Sir Michael Hill, who grew a local jewelry store into a multinational chain that now numbers over 250 locations, died on July 29. He was 86.
Hill was born in Whangarei, New Zealand. An indifferent student whose first love was music, he originally wanted to be a concert violinist but gave up that dream when he failed an audition with the national orchestra. At age 17, he reluctantly went to work at his uncle’s jewelry store.
“I entered the jewelry business very much against my will,” he said on a 2020 episode of the HP Business Class podcast. “My uncle came round and said, ‘Boy, you’ve been fiddling around for two years, wasting your time. It’s time you got a real job. I’m going to make a watchmaker out of you.’”
Watchmaking, however, proved a bad fit for Hill, who did it for only three months. By then, his father had joined the business, and he taught his son the basics of selling. That, Hill excelled at.
“Good selling practice, you make so many wonderful friends,” he said on the podcast. “Poor selling is when you force a sale, where someone might feel awkward. They may take it, but they’ll never return again…. It’s all about people. That makes the difference.”
By age 40, Hill had earned enough working for his uncle that he was able to build his dream house. Then one night, he was coming home from a movie when he heard his house was on fire. As Hill stood outside the burning structure and watched his life turn to ashes, something inside him snapped.
“I’d been working for my uncle for 23 years with no clear direction,” he told HP Business Class. “That night I took a visiting card and wrote down quickly, ‘I’m going to own my uncle’s business, and if he won’t sell, I’m going to start my own business.’ So for the first time I set a goal that I genuinely, genuinely wanted to achieve.”
Hill made a bid for his uncle’s store, and when it was turned down, he opened his own shop, in direct competition with his former employer. (The story of Hill’s midlife epiphany has became so well known that in 2023, his company dramatized it in an ad.)
Hill soon stepped out from behind the counter to star in the store’s commercials, and he won a following with his bespectacled, unpretentious appearance and memorable catchphrase.
“We came up with the idea of [saying], ‘Hello. Michael Hill. Jeweler,’” he recalled on HP Business Class. “From that moment, we were really on a roll. It became quite a household name. Everywhere we opened, everyone knew [us].”