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THE ULTIMATE SALESMAN
Page 64
Page 65
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Over more than 40 years Malcolm Harrison has done everything in road
transport from running tucks to selling them. Today the company that bears his name is synonymous with Saturday auctions. Kevin Swallow reports.
In 1997 the financial director of Peter Halley Transport called the Shropshire phone number of a former operator turned truck dealer with a simple request: could he travel overnight to Creiff, near Perth, to auction off 30 tractors and 40 trailers the following day?
Malcolm Harrison leapt at the opportunity. Five weeks later he received a phone call from Shoreham Transport asking him to run the same type of sale on their behalf."The ball," says Harrison, 'was rolling."
Slowly, the company's direction began to drift from dealing in trucks to organising Saturday auctions.Today,123 sales later, he has handled sales for some of the biggest family businesses in the country —Gordon's of
Bonnybridge,Lloyds of Ludlow and Sissons St Sons to name but a few.
Malcolm Harrison is the archetypal selfmade man. He started out on his father's farm in the early 1960s.As is the case with many smallholdings it was a mixture of working the land and haulage — and in the end it was haulage that tempted him more.
Starting with a Seddon
By 1965 he had left to pursue his own interests, buying his first truck —a 1100 Seddon which he used to deliver agriculture produce and concrete blocks before his 18th birthday. By 1967, and still before his 21st birthday, he was running a fleet of five trucks; something that gives him immense pride. He branched out in the late 1960s, buying his own farm to sell turf for landscaping. By 1974 it had been sold and the trucks went the following year, in anticipation of moving to another farm in Pe terborough.This move didn't materialise and Harrison and his wife, Janet, found themselves at a loose end.
But selling his fleet gave Harrison a taste for trading in trucks. He soon realised he had a knack for helping find the right trucks for owner-drivers, drawing on the experience he had gained by running his own fleet.
They say you never forget your first time, and Harrison clearly recalls that the first three trucks he sold were a Guy, an Atkinson and a Bedford horsebox.The business rapidly expanded to handling] ,000 units a year. It survived the boom and bust of the 1980s and the tough conditions of the early 1990s before receiving that call from Peter HalleyTransport.
Harrison is as enthusiastic about the next sale as he was about the first. but stresses the contribution of the team, including those not in our picture. John Hartshore, Mike Keney, Norman Barber, Lynn Kirk and Gordon Salt in the garage: All play an important part."
It's all about planning
A typical auction will have up to 12 Malcolm Harrison operatives on site.The first contact might be 12 months before the planned sale but on average each event takes six weeks to organise in earnest.That level of service underpins the firm's success: "All the custom ers [we handle] I have met in their yard at one time or another:They trust me to do the best job. Every job is a goal and I will continue while I am fit enough."
And after all these years he's still looking for fresh markets: "We are talking to three family coach companies who are looking to retire, and we are looking to increase the recycling business:there are two types of plan Lconstruction,which we have always been involved in; and recycling.., things like shredders. chippers, excavators and crushing equipment. It's a fresh area with new customers." im