Around two or three months later out of the blue the phone rang, a voice on the other end was from a gentleman by the name of Karl Nakahama and he was staying at the Travelodge Hotel in downtown Auckland. Are you Steve Hilliar? He said, yes I replied. Well my name is Nakahama and I want you to come and see me.The appointment was made to meet in the bar of the Travelodge early in the afternoon of that ...
Continue Reading ? ShareThe Yamaha story
The short walk from Commerce St to the Dilworth building in Custom St Auckland cant have been any more than five minutes. Little was I to know at that time what that short walk would mean to my life. The day is still very clear to me as I had been into see Frank Curruli a leading HIFI dealer at time who passed on his opinion to me about why I should take this short ...
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Electrovoice in New Zealand
As luck would have it I was in Sydney visiting Peter Gow at one time and he introduced me to Ian Woodhouse. Ian was the managing Director of Electrovoice Loudspeakers Australia Pty Ltd. A fully owned subsidiary of Electrovoice USA.
Electrovoice was a big time commercial and consumer Loudspeaker manufacturer in South Bend Indiana.
Ian informed me they had decided to appoint a New Zealand company to manufacture their domestic consumer line in New Zealand for export ...
Miranda Hifi was a chain of stores in Australia owned by Peter Gow. Peter had approached me about selling Miller and Kreisel products through his stores in Sydney.
The selling came next and this was where my strengths were, I jumped into the red station wagon and started calling on retailers around New Zealand. I set up the product in their stores and because we were starved for any reasonable hifi product prior to 1987 it was a breeze.
I had orders ...
Continue Reading ? ShareTerry Flewitt to the rescue
One thing I had going for me at the time was my passion and interest in the world of hifi. I had made a lot of friends with the same interest. I was lucky enough to meet a person by the name of Terry Flewitt a couple of years before I left Xerox. We used to all buy, sell and trade high end pieces of equipment with each other. These were the days of vinyl records ...
Continue Reading ? ShareThe Miller and Kreisel story
The move to start my own business and begin manufacturing Miller and Kreisel speakers was a risky one.
I had a background in electronics, a real love and passion for the hifi industry but no idea about any concepts of running a business.
I decided to take in a business partner another ex Xerox employee Bob Leveloff and associate who had left before me and was now managing a printing ink company.
Bob; an American living in ...
Sound Group Holdings Ltd cont.
New Zealand at this time had crazy import restrictions and the importation of most electronic consumer goods in fully built up form was prohibited. The only way to successfully handle M & K was to import parts, build the cabinets locally and add value, this was the beginning of Sound Group Holdings..
A license was required for these parts and near impossible to get unless the products were exported again from New Zealand.
Luckily I had secured ...
Birth of Sound Group Holdings Ltd
The desire to own my own business was always in the back of my mind despite becoming a successful sales person.
It was Xerox that actually provided me the opportunity to get started in my own business.
It all happened when the company sent me on a trip to their training center at Leesburg Virginia USA.
The flight was long and I decided to take a stopover in Los Angeles. My friend Jim Riley from ...
Rank Xerox NZ Ltd
I tried selling insurance and also worked for Planned Music after leaving Torr Hifi but at this stage had no knowledge of Rank Xerox.
I felt as though I had some sales success but it was not until my wife won a trip back to England that I found out what real opportunity was.
It was on this trip I caught up with my old flatmate from London, a master salesman and good kiwi friend and old flatmate Bruce ...
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