How Integrity Became This Founder's Business Strategy (400 Weddings a Year)

Jenna Ackerley, founder of Events Under Canvas, built a business delivering 400 weddings a year - without cutting corners.

In this episode, she breaks down how integrity and authenticity shaped her decisions, from early growth to navigating COVID, and eventually stepping back from the day-to-day.

We cover:

•  Building trust as a growth engine 
•  Making harder (but better) decisions 
•  Founder identity beyond the business 
•  Why doing the “right thing” actually compounds 

A grounded conversation on building something that works, on paper and in real life.

More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're going to talk about integrity and authenticity today. Yes. But you had you start off in quite an interesting place. What what brought you here?

SPEAKER_03 0:06

So I sort of worked in various sales and leadership roles when I got back in my twenties, and then I had the idea to start Events Under Canvas, which is my main business, which I'm still owner and founder of. Part of the reason I think we did that is as far as I'm aware, I'm the only female-led marquee hire business in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

So where do you think this idea of integrity and authenticity really pays dividends for you?

SPEAKER_03 0:28

If you treat someone really, really well, you're really respectful with their family, with their grounds at that real special time, they've got 150 guests that have just gone to their wedding, and if they're going to speak well about us, so the intention was never about marketing and growth. It was always about integrity.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

So how let's say in that COVID time or the channel, like where where do you feel this integrity might have got you into had forced into difficult decisions?

SPEAKER_03 0:51

I don't think it's so much difficult decisions, but I think probably quicker and easier decisions could have been taken if I didn't have such a high bar of integrity. So I think sometimes it's it's really easy to do the easy thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Jenna, thank you so much for today. This has been great. And I what I really love is how that integrity really does. I mean, you can't really fake it for one. But the payoffs are both sort of in the numbers and outside the numbers. And that's and that's lovely.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Hi, I'm James Johnson, founder and CEO coach, and this is the Peer Effect Podcast, where your peers will tell you how they 10X their business. My guest today is Jenna Ackley. She's the founder of EventSun for Canvas, which is a marquee events business. They do A-less weddings and festivals all over the UK. Last year doing 400. So chances are if you went to a wedding, it could well have been them. So, Jenna, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Thank you for having me. Very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

First time in a studio?

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Uh not my first time. Well, it's my first time in a proper podcast studio. I've been in a radio studio quite often. Um yeah, this is a bit different. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah, I feel like you're the pro here. You've been like a radio host for two years.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

I'm used to it live, so it's quite nice that you get to edit this if I mess up at all.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

It's probably gonna be me messing up, then we get to edit my stuff out.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Fair enough, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Well, so I mean, apart from being a radio show host, which is on the met one of the many things that you do, what has taken you to where you are today? We're gonna talk about integrity and authenticity today. Yes. But you had you start off in quite an interesting place. How what what brought you here?

