Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse

Is your company in trouble? Is your business on the verge of going bust? Then don’t miss this week’s episode of The Melting Pot with business rescue and recovery experts, Rick Smith & Ben Westoby, from Forbes Burton. Ben and Rick work with companies that haven't quite gone bust, but are in trouble and need help. What’s fascinating is following the pandemic, you’d have thought that lots of businesses would have had to shut up shop for good. But actually, here in the UK we're running at about 40% or less - almost half the traditional insolvency rate for businesses in the UK. This is thanks to government investment in furlough and bounce back schemes, as well as various other handouts, all of which have actually kept many companies afloat. In today’s episode, Rick & Ben share examples of companies they’ve helped, where they step in before the shutters come down and the creditors foreclose, what it is they do, who they help, and how they help. So if you're listening to this, and your cash flow isn't where it needs to be, or there's a gap in your funding and you’re wondering how you’re going to get back to where you want to be. Or perhaps you need some help negotiating with your creditors, or your suppliers, and you need a plan, or you need a third party to come in and help you, then let Rick and Ben share their sage advice with you. On today’s podcast:Getting into business rescue and recoveryHow Forbes Burton works The rise of zombie companiesHow to close the funding gapNot every business can be savedLinks:Twitter – @ForbesBurtonLinkedIn – Rick Smith, Ben WestobyWebsite – https://www.forbesburton.com

Have you ever wanted to just put a pin in your life, upsticks and travel the world with your family before it’s too late? Well, that’s just what Nigel Bennett did. Nigel is an entrepreneur. Just not like any other entrepreneur we’ve had on the show. Where most people work hard, scaling up their business in order to sell it, Nigel, after taking mind altering drugs deep in the Amazon rainforest had an epiphany, and decided not to sell. That’s pretty much how this episode, re-broadcast from our archives, goes. It is just story after story of Nigel’s fascinating life. It doesn’t seem like he’s had any dull moments, and he hasn’t stopped for a second. Nigel is the founder and owner and International business development for Aqua-Guard's environmental response services and equipment business. Aqua-Guard specialises in marine oil spill response. He’s the author of "Take that Leap - Risking it all for what really matters"; the founder of TruBeach, an app and a mobile platform community for reporting coastline and ocean cleanliness, and he’s the co-founder of GiftAdd.com, an organisation that works to bring awareness to the actual gift of ADHD and dyslexia. This is a truly enlightening conversation, one we are sure you’re going to enjoy. On today’s podcast:Why Nigel decided not to sell his businessThe incident with his father in an Egyptian prisonThe life goals he set with his business coach, Kevin LawrenceWhy he wrote his book - ‘Take that Leap - Risking it all for what really matters’His gap year with his familyLinks:Entrepreneurs’ organisationYPO organisationTake That Leap - Risking it all for what really mattersLynne Twist - the soul of moneyTruBeachgifadd.com

If you’ve ever suffered with your supply chain, then don’t miss Justin Floyd, founder and CEO of RedCloud, the startup looking to solve the distribution problem for B2B merchants and consumers outside of the Western world. They’ve already run a trial in Argentina, and put an e-commerce or a digital distribution platform, trading platform and finance platform in the hands of physical stores in Southeast Asia, South America and Africa. This is a truly fascinating conversation about Justin’s product and the problem they’re trying to solve. Because some of the parallels they’re tackling are currently challenging the UK, namely, tracking qualitative, consumer data. Justin’s got an incredible track record: 25 years of building technology startups, he spent some time in Silicon Valley and some time in Cambridge. He's run companies, he's built companies, he’s sold companies, he's invested in companies. All of which makes for a fascinating conversation. “The world that I operate in, it's got a product distribution problem. I mean, last year, there were just under $2 trillion worth of products that weren't available in store for customers who wanted to buy them, because there is such little ability to be able to successfully distribute at scale.”We really enjoyed it, we hope you do too. On today’s podcast:Global distribution problemThe lack of qualitative dataThe local store conundrum RedCloud’s solutionJustin’s hiring secret sauceLinks:Twitter – @Jfloyd_1LinkedIn – Justin FloydWebsite – RedCloud, Justin Floyd

