What Help Do You Really Need to Scale Your Business?

A good friend that I came across many, many years ago in business said these three types of people those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who never knew it happened. And it really captures how important it is just to do stuff, to get things done, is the action. It's all great talking about things and wondering about things. Shall we do this and analysing things, but the world's only changed when you do stuff and make things happen and so that's one that I absolutely love. I'm Mike Harris and I help businesses to successfully grow their profit and turnover. In the last year alone I have helped over 20 companies at least double in size and I work with a mixture of firms for small, medium and large businesses including startups and multinationals. We all know it's tough running a business, even tougher when you're trying to scale that business at pace. So today we're going to do something a bit different. We're going to look at what help is on hand so you don't have to do this alone. But what help do you need? A coach, a business advisor or perhaps a non-exec? So to help explain what's available I recorded this episode with a special guest. Business coach, non-exec director and the wise owl himself, Paul Heatherington. Hello and welcome back to all you leaders and strategy. I'm Mike Harris and today I'm joined by a very special guest, LinkedIn Legend, Coach, Business Entrepreneur and the wise owl himself Paul Heatherington. Welcome Paul. I'm very good down on the south coast on a sunny day. It's the place to be, mate. It's the place to be the sunshine curse. Tell us about yourself, the company that you work for, Ristage, the coaching, the non-exec work you do etc. So over to you. Thanks Mike. So I've been running companies for 20-25 years as managing director, Chief Executive. In the similar industries, you're good self, the good old construction industry though, the manufacturing side of things. A little bit of a dip into distribution when I was sales and marketing director at PTS, one of the BSS now, Travis Perkins businesses. And what I do now with Vistage is I check a peer group of CEOs in Sussex. Typically it's companies of 25 people plus three, four, five million up to 300 million. And in London it's typically below five million and below 25 employees. So that's a site. It's a global organization Vistage. It's a lonely place being the boss, Mike. And where do owners of businesses go to talk to people who are unbiased? And you know, want to just hear about how other people do things. And that's what we do with Vistage. We have world-class speakers, do a workshop in the morning, whether it be on AI, whether it be on marketing, business development, finance, you name it. And then in the afternoon we talk about the issues that affect us on the opportunities. Often it's the opportunities too. And it's very much different sectors. So if you have a lawyer, you don't have two lawyers, it's super confidential. We talk about everything that you could imagine. And it's just, it's really cool. I absolutely love it. It's something that I started doing probably four and a bit years ago. And it's just everything. Every sector is so different. When I'm talking to a chief executive of the hospice, I have an actual rocket scientist who's got a master's in rocket propulsion. I have AI holding companies. We have a bed retail as an amazing company, in bed retail. So just a vast array of different sectors that are just so interesting. And we have that either once a month in Sussex or once a real-the-month, it up in Liverpool Street. And then I do want one coaching with them as well every month or every other month. So that's Vistage. I chair about three or four companies as an executive chairman. Again, largely in the sectors that I used to be in or I like to them, building materials, but also an investment. I've got it off shore solar. And I also sit on the board at the BRE, which you'll know well for Rian and LPCB certifications. And that's been really fantastic. And also a government board called the Industrial Development Advisory Board. And that's everything that the government approves or everything that they're looking at between 5 million and 8 billion comes across our desk to give them some challenge. A business people, bankers, lawyers, challenging the civil service on how they could maybe do a better deal or they thought about this or they thought about that. Which again is just extraordinarily interesting because if it gets all approved, sometimes the next stage on the front page of Financial Tax, which is pretty cool. I don't know how an earth die wangled my way on there, but. Could you help? Because you're a wise ale, that's what. Do you like that? You're like my, I think, teen wise ale. So you've got a number of any D roles. Do you want to just explain what the role of an any D is? A non-exec director? Yeah, it's often called a critical friend. So it's very much a level governance, strategy, oversight. Really, really important not to get into the detail of the executive team. It's their job to run the business. And it's the non-executive job to strategy, feedback and make sure that the board comes to a strategic sense that this is the route that we're going. And of course, is constantly at the board meetings, finding that the finances, etc, are being successful going that way and that more and more governance is critical. And so I would say it's that independent view. Because you so often when you're inside a company, you do that old phrase that when you're up to your neck and alligators, you forget you're there to drain the swamp. And you can get a bit blinked as an executive team. And I think I've been people that rock up once a month or once every couple of months have read through all the papers. No quite a lot about the business, but not nowhere near as much as you do asking questions, meaningful questions. But on those subjects, not delving in where I've seen it really cause trouble and difficulties happen is when people get too involved, almost like a shadow chief exec or something like that. And then it can go badly wrong. And it's a very fine balance. And I think that comes with experience between sitting atop it and challenging that critical friend and getting too heavy into the data. I think I'm going to need a bit of coaching from you or think on this because I sit as an NED on four businesses and I find it really hard. Because my background is I've always been an executive director if you're a manager or leader or whatever. And yeah, I struggle to remind and I have to keep reminding myself, I'm not there to do that. I've been incredibly lucky in that I've sat on a number of boards from quite early on when I