1. What's your 30-second elevator speech?
I love the whole concept of elevator pitches. My whole career has felt a little like the elevator its self. I might not always have known what was on the next floor but I made sure I knew what buttons needed pushing to get there.
With 6 of the last 7 years spent at 2 of Australia’s largest Marketing & Sales agencies, we were the elevators. Working all hours, servicing more clients and customers than we will ever remember, being paid to get them to the top quicker and more efficiently than they could do themselves.
It was fast paced, high energy and provided access to some amazing people, brands and strategies for growth. Whilst we were the elevators to growth for these businesses the environment created constant opportunities for personal learning and professional development.
This positioned me well for my current roles heading up sales & business development for Everest Ice cream and Recently expanding into contract consulting with businesses looking to grow and expand their brands.
2. Who inspires you the most to be the best you can be as a person?
My family is my inspiration, My wife Georgia and kids, Indigo, Havana, Floyd, Oak and York are my world, They are the reason I have always worked harder than I had too and pushed to deliver results as well as being the best version of myself. Partly because the thought of being at home with 5 kids everyday scares me to death but mostly because I want them to have the best life possible.
3. In your role National Business Development Manager at Everest Ice Cream, what has been one of your biggest challenges in COVID-19 in managing your Company's sales development and partnerships across the B2B and B2C channels.
Fear.
Fear of change.
The fear of change is crippling more business than COVID in the food service industry.
The market has changed, consumer behaviours have changed, restrictions have forced businesses to change.
The businesses that have been too scared to adapt and innovate to meet these changes, to scared to innovate away from a proven strategy, to scared to trust in others advice have stalled and unfortunately stalled business wont recover without significant assistance.
Being a predominantly foodservice supplier our sales stalled with them.
We changed, we innovated, we targeted different markets, from foodservice to healthcare, from dine in gourmet to take home indulgence. The shift in attention came with risk, it wasn’t proven, it was different but it worked better than remaining idol.
4. Your one of Motive Coworking, Corporate professionals, using this space on the Northern Beaches. How did you come about working at Motive Coworking, and what was the decision behind working in this type of space rather than your Company's head office?
Going from working in the city with 250 staff to primarily home office was a tough adjustment.
I missed the collaboration, I missed being around driven and inspiring people, I missed listening to people ideas and aspirations, and I missed having a space.
A space for me is so important. A space that separates work from home.
Having a clear boundary is important for my family dynamic, when im home im “dad”, I make pillow forts, I play footy, im king of mario cart (not really but I try) but my kids see me as fun. They’re excited to see me, they tell me the 7000 individual things they did that day in detail and we play.
Working from home 24-7 changed that dynamic, all of a sudden I was unavailable, happy talking on the phone but not to them, busy typing away on the laptop but cant take 2 mins to type in their show on Netflix (again for the 17th time in the morning).
All of a sudden I was starting earlier and still checking emails into dinner and they stopped asking me to help, they weren’t excited when I finished work, they stopped asking me to play cause they got used to me saying I was working.
Being at Motive changed all that, Having an inspiring space changed all that.
I'm fun dad again.
5. The old concept of having a physical office address has changed with Covid-19. Before these unprecedented times, Corporate Businesses would shy away from allowing their staff to work from home. In your opinion, why should corporate business enable staff to work from coworking spaces such as Motive?
Businesses have slowly been evolving over time with better remote capabilities, we have seen hot desking become a thing to reduce on fixed desk space and staff start to work from home and or in spaces of their choosing more and more.
The problem has never been the capability for it to become a choice but an inability for businesses to trust they are getting what they pay for. The idea that you pay someone to work 38 hours a week needs to change.
I have never held my teams accountable to their hours of work but rather to their quality and delivery of required results.
COVID has forced businesses to shift to measuring outcomes and output over hours and largely the results haven’t changed. If anything people are more productive, businesses are seeing they can save on leasing costs in favour of flexible arrangements and use of coworking spaces.
The benefits of working from a shared coworking space are largely dependent on the people. Motive provides a wide range of smart professionals with unbiased opinion, innovative ideas and great community environment.
Not to mention the Traditional Friday BBQ & Beers, only bettered by the Motive international ping pong tournaments normally initiated after one or more of the Friday traditions.
6. What does life looking outside your business profile? What do you like doing for fun?
Having 5 kids in the last 8 years has been a wild ride. From Dance, to soccer, football, swimming at the beach and down in north narrabeen pool our weeks never have a dull moment.
We have always loved to entertain and socialise, BBQs were becoming a regular event for family and friends at our place before covid struck.
During the lockdown social drinks and bbqs were replaced by family Friday drinks and tik tok dances.
Trying to get all the kids to agree on the same song is hard enough let alone getting the moves right.
Life over the last couple years has been crazy but we have a lot of fun!
7. Lastly, I hear from a reliable source that you can get your hands on "ice cream." What’s your favourite flavor, and can you bring a tub to Friday's BBQ lunch at Motive!
I’m an old man when it comes to my favourites. I like the old school flavours.
I grew up loving rum and raisin ice cream and hazelnut gelato.
Lucky we make both so I have been set for the last 12 months.
I’ll have to place an order to make sure there’s plenty to go round come Friday!
Motive coworking is now rolling out weekly eNews showcasing our community, want to learn more, or would you like to appear in our next edition, ask Jack or Perry, we’d love you to be involved.