3 top tips from Stanley Henry

1. Develop your reputation and personal brand

Developing my reputation and personal brand. It’s obviously what we do as a business. But we do it as a business because it works. And it’s worked for me and it’s really helped my business grow. It’s the reason we’ve grown.

2. Network

Network the hell out of everything. Like don’t think networking is this weird thing you have to do and stand in the corner. Like it’s, it can be really fun and really collaborative. If you just put your effort into it. I’m super introverted. I hate going to networking events. Still not once I’m there. So the hour beforehand, I always fried about it. But once I’m there, and I realized, like, Oh, this is great. These are business people. And I love business, let’s talk business. It gets really fun. And there’s other things you can talk about you don’t have to talk about business

3. Map out your process

Take your business and pull it apart in terms of the process and just map it down to the most minute detail. And you’ll find that a common thing is that businesses are too busy, I’ve got too much to do. I’m always stuck at work and all these sorts of things, I work 100 hours a week, whatever. And ,that’s because you haven’t mapped out your process. And because you haven’t mapped that you can’t hand it over.

And that same tip is when you hand it over, trusting the person that you give it to, you can always put out a fire. Just give them the trust. Trust them to do their job. If they’re external, if they’re internal, whatever, just give it to them. And if they make a mistake, fix it. You can always fix it. But if you don’t trust the other person, you’re never going to be able to hand it over.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, core values, eos, team, tools, justine, clients, people, virtual assistant, work, implementer, integrator, meetings, months, chat, implementing, person, helped, leadership team, exercise

SPEAKERS
Stanley Henry, Debra Chantry-Taylor

Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:12
Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams get what they want at a business and life. On the show, I invite successful business owners and expert speakers to share their successes. They are open and honest about the highs and lows of business and also life as a business owner. We want to share those learnings with you to inspire you, but also to help you avoid some of the common mistakes. My hope is that you take something from each of these short episodes that you can put into action to help you get what you want, not only out of your business, but also your life. So welcome to another episode of better business better life. today. I am here with Stanley Henry, who is the MD which he says as the misfit and dreamer of the attention seeker, which is an agency that specializes in sort of the the whole b2b and LinkedIn space. Is that right?

Stanley Henry 01:06
That’s it. Yeah

Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:07
Welcome. Lovely to have you here.

Stanley Henry 01:09
Great to be here.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:09
So Stanley and I actually originally met at a place called the Chatham, which is a private business club here in Auckland. And it was a 4pm, Friday drinks, and we just happened to get chatting. And from there, you know, things have progressed. That was number of months ago now. And you’ve got a really interesting story, which I’d love you to share with the listeners. Yeah. But before we get started, I’d love to hear your professional and personal best, so they can get a bit of a sense of who Stanley really is. Yeah, and you still don’t drink. That’s right, isn’tit? You’ve kind of given up?

Stanley Henry 01:32
Yeah, cool well, starting with the personal base. That one’s pretty easy for me that was giving up alcohol for a year. And the end of 2017. I gave it up for the whole of 2018. That year changed my whole perspective on life. Coming from hospitality, which we’ll learn about more later is, um, it was part of my job title is to drink gray like that was what he did. And so giving up for a year, completely transformed who I was. And I would not definitely be sitting right here right now. If I hadn’t done that year, I was on a very different path in life. So that was different. My my professional best, it completely gave me the space to be where I am and fix my relationship with just not my partner. But my family, everyone. And in professional best was, was actually starting this business. It was something I’d always wanted to do. I started little businesses in the past, I had a little clothing line over in UK and little things like that just random stuff. But I never stuck to any of it. I didn’t have the perseverance to keep going. You get somewhere things would get hard, and you’d quit and get back to work and whatever. This is the first time I really persevered. which ties into the no alcohol. My brain was way clearer. Yeah. So I was able to stick it. You know, I didn’t have that need to just deal stress with alcohol, which then gave me escape to get out of what I was currently doing. And then self sabotage and all that sort of stuff. So that’s, yeah, they sort of connect I gave up again, I gave I drank again for about a year and a half, not much Just here and there. I did it to prove I had beaten the addiction, the addiction. And now and I got to October last year, the election night, we had a few drinks. And I decided the next day, the first hangover I’d had in three years, probably. And I was like, What am I doing? This is a waste so I just decided that point like, I’m just going to give up and I’ll do it for at least another year. And then it might be special occasions or or whatnot. Appreciate the drink, you know this, I really do enjoy a really good scotch or a really good wine. So to be able to enjoy it again when we good, yes. But it’s just not something that I need in my life and I don’t miss it anymore.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 03:42
So the benefits obviously around a clarity and