was on the Builders Merchant Federation board. Learning and watching some absolute class acts, their meetings and I think that one's really right down. And so I've been incredibly lucky. I've got a fantastic chair at the BRE at the moment as well. And so I think it's learning that there's a lot as well in the discussing things with other non-execs. And you know, are you going a little bit too far here or are you not? So I think you get there. And again, it's different if you have an owner that's got you involved and they say they would like you to do it a certain way from a big governance organisation that requires you to do it the way that is, you know, that the IOD would say that this is the way an non-executive director performs. So I think I think that. There are different things that different companies and different capital structures require. If you were sitting with some of your Vistage clients now, what's the sort of best advice that you could give them? The key really with Vistage is, which is different from the consulting or the non-exec. It's very much coaching rather than advising because the sector difference is serviced. Because it's a while since I've run a big company, you don't know. What I try to do is to find the questions, the killer questions that make them think more about what they're doing, how they're doing it, and then teasing that out. Following that strand, when I was younger, they used to call me a nosy so-and-so mate. But now, apparently, curiosity is the business magic. Luckily, I have that in space. Tell me a bit more about that. If that's margins there, what about over there? It's amazing. You keep asking questions and listening deeply to the answers. You get to a new place. I would say it's very much helping them grow their business, do better in their business, but never steaming, not being a consultant. Occasionally, somebody will say, "Yeah, but Paul, what do you think I should do?" And then I'll say the coaching thing, which is, "What do you think that I would say?" Actually, you should do. It's amazing how many times again, because that changes your mindset, how many times people will come back with something different. But then it's. I'm going to real think about it and under circumstances, I guess, in the past my experience on this has been this. And sometimes, because we're a little bit long in the tooth and have been around a bit, you've seen things that are simple advice or even you know people that they shouldn't speak to. But I really do try and stay away from advice advice with Vistage members because they know so much more about their businesses than I do. So it's how do we tease out what they know that's applicable. And what do you think the benefits of coaching are? And so you just spoke about it's more of a coaching role that you have. So what do you think the benefits are for businesses and business leaders to have a coach? I think if you take any eye performing team, if you take the, whether it be Olympians, whether it be the lions that's in the news at the moment, you know, who would dream of not having coaches there? If you look at the FTSE 100 and the major companies in around the world, all the chief execs and the executive teams have coaches. Well, there's a reason for that. And that's that you don't know everything. And it's a lonely place. And so actually, where do you go to test your ideas? It's either do you want it to be in front of your boss or in front of your staff? Or do you want some times to test ideas and thoughts with somebody that's totally independent and solely is interested in you doing better? And also amongst CEOs, because the real magic happens in a Vistig group. I mean, I would say with me coaching, of course, I'm real magic. But actually, the real magic happens in the group, in the meeting with other CEOs and their questions because somebody runs a technology business. He's different from somebody who runs a hospice, who runs a law firm, who runs an accountancy company. They're the way they think is different. And this is real diversity, cognitive diversity that brings incredible things into the meeting. To the matter of times, I'm there chairing the meeting going, I mean, I thought, I wouldn't have thought that, I wouldn't have thought about what a good question that is. And the amount of time stuff comes to me out of left field because people think differently. And that's the real magic is windows, people test your ideas, tests in your issues. Sometimes they've been there and done it. Sometimes it's, well, I had exactly the same issue with somebody in my business, a partner in my business. And this is what I did. And this is the score. And you're like, okay, you know. So it's, you know, sort of like, say that's the real man. And also that the speakers, so AI, everyone's talking about AI at the moment. All my members are implementing it in a big way, big way. And they are getting productivity improvements today. And for the last, you know, six months to a year, because when you have, well, class speaks, professors from Manchester, professors from Southampton, they've also got businesses coming and saying the three and a half hours, you're talking about how it would impact your business on what you should do. The takeaways you leave with are phenomenal. And so it's also, I often say it's, yes, it's finding new stuff, which is great. But often it's been reminded about stuff that you know that you don't do. But one of the most important things, Mike, is actually the stuff that you are doing, that you know when you're doing. And other, you know, authors, world class speakers, other very successful business people are saying, yeah, that's absolutely the right thing to be doing. And so I think whether it's getting that feedback that, yes, you're doing the right thing, or whether it's realising and having the accountability of that I really should be implementing some more stuff. Are you learning absolutely brand new stuff? It's great. The number of times I meet with people, and they say to me, yeah, we can't, this has been really good, because we kind of know we need to do that, but we don't, you know, either we don't get the time, other thing gets in the way. And it's really good to have that remind and the refresher. Whatever quick chat about LinkedIn, you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, you know, put a lot of effort into it, your posts are really enjoyable. I look forward to them every morning. You get a lot of comments, you get a lot of likes, etc. So I just wonder, what do you think the power of LinkedIn is as far as you're concerned and you're, you know, the sort of role that you do and the businesses that you're involved in? I think fundamentally, I love it. I just enjoy doing it, and