Episode 182 Transcript

Heather Porter (00:01.464)

Jonathan, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. How are you?

 

Jonathan Herps (00:05.583)

Heather, I'm very, very warm, though a bit colder where am, so I'm rugged.

 

Heather Porter (00:10.424)

Yeah, I feel you. only an hour, probably a couple of hours away from each other. So yes, definitely. Now, I always like to start the show with a few quick, tangible takeaways. And honestly, I don't think I could be talking to anyone that's more perfect for this question based on your business and all the CEOs that you've helped. So I'm really interested to hear how you're going to answer it. So what are a few actual tips?

 

Jonathan Herps (00:29.637)

Thank you.

 

Heather Porter (00:35.598)

tangible steps that somebody can do when they're growing their business, they're scaling their business and they want to do it with more balance and not so much of that hustle and grind constant culture.

 

Jonathan Herps (00:46.043)

Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. And a great question. Maybe if I can position myself just a little bit first, I am a CEO, coach and mentor, and I focus on my clients when they start with me have hit a barrier. And it's normally about two to three million dollars in revenue. And it's this really interesting background in there. It's the ones and threes. So the it's one hundred thousand

 

Heather Porter (00:54.955)

Absolutely.

 

Jonathan Herps (01:15.707)

300,000, 1,000,000, 3,000,000, 10,000,000, 30,000,000. Like that's when the founder of the CEO really needs to change the way they think and the way they operate. And so I focus on helping my clients when they come to me, break through that two, three, four million dollar barrier and scale above 10 million dollars. And the key for that is getting out of the way.

 

Heather Porter (01:42.592)

Mm. Yep.

 

Jonathan Herps (01:44.238)

Yeah, normally, my clients, when they come to me, what I hear is, you know, I can't take a holiday. I can't. They come to me for every decision. know, they my staff can't make decisions themselves. All of that stress related stuff that kills a lot of businesses because the CEO doesn't know how to get how to make it happen. So three tips.

 

for growing a business with your question with less hustle and more balance. Hire A players. OK, so it's all about getting out of your team's way and stop being the bottleneck. And the reason that you're the bottleneck a lot of the time is you don't have the right team. Now, an A player is someone who is high on values on your and the business, the business's values and high on productivity in their role.

 

Heather Porter (02:16.44)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (02:26.083)

Hmm.

 

Jonathan Herps (02:42.683)

They normally cost more. they can cost 20, 30 percent more than the average leader or team member. But the thing about them is they'll 10x the productivity. They'll come to you with solutions, not with problems. So hiring a person foremost. Secondly, do less, but do it better. So focus on two or three key maximum five.

 

Heather Porter (02:44.856)

They do.

 

Jonathan Herps (03:12.439)

winning moves over three years and winning moves that drive 80 % of your results and just stop doing it all. Steve Jobs had a great quote which was strategies about working out what not to do. And thirdly, lock in weekly quarterly rhythms so that your business runs without chaos. Have those weekly leadership team meetings with key agendas that

 

Heather Porter (03:27.949)

Right.

 

Jonathan Herps (03:41.121)

yeah, makes your business frictionless. the three things, high rate players do less and do it better and get the rhythms in place. Hope that's helped.

 

Heather Porter (03:52.971)

It's really good. Yeah, no, very helpful. And it's interesting layer, especially in your saying people that come to you with solutions, not problems. My brain just went back in time 10 years over all the people throughout the years on my team. And I know exactly the type of person you're talking about. You can spot them straight away when they get on your team. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. And so worth.

 

Jonathan Herps (04:07.963)

Exactly right. Exactly right. They make it easy for you and your staff and your customers to do business.

 

Heather Porter (04:17.742)

What about meetings? Because there's so many theories and frameworks on how to manage and handle meetings with your team so you're not wasting time. Do you have any tips around how to have a good meeting?

 

Jonathan Herps (04:28.079)

Yeah. Well, I think for a start is don't have one if you don't need one. Yeah, so many people, so many companies are just bogged down in meetings that they don't need to have. You know, I coach my clients that they have a day of meetings only a week, so one day only and and and batch everything into one day. And then you've got four days to work on your business and seeing your clients.

 

Heather Porter (04:32.899)

Good.

