Oli Le Lievre 0:00
The Better Business series is supported by the farm business Resilience Program through the Australian Government's future drought Fund, and the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. Across these next few weeks and episodes, we're going behind the scenes and chatting to some people who are making some serious impact in inroads across Australia. And they're not just limited to agriculture. Our aim is to uncover what's worked for them, discuss their learnings, and through their stories provide ways for you to get some of those aha moments or things that might be able to benefit you, your business and your community. Today, and welcome to this episode of our in the no on the go podcast. Our better business series is designed to help look at business in a bit of a different way and take some of the learnings of different people from not just agriculture, but more broadly, into how they've approached various aspects of their business and hopefully, some of the key takeaways that you can take into your business and workplace as well. When we talk about succession planning and succession in business in agriculture, you're probably thinking just inside the farm gate. And while you're right, however, the evolution of business across generations isn't necessarily unique to agriculture. So I thought we'd look at this one slightly differently. And in this episode, we sit down with Phil Cloris from mongrel boots. Now Phil and I went to school, and the story of mongrel boots is a fascinating one. Today, they're a fifth generation Aussie shoe business that was established in 1930. They began by selling handmade footwear through the Surry Hills markets on weekends. And today, Phil works in the business alongside his uncle, cousins, father and grandfather. In the first episode, we get to know Phil a little bit and understand the structure of the business and who sits in what seats, how they bring their family values and ethos together, but also ensure that they can bring their non family employees on that journey with them. We also understand how they've approached change across the generations and little things like craftsmanship. And skill set is actually a bit of a dying trade. And so how they actually look to continue to evolve to stay modern, but to continue to honor that legacy in how and why the business was created. Let's get into it. Today, we've got Phil Cloris Phil and I actually went to school together, and I think knew little bits about mongrel boots throughout the time that we kind of knew it at school. But what's really cool Phil is we actually reconnected through humans of agriculture and your work with mongrel boots, we had a couple of giveaways. And I know all of our staff were lucky enough to get a pair of mongrel boots. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 2:35
No worries at all pleasure.
Oli Le Lievre 2:37
Today, we came to chat to you. And I think what will be really interesting is you're part of a business, it's been five generations, it's been running as a family business here in Australia. And I think the synergies and learnings that you guys have and the insights that you can share from your family business will be really applicable to so many people in the agriculture community. So I'm excited to sit down today, mate, but firstly, how you getting on what's keeping you busy?
Speaker 2 2:58
Oh, you know, not too bad. In the scheme of things pretty well work. Obviously, I've been working full time since I graduated school with yourself at the end of 2010. So more or less full time since then, with a bit of uni in between. But yeah, these days, my job mainly consists of sort of two roles under the one umbrella of sales and marketing. So I'm the brand manager for our family company, mongrel boots, then I also have a sales territory, which is all regional. So in New South Wales, my territory got four different runs. So ones North Coast, northwest, West, and then Riverina. So usually, every probably once every three to four weeks, I'll get out there and do a spend a week out in the bush and just sort of get around and press the flesh and catch up with customers, show them new styles, you know, hand out promotional material to sort of really maintaining the relationship with the customers and helping keep them mongrel sales strong in those particular territories. So it's always quite enjoyable to get out of Sydney for a week at a time.
Oli Le Lievre 3:52
And when it comes to your sales meetings, is there an extra microscope put over you? And just in terms of where the marketing budgets going?
Speaker 2 3:57
Oh, look, I feel like if the results are quite strong, you know, that sort of look too closely. But I was lucky enough, I'm old man, more or less always been offered, you know, for quite a while now. And his latter years in the sales and marketing side of the business. So I sort of came in under that umbrella. And I was, you know, more or less, as I was learning all different jobs in around the factory and in the office as well, while I was studying at uni marketing and international business, I was I think they referred to me as a bit of a marketing assistant. And then sort of a few years after I became full time, sort of more and more involved in the marketing itself and sort of allocating budgets and going through different mediums and stuff like that. So yeah, the bills sometimes they raise a few eyebrows when they get pulled through, especially my grandfather whose ad just turned 85. But ya know, it's all it's all going well so far. So I haven't got myself in too much trouble.
Oli Le Lievre 4:44
You can't mentioned that there. You've had a few different roles in the business. But when it came to leaving school, was it really obvious for you that you're going to end up back in the family business? And is that why you chose the uni degree of marketing and international business?
