2 | Hallbury Homes For over 24 years, Hallbury Homes has been building houses in the South East andNorthern suburbs of Melbourne, SouthGippsland and theMornington Peninsula. What started out as a small family business in 1990 has flourished into an innovative and award-winning home building company with a reputation for quality and client satisfaction. “We’re an energetic, passionate and enthusiastic company,” says Cliff Hall, Managing Director. “We all love what we do, and we all have one common goal – to meet the needs of our clients.” Hall comes from a family with a long history in the industry – building and construction have been in his blood since the 1820’s. Three generations of the Hall family were carpenter-builders who served in the Royal Engineers, and Cliff ’s great grandfather, grandfather, father and his brother have all worked as carpenter-builders.
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4 | Hallbury Homes Cliff himselfis a qualified building inspector, and has been a part of the building industry his whole working life. “I have been doing this a long time,” he explains “I started off as an apprentice carpenter when I was 16. After undertaking further building studies,I founded Hallbury Homes with my wife Nicol after moving to Australia from England.” Since their inception, Hallbury Homes has continued to grow and evolve. Roughly two years ago, when the company’s workload became too much for Cliff to take on alone, he partnered up with Glenn Smith. Glenn comes from an accountancy background and brings business management, law and general operational skills to the table while Cliff continues to utilise his skills in construction. Together, they are in the midst of taking the business “to the next level.” LOVING WHAT YOU DO The energy, passion and enthusiasm the team at Hallbury Homes possess for building homes translates into a quality service to their customers. The company has never had to implement expensive marketing initiatives because their customer base is allbuilt through word of mouth and refer-
Hallbury Homes | 5 14-16 THE NOOK, BAYSWATER, VIC 3153 TEL: (03) 9720 4455 FAX: (03) 9720 7379 HIRING@AIMHIRE.COM.AU WWW.AIMHIRE.COM.AU OF PORTABLES, ON-SITE, ON TIME AND ON BUDGET BENEFIT FROM OUR EXPERIENCE IN DELIVERING ALL SORTS PORTABLE TOILETS BUILDERS POWER POLES PORTABLE BUILDINGS RUBBISH BINS/CAGES TEMPORARY FENCING SHIPPING CONTAINERS FOOT PATH CROSSINGS PROTECTIVE MATS FREE TOILET DELIVERY THROUGHOUT MUCH OF VICTORIA TARPAULINS GENERATORS rals.According to Cliff, most if not all of their customers walk away from a job feeling satisfied, and happy to provide testimonial feedback. The key to that kind of customer satisfaction, Cliff says, is communication – at Hallbury Homes, they are constantly talking to their customers, making sure they know what’s going on and their expectations are being met. “We are an energised up and coming business,” Cliff explains. “We have a good culture that is evident in our business and once a customer comes through the door, it becomes apparent. We are not tired, we are still excited, we want to do this and we want to make sure that people are happy. We want to look after our customers.” Another important part of achieving good relationships with customers, Cliff adds, is first achieving good relationships with their workforce – which they do by investing in training and developing. Currently, the company employs a “young and energised team” and a lot of their time and effort when not on a site is spent training them. “Not just on a financial level but on a personal level,” says Cliff. Building valuable and lasting relationships is also important toHallburyHomes when it comes to their suppliers and sub-contractors – that’s the only way to ensure consistency quality and efficacy, Cliff explains. He adds that amajority of the company’s contractors have been working with
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Hallbury Homes | 7 them for many years. “We like to respect our contractors,” he says. “Without those quality people in place, it would not be a successful business.And when sub-contractors come into our fold, it is usually because they are recommended by one of our existing contractors.” “We have to maintain the consistency in service and quality we deliver to people,” he adds. “And I don’t think you can do that by changing your contractors most of the time – so it’s important to form strong relationships with the people you have.” INDUSTRY RECOGNISED Hallbury Homes’ passion for quality is not only recognised by clients, but industry bodies like the HIA as well. In 2011 and 2012, for example, the company was recognised as the HIA Victorian Professional Small Builder of the Year. Cliff says that awards like that go a long way to establishing their credibility as great homebuilders. The award’s rigorous entry process also gave them the opportunity to step back and reflect on their current systems and practices, which is something most companies rarely get the chance to do in a fast moving world. “It is a good business analysis tool,” Cliff says. “It makes you stop and think about what you are doing instead of just putting one foot in front of the other every day.” “As part of the entry, you have to give information on what systems you operate,” he adds. “Also, information on what you do in regards to training people, how you do your financial management, and more. So basically what we did in both 2011
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Hallbury Homes | 9 and 2012 was analyse and measure these factors and how they come together.” “That was extremely valuable,” he says. “It showed us where we were doing well and where we could improve, and it has made us a stronger company than ever.” FORGING AHEAD Currently, Hallbury Homes is working on a promising display programme – one display home opened recently, and four more are due later this year. “We just want to build good display homes in good villages using good designs, along with multi-unit developments and knock-down rebuilds,” Cliff says. As for their even longer-term vision, Cliff is exceedingly positive. He says the company is looking to maximise its potential and grow into a medium to large scale business.However, he clarifies that what’s most important to the company isn’t growth – it’s maintaining their passion. “It is definitely not growth at any cost,” Cliff says “We are really excited about what we do. We love coming into work, and that is what spurs us on to want to keep building. That is the important thing to us and we will keep on with that.”
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