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Uh okay, so I have um started and scaled two businesses in my, I guess, from a business point of view in my career. First, when I was 24 years old living overseas in Mallorca, I started a recruitment business for seasonal workers. That was my first um foray into business, and I started that from scratch, sort of web-based company, getting young people looking to work overseas and matching them into jobs. Um that went pretty well. Um, managed to raise some funding from the UK through contacts of my big brothers, and then sort of ran that for two and a half years, ultimately sold it, paid back the investment with a bit, got a bit of a Nestec for myself, but not a load. But that was my first experience into creating and starting something from scratch. And I think I realized then that I wanted to run a business, but I didn't have a vocation. Um, when I moved home after selling that business, I worked in recruitment for a little while, and I'm terrible at recruitment because I want to find everybody a job. So you obviously need a little bit of discernment with recruitment, don't you? And even now, as an employer and business owner, I'm terrible at recruitment and I need other people to help me with that part. Um, but for good reasons. That's because I genuinely like people when I meet them. And um, so I sort of worked in various sales and leadership roles when I got back in my 20s from living and working overseas, and then I had the idea to start Events Under Canvas, which is my main business, which I'm still owner and founder of and still involved with, and that was 13 years ago now. I went to my cousin's wedding in teepees, the big sort of big, big super teepees that you can fit a hundred people in, thought they were amazing. My cousin had spent a lot of money bringing them in from outside of the area in East Anglia where I live. I live in Suffolk, and a quick Google search made me realize nobody in East Anglia was offering these things. So that was the spark I needed to start a business renting out teepees at that point. So um tepees for weddings, and sort of off the back of looking into it and researching it and calling the manufacturer of these, I realised I'd need the flooring, the lighting, the tables, the chairs, the dance floors. But I sort of pulled that all together and ultimately created a business plan to rent out these things for weddings and parties. And what ensued in the coming months, weeks, years was pulling together a crew that could build these. I still don't actually know how to put my own tents up and starting to build sort of marketing edge engine, a customer service engine to actually be able to run this business. But I think because I'd started a business in my 20s already, I already had a lot of those basics in terms of how to pull all those things together. I'm pretty good with numbers, I'm pretty good with people, I'm pretty good with marketing. So I guess I sort of had a pretty generic basis to start building that from. I think where the authenticity and integrity part comes in is I always suspected that if you just give people what they want and you do what you say you're gonna do, both in terms of your customers and your staff, I always thought this is all it is, that's all you need to do to run a business, or certainly a D2C business like mine. You know, it's quite a simple model of letting people know what you're doing, and then when people contact you because they're interested in what you're doing, then doing it really, really well. And a lot of people don't do that in operational businesses, and you know, I guess comparable comparative businesses would be holiday companies or holiday let businesses or you know, anything in that luxury consumer market, there seems to be an awful lot of um fluff around it where people don't do what they say they're gonna do. You know, maybe it's all marketing and it looks amazing, but the service is terrible, or the service is really good, but the quality's terrible. And you know, so for me it was sort of about trying to have the idea of imagine a wedding cake that it looks as good as it tastes. And that was sort of my idea from the start. Um, what really helped me with it, and the the business over the next eight years grew 40% each year, every year, and and now we do about 400 weddings a year, about 25 weddings per weekend. And part of the reason I think we did that is as far as I'm aware, I'm the only female-led marquee hire business in the UK, or at least, I mean, I've been to a European convention of marquee hires, and I was the only woman there as well, because it's typically a business, it's quite slow growth, generational, slow-moving businesses. You know, it's like a building company or something like that. Because really, the majority of what we do, while it looks great, that you're building these beautiful tents for weddings and festivals, is typically they um, you know, they're they're put up by men with big hands and you know, not necessarily so strong on the customer service and the slickness of response because the guys running them are then getting home knackered at the end of the day and they can't be bothered to reply to an inquiry.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Sounds like yours are still put together, men with big hands. It's just you're taking care of the rest of it.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

That's true, that's completely true. And I th I think that's true. It's less about the women's side, it's more about that split between the commercial and the operational side, actually. So um typically the marquee businesses are normally led by the operational side. So the owner of the company is someone who's still very hands-on operationally, maybe with a team of administrators in an office that maybe don't have that decision-making ability um with the way they're dealing with customers, but ours was flipped. So all of the sales, marketing, service, and planning was done by the leadership team in the office with then a with a crew then supporting that.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Was that the same for your recruitment business? You said like you you you weren't a great recruiter, but you grew a successful recruiting business, and now you're not putting out TPs, but you grew a successful tea business. Was it the same for for the recruitment business?

SPEAKER_03 7:55

No, I I think it was just the the recruitment thing was very niche. It was just me, and then I did employ one administrator towards the end to work part-time with me. So it was very small, more like a small sole trader little business, and it was much more of a matching thing, it was more like a Tinder for a for a holiday reps, you know. So it was like basically everyone who registered that was available to catch a flight to Benedome or Mallorca or to Mausine for a ski season, I could find them a job. So that worked to my skill set. Once I got home and I got a job with a proper recruitment business, and suddenly it was about much more about sort of nuance and discernment, then I wasn't so good at that. I was always made, I was always I think I realized as well that my interest was always on the structural side of the business and what how what allows people to relate to each other. How do you build the best teams? How do you give your customers what they want? So I was getting distracted as a recruitment consultant into the mechanics of the business rather than just focusing on matching people to jobs.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