 

Jonathan Herps (04:57.819)

strategic thinking, all of the stuff a CEO should be should be focused on. So let's say that whatever day of the week you choose, I would suggest Monday or Friday. And I'd actually suggest Monday. It should look something like, you know, a leadership team meeting first up 60 to 90 minutes, absolute maximum, a set agenda, which is the same every week.

 

Heather Porter (05:08.526)

Mm.

 

Jonathan Herps (05:26.061)

And following on from there, know, the one-on-ones with your leadership team based on the outcomes that have come out of that meeting and also a marketing meeting, sales meeting if need be, but batch them all into one day. And that gives you time to focus on your business and on the most important clients for the rest of the week. I have a template for a weekly meeting agenda if you'd like it and if your listeners would like it, very happy to share.

 

Heather Porter (05:33.453)

Mm.

 

Heather Porter (05:53.292)

Yeah. gosh, I'll follow you up on that for sure Jonathan. That'd be really helpful.

 

Jonathan Herps (05:55.995)

Yeah, no, please do. It's and it just makes so much difference for issues management, for task management, for tracking and also making sure the team focuses.

 

Heather Porter (06:10.957)

You know, it's really interesting is, I feel like growing up in your professional life, you always think, I have to have a meeting. So I love that you thought you say you don't have to. And secondly, I've been doing something interesting with some of our larger clients where we do working meetings. So we'll literally meet and action at the same exact time. And it's been incredibly powerful to do some of these higher level strategy action. Like literally they're jumping on with their team and they're actually getting things done. So thank you for sharing that information.

 

Jonathan Herps (06:39.108)

Yeah. And I think the other thing is it's about the rhythm of meetings. So at the leadership team meeting at the leadership level weekly, which also has dashboards and scorecards attached to it a monthly, a quarterly, a quarterly. And I mean, I work on the theory of we have a three year plan with three, three year when he moves strategic, when he moves and then we have 12 quarterly sprints.

 

Heather Porter (06:43.51)

Yeah

 

Heather Porter (06:52.811)

Right.

 

Jonathan Herps (07:07.514)

to get to that three year plan. And so at one level with my clients, I'm off site with some of my clients for two days every quarter. And this is the working meeting you're talking about. And I think we can talk about AI later on. I'll explain a bit of that. Oh, good. I'll explain a bit how we use that.

 

Heather Porter (07:07.915)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (07:23.117)

Yeah, very cool. Oh, we're going to. Yeah. OK, good. Well, we'll definitely come loop back to that towards the end. And I think now would be a really good time to know about about you and your journey. Why did you start your business?

 

Jonathan Herps (07:42.914)

Because I moved to Barrow. That sounds strange. Yeah, so it's a bit early for them, but in about 40 minutes, my two 11 going on 12 year olds will storm through the door. My wife and I, the last big CEO gig I had was based in the Middle East. And I was the, I worked for the eldest son of the rule of Abu Dhabi and

 

Heather Porter (07:44.941)

Really?

 

Jonathan Herps (08:10.296)

ran a company called Abu Dhabi Capital, which was all about his international property business. He had about 600 staff in many, many countries. So I had to move to Dubai to meet a girl who grew up 10 minutes drive from where I did in Sydney. Along the way, we adopted two beautiful little kiddies from Ethiopia. So we sort of stand out in this wasp town of Barrow where...

 

Heather Porter (08:14.785)

well.

 

Heather Porter (08:32.225)

Wow.

 

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (08:37.338)

Yeah, Mum and Dad are tall, white and blonde and I've got two Ethiopian babies. Anyway, we decided that we wanted to bring them up at home. So we moved back to Australia, moved to Barrow where my mother-in-law and sister-in-law lived. And I really didn't want to go back into a big CEO role again. I'd been a CEO five times now, ranging from 20 staff up to the multiple hundreds.

 

And I knew that I'd have to travel a lot. So I just didn't want to do that. So I started out as a non-executive director. That was my plan. still companies like Dime Gold Mines, a gold exploration company facing into Fiji, the Australian Expatriate Superannuation Fund, which I'm still a director of. We've now got $650 million under management. But I was bored, to be honest.

