EP175 - Getting a Genius Out of a Bottle –
Success Stories with Stuart Faulkner

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we talked with one of the Growth Hub client, Stuart Thornton, about how he found his genius. In a bottle.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSP's scale to 1,000,000 in if already there get to 5 and go fast at the end of the day. Isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN

So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. Today we've got another one of our success series and we are bringing in to the podcast one of our amazing clients, Stuart Faulkner from Ilicom in the West Midlands. Welcome to the show, Stuart. How you doing today?

STUART

Hi you to you, today's going to be another great day.

IAN

Exactly. Fantastic. Well, thanks very much for your time today and it's really important that we got you on here because you've had some amazing success and in a couple of the methodologies that we're using. And as we know, growing an MSP is all about scaling with confidence. Building a business that works for you rather than you for it, and you've worked before kind of the growth hub appeared. You've been working with Stuart Warwick now for many, many years and we just had to get you on the podcast to share with the audience and the other MSPs out there. Some of the amazing success she's had probably some of the personal development journey that you've been on, particularly in the last six months. And I'll talk about Genie in a bottle, but what we mean is the genius model which we're going to talk about in a moment, in a bottle that has really unleashed Stuart's mojo. But the role of the vision, everything in the whole business and just made it super, super exciting to the amazing place that you're in today. So, Stuart, before we get cracking, can you please share with everybody, who you are, what you do, who you help give us some dimensions just around the business size of people and sort of things like that don't need to go into your headline numbers. Not on this call, but yeah, over to you.

STUART

OK, so yeah, your money service provider, any contact energy solutions by seeing Birmingham, West Midlands, which you could probably tell by my accent, if not now, certainly as we go through podcasts, I'm sure. Yeah, we relatively still come, I think we employ 23-25 staff, something like that. We've got some verticals in the business. So we've got some great customer base, customer retentions, fantastic. Staff retention's really, really high, great. Is this the business that was founded in 2014 didn't really get money until 2015. But within that, that journey certainly up till now we've had some great success. It's been a, you know, it's been fantastic.

IAN

Great stuff. The joke of it all. You're in for some annual planning last week, weren't we and in actual fact, it was quite funny, cause you've been working with Stuart for many years now. But I think at the time when you decided to work for Stewart, you're either going to work with me or Stuart, wasn't it? And there was a reason and we never really got to the bottom of this why was probably this this bloody velvet voice or something like that. I think is what I hear quite a lot of the time, but anyway, what I'm just interested just asking first. This was you got a successful business. The thing was, you know, it was up and running. You are very commercially focused. You've got an amazing business partner who's great, technically Jason, which is fantastic. What made you decide that you needed a bit of a help? What made you reach out to Stuart worried what was the thing that said, you know what, I need a bit of a hand with this. What was going on in your world then?

STUART

So winding back a little bit so the story is, we will do marketing company at the time and I asked if you could recommend us to any mentors and you can. But with two names that was Adam and Stuart. The reason I went with Stewart is because he shares the same first name as me. He's just saying like, he can't be a bad guy if he's got the same name as me, he's not got through the best choice, so apologies. So the reason we reached out to do was that.

IAN

I can't. I can't believe that either.

STUART

It took me a long time to, you know, it took me probably 12 or 18 months to realise this, that we hit a glass ceiling in the business, or predominantly I'd hit a glass ceiling when we started the business. I made a commitment to myself, which was to surround myself with people who are better than I am in all the different elements of everything that I know and I needed to be able to have an allistic look at of the business and understand everything that goes on in every department but not be an expert sort of focus of that during the course of building this and what happened was that I became the bottleneck in the business, and Co director Jason did also from a technical point of view. But as far as strategy and financial success of the business, I was the sole person in the company, that was stopping it from maturing, stopping it. And developing took me a long time to realise that they realised that I needed help because. You know, reaching out sometimes and asking for external help, you've got to swallow your pride. It's actually quite a difficult thing to do. You know, we built the business up and, you know, we're an A + 1 1/2 million business at the time. You know, we're doing well, I think remarkably well, you're 67 years into the journey and, you know, on paper it looked great. What happened was that I was incredibly frustrated. The workload was increasing, I was burning the midnight all every night, sitting at the desk till 10:00 every evening and started creeping into weekends, Saturdays and Sundays. You couldn't, you know, we really couldn't see the wood for the trees. So a couple of conversations with the marketing company were using at the time. And he say he put you guys forward. And then I took the plunge, put the phone up and I gave through or he could call, dropped him an e-mail him. We had a quick chat and it just resonated. He resonated that. He recognized all the pains I was suffering and actually in that initial call made me realised that it wasn't on my own. Most people in business, this particular startups, they all go through this, they all have these pains because at some point, you know, you get to a certain size where you've got to embrace. All the people, talents and surround yourself in those other talents and those other people that can elevate you to a level where you're at now I just called it, you know, I used to say we've fitted our scene, fitted us early. So, you know, obviously had the conversation with Stuart. I mean, it's probably actually say. Yeah, he's probably 2, probably about two years ago, had the conversation with Stuart, came along to the first, intensive, which did a 16 week intensive so you know, walked away from it, feeling like that all of a sudden I could now see some light at the end of the tunnel. I wasn't quite sure how long the tunnel was or how bright the light was able to see something that couldn't be and actually everywhere from that first event, you know, incredibly motivated. And that's where the journey started.