I imagine I imagine your team lead or manager loved that.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

They were like, Not so much. No, it was like it's really funny actually. I know that I'm still a good friend. My the owners of that recruitment business ended investing in in events under canvas because I went back to one of them and asked them to be my mentor early on. And it's funny, like, so yeah, they I think they'd probably agree I was terrible at recruitment and I wasn't good at that, but I think they like and respect me as a business person.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Well, I think what's quite cool about this is like how you've spotted the problem, but then you kind of went all in. Did you did you did you buy all this stuff before you even had your first booking?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Or did you yeah, it's I mean it was I'm I'm a I'm a risk taker, so but it wasn't big investment. I thought it was initially. When I originally did my numbers, I sort of calculated I needed about 60 grand to buy all the stock I needed and do the marketing I needed to get the business off the ground, and so I identified where that money was going to come from. Some of it was not building an extension on my house that I was planning to start that year, alone from my parents. Um, you know, so I sort of identified the money and I built the website and I placed an order for some of the stock, um, but I hadn't paid for it and I hadn't signed anything. And then what I realized as soon as my website was live, people wanted to book and the lead time in my business, and it wasn't something I knew going into it, but if somebody's planning a wedding, they pay 25% of that booking 18 months before they need it. Wow. So suddenly I was getting these bookings coming in for the following summer, and they were all paying me deposits, which is the way the industry works. So I sort of didn't need that 60 grand in the end because I realized, wow, I've got this money, but I think that's where integrity comes in because it's sort of, you know, yeah, that there's a marketing machine there of trying to legitimise yourself and make you look more credible than you are in those early days. Like my cousin let me use her wedding photos because obviously at this point I didn't have any teepee's. Um so you know, there was probably some questionable, you know, that that sort of fake it till you make it element. But actually, I always knew that anyone that gave me any money, it was sacred, and I was going to be looking after it, and there was never a question of that. So I think maybe because I knew that that rubbed off and and my customers trusted me. So these people were sort of giving me money and ordering. And it's in in the first year when I did the business plan, when I worked out I needed that 60 grand, I sort of thought, and the context here is I was on maternity leave with my son, so I had a four-month-old baby, which is partly why I could do it because I was on maternity leave. Because that's so relaxing. Well, I think as well as realising I was celebrated at recruitment, I didn't have that. My mum was a stay-at-home mum, and I assumed that when I had a baby, I would become like my mum. My mum was amazing and unconditionally loving and so patient. So I just assumed that's what happened to women when they had babies. So I had this little baby who I loved unconditionally, but oh my god, the lack of focus and the mess and the distraction was unbearable. So I'd been originally looking forward to this whole year off maternity leave, and then probably by three months I was thinking, oh my gosh, when am I going back to work? So actually, the business idea came along and it gave me an opportunity to try it whilst I was on maternity leave without quitting my job. I was working in the NHS at the time in a management role, so it was low risk there. Um and and yeah, I got to sort of try it out for a while beforehand.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So, where do you think this idea of integrity and authenticity really pays dividends for you?