Stanley Henry 03:45
health relationship. Like specially right now building a business. It’s a massive positive for me, because there’s so much when I ever I drink I get a real clouding mind or I get distracted and go in different ways. Even when I’m networking, if you ever drink, you’re quite, you don’t quite have the same ability to have conversations with people as well, because my mind’s a bit shifty everywhere. So yeah, it’s just been, there’s just so many positives. I could talk about it all day. But, you know, I’m also one of those people like I used to work in hospitality. So I understand the drinking culture and I love it. I love being around like, you know, we made it a four o’clock drinks and I love being there in the environment. Yeah, I just don’t need to consume it for myself, but I love being around other people when they are and enjoying themselves. It’s just not a good thing for me to be to the same level.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 04:32
I’m actually on day three of a month. So I’m giving up for my for my birthday. Oh, definitely. I’m drinking my birthday. Okay, so you’ve got a really interesting story because you actually come from hospitality industry, as you indicated. So tell us a little about, you know, what you were doing and how you got to be to where you are now.

Stanley Henry 04:51
Yeah, so I worked in hospitality for about 15 or so years. I started off at the Sky Tower. I was up at the observatory restaurant. My favorite As my first job that was classic, I’m at uni needed, need some money. But then I took off to Australia sort of ran away from problems here in New Zealand, took off to Australia, and fell back into hospitality was the only job I could get. At the time, I was young 21. And I had a really, really good boss. And he ended up becoming a really good friend of mine, really a mentor because, and he pulled me aside one day and just said, you know, what are you doing with your life? Like, do you want a career? Is this gonna be a career Or are you just here to a party? What’s the deal? He’s like, and I said, Look, I’d love to do more. I just didn’t realize I had a choice. You know, like, I just, you know, I didn’t realize it was anyone saw that in me either, that I could be something. And he said, Look, if you want it, I’ll do it. But you got to commit. And so I went away for the day thought about it, don’t know why I took a day to figure it out, went back and say, Yeah, let’s do this, I want this. And so he just progressively put me in harder and harder positions, until I just learned more and more. And then I eventually worked. I had 11 positions in 12 years, I think it was. And my last role was as general manager of a hotel in Melbourne. So, you know, I had some pretty cool roles and you know, looking after, like 200 staff, 15 million, so in revenue, things like that. Yeah. And I sort of say that now. And I’ve made a lot of business owners who’ve got quite good businesses, and they don’t really like that much revenue at that age. And like it’s kind of a, I didn’t quite realize at the time, the gravity of what I was doing. Yeah, now that I’m in my own business, I’m like, Well, I’d love a $15 million revenue to look after now. But yeah, so I didn’t really understand the gravity of what I was doing. But it taught me so much in hospitality, I have to do everything.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 06:41
And what were the biggest challenges? Because that’s, that’s a huge star for a young person and budget wise as well. So what were the biggest challenges in my general manager role?

Stanley Henry 06:50
My biggest challenges, so in the start of my, about six months into my general manager position is when I first gave up alcohol for the first time, my biggest challenge was to separate myself away from the peers, or my, I guess, staff is probably the better way to do it. Yeah, I used to think of them as peers and professional peers. But I had to realize I was so much more than that now. And it wasn’t to be arrogant, it was just that they looked at me differently. I was no longer the stand one of their mates even the manager, or whatever. I was now the GM and I would talk to staff who were new and, you know, young or even be attendance or whatever. And they I talk to them in a way that I wouldn’t talk to anyone normally, but I forgot the gravity that my all the power and authority that my position held. Yeah. And that was a real struggle. And I probably ruined a few relationships, or maybe slowed the development of people. Because I didn’t respect the office I held. And once I figured that out was way better, because then I could give people more. Yeah, actually, because I, I could give them what they needed. And it’s hard to explain that. I had to stop being just one of the one of the lads almost, yeah, be the leader that these people needed. And that was a massive tune. But it’s a real challenge at first, but when I figured that out, that changed a lot.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 08:07
And is that as a learning you got to take into your own business now as well.

