Clean your boots, care for your family and always, always, stay honest - that’s the advice that’s stuck with career agent and now AuctionsPlus General Manager for Network, Paul Holm, ever since his first day on the job, and it’s certainly served him well.
Growing up on a dairy farm in South Gippsland, Paul had his sights set on becoming a livestock agent from a young age.
“When we were kids, dad and his brother used to buy cattle out of northern New South Wales and Queensland and would put them on the road on the advice of their agent, Don Bowman, who was working for VPC at the time,” Paul said.
“I thought that being an agent just looked like the best job in the world.”
“The buying, the selling and just the lifestyle of it was very appealing to me, and so from the time I was about 12 years old, that’s all I wanted to do.”
Persistence pays
Getting on the job as soon as he could was always the aim – but some well-meaning agents made sure he kept his head in the books for a little longer than he had originally hoped.
“At the end of Year 10, I booked a meeting with the branch manager at VPC and asked for a job,” Paul said.
“He told me to do Year 11 first, then he told me to do Year 12, and then it was ‘go to Ag College and come back’.
“Eventually, after ag college, I got a job as a trainee with Wesfarmers Dalgety in Leongatha in February 2000, and that’s where it all began.”
Twelve months in the office quickly proved Paul’s potential, and he soon found himself working alongside fellow local Wesfarmers agents on the agency’s four weekly livestock sales, operated under the direction of livestock bosses, Eddie Hams and Terry Ginnane.
Working in one of the biggest livestock businesses in the country, Paul relished the opportunity, but a call out of the blue one day saw him take a step away from the business into the unknown.
“It was a great opportunity to get a job where I grew up because I knew a lot of people, but I was also wanting to be my own person and to go and do something else where I could make a name for myself,” Paul said.
“My longtime mentor Peter Homann, who’s now the National Livestock Manager for Elders, rang me one afternoon in 2002 and offered me a job in Alice Springs.
“I rang him back that same afternoon to accept the job and very quickly I moved to Alice Springs.”
Making a move
Moving to the Red Centre proved a good decision not just for Paul’s career – it was also during his three-year stint in the Alice that he met his wife Theresa, who was running a stock camp to the north-west of the town at the time.
Eventually, the couple packed their bags and moved to Naracoorte for 12 months, before returning north to Longreach where their children were born, and later Blackall, where Paul took on his first role as Branch Manager.
Not one to stay stagnant, staying on the move between branches is something Paul credits to many lessons learnt during his agency career.
“In those days, that was the natural transition of an agent,” Paul said.
“You would get a call on the Friday saying, ‘guess what, pack your bag, you’re going to Hughenden’, and that was it, that was just how it worked.
“While it can be tough to move to a new town and develop new relationships, I think you’re always better for it in the long term.”
It’s only recently that Paul again stepped outside his comfort zone to take on the position at AuctionsPlus, following his time as Livestock Manager at Elders for Queensland and the NT.
“It was a natural step for me to try and do something different,” Paul said.
“Sitting in an executive role rather than middle management is certainly different, but this is the perfect vehicle for me to help continue to move the industry along as quickly as possible.
“I would not have been where I am now without agency – agency has been very, very kind to me - so the ability to come in and be a voice for agency inside the business was also a huge motivation to join AuctionsPlus.”
Looking back, moving forward
As he looks back on his time as an agent, there’s one piece of advice that comes to Paul’s mind for the next generation who might just be starting their journey in ag.
“Make yourself uncomfortable and do uncomfortable things,” Paul said.
“If you’re not challenging yourself constantly to improve, you’re only going to get the same result.
“I’m not the most outgoing person, but I really do think challenging yourself to be uncomfortable and putting yourself in positions where it’s not just always what you’ve done is the one of the most important things you can do in your life.”