Speaker 2 4:56
Yeah, I think it was like to be honest, I do I even got asked this question. did last week by a friend of mine. But it always felt very natural to go into the business. I grew up around that, you know, I used to be in there in school holidays, my dad's always, you know, he left school when he was 17. At the end of I think you're 11. And he went straight into the business. So it just felt like the right thing to do. It just felt natural to me. Like, I never really had to think about it, if that makes sense. It just sort of it felt like the thing to do. So I you know, I wasn't sort of coerced or forced into going, which people quite often asked me, I think as well, you know, now, but especially at that age, due to a lot of boys, you know, your father's your role model. So, you know, you want to follow in his footsteps a little bit. And even as a kid, you know, my uncle worked in the business still does my grandfather, so not that I, you know, was scared of being a black sheep or doing something else. It just felt natural to me just even working there in the factory. As a kid, I got quite interested in the brand and the business in the boots at quite a young age. So it just really felt like a natural progression, which, you know, I'm happy about because I do enjoy it. And I never sort of, you know, wish I became a doctor or a real estate agent or anything like that. I'm quite happy with my decision,
Oli Le Lievre 6:07
or something. I asked what people in agriculture, but I'd love to know, from your perspective, What's your earliest memory, like earliest childhood memory in and around the factory or the business?
Speaker 2 6:15
Probably, I don't know how old you know, probably when I was maybe like, seven, eight sort of region. age wise. I do remember, like, occasionally, I'd go out with dad on a Saturday, if you needed to pick something up. Or maybe you left something in the office, like occasionally, we'd go in there just briefly, but I'd always raid the stationary area. So there was a little section is it that old factory Lidcombe you know, sort of fascinated with markers and pens, and because you're in primary school at that stage, and I think most of time I'd go there. One thing that always stuck with me and even now is like when you walk in even our factory now, but back then it was always the smell of leather. So that was always like an association I had when I'd go to the factory, I'd really like recall that smell of leather. But yeah, one thing I love to do, for some reason a young age was ready to fill my pockets up with pens and line textures, and notepads and little back then the business. That's all branded as Victor footwear but little Victor footwear notes and stuff like that, that's probably like the things I remember the most. And then I also remember sort of walking around the factory, when I was probably a similar age, if I went in there, I went in there on the occasional day fall sick from school or data to take me somewhere or something like that. And it was quite small at the time, again, maybe six or seven, all the ladies and people that work in the factory would be sort of smiling and waving, you know, to say like a little, you know, one of the management's kids sort of walking around. And in the factories, I remember them all being very kind and friendly. And, and stuff like that used to be down on the factory floor and sort of seeing the equipment. And, again, it's a bit of a sensory experience. It's a bit of noise and smells and leather and all the materials we use. So
Oli Le Lievre 7:49
seeing the whole business end to end. Now coming in into the business, like, did you get to choose the different areas that you began to work in? And did you have much of a sign? Or was it kind of what was in the best interest or where there was a vacancy or opportunity open out in the business,
Speaker 2 8:03
I think did in a way. But I could tell from my old man, there was always a desire for me to go into the sales and marketing side of the business. That's the side of the business dad's been on for quite a while now. Like he started down on the factory floor as a patent cutter and, and doing all those jobs. And I did as well nothing as specific as that like pattern cutting and stuff, I was doing more general factory work for my first sort of four or five years, and especially while I was studying at uni, so you sort of get an understanding of you know, how the boots made and all the different processes that go into it. But I could tell there was always an interest or Inkling on my dad's part for me to go in the sales and marketing side of things. So again, it was something that I did, I did want to go down that path anyway, I was always quite interested in the business side of things and the marketing side. And for say, you know, my I get told by my grandfather, even now that apparently on there was a natural born salesman, because when I was quite small, I was relatively comfortable talking to people older than meal or something like that he likes to remind me, but our business traditionally as well has been very product focused and manufacturing focused as opposed to sales and marketing. So I think Dad sort of identified that as I come into the business, he did want someone on the on the other side of the business to try and balance it out a little bit and give us a bit more of a better emphasis on the sales and marketing side of things. And that's where the uni degree came into it as well. Nobody before me in the business was university educated so dad sort of said look, if you want to come in, he wanted me to go to uni and get further education and he sort of said You know, there's not going to be you're not just going to sort of walk in and get a managerial role and sit in an office if you don't go to uni you're in the factory for 15 or 20 years or something so So yeah, just all sort of came together but yeah, there was never like this is what you're doing. I think there was a bit of a pushing me in a certain direction and I'm sure worst case scenario if I really dreaded it. I could have gone another way but I was lucky my long term vision of sales and marketing I did enjoy and before that I was doing you know at one stage I was doing returns I remember tacking insoles slipping up as of last putting up as on machine to mold. So just just general sort of factory hand jobs and just learning the processes of how to how we make boots.
