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Mr Rental Auckland Central and East is a franchise of the Mr Rental organisation.
Mr Rental rents a range of domestic household appliances, ranging from whiteware such as fridges and washers, through to brownware such as televisions and sound systems. In addition, Mr Rental also rents a range of fitness equipment, computers, and has recently started to rent furniture.
Our customers include lower socio-economic households, through to students and young professionals in shared accommodation. We also support professional relocations, and (typically short-term) rentals into the business market.
Our key differentiator is service. Our goal is to provide great products and superb service, delivered by a happy and motivated team, supporting a business that is profitable for all stakeholders.
Situation
When I joined the program 18 months ago, the business was meeting its financial targets, but it was largely on the strength of the personal effort I was putting into the operational side, and my willingness to shoulder responsibility for every issue we had. Our biggest problem was me!
My involvement with the program has resulted in a radical re-evaluation of the team we had in place, my relationship with them, and their willingness and ability to accept responsibility for their own actions. This wasn’t a painless exercise; without deliberately targeting this, every team member has been replaced over the last 15 months. However, what we have now is a happy, motivated and confident team.
Achievements with the Program
Other than some well defined operational responsibilities, primarily around compliance, finances and capital management, I now have little involvement in the day to day operations of the business. My major involvement with the team is now training; as situations arise that I have experience or knowledge that the team may not, my first strategy is to now treat it as a training opportunity, rather than something I should shoulder myself. This is great for both the team and me; they are constantly growing, and the more they grow, the less the operational details need me.
I am now confident in demanding the best, providing whatever assistance is needed to get there, but dealing decisively with those who were not willing or capable of operating at this level. The rewards are immeasurable, not only to myself and my family, but to the team as a whole.
This has given me back a personal life, and my wife and I no longer feel chained to the business. It is now working for us rather than the other way round. Having shed myself of the operational details, it has given me the freedom to think on a more strategic level; the opportunities that are out there, how we could target them, and getting the tools and processes in place to realise them. It has also given us the space to think about what we personally want to achieve over the next few years, which is our next major step.
Mike and the program have been a huge part of this journey, and I can’t imagine that I would have achieved any of this without the direction the program has given me. |
