Attitude is Tom’s key tool of trade

– Sarah Schwager
“I’M A BAKER, not a businessman. I failed kindergarten.”
Despite this opening line, successful Beechworth baker Tom O’Toole had people running back to their respective businesses to put his ideas into practice after his inspirational speech at a business breakfast in Cranbourne yesterday.
The man who turned his small country bakery into a multi-million dollar business empire told the captivated and sometimes shocked audience that the first step to any successful business was a positive attitude.
“There are heaps of dream takers telling you it can’t be done. It’s so easy to be negative. You have two choices when you wake up – whether to be happy or to be unhappy.
“We live in the luckiest country in the world. You don’t see people here leaving in boatloads to Afghanistan. Get off your bum and give it a go.”
Mr O’Toole started up the Beechworth Bakery 23 years ago with just two employees and a friendly possum that sat on the bench eating pastries.
Now he employs 200 full and part-time staff, generates an annual turnover in excess of $8 million, and serves well over 600,000 customers per year.
“Twenty-three years ago my wife left me with two kids. I had nothing to live for. It was then that I had to learn how to ask for help,” he said.
Speaking at the Settlement Hotel at the event hosted by the Cranbourne Community Planning Team, Mr O’Toole said businesspeople often focused so much on graphs and statistics that they forgot the simple rules of always keeping the staff happy and greeting the customer with a smile.
“You can have a good product and good marketing but your biggest asset is the people.
“I wouldn’t be anything without my staff. A business is five per cent technology, 95 per cent psychology and attitude.”
His address was sprinkled with pearls of wisdom. He said he didn’t worry that the supermarket up the road sold loaves of bread for 99 cents. “The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten,” he said.
On the benefits of staff training, he remarked: “I have heard people say ‘what if I train my staff and they leave’. I say ‘what if I don’t train the buggers and they stay’!”
Mr O’Toole attributed much of his success to his and his staff’s attitude to their customers, who he said year after year travelled well off the beaten track to visit them.
“Business is so simple sometimes people miss it. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. It takes months to find customers but just seconds to lose them.”