“Bunnings is coming to town.”
It’s the sentence that strikes fear into the heart of almost every independent retailer in Australia. But for Rob Benson of Benson’s Timber and Hardware, that sentence became a catalyst, not a death knell.
On this week’s episode of The Business Huddle, I sat down with Rob to discuss the reality of maintaining a legacy business in Gippsland. Rob’s journey started humbly—sweeping floors at age 16 because his father wouldn’t let him just “hang around the house” after leaving school. But the real masterclass in marketing and resilience came years later, just four months after he had purchased the business from his family.
He was leveraged with loans and full of ideas when the news hit that the big green shed was moving in. He went to bed every night imagining customers telling him, “That’s the end of you”.
Yet, Benson’s didn’t just survive. They outlasted Masters, and the business grew to three times its original size.
Here are the three strategic takeaways from my conversation with Rob that every business owner needs to hear.
1. Independence can be your superpower
When faced with a giant competitor, the instinct is often to mimic them. Rob took a different route. While Benson’s was part of the Home Hardware Group for over a decade, they eventually decided to go independent.
Why? Because agility wins. By going independent, Rob wasn’t tied to a generic catalogue; he could tailor his stock and service specifically to the Latrobe Valley market. In marketing, we call this “market orientation.” Rob calls it “doing the right thing by a customer”. The result was a level of loyalty that a big box store simply cannot buy.
2. Validation comes from the customer, not the industry
One of the moments that lit up our conversation was discussing Benson’s win in 2024 at the Latrobe City Business Chamber People’s Choice Awards for Best Trade Business.
Rob noted that industry awards often come from suppliers patting you on the back for buying enough stock. But this award was different—it was a People’s Choice award. It came directly from the locals.
This is a critical lesson for your brand strategy: Your suppliers are stakeholders, but your customers are your advocates. When you build a brand that people vote for voluntarily, you have built a moat around your business that competitors struggle to cross.
3. Hyper-local listening fuels expansion
It’s easy to assume that expansion means simply replicating what you do in Location A and pasting it into Location B. However, when Benson’s opened their second store in Yinnar two years ago, Rob realised he had to adapt.
He discovered that Yinnar was a completely different market—more farmers, more focus on the weather, and different product needs. Instead of forcing the Morwell inventory on Yinnar, they listened. Customers would say what they needed, and the team would simply type it in and get it.
This is the essence of listening-based marketing. They didn’t rely on algorithms; they relied on conversations.
The Bottom Line
Rob Benson’s story proves that you don’t need a massive corporate budget to beat the giants. You need to know your community better than they do. Whether it was navigating the supply chain chaos of the pandemic or taking a risk on a “dirt floor” timber yard, the formula remained the same: listen to the customer, and they will grow your business for you .
Listen to the full chat with Rob on GippslandFM below.