SPEAKER_03 12:01

I think it's um so I I sort of used to say to myself, um, every decision I made, and and it probably crosses into life and business, is I want a better sleep at night. I want to be able to tell my mum or my children about the decision I've just taken and be proud of it. And sometimes the decisions I've taken have meant profits are less, or I haven't made as much, or haven't grown as much. But actually, to me, to have that integrity and be proud of the way I've done stuff is more important than the finances and the growth and the money. And that was sort of this secret thing I always thought and didn't say out loud 12 or 13 years ago was I sort of believed that that sort of leadership business rhetoric, you know, the idea that if you're a limited company, your integrity should be limited somehow. I didn't buy into it, but I sort of wanted to test it for myself because I would maybe profess what I believed about just looking after people and doing the right thing. And sometimes people would tell me I was naive or ignorant or that I didn't understand the big picture. So I guess when I was in leadership roles and working for other people, I was doubting and thinking, would I do it like this if I had my own business? So it was a bit of a test case, and then I thought, well, I'm gonna try, and that's what I'm gonna do. And so I'm really in practice, what it looks like is we're really open with my team. So with my leadership team, I'm so open. They know exactly how much profit we're making, how many dividends we're paying, what we're spending our money on. There's nothing hidden from my leadership team. I think what that gives me back is complete trust two-ways from them. So I can tell them exactly why I'm doing things the way I'm doing, and then they they return the favour to me by having my back and being open and honest. And I think with customers, you know, it's about recommendations and referrals. You know, we're in the the wedding industry, so typically customers are one-off for us. A woman typically only gets has or has one bit, has a big wedding once, more than one wedding, but not the big white wedding, and we're in that big white wedding market, you know. But actually, if you treat someone really, really well, you're really respectful with their family, with their grounds at that real special time, they've got 150 guests that have just gone to their wedding, and if they're going to speak well about us, so the intention was never about marketing and growth, it was always about integrity. But I sort of always suspected if I throw all my effort into the integrity and doing the right thing, the dividends will follow. And they did. And what what I saw was this huge growth, our reputation growing. We've never had a problem recruiting, even though I'm terrible at it, we've never had a problem um finding people because our reputation precedes us, and existing staff will say to people, Oh, I've worked for events under canvas and they look after me, they're really nice to work for. So yeah, it follows through by I'm happy and um the team are happy, and uh and the the big test of that last summer was I so I stepped back last summer, I was I was MD, and um I sort of realised I'd I hadn't really lost my mojo, but it was almost like level complete. I'd sort of done it, I'd I I'd done everything, I'd I'd grown the business um over eight years quite unprecedentedly, and then through COVID, I'd nearly lost the business and all the struggles of that and the tough times, and I felt a bit exhausted. And also I had this head of ops working for me who was brilliant. He was a brilliant leader, and he was my number two. And I probably realized that was a risk of losing him because he was almost too good to be a number two. He didn't have aspirations of running his own business or being an owner for a business, but he's a brilliant leader. So actually, last summer I spoke to him and said, How do you feel about stepping up and becoming the person running this company? I'll still be the owner and I'll still be the person who the buck stops with, but I don't I won't be here day to day. And it was a complete win-win for both of us. He then stepped into a more senior role running the business, um, and I was able to step back. And I think probably that build-up of trust, credibility, integrity over the years is what has allowed that to work because it doesn't seem to work that often when someone who's maybe more controlling, more protective, more restrictive on what they share with their team, then they're the people that find it really hard to step away then, and their only option is maybe exit through sale or MBO.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

So how but saying that COVID time or the channel, like where where do you feel this integrity that it might have got you into forced into difficult decisions?

