I met the man who stared down Charles Barkley

At the Franchise Association of Australia convention in Perth I caught up with Australian basketball legend Shane "Hammer" Heal who was speaking on the program. His career highlights include representing and captaining the Boomers at a number of Olympics (1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004) and World Championships, playing in the NBA with the Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs, and winning the 2002/2003 NBL championship with the Sydney Kings and being named MVP twice in the Greek League. He also stared down "Sir" Charles Barkely in a 1996 Olympic match.

Shane is a believer in franchising. He is a franchisee 14 times over, and loves everything about it. So much so, he owns his own store fit out firm too.

He says, “No-one ever succeeded at anything without passion.” From the age of 5 he practised on his own and visualised playing basketball for Australia. That’s where he learned to sink those famous 3 pointers, yet great as his game was, he still made barely 50% of baskets attempted. He just attempted more baskets! In his franchise stores he promotes four pillars, Extreme service, Quality, Efficiency and “Vibe”. He awards his team for cost savings and sales and profit increases.