Episode 33: We Flip the Tables to Share Stories from my Personal Entrepreneurial Journey

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management. And to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits along the journey. We also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive year is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, stronger sales teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop superpowered B2B sales teams. Okay, so last week we really had a great focus, it was really good session, really enjoyed recording it actually around my coaching model, which is the grow model and why I love deferring to it. For me, such a fantastic, simple model that allows you to get really practical and chunky kind of results from using a model that everyone can follow and most people can relate to. This week, as I promised last week, we're actually turning the tables. So the interviewer, which is me, is actually going to become the interviewed. I'm really lucky. Today we've got a fellow named Jim Salter Duke, one of the coolest double barreled surnames I think you will ever hear. But Jim is joining us and he is going to play the role of interviewer for me. It's really good to have Jim involved because he's a man, a working professional with a lot of experience. Right. He's a senior leader in the energy industry. He's been in this industry for quite a long time. For the last five years or so that's been with Energy Australia, which are one of the leaders in the energy industry. Right. Multibillion dollar balance sheet and a huge number of many millions of customers at Energy Australia at the moment. He's currently leading solar sales and marketing for that group. So Jim's also on top of that, got a really diverse experience. So that's a degree from Oxford, pretty cool. Ten years in the uk, seven years in the Philippines and he's worked in quite senior roles in two different startups. Right, so what does that mean? That practically Jim's lead teams anywhere from small scale through to 3500. Right. So plenty of experience there. Jim's also really Passionate about coaching the energy market or the energy transition. Probably more importantly, people and we've worked together before, might say Jim knows a little bit about me, which is why he's here today to try and flush out those stories and make sure they're reasonable. So, Jim, welcome. Thanks very much for joining us.

Thanks. I am excited to be here. Particularly excited to flip the tables, as you said. I've got a whole series of questions, not least two, ask you again about the time your life was threatened over some rotten fruit. So we will. We will come to that.

Excellent. Well, why don't we get straight into it? Now that you've given that little taster, let's get into it and start talking about, I guess, my experiences and what I can share. So I'll pass back to you, Jim.

All right, so the first question, really this comes to your experience and it's a proper opener. Can you tell us about your experience as an entrepreneur and leading sales team? What is the history? What is the superhero origin story and how do you end up here?

Yeah, it's a long question, right. But to answer it pretty succinctly, I was always the guy at school that was going to have a corporate career and I did that. I had 10 years in corporate. But I found that my motivations, they really started to wane when I got to my late 20s because I'd lost what I felt like was real control in where I was hitting. And for me, that's really important in your journey is to be able to have certainly comparative control. Right. In terms of what you want to be achieving. So I started out in a fruit and veg business. I was absolutely that person that was up at 4 o' clock in the morning out at the wholesale markets, trading, bartering, buying and selling fruit and that business. It was really early, like we beat Coles and Woolworths to the punch. I was home delivering fresh produce and the whole aim was get it from farm to people's doorsteps as quickly as I possibly could. Right. I was dressed up in white milkman outfits. We were interviewed on the radio. Quite a novel concept and really a terrific business. Right. But I've got all the war wounds that come with that. I passed out on the packing room floor one day. Yeah, there was the story about life being threatened with vegetables. I'm sure that'll come out. But it was a really tough, tough beginning in the entrepreneurial world for a young guy at 29.

And you started this business. So you were the owner. Can you tell us a little bit about how you went from, I'm in this corporate world and suddenly you're selling fruit. Like there's a bit of a jump there. So give me some more information.

Yeah, I actually remember the moment I was sitting in my manager's office and we'd had a really good year and I just felt that he was setting everything up to take credit for it. And we've all been in those stories before, right? So at that point I said to myself, right, that's it, I'm going to retake control of my journey. So I literally did just that. I went from full time to part time, put eight hours a week into this business on a whim and started getting out there to sell fruit and vegetables. It happened in a probably six month period to prepare and get out there and launch and I threw myself in the deep end and I have to say I was only just above water. The impact it had on my mental health was absolutely significant and it took me quite a while to get control of that. So very much from the sheltered corporate world straight out there, no money, no background, pool of funds to draw and I just had to get out there and make it work.