Oli Le Lievre 10:08
So you kind of touched on it, or gave us the little glance then but so your aspirations dreams vision, when you first joined the business, what were they? And how have they either come to fruition? Or where they kind of today? When you
Speaker 2 10:21
mean aspirations, like long, long term or yeah, oh, look, I sort of have like every day is a process every day, you're just sort of the idea is this continue on building what the people before me and my family members older than me that have built I don't sort of have a huge end goal. If we need to get to this we do that it's more just like keep improving, getting better in every areas, whether it's processes, manufacturing, marketing, obviously, sales and market share, like personally, that's a goal, we always want to make more and more, but it's more just sort of nurturing, taking care of what we've got, and just trying to improve it in small ways here or there, you know, ways that are sustainable, we want to be like a sustainable growth in a year on year we don't want to have too many ups and downs in terms of sales and you know, bit sporadic so there's, you know, we just want to increase market share, make a better product, provide a better serve and stuff like that. I don't sort of have anything too crazy or an end goal that I set my visions on.
Oli Le Lievre 11:17
Cool. So let's touch on the business a little bit. And can you explain because you mentioned before Victor footwear but who is mango boots? And what's the history behind the business?
Speaker 2 11:26
Yeah, so mongrel boots is a brand name for everything we make the business is still called Victor footwear. So some people in the sort of 80s and 90s might be familiar with Victor we made some riding boots, and also some workers, but they're all branded as Victor. In the late 90s, we release a boot that was called the Mongrel, it was crossbred, like a between a work boot and a safety jogger sort of style. So they came up with the idea at the time, I think they want to, you know, Victor's a brand insurance. It's a good word or to rebrand but it's not overly memorable, or it's a bit generic, in a way, it's a bit dis, you know, like a name. So they wanted something that was sort of tying in our Z heritage, with the boots and the product. And it made sense, being a crossbreed of, you know, between two sort of styles, someone sort of came up with the idea of calling it the mongrel. So the vote went to market, still a victor workbook, but known as the Mongrel and the response from the customers in the market was very good for the name. Everybody seemed to love the term. And then it wasn't long after that, I'd say within 12 months, more or less, the decision came to rebrand everything as mongrel. And as moving forward for the footwear and the accessories and everything. We sold a brand it was all mongrel boots, so they sort of almost in a bit of a re launched from Victor work boots to mongrel boots. But yeah, that would have been early 2000s. And then ever since then, everything's sort of been mongrel. We've never released anything else under the vector, like,
Oli Le Lievre 12:47
that's a huge kind of pivotal moment for the business to go through, like after 70 odd years in business to go. Yeah. And like reinvent itself under a new brand name off the back of, I'll say, one campaign and success. Do you remember that time? And I guess, reflecting on it now for the business? What has been said about that pivotal kind of moment?
Speaker 2 13:06
Oh, I think it really like to be honest, I think it's really set us on the path to where we are now. And the success that we are enjoying, and then the popularity of the brand, like, you know, like people either love it or hate it. It's polarizing in a way like, we've even received a few nasty emails over the years with people off, you know, just filling out bogus forms just telling us we're calling and all sorts of names and saying we shouldn't be using the word mongrel rah rah. But overall, I people seem to love the terminology and the word like it is a quite a colloquial sort of term. And it's very Australian, you know, I'm quite proud quite often, when I go into a store, as I tell people on the Mongrel rep, and especially in the bush, they will get a bit of a laugh out of that. But the brand has a good logo to go with it as well, like the growling dog sort of cartoon orangey sort of a dog. It's based off a cattle dog and feel like the name the brand, like at the end of the day, you want to get noticed? Sure, not in a way that's too I'm not sure what the word I'd use is, but not the way there's two out there. But just something that's a bit eye catching and a bit sort of tongue in cheek to a certain extent without sort of offending someone too much. So, yeah, ever since everything went wrong, all I can say 99 2000, just branding, marketing, brand awareness has really skyrocketed. And we've always been quite active since then, with promoting the business marketing, the business stuff, we are big believers now in in that side of things, and we do have a great product. And that does get you a long way there. But I really think to flank it with proper branding and marketing and sales force. It really does wonders for the brand and sales. And so
Oli Le Lievre 14:30
who's involved in the business today?