I always, since, you know, way back when it first came around, and I've been quite an early adopter with LinkedIn, with Twitter, now X, with Facebook, always very early adopter, which worked out, has worked out very well because then when marketing agencies came in, when I was a chief executive of a business saying, "You ought to be doing this and doing this," and it's wrong, you know, I remember one coming in and explaining Twitter and they'd got the app and they hashtagged the wrong way around. And they were, and these were, you know, top-end marketing agency, and you're, "Well, that isn't right." And they're, "Oh, yes, it is." And then I'm like, "Okay, well, look on my phone here." And they're, "Oh, you got initialized, just did it to learn, and to, because, and just, as I used to say to my marketing team, just play with it and see how, and so, it always just enjoyed doing it." I grew, you know, quite a following when I was chief executive businesses and things like that. And I don't, it's funny because I don't spend a lot of time on it, it looks like I do, and, and I do interact quite a lot. But I tend to schedule more and more posts, so I'll do two or three of the time for different times in the week. And what typical do is if an idea comes to me, I will put it on my notes page, and then when I've got a bit of time, downtime, just tees that out, I'll sometimes I'll use that GPT or GROC to find out some data around it and then check that. Sometimes I'll just go with, you know, photos. Sometimes it drives me mad because I will say something that I will feel to be unbelievably meaningful to business owners and leaders, and if they get on board this, they're going to make a load more money. And this is just the most insightful thing they've ever seen, and you get six or seven hundred views. And then I'll do some photo of me eating a load of prawns in France. and it'll get 10,000. - Yeah. - So I've long since, but back as to worrying about, whether there's any lights, whether there's no lights, or anything. - I hope you're with that. I can give you a bit of advice around that. So we had a guest on recently, Jeeva, and she runs a business called Elite Hamper's, and her posts on LinkedIn always get loads and loads of lights and views. And when we were talking, we concluded it's food. - Food. - If you've got food, you know, particularly chocolate, but if you've got food, that's what attracts everybody. So yeah, thrones are leading in France, that will attract a load of people. So yeah, just gonna make sure you've got some food, sort of linking there somewhere, or in the photo. It may not be anything to do with the discussion, but if you've got a bit of food in your photo, I think you'll find that it will go viral a lot more likely than if you haven't got food. That's what I've learnt. - That, actually, I think when I've had wine and stuffing in the photo and food, that's good advice, I'll remember. I think the other thing is, as well, Mike, it doesn't really, I don't care. It's really for me. I just love doing it. I come across things and out if I've learnt something that I thought is really cool. I'll share it if I've seen something on the political scene that I think that's a load of rubbish, then I'll do some research, and if it is a load of rubbish, then I'll put it on and say, this is what the research is. There's some stuff recently on tariffs, and I think it's amazing me. The amount of people have got no idea about tariffs existed before Donald Trump, whereas having run a global business, or business that sold and bought internationally, know lots of different tariffs that paid long before Donald Trump, and so I did a few on tariffs, and that was really interesting. It's just stuff that I love doing, and I think it's me because, look at it, I'm at that age where I really do. If somebody thinks, it's really, really bad, blah, blah, blah, blah. - Okay. - Absolutely. I enjoy them anyway, I think they're good fun. And for others who maybe don't see them, I'll put a link in the description to your LinkedIn profile page that they can come and have a look. And I'll also put a link, as I think you're about it, I'll also put a link to the Vistage website, et cetera, so people can have a look at that. To wrap this up then, is there any advice or actionable tips that you would like to give to our listeners and viewers? I think one of the things is big things is you're not alone, and especially in the construction industry, and it bloaks and stuff like that. And we hear all the terrible data on suicides and stuff like that. Success comes under many, many, many different forms and in many, many different ways. And it's amazing how many people really care or as well in your industry, in your sector. So always, if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling alone, reach out. - I mean, yeah. - Whether it's on LinkedIn, whether it's just, somebody that you don't know very well, do that, because I think it's really, really important for in our sectors that we really try to fully help each other and get, some of those horrendous rates down. - Yeah, brilliant. Thank you for that. And what a great point to make when this week is mental health week. I know I'm dating the filming of this, but yeah, such a powerful message. So thank you for that. I think we might use that for a short very quickly before we actually put the main video up, because I think that was a great message. So thanks. I always like to finish by leaving some homework for our viewers and listeners, things that they can take away and deal with. So as the guest, I'm going to ask you to have that privilege. So would you like to set some homework for our viewers? - I've mentioned Jim Collins a number of times. I would have a look on YouTube for simple videos on Jim Collins's from Good to Great or any of his books. And that'll really give you a summary of almost 90% of leadership books and what to do and how to do. - We'll put some details on that in the comments. We'll have no doubt they'll be in tune on the video, on the book itself. So people can find that. So great. I'll be really appreciate that. Well, I've been great seeing you Paul. Thanks for joining us. That was really good. Hopefully, hopefully enjoyed it as well. And don't be a stranger. Come back and join us again on the podcast sometimes soon. I think I'm sure we could pick a subject and have a bit of a debate around that as well. That would be brilliant. So thank you. - That would be brilliant. - Okay, it's fine. Thank you everybody for watching. I hope you've liked it today and you've got a lot out of it. And I'll see you all soon on the Leaders and Strategy Podcasts. One we'll be talking about, Strategy, Leadership and all things business. I'll see you then. Thanks.