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About Lamaan WhyteMy name is Lamaan Whyte. My first name is pronounced 'L-marn'. I was born in Australia during the Second World War, into a family with strong traditions in the professions and in entrepreneurship and management. Perhaps it should have come as no surprise that I developed both a practical and academic interest in management and entrepreneurship. Now in retirement, I spend my days teaching computer skills to older folk at my local computer club, and passing on such business-related knowledge and wisdom as I may have acquired to young entrepreneurs around the world. My principal areas of expertise are:
In addition, I have very broad knowledge and skills across the fields of business management, computer sciences, history, law, philosophy, psychology and sociology. I did not get all of these skills suddenly, nor only by one means. Rather, they came slowly, through a mix of practical experience and education. As some might say, I became a graduate of both the University of Hard Knocks, and the University of Hard Study, and then lived long enough to have time to think about what I had learned. Early Days My business education began early. At the tender age of seven, I launched a 'play shop' in my parent's garage. Although obviously just 'play', and lasting no more than a single afternoon, it nevertheless gave me some valuable insights into what I now know are called customer psychology and retail economics. In my teens, I organised children in my immediate neighbourhood into The Firefly Club, a project to raise funds for UNESCO. Eventually, this effort raised quite a sum of money, the equivalent of several years of adult wages. Later, still a teenager, I ran a variety of small businesses, ranging from a (probably illegal) betting shop to a (squeaky clean) commercial printing business. After completing school, I studied law at the University of Melbourne, distinguishing myself, however, more as sub-editor and cartoonist for the student newspaper than as a budding lawyer. Although my legal studies went on for several years, it soon became apparent that my heart lay elsewhere, and eventually I drifted into sales and marketing. Until well into my thirties, I worked in a wide variety of sales jobs, selling everything from insurance and encyclopaedia to books and giftware. This was an interesting if often highly frustrating time, in which I discovered much about myself, and even more about my field of work. I discovered, for instance, that I could not function as a high-pressure salesman, and thus learned much about the difference between 'selling' and 'helping people solve problems'. I also met many interesting and knowledgeable people - including some of Australia's foremost professionals of the time - who taught me much that was valuable. In my late twenties, I was appointed sales manager within a substantial and long-established printing company - which promptly went broke! In the wash-up from this disaster, I received a portion of its stock in lieu of unpaid wages, and suddenly found myself the astonished owner of a small business. Thus began the next stage of my business education: learning how to turn a woefully under-capitalised business into a going concern. After four years of eventful and rewarding operation, however, a sudden economic downturn prompted me to look for greener fields. Thus it came about that I became advertising manager with a chain of department stores. I was delighted with this new job, as it promised new fields to explore. Unbeknownst to me, however, this new job came with an 'Easter Egg' - a hidden but most pleasant surprise. Sam Drury, I was told, was to be my immediate supervisor, and was to show me the ropes of my new job. He was, however, an grey-haired old man in a crumpled raincoat, hunched shoulders, and a look on his face of total dispirited boredom, looking much like an uninvited refugee from a Charles Dickens novel. Worse, he seemed to know little about my job, spending much more time asking me questions than telling me anything. I quickly dismissed him as a nobody! In time, however, I realised that I was wrong. Far from being a nobody, he had been when younger one of the world's foremost advertising writers, with a many innovations and credits to his name, and was now, in semi-retirement, a teacher in a major advertising school. I had hit the jackpot! Now I was going to get a solid training in advertising copy-writing. Consulting Days - Part 1 In due course, greener pastures once again beckoned, and I hung out my shingle, as they say, as an advertising copywriter and marketing consultant. Initially operating on the outskirts of Sydney (on the south eastern coast of Australia) and into nearby Wollongong (a city about 85 km south of Sydney) and the surrounding rural areas, later I moved to Darwin (in Australia's far North). I was to remain a consultant until my retirement. My consulting clients were mostly small businesses (though with an occasional larger business and Government Department thrown in). They came from a most diverse mix of industries, ranging from agricultural businesses to heavy industry, and from manufacturing through every kind of distributive and service business to retailing. My personal work for these clients was also diverse, at one time or another covering almost every aspect of business planning and management, from marketing through