All right, and I'm going to ask, so tell me about the time your life was threatened over some rotten vegetables.

Yeah, I did learn the hard way the fresh produce market is tough. It's earned its reputation fairly as being a place not for the faint hearted. And look, I remember the family I was dealing with, I won't name them, they were a really good family to deal with but I certainly, I was upset about the quality of capsicums and I probably made it a little bit too public on the showroom floor, if you like showroom very loosely. You're in trading halls. They're big trading halls with lots of fruit and bed producers and, and actually one of the people, one of the senior guys in the team actually said to me, hey, come inside. And he said to me, said, hey, you don't complain out in public like that, right? You, if you've got a problem, you air it privately. And he opened up a cupboard and down there he said, I got two options for you. And yeah, one was a pretty heavy steel item that fired some pretty nasty bullets and the other one was a bottle of scotch. He said, which one do you want? And I said, I think my voice broke. Scotch, Scotch please, sir. It was, and it was 5:30 in the morning, right? It was early, the sun hadn't come up. Middle of a Melbourne winter and at 5:30 in the morning. That was a first for me, a glass of scotch that hadn't happened from a big night out the night before. Right. So we had that and I actually had a really good relationship with them moving forward. And what it did was in a very primitive way, set the baseline to say this is how we talk to each other. And I actually took that lesson around praising specifically and criticizing generally to heart from there and actually learnt to air your grievances in the right place. Right. There is always a right place. Right Tom?

So if ever you go, Jim, don't talk to me out here on the floor, come and chat to me in the office, I'll know to make a run for it or get ready for a drink, one or the other.

Well, yeah, it depends how you answer the question, doesn't it?

Did you get your rotten capsicum sorted?

I did, I got a replacement 8 kilogram box of capsicums which is the measurement there. So. And I tell you what though, the fruit and vegetables during that period, I've never eaten so well. They were fantastic.

All right. Okay. So how did the fruit and veg company go? What happened? What happened at the end of it? Did you make money? Did you just learn what was the outcome?

Made a little bit of money, made enough to help fund what was next but. But certainly wasn't life changing from that perspective. I actually decided that the lifestyle of that business wasn't gonna fit with me long term. It was brutal and I was a single man at that point in time. So for me, and this is something I guess I practise, what I preach is that starting a family was really important to me. So I wanted to make sure I was in an environment where that would be able to happen. Right. And it certainly wouldn't have happened in that business, so. And absolutely hats off to people in that industry. They work so incredibly hard and there are a lot of talented people there. But for me, I then went on a four to six month kind of exploration period where I almost got involved with a wearables technology that was all about back injuries. Quite a cool technology, but didn't quite ended up meeting lots of people over that period. But finally landed in a little sustainability company that was actually called Lyttle at that time and focused on residential LED down lights. So in we jumped and that was a baptism of fire in its own way as well because we had three or four people in the business, a couple of really significant early failures and I'm talking about multiple hundred thousand dollar failures.

So can I ask, tell me about These people you knew, again, you just jumped straight from I want to do this to I was in the company and we're working. So I think that step from wanting to do something to actually doing something, that's the key thing that I think lots of your listeners might be interested in.

Yeah, look, and I tend to move pretty fast. Right. That's one of my entrepreneurial trademarks. Is. So for me to get to that point, I actually went out to everyone I knew. And when I mean everyone, I'm talking about probably 100 people. And I said, hey, I've done this. I've been in the corporate world. I want to get into something. I want to be part of a business. I didn't want to start one on my own again. My first business had beaten me up a little bit, but I wanted to be part of one. And I said, can you please introduce me to people? You know, it was actually my ex leader, one of my ex leaders at the business I just left that said, hey, here's someone to meet. And Eric, the person I met at that point in time, got on really well, and we had a terrific relationship across the eight years that we were together in the business. But actually putting myself out there to meet as many people as I can and have as many discussions as I could resulted in the opportunities opening up. So, yeah, great, great question.

