It's All Bull - Barry Bull

The music industry has been transformed by technology several times over in the past 20 years. Camille Howard talks to Barry Bull, a self-styled music entrepreneur who turned every change into a plus in the form of new strands in a career that goes on thriving when most people his age are retiring

Music is in Barry Bull’s veins. He even calls himself The Music Man, a phrase long since adopted by journalists, and at 63 he’s still developing new goals and sharing the secrets of his success via books and public-speaking.

Bull’s music career began in retail before scoring a job in the marketing department of CBS Music (now Sony/BMG), in Queensland, and he rapidly ascended to director of marketing for CBS Australia. While many would be thrilled with the opportunity to mix with celebrities of the rock world, it soon wore thin for Bull, who decided the time away from his family wasn’t worth it. “As exciting and glamorous as this may seem, I was never home and I had a wife and young family.” So, returning to Brisbane, he gave it all up to run his own business: the acquired Toombul Music store.

For Bull, the move meant being able to balance work and family values. “To be successful in business, you’ve got to have that balance in place and I wasn’t doing that very well.” Sick of returning home from the many overseas trips to find a porch light on but everyone already asleep, Bull pulled the plug on one career and launched the next.

Buying the business, Bull explains, was envisioned as a “stop off” while he thought about the next path to take in his career. He never imagined it would be the start of an empire famous across the nation.

“Retail was very exciting in the early 80s, and it just clicked for me,” he explains. “I had this vision: I didn’t want to be the biggest, I wanted to be the best. I didn’t have the money to grow any more stores, so I decided to grow one to be a destination store.”