Speaker 2 14:32
I've got my dad who's there. He's been there his whole life. His brother, my uncle, got two cousins, who are my uncle's children. And then the director, who is my grandfather, so he's still there five days a week. So he's been working in the business now since he was 17. And last Friday, he turned 85
Oli Le Lievre 14:49
farrier. So how the roles split up or obviously you mentioned your grandfather, the director, but then also to how do you guys divide the business up between those family members but also then other people as well?
Speaker 2 14:59
You Yeah, so I don't know if there was a sort of, you know how it all happened years and years ago. But like realistically the way it works in my grandfather's the director, me and my dad are on the sales and marketing side of things. So dad's a sales and marketing director I worked on underneath him as a brand manager. And then my uncle and one of my cousins more or less head up the production side of things. So they have a lot to do with all the materials that are either everything to do with the manufacturing of the booths, because we do manufacture them here in Sydney. So day here, Sunday man is like a bit of a foreman who's down on the factory floor, and like overseeing the production. And then Paul sort of is above him like heading up production as a whole. And then he also has a daughter who works in the business that is like our office manager. So we have a team like sales support, reception and a few girls up in the office. So she Yeah, Elizabeth heads up the office sort of manager side of things and works with them.
Oli Le Lievre 15:49
And for those people who are like me and have very little understanding that we're very familiar with getting a pair of boots off the shelf, what is actually involved in creating a pair of boots, like here in Australia, and how has that changed over the time that business has been running as well. Yeah, so
Speaker 2 16:03
we do use quite a lot of machinery, but especially the more early processing part of things with the cutting stitching lasting of offers, that is all still done by hand. So pretty much you know, we get packs of leather in the leathers and cut on a beam press like what we call clicking, which is when you use knives to cut out all the different patterns of the goes into the upper. So you cut the leather, it goes through into stitching. So when it all gets stitched together by our machinists. After that, it'll go into what we call last thing. So that's more or less when the the opera starts to take the form or the shape of a foot or a shoe. So you have something called a making last, which is like a form of say, like a dummy foot, which the stitched up and will go on, and then you start to last around it. So use different machinery to sort of pull and shape and form the leather around that last in the news, like some segments, the more or less, you can put it through a heat set or after that you slip the last off, and then you have a finished up up. And then probably one of the biggest changes in the business, the last sort of 2030 odd years is the move towards direct injection. So I'll link so we work with our German supplier called Desmond, who are the world leaders in direct injection molding, we have three of their machines in our factory, which are 230 stations and 124 station, but the upper will go on to the desert direct injection molding machine. And then pretty much goes around it goes through four or five different processes. But the end result is that the Solon compounds, so polyurethane and TPU, it gets molded onto the upper. So it's not like an old fashioned sort of dress you wear to stitched on soul, or what they call a good year, well, we're actually directly attaching the soles to the others.
Oli Le Lievre 17:39
Well, obviously the technology is pretty impressive, but in the sense of is there much wastage or like seconds that come out of that?
Speaker 2 17:46
Oh, look, ideally not, you're always gonna get some sort of human error. Or, you know, the other thing is we're dealing with leather, which is a natural product. So you do get some marks on skins or some, you know, little defects and stuff like that, that sometimes are hiding under the surface, but we don't get a huge amount of wastage in our production. Like with the lever, the idea is with clicking is you want to minimize your wasted. So you're trying to interlock all those knives and patterns as close as you can to each other. And it more or less ends up like the way when you see a skin that's you know, being clicked Well, it looks almost like you know, Swiss cheese, where it's just all these holes, and they're just sort of held together with tiny little pieces where they've interlocked all the knives in. So ideally not also in the molding, and it is quite efficient. You only get a small like a little flange, where the the PU and the TPU midsole and outsole meet. And that gets trimmed off.