 

Heather Porter (09:26.934)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (09:33.482)

And I see a mate of mine asked me to coach him. And one thing led to another. And you mentioned to me earlier about Vern Harnish, another friend from Dubai suggested I go and meet him in America. And I became certified Scaling Up coach back in 2017. And the thing's just certified from there. I've now coached hundreds of clients and I do it predominantly on Zoom. So I'm one of those people that COVID didn't really, in fact, COVID worked really well for me.

 

Heather Porter (09:58.86)

Incredible.

 

Jonathan Herps (10:03.195)

I don't travel as much as I used to now, but I've still got clients in the Middle East and Asia, but predominantly I do the large majority of the coaching by Zoom now.

 

Heather Porter (10:15.341)

I like that you changed gears so dramatically as well, and you were able to do it. Because people these days, we can tend to feel stuck in our roles or the business that we've created. Do you have any advice to people that are sitting here listening like, oh, Jonathan, all well and good for you. You created this perfect dream lifestyle for yourself. What would you say to someone that's feeling rather stuck in their business?

 

Jonathan Herps (10:37.614)

Build a vision. know, one of the first things that I do with new clients is sit down and we work on the clarity of the business and clarity on their life as well. You know, we...

 

So many founders and CEOs, they've actually built themselves a job. They haven't built themselves a business. If they can't get away for a month on holiday, if they can't get away for a day or two, a week to think, they don't actually have a business. They've actually got a job. And so the first thing is working out what is it that they want in their life and in

 

and in their business. And I learned this from guy called Brian Scudamore. Brian was a founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Yeah. And, you know, he had this business. He was financing himself through college in Canada, I think it was. And, you know, picking up junk and taking it to the tip. Great business. It's now one of the largest, one of the fastest growing franchises in the world. And I think they're about a billion dollars.

 

Heather Porter (11:31.402)

I remember, yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (11:52.25)

in revenue a year. But he got to 12 staff, and by the way, that's one of the valleys of death I talk about. you hit 12 staff and everything turns to crap. And he just, he wasn't coping. And he took a pad of paper and a pencil and went down and sat by the water and wrote out what he called his painted picture of what the business should look like. The end result was he went back to the office. He sacked everybody, literally.

 

Heather Porter (12:20.972)

Wow.

 

Jonathan Herps (12:21.177)

and started again and got a billion dollar business. But along the way, one of the things he wanted was this freedom from his business. And that meant having the right A players, which I talked about earlier, and having the right plan, et cetera. And when he got to about 10 million dollars in revenue, he hired a guy called Cameron Herald, who's a mate of mine from the States.

 

Cameron's written a fabulous book, or he's written a number of books, but one of them is called Double Double, highly recommended. Cameron talks about what he called the Vivid Vision. And under Brian's vision, he wanted to hire a COO and he ended up hiring his best mate, Cameron. And Cameron and Brian took the business from 10 million to 100 million dollars in revenue. And they, by the way, there's a second book by Cameron.

 

Heather Porter (12:54.027)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (13:17.881)

called The Second in Command, which is a fabulous book on how to work with a COO.

 

They got $200 million and Brian and Cameron went out for lunch one day and Cameron, as he describes in his book, burst into tears because he knew Brian was going to sack him because he couldn't take it from 10 million to 100 million to a billion. And, you know, it was obviously a watershed moment for them. And

 

Heather Porter (13:36.097)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (13:49.368)

But Brian still mates Cameron is now a fabulous business called the CEO Institute, I think it's called. But the point being that Brian had this vision. He knew what he wanted for his life and he knew what he wanted for his business. So one of the first things we do is sit down and I send my potential new client off to be by the water with a pattern pen, a pattern pen and a bottle of wine. A of wine always helps with a structured workbook for me.

 

Heather Porter (13:56.045)

Right.

 

Heather Porter (14:12.724)

Yes. Yes.

 

Jonathan Herps (14:18.841)

of what it is they want to achieve in life and what it is they want to achieve in their business. And we start by, we start there. And at the end of that very short, you know, two day thing with me, they end up with what we call our leaders intent. One page purpose. What do we want to achieve? What's the purpose and how we got to measure that.

 

Heather Porter (14:25.399)

Nice.

