Today I have the  absolute pleasure to talk to Claudia King of Automio.  Claudia is a tech entrepreneur who is specialising in disrupting the legal profession.  The cool thing about this is that she has every right to do so, as she a former lawyer who owned her own legal practice.   The legal profession is changing (slowly) and now clients are demanding a more accessible, affordable and less stuffy way transacting their legal requirements.  Claudia and her team have now built an online platform where lawyers and other professionals can automate their procedures and in doing so saving the themselves and their clients a ton of time, while also allowing their clients to have a better transactional experience.  We talk to Claudia about why she has done this, how she raised finance to do this, and how she has taken the business to market.  There is so much gold gold gold in this chat, I know you are going to enjoy it, and want to follow Claudia on her journey.

Lushington Jackets specialises in unique designer female jackets.  Today I talk to Louise Hunt, Marketing Manager of Lushington Jackets.  We dive into the story of the inception of the brand and business from the garage of the family home, and kitchen table. What is special about this story is that the fact that it is so niche, and in based in provincial New Zealand.  We talk about Louise’s mother Belinda first ideas behind the idea, and the problem she was solving.  We dive into why Belinda uses NZ suppliers, what makes her brand and product so unique, and how they have taken and idea and grown it into the business it is today.  This is brand that is going places, and demonstrates that with a lot of passion and a little bit of calculated risk anything is possible.   

It is with great pleasure that in this fireside chat I talk to Stephanie Murray of Stephanie Murray Mortgages (SMM).  Stephanie has hit the ground running and experienced massive growth in her business.  She has gone from start up to 9 team members in 21 months. 

We talk about this growth and the tactics around managing it.  We talk a lot about the all the years of toil and hard work it took for Stephanie to get the knowledge, and build the relationships that set her up to be the overnight success.  Stephanie has also actively and strategically build her own personal brand, and we discuss how this again has been a great strategic move that has help her leverage the growth of the business.   We dive into Stephanie’s commitment to give back to the community and some of the learnings on doing this.  However one of the biggest underlining things that does come through in this chat Stephanie’s passion for everything she does.   You could definitely say she is an all or nothing lady, and will never díe wondering. 

Simone Vincenzi has been featured on TEDx, recognised as one of the most influential migrant entrepreneurs in the UK, and awarded Speaker of the Year 2016 by the ACPTC. 

Successful from a young age (he was one of the youngest Micheline Star restaurant manager in Europe), he transitioned from working in the hospitality industry to building a 6 figure coaching business, and share tools with his client to allow them to grow from 0 to $100,000.  

In this talk we dive into Simone early childhood and what it is that motivated him at such a young age.  We talk about his move to the UK from Italy and the pivots that made him decide to give up on hospitality and use his skills and experience to help other build their own businesses.  

Simone’s passion and enthusiasm for what he does is infectious, and you cant but help wear a smile as you talk to him. 

Today I talk to Charlaine Barnfather & Marty Crafer of Safe Business Solutions.  There story is interesting in that although they only started in 2013, they have decided early on that their original business plan and target market was not going to work.  They made the hard decision to completely restructure and then re-brand the entire business.   We talk about this pivot and why they decided to do. We also discuss the length of time it took to do this, as they were super conscious the second time around to get it right.  

Safe Business Solutions (SBS) now specialise in delivering Health & Safety and HR solutions to SME throughout NZ.   I talk to them about how they have managed to build a nationwide business in such a short time.

This a simple little fire side chat, but we cover a lot.  Its one of those that chats where you can really learn from someones own experiences of launch a nationwide business.  

Today I talk to Shane Devlin of Graphix Explosion.  Graphix Explosion is a design and print company.   We talk to Shane about the journey of growing a business over 20 years in what is a quite a disruptive industry. We discuss the way Shane has adapted over the years and seized opportunities to grow his business through the acquisition  of other businesses.  Shane discusses about being light on his feet and prepared to jump at an opportunity when is does present itself.   We lso discuss some real old school techniques of marketing around networking, and how even to this day is a proven and profitable method to promote your business.  

Today I talk to Linda Coles of Blue Banana. Linda is a Social Media in Business Expert. She has published 4 bestselling books on the subject and is about to launch her most updated book, Social Media For Business in Aug 2017. Linda is a LinkedIn influencer with over 500,000 followers so is well-versed and qualified to speak on the subject. She is also a trainer, freelance content writer and keynote speaker. Linda and I dive into how important it is for businesses to have a social media presence in this digital age. We discuss the importance of having a specific targeted strategy around what platforms to use and when to use them. But before a business goes into full-on launch mode we discuss both Linda’s and myself bug bear around the importance of actually looking after your front office and looking after you face to face clients. Linda shares so many great tips and wisdom built up through her own business experience, it is gold. Both Linda and I also have a great offer around her new book at the end, so make sure you do listen until the end so you can take advantage of it.

Today I talk to Lisa Tamati. Lisa describes herself as a serial entrepreneur, and is the director of 5 companies. However she is so much more than that. She has spent the last 20 years being a high performance athlete in the discipline of Ultra Marathons. She estimates that she has run over 70,000 KM in her career. She was voted Maori Sportswoman of the year in 2008. During this this time she produced numerous television documentaries, wrote two best-selling books, runs her own podcast called Pushing the Limits, and completed a business degree. She is now a noted keynote speaker in New Zealand. She also often appears as a guest on television, and guest writes for national publications. I talk to Lisa about her career, her motivation, and her transformation from athletics to a successful business career. We talk about resilience, and just how important this is in today's harsh world. She is living proof of this, after staring death in the face. This is one of my best interviews to date. Such a true inspiration.

Professional mentor, mindset challenger, transformation seeker and change igniter, Karmen Reed is on a mission to inspire and encourage women to create a positive mindset about their uniqueness and incredible value they bring to the world. She helps them navigate their way in experiencing more clarity, energy, courage, productivity and influence with each stage of their growth.

Karmen is a high performance lifestyle coach and mentor. She helps ambitious women go from being stuck, overwhelmed and undervalued, to feeling energized and excited, so they can create outstanding success in all areas of their life, with power, courage and grace.

Karmen is a creator of Rise and Thrive Programs designed to support and teach self-awareness and high performance techniques to passionate women who want to live with more clarity, focus, power and courage.

She believes that when we stop doubting ourselves and focus on building our inner-trust muscle, we are able to consistently create the energy that fuels our incredible ability to build the life and career we desire.

Karmen was named by Forbes.com as one of the Top 20 Women to Follow on Twitter and is a contributing author to Tom Marcoux’s book Full Strength Marketing.

Today I talk to Wayne Dellow. Wayne has been one of my mentors for over 10 years now. He is a business coach, consultant and general good bugger. Wayne specialises and has intimate knowledge of personality styles, and working styles. Using profiling tools, he is able to work with his clients to help them understand the dynamics of firstly the individuals within a team, and then the team as a whole. He works with business owners and managers to create high performing teams and work environments. He helps everyone to hone in on their strengths and have a better understanding of their colleagues and clients that they deal with on a daily basis. What Wayne can tell you about yourself and how you think is scary and freaky. And it is all backed up by scientific data so you can’t really dispute it. This interview is fun and insightful all in one.