Oli Le Lievre 18:36
And so obviously craftsmanship was a huge thing, like historically in Australia, but how do you guys go finding those people with those that skill set that you need to really continue to make the boots to the quality that you guys need? Yeah, so it's definitely
Speaker 2 18:49
not easy. To be honest, it's getting harder and harder. We are finding like even a general factory and jobs or the quality of labor that's walking through the door now is not what it used to be. But especially like clickers machinists, robot making skills very, very hard to come by. So to be honest, there is a large part of our workforce that is made up of immigrants that who have come to Australia to have those skill sets from their experiences overseas. And to a certain extent as well there is part of our workforce who has been with us for the last 20 or 30 years that I guess you would define as aging. So we are really struggling at the moment with finding employees and to have those skills because there is not you know, unfortunately there's not a huge amount of people that sort of leave school now and say you don't want to go become a boot maker or there's no courses for it here. So you know where back in the day my dad and my uncle went to what they call tech which I believe is TAFE now and you know did a boot making or a footwear technicians course that went for several years, one or two nights a week and you know, that's when we had some degree of industry here for you know, textiles, clothing and footwear. So we do struggle with it. We do have quite a large part especially the more skilled part of our workforce that has been with us a long time. But yeah, we are noticing now it is getting harder and harder to come by People with those skill sets. So the moment we are doing okay, but you know, it is hard to say what, you know what, 1015 20 years down the track what that looks like. Because there you know, there is a bit of a negative stigma as well towards working in a factory. You know, like I said, there's not many people who sort of, that's their plan long term when they leave school. So, you know, we'll know in the future, but the at the moment we are okay, but it's definitely not getting easier. Like there's not sort of people lining up to come to the door and say, I want to be a clicker or want to be a machinist or a tow last or something like that, which is unfortunate for us.
Oli Le Lievre 20:30
Well, and I think it probably comes back to and I think this is where the farming industry is so similar in the sense of what you guys are doing. It's this constant evolution that's needing to happen as the world kind of changes. And the way that the I guess the business ran 1234 generations ago is different, because the needs and the way the world actually is working. And people are looking for work changes as well.
Speaker 2 20:51
Oh, yeah. Yeah, like I hear stories, you know, of our factory in the 60s and 70s. A lot of the workers were actually husband and wife, a lot of them were Italian, Greek, other nationalities like that. And over the years, you sort of, if you look back through the records, you see different sort of waves of ethnicities that have worked in the factories at different times. But yeah, back then it was very different to the world we're operating in now. So yeah, hopefully, it doesn't impede us or really stop us eventually, from making boots in Australia, because we are very passionate about that we have been making booties since 1930. And I think that ethos and culture does come from my grandfather, he's a big supporter of Australian made and not only just making the booty for the sake of it, but he really gets a kick out of employing Australians. And that is the main reason we do it and has been nice during COVID, to say a little bit of a push back to really supporting Australian made goods, there's a bit of a wake up call for a lot of people and, you know, anti sentiment for certain countries around. So we did see a renewed push in support for Australian made, which also led us to rolling out quite a large campaign that ran for a couple of years, called the maid down under campaign and really highlighted and put a spotlight on the fact that we are not just Australian owned, but are Australian made. And you know, we just really hope moving forward that that that does stick around because there's more or less only to work with manufacturers that are left here in Australia, and we're one of them.
Oli Le Lievre 22:06
That's really cool. And I think that there's that huge push of what really was highlighted through that period was just when it comes to manufacturing that how little of it is still actually done in Australia. And as you kind of say, people would walk past
Speaker 2 22:16
Yeah, look not much at all. And you can understand why but, you know, our desire is to sort of go against the grain a little bit and try and resist those pressures to move offshore. And so far, we have been quite successful with doing that. And we found throughout COVID to our stock was very good material suppliers were very good. And we heard sort of stories about some of our competitors, not having boots, or certain styles in stock for you know, three, four months at a time. So we did quite well out of it with the having the production local.
Oli Le Lievre 22:45
So I think in this first episode, what we're trying to cover there with Phil was a little bit about him so you can get to know him, but also about their business. I think a big part, especially in family businesses is how when you need to rely on other employees, do you build that culture and inviting aspects which people can come and be part of your business and actually come on that journey with you when it makes your business better, but to it actually helps people fulfill their purpose as well for the benefit of themselves, and how they show up to work but also for your business. This series is supported by the farm business Resilience Program through the Australian Government's future drought Fund, and the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. And our aim is to sit down and chat with various people who have lived experience in business management through their stories. It's our aim to share their learnings, their approaches, and how they've supported developing themselves, their businesses and their teams.
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