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Humans of Agriculture brings you inside the conversations, careers and stories shaping agriculture. Hosted by Oli Le Lievre, the podcast gives listeners access to the people, ideas and experiences you might not otherwise get close to.
Oli Le Lievre (00:01.772):
It's pretty cool to come out to Stawell here and see the site that you guys are running here, and the business has grown a lot since your old man started it in 2001. Tell us a little bit about Action Steel, but also the opportunity that comes with getting to work alongside your brother, alongside cousins, in a family business, but working in ag.
Lennie Grace (00:19.916):
Yeah, it's great fun, I guess, to start with. The business started in two thousand and one. So my father, Martin, started the business from nothing, I guess. Myself and Vince were fairly well entrenched in the business from a pretty young age. Most weekends it felt like we would be down in the - at the factory watching the old man weld up sheds as a little ten-year-old probably. And then often on the holidays, school holidays, we'd be tagging along and getting on farm to some of the early projects that we'd built. And it's pretty funny thinking back on it actually, because
we would go to these places and probably wasn't very professional thinking back on it. But we would get there and dad'd be like, "Hey, this guy here, I think he's pretty happy with the work that we've done. So see if you can just remember some of the positive things that he says and remind me later." So this little kid's be like hanging around and trying to remember some of the positive things that this guy would say, because then we'd take that back and the old man would use that as a testimonial to try and help build the business 'cause it was starting from nothing and no reputation. That was all good fun. But just having that exposure, I think, to getting on farm by some of those different places,
first time seeing a rotary dairy in operation, for example, or a shearing shed. I don't know. It probably put a bit of passion in us for the ag industry to start with. But no, it's been a good fun journey.
Oli Le Lievre (01:27.906):
What did your old man do decide to start? Like was he literally just a solo operator building sheds himself as a one-man band?
Lennie Grace (01:35.438):
Pretty well, yeah. So, they - he put a couple of guys on fairly quickly from memory. But yeah, he would have to, I guess, build a little bit of marketing collateral, visit these guys, and then almost literally go back and make them. But the business did grow fairly quickly to put more people on, and then we outgrew the initial premises within sort of six years or so and then set up this place here. So
Oli Le Lievre (02:01.046):
And at what stage did you realise that you wanted to be part of the business?
Lennie Grace (02:01.046):
I think from that early stage obviously we're very biased sort of being in the family business, being around it from that very young age. And personally for myself I think just getting around and seeing the sort of people we were dealing with, good people even as a young person, and a general passion for business and - and that sort of thing, I think I couldn't see myself anywhere else.
Oli Le Lievre (02:21.550):
And the opportunity, I guess, really from those early days, like, yes, it's a family-owned business, but you guys have always been employing people. Like talk to us a little bit about that evolution. As you said, you guys outgrew that first site and found yourselves here. But what's that journey looked like over what is twenty-five years? Which feels relatively short, but also it's a considerable amount of time to be in business too.
Lennie Grace (02:43.086):
It feels very short for me as well, but when you say twenty-five it sounds like a lot. I guess we - myself and brother Vince joined the business in sort of between two thousand and seven and two thousand and ten. And from then on, I guess, as the business - it was growing then too, but realising it needed a lot more structure, more business structures in place and a bit more of a formal process. We've been, to be honest, extremely lucky over that period to have some great people, and which is - we've been really blessed to be honest, given that we're in a small town.
And most of the roles have been based here. But there's no limit to what you can do with good people and we've been very, very lucky in that sense. And
Oli Le Lievre (03:19.222):
You guys decided, like those early days, you were doing different type of sheds, but you've specifically decided, "No, no, we're like an agriculture business making sheds for farms and agribusinesses." How did that evolution kinda happen?
Lennie Grace (03:33.080):
Yeah, it was interesting, and it almost seems counterintuitive because the business was growing at the time, and we had growth plans every year, and we always do. And we did have a mix of work. So we'd always been in the - in the ag space, but for a period of time it was probably making up fifty percent of the business. The other fifty percent was what we termed commercial and industrial. So that might be like a warehouse in Truganina, Melbourne somewhere. And then as we had these growth plans, I suppose we were really thinking, how can we really just get a lot better
at something and go, what do they say, narrow and deep in an industry? And we said, "Well, it's got to be ag." Obviously we're very biased about it, but they're - the - I think they're the best people in the world. And how can you not be passionate about someone that, what do they say, clothes and feeds the world? So yeah, and seeing the sort of people that we're dealing with, and then just the way that that trust and the word of mouth can ha- - this is - sounds pretty cliché, but doing the right thing, and it just feels like the only industry where you can just grow exponentially and organically by doing the right thing and building trust.
