Mastering the Art of Self-Coaching for entrepreneurs, with Andrew Tallents

Welcome to The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. This show will tell you how to get the recognition you and your business deserve. Our guests share their practical insights and tools which you can use straight away. Your host is international entrepreneur, podcast host, and author Jim James.

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me here, Jim James, in the UK. I'm actually going to take you to the Wirral, which is the south side of Liverpool, for those of you that don't know, to meet Andrew Tallants. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Hi, Jim. It's great to be here.

Well, it's great to have you because you have been in corporate life. You've transitioned now into being an entrepreneur. You've got the Tallants Partnership, talent by name, talent by nature. We're going to talk about what holds entrepreneurs back from fulfilling their potential, both in the business and off line, if you like, at home and in their personal lives, but also as an entrepreneur. You've managed to publish a book to become a bestseller on Amazon, and you're also going to give us some inspiration into how that's manifested itself into new lines of business for you as well. So Andrew, tell us a little bit about the Talents Partnership and how you help entrepreneurs to fulfill their potential.

Thanks, Jim. Well, we set up in 2017, and I set the business up to really help entrepreneurs to not just be successful in their businesses, which many of them wanted to but also on their own terms, where they didn't have to sacrifice their personal lives. I met many entrepreneurs that had gone through divorces. I'd been through one as well. And I thought, actually, it'd be great to help them do both. And that's what I do with entrepreneurs. And there are 3 things that normally get in the way, which most entrepreneurs can relate to. The first is they've been very successful in their corporate lives by maintaining control of what's going on around them, spinning plates, juggling balls, very good at that. And when they get into an entrepreneurial environment, and the business gets to a certain size, there's a recognition that you can't control everything. And therefore, I help those leaders to actually let go of control and start to believe that the people in the business can actually do as good a job as them. So, there's a bit of a control element. The second thing I do is recognize with them that actually being the expert isn't always the best place to be. Setting up a business, founding a business, building a sales pipeline, credibility is very important to be an expert. But when you get to a certain size again, being the expert is not what you're paid to do. It's to lead the business. And therefore, letting go of being the expert and leading the experts is something I help leaders with. And then the third thing, which is probably the most important thing, is a lot of leaders have been driven again through the control by really keeping that close-knit circle of people they trust very close to them. And again, as they grow the business and it becomes bigger, sometimes we have to trust other people outside of that circle. And so, building trust when entrepreneurs sometimes can't trust other people because of where they've come from and the experience they've had in life is the third area I tend to work on. And they're the things that tend to get in the way that we can support with.

If there's a sort of a personality trait driving those 3 things, the desire to be in control, the desire to be seen as the expert, and lack of trust, Andrew, is there a common sort of driver for what that is? Or have you found all entrepreneurs come at those 3 things from entirely different perspectives?

It's a really good question. You mentioned earlier that I wrote a book and I'm going to write another book, which is all about how trauma drives successful leaders. And I don't mean trauma necessarily as something really traumatic that's happened, or that can be for people. Richard Branson talks in his book, doesn't he, about when he's 5 being chucked out the car and then he has to walk home. So we all have experiences, small or large, that happen in our childhood. Maybe we're looked over by a father about an older sibling, what it might be, and that drives us to prove were worthy. And so there is usually a trend that something's happened and we don't become aware of it. We become unconscious and it becomes part of our everyday lives. And we'll talk about it later, but I didn't realize what mine were until I was about 48 years old and then started to change that.

You can't say that and not tell us what it was unless that's going to put you in a position of legal jeopardy or something.

No, for me, at the time I went to see a therapist and because things were that bad in terms of how I was jeopardizing relationships and working too hard. And the therapist pointed out to me, Andrew, you always say I. It's all about you. What about we? So I haven't focused on relationships in my life, but I've been a very driven, successful businessman, and then entrepreneur. So that was the key thing for me that happened in 2018.

And ironically enough, you were a director in an HR company, if I'm not mistaken, in a people-related business. So there's some irony in that, right? So let's just move on then. So you've managed to, and I don't mean this in a patronizing way, mature out of that area and to understand then why it becomes a bottleneck for people and for entrepreneurs especially. Tell us then, how do you help them to overcome those traumas and, if you like, the distrust and the need for control? Because once you've identified them, that's great, but you have to help people to move past that state, don't you? So how do you do that? You do.