accounting and personnel management. My time as a consultant fell roughly into three parts: early years, primarily involved in advertising; the middle years, mainly in study; and the final years, focusing on research and psychology. In the early part of my consulting career, my attention was on advertising and public relations as means of encouraging profitable sales. During this period, I worked very much with others - with a partner, a highly skilled graphic designer lately from a major advertising agency; and also with a number of brilliant freelance artists and writers, mostly all with big-agency experience. My role in the company was as managing director, account executive, creative director, copywriter, occasional graphic design assistant and, of course, floor sweeper and bottle wash. This period came to an end when I decided that it was time to return to university study. Two watershed events brought about this decision. The first event came about like this: I had acquired a new client, a brand new company with a brilliant product that was sure to pull in the customers like a magnet. So I created a brilliant advertising campaign to do the pulling. And it worked! The customers came in like a tsunami ... and like a tsunami, washed everything away! The company, I soon discovered, had been entirely unprepared for success, and simply fell to bits under the torrent of customers. Thus, I discovered to my chagrin, there is more to success than clever advertising. Perhaps, I thought, if I learn a little more about business management, I might be able to avoid such a problem in the future. It was, however, the second event that propelled me back to university. Towards the end of this first period of my consultancy years, some of my clients asked me to arrange marketing research for them. Accordingly, I commissioned a research company to undertake the research. The results, however, were so unsatisfactory that I decided to conduct all further research myself. Many research projects later, and many highly satisfied clients later, I thought to myself, "If I can do this job so well without any training, how much better could I do if I were properly trained?". So I decided to sell up, and take myself off to university. Consulting Days - Part 2 Thus started the second period of my time in consultancy: four years of working part-time, while studying full-time. Actually, it was all a little more than full-time. In addition to looking after a small group of client companies, I had all the lectures to attend, books to read, and essays to write needed for the equivalent of three-and-a-half degrees. Plus, I helped to raise a large family, and played my part as community leader. Plus, occasionally, I got some sleep. Just not very much of it! During this four years, I studied for an arts degree, with majors in psychology and sociology, and honours in psychology, at the University of Wollongong. Minor subjects included computer programming, economics and the history and philosophy of science. My average marks over the four years were at the High Distinction level. It was during this time that I began my research into entrepreneurship, becoming, in the process, one of Australia's pioneer researchers into entreprenology, the study of entrepreneurship. In addition to my regular studies at the University of Wollongong, I also undertook studies in accountancy, guided by private tuition from one of the university's accountancy lecturers in return for copies of my papers on entrepreneurship and small business. My particular interest was in management accountancy and in accountancy as applied to marketing (that is, the interface between a firm's need to grow through appropriate marketing, and its need to control expenditure through prudent fiscal management). These studies were to prove incredibly useful in the years ahead. Finally, also during this same four years, I began an academic study of marketing. For this, I regularly visited libraries at the Universities of New South Wales and Sydney, attended lectures where I could find them in Sydney, and wrote up all I had learned into papers, usually for my consulting clients. In due course, these papers were consolidated into a series of lectures and practical training activities for small business proprietors, which were delivered to paying customers around Australia. My expertise in marketing was later recognised by the Australian Marketing Institute, an organisation for professional marketers, which accepted me as Associate Fellow, a rank at that time designated as appropriate to senior lecturers in marketing. In my final year, I wrote two theses, one investigating the social-psychology of entrepreneurship, and the other investigating the psychology and philosophy of motivation. Consulting Days - Part 3 Study-time over, I commenced the third and final part of my time as a consultant. During this time, I undertook many different activities, including research, study and practical assignments. For instance:
In Retirement My consulting days are now over. Now I ponder the meaning of life, wonder how the next generation is going to cope with the consequences of world over-population, and in the meanwhile do what I can to help people become more successful at business. Currently, I live in Darwin (the northern-most city in Australia), mentor young entrepreneurs around the world, and help look after the Darwin Seniors Computer Club. |
