Building a successful business doesn’t always require a complicated strategy. According to Terry Conway, the former owner of Handy Seafood and former chief financial officer of Perdue Farms, lasting success comes down to mastering three fundamental principles.
Conway outlines that philosophy in his new book, Business is Simple: From a Family Cottage Business to World Processing and Markets, which chronicles how he transformed a struggling seafood operation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore into a multinational company with annual sales reaching $60 million.
Released by Publish Your Purpose, the book combines memoir, business advice and entrepreneurial lessons drawn from more than five decades of leadership in the seafood industry.
When Conway acquired Handy Seafood in 1981, he says he inherited a business plagued by operational challenges rather than a thriving enterprise.
“What greeted me as the new owner was not a well-oiled machine, but chaos,” Conway writes in the book’s introduction. “Resources were scarce, decisions were based on limited experience, and crucial business functions needed to be built from scratch.”
To navigate those challenges, Conway developed what he describes as a straightforward three-step business framework: continuously develop superior products, process those products at a competitive advantage, and generate qualified sales leads that can be converted into customers.
The approach became the foundation for the company’s growth as it expanded beyond the Chesapeake Bay into international markets.
Throughout the book, Conway recounts the obstacles involved in building a global seafood business, including regulatory hurdles, intense competition and overseas expansion. His experiences took him from crab processing facilities in Maryland to ventures in Costa Rica, Thailand and India as he worked to secure new products, manufacturing capabilities and markets.
Beyond telling his personal story, Conway presents the book as a practical guide for entrepreneurs, family-owned businesses, executives and recent college graduates entering the workforce. He emphasizes that sound decision-making, disciplined execution and long-term thinking are often more valuable than chasing complex business trends.
Conway’s business career extends beyond Handy Seafood. Before purchasing the company, he worked as a business adviser at accounting firm Touche Ross, served as an investment analyst for a Wall Street private equity firm and held the position of chief financial officer at Perdue Farms. He has also taught managerial accounting at Carnegie Mellon University and international marketing at Johns Hopkins University.
Now retired, Conway serves as executive consultant to Handy Seafood’s board after transferring voting control of the family business to his five adult children. Through Business is Simple, he hopes to share the lessons learned from decades of entrepreneurship and demonstrate that sustainable growth often begins with mastering a few core principles rather than pursuing overly complicated strategies.