Stanley Henry 08:11
Yeah, massive. Like I even still may make some mistakes now about it, like the first day of one of my new staff when she started, you know, our offices half home, half office. And on her first day, you know, we made jokes about how you know Doors open at nine because Claire’s probably still naked. so dumb like when I think about it now it’s this is such a stupid thing to said. Yes. For her. She was obviously like, who was Claire, I don’t even know that your partner, right do the staff come in and get naked. What’s going on? whereby? Yeah, where’s this place? First day, and you can imagine, like, how nervous she felt at that point. And so I put her in a really compromised position, which was just so stupid. And also because I wasn’t thinking that gravity, although authority, my my position, how is the owner of this company? Yes. So that was a big learning that was again as a throwback to what I used to do as a GM. So it’s one of those things like, as long standing you want to be friends with people, but you are also their boss. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 09:11
And they look up to you the leader, right?

Stanley Henry 09:13
You’re the leader. So there is something there that you’ve got to make sure you keep that distance, not too close relationship, but you’re actually you’ve got a different relationship to peers, you know, so my staff will talk to each other maybe in that way, and they can have those jokes, but I can’t do the same style of joke. It’s just not right. It’s something I’m continually remembering. Fantastic. Now you started back when was October 2019. It was just yourself at that point. First of all, what on earth possessed you to go from what I assumed would be quite a well paid job and a great environment in Melbourne to start your own business. Like there was always a need to do that myself. Like I’ve always had that entrepreneurial sort of spirit. I’ve had multiple little hustles on the side and around the place but there was always saying I wanted to do in detail Strip, this silly idea that goes inside my head is that one day, there’s going to be technology that allows us to live forever. And I’m not gonna be able to afford it on a salary, I’m gonna need to be super rich developer. And I’m not going to get super rich unless I own my own business. Right? That’s honestly, that’s, that’s honestly what goes through my head. So it’s just a way of I needed to do this. I needed to have the I needed to prove I could do it, or prove that I couldn’t do it. I needed to know. Was it viable or not? And I wasn’t in a good space because I wasn’t drinking. And so it was the time was right. Right. I had achieved what I wanted to in hospitality, I would have just continued on that path and get going. Yeah, money was great. We had a great apartment, we had great life, Claire had a great job. It was it was a decision that was like, Alright, if we don’t do this, let’s get set up. Yeah, let’s really put some roots in somewhere. And, you know, do the married kids buy a house that life and neither clear and over really for that. It’s just not how he wanted. We’re not those sorts of people. So that said, all those things put together that Alright, let’s do it. And then the inciting sort of incident was my owners of my hotel, called me while I was away on holiday. And in emails, just abusing that I wasn’t there. Looking after the hotel, even though hotel hotel had great staff. We’ve smashed every record we’d ever set in January. And yet they were just mad that I left my post. They wanted me to do no matter what even though it’s been two and a half years since I’ve taken a holiday. So I was like, why are we doing this? Like why me I put an all my effort into this role. I treat this hotel like I yeah, this is how we’re treated. This is always going to be that. Let’s Let’s do it. And then the next day, after we decided that my brother emailed me and other my other brothers saying, Hey, we’re going out on our own. We said a brokerage. If anyone wants a job, let me know. I’d love to help you guys build your own business. It’s like, well, that’s a sign of we have a thing. So we took it, things got to where they were, yeah, clear decided to do that. I decided to go out on my own knowing I couldn’t do that and probably shouldn’t have worked with my brother, which is probably for the better. But I also had so much other stuff I wanted to do. I couldn’t just do one thing I needed to let my mind like play a little bit and talk to people and said, so yeah, Toby, we moved back to New Zealand and kicked it off. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 12:26
And now now we’ve got six people, and we’re looking for new premises. And yeah. And you said what two job offers at the middle two jobs out there at the moment, haven’t you?