If you’re wondering what you can do to improve your sales function, but you’re not a salesperson yourself, then don’t miss Steve Schrier on this episode of The Melting Pot. Steve knows sales. He’s been a salesman, he’s run sales, he’s consulted on selling. His focus isn’t on transactional one off sales, he sees sales as more deal making, consultative selling, doing deals in negotiating. In particular, as the business world moves towards an annual or monthly recurring revenue model with longer customer life cycles, rather than one off deals, Steve decided to help people get their sales function in order to write a book about it. Build Your Sales Tribe is a step by step guide for non sales managers, i.e. not salespeople, who are looking for a commercial structure to take their business on a high growth path and need to know everything about building and managing a sales organisation.In this conversation, Steve shares a little bit about his background, but the chat is mainly about the things he felt compelled to capture in the book, the things that non sales people wouldn’t know, but need to know to grow their business in the Information Age. This is a fantastic conversation with Steve, we’re sure you’ll enjoy it as much as we did. On today’s podcast:Build your sales tribeDeveloping B2B salesThe need for customer success3 different types of salespeopleThe lack of sales management trainingThe issue with commissionLinks:Build Your Sales TribeTwitter – @SalesTribeLtd LinkedIn – Steve SchrierWebsite – https://www.salestribe.co.uk/

Is everything you know about business wrong? Alastair Dryburgh is a contrarian who taught himself to think differently so that he can help businesses that want to remaster themselves. For 10 years, Alastair penned a monthly column for Management Today titled, ‘everything you know about business is wrong’, which is why he’s the perfect guest for The Melting Pot. Because if your business is suffering and you can’t figure out what the problem is, maybe Alastair can help. Alastair is a recovering finance director who studied maths at Cambridge University. While becoming an FD was a natural career path, it never made him happy, which is why he segued into the world of business reengineering and crisis management. Alastair happily acknowledges he’s a bit weird as it allows him to look at business from a different perspective, a perspective that most business owners can’t see for themselves. Download and listen to this latest episode to hear Alastair discussing fundamental attribution error, which is what’s stopping people from seeing reality for what it really is. He also talks about recruitment, and whether people see curiosity as an opportunity or as a threat. And why those that are threatened by change, don't get curious, they just get angry. This is such a fascinating conversation with Alastair, we’re sure you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.On today’s podcast:WTF consultationsUnknown knownsFundamental attribution errorThe trouble with recruitment Business RemasteredLinks:Twitter – @acddryburghLinkedIn – Alastair DryburghWebsite – www.wtfconsult.comBook - Everything You Know About Business Is WrongBook - Business Remastered

“We bring all of the tools and methods into everything we do for the companies we work with. We call it technology enabled services. We help large companies like MasterCard, WL Gore, Nestle, and so on, reinvent themselves.”This is Alex Osterwalder, entrepreneur, author and co-founder of Strategyzer.com. Alex believes that innovation is what your business needs for longevity and success. He also believes that successful companies are those that compete at the level of business model, not just at the level of product, service, or price. “Innovation is not a talent or idea problem. It's a process and culture problem. Companies are not putting in place the right systems for the great innovators and great ideas to emerge. People on the ground know very well what could work, but we don't give them the space to explore. And if that doesn't change, a lot of companies are actually going to pay the price and go out of business.”Alex knows what the challenges are in driving innovation. He knows what needs to be done in terms of structure, power and resources. And he knows how company culture fits into a business model. And in this incredibly insightful episode, he shares his thoughts and actionable processes with listeners. “An invincible company has three characteristics - they always reinvent themselves, they compete not just on products, technology, price and service, they compete on superior business models. And they understand transcending industry boundaries. People who see themselves in one industry, usually that's not going to play out well in the long term.”It’s a slightly longer episode, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably, and don’t forget to bring a pen and paper, you’ll want to take notes. On today’s podcast:Creating an innovation culture in a companyRethinking business models and business R&DTranscending industry boundariesEntrepreneurial CEOs don’t have to be foundersInnovation needs money and power to succeedThe monetary value of experienceLinks:Book - The Invincible CompanyBook - Business Model Generation