Oli Le Lievre (04:31.854):
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? What could I learn? So like if I was joining your business, like that decision to focus though, it sounds like that was a huge - so really easy to look back and go, "All right, ag's the right thing." But if I was inside the walls, that decision to let go of half of your business to double down on something, how does that make sense in hindsight? But what would I have seen if I was there with you at the time?
Lennie Grace (04:53.016):
Yeah, it was interesting, and to be honest it was a hard one. It was probably thrashed out over a bit of time and the risks being weighed up, because cutting out half of it when you've got growth plans seems counterintuitive, but in the big picture, when it was the right thing to do. And it literally was almost turning it off overnight. So we took it off the website literally overnight and then changed the way we'd approach incoming inquiries, incoming calls, to say that no, you know, we'd love to, but it's not us. And then interestingly enough, the business actually grew year-on-year since that decision.
At that time it didn't take a dive.
Oli Le Lievre (05:24.834):
I guess I'm interested because like we've gone through this piece of what we've done for six or so years that's going - that's got us to here. And now to go that next level we actually do need to focus, which in this case for you guys as well looks like letting go of things. What - why has focus been so important? But also how have you taken the team through that transition?
Lennie Grace (05:42.274):
Yeah, I guess it's pretty obvious, but it allows you to do such a - a much better job 'cause you're not spreading your knowledge across a few different areas. So you can just go, yeah, long and deep as they say, narrow and deep, and just get a lot further under the hood of some of these places, some of these operations. And the other thing it allows you to do, I suppose, is - is duplicate what you've done into more geographical areas. So traditionally at that time, we would have barely gone outside the Victorian - the state of Victoria. But there's so many ag areas that can be duplicated outside that.
And so your cropping areas that are in different states, they all have got the same infrastructure needs. But for us it had always just seemed such a long way away. But breaking that down and then that's pretty well how the business grew.
Oli Le Lievre (06:21.678):
And then to grow the business, you obviously had your core staff, but then working with all sorts of suppliers, whether it's truck drivers or install crews and things. Like how do you grow that and how have you guys built those relationships?
Lennie Grace (06:33.016):
Yeah, that's been a challenge. That - or that had been the challenge because we realize we've got the capacity here to produce, you know, to grow. But where we'd fallen, the biggest restraint to that growth was having a network of subcontract installers. You know, you can put a two hundred thousand dollar shed on a semi from here and send it to northern Queensland. It's not a big deal. But y- - you need that network of suppliers. So we had a bit of a sprint to build out that network and we almost doubled the install crew. So now I've got up to
between sixty and eighty subcontract installed crews on our books all across the East Coast. So that kind of took that geographical challenge out of it, if that makes sense.
Oli Le Lievre (07:10.806):
Has there been a moment of that like growth journey that you guys have been on? Yeah, that you look back and go like, "Wow, that was the point of like inflection or where we just totally went from, yeah, one thing to transform to where you guys are today?"
Lennie Grace (07:24.492):
Not really, to be honest. I feel like life goes fairly fast and then you look back and you go, "Well, all of a sudden it's - feels like you had ten staff and now there's fifty or you've got trucks running all over the country or you've got sixty or eighty crews on the books." When you hear those numbers you're like - and you can actually remember yourself going, "Hang on, there was a stage where we only had ten," or the numbers of jobs on the go at one time, little things like that. So there is moments like that you look back and go, "Well, that went pretty quick."
Oli Le Lievre (07:49.242):
One of the things that's fascinated me since I guess that the introduction we had to your business has been the philosophy around team, but I think also coming for a look around today, seeing how you guys live and breathe it and bring people together, it really is, I'll say, from an outsider's perspective, there's lot of specialists under the hood of this business, whether it's the people designing or refining the systems and processes of how you operate through to people operating machinery, et cetera. Talk to me a little bit about the team and the culture that you guys are trying to build.