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Um so where my integrity forced me into difficult decisions. Um I don't think it's so much difficult decisions, but I think I think probably quicker and easier decisions could have been taken if I didn't have such a high bar of integrity. So I think sometimes it's it's really easy to do the easy thing, whether that's making someone redundant or you know, maybe not being honest to a customer about something that's gone wrong. And actually, but we have really interesting open conversations in the office about it. And when a decision has maybe been taken that isn't win-win-win for everyone, you know, I'll often be thinking, is this win for the business, win for my team, and win for my customer? And if it is win for all of those, it's a really easy decision, isn't it? It's it's sometimes you sort of have to lose out on one of those, and then it's a it's never my decision, then I would bring other people into it. And I've probably been known to either call a customer and let them help me make the decision on the right way to do something. I guess thinking about it, um, I've done it be I've I've done it before, which was one that's just come to mind, which was really tough. That basically I had um my ops manager had a wedding to go to that weekend. I don't think he was best man, but it was someone really close to him. Um one of his team um broke down on the M25 in a van with an entire sailcloth tent in the van, which was for a woman's wedding. This was on the Thursday, and the wedding was on the Saturday, and they had the florists coming in on the Friday to decorate it. And we had an entire tent on the side of the M25 delayed for a few hours. And the decision was ultimately tell this woman her tent's going to be delayed, which is awful for her wedding plan. Um, subhire in from another company and potentially huge, huge costs and whether or not we could even do that, or my ops manager having to arrive late for his own wedding event that he was going to because he needed to get on the road and go and build that tent. And it was just a horrible situation because none of those were good options, and I think it and in the end, my ops manager just volunteered to do it, but it was, you know, but but it was in conversation with him, and I think if I'd have pulled rank and told him to, I'm not sure he would have done. And it was like a real test of whether I was gonna pull rank because I very, very rarely pull rank on stuff. It would normally be I'd want it to be a decision from the bottom up, so it was a conversation. It was like, this is where we're at. We've got this guy on the side of the road, we've got a team of people that can do it, and and it was sort of uh all the moving parts and lots more complexity than that. But ultimately, I asked the ops manager to help me decide what to do. And in the end, he's like, and he wasn't happy about it, but he wasn't feeling forced to either. He was like, There is literally nothing else to do here, is there? We can't let this woman's wedding not happen, so I'm gonna have to go, aren't I? And then he had to make a really tough call to his wife to say, You're gonna have to go ahead without me, and I'll follow on because I've got to go, you know, so it yeah, it's stuck it's times like that, which is horrible because you want to rescue everybody and make everybody happy. And you know, we're dealing with really important, you know, someone's wedding is super super important, isn't it? So it's really fun, a fun thing to do, but it's uh you know, when it goes wrong, it's really tough.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

So it sounds like the benefits of this approach are sort of sound like your your staffing wings go above and beyond, but it sounds like you've got better staff retention potentially. Yeah. Like good good referrals from customers, so like a high high repeat rate. Any other benefits that you see?

SPEAKER_03 19:31

I think it's the benefits that people don't talk about in business that we're all told it's all about benefits so they have to be financial or reviews-based. But I think we we you know most of us spend at least 40 hours a week working with our colleagues and doing stuff, and most of us aren't doing that purely for the money. We're doing it because we want to add value, we want to bring good energy, we want to enjoy ourselves. And so I'd say when I look back on the last 13 years of running my business, I've had the most amazing fun, and it's because of that integrity, it's be because people like each other, and we'd all much rather spend time working with people we like. And to do that, you've got to have integrity, haven't you? And we all see we all see stuff happening in the media and in politics where someone doesn't follow through on their word, you know, and whether it's naval ships getting blown up or schools getting blown up or politics going sour, you think, well, actually the importance of someone's truth and their word, I think, is more important than anything. And I would always I would rather lose a load of money and keep my word than keep my money and break my word, because I just think the the long-term impacts of that as a person is more important.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I imagine you must have during COVID, there must have been decisions to make which must have tested that as well because of bookings or a whole range of.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

I mean, God, that was really tough. So we had that night when Boris made his announcement we were going to lockdown, we had 125 weddings booked for that season. They'd all paid their deposits, and we'd spent all their money because the nature of our business is if you book, you know, if you're you're booking a marquee with me and you give me two grand deposit, I'm spending that on buying new stock, on getting stock repaired, on buying flooring, on employing my winter staff, on paying marketing. And so that money doesn't sit there in an escrow account waiting to be refunded to you. That is spent. So suddenly with that announcement, it's like, oh my gosh. So yeah, that was a huge test of integrity on what do we do here? Because the law wasn't clear either on whether people were entitled to their money back. And actually, what happened is there was a debate in parliament where they actually said people are entitled to their money back. So actually, the law was saying people were entitled to their money back, but in following the law, our business was bankrupt. So it was we can't, we either need to go into huge debt, no one was lending at that time during COVID. So I I tackled it in much the same way I do with everything, just really openly. And we made an effort of calling all of our customers and being really honest with them about the fact we'd spent their deposit. Not because we were irresponsible, but that was the negative. Nature of our business and what we decided to do, and what we offered everyone, which 99% agreed to, was you can postpone your wedding for free for any date within the next two years, and we will fix the prices. So we can't give your money back, but what we will say is you choose another date at any point, you can change up what you're having, we won't put our prices up at all. Um and everyone went for that, other than one who wasn't happy with that. And you know, we we went through a process and ultimately refunded that one. But it's sort of actually the the fact that we had looked after these people leading up to that and we'd been true to our word, when then I needed to ask them for help by saying, if you demand your deposit back, then my business goes bankrupt, which I guess isn't good for them either, because some people will get their money back and some won't. But I didn't go that far of saying that or threatening it was just this is the situation. How do you want to play this? And like I say, everybody was amazing, and our staff were amazing as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