All right, and we're going to come back to this later because the entrepreneurship piece is one that I'm most interested in already. I'm picking up lots of key themes that are very practical. That, yes, you jump into things, but it's actually finding the people you're going to jump into a business with. And how you did that, that's key. All right, let's keep going. So you started at lots of early failures. Do you want to talk about the failures? Is that the fun part?

No, let's get into how we developed, because what happened was at the point of those failures, we could have said, we're out, or we could have said, no, we're going to carry forward those losses. And that was significant. Right. They had me financially at about the ends of my means. Right. And then the next decision was, do we back ourselves and go forward? And certainly we decided to do that, and that was because we were in a market that. That had such explosive growth, was so positive for the environment. This is a market where 10 years ago was very new. Right. Taking carbon out of the atmosphere, particularly through solar and LED lighting, was very new. So loved what it stood for and really wanted to Be a part of keeping control of my own destiny. Right. So we forged forward and quickly moved from residential through to commercial lighting and then into solar. And we built this business with a lot of hard work. And we had a lot more failures after that, with a lot of hard work. Ended up being something pretty significant. But along that journey, I learned more than I could have possibly wished for from those around me, from my own commitment to learning and from my mistakes. Right. It was without question those first five years were the most significant learning periods in my life, bar probably the last 12 months. Last 12 months has been terrific as I've been able to slow down. So here we are learning and growing a business that became financially very successful, which for me, I couldn't have wished for that. Right. To have had both two of the most important drivers in your life. Right. Your financial security, critically important. But how you learn, I couldn't have asked for more than that.

So now you're onto your third entrepreneurial venture. So you've obviously like it and you've just gone from one to the second to the third. Can you tell me a little bit about the thinking behind this? You may have told your listeners about this, but what are you trying to do? What are you trying to achieve? What's this all about?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, this would be number five or six. Well, there'd be two to three other investments during that period where I had more of a passive role. And at times I was parachuted into them to help them grow. But for me, I thought really long and hard about where do I go to from here after the echo, and it was, do I move back to a corporate environment, my financial security, I have complete financial freedom. Right. Our family certainly has that. So thought long and hard. But for me, being able to create something that is really powerful and being able to have a really strong involvement into the direction you're heading is even more powerful for me. So now I'm back in it again. Stronger sales teams, which everyone listening knows we're doing some terrific online learning platforms that are almost ready, and lots of sales coaching and leadership coaching between Australia and the usa. So absolutely straight back into it.

But why this? Why not more fruit or more lighting? What appealed to you about coaching and a podcast?

So, 15 years ago, 26 years old, I had some terrific help from a mentor of mine. His name was Lenny. And Len said to me, there's one thing I need from you in the future. Right? All of his time was free and it was a lot of time, hundreds and hundreds of hours. He said, when it's your turn and you'll know that you need to give back in a form. So for me, this is the perfect environment to do it. We put a lot of free resources out there, a lot of free content. I spend a lot of time with people that doesn't involve monetary exchange. So I'm feeling that I'm making good on that promise. But it also helps that I enjoy it. Right. Everyone has relative superpowers in their professional skill set, and for me, mine, sales teams, particularly commercial sales teams. So that's a big insight into the drivers as to why I'm there.

Okay. I want to come back to your first five years in the lighting and solar company. You said you learned a lot. I want to hear more about what you learned as an entrepreneur in that five years. Because you spent time in corporate. There's a lot of things that similar in corporate, in smaller companies, but particularly what are the lessons around entrepreneurship that you got out of that first five years.