Lennie Grace (08:18.200):
From a high level, I guess, as the three of us directors, and myself and my brother and Father Martin, I would like to think we've maybe got qualities that complement each other a little bit. So Martin is a bit of a finance guru, and myself, I've got a bit of passion for that sales and marketing side of the business. And Vince is very operationally minded. So that works well in that sense. I mean in terms of the team and the culture, you know, it'd be nice to hear from some of our staff on it. But just one small thing I'm a bit of a fan of is what they call vulnerability-based trust, as in
if you know that someone else can do a better job than you can, just being, "Hey, you know, I feel like you're gonna make a better call on this," or just having that, I guess bit of humility or that, you know, removing the ego side of it in view of efficiency and getting the job done.
Oli Le Lievre (09:01.166):
In a team like this, but the scale and how many was it, three hundred and fifty odd sheds that you guys are installing a year? There's so many different players that need to play.
Lennie Grace (09:09.358):
Totally. Yep. And I think that's what we've found even from a staffing perspective. The way we've always felt challenged is you can remember the business as a family, run a small unit and you know, you just do what needs to be done to get the job done. As the business has grown, obviously it needs more of that specialist-type roles and ultimately put on people that are smarter than we are, especially in their specific role. So there's been a lot of that realisation in the last say five years where we've needed to find people that are specialists at - at certain things, whether it be operations, marketing, finance,
or those type roles that people are specialists at and they're better at it than we are. So that's been a big focus and we've done, I would like to think, well in that in the last few years. So
Oli Le Lievre (09:47.512):
Yeah, definitely. And I think part of that obviously is why we're here is to talk to you about a couple of roles. I guess, yeah, we've got - there's the marketing and office admin role, but then there's also this sales coordinator role, which I think is what we'll focus on today. Like how's this role come up and how it sits within your team?
Lennie Grace (10:03.406):
So I guess the reason that came about was we've got a large volume of opportunities, which is great, and we want to be able to service them in the best way possible. So we've got a relatively small sales team that hasn't grown a real lot as the business has grown, but we want to be able to service these new opportunities quickly, efficiently, and we ultimately want to have our senior, call them salespeople or building consultants, spending a good amount of time in front of these people,
whether it's face-to-face or virtually on the phone. This role, I guess the purpose of it is to free up capacity for the senior sales team.
Oli Le Lievre (10:42.786):
And I'll ask your - your team some of these questions shortly, but for you, who's the type of person? If you're painting a picture of what the ideal candidate looks like, what characteristics are they gonna have and how are they gonna fit in?
Lennie Grace (10:54.136):
I think someone with a bit of tenacity, I think to begin with, the initial part of the role, organisation will be fairly key. And then long-term if they're to grow, the ability to build a relationship. And I think having a genuine passion for our market, like it needs to be there. Because I think if you've got a - g- - a genuine passion for the ag industry, it shows, and our customers or potential customers notice it, and they trust you because of it.
Oli Le Lievre (11:19.662):
I was gonna ask you, yeah, so on that, like is that something that I'll say people can develop and is it something you've seen team members get to know some of your customers, come to field days, et cetera, and then all of a sudden they're like, "We deal with the greatest people?"
Lennie Grace (11:30.710):
Absolutely. Yep. Because there's a chunk of - well, the vast majority of people here don't actually come from an ag background. Mm-hmm. But they've had exposure to it. So whether they hadn't prior and they have now, and that's the majority of people here, if they've dealt with the industry for a few years, I'd like to think that they couldn't see themselves in the other - any other industry, and I think they'd say the same.
Oli Le Lievre (11:49.378):
And so what do you hope this person's like doing day-to-day? I kind of - if I think of it, I see them like kind of acting like a bit of a - like just a guide, like handballing things off. But what does it look like?
Lennie Grace (11:59.938):
That's pretty well exactly what it is, yeah. I'd like to think of it as maybe qualifying incoming inquiries, because as you know, we will still say no to a lot of work. We want to be very focused on the type of work that we're - and so they'll qualify those inquiries and then potentially direct them to the right person. So if we've got different salespeople that - this guy specialises in the dairy industry, so he's the best person to speak with. And then day-to-day, I think to begin with, probably owning the systems that we use. So the CRM,
sending proposals to clients, following them up, and then with opportunity to grow fairly quickly, I think.
Oli Le Lievre (12:33.826):
And so internally, you mentioned is it like three or - or a small kind of core sales staff? Yeah, who's this person working with and what are some of the characteristics and specialties of these people?
