Adam Williams On Getting Involved Firsthand With Indigenous Social Enterprises
Adam Williams is a Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal Man, with 30 years experience in brand development, sales strategy and consumer market development.
Adam has worked across multiple FMCG categories from beverages to pharmaceutical, a dedicated and passionate business builder Adam has a proven track record of success and continues to push Indigenous business through the glass ceiling and beyond.
Adam’s experience is enhanced via formal education in Business and Education at QUT and the University of Sydney and recently completed an Indigenous leadership in Business course at Harvard University.
When not driving Indigenous business excellence Adam can be found enjoying hobbies and golf, his lawn and spending time with his wife and 3 daughters.
Adam discusses The importance of taking action and backing one’s self, especially as an Indigenous business, And how getting your hands dirty can be the difference between leading a successful business or a so-so one.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Tom Allen] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what led you to working in Indigenous business?
[Adam Williams] - I think the passion around hustling to make money and controlling my own destiny has been there since I was a kid. I’d pinch cigarettes off my friends and family and sell them at school for a buck each. I think it's always been there.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed as I’ve gotten older and more mature is adding formality to that hustle. The pharmaceutical industry is pretty cutthroat and if you're not the best in class, you can be dropped off pretty quick. One of the biggest learnings I’ve had is in balancing that with our own expectations as an Indigenous community. I’ve had to learn how to merge the cutthroat reality with how we like to operate.
That ruthlessness along with the feeling of community is probably where we sit today as a business here at Bunji Enterprises.
Can you tell us about the work and projects that you're involved in as the Chairman of the Murri Chamber of Commerce?
The Chamber of Commerce has been an interesting build. We've been let down here in Queensland pre and post COVID in terms of a formal support system covering the state for our business segment. It was born out of a group of frustrated Aboriginal business people wanting to support each who are sick of having to go to other states to get formalised support.
FROM THERE WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO BUILD A NETWORK. WE'RE NOW UP TO 166 MEMBERS THAT ARE OPERATING AT LEVELS OF OVER A MILLION DOLLARS. WE HAVE A FEW EXCEEDING FIFTY MILLION [DOLLARS] IN REVENUE AND A COUPLE OVER one HUNDRED. IT PUTS A NICE SNAPSHOT ON THE STATE of INDIGENOUS BUSINESS.
What work are you involved in at Bunji Enterprises?
Outside of delivering the best coffee in the country, we are able to push past our barriers through office and business-to-business type of supply. Now, we import our own workwear around traffic control, general PPE, gloves, and we’re starting to incorporate our own range of office supplies. We can control that supply chain, enabling us to meet our expectations for our business, bringing it up to match what we're doing with tea and coffee.
What was it like acquiring Aromas as part of Bunji?
We acquired them a couple of years ago. I think it was the first time an Aboriginal business had ever acquired a non-Indigenous legacy business. To acquire Queensland's oldest coffee business at 43 years was a big deal and something we're very proud of.
Now we're looking at how we take that to a 50 year anniversary and how we extend the brand’s footprint around the world. We have 10 cafes in Mumbai now. How do we extend that to Singapore, Japan, and Korea?
What advice would you give to other Indigenous businesses or other entrepreneurs to help them strategically tap into broader procurement?
The biggest one is to never take no for an answer or sell yourself too short. There's always pressure to do it cheaper or to cut your margin to get in. That's the procurement guy's job to procure everything as cheaply as they can.
Our job is to sell who we are and what we do with that procurement opportunity. It doesn’t matter whether it's an Aboriginal business or not. If there's no buy in to you and your business as a proper partner, you'll only ever be considered the lowest price, which is a tough game to play down that end.
Where do you see key opportunities for Indigenous businesses to grow and where do you commonly see them falling short of those opportunities?
We fall short around the part of making it ourselves, but it’s also where the biggest upside can be. A lot of it comes down to a lack of capital access, which I unfortunately don't have the golden answer for. It’s still a daily struggle for us, even at our level of business, trying to fund things is not easy.
I believe the ability to make it yourself is going to be the key to Indigenous business success, particularly in the areas that I play in, retailing food, beverage, and product specs. The more you can control your supply chain and get back into manufacturing, the better it will be.
What do you see as some of the most important traits of impact led leaders and entrepreneurs who are working in this broader space?
One of the big differences is in all the training you do. People tell you to work on your business, not in it. Unfortunately, in this space you've got to get your hands dirty. If you don't, you're not going to build anything here. That's one of the key parts to the success we have on any given day.
I can be down packing coffee, cleaning toilets, doing deliveries, answering customer service calls, and at the same time organising strategic meetings for where we're going to be in five years. That's one of my biggest takeaways I try to put out there.
Sometimes after learning all these great theories at university, you've just got to park them as advice and do what you need to do to succeed. They don’t always work in practise, especially as a social enterprise or Indigenous business.
Do you find successful entrepreneurs are often ‘doers’ as opposed to focusing on theory?
I think we have to be.
We don't have the capital to fail fast and then start something else. We take a long time to get into it and we're usually very emotionally involved in the process. We take it very personally, every action, be it good or bad.
We're deep into our own work. My advice to others is if you don't want to get your hands dirty in business, just become a politician or a university lecturer. That's the option for you.
What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across creating a positive change?
We've got a collaboration happening at the moment with a business in our space. There's not much point to having 12 different Aboriginal businesses doing coffee, some of us doing it ourselves, some getting it contracted out, some faking it till they make it. There has to be consolidation so we can take on larger international players. We'll be able to announce that soon.
For businesses that I admire, I love watching the guys from No Limit Management. They put on events around the world, sell out stadiums, and run fantastic awards nights at the Dreamtime Awards. I think they don't get the recognition they deserve for really smashing the ceiling and what they're able to bring to the party.
Are there any local Meanjin/Brisbane based businesses you have seen growing over the years?
It's been an interesting couple of years watching brands like Yilay come to the fore, where they're now genuinely able to fulfill contracts at any size and own the process all the way through.
The guys at Moonyah have built a good footprint with traffic management and labour hire that they're a genuine tier one on their own. Multhana with their cleaning contracts, whether it be buses or projects, can now take care of the whole project.
Watching these businesses grow to new levels; seeing Mundanara Bayles take BlackCard on her journey with media podcast tourism and seeing what they're able to deliver. That's something that's inspired me, as has seeing what businesses are starting to appear in the tourism space, particularly leading up to the Olympics.
Out at Stradbroke Island with the whale watching, and the Manuka honey business that's happening out there. They're the ones I'm intrigued by.
I love seeing businesses like Beachtree, with their superb gin and vodka, and Yaala Sparkling with their drinks. The list can go on. Ten years ago, we were scratching our heads trying to put 10 or 15 businesses together that were even a genuine type of business, not just a market style of one.
To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our audience?
I’ve been given a couple of really boring books that I don't like, but recently I was given a fantastic book called 18 Minutes by Peter Bregman. It's structured similarly to how I think, so it was a good purchase by someone who actually knows me.
Around the office here, I have the nickname ‘noodles’, because I think every job takes two minutes. For me, it was intriguing to get hold of a book that had a bit of humour, strategy, and process.
That enabled somebody like me, who wants things done quickly and instantly to then move on to the next, to understand how we can structure that so I don't offend or put stress on everybody else here in the office.
It’s considerate of everybody's different makeup. I’m into that book at the moment and it’s one I'm really liking.
