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Lesson #3: Learn The Industry From The Ground Up

Article Overview: To this day, Fox still keeps a copy of his 1952 driving logbook in his office. It is a reminder of the days when he used to cart coal in the winter and soda in the summer around in the back of his used truck. That is, until he was 30 years old and “had six kids and 60 trucks.”

Lesson #3: Learn The Industry From The Ground Up

To this day, Fox still keeps a copy of his 1952 driving logbook in his office. It is a reminder of the days when he used to cart coal in the winter and soda in the summer around in the back of his used truck. That is, until he was 30 years old and "had six kids and 60 trucks."

The experience, however, was an important one. Fox believes that learning the industry from the ground up is what enabled him to become the success he is today. He learned the trucking industry inside out, gaining first-hand experience at the bottom rung of the ladder as truck driver, and worked his way up.

Recently, Fox was awarded his country's highest honour, the Companion in the Order of Australia. Of the award, he says: "One of the nicest things about receiving the accolade of Australia is that, previously, the knighthood was historically for what was termed ‘the establishment.' Now, this is an accolade for somebody who comes from a working-class background. Someone whose father was a truck driver and decided to buy a truck. The rest of the story, as they say, is history."

That history not only gave him the know-how he needed to give his company an edge over its competitors, but a work ethic that he carries with him today.

"Basically, as a working class boy I understand when there's not enough money to put food on the table and not knowing where the next dollar comes in from," he says. "When you've been in that environment as a child, you never lose it. You know sausages and potatoes are alright two or three nights a week but bloody every night it gets tough, particularly if there's no sauce to put on the sausages."

That is why, despite being a billionaire, Fox tries to instill the same hunger for hard work in his own children as he grooms them to take over his business.

"These kids, these kids all had to either go and get a truck driver's license, paint truck wheels, work with these mechanics," he says. "Nobody has an entitlement to feel better than anyone else. The mere fact that over a period of time we've sort of climbed the ladder as far as probably financial security, but we haven't lost the common touch and the moment one of my kids came home and acted as though they were a toff, they'd have a real problem."

But starting off as a trucker has in no way limited his ability to think on a big scale when it came to his business. He used his comprehensive knowledge of the industry from the ground up to gain some of the biggest global clients, including Japanese food and drink giant Kirin Holdings, Unilever, Kraft, ExxonMobil, and Procter & Gamble.

Fox was able to learn from his father's and his own experience as a trucker to understand the daily challenges and requirements of working on the ground. He was then able to parlay that knowledge into a corporate expertise at the international level.

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Article Tags: coal, fox, lesson 3, logbook, reminder, soda, trucks



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