Lennie Grace (12:43.244):
Yes. So the team, yeah, it is fairly small. So there's - there's realistically, it's only a team - the sales team itself is a team of four. One of them's an estimator and then three salespeople or building consultants, one of them being, well, myself. I guess where the team dynamic - I like to think of it is there is a lot of teamwork in terms of if it - whatever needs to be done, there often is a lot of collaboration and working together. So there's no lone wolves, I like to think.
Oli Le Lievre (13:08.140):
So th- - I guess, yeah, this person's gonna be really like I'll say the shop front for the business. This is - it gonna be a lot of where you either repeat customers or people who've never come across Action Steel before are coming for the first time. So greeting customers for the first time, metaphorically opening that kind of front door and being that welcome and understand what the client's looking for.
Lennie Grace (13:27.246):
Absolutely. Yep. Which is very important just in terms of I think being able to - to display maybe a - a - a curiosity or a - a genuine interest of wanting to help, because that essentially everyone that inquires is trying to solve a problem, aren't they? So having a genuine interest in what they're trying to solve and then just helping them get to it in the shortest amount of time as possible.
Oli Le Lievre (13:47.160):
So dumb question here, is a shed just a shed? Tell me more about
Lennie Grace (13:49.962):
No. It depends who you ask actually. I think I would like to think our clients see it as a lot more than that. And it depends on the type of shed too. So we do a lot of - a fair portion of our work is quite standardised. So, you know, you might have a three-sided hay shed, and you could say a shed is a shed. In terms of its purpose it is, but then in terms of the quality is, you know, y- - there's a million and one different options. But then you look at actually some of the more complex projects and what they're solving, like a - an intensive feedlot for example,
or a fertiliser storage shed, that's an investment and it's a money-making investment for our clients, so
Oli Le Lievre (14:24.748):
It's interesting, so I don't digress here, but I went to St George recently and recorded a podcast with a bloke called Craig Saunders, and he said, "We've got a shed just out of St George, it's fifteen Ks, whatever. Meet us there." And I was in my head thinking, I might walk into a garden shed, like when we say a shed, what is a - this shed was part helicopter hangar and museum, and it literally had - he'd collected different horse carriages, but everything from the initial combs right through to, yeah, wide cuts and shearing, and it was like
honestly Australian agricultural history inside a shed, which is just like mind-blowing, there's a million and one ways you can use it. Back on to what we're actually talking about, huh? We're recording this at the end of August. What does a month look like or what could a month look like throughout the year for this person?
Lennie Grace (15:08.814):
I would like to think within thirty days there's a good grasp of the systems, a good grasp of the team, a reasonable grasp of our client base, perhaps not the technical knowledge of a shed, which is fair enough, that can always be taught over time. Yeah, but I think just being able to have a feel of the systems, a - a structured method to dealing with incoming inquiries in thirty days would be on point.
Oli Le Lievre (15:31.522):
And will they be in the office the whole time or are they out at field days or what does that look like?
Lennie Grace (15:35.606):
Over time, our goal would be for them to be able to attend events, attend field days. I would like to think for the first thirty days, back on the thirty days thing, that they would maybe shadow one of our senior salespeople for that period, just to get a feel of what's going on, where they're challenged in terms of their time, to know what capacity they c- - they can create, even if that is attending site, face-to-face, field days events, so on.
Oli Le Lievre (16:00.098):
Yeah, gotcha. So if we're like - we as we're talking to people, it's we're not coming in and day zero you've got to or day one you've got to do this and that. It's actually like take your time, ask lots of questions, listen, watch, and then start to over that kind of thirty-day period, look at what potentially - or - or even just ask, "How could I add value?"
Lennie Grace (16:17.784):
Totally. Yep. That's the way I picture it, is you would like to assure someone that don't feel bad if you feel like you're doing nothing or bringing value yet. Because I think the most important thing is that early days, rather than just going a rabbit warrant of trying to find things to do that aren't adding value, getting a big picture and just sitting alongside and following around these senior salespeople, because there's a lot going on. It's a lot of calls, a lot of return calls, you know, there's a lot of meetings and face-to-face events. You know, if you can shadow them and just get a good grasp of it within thirty days would be perfect.
Oli Le Lievre (16:47.500):
What kind of person do you reckon will thrive in this?
