Growth Busyness

The Haebich Provedoring Story

In profit and loss terms, Haebich Provedoring has been a success for a Portland couple, Robert Hope and Vivienne Stevens, since they bought the shipping supply business in 2000. In the past five years, Victoria's oldest port has benefited from a rapid expansion in offshore oil and gas exploration along Australia’s southern coast. But the personal cost of a growing business has been less easy to manage.

Robert and Vivienne bought Haebich partly for lifestyle reasons. With two young teenage children, a boy and a girl, balancing work and life was important. Based on Haebich's historic sales performance, they expected busy times when ships were in port and regular downtime that could be spent with family.

But more ships in port has meant a more constant workload and less free time. Robert and Vivienne have had to work at preserving their relationship and family life while doing a crash course in provisioning ships with food, Cuban cigars, electronic equipment, cases of Scotch and anything else needed at short notice.

The Challenge

The couple love working in a seaside office that is five minutes from home, one minute from the Portland shops, and halfway between their home and the children's school. Even though the children drop by the office on their way home from school, it is still an office with phones running hot and orders to be filled.

In a challenge faced by many friends and couples going into business with each other, Robert and Vivienne suddenly found themselves filling three roles at once: fellow co-workers, business partners and parents. Personal tensions escalated in the early years of the business. Vivienne says: "It's a real challenge trying to be the perfect business partner and perfect mother."

The couple needed to find a way to cope with the workload, find time for themselves, and stay together as a family. But that seemed near impossible as orders flooded in seven days a week.

The Solution

In the first year after buying the business, survival was the key issue. It was a period of intense learning, where each day brought new and unexpected challenges. An early and vital decision was to assign themselves roles, as though they were running a much larger company. Robert took on CEO and CFO functions of strategy, administration and finance; Vivienne in effect became chief operating officer, handling logistics, marketing and sales.

Family time was harder to allocate. As orders flowed, work threatened to overflow into weekends, making their jobs into seven-day-a-week treadmills. They agreed to set aside specific time to talk about the business. And they needed to place some boundaries around that too, so that they talked about life beyond the business at other times.

Living on a beautiful, rugged coastline that they love exploring has helped. A replenishing walk, surf or swim are easily accessible and do not have to take up a whole day - but that, too, takes conscious planning and effort. The other person is not slacking off when they get out of the office; they are refuelling their life source and getting back in touch with why they moved to Portland in the first place.

A mixed-blessing of the business are the regular buying and supplying trips that have to be made to Melbourne, Geelong, Port Lincoln and Eden. These trips can be time-consuming, but they are often now turned into family road trips with the children. They are a time for talk, bonding - and learning the family business.

Vivenne says: “The business has done well because we provide good-quality service. But you can’t give good service if your life is falling apart. Not for long, anyway.”

The Result

Since buying Haebich in 2000, Robert and Vivienne have coped with a substantial expansion in their workload - and stayed together as a family. Their eldest boy has successfully completed year 12. The family takes regular weekends away together. The business is thriving and they have employed three part-time staff.

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