’s ways of course is the things that I know within the motor racing industry to be able to make things work better or suppliers that I can rely on to get things done quickly or things like that. But then in terms of how I manage my small business, and I’ve got to say this that the laser plumbing electrical guys, they’re at the cutting edge in terms of their software and management systems that they provide for their members and I found lots of their tools very useful whether it’s cloud-based accounting software, whether it’s workplace, stuff.

Tim

You’re learning from your sponsor.

Steve

Oh absolutely. And I love it. You know I go to some of their member seminars when they’re introducing some of this new stuff and when I’m sitting there as well as I’m there just to chat to the members. I’m also sitting there going how can I apply by this. In what circumstance can I use this to be more effective with what I’ve done. So, you know as much as you know, I owe a lot to those Steve and the guys at Lazar and girls at laser for helping extremely

Tim

Will you give me some though for this episode? We’re gonna decide if it’s a pretty good exposure. And rightly, so rightly so. I will be putting a link in the show back to the episode I did with Lazar because it’s worth listening to. Put some context to what we’re talking about. I don’t want to get morbid, but I am.  Because again I think there’s a lesson here. I mean you don’t you dance with death and I know you don’t think like that. Have you come very close to looking death in the eye?

Steve

Not death, no. But I’ve had probably three what I’d call serious accidents in my career.

Tim

Okay so from this point of view this could be bankruptcy. How do you mentally come back and gain the confidence to do it all again?

Steve

Well you don’t get in a lot of cases two of those three accidents were mechanically related so they were not

Tim

I don’t think that they were.

Steve

Yeah. But I think that as a driver you have confidence to go, I didn’t make the mistake. It wasn’t me. It was something else. The one that I didn’t and that was probably being a bit young and silly that was 21 years ago and I was racing a guy in and this is sort of pretty irrelevant to be honest to road rage. I was racing, guy pushed me off the road. I got angry and I tried to race him down the grass and that didn’t work and I turned hard left and hit the Armco at about 150 kilometers an hour sideways.

Tim

This was on a racetrack?

Steve

On a racetrack. And the lesson there was you know, you need to be composed. You know you don’t want to get in that situation where emotion takes over. Common sense.

Tim

So for you those accidents were one where you were just being idiot. The other two were mechanical. You used to come back from mechanical hothead 21-year-old. You kind of can’t. But since then?

Steve

No look and you know I think the cars are very safe and we’re driving. And it’s probably a bit of a misconception that racing cars is you’re on the edge of out of control and every lap. I mean there’s a fair communication between driving as fast as you can to driving over the edge where the car actually then goes slower and then having an accident because you’re driving over the edge. So I think that you know in most cases, if you’ve got a good track and a good car and nothing mechanically goes wrong you should sometimes probably now days more so I think when I’m driving around, shit we’re going very fast. If something goes wrong and then you’re instantly just got to you have mind. Look I don’t know that the teams that I know that I drive with in our team and the people that we employ are of the highest standards and I never have any question mark when I get in the car.

Tim

I imagine the type of business you’re in. Are you the business owner, so you pulled from pillar to post, you have a lot of sponsors who I’m guessing want a better view on the ongoing basis. How, what do you do in your downtime? How do you manage your mental well-being?

Steve

Well I’ve been to two teenaged kids and they take up a bit of time and my wife and I said a while ago that you know while they’re under 18 and we’ve still got a bit of control over them. We’ll try and give them their passions you know, the reward for their hard work at school and that sort of stuff. So time really outside of what we do is that with the kids. But just you know day to day is just managing a business like there is no downtime if there’s downtime there’s something’s wrong you know. There’s always something to look at. There’s always a way to do something a little bit better whether it’s managing our hot lap custom e r Friday programs whether it’s looking at different events to do for BP or BMW or appearances for engagements and things like that. The hardest thing I find for companies nowadays is to create new opportunities. So I think in some ways it’s as much my role to help the companies that I work with create the opportunities to use for their customers.

Tim

What do you mean by that, the hardest thing is to create new opportunities.

Steve

Well I think marketing directors and marketing people are so busy nowadays. Businesses get more efficient. They don’t get the space that they want to be able to look at things actively. So I feel it’s my role to be able to offer different scenarios that they can use what we have to offer as a value add and whether it’s connecting one of our other corporate partners to them to do something together or whether it’s creating a different format. As an example, we recently had the Bathurst 12 hour and we created almost a hub inside the pit area to bring our corporate partners and their customers closer to the action so they were standing in amongst the team walking around them within a controlled space requirement. And that’s something you can’t, it’s very hard to buy that sort of experience. So doing things like that with what we have, what the assets are we can control that’s.

Tim

I loved it and thought about it. Business owners not getting enough time to just think. Really that’s what it is. Think and have the courage to have an idea and go and share it with others and implement it. Yeah love that. And your point around that thing you did in, that’s behind the scenes work so well whether it be for social media or for your sponsorship or whatever it is. But people wanting to see you in a car racing around the track is another thing. I mean when I went to that race, I love just sort of standing back and going oh that’s sort of that’s how it works. They’re filling up the car with petrol which you would think is very boring to me. I go, it’s pretty exciting.  I’m easily pleased. Steve, mate I love chatting to you. I think there’s a lot we can learn from a racing car driver and clearly now a small business owner, well maybe medium. Is it a medium business now?

Steve

Maybe medium, it’s getting there.

Tim

Well, well done on everything.

Steve

Thanks, Timbo.

Tim

People can find you at?

Steve

ON Facebook. Steve Richards athlete page or BMW team SRM.

Tim

Okay. And what if there was a potential sponsor listening. I only take 20 percent of any introductions but they can just find you through there?

Steve

Yeah, absolutely.

Tim

Or they can hit me up. Steve Richards thank you buddy.

Steve

Thanks Tim.