It must have felt particularly sweet for John Buhler, founder of Buhler Industries Ltd. to be honoured with a degree for distinguished achievement during the University of Manitoba s fall convocation Oct. 19.
The self-made multimillionaire and noted philanthropist was a high school flunkie.
As he described it while addressing the Harvest Gala banquet in Brandon a few days earlier, I was not a scholar. After 12 years in school he was still struggling to complete Grade 9.
I m a dreamer, the 78-year-old entrepreneur told his audience. From dreams, you get ideas and from ideas you set goals.
Read Also
John Buhler dead at 91
Brief notice of death of John Buhler.
Goals need to be visualized, he said as he adjusted the toy tractor, notably red, he d set on the podium when he began his address. I just wanted to build farm equipment especially tractors.
Buhler had few other things going for him. What he lacked in academic aptitude, he made up for with dogged determination and a good dose of common sense.
A dreamer with common sense sounds paradoxical. But it was precisely that rare mix that set the stage for Buhler s rise in business to where he not only fulfilled his dream of building tractors through his acquisition of Versatile, he can unabashedly brag about eventually selling the company to the Russians for a cool $195 million.
After launching his business empire in the car sales business, Buhler was able to venture into the farm equipment business, which he eventually positioned to go after Versatile. It took a couple of tries, but he had to take on the U.S. government to do it, but he finally clinched the deal.
That s not to say there weren t close calls and casualties along the way.
Much of Buhler s logic, which we ll get to in a minute, and famously anti-union stance, resonates well with a farm audience, where anti-unionism comes close to religion. But Buhler s nine-month showdown with Buzz Hargrove and Canadian Autoworkers Union shortly after he took the helm of Versatile hasn t won him any friends in the organized labour movement.
For his part, Buhler said he took the nickname capitalist cowboy bestowed on him by Hargrove as a compliment. But he admits the ordeal took its toll. Vandalism and threats throughout the bitter dispute in 2000-01 kept Buhler and his wife Bonnie more or less housebound.
And some of his business advice, such as measuring the stack of accounts receivables in inches instead of value, is bound to make the accountants who have spent generations moving farmers away from shoebox accounting cringe.
But for what it s worth, it s much faster and just about as accurate, according to Buhler. It seemed to work for him just fine. Ditto for the rest of his logic, such as:
” Borrow as much money as possible. As farmers well know, business isn t for the faint of heart. Buhler s experience, once he was able to borrow anything at all, was that it was much easier borrowing large sums of money than small. The bigger your debt, the higher level of banker working on your behalf.
And here s another secret he shared.
” Bankers don t want their loans repaid. He once told a mid-level bank employee who was hounding him for some reports that he d supply the required information as soon as the bank supplied him with a report on how much money he owed and how much interest they were getting. He never heard back from the employee, but instead received a visit from the bank s vice-president to thank him for his business.
” Always negotiate. Often a better deal, a better rate or another option is there for the asking.
” Never hire a consultant. This advice brought roars from the audience. Buhler said he has bought a lot of troubled companies over the years. There was always a stack of consultant s reports, usually ordered by the banks.
But that said, Buhler acknowledged he sometimes sought outside advisers. We just called them something else, he said, which segued nicely into his next tidbit.
” Always trust your gut. Buhler recognized that no one knew his business or his game plan better than he. He never let someone else determine his path forward.
Buhler didn t state the following two bits of logic in so many words, but was apparent throughout his presentation.
” Respect and honour your spouse. Buhler s affection and respect for his wife Bonnie shone throughout his presentation.
” Give back to your community. While he joked that he set up the John and Bonnie Buhler Foundation so he wouldn t have to pay so much in taxes, its support for the arts, education and health benefits all Manitobans.
John Buhler is refreshingly frank about his road to success. But it s important to remember, it all started with a dream.
