Business is Simple: From A Family Cottage Business to World Processing and Markets

This isn't just a business book; it's a blueprint forged in the fire of real-world risk and adrenaline-fueled chaos that transformed a 130-year old cottage seafood company into a thriving international business. At age thirty-one, I was the first CFO for Perdue Farms and ten years later, as a father of five, I took a daring leap of faith: I left corporate stability for the dream of ownership.

To navigate chaos, I relied on my evolving, time-tested structure that I call Business Is Simple. It strips away complexity and focuses on just three core interconnected focal points:

- Continuously develop superior products.

- Process at a competitive advantage.

- Develop leads for sales to close.

This structure guided two complete makeovers. The first transformed Handy into a coast-to-coast national company, achieving a premium quality that opened up exports to Japanese and European markets.

The second makeover was a matter of survival, forced by environmental changes that severely reduced crab supply. With zero contacts, I booked a flight to Bangkok. This led to far-flung adventures in seven Asian countries, where I navigated sleepless nights and cultural challenges to establish soft crab processing and later, two more product lines - crab cakes and pasteurized crab meat.

Part memoir, part manual, the book is an adventure story and guide for aspiring entrepreneurs, executives, family companies and students, proving that with trust, clarity, and perseverance, extraordinary results in business are possible.

In 1981, Terry Conway acquired sole ownership of Handy Seafood and brought a remarkable commitment to build this small cottage business into a strong, family-owned global company - a leading brand with steady growth, a testament to making global enterprise work. Drawing from his experiences across a long and illustrious career, Terry's transformation of Handy Seafood was based on a fundamental principle: that at its core business is simple. Across a long successful career, Terry has served as business advisor at Touche Ross, as investment analyst for Laird & Company, and as CFO of Perdue Farms before taking control of Handy Seafood, where he continues to serve as Executive Chairman after transferring control to his five children who continue running the company to this day. In the past, he has lectured on managerial accounting at Carnegie Mellon University and on international marketing at Johns Hopkins University. Today he lives with his wife Susan in Salisbury, MD, where he still goes to the office every day.