IAN

Brilliant stuff. Well, do you do realize there's that LinkedIn message that I actually sent you is still unread on my LinkedIn profile, but I'm not holding that against you. But look, you know the most important thing here is what got you here is not going to get you there, you know. And if you're thinking that there's something that's not going right, how long do you want to wait to fix it? You know, you took the plunge and you said, you know, it took even, you know, 12-18 months to make that decision.

You know, a lot of people come towards us and sort of say, look, you know, God, I wish I have done this years ago. Well, unfortunately, we weren't doing this years ago. So the format that we've got and you know that intensive you talked about you know now those intensives are going to be with, you know, nearly fifty other business owners and it's an incredible place to learn and not be that smallest person in the room. So. But we're going to talk about today is actually, some of the models that we use in the Growth Hub and what's quite interesting, while we were preparing for this was Stuart just mentioned that we talked about the vision, we talked about the hiring, the right people. We talked about the genius model, which we're going to run through and on their own they're kind of a bit lackluster and a bit lacking of value and purpose. And what happens to it and this is why, you know, business growth in MSP is a whole mode that you can't just go in there and just bang a load of sales and expect the operations to deal with it. You can't go in and come up with a vision and expect A-Team that's creaking at the knees. To help perform as the business kind of swells, you've got to deal with every kind of element of it, which is why you know, this year we're focusing on what the hub about the Growth Hub means bringing in security experts, operational experts, leadership experts, financial experts because you know, as you know Stuart, it's all very well and good. And I know that you're very, I'm not going to call you aggressive with your sales but you're very purposeful, passionate and love the whole sales thing and you would you know, sell and it's great, but you're also very aware now that when you look in the rearview mirror, there's not a trail of destruction of people who can't keep up with you anymore because that's one of the things that we've helped you, you know, operationally with. So the thing we talked about is around this genius model. So the business of plateaued, you're looking for ways to get. You weren't enjoying the job and everything like that. You know the team were largely unhappy. And then Stuart and I, actually I think I remember Stuart asking you to do the genius model possibly three or four times before you did it. Talk to us about what the genius model is, and just at a high level, Stuart and the impact it had on you personally.

STUART

So just before that, for the reason I engage was that I'd made it just a conscious decision that I rented out of the industry for a long time and previous experience before. I had enough and wants to go and do something else that I would enjoy because it was enjoyable. I wasn't enjoying the job, what Stuart made me realise is before the change is to actually you just go and do something. Apply the same rules that you apply now and you will just equally dislike that as much as you dislike what you're doing now. So sense to me at the off you've got to get out of your own way. Get out of the way yourself because it's you that stop the progression both personally and the business so what happens to you? He kept trying to go and do the genius model. Don't have a look at this thing I've got this thing called the genius model go. And have a look at it. You know what I looked at it for 20 seconds. I'm not interested in this. Wha can this possibly do for me and then Stuart would say, have you looked at it? Yes, I've looked at. What do you think? Ohh, but in fairness, we kept banging the drum. We kept, so your problem is you. Well, the problem with the business is you we need to sort you out because when we've sorted you out, everything else will fall into place.

IAN

OK.

