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Phil Hughes, started his office supplies career before computers were a staple in every office when accounting systems still relied on ledger cards, and manual typewriters were still outselling electric ones.
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In a career that spans 50 years, Phil has not once lost his passion for the industry even when times got tough, and he found himself without a job or a plan for his future, he is through and through an office supplies man with the gift of the gab and lots of stories to tell.
Tonight, Friday, September 21 Phil’s life in business is going to be celebrated by his family, friends and colleagues old and new.
It started in 1968 when Phil left The Commonwealth Bank to take up a position as a trainee salesman at Remington.
“Remington was one of the leading companies in office supplies, based right here in Launceston with 36 staff,” Phil said.
“When they took me on they were just about to launch photocopiers, and that’s where I was stationed right up until the mid-70s.
“Back then we were selling duplicating machines that ran on metholated spirits and then it was electrostatic copiers, that you had to drain the fluid from before you delivered them.”
Phil can even remember his first week at Remington when he first met friend John Sandor from Sim Crawcour.
“My first week in Remington I had to do a delivery of manual typewriter ribbons, back in the day were you sold nine manual typewriters for every one electric,” Phil said.
“I got there, and John was in the dispatch area stacking up boxes, I had no idea he was even the owner, and 50 years later we are still friends, and at 93 he is still involved in his business, that’s the type of friendships I’ve formed over the years.”
Phil’s sales skills were soon earning him recognition from suppliers and the state manager at Remington Jim Trappes. “I can still remember my first budget was $355 a month for photocopy paper, rolls of it,” Phil said.
“They had a competition called ‘The PIP Conference’ or ‘pounds in pockets’, the competition ran from the middle of October to December 20, while my budget was $355 I wrote over $100,000 in rolls of paper for the quarter, it was unreal.
“I won the competition and got sent to Canberra, a whole crew of us, and from the time we got off the plane till the time we left except for playing 18 holes of golf, it was work, work, work. If that was the winning prize, I’d hate to think what the losing prize was.”
Phil said the industry in the 70s was fiercely competitive and was made up of characters such as; Jock Hopwood, Jimmy Dunstan and John Selwyn Cox.
I can still remember my first budget was $355 a month for photocopy paper, rolls of it.
- Phil Hughes
“I remember I had a couple of months where things weren’t good, just couldn’t get answers and on the third month, Jim Trappes called me into his office,” Phil said.
“Jim said ‘you didn’t have a good month last month or the one before. You do realise that if you hadn’t of performed this month I might have had to say something, here is your commission cheque.
“It was for $5,500, a massive amount of money in those days, everything I had worked on paid off in the end,” Phil said.
“Jim marched me straight over to the Commercial Travellers Club where Target is now, we walked through the back door, and there was Jock Hopwood, Jimmy Dunstan and John Selwyn Cox and Jim Trappes said ‘guys I want you to meet the best salesman in Tassie’.
“John Selwyn Cox said ‘with all due respects Jim, I would nominate Jim Brown and Malcolm Phillips as being equal.’”
These two gentlemen moved on to become the very successful Island Stationery. In the mid-70s Phil moved away from photocopiers and into accounting systems. He was the first person in Tasmania to sell a Casio 15 digit calculator for the hefty price of $1695!
However, by 1979 Phil felt it was time to move on, with Remington’s focus now on the more prominent players of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, they had started to phase out the items still popular in Tasmania.
“A lot of the guys had already left Remington to go to Northern Business Machines, I had just gotten married to Linda and felt it was time for a change and a new challenge,” Phil said.
At this time he was also joined by Adrian Groves who has remained a close friend for more than 40 years. Phil became a commission only salesman at Northern Business Machines in January 1979.
“We experienced good times with Canon copiers and typewriters and Lanier products,” Phil said. Phil and Northern Business Machines parted ways on July 1 1997. “I had to start again, I knew I wanted to stay in the industry because it was all I knew,” Phil said.
“I was very lucky that Darryl Bartels, an excellent technician came with me and we started Phil Hughes Office Solutions.
"We started from nothing, I took a small loan to get us off the ground, and suppliers Lanier, Voca and Phillips dictation were all very supportive.
“In particular Michael Bawden of Lanier gave me the full range of Lanier products which allowed me to provide the whole gambit of office machines.”
From 1997 to 2006 the business focused on machines until diversifying the business into stationery. “We took the opportunity in 2006 to join Office Choice as our buying group and being able to support the whole office requirement was tremendous,” Phil said.
“We also successfully moved to Sharp copiers, and a few years ago Foxxcon (third largest manufacturing company in the world) made a major investment in Sharp and they have now received ‘best buy’ awards in many copier categories.
“Becoming Brothers major local account customer we were finally able to provide the entire range of multi-function machines as well as labelling and scanning equipment.”