Stanley Henry 12:34
Yeah, that’s it. So it’s been pretty wild ride. We’re growing pretty fast. Yeah. And, yep. So we’ve got Yeah, two look for two staff at the moment. And potentially three, but we’re sort of bringing the creative side of our business in house. And yet looking we need premises because our current half offers half homes not going to be big enough,

Debra Chantry-Taylor 12:56
naked close around.

Stanley Henry 12:58
So we definitely need something bigger and, and just a better environment for the team as well. A place they can call their own as well. They can come and go as they need. I know that that’s really important for them. They mostly work from home, but they need a space that they can call their own and it’s not in my house, as well. So it’s really important. Yeah, yeah, we’re definitely definitely looking to grow. I reinvest everything we earn. So you know, I pay myself a salary and outside of that everything else just goes back into to grow it. I don’t I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it for the growth Actually, I want the best team I can get I want to get back to that 200 person team I used to hit

Debra Chantry-Taylor 13:34
yes. So that’s why what do you like about managing a team?

Stanley Henry 13:37
I love I love leading people Yeah, I love like watching people grow some of my favorite moments or some our best memories of hospitality are seeing ex employees leave and go off and do amazing things. You know, we’ve got some of the staff have opened up like award winning restaurants or some have gone on to become general managers and things and when I first met them, you could see the spark in them but they hadn’t quite had the leader to mold them and put them in the right way and not that I was the be all and end all but you know, I like to think that there’s a part of what I did help them through that journey. And also when they’re with us, like when they’re with you just seeing them grow from someone may be shy and doesn’t come out of the shell to someone who’s like complete boss and takes over everything and I just love it. And I was just saying about leading leading people’s most fun I have in my role. Yeah, I would do it all day long if I could. That’s where I hope to get to. And my role is just have a team I can just do that one. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 14:36
Yeah. So I mean people looking from the outside in will go Wow, that’s amazing. You know, you’ve gone from one person to potentially nine people in under two years. Has it all been a bed of roses? Is it easy why we just grow like that?

Stanley Henry 14:51
Not at all, and it’s still not. Growing Pains up thing. So that’s as you grow this heaps of challenges. Yeah, even just in the beginning, I mean, we all had COVID. And all of us had that to go through, that was tough for six months wiped off all my business, everything I’d been building, start again. And then as it built, and I took on some more people, and I got some stuff on board. There was other challenges those challenges, okay, now we solve this, how do we deliver it? Do we have the process for it? You know, we’re figuring out things as we go. You know, there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors and small business that yet we can do you sell the dream of what you can do, not what you’re currently doing. And you have to do that, because you know, you can do it. But you just haven’t been paid the money to do it. And so you just have to sell that you can get it and prove it along the way. That’s my model, something, you know, there is a model, obviously do it slower, and steadier and safer, I get it. And hospitality, I’ve always run and roll with the punches. So being able to always flex like that, and move. But for me, one of the biggest things was that I started this year, we launched new products, we sold lots of them, we took a lot of clients on and it was too many to the point where my staff was saying standing if you if you sell anymore, we’re quitting, we’re out. And I said, Okay, let’s slow down. But then at the same time, I decide hire a new staff member to sell more a salesperson, my first salesperson. And there’s just a lot of dumb decisions at the time that I probably should have taken it slower. And it was real hard. And sometimes too much business is just as bad as not enough. And I was I was on the borderline of that. I pulled through, obviously, we got to hear. But it was a real good listen to go. Yep, moving fast is good. And taking those risks is great. But taking five at one time, as stupid, as you know, doing one or two at a time is great, take that risk, hire that person when maybe don’t yet have the revenue to support them full one. But doing multiple people plus new projects and new services and all that sort of stuff all at the same time. That’s, yeah, that’s silly. And I and I made all those decisions isolated, as opposed to thinking of it holistically. So that’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned so far. Just when you make a decision. Before you act, I’ve got this thing on my computer now. It’s like a, it’s a wiki in my Teams, and I put all my business ideas down. Yep. And I just put them in, then I dump them in, and then I leave it. And if I come back and read it, it’s probably worthwhile investigating. But now that I’ve just put in, walked away and forgotten about them, yep. But before I would’ve went oh this is that we need to go do this, and tell everyone to start doing something.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 17:34
you strike me as being a typical, we call a visionary. And we always describe thevisionary as being the person who is absolutely essential for the business, right, the business will be here. And it certainly wouldn’t grow without them. But they’re the one that goes on the weekend and has got this fantastic idea. We’re not going to sell stuffed elephants. And of course, the whole team jumps in and starts building stuffed elephants. And then you come back a week later and go, Ah, you know, I just want to stop elephants weren’t the way to go. We’re now going to do stuff things, you know. So it’s, it’s very, it can be really inspirational people get behind visionaries because of the strong vision they’ve got, but it’s actually quite destructive in terms of the team not knowing what’s real and what’s not.