Dom has spent most of his life in sales. He was a good sales guy, a terrible sales manager, a better sales director. When he got to the point where he knew he was playing to his strengths, it was because he’d spent years dialling 300+ times per day, he’d accrued 10,000 hours in sales. Today, he often helps clients think about or fix their sales organisation, particularly technology led businesses where the founder doesn't come from sales, and needs help understanding what  their sales function might look like. From helping clients hire their first salesperson through to thinking about what the structure of sales looks like, to what their sales and marketing organisation might look like. And so in this special podcast episode, we’ve pulled together a podcast of three sales experts (all the links to their individual episodes are in the show notes). We've got Jamal Reimer, who only ever wanted to be the sales guy who does multi million dollar deals, never a sales manager; David Davies, a Sandler trainer; and Justin Roff Marsh, who believes that sales people should just sell, nothing else. We’ve taken the best sales advice from all three episodes and strung it together to highlight the nuggets that were really, really interesting, to challenge you when thinking about your sales organisation. These are three great conversations, turned into one.On today’s podcast:The value of rapportSales is not about personal relationshipsAccount managers are order takersDon’t make your best salespeople managers The low benchmark for salesThe value of saying noLinks:Rethinking The Sales Process with Justin Roff-MarshSandler Training and Making Channel Sales Work with David DaviesThe Secrets Of The Mega Deal with Jamal ReimerTwitter: @Justin Roff Marsh, @SandlerTV & @Jamal_ReimerLinkedIn: Justin Roff-Marsh, David Davis & Jamal Reimer

This week we’re bringing you a special episode: a recording of one of our live webinars with Greg Crabtree, founder of accountancy firm, Crabtree, Rowe and Berger. Greg is exactly the type of person that we love to be able to bring you here on The Melting Pot. If you weren’t able to join us for the live chat, don’t panic, you haven’t missed out.Greg is author of The Simple Numbers, and is famous for cutting through jargon and making his theories accessible. He also co-wrote a chapter of Vern Harnish's brilliant Scaling Up. More recently he’s written Simple Numbers 2.0, where he’s dug into some concepts that we wanted to talk about more - labour efficiency ratio and launch capital.While Greg is an accountant, he comes at it from a very unusual perspective. As an entrepreneur himself and a small business financial expert he is such a fantastic person to listen to and learn from. “The vast majority of businesses struggle to understand financial truth. And that's really the epidemic crisis in the privately held business world. Entrepreneurs are trying to scale and they're 100% focused on revenue. But [they’re like] are we profitable? How do we make money? You can't just be changing quarters for dollars and think that's success.”We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did, don’t forget to subscribe to stay up to date!On today’s podcast:Why he’s an unusual accountantHow to run a successful businessReturn on investmentLabour efficiency ratioImportance of marketingUnderstanding launch capitalLinks:Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big ProfitsSimple Numbers 2.0: Rules for Smart ScalingScaling UpTwitter – @gregcrabtreecpaLinkedIn – Greg CrabtreeWebsite – https://simplenumbers.me/

Nick Cramp is a transformation coach and author. He challenges leaders to consider Better Before Bigger. In the past he’s been an e-myth coach, out of which came a book looking at how to build processes into your business, but now he’s written a new book, Better Before Bigger - Rethinking business success, where he shares how leaders can get out of the success trap. In this episode, Nick shares some guiding principles to help you rethink your business and how to define what success looks like. Business owners and leaders get to the point often where there are no more hours in the day, they can't work any harder. And that's when you've been caught in the success trap. How do you get out of that? How do you build teams of people? How do you build companies that can function with less, so that you can enjoy the success that you've built? What internal resources do you need? What resistance will you find within the organisation? What principles will guide you on this journey? Nick answers all of these questions and more in this great conversation. We really enjoyed it, we hope you will too. On today’s podcast:The success trapThe first hireBuild in the plateau phaseReframe, rethink, and then refocusWorking with Nick CrampLinks:Book - Better Before Bigger - Rethinking business successTwitter – @nickcrampLinkedIn – Nick CrampWebsite – www.nickcramp.com

In this special episode, the shoe is on the other foot as our illustrious host, Dominic Monkhouse, finds himself on the other side of the microphone, being questioned by long time friend and fellow coach, the brilliant podcast host, Phil Rose, of Sparks by Ignium. Dom and Phil have worked together for years and their conversation in this episode is jam packed full of advice that you can take away and put into practice in your business today. Of particular note is how Dom helps CEOs and business leaders take the mystery out of business growth, and why 7s (either customers or employees) can kill your business and what to do about them. This is a really fantastic conversation and we would love to hear what you think. We really hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. On today’s podcast:Taking the mystery out of business growthBeing a coach not a consultantAdding value through learningLeadership needs leaders 7s kill your businessLinks:‎Sparks by IgniumTwitter – @MalabarManLinkedIn – Philip RoseWebsite – igniumconsult.com