And this is the hardest thing for entrepreneurs because they're very busy people. And I was, used to be very busy. So, the first thing is to actually really convince an entrepreneur it's worth taking 2 hours out a month to be with me or whoever it is they're working with in terms of a coach, just to really think about themselves, their relationships, what's going on, and reflect with lots of space, lots of time, and actually have this mirror held in front of them when they say something to me. Well, I'll say, well, that sounds a bit arrogant, or— Are you sure that's what's happening? Or are you sure that's what they think of you? Just to have a bit of a— because I know a lot of entrepreneurs, I always just say, don't get a lot of challenge in business a lot of the time because they're the expert, they're the person that set it up. They just don't get the challenge. So, that's the first thing, reflection space and time. And then the second thing is actually recognizing how they show up in key relationships. Now, a good example would be if they've got a chairman of their organization, for example, because it's an investor, if they're quite an authoritative figure, Many entrepreneurs will rebel against that kind of authority because, again, what's happened to them in their earlier lives. And that's not always the right thing to do with your chair. We see many boards where it's us and them, and we've got to show them, and we'll show them who's boss in this. But again, that's not always helpful. So, it's getting them to reflect on how they show up in relationships. And then the third thing is, once they become more aware of all of this, is how they manage that on a day-to-day basis when they're back in the workplace. when somebody triggers them. So when the finance director triggers them or their sales director triggers them because they're not performing and they seem to think to get control again. So we give them some coping strategies in the workplace about how to implement their insights.

Wow. And I can now really see how by dealing with the personal packaging, if you like, and you say responses, it can transform how they are then performing as a company too, as an entrepreneur. And Andrew, you've also now transitioned yourself because you were in the big smoke, in the big companies as a director and equity holder in a company, and now you've got your own business. So I'd love to hear how you've been building the Talents Partnership as well, because as you know, this is about the unnoticed entrepreneur and how people like you and I can go from some obscurity to some recognition and then unlock our own potential. How have you gone about doing that, Andrew? Because it's quite a big change from having all the corporate infrastructure and marketing teams and so on to building your own brand? How have you done that?

It's a really good question. I made some mistakes. We may come to a couple of those later, but initially I just started behaving exactly the same way in my business as I was in the corporate environment. So I was working ridiculous hours in a day. I was trying to do too many things. I was trying to do too many follow-ups and not really focusing on the things that were important to me. And then 2019, 2020, I actually, through COVID, had to change my whole business model in terms of what I was doing. And it It taught me at that point to really slow down, just really slow down and focus on who are my target market, who do I want to serve? Don't necessarily go through the channels I was going through before in terms of decision makers. And for my business, it used to be HR directors. That's who I used to go to in organizations. And I decided to go to the entrepreneur themselves, CEO, the CFO of the organization. That was a big change at that point. And then since then, it's been really targeted in terms of using LinkedIn as a tool to do that. 2 or 3 years ago called Octopus CRM, which really helped me. It ran in the background on my computer, making new connections with CEOs, founders that had just set up businesses or moved to new roles. And then I followed up then with a very soft email about having a conversation with them. And that's really helped me over the last 2 or 3 years. And then more recently, it's been about using the collateral from the book that we talked about in terms of being seen as an expert in that particular field and then having those conversations on that basis.

Can I just take you back? Because you mentioned that you changed strategy from going to HR directors to entrepreneurs. Are those entrepreneurs in the same companies that have those HR directors, or were you deciding to just go to a different target customer that doesn't have an HR director?

It's a good question. I was doing both at the time. So for me, it was about the leader, the owner, the entrepreneur, or the CEO with the decision maker. And those are the ones that have the most impact if they change their behaviors in terms of the business success and personal success. In some of the larger organizations, they employed an HR manager or HR director, and in some of the smaller ones, it was a personnel administrator. So, I decided to just go straight to the decision maker. They had budget, they knew whether they wanted support or not, and that was a big change in 2019, 2020.

Okay, yeah, that's great because it's really important to decide whether you're going directly to the end customer or through a gatekeeper of some kind as a strategy. The messaging is very different, isn't it? Andrew Tallants, you've written a book. I'd love to hear how you've done that because there's a rumor that it can make a difference to your business. So, I'd love to hear your experience of that. Sure.