Stanley Henry 18:08
Yeah, absolutely. And that was definitely where we were even just three or four, maybe four months ago, three or four months ago. We were at that point, I was right on the border. If I had to push any harder, we would have crossed then I would have been over. I was lucky. Luckily, in the middle of it all I realized what I’d done. Yeah. And you know, a lot of it’s thanks to people like yourself and drew and things that we always meet, we talk a lot, we’ve got a real strong network of people who are in business. So hearing other people’s stories, I was able to reflect on my own, I think about doing isolated without people around me. I would have not seen that imploded. Because I couldn’t have seen it. Yeah, I couldn’t see what I was doing. But because I heard other people’s talking about doing it to me.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 18:50
So it’s interesting what you know, what sort of support structures have you got around you? Obviously, we have our peer groups, which is great. What What have you done? What have you changed? I suppose, because you could You’re a real danger of actually imploding and people walking out on you. So what did you do to change that to the start structure in place?

Stanley Henry 19:06
Yeah, I, I made the decision that we were going to do this revenue for a couple of months, I understood that that was just going to be something I had to take all the profit side earned. and use that to sustain us for two months, without trying to take on too many new or any new clients. That was the first things slow the business down. Yep, slow the intake of clients. So step one, step two was to really, really work on process, just completely rip apart all the process, all the systems, everything we did from an operational point of view, and just pull it down to the most minor details and we joke about how I made my staff like, less, like grab the mouse with your right hand, put your finger on the left finger on the clicker, click the mouse, you know, stuff like that. And we break it down so granular, so we could find out all the steps we could remove. So mouse clicks As an example, we can use tools like Zapier to remove all those mouse clicks. Yeah, they’re not needed.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 20:05
And it also removes that error as well, right? Because anything that requires a human involvement can actually lead to error.

Stanley Henry 20:11
Yeah, it can exactly can lead to error, you forget to do it or, you know, you’re busy and you can’t do stuff. And so the more we can streamline that process and put these, I guess, operating systems and your language together is it made everything work a lot better than my team no longer stressed, they could turn around clients faster, which was better service for the customer. But also better for the business, because then as we turn those clients around, their monthly retainers can kick in. And so that setup process of getting them on boarded, went from, you know, we’re at one point, we’re at 6-8 weeks, getting them on board to now, realistically, we can probably turn around 2 weeks now. Okay. And so that means that for me, the ribbon is better, because month 2 starts faster than ever before. All that sales you did you start and end it’s better for the business, and you must retain the stuff, you know, that skyrocketing and which allows you to think okay, now I’ve got this much monthly retainers that are locked in for at least this period of time. Let’s hire some staff to keep the growth happening. Yeah. So yeah, that was definitely a big piece. And in my support network, like there was committed, like lots of community. I think, when I tell people, the amount of communities I’m a part of, and like, fully invested in Yeah, they always quite surprised they, you know, they might say, I’ve got the I’ve got my BNI or I’ve got this network. And I’m like, Yeah, I’ve got my BNI. My New Zealand leaders, my North harbour connector manager network by Friday, four o’clock. So you know, like I’ve got, and it’s not just that I’m attendee I just turn up. Really an active attendee.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 21:39
Yeah. How do you manage that then? Because that there is a strong time commitment there. Yep. Do you have a method for making sure that you can commit that time?

