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How did you get started in the fuel industry and what motivated you to become an entrepreneur?
I've been in this business for 24 years now. I started working here part time right after school. My dad was working here at the time as well, so I originally started out as a summer student just helping out.
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Did you go to university or college or did you start working at R.Kidd Fuels right after high school?
I was offered a pretty good opportunity after high school. Just like a lot of people, when you finish high school, you want to take that one year off, which in my opinion is a big mistake. Sometimes what happens is that you never make the time to go back. Once you start making a little bit of money, you don’t want to give it up. Looking back, maybe it was a good thing for me personally because I don’t know where I would be if I would have stayed and went to university or college after high school. I’m glad that I made the decision I did and ended up where I am today.
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How did you meet Bob Kidd, founder of R.Kidd Fuels?
My father used to work here, so I met Bob through him when I started doing odd jobs in the summer.
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How do you find people to bring in that truly care about the business the way you do? Has having family work here helped or hindered?
It can be good and bad and it has it's up and downs. Family definitely can and has helped me in the past. Obviously they are your eyes and your ears in the business but in the same token, in some instances it can create a lot of problems too.
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Do you participate in the H/R side of the business? Do you interview for new positions or do you delegate to other team members?
It all depends on the position. If it's a driver that we're hiring, I try not to get involved in that. My brother looks after operations, so we would have him look after things of that nature. He would be the one who would be dealing with the drivers on a day-to-day basis, so it would be of no use to him if I interviewed them. I would get involved if we needed to hire someone like an accountant. Other than that, I try to stay out of hiring. I also try to let everyone do their own job. I believe that is the only way that the business is going to work properly. As you grow your business, there is no way you can look after everything yourself and get it done efficiently. You can attempt to look after issues, but there is no way you would be able to get things done as efficiently as if you were to delegate the work to someone else.
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Based on your personality, you don’t seem like much of a micro-manager anyways. Would this be an accurate assumption?
Absolutely. That’s exactly the way I was taught with Bob Kidd. He gave me some space and let me micro-manage myself. I learned from him and the way he ran his business.
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What are some of the challenges you have had to date? What has worked and what hasn’t? Can you list some of the failures you have had to overcome and learn from?
The only challenge that I can think of over the last 25 years happened probably six, seven years ago when I first took over. I had 16 years or 17 years experience in the industry at that time, and I was being backed by Petro Canada. I didn't know if I was the right choice for this place. There were two or three managers that thought I was the right choice and then there were two or three who thought that it wasn't a good idea. I was always groomed to be the person that was going to take over, but when I got the news that I may not be the one, it's sort of a scary moment. I put in 16 or 17 years into the business and to find out that I may not be the one that was going to be chosen to continue Bob’s legacy was a bit frightening. It turned out I was chosen to continue the business, so it all worked out.
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Talk about some of the succession planning you’ve done to date and how important it is when passing on a business. This is what you’ve been working on and going through with Bob isn’t it?
Exactly. There was a reason why Petro Canada wanted somebody younger and I was probably the youngest marketer in Petro Canada. Everybody else was in their 60’s and here I am in my 30’s and I was just about to take over an organization like this, which is probably the biggest in Canada if not now, we will be by far the biggest in Canada once some of the acquisitions come in place. I think they wanted somebody younger because they had visions down the road of what they wanted their company to look like. At the time, they had about 85 or 90 marketers and they wanted to cut it down to 10 which meant that all these acquisitions were going to come in place. I believe that is the reason why they made the push. Even though Bob Kidd was still young enough to run it, they wanted somebody younger in there to move forward. I was the one that was chosen, and it looks like things are going forward here.
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Is letting down not only your business but Petro Canada and those people who really made the push for you, one of your biggest fears?
It’s not only letting down the company, but also letting down the family as well. There are a lot of people who are at risk here if I mess up. It's not just myself now, I can really pick up and leave tomorrow morning and go elsewhere. I've got a lot of family here that I've got to think about too. That’s another fear too that I have. I have to keep doing the right things to grow and protect the business and the family I have working in the business.
There is also the risk factor. As you know very well we can risk anywhere from $18 million to $20 million a month. That’s a huge risk factor. We've got to make sure that we look after everything possible. There can be one mistake and we're done.
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What has been your most satisfying moment in business? Would it be when Petro Canada picked you over your competitors? Was that the best career decision you have ever made?