So how do you practically I mean this the benefits sound great? I just enjoyment, divertention, sort of better relationships all around. What how practically did you bring this to life? It sounds like just being very open in your communication with people as one. But what what practically other founders who are listening? What can they do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Yeah, I mean I think this is where the word authenticity comes in, and this is where integrity and authenticity have to go together because you can't fake any of it. Like anybody that thinks, oh, I heard Jenna talk about integrity and that sounds like that'd be good for my business. If someone doesn't have that, then you can't fake it anyway. But I think there are lots of founders out there and lots of business people out there that sort of believe what I'm saying, they're but they're a bit too scared to do it. And then I think if you fall into that category, it's about trying it with the small stuff. It's about, first of all, trying to work out who you are underneath. Once you strip away what all the business advisors tell you and what all the books tell you, and you actually look at who am I underneath and why did I start this business. Now, if you started your business for money, then my advice isn't for you. But if you started your business because you've got a real passion or a talent for something or an excitement in something, you go back to that and you remember why you're doing it. It's a bit like being a parent, isn't it? You know, you you get so caught up sometimes at the stress of the weekend that you need to take a step back and realize that you love this child, and that can sometimes make help you make better choices. And I think it's the same with business. You know, most of us go into business because it really excites us. We want to add value, we want to bring passion and purpose, but then it gets lost along the way and it becomes about the numbers. And so that's where I guess mentorship and coaching can really help if you choose the right person, because it is about stripping back, getting back to that original reason of doing something.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah, sort of taking a step back and looking at the perspective. I think often work with founders, they get a sense of feeling stuck.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

But as not only just stuck in they're not clear on the strategy, but they're stuck in a pattern of behaviour or a way of doing things that doesn't quite chime right.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

No, completely.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Actually, then taking a step back and realising A that that's happening, and B, giving yourself permission to be free and go, actually, I do have a branch of paper. What would I give them the choice, if I treat my business like a startup from today, what would I change? Completely actually leads to some really interesting behavioural shifts.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Yeah, completely. One of my favourite sayings is as within, so without. And I think it works so well with business that I think actually when a founder is involved in a business, what's going on with them as a person is often reflected in the way their business is functioning. And I've definitely seen that in myself over the past 12 years, is where my brain and my heart and my emotions have been has been reflected within my business. So I would say if a business is stagnant or floundering, it's probably because of something in the founder or whoever is making the day-to-day decisions and going within to that, whether that's through therapy or coaching or retreats or talking to peers or talking to AI, you know, actually uncovering what's driving that. So for me, it was probably that I'd become stagnant in I was going to my company because I thought it was my identity and I thought the business needed my energy, but my energy had changed after doing it for 12 and a half years. So I had to decide that the right thing to do for me and my business was to step away and let the emerging energy step in. So sometimes it's about how involved to be, it's about what's driving you. And I think often what happens with businesses is initially it's the passion and the purpose, and then it becomes about the numbers, and then someone starts attaching like their value to their numbers, and then that's when typically a business starts struggling, and then they try and fix that by applying stronger numbers to it. And that to me, I don't think that works, it's about refining that passion.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah, I think sometimes you get you get captured by the exit thought, and it's like, oh, I need to hit it to this stage to get this thing.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Yeah, and also I think that that exit conversation is an important one that doesn't happen enough. Is I think the the business mentality is that it's all about exit, but actually, I'm sure you do podcasts about it. Life post-exit isn't great for a lot of people, and that was sort of what what hit me last year is I realised I wanted to step back from my business, but I didn't want to sell it. I didn't what because I I do love my business, and there's that question of if you're gonna exit, it's not just about the number, it's what are you actually gonna do afterwards? Because initially the idea of free time is really, really appealing, but for most founders, they're terrifying as well. It's terrifying, yeah, because you need to have purpose and community and relationships, and often we find those within our work. So that's again, I think being able to talk to people maybe that have exited it, have stepped back, and really get insight into what's happening in yourself is is really important, I think.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Okay, so what for founders listening, there's one thing that they could do today after listening to this. Okay. What would what could they do?