Stanley Henry 21:49
Yeah, I think so. So my, my main role in the business is obviously sales and strategy. Yeah. So they always say the sales strategy, and then the community part. And then that’s really all my time. So the candidate strong calendar as just paramount. You can’t do it without using calendar for everything. Yeah. blocking out the time you need. So I always have my email blocks. Yes, morning and afternoon. Lunch was always blocked out because I love to eat and having everything I need, and then only have about five hours a day, I can block out with clients. Yeah. Obviously, if it’s a discovery session that’s got for four hours Am I go over lunch? But that’s okay. Because we’ll have lunch at the session. And then once that’s all in place, the networking, if you do it right, should be regular and expected. Yes.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 22:36
So BNI, for you is every Friday morning, and network it’s once a month

Stanley Henry 22:39
Exactly. So you know, when they are, so they’re already in your calendar. And so all your other meetings are just around it. And part of that process was getting a really strict sales process. With the sales process we have now we had Alex McNaughton, come on, and help us put that together, is that we never not know where someone is. We never have something booked in. We never not have been booked in a prospect. There’s always a next step, always a next step, always a clear future of what’s happening next. And that means we never have to sit around going, where do we go? Yeah, there’s things we just got to turn up to the meeting. There’s a meeting booked after the process again, isn’t it all process? Yeah, during this process, and I suppose I’ve been working with a number of clients, they often want to get into huge amounts of detail, which is admirable, but then they kind of get stuck, because they’re waiting for it to get to 100%. Perfect before they actually go out there and do something with it. Yeah, we always say, hey, look, when we think about the 20% of the process is actually offer the most value to your business. Yeah. And then if you put those get those right, it’ll give you 80% of the results. Is that similar in your business? Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. 100%, even when you break it down the process, I get the staff to break it down. Probably the last. So I’ll do the 20% of them. Yep, that gets them the most, and then they’ll do the rest of the 80 over time. Yeah. And never and it’s, you’re never going to get all the ad. They’ll keep on tweaking it, because we’ll improve it because we’ll get on with our that’s great. We’ve got there but we could do this better. So let’s say didn’t need your networks are really good example we do as a monthly cycle for us and the team. And we’re constantly changing that process all the time. Just taking it to another level. What more can we do? How can better you know, last time? I mean, it seems silly for us now but like, last month was the first time we had a microphone for the speakers. Okay, you know, it’s the same for you got speakers every month. You know, just things like that, that you don’t see you know, you can’t see it, but you just keep on proving Yeah. But the 20% I took care of Yeah, and that build the legion into what it is. Yes. Now the team are really refining the 80 and going to continue. Yes. So how do you keep track of those things. Remember, I used to run the Event Center. I have a very high standard that I wanted to run things that and so I literally started that process of this is what you need to do is when you come into the room to make sure that the diffusers are on you need to make sure that all of the books are laid out in a certain way. I mean, I’ve got quite quite anal about But that’s because I wanted to have a great experience. We just did it with a literally a checklist that somebody had to go through and kind of tick off as they’re working through it. And that worked. Because in an event space, they are physically on the floor, it was easy to have a piece of paper and a pen. do you what do you use to keep track of your because they are always changing? And what I found was that checklists changed as we recognize more things that we could do to improve it. Yeah. Or, I mean, the first piece to that puzzle, and we think inventors, three of us, me, Claire, and Alicia, all come from this world. So a lot of it. That’s second nature to us, because we’ve done so much of it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:34
But we’re not always going to be there.