Absolutely. A business like this pretty well rolls on its own. Even if I decide not to come in tomorrow morning, business would still carry on. It’s just one of those things. Once you have the business set up properly and you've got the right people working for you it really does flow on its own. So I think that Petro Canada choosing me was probably the best and most satisfying moment to date of my career. Then again, just when I think that was probably the best moment, I could be surprised. Right now they want me to expand and they want me to be the biggest. That’s always a good thing and they always seem to surprise me.
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It’s great that you enjoy coming in and you enjoy going home. Does a new challenge present itself to you daily?
If you can't be happy in what you do, then you're in the wrong business. You've got to be happy, that’s the number one thing. If you want to run a business to make money, you open up a Tim Hortons. The question is are you going to be happy doing that. Being happy in what you do makes a big difference in day to day life.
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As a 30-year-old guy taking over this business, there is a lot of risk. How do you manage that, and do you enjoy that? Does it get you going? You could have stayed a marketer low on the totem pole but you decided not to.
When speaking about the risk factor, there are probably a lot of marketers that don’t sleep at night when they find out the kind of risk that we carry. It just doesn't seem to bother me. I think if you've got a really good core group of customers, and you believe in the customers then you will always come out on top. We also have a good bank behind us, so it doesn't bother me or stress me out. I don't fear it as much as other people would.
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How do you define success?
Money will always define success, regardless but I think that growing our business and being the top marketer year after year has been our definition of success. We have annual events with Petro Canada and we always are the prize winner and top marketers. That’s success to us. Even though it’s a plaque and it’s probably worthless in the grand scheme of things, it means a lot to us. It's like winning the Stanley Cup year after year and we always seem to be the ones that are winning.
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Who has been your greatest inspiration?
The biggest inspiration has been Robert Kidd. There's no question about it. He was by far an entrepreneur at heart. This man was loved by everybody and he was my mentor, always was and always will be. Unfortunately he is no longer with us, he passed away in July but there is no question – that man was well loved in the industry. It really didn’t matter who they were. They could have been competitors, colleagues, it didn't matter. They all knew him and loved him. He was very well respected. He is definitely an inspiration to me and the business.
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What are some of the sacrifices you've had to make to become a successful business owner?
Besides working 24/7!?! Well, our operation is 24/7, so you do get phone calls at 2:00am, 3:00am in the morning. Those are some of the sacrifices you have to make to keep the business going. As mentioned before, the risk factor and the receivables are something you have to look at everyday.
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Do you deal with stress well?
Honestly I never believed that stress could actually cause any damage. I think I handle stress pretty well. I look at my family and some of the other competitors and I don't think they handle it as well as I can. Either that or I hide it very well.
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What do you feel the major differences are between being a business owner and working for a business?
I definitely prefer being a business owner. There's no question about that. There are times when I'd like to switch roles. One of the major stresses which I could avoid which I keep bringing up is that risk factor but as well dealing with family stress would be on someone else's shoulders. I still wouldn't change anything. I'm happy where I am.
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What advice would you offer someone who either wanted to get into the fuel industry or start a business of their own?
Well, to get into this business is a very difficult business to be in. We've got a very, very good marketing strategy in place for this industry. Again, I think it has a lot to do with Robert Kidd building the reputation that we have. For me, coming into this business and growing with them, I think it made my job a lot easier. This is a very difficult business and a very risky business. It's about commodities. Commodities move up and down every day and we've seen the world pretty much crumble because of oil. Unfortunately that's what we face every day and we have been in the situation where we have almost been shut down by the banks because our receivables have gone through the roof. This was something out of our control. Not that volume has grown or dropped. Commodity prices have gone up, oil has gone through the roof and all of a sudden our receivables have tripled.
I really believe that in order for someone to get into a business regardless of what business it is, you've really got to believe in it. I know what my strengths are in this business and I can try to play every role possible, but that is not going to help grow the business. I know that I have to work with my own strengths. When it comes to my weaknesses, for example accounting I have to go out and hire the right people.
You can believe that you can do it all yourself, but there's no question that I wouldn’t be here without trusting other people with different areas of expertise. I look at people like The Haunn Group, who over the last two or three years have cleaned up my portfolio. They’ve put everything in order when originally my portfolio was a disaster. Those are the things that really make you feel comfortable and make you sleep at night, knowing that you've got the right people behind you.
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Do you find it easy delegating work to other people?