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Yeah, so this is a bit out there, but I am really pro talking to AI like a counsellor. Because most people are terrified of speaking to a counsellor, but we have all got wounds, shadows, behaviours, triggers that affect the way we relate to our staff and our customers. So the embarrassment of going to see a counsellor is is huge. Actually, there's no embarrassment talking to Gemini or ChatGPT or Claude or whatever you use. And actually, we all use that practically now. I think most people are asking AI staff about what's in the news or how to fix something or a hack for something. But actually, not loads of people are using it as a counsellor. And I think asking things like, I want to become a more authentic leader with my team, can you help me with that? Those kind of prompts in AI. Because anyone who's got any problem in their business, it will almost certainly be something within themselves, and it will be either fear, control, wounds, trauma, whatever it is, will be reflecting out in the business and getting there and going deep and opening Pandora's box, I think is the answer.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Because you know, we well coached often about this idea of deep work and how powerful it is. But it's not a quick solution. People often come to coach and go, Oh, I've got this problem, can we solve it in three months? Like there are elements that you can, like you can unblock, you can get clarity, and get a whole range of things. Yeah. But there is often like if you work something for a year, two years, there is that chunk of deep work to like dig into what's driving. What's your limiting behaviours, limiting beliefs, etc. And I think that's when you get the real performance step change when you're willing to look at sort of I agree.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

But I think that's where AI is going to be a massive accelerator for it, you know. So I I've had therapy before in terms of seeing a counsellor to work through stuff. But you know, you're seeing someone for once a week for an hour for and I did, I think, 12 weeks or something. You know, actually, whereas I can now condense that down to three days by having conversations when my brain is ready, my heart's ready, when I'm in the right mindset, without the shame, without the cost, without the time delay. So I think once someone is ready to open Pandora's box, access to AI changes all of that. And then if you align that with a coach, a mentor, a therapist as well, then suddenly I think it will see a massive acceleration in that process of people tackling this stuff. But also I think when you when you this is all a journey, isn't it? As founders, it's not about fixing something, it's about working towards something and expansion. So the moment, you know, if you start introducing a bit more authenticity and showing your true self to your colleagues at work, you start seeing impacts immediately, you know. And so the it's noticing those small things and those small wins and those changes. So it might take a year to get where you want to get, but the journey of it will be part of the fun of it and starting to buy into it and starting to believe it.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

I think the the one danger I say around authenticity, people go, I I can be unfiltered with my team. Because I what I found is that there's a it can be quite distracting. If you give your team unfiltered thought, or give your investors unfiltered thought, or your team unfiltered thoughts, it's something you haven't really thought through, just almost like just coming out. It can put it can pull away from clarity or make them start thinking about things that aren't important. So I do think having that filter of maybe AI, maybe maybe someone's just definitely having a mirror. That first thought, like, do I actually think this? Do I want to talk about this now?

