I started reading this book soon after it came out about 4 years ago.
I started reading it again, and I forgot dear reader that I didn't refer to it here on this blog at the time.
So now I'm going to.
It's really a book that you should file away with Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor - because you can go back to them time and time again.
It is called Ready Fire Aim: The Mainfreight Story by Keith Davies.
Its an easy read and methinks the Author may have been wrapped up in the whole Mainfreight ethos but I don't care. It's true and wise to the point of an instruction manual on how a business, any business, should be run.
It starts out at the beginning of the company and moves along briskly to give a warts and all account of how Bruce Plested, the founder of Mainfreight did it. This is the story of a company built on the belief that with passion anything is possible.
Mainfreight was founded in 1977 by the visionary Bruce Plested, who set out to make the company a family, a team, where everyone has a share in the riches and where the word 'management' is banned.
Bruce and his mate Don Braid have foul mouths. Fuck you is littered through the book and used by Braid and Plested when they don't like what is going on and to various figures throughout the book and over the years to some people who are still friends and business partners and to others who are not. It is not used like "the" it's used to make a point - to the reader.
The Mainfreight instruction manual is short and to the point. Feel the fear but do it anyway. This is a world where budgets are deemed 'bullshit'. Why spend time preparing figures that are invariably out of date before the ink is dry? Just make more than last year! That is so simple but true. You've got to keep on striving to make things better every day.
Initially there would be catastrophic ventures in Australia and America and finally a jaw-dropping moment in Europe with Wim Bosman when Don Braid and his team made their biggest purchase ever only to see most of the turnover and half the profit walk out the door. But they subsequently succeeded - as the have with just about every other purchase and used that success company wide.
This book take one on a journey from small transport company at the bottom of the world to truly successful global logistics company.
You really should give this a re-read and if you havent read it yet go out and buy a copy.
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Ready Fire Aim: The Mainfreight Story by Keith Davies
c Share Investor 2017