Stanley Henry 25:36
No, we’re not. And so it was helpful that Alicia sort of owns that process now. Yeah. and clear. More that she works in the business. That is her whole background. She’s done. Every major event you can think of she’s done an all movie premieres, premieres, all sorts. So there’s a innate ability there just from experience. But it’s just a constant Weber, Bo, Ben could have been orders or intervene in order to do banquets, I suppose. But that’s just old terminology from hotel days. So we have a template we use now. Alicia populates it, we will add to it, we have a group chat where everything goes in. The Legion goes into our project management tools, all our other clients, so it gets treated like a client. So it’s not just something we do on the side, it’s probably part of it’s a client we serve. That’s how we think of it. But still, there is a match that we have to do where we’re still only probably 50% have it figured out. Yeah. So to your point, the 20% of it is rock solid. We know we can run a good event. That’s good. The 80% the fineness is not anywhere near that. Yeah, there’s so much right photography, always.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 26:40
But I think we made a really valid point there. And we talk about right people, right seats, having somebody whose innate ability and I wasn’t the job is really important as well, you know, you need to have somebody who actually gets it really wants to do it, and has that capacity to do it as well.

Stanley Henry 26:53
Yeah. And Alicia has a liking to Drew’s models, he she’s a producer, she just loves to take stuff off and get it done. Give her a list of things done. And I’ll be done before you can hand the rest of the list over she just gets through stuff. Yes. So she’s the right person to do that. And I’m the right one to think of what are the possibilities that we can come up with, that we’ve learned now, when I when I think of those possibilities, I have to sit within hand them over properly. And so our project management tool, which all our clients go in, that’s a new thing for us in the last few months, where the salesperson and strategy person sits with the account manager and they’re not allowed to leave that conversation till the account manager takes ownership of the person till they like yeah, I 100% know what I need to do moving forward. Because used to be just like, hey, I’ve signed Deborah, this is that she needs this. Can you get make it happen? Exactly. Yeah. And so now it’s like no, Stan, tell me everything that’s in here step by step. Yep. No, put that in. And so same thing happens with Legion and all sorts of monster. Leisha, his actions on the way running. Yeah, so process, process process process process.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 27:57
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Now, obviously, you do have a personal life. You’ve mentioned your partner, Claire and whatnot, how do you make sure that your business doesn’t completely take over your life?

Stanley Henry 28:08
There’s, you know, there’s a couple things here. One is that it is so much fun for me. So it is how I as my entertainment as well. So that’s something that a lot of people don’t understand, as well, they a lot of people business isn’t there, it’s a means to an end. For me, it’s what I want to do for fun, I want to do business. And if it’s not doing my business, it’s doing other people’s business, you know that. So that’s the first thing. So for me, my downtime, playing in business is fun for me. Yep. But obviously, that’s not for Claire. And so our business then, naturally works to work. And so I have to be able to one allocate time with her and then turn off at this time. Okay, Dinners ready, really turn the computers off, go back to clear weekends, we often will allocate things, you know, we’ll plan stuff do stuff. And then also, Claire is really good at understanding where we are in this business journey to say, look, we’re building for a future where we don’t like the old cliche of entrepreneurship, right, like we’re doing the things no one else will do. So we can do the things that no one else can later on. Yeah. And so she understands that idea. And because we’ve had some success to date, she can see that future really clearly now. So she’s given me the space to work more than maybe what she would like me to Yeah, with the promise that, you know, we start to move. And we already have now that we’ve got the process and we got more staff. I don’t have to execute as much as at least at the beginning. Yeah, I’ve done all the stuff I do now plus executions and our don’t. And so, you know, like I would probably only actually work in the business maybe 50 hours a week, like I actually don’t work heaps. Yeah. None of my meetings start before 10am unless there’s something really urgent but very rarely does it ever happen. And no meetings after four as well. So that’s my email times and that which means I can close off my day. I always close off the day. That’s a big thing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 30:02
Ok so tell me what that means?