STUART

Do you know what? And then the outside you sense that it's like, oh, here we go again. You know, I've heard this all before. So eventually after, after loads of nagging from Stuart and he was holding me accountable, we got to. The stage where. I was having a lunch along with him weekly each week at the top of the generals. What? How does he get with the genius model, he got some point. Yeah, I'm going to do it, cause actually I just want to stop this guy from beating this drum and getting on up and. So do this and as I was doing this, I didn't initially with use the exact model that Stuart presented to me and I looked at still thought, you know what, the sun value in this so, what I then did, I changed the model slightly to suit me. So essentially. That's the genius movies to look at. What are your friends, what do you weaknesses? But you also, what do you really good at, you just it’s just the data.

IAN

Assessment.

STUART

I was 15 half, and I did one exercise that that there was this red pods. And this thing and then the top one it was what are you really good at, What do you think will excel at in your in your role, the middle one was first things of what you just don't okay, at them, you don't excel, you're not bad at them. And then the other one at the bottom was that at all you know what parts of the job do you do that you just don't feel you offer any value to the beasties. So I did that party for a couple of weeks and then I came back to exactly the same model, but I changed it slightly so that it was, what you love doing, what you get excited about. What you don’t mind doing.

But you wouldn't be you if somebody else did it. But you're okay with what you hate doing and then overlaid the two. So all of a sudden, at the top of the list I've got all the things I really, really like, really love doing that really passionate about over, overlaid against what grace that what I feel I'm really, really good at in the business and lower the holes there's you know wouldn't see overlaps particularly in the middle. But, you know, and the whole the things that was really good at actually the things I love doing. How about the things I was not good at, the things you didn't do, you know what seems obvious, but until you put pen to paper and do it and stay in front of you and you stare in your face, all of a sudden, then that sort of creates a plan. So what's you've said to me says right, you have to make your goal now to get rid of everything to the bottom of that list. Because if you're not good at it. This, and you don't introduce, you've got of this. What was bizarre is that I run the same model on some of the stuff internally and then realized that some of the things that was on the bottom of my list, I didn't do that wasn't good at was at the top of this. I really like this. I'm really good at it. But I don’t.

You know, straight away there's a root taking these things out of my day-to-day work life that may be uncomfortable, maybe unhappy. Something like concentrating more of the things that was good as the injuries and actually the things that good us in there you enjoy have the most benefit for the business. So that's what that did the exercise. What happened worse then moving on from the Genius model piece because there was a lot of the things that didn't enjoy that wasn't good at that. There was a gap in the business. So he identified there's actually some of these things. Nobody does that the reason I do them is because there is nobody else to do that then. Obviously that led to a different conversation. We soon when we talked that then the resources in the business, what resources we needed to have in the business to accommodate some of these things and that's how we got through the during this level journey. And you know what I use that model there with all the stuff all the time because it's really, really interesting and that as I said the most interesting thing is that there are people that are great and really enjoy things that you don't, you should be aware of that so that you can get the most efficiency out of everybody in the in the organization.

IAN

So how? Once you've done this and you'd identify and by the way, thanks very much for being so honest and open and vulnerable as well. Just sharing personally what's been doing them because you know it's about business growth, it's actually about personal growth at the moment and then you know the business kind of moves forward once you get the you identify the things that you love doing. Because as I said, this is about getting into flow, this is about doing things that you enjoy because when you do things that you enjoy, you'll stay focused longer, you'll enjoy it. You'll have more time to do things. You won't have to procrastinate anybody, procrastinate on this podcast. Anybody push things back. Anybody hate doing stuff that just. And like doing get people who love doing it, you know, it's absolutely, you know, normal to do that. And that's when the businesses get us into a lot of a stronger position because this then enables you to then move on to the 2nd framework around hiring A-players because all of a sudden you found some gaps, didn't you?

STUART

Yes. So what happened, the gaps that were identified is operational. We need somebody who is strong operational, leadership position within the business. It was obvious to me when I looked at it and it was immediately obvious to Stuart Warrick, he said. And you know, being a great coach. He knew the answer, but he teased the answer out of me to make sure that.

IAN

That’s funny.