Well, here's the book. I'll just show you now. So, it was Self-Coaching for Leaders. So, a bit of a journey with this one. I went to Daniel Priestley's Key Person of Influence conference back in 2017, and that was a really interesting seminar with lots of entrepreneurs in the room. And the premise was, if you want to be really good at what you do, you need to be a key mover and shaker in your field so you are the go-to person. And that was the premise. And it taught you that one of the ways to do that is obviously to write, to become very well known in your field, or to write a book. I thought, well, that's something I should definitely do. I actually wrote the title down back in 2017 and then just sat on it for 2 years. And then COVID happened and I had a chance because of the slowdown in the economy and not really traveling anywhere to think, well, actually maybe I should Look at this now. And back at that conference, at Daniel Priestley's conference, there was a lady there who had set up a business called Rethink Press. And Rethink Press were a publishing house that purely focused on working with entrepreneurs who wanted to write a book purely for the sole purpose of being an expert in their field and using it as a marketing tool with their potential client base. I thought that was really good for me. They weren't saying they were the best publishers in the world or that they author was going to produce a beautiful piece of work. It was about something that you knew that you were going to be an expert in. And so over a period of March to December in 2021, they supported me through mentoring. We had writers coming together, entrepreneurs on a video screen, turning the video off, and then actually writing our piece for an hour. So the discipline around that, they created a structure for us. And at the end, they actually said, you give it to us, Andrew, whatever you've written, 40,000 words, which is about right for any CEO or entrepreneur to read really and consume. We will actually then rewrite the bits that are a little bit repetitive. And then we'll produce this beautiful book and then publish it on Amazon for you and promote it for you. And that's what happened in those 3 months. And that was quite difficult for me because, like lots of entrepreneurs, I found it difficult to let go of the process. I needed help, but I wasn't sure where to get it. And this was a perfect structure for me.

Well, and as you rightly say, I mean, most entrepreneurs, including myself, struggle with the trust issue and who can do it as well as me and being out of control. And they, in some way, disarmed you and yet empowered you at the same time.

It did. I trusted them, and seeing what they'd done with other entrepreneurs and spoken to them, I just thought for me it was the right way to go. And it became an Amazon bestseller within a week of it being published, which I'm very proud of. And as you said earlier, it now gives me a reason to speak to people. What is this self-coaching? And let's be curious about it.

Well, let's be curious about how you've used the book, because as you say, it was a means to an end as opposed to trying to if you like, create necessarily— well, it's a thought leadership piece, isn't it? But around your business as opposed to sort of a generic category. Andrew Talents, how have you leveraged your book to build the Talent Partnership?

What I love about the journey is how it's happened. It's just emerged. So, for me, I wrote the book so I could be able to leave behind for clients rather than have a hard sell. And then they read the book or they didn't. But if they read the book, they understood what I did and how I could help people. And we all need this kind of help. So, that was the first thing. And then the second thing I did was actually sent it out to entrepreneurs that I knew in my sectors where they would know my name, but maybe knew me from headhunting, which is where I was before, as a lead behind again. It was a gift for them. And then there was a really nice, easy follow-up to actually, have you read the book? What did you think of the book? It'd be great to chat about it. Very nice, easy, soft follow-up. But more importantly, after that, people were asking me, well, Andrew, could you put this into a training program? Because actually my staff could do with learning about this kind of stuff. And therefore, through Kajabi, we're putting a training program together, which anybody can buy out there. It also leads to public speaking events. So people now invite me to speak about self-coaching. We use the premise of the book. And again, I'm getting in front of entrepreneurs in that. And then the final thing, which is a really exciting area now, is that because of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, I'm now working with a partner where we're looking at self-coaching for leaders in AI interface. where not only can they use the tools and the learning, but actually get a self-coaching bot to actually help them learn how to coach. And that wouldn't have happened if I didn't write the book. So all of those things are supporting me in terms of my client base.

Well, so the book started off, as you say, in a fairly modest sort of ambition, and then now it's created whole new lines of business for you, Andrew, as well. It's fantastic, isn't it? Now, you've made it sound like a little bit of a textbook journey from being successful in a in the boardroom of a headhunting company to transitioning to taking some time to reflect and now building this sort of multimedia business around the self-coaching. I have to ask you, have you done anything wrong? Any mistakes that you'd like to share?

