By this time our specialised method of selling had proved to be really sound, and we had, by personal contacts and by yearly conference and a daily educative communication to each and every stockist, gotten most of them quite as enthusiastic as ourselves, and as their success and consequent profit grew, their enthusiasm grew likewise as ours did.
About this time we invented the Reduction Unit for use in Milking Sheds where an electric motor replaced the petrol engine, and also for use in any case where a double reduction Chain Drive was necessary up to 5 h.p. capacity. When we got our first order for 200 of these units in one hit, we began to feel that we were really 'in the business', and this, together with our ever-increasing success in the larger sphere of horsepowers, showed that enthusiasm to be a constant driving force. We still remember with pride those early 100 h.p. jobs at Miramar Brick Works, Murphy Brick Works, the Picton 100 h.p. Generator, and at the same time, the Picton Freezing Works, twenty other smaller drives.
Our first effort at designing for a specific purpose...
AND THE FIRST RESULT THEREOF, since when many hundreds have been sold with Renold Drives.And so 1929. During this year we noticed the steady recession of the sale of Ferodo goods. You will bear in mind that the commission on this line had practically kept us alive during the period of establishment at a loss of the Renold line, and we were very concerned to notice that this was tailing off somewhat disastrously. I had, therefore, to devote some considerable time to this line at this time, leaving the Renold section in the capable hands of Mr Carlyle.
1929 saw real results culminating from the concentrated effort of getting specialised selling on Renold. It might be said that in 1929 the effect of real team work was felt not only by A. R. Christian Ltd and Stockists, but by the whole of the industrial fabric of New Zealand. In our primary industries we got really established. Ninety per cent of the churns that were put in Dairy Factories during 1929-30 and '31 were Renold Chain driven, and it is safe that in 80 per cent of the electrification of Freezing Works, Renold Transmission was applied during the change-over; the change-over from gas engine to electricity, or change-over from D.C. to the standard 400 volt A.C. current. The biggest step forward in Freezing Works for Renold was the 290 h.p. job at the Gisborne Freezing Works - our first attempt at a heavy and most awkward load possible for transmission, and in doing this particular job and others at the same works, we convinced the fraternity of Freezing Works Engineers that we had the efficient transmission which was of the reliable character that they had been seeking for a long time. In doing this we gained the confidence of these engineers sufficient for them to give us their problems, not only of transmission, but of mechanisation, which was just commencing to be necessary owing to increasing difficulties arising from the Freezing Workers' Union - and so on.
We therefore set out late in that year, having recognised the foregoing, to go even one better in specialisation, that was, specialisation on specific industries - kicking off with Freezing Works and Woodworking Machinery, and the success of that specialised speciality selling was the greatest education to ourselves and our stockists that we ever had, proving once and for all that there was no limit to the scope we could create, and given the necessary capital available in New Zealand to spend, our success and the size of our turnover depended entirely on our own intelligent specialised efforts.
During 1929 our sales of Renold Chain Drives reached an average of 1,000 h.p. per month.
Meantime, during this year Ferodo also got a little fillip, in that a further distributor was appointed, in the shape of a new firm, Messrs. Phelan and Lonsdale, who late in 1929 took the lease of part of our premises, and were very active and interested sellers of Ferodo on our behalf.
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