STUART

You know, but isn't that what being? A good coach is all about, so obviously, Stuart teased the answer to me and it was it was obvious that what we needed to do to make this succeed was to bring somebody into the booth. This that could take up the challenge of running the day-to-day operations that then led to students saying, look, that we have we have another exercise which is called A-players. And So what you need to do is go and have a look at the players and this is about recruiting the best people, the best this because it's so it's so easy, you know, film falls into this trap so many times where you think you need somebody to do a particular role in the business. You're a little bit Willy with the job description. You're a little bit more about what you want, how to do it, you go interview somebody. You love the personality of the person you're interviewing. Sorry. You only been taking on simply, not even for the British people, because you really like the person. I think you can work with them and what you haven't done is fix the initial problem which is killed this gap that you've identified further down, like so do the replayer exercise actually. Then help me recognise that, you know, we've got to be incredibly formal about the approach we're taking on this person's self, Had different discussions internally. I had lots of discussions with Stuart Warwick. So what we realized was that we needed to bring in somebody at a very senior level to own the operational challenges in the business.

IAN

So this isn't the technical side of it was it because what we get caught up with is, you know, you're quite visionary. You're very strategic. You know exactly where the business is going and how you want to drive it forwards from a sales and marketing and promotion point of view. You know Jason was amazing is amazing technically at the technical side of the business but this was sitting in the middle. This was kind of like oiling the wheels that makes it happen, isn't it? So this isn't a technical role. This isn't an operational role, isn't it?

STUART

It's it is not personal role. Yeah. And you know my compass things like HR, if you psychometric testing yourself and Jason, we're very we will depart. But neither of us you know I don't want to be managing HR remote challenges that come with that you know the day-to-day operations and we're also process governments, some of that structure me, my personality, you know, I can be a little bit flirty. I'm off-chasing the next deal. Jason, you see Jason, he's team. It's obviously technical, so you know so that the whistles, bells, what colour lights are flashing on a particular and there's this big gap in the middle. So you know, I leverage the skills and advice of Stuart Warrick quite heavily at the time to help me understand the profile of the person that we needed to bring once you've got that profile and the A-players exercise massively helped with that massively helped, but once we've got that profile it made it made recruiting that person for easier because we could create a very, very detailed job description. This is the job description that we put in these will be more responsibilities, this is the hierarchy. This is how the reporting structure in the business. So that there was no misconceptions on day one that person starting what their role will be. They were walking to the wel knowing exactly what was expected from them on day. So then he meant going out. So what we decided, we decided to then recruit, the role of Chief Operations Officer to bring something to very senior level that would sit at the boardroom table and almost hold myself and Jason accountable because one of the other challenge is when it's a relatively small business and there's just two of you, you tend to sometimes are very dose formalities. They're formal meetings, it's passing comments or let's have a chat down the pub about what we're doing next. But bringing some, so we brought in Co gentleman Darrell, he came from an enterprise. Upgrade. And what happened? He built a set of unique skills send locked with a Liam Neeson movie that just doesn't it. Incredible. So he bought a set of skills that we're referring to us, but we actually since then I've been able to get out of why I've been concentrating on developments of the business in other areas and we've moved mountains, you know, we've put £1,000,000 on the turnover, the bizarre thing is here. It's easy. What you do these things. It says the biggest challenge is, you know, sticking your neck out and doing this.

IAN

Yeah, trust in the process.

STUART

Yeah. Because you know what? There's 1000 reasons that you've got from not doing something and there's one reason for doing it. Yeah. And I think you know most the MSPs and I sit in the room with 40 old MSPs, something intensives. And what is the reflection of me from years then going through those same pains, those same challenges, and since then it's nearly realized that actually ordered to grow a business. That's, we get to where we want it to be. We got full of that journey. We're just in the process of bringing a somebody at a senior level that is at a board level. Responsible for sales and marketing, you know we will be bringing somebody responsible for the financial side of the business and we will grow a leadership team that has that our response for different elements of the business and then have accountability and all of a sudden now we've got some great opportunities, absolutely fantastic opportunities.

IAN

Because you're now, you know you're now all aligned. The team. You know the business are much happy. Yeah, more engaged. Is this right? 50 days Holiday a year?

STUART

What, sorry.

IAN

Is this right 50 days holiday a year? We've got down here.