Yeah. So I've actually just done a podcast on this. So episode 30, which will air just before this was all about bringing entrepreneurial thinking to organizations. That's got a fair bit of structure to it. Right. By now that's been released, but I won't go into that into detail. But for me, I think there's some really critical trade offs when you jump into an entrepreneurial journey. Right. For me, first and foremost, it's understanding. What does entrepreneurial mean to you? It's different to everyone. For some people, it's doing a small side hustle. For others, it is going large and trying to create the next unicorn. Right. And they are both versions of entrepreneurship, but they have vastly different risk profiles and they have vastly different lifestyles that come out of it. So for me, I think before anyone gets into this and what I learned most out of this was to understand what you wanted to gain from the entrepreneurial journey. What's your risk profile, what do you expect to receive, and what are you prepared to give up? Right. So by doing that, for me, that means you are leveling out with yourself. So you're leveling out with exactly what you're comfortable with, with the pros, with the cons. Right. So for me, one of the pros was I was putting myself into a position where I was learning more than I would, I think, doing anything else. And the potential financial return was greater than I think I could probably achieve in most other things. But the con was the hours I worked, the stress it took on me, and the impact it put onto my relationships. Right. I managed to keep my health and fitness really strong during this because I had a really good coach who kept me level. But there was a non guaranteed return out of this, so I needed to be comfortable with that. Right. So that were two of the really key things. The third one was starting it off. You just have to lead by example. There are lots of ways of leading out in this world, lots of models, lots of methodologies. Right. And people will subscribe to different things. But for me, in an entrepreneurial business, you must lead by example because there's a couple of things that happen. One is you learn. You learn really quickly when you're at the coal face. But number two is you set the standard for those around you about what your business means. And there are so many entrepreneurial businesses where founders will drive more than just the agenda. They'll drive the finances, they'll drive the customer relationships, they'll drive the reputations. Right? And for me, I wanted to start that off before I built teams around me because it set that ethos right. And then the fourth was, and this is the hardest, without exception, and that's being prepared to stay the course. So when things go wrong, you have to be prepared to stay true to what you want to do or tweak it and continue. Because in an entrepreneurial environment, you have to do things. If you don't do new things, you won't succeed. And the more new things you do, the more that you're going to fail at. Right? It's just natural in life. So you have to be prepared that yourself and your teams are going to fail, but have some great systems around you that allow the big failures to be caught early and the little failures not to impact your thinking moving forward. So for me, those, I mean, they're pretty chunky. Those four things about how you can prepare yourself to be ready for the entrepreneurial journey. But above all of that, if you can stay open and curious as to what is going to happen, then I think that's going to give a really successful path.

One thing I've been wanting to ask about is you've spoken about the entrepreneurship factor, or I think you call it E factor or something like that. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Yeah. E Thinking. And E Thinking. Yeah. For me, E Thinking is available to every leader, every individual, absolutely no doubt about it. You don't have to have gone and done a degree at Oxford, right. To be able to think entrepreneurially. It actually for me comes down to two areas. All Right? And I use the will and skill model, right? The will to want to do it and the skill to be able to execute it. So for me, in the entrepreneurial thinking world, will is all about the structures you put in place. And I won't go into too much detail because it's another great podcast, episode 30, but it's being able to set up structures at a leadership level that allows your teams to be curious, that allows your teams to be creative, that it allows your teams to be entrepreneurial and empowered, right? So you set those structures up at a leadership level and you lead by example, and it provides that environment. But then from there, it's all about the skill, right? Building the skills to be able to have a broad area which you can work within, right? Within an organization, have it really clear where the entrepreneurial thinking needs to thrive. Set up some base processes about how you can do it, right? So you meet together, you have a team, you have an E champion, right? And then pick areas that you want to start thinking about, right? When we talk about the entrepreneurial factor or the X factor, right? It's all about actually having some pretty significant processes there to allow you to think entrepreneurially. It's not a case of walking in and going, hey, guys, let's shoot the breeze, right? Because when you provide structure to that, that actually allows that entrepreneurial thinking to flourish with far more purpose than when you walk in and talk loosely.

So I want to challenge that or explore a little bit further, because a lot of what you're talking about could be done in any large organization and needs to be done, and it sounds a lot like good leadership. My experience chatting to you is that there is more to entrepreneurship than that. So I really want to dig further into if you had to describe ethnicing or the X factor in a few sentences, that is different from just good leadership at any company, what would that look like?