 

Jonathan Herps (14:48.853)

one page that they can explain to their wife, their husband, their partner, their leadership team. This is where we go. And from there we go and say, OK, we've now got that plan. What are the three to five winning moves that will either double our revenue or double our profit in the next each individual one, double our revenue or double our profit in the next three years? And from there we map out a 12 quarter plan. Now, it's it's a

 

Heather Porter (15:13.965)

amazing.

 

Jonathan Herps (15:18.519)

It's a phenomenal experience for them to go through. The other thing we then do is add scorecards and dashboards so that we can actually measure progress. And, you know, within about 30 days, we will have to, we've changed my clients life and businesses because I then know where they're going and the whole leadership team and their family knows where they're going.

 

Heather Porter (15:21.238)

Mmm.

 

Heather Porter (15:25.558)

Okay.

 

Heather Porter (15:40.846)

Do you find you mentioned that was it three seven and one what were the numbers again one three seven I think

 

Jonathan Herps (15:46.873)

For the ones and threes. Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (15:50.997)

Ones and threes. So do you find that they have to revisit their vision and how their business is structured during these key points in growth?

 

Jonathan Herps (16:00.152)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in fact, we do it every year because suddenly, you you've got a CEO who's never been able to take a holiday before and he's now able to take a month off and everything changes and his leadership team have either changed or stepped up. Yeah, we do find the leadership team changes in the first year. And in fact, it's the other ones and threes. Yeah, as

 

Heather Porter (16:02.988)

Okay, yep.

 

Heather Porter (16:11.981)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (16:16.012)

Mm.

 

Heather Porter (16:22.968)

Yeah. Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (16:29.165)

the business gets dialed in and the founder gets dialed in. You know, the leadership team changes because it needs to, it needs different skill sets. It needs different types of people. And one of the, in the second foundation piece, one of the first things we do is we map out the people strategy. We map it to the actual strategy itself. So we have a people plan.

 

Heather Porter (16:37.56)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (16:57.305)

three months, six months, nine months, one year, two years and three years. And based on that, on the strategy and the plan, we lock in who we get, the type of person we go to hire when we hit different revenue marks. Because the problem is a lot of people, we've got to hire this person when we're at six months, six months from now. But if you can't afford it, well, that doesn't quite work. And so we build an investment strategy on people to hire the right A players to do the right things.

 

Heather Porter (17:00.366)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (17:26.923)

at different points in time into the future. So we know exactly the client knows exactly where they're going.

 

Heather Porter (17:31.694)

Got it. So what is your business model then? Do you work one-on-one? you have group sessions? Are you a speaker? Tell me more about how your business works. Yep.

 

Jonathan Herps (17:38.233)

I am a speaker. I don't do as much as I'd like to. But people can hire me to come and speak and talk through all of this stuff. My key, I've got two levels of business. Firstly is a mixture of one on one and one on one and group. And then the second one is a CEO and leadership team engagement. So the first one is

 

Heather Porter (17:45.123)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (18:05.937)

One-on-one for an hour every month. Early on, it's more than that because we're looking to lock in some real wins in the first three months. Yeah, we're looking to pay for my first year easily within the first three months. So one-on-one for an hour a month. That also includes a 19-minute mastermind group with other client CEOs where we deep dive into one thing, but we also have a Q &A.

 

I find that my clients, working with other CEOs who are going through the same journey is so valuable. I've got a lunch in Sydney on the 29th where I'm bringing a group of my CEOs together where we're just literally going to sit down for a bit of a poshie lunch and talk about what's happening in life. And what they learn from others is

 

is who go through the same journey is invaluable. So one on one for an hour, 90 minutes teaching Q &A, have a incorporated in that I have an office hours where I just sit at my desk for an hour in the morning, afternoon on Wednesdays and my clients can dial in. We're building out all of my, we're codifying all my IP, which I'm giving to my clients.

 

Heather Porter (19:06.51)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (19:22.442)

Okay, smart.

 

Jonathan Herps (19:31.352)

And I'm in the process of building out an AI, AI me, where they're able to come in and ask me questions 24 7. I think that's one of your questions later on is about AI. So I'll talk about that a bit more. So that's the one on one. We then have four companies with formed leadership teams, an additional, which is all of the everything I've just talked about, but

 

Heather Porter (19:37.198)

Jonathan Herps (20:00.779)

a quarterly two days off site, I call it advances with the whole leadership team. And every quarter we go away. Within all of that, there are the rhythms, the quarterly planning. We do one of the foundations of the work I do is all about culture. I mainly use, don't know you have you heard of Patrick Lencioni? Yeah, so he's

 

Heather Porter (20:06.87)

Nice.