STUART

Absolutely. So yes, part of this is that Jason and I used to take on wide at 25 days a year, holiday push, bank holidays worth it is 24-25 days, but what happened is we end up working most of it. You know you'd be on holiday, you were on the phone, on the e-mail. All the rest of it and realise that actually, in order to enjoy what we did in the day job, we had some of this incredible. Work life balance because you know, it's so easy to forget that we have families and we have a life outside of work. And, you know, and and if as a result of what you do in your day job negatively impacts that, then affect you what your round Robin would come back and impact what you do in your day job you that that, that, that's all rule could be pulled from underneath. Because of, you know, an impact that you have because of. Being too involved and having less of the work life balance. So yes, so we now have 50 days holiday plus bank holidays. We make the most of it. Jason's now from three weeks trip to Australia and Bali in different places is that with his family he's meeting family over there and designers the world keeps turning in our absence you know. We're right, you know, this this thing of all the business can't survive without it. But it couldn't because we were doing all these things. We were so enough that bottleneck. We were, you know, we were, we would pass that bottlenecks and if we weren't here, for a week. Things would stop the wheels of motion would stop, but now he's actually identified the different areas of the business and managing those separately, it continues. Don't get me wrong. You come back to the things that still sits on your desk, waiting for you to come back. But now we have more process. One of the things that we do now, Darrell, the CEO, he's driving ISIL through the business, obviously not just from the service delivery point of view. We'll be coming item lined across the whole business that has been transformed. If you, because now all of a sudden everybody understands systems and process every understands in the event of a happening, we have to do day. Whereas what would happen historically is if a happened somebody would upstairs or pick the phone up to Stuart or Jason say this has happened, what do we need to do? Yeah. Things you know, and that was all of those things. It was at the bottom of that genius model. I hate doing. No, I'm not good at. No. There's a process in place. So all of a sudden, you know, the progress has been developments and business has been expedited because we've just embraced some tried and tested documented practices and. Growing the business that we fought against for so many years and now it's just.

IAN

And you've trusted that you've trusted the process. You've got now an engaged team, you've got an aligned senior leadership team. You're enjoying what you're doing. Everybody's having fun. The culture is in a really great place.

STUART

And the other thing on top of that is sales or profit is up of just doing our manage. Our management accounts down to the end of the quarter and you know we are absolutely flying. And I've put down a lot of that's the success of that down to people concentrating and put their efforts into what they're good at. You know, so now I'm concentrating on the developments of the business. We will be bringing in somebody that will head up sales and marketing parts in our arms. And when that when that merges and acquisitions journey. You know, we're all playing in the. Areas that we're good at, we excel at and the business as a whole is benefiting from us.

IAN

That's been absolutely brilliant. Stuart, thanks very much. Just a a quick thing that just popped into my mind. You just said Jason's on the three-week holiday to Australia, which is incredible. What's your favorite place to go on holiday?

STUART

Well, I see what I went last year to bingo different places around the world last year. I went to Avenger events. And they hosted their event in Croatia. So it's on my list of go to go back, to cause a really great place, so to both and to do the whole piece there with the vendor add an extra day there went into the into the bars. One of my favorite bars place called Mount Weasel. Absolutely fantastic. Right, if you get. The chance. Go, go, go there. So yeah, it's on my list so. I'll be going back there again this year.

IAN

Brilliant stuff. Well, look, final thoughts today, Stuart. You know what's your recommendations or suggestions to MSPs who are listening to this show, who felt like you felt?

STUART

So genius model certain. Look at yourself. Take a look at yourself from outside in rather than inside out. It's that make you appreciate your own values. What you what values you offer to your business, but also it'll help you identify where you need help. The areas that you need help, and both of you, go speak to Ian and to Stuart Warwick. They've got, you know, great plan for the industry growth of distance and way of working really helped me go take a look at it on the social I think. I think you'll be absolutely surprised or benefits can come of it.

IAN

Fantastic. Thank you, Stuart. You've stolen my call to action, which is great. I think everybody knows if they're feeling like this, then just please get hold of Stuart Warwick, cause he's apparently he's got a better first name than I have but you know that that's by the by Stuart once and again, thank you for your time in preparing and being, you know, honest, open and vulnerable on this show. The reason is that, we've done it is because we know that there's so many MSPs out there who need some help and support in building the business that works for them rather than for it. It's amazing watching your growth, it's putting hairs on my on my arms, standing on end every time we talk to you about what's going on in your business. But the impact you're having with your employees and your clients and all of that stuff and we look forward to, you know. Continuing this amazing relationship for many, many years to come, Stuart, it's absolutely fantastic.

STUART

Thanks.

OUTRO

So I hope you enjoyed the show if you did, I'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to know more about how to take your MSP to a million or if you're already there go faster. Then come and join Stuart Warwick and myself in the scale with confidence Facebook group the link is in the show notes. You go enjoy the rest of your day and I look forward to connecting with you soon.