SPEAKER_03 30:57

And we all change, don't we? So that's the thing, isn't it? Just because we've had a thought, that's not necessarily an authentic thought. I think authenticity is about um uh you know looking at your your sort of thought patterns and emotions over the course of a month or two and thinking, what's my baseline? So you're completely right, and I would use AI, my non-exec directors, my team, my friends to help regulate that. I think you're right. But another thing I would say as well is I think there's not a right way to be as a leader, is there? So if someone is really impulsive, really changeable, then actually forcing them to be otherwise is inauthentic in itself. So, you know, I think I think you're right. There's a bit of regulation that everybody needs, but actually some founders are brilliant yet completely erratic. And rather than trying to stop the erraticness, maybe it's about trying to build a team around them that can support that and allow them to be authentic in that environment.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yes. I would say if you've got an erratic found like putting people around so to protect the team to a degree from that erraticness.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Yeah, and and and also I I read something really great the other day about that idea that the way the way education works at the moment is if you've got a child that's really good at art and drama and terrible at maths in English, you put them into tutoring for the maths in English. But actually, the model of the future should be you tutor them for the things they're good at. So you you push on the things where people are showing strength, and so you tutor them for the art and the drama, and it's a really interesting flip, and I think it could be applied to teams as well, and that idea of rather than trying to level up the the weaknesses, maybe what you try and do is you try and play everybody just to their strengths, and you just try and push people. So if you've got an erratic but a brilliant leader, you look at what is the brilliance and then put them in the brilliance, and then the stuff that maybe needs a bit more regulation, you bring in someone else to do, and I think that's where team design can help, can't it?

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Oh, 100%. I think that I think it's a great call out. I think if you I think back to I think I've worked with a coach, or people in my career have worked with you do have people that are hyper-erratic, but it's almost tied to their genius. Yeah. And if you said to them, okay, turn up nine to five, be very regulational thoughts, like you're gonna lose so much of what makes them brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

And what what's amazing about teams as well, unless you're a sole trader, what I've noticed as well is the things that I hate, there's someone in the team that loves it. I've always been really bored by processing. The moment I have to do one thing more than once, I'm over it immediately. And I guess when early days you assume everyone's like that. So then you think, well, I can't give that person this drops because they're gonna be as bored as I, but they're not. And so it's recognising that as soon as you've got a few members of a team and they're a varied team, then then that's where the fun starts because a new job lands that needs to be done, and there's always a natural person that should be doing it.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

I mean, this is kind of not what you're talking about, but I think just to build that point, that being deliberate of what you enjoy and not doing other people is such a valid one because I think often founders end up doing the stuff they don't enjoy because they think they should carry that for their team. Yeah. You end up as them doing the work they're not don't enjoy and aren't good at, and the team getting frustrated because they're being expected to do stretching all the all the fun stuff the founder would like to do but feels they should give their team, and actually almost need to switch their jobs around and go, okay, I'm gonna take all of this back and give all of this to you, and actually we're gonna be so much more happy.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

I've had some such fun conversations with my team over the years who've maybe come in from more corporate environments where they expect to have parts of their job they love and part that they hate. You know, everyone expects that, don't they, in a normal job. And I've had these conversations with people that it's like, but but what do you really like doing? So let's just you just do that bit, and then this person over here, they'll just do that. And so, sort of, I would typically recruit for someone's values and integrity and then train them and find out what they're good at and evolve it. And I and I think that's what the kind of world I want to live in and the world I want my children to work in, is a world where people literally don't have to feel any shame for doing exactly what they want to be doing because I think what we're naturally aspire to do is directly related to our purpose anyway. So what excites us is what we should be doing. Whereas we're sort of coming out of an era w of this duty and sacrifice and this an idea you have to take one for the team and you have to carry this burden. I I I'm not really sure that works, and it's definitely not a world we'd want for our kids, is it, of having to tow the line and do 40 hours a week of something they hate. If if they can get a job at the moment. Well, that's true. That's true. I'm not sure jobs are going to exist in the way they exist in the future anyway, but that might be a whole other podcast, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Well Jenna, thank you so much for today. This has been great. And what I've really loved is how that integrity really does. I mean, you can't really fake it for one. But so the the payoffs are both sort of in the numbers and outside the numbers. And that's and that's lovely.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Such a good episode today with Jenna. I really loved how the integrity played out in all elements of the business. Before you drop off, hit subscribe so you don't miss any of our weekly episodes. And if any questions, just send them in to hello at peer-effect.com. Thanks for listening and happy scaling.