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 consultations
• Unknown knowns
• Fundamental attribution error
• The trouble with recruitment 
• Business Remastered

Links:

• Twitter – @acddryburgh
• LinkedIn – Alastair Dryburgh
• Website – www.wtfconsult.com
• Book - Everything You Know About Business Is Wrong
• Book - 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 company
• Rethinking business models and business R&D
• Transcending industry boundaries
• Entrepreneurial CEOs don’t have to be founders
• Innovation needs money and power to succeed
• The monetary value of experience

Links:

• Book - The Invincible Company
• Book - 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 rapport
• Sales is not about personal relationships
• Account managers are order takers
• Don’t make your best salespeople managers 
• The low benchmark for sales
• The value of saying no

Links:

• Rethinking The Sales Process with Justin Roff-Marsh
• Sandler Training and Making Channel Sales Work with David Davies
• The Secrets Of The Mega Deal with Jamal Reimer
• Twitter: @Justin Roff Marsh, @SandlerTV & @Jamal_Reimer
• LinkedIn: 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 accountant
• How to run a successful business
• Return on investment
• Labour efficiency ratio
• Importance of marketing
• Understanding launch capital

Links:

• Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits
• Simple Numbers 2.0: Rules for Smart Scaling
• Scaling Up
• Twitter – @gregcrabtreecpa
• LinkedIn – Greg Crabtree
• Website – 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 trap
• The first hire
• Build in the plateau phase
• Reframe, rethink, and then refocus
• Working with Nick Cramp

Links:

• Book - Better Before Bigger - Rethinking business success
• Twitter – @nickcramp
• LinkedIn – Nick Cramp
• Website – 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 growth
• Being a coach not a consultant
• Adding value through learning
• Leadership needs leaders 
• 7s kill your business

Links:

• ‎Sparks by Ignium
• Twitter – @MalabarMan
• LinkedIn – Philip Rose
• Website – igniumconsult.com

Today’s guest knows all about scaling up. Not only is John Ratliff CEO of Scaling Up Coaches, he’s also a seasoned entrepreneur himself. 

Having started Appletree Answers, a telephone answering service from his apartment in 1995, John grew the company to 24 US-based locations and more than 600 employees, taking nearly 10 years to get to $1million in revenue, and then six years to get to $30 million, before a fantastic exit well over market value, selling the company to a strategic buyer in 2012. 

This experience gave John a unique perspective into the importance of culture, employee engagement, and the guidance and tools entrepreneurs need to have a successful exit. 

Today John spends the majority of his time defending entrepreneurs against private equity buyers - he says if you’re considering selling your company, you’d be mad not to get representation. 

In this episode, John shares some fantastic tips for owners thinking of selling, the time he turned a potentially $400,000 loss into $7 million of value, and how he really understood employee happiness by changing one NPS question. 

This episode is a little longer than normal, but it’s jam-packed full of useful insights and guidance. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. 

On today’s podcast:

• Business selling advice for founders
• Why you shouldn’t start from scratch
• Building and selling Appletree Answers
• John’s M&A playbook
• The importance of happy employees

Links:

• LinkedIn – John Ratliff
• Website – stscapital.com, align5.com

Is your organisation a disruptor? Or is it being disrupted? Don’t miss Eleanor Winton, a consultant and expert in disruption, innovation and foresight, and founder of Foresightfully, a disruption consultancy, on this week’s The Melting Pot.

Eleanor has extensive experience of working with senior teams, helping stimulate creative thought and action - she was an investigator of conduct in the Scottish Government and she was part of KPMG’s financial crime forensic function. At Foresightfully, she works with organisations to understand what the future might hold for them and helps them develop strategies in response.

Because the thing about disruption is that it’s hard to spot - just look at Blockbuster, how did they not spot Netflix coming?

In today’s episode, Eleanor shares some fantastic stories about clients she's worked with, ways to look at different challenges, what you can do to think about the future - i.e. where's the value? How are customers thinking about value? Because that's where companies get disrupted - the way they think about value is not always how customers see it.

At the end, as well as some cracking book recommendations, she also imparts a great tip for something to do tomorrow. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we did.

On today’s podcast:

• Disruption happens to all industries
• How to see around corners
• There is no good or bad solution
• Have a vision, strategy and tactics
• Innovate to create actual value for customers

Links:

• Book - The Disruption Game Plan: New rules for connected thinking on innovation and risk
• Twitter – @Eleanorwinton
• LinkedIn – Eleanor Winton
• Website – foresightfully.com , disruptiongameplan.com

Is making sure your company is a great place to work at the core of your recruitment strategy? Are you a fixture on the Sunday Times Best Companies list of great places to work in the UK? 

Simon La Fosse, founder of La Fosse Associates, having had a bad experience in a previous company, where the directors there deemed his contribution not to be worthy of many stock options, decided to start his recruitment company with the goal of building a search firm centred around care and respect, coming up with a unique way to reward long service and loyalty in his team.

Today La Fosse Associates grows 30% per annum - the industry average is 1-2%. He achieves this because of his firmly held belief that treating people well is not just the right thing to do, it’s a better way to do business. 

Simon talks about his journey to date, his plans for the future and a potential float of the business. We discuss what happened last year with recruitment and from their perspective, even in the tech sector, where they are a specialist, they lost half of their revenue. He also shares why he stepped away from being the CEO and why he doesn’t believe he’s really a leader. 

This is a fantastic conversation with some great book recommendations, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

On today’s podcast:

• The atypical recruitment firm
• The top 40 Best Companies to Work for in the UK
•  Stock ownership for employees
• The issue of WFH for maintaining company culture
• The idea of a management shadow
• Stepping back as CEO

Links:

• Twitter – @simonlafosse
• LinkedIn – Simon La Fosse
• Website – La Fosse Associates
• futureproof

If you’re struggling with resilience, if you or your business is going through change, then don’t miss public speaker, executive coach, business advisor, and founder of Vision Executive Coaching, Gerry Valentine, on this week’s The Melting Pot. 

Gerry has written a great book called The Thriving Mindset, a book that is part autobiography and part tool set design and delivery. 

Gerry grew up as a gay man in Brooklyn in the 1970s, and the adversity of his upbringing gave him the resilience he needed to succeed in the corporate world. And succeed he did. 

Today we talk about how the chances of him being where he is today were about 6% - a sad statistic that is as true in 2021 as it was in 1970. Gerry is a very humble man with a thriving mindset - a term he uses to teach others how to cope with uncertainty and change. 

Gerry also talks about why we get fearful, and how we can learn to not run away from the problem, how to take fear, look it in the eye and work out what could be on the other side of this disruption, and how to have the mindset to push through. 

This is a really interesting conversation with some of the most diverse book suggestions of recent guests. A truly fantastic conversation with Gerry, we really enjoyed it. We’re sure you will too.

On today’s podcast:

• Turning adversity into advantage
• Disruption is a normal part of life
• The importance of education
• The Thriving Mindset
• Curiosity gets you through disruption
• Our response to fear

Links:

• The Thriving Mindset | Book
• Twitter – @gerryval
• LinkedIn – Gerry Valentine
• Website – https://gerryvalentine.com/