So it's a good question because I said at the start, entrepreneurial thinking is actually available to every leader and every individual. And I work in all of my leadership principles is around practical, simple, chunkable initiatives that everyone can get their hands onto. For me, I think that entrepreneurial thinking, I'm going to come at a slightly different angle. I think it doesn't work in corporate organizations because it doesn't get prioritised. Leaders know how to do it, but their eyes and what they're measured on is firmly focused around the here and now, rather than your horizon. 2. So entrepreneurial thinking needs to blend a little bit of horizon one, horizon Two and horizon three. And you need to consistently be applying that to your team to say, challenge the ideas, challenge the status quo, what's working, what's not working, Right. And then allow them, and I think this is the bit you're looking for here is allow them the room to make the mistakes. Right. Provide that element of psychological safety that says you are going to get out there, we are going to ideate and we are going to get this wrong, but we are going to stay the course and we will try again, and we will try again, and we will try again until we find what works. That for me, in the corporate environments I've worked in, it gets shut down before you get past that second or third iteration. And the strong leaders, they find it really hard to challenge that because they're obviously measured through different areas. So if you can stay the course and really provide that true environment with priority, that's when entrepreneurial thinking can really start to flourish.

So what is the secret sauce? What is the X factor that maybe has made the difference to you and that you've seen with other successful entrepreneurs?

So the good news here is that a lot of it is environmental and structural. Right. You can get the very vast majority of it covered by being a very good operator who's prepared to take a chance to know your risk profile and understand what entrepreneurship means to you. Right. And I will say that's really important, knowing what it means to you. Right. For me though, that bit that gets you that last couple of inches, that's the difference between 95% or whatever the statistic is of businesses value and succeeding is knowing what you are really good at and then leverage it like crazy. Right. Mark McCormack, who was the founder of IMG, Very, very successful global marketing agency, and he said strategy is easy, work it out and implement like crazy. Right? So for me, I know I am really, really good at driving energy in a room. I can drive energy up, I can drive energy down. And that's one of my key secret sauces and sizzle that I can bring to any team. I'm also really good at building relationships with people where it's based on trust. Right. And they're genuine relationships. So for me, my entrepreneurial sizzle is to make sure in any team that I'm building that I'm making that environment one where it's really fun. You're really digging hard. You are. It's blood, it's sweat, it's tears. But at the end of the day, you know that if you get something wrong, your Founder's got your back, right? If you're going to grow, your founder is going to be there with you to help you. If you're the one that's going to put your neck on the line to earn less money here than you are somewhere else, you've got someone that is there step by step, all the way through, and you will come out of this a better person than what you didn't. Now, some people may say that is not sizzle, but for me, if you can name a leader, if most people that are listening to this podcast now that can name a leader that truly did that for them, I think you are in the minority and you are very privileged so to know what you are good at when you take to your entrepreneurial journey and to leverage it like your life depends on it, to fight like your life depends on it. Right. That's how you get success in the entrepreneurial game. Add the structure, add the environmental factors and bring what you bring better than anyone else, and that's how you drive success.

Thank you. So there's clearly this 90% or 98% that is structure and good operating and implementation. But there's elements that you've raised, and some of them are things like being prepared to fail and then being prepared to fail again. There's lots of being prepared to stay the course. There's lots of really, really driving certain elements of the strategy really, really, really hard. And I don't think this is an accident that in a lot of your language, you say things like, and then again and then again, and then you try it again and then you try it again. So I think there's something here around just being brutally stubborn and pushing hard to achieve a result when you know it's the right thing. So does that seem familiar to you at all?