Lennie Grace (16:49.518):
I think someone that again, without sounding like a broken record, but someone that does have that genuine interest in the industry, curiosity and passion for it, I think will thrive very well, because it - we're exposed to such an amazing audience. You know, you can touch some of the best ag operators on the East Coast of Australia. I think that's amazing and you can learn about their business. And if you've got a passion for that, the world's literally your oyster. And in terms of where they might grow within the business too. So I would like to think over time
they should be able to have the skills to become what we call a building consultant, high-paid role. That's definitely the pathway I'd be picturing.
Oli Le Lievre (17:25.698):
Yeah, perfect. Is there anything else that you probably want to touch on that maybe we haven't spelt out or touched on enough to get this opportunity in front of the right people?
Lennie Grace (17:33.102):
No, I don't think so. I think you've picked the eyes out of it well. I think trying to convey that we're a - a business that's - I guess the way I picture Action is it's grown to be a - a reasonable-size business that has exposure to some - to ag in a really good way, but it's still small enough to be family-owned and run, and you'd like to think the culture is such that it's - anyone can speak to anyone at any time, including any of the business owners. And so I'd like to think it's that sweet spot of a business that's not
super large and corporate, but it still has exposure to some of the best operators in the industry.
Oli Le Lievre (18:05.524):
One thing I do want to touch on is probably like I'll say the employee share part, but if we just take a step back from that, the process that you guys actually do to bring your employees and your team on board of - so maybe just yeah, if we're looking at - so this - the new financial year, for instance, like you're really open about "this is where we hope to be in twelve months' time, this is what it could look like." How do you run the team through that?
Lennie Grace (18:26.370):
Yes, we have an incentive program that we more or less share the - our full financial statements, our full profit and loss with all of our staff. And we have a weekly forecasting meeting where we're forecasting what our - our EBITDA or our - is going to be, our profit is going to be for that month. So we set a target at the start of the year of what we call base camp. So where we want to get to in terms of EBITDA. And then anything that we get above that, we s- - share a third of that uplift
split between the staff. So we like to be super transparent about it. And it just gives everyone that opportunity to know that everyone can contribute to it. Anything over and above is a portion of them that - of it they're entitled to do so.
Oli Le Lievre (19:08.046):
And it's something that you brought in what, four or five years ago?
Lennie Grace (19:11.202):
Yes. I think it's been running for three or four years. Yeah, it's been a good journey.
Oli Le Lievre (19:15.672):
What kind of behaviours - what have you seen change amongst the team since you started to implement it?
Lennie Grace (19:19.554):
Yeah, I guess when people can see that they can influence the - the bottom line, you see a bit of a behaviour mindset change. Yeah, people thinking of going, "You know, I could save two grand a year here, and I know that I'll guarantee that I'm gonna get a portion of it into my own pocket." Yeah.
Oli Le Lievre (19:34.902):
That's cool. Lennie, I guess, yeah. We've had the chance to look around, and we'll share some of that. But I think from my perspective - well, we were on this - on this before, but it's a business that I feel like maybe flies under the radar a little bit in terms of the work you do, which I think is a very humble thing to do, but in terms of the career opportunity and for the people that are out there, it - it isn't - a family-owned agribusiness that is doing some really exciting things and on an exciting journey. Where do you guys hope it is in say five years'
Lennie Grace (20:00.344):
time? In terms of pathway forward, we've continued to set fairly ambitious growth targets over the next five years. And we can't see ourselves anywhere else apart from focusing on ag, but in particular, the livestock and cropping enterprises. So we've continued just to go deeper and deeper, spread geographically, stay focused, and just continue to grow the business. We can't see any other way.
Oli Le Lievre (20:22.914):
Mate, it's exciting. We look forward to getting a new sales coordinator in and part of the team for you. So thanks for having us and for the opportunity to partner with you on this.
Lennie Grace (20:30.306):
Great. Thanks, Ol.
Oli Le Lievre (20:33.838):
Well, that's it from us for another week and another episode on the Humans of Agriculture podcast. Thank you so much for coming on this journey with us. It's a genuine privilege to get the chance to sit down with these extraordinary human beings that are just doing amazing things in and around agriculture, learning more about them, sharing their stories, and we would love to keep sharing them with you. So if you could sub on your favourite podcast app, share this episode with a friend, or if you've got any recommendations, please get in touch. We'll see you next week. Look after yourself.