The first one was, which I'm sure everyone can relate to, is when I set the business up in 2017, a really nice friend of mine said to me, Andrew, you're not going to want to employ an administration assistant or a PA because it's going to cost you money, but you need to do it. So, the first mistake I made was not appointing a PA, and it took me about 9 months to recognize that I should have appointed a PA. So, I did at that point. So, that was the first mistake I made because I was just doing all the stuff I shouldn't have been doing. The second thing was early on in the business, back in 2018, I decided to partner with somebody who was going to make appointments for me and also to represent me in the marketplace as Andrew Tallant and Associate. And that didn't work for me because it wasn't me. And the people wanted to buy me and the brand and the business, and it just didn't work. I tried it for 6 months, and even though they were very good at what they did, and I'm sure they were very good with the people, it just didn't work for me. So that was the second thing. And then the third thing was every single person that came about website development, improved marketing, messaging, what I learned was, is all those things weren't adding value. What was adding value was actually having a conversation with an entrepreneur about what their challenges were, that they were starting to plateau. They weren't letting go of control. They were seen as the expert and had to have the answers all the time, and that they didn't trust as many people. And I said, well, that's really interesting because that's what most of my clients feel before they start on the journey. Why don't we have a session together about how you might tackle this? And that was the best marketing ever. So I've learned through all the mistakes in the last 4 years that the best thing is just to get on the phone, like in the old-fashioned days, speak to people for half an hour. And then just agree that there might be some help I can give, or there isn't. And that's how the business now works.

Oh, so that's so interesting. So all the, if you like, the sort of personalization at scale and the high volume has been less valuable to you than just those one-on-one engagements. Is that right, Andrew? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, and you're right. And I think there's a hybrid to have there. So where Sales Navigator on LinkedIn is really good, it can identify the people, the leaders and entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs that have either switched roles recently or set up new businesses. And so when somebody's new into a position or a startup in that first 90 days, 6 months, that's a good time to have a conversation about where they're going. So I do use the software in that way, but actually then the magic is in the conversation itself because once you connect with somebody and they recognize you've helped people like them, it's a no-brainer to have a further discussion over a cup of coffee.

And are you sending them just emails or are you using Faris's technique of audio or anything else?

I drop a video note as well. So I liked his thing about this sort of talking notes, but I also drop little video notes when they get appointed just to say congratulations on the appointment. That'd be great to catch up with what's going on in the next 2 or 3 months. Just nice personalized, because then they see the authentic nature of it again, that you're not selling, you're really interested in what it is that they're doing.

Okay, wonderful. And I have to ask you then, Andrew, if there's one thing sort of overarching that my fellow entrepreneurs, unnoticed entrepreneurs, could learn from you that you'd like to share about getting noticed specifically? What would you say has really been the sort of overall driver for the success of the Talents Partnership?

So, I learned it the hard way. The first thing, and they're all linked, is focus. So, who is it you're serving? Be really focused on that and understand it. Second, be an expert in that and become by either writing a book, blogging, speaking, public speaking, so that people know that's what you've got expertise in. And then the third is make sure you're having enough conversations about the fact that you know what you're talking about and that can benefit the person you're speaking to. And that for me is what it's about. It doesn't need to be any more complex than that.

Well, I asked for one, but you've given us 3 points. So that's fantastic, Andrew. Think about what value you're bringing. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Andrew Tallants joining me from the Wirral, just south of Liverpool in the northwest of England. If you want to find out more about you and how you can help them unlock the potential that they've got in both themselves and their business, How do they find you?

Yeah, 2 places. So the first, they just go to www.selfcoachingforleaders.com. They'll find all my details on there. But of course, I'm on LinkedIn as well, Andrew Tallants of the Tallants Partnership. Very happy to connect there and talk to anyone who's interested.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing so much amazing value. And you've been listening to Andrew Tallants. And of course, I will put his details in the show notes as always. And if you've enjoyed the show, do please share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. And if you've also enjoyed the show, please review it because it really helps us to know what you think about the show. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. Thank you.