 

Heather Porter (20:23.861)

I have, yes.

 

Jonathan Herps (20:27.352)

Patrick's got a fabulous book out called The Five Dysfunctions of a Leadership Team. So we use his methodology to test and assess the leadership team in the company every six months and come up with strategies to put in place there. do some really basic stuff. know, Vern Harnesh taught me a thing called stop, start, keep. What would you stop doing, start doing and keep doing? It's a fabulous tool. We do that every quarter for the whole company.

 

Heather Porter (20:31.67)

Yes.

 

Heather Porter (20:39.064)

Mm.

 

Heather Porter (20:48.14)

Yes. I remember hearing that. Yeah. Love that. Yeah. Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (20:54.892)

You know, we do a SWAT and a trends analysis every every three months as well. But there's this whole rhythm of what we do in the quarterly planning, including reviewing our KPIs, planning out the quarterly OKRs, which is all about moving the businesses quarterly, quarterly forward.

 

Heather Porter (21:19.468)

Yeah, got it. So you definitely have a fair amount of moving parts in your own business and you said you do some speaking, might want to do some more. You have your podcast as well. So I'm really curious if you were to think back over the last year specifically, is there anything that you feel that you've done exceptionally well and what would that have been?

 

Jonathan Herps (21:40.621)

I laughed at this when I saw your question because this is the next question. It's amazing how much you learn from your clients. And here am I, the guru CEO coach. And I'm not going to say it's those who can't do teach, but in many ways I learned from me coaching my clients what I should be doing in my own business. the last year,

 

Heather Porter (21:42.478)

Heather Porter (21:50.546)

huh.

 

Heather Porter (22:07.502)

Brilliant.

 

Jonathan Herps (22:09.496)

I think I've nailed my positioning so that my prospects get it in seconds. It's very, very easy to complicate telling what you do. keep it simple, stupid concept really works. I simplified my offers. We've got two of them now. that my prospective clients

 

know exactly what they're getting. I've simplified who I work with. You know, I've decided that there have been times that I've taken the wrong clients on and I don't want to do that anymore. So I'm now rejecting more clients as it turns out than taking them on. And I've limited the number of clients I work with. And

 

I suppose the other two things I built a content engine and particularly including video that people's it's one of the reasons I was keen to do the podcast and be asked your podcast and be asked questions so that they can try almost try before you buy by seeing who I am. And how do they do that? Through what you mentioned, my podcast and thank you. But I've now interviewed one hundred and twenty eight CEOs, founders and CEOs, and we have a set series of questions and

 

Heather Porter (23:31.351)

Incredible.

 

Jonathan Herps (23:35.52)

a phenomenal learning experience for anybody at any level. And I'm now doing teaching CEO teaching podcasts as well, which is about I'm very open about giving. I'll give you a giveaway anything because I want to have that impact. So I suppose it's all about simplifying things. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (23:41.452)

Mm.

 

Heather Porter (23:59.887)

I'm hearing that as a theme. You've been said it earlier. This is what you need to do to scale. So that's a surprise. I'm curious because you said you're saying no to more clients as well. So you're getting, you're really honing in on the right ones. How does your, how do your processes and your systems work to actually pre-screen and align with the people that you want to work with?

 

Jonathan Herps (24:04.855)

Yes, that's right.

 

Jonathan Herps (24:21.591)

Yeah, I'm sorry. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, I mentioned to I'm going to show this to you before I answer that question. But can you see that? OK, I mentioned about making it simple. Yeah, this is about how do you and this is one of the things I work with with my clients. It's how do you visually explain what you do? So, you know, the 10 million dollar business that runs without you. Yeah, three. Yeah, three.

 

Heather Porter (24:28.578)

Sure, I can see it. Yeah, what is that?

 

Heather Porter (24:44.46)

Yes.