No, I don't have an issue delegating. Although I do delegate, I don't have anyone do my work. I've always been like that. If I have a job to do, I make sure that I complete the task. I treat myself as if I was an employee as well. I like to do it on my own. If somebody wants to learn, I'd gladly teach them, but I do my own job.
On the other hand, I receive phone calls everyday regarding different parts of the business and it’s not in my best interest to look after it. I just tell them that they’re calling the wrong person and put them through to whomever can help them best. That's something you have to believe in because you can look after all the problems but it doesn't necessarily mean that you’re going to make the right decision. So let your team handle those problems or inquiries. They work with it every day, so it’s best to let them deal with it.
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What are your expectations for the future? Where do you see the business in the next 10 or 20 years?
I wouldn't exactly go out as far as twenty years, I don't know that I’ll be here that long! I’ll definitely be alive in 20 years, but I don't know if I'll be here in 20 years. I prefer looking at the short term growth as opposed to the long term growth. Who knows where we will be in the long run. I say that only because we act like a franchise even though we're not a franchise. At the end of the day we only have a one year contract. So our contract could potentially expire next year and we could be talking about another goal.
As far as Kidd Fuels is concerned, I know how important we are to Petro Canada. I know they are the number one marketer for them. We have been with them for the last 20 years and they're definitely looking at keeping us around. We're going to be by far the biggest marketer for Petro Canada, in Canada; there's no question. This will probably take place in the next three years. So we're not even looking as far as 10 years. Who knows what could happen by then. Ten years from now we may be only be one of two marketers in Ontario. They maintain a lot of control, which is important. We can grow the business and we can grow it as large as we can but at the end of the day, they can downsize us at any time. Although as long as we keep making money for them, they're very happy.
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How do you go about marketing your Kidd Fuels? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Even though we are affiliated with Petro Canada, we are still known as Kidd Fuels and we market Kidd Fuels. Our customers know us as Kidd Fuels, they don't know us as Petro Canada which means we have to do a lot of marketing. We try to push Kidd Fuels as much as we can when it comes to branding and marketing. Our trucks are identified as Kidds Fuels along with Petro Canada's trucks.
When it comes to branding our business, we do a lot of sponsoring, advertising, and charity work, donating to charities, and everything is done under the Kidd Fuels name. So we try to push that as much as possible.
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What are some other ways Kidd Fuels gives back to the community or to society?
We do a lot of work with Princess Margaret Hospital and Sick Kids Hospital as well. We know it’s important to give back to society and we’ve always been the type of organization to do just that. We sponsor sports tournaments all the time. We sponsor about 25 hockey teams, baseball teams and soccer teams.
That’s only a bit of what we do. The first year we donated to this church up in Vaughan which is supposed to be the biggest church in Canada. We got approached by them and we ended up being one of their main sponsors.
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Do you try to use philanthropy as a corporate advantage?
Definitely, we have to. A lot of our customers are involved, and a lot of our bigger customers expect that from us. We get a lot of support from them and they expect the same back. We make sure to do just that.
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If you were to start another business not affiliated with the fuel industry what would it be?
I'm happy doing what I'm doing and it would be unfortunate if I couldn’t pick the same business again. If I was to pick something else, it's funny I would probably go off topic and open up a restaurant. I would be the maitre de, the person up front. I would be the one who talks to customers, because that’s really what I do in my job currently. I work with customers every day and I don't think I would ever stop doing that. I think I would open up a restaurant that was low key. No family working there this time! They can come and eat there if they want though.
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When you retire would that be a realistic goal?
That is definitely something that I've talked about doing. I would love to open up a nice restaurant somewhere downtown Toronto. The hours would probably be ridiculous but that’s still something I could see myself doing. I would get ahold of all my customers and invite them down. I know it's probably odd that opening a restaurant is something that I would want to do, but it's something totally different.
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What are your hobbies? We know that you like to play hockey. What do you do when you’re not working?
Yes, I enjoy hockey. I also play soccer, we end up swimming all the time, baseball and golf.
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How do you manage your time in the business and away from the business?
Just recently I feel as though I'm starting to manage my time a lot better than I used to. Looking back about three years ago I would do everything on my own. I'd be here every Saturday and every Sunday. Now I'm finally starting to delegate work a little more. It’s a lot better and I get Saturday and Sunday as my free time. I used to be here at 5:00am in the morning and I've changed that. Now I'm here at 9:30. I'm definitely spending a lot more time doing personal things and I’m able to spend time going to the gym every day.
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