Absolutely. Persistence for me is critical. Right. But you don't want to do the same thing over and over again. Right. That's the definition of insanity. Right. We've all heard that you want to be making sure that you are persisting and you never say never, you never say die, but you're learning and iterating as you go. Right. And yeah, absolutely. That can without doubt be seen as an X factor for entrepreneurs, is those that they go out and they try something, they fail, and they change it, and they go again and they change it and they go again. Right. That actually requires presence in the now to be able to understand that it's not only worked, but here's why it hasn't worked. Yeah. So no question at all persistence critical.

So the next question, and I think we've answered some of this, but I want you to talk to people out there or people like myself who are working in large corporates who want to be more entrepreneurial. And I think we both agree that every skill can be learned, can be taught, can be improved. So what would you tell someone who wants to be more entrepreneurial in their current role?

Yeah. First of all, I'd reassure anyone listening that being entrepreneurial is completely up to you. It doesn't matter what structure is set in your workplace or how much experience you have with it. You can start it today and you can start making a difference with some pretty immediate impact. So if I'm sitting here right now and I've got Jim Salter Duke next to me and he says, I want to be more entrepreneurial, right? The first thing I'm saying to you is get curious. I want you to get really curious about what you see in front of you and what's working and what's not working, right? So that's pretty straightforward. The next thing I want you to do is start to get creative about what you could do differently, right? Build out that plan from that that says, hey, here's what I'm curious about. Here's the problem I'm going to solve or the opportunity I want to take advantage of, right? Here's what I'm going to think creatively to start to do something about it, right? And then pick some avenues that you want to use to implement that, right? So if your sales process isn't working and you've got an idea that says, do you know what? I want to start selling to my customers. I want to stop us doing phone calls and we're only going to move to video calls, right? I'd say, fantastic, right? Great. For me, that's a real way forward, right? Better engagement. Then you've got to say, right, what have I got to do to get that forward? Right? And you map the stakeholders you need to work through within your business. You map the people you need to get on your side, right? And then from there you implement like crazy. And when you go to people expect they will say no because it's challenging the status quo and it's easier to say no, right? Find out why, why, why is it no, right? And then go back, iterate and come back again. And then go back, iterate and come back again, right? There's a level of persistence where you will actually start to build a relationship in the business as someone that's challenging the status quo. And if you do it in the right way. So that is, you come with facts, you brief the right people, you take no respectfully and come back with a different iteration. Right. For me, that's when you build that reputation and people start to say yes. Your first yes is your hardest, without doubt. But from there, every yes gets easier and easier when you prove yourself as having an ability to think entrepreneurially. So, Jim, I'd be going home tonight and I'd be thinking about what you want to challenge, how you're going to do it, and then the stakeholders you need to get on board to make that happen.

All right, thanks, Ben.

Okay. Well, I can say that is probably the most I've squirmed in any of my 35 odd podcasts that we have recorded. So thank you, Jim. Nice to know that others are prepared to dig deep into some questioning. But for me today, lots of good stuff in there that will challenge you to think differently. Right. If you missed anything in there, everything from the show is in our notes section of our website. You know where they are. Strongestsalesteam.com social media. We've got lots of content being pumped out on social media at the moment, so if you're, if you missed anything and you'd like more information, please DM me. DM the business. Get in touch. Right. I get across just about every connection made, so it's most likely you'll hear from me. And for those wanting to find out more about Jim Salter Duke or engage with him personally, I'd highly recommend it. He's a fantastic strategic thought leader in the energy transition in particular. Right. Loves hearing stories about people and seeing how he can help people himself. Find him on LinkedIn. Jim Salterduke. Easy to find the guy with a beard and he'll certainly engage back with you. Right. So thanks very much, Jim. And for everyone else, keep living in your world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Want to be kept up to date with any of our free materials to help you build the best sales teams possible? Well, the easiest way you can do so is to follow us on your favorite social media channel. We're onger sales teams on most of them and if you DM us stronger, we'll send you right back some great resources to help you build your super powered sales team. If you'd like a little more help, please get in touch directly and book a free discovery call with me. I run a limited number of these sessions and they're free for my podcast listeners. I'd love to help you out. Until then, see you next week for another podcast of stronger sales team.