Stanley Henry 30:04
So it means there’s nothing pending. That hasn’t got time in the calendar. Yeah. So if it’s if I can’t get it done today, then I need to be honest with the client. Tell them when it is due. Yeah. Yeah. So I need a due date on stuff not getting done today. That way when I stop, and I have dinner with Claire my mind with her, yeah, because if you still trying to close off the day, and won’t sleep, I actually something similar, but I do at the end of the evening, I actually plan out my next day as well. So that when I go to sleep, I’m not suddenly waking up. Because I forgot to do that. So yeah, yeah. Okay, so important. Perfect. Hey, look, I could talk to you for hours. But we’re kind of coming to the end of the podcast, in terms of we like to give some really practical tips and pragmatic tips will actually use in their everyday business. So with the three tips you’d like to share with the listeners? Yeah, I think for me what my three big things that helped my career was really developing my reputation and personal brand. It’s obviously what we do as a business. But we do it as a business because it works. And it’s worked for me and it’s really helped my business grow. It’s the reason we’ve grown,

Debra Chantry-Taylor 31:06
because you didn’t actually have the networks and things when you first came back from Australia from Australia did you?

Stanley Henry 31:10
No I’ve been gone for 12 years, I had no networks. And so it’s like literally zero I knew a couple handful. I am star students, what am I talking about school friends. Yeah. So it was just network network network, build up your personal brand, both in person in digital, they were combined. Which then is the second point is network the hell out of everything. Like don’t think networking is this weird thing you have to do and stand in the corner. Like it’s, it can be really fun and really collaborative. If you just put your effort into it. I’m super introverted. I hate going to networking events. Still not once I’m there. So the hour beforehand, I always fried about it. But once I’m there, and I realized, like, Oh, this is great. These are business people. And I love business, let’s talk business. It gets really fun. And there’s other things you can talk about you don’t have to talk about business. And the third thing is process, like take your business and pull it apart in terms of the process and just map it down to the most minut detail. And you’ll find that a lot of people, people, that a common thing, and you’ll see this in your businesses out too busy, it’s got too much to do. I’m always stuck at work and all these sorts of things, I work 100 hours a week, whatever. And that’s because you haven’t mapped that your process. And because you haven’t mapped that you can’t hand it over.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 32:21
And I said it’s also having the right person to hand it over to you. So you get those two things, right. Yeah, that’s when you can really let go,

Stanley Henry 32:26
exactly. And to double that out. And that same tip is when you hand it over, trusting the person that you give it to, you can always put out a fire. Yeah, just give them a trust, trust them to do their job. If they’re external. If their internal, whatever, just give it to them. And they make mistake, fix it. You can always fix it. Like you can always get more customers if you really screw up a customer. But if you don’t trust the other person, you’re never going to be able to hand it over. It’s always going to be there. And then what’s the point? You should have just done yourself? Exactly. Yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor 32:52
love it. Perfect. Thank you. Hey, look, if anybody wants to get in contact with you about the work you do an attention seeker. What’s the best way to get hold

Stanley Henry 32:58
of you? Just jump on LinkedIn. And if you’re an Auckland, you’ll probably not stop seeing me everywhere. But yeah, just search Stanley Henry on LinkedIn. Otherwise, theattentionseeker.com.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 33:08
Okay, fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to catching up with you throughout the journey. And hopefully we can get some EOS put in there

Stanley Henry 33:15
Absolutely. Thanks.

Debra Chantry-Taylor 33:17
Thanks. And thanks again for joining us some better business better life with me Your host Debra Chantry-Taylor. If you enjoyed what you heard, then please subscribe to this podcast. And let us help you to get what you want out of business in life. Each week we release a new short episode which will give a success story and three takeouts to put into action immediately. These will help you take your business from good to great. The podcast is also supported by free resources, templates and useful tools, which you can find at Debra Chantry-Taylor dot com. I am a trained entrepreneur leadership and business coach, a professional EOS implementer and an established business owner myself. I work with established businesses to help them get what they want. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to have a chat about how I might be to help you. Or if you’d like to join me as a guest on this podcast. Thanks again to entered audio editors for producing this podcast. See you on the next episode.

Debra Chantry-Taylor

Professional EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner

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