 

Heather Porter (24:47.874)

That's your framework, yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (24:50.967)

Pillars, foundations, clarity, team, profit. know, there's being able to show people simply what you do and how you do it and then link all the right tools, frameworks and playbooks into it becomes a real key thing. How do I choose clients? Normally prospective clients come to me. They've seen my content on LinkedIn. They've seen the podcast.

 

something I've said has resonated. I found a CEO at about $4 million revenue who rang me two weeks ago and just said, I saw this podcast about, know, I'm being drowning in my own business and that I, you know, I built a job for myself and it resonated with them. And so the next step is a 25 minute, I call it a growth call, literally where I'm assessing is the founder, right, someone I want to work with.

 

Heather Porter (25:30.595)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (25:48.823)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (25:49.112)

If they are and if they've got one of my key criteria, they've got to be learners, whether it be reading or whether it be video or whether it be listening audio. If someone's not willing to learn and be challenged, I'm not interested. There is a bit of a personality thing in there. You know, my engagements along minimum year, but you know.

 

Heather Porter (26:12.441)

course.

 

Jonathan Herps (26:17.579)

I've got one client has been with me for nine now. My average is minimum three years. So if I don't think I'm going to like them and vice versa. So it's a 30 minute clarity call for a bit of word where I help them with one key strategic issue and they'll normally come out with two or three tools that'll help them. And if we both like each other, we then progress to a 90 minute strategy session where we deep dive into one or two real

 

Heather Porter (26:25.199)

You just... not gonna say yes. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (26:47.767)

areas of pain for them and solve those. And at the end of that, we'll both have an idea whether we want to work together.

 

Heather Porter (26:55.715)

I like how you also work for the, I'll call it the low hanging fruit too. You said in the first few months, you just want to make sure that they earn back what they pay to you. I think that's brilliant because why would they want to leave you if they've gotten this big results?

 

Jonathan Herps (27:03.414)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (27:07.23)

Yeah, and that's exactly right. know, I've, you know, one of my clients, I won't name her, but she'll probably work out who she is. I love working with her because, you know, she just, you know, she's like a sponge. She won't make the decision straight away, but it all goes in and suddenly it's like, you know, she's executing and implementing on things, but, know, she's taken her business.

 

you know, below that three minute, know, dollar barrier and we're well and well, voluntarily on the way to the 10 plus in the space of two years. And, and that excites me. Yeah. There's a lot about that. That's exactly.

 

Heather Porter (27:50.179)

Yeah, right person, right mentor.

 

Yeah, you're going to love this. You saying that just made me think of a friend of mine who investor multiple companies. And I said to him one day, I'm like, hey, what, how do you decide to have who to work with and who to have in your peer group? And he said, if they ever say the words, I already know that I don't want them in my circle.

 

Jonathan Herps (28:15.989)

Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's really fair. Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (28:19.17)

Yeah, I've always hung on to that for 20 years since I met him. now I want to talk, change tables a little bit to something that you wish you could have improved on because you talked about, mean, you've simplified, you've gotten really clear on your offer and everything, but what is something you might've done better in the last year as well?

 

Jonathan Herps (28:22.487)

Mm.

 

Jonathan Herps (28:31.137)

Yep.

 

Jonathan Herps (28:36.619)

You mean the same thing that I coach my clients on. So I suppose it's not really one thing.

 

Heather Porter (28:39.508)

Absolutely, Jonathan, yes.

 

Heather Porter (28:46.145)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (28:50.231)

Stop waiting for perfect. Ship it now and improve later. Yeah, I think so many CEOs try and get it perfect and they should have shipped it a year, six months, three months earlier because you can improve it and enhance it. And it's fascinating when you ship early and ask your clients what they think, it improves it so much. Definitely higher rate players.

 

Heather Porter (29:18.477)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (29:20.343)

High on values, high on productivity in the role. Yeah, a pattern I've noticed Heather is that A players may cost 20 to 30 % more than a B player, but they deliver 10x the value. So you're better going with an A player that you can afford rather than a B player. Because they're the ones that come to you with solutions. They're the ones that come up with

 

the enhancements for your business that allow you to get out of the business. I think delegate sooner. And if you've got A plays, you can delegate sooner because that that buys back your time for high value work and to think on the business and.

 

Heather Porter (30:03.438)

Mm.

 

Jonathan Herps (30:07.264)

I mentioned that I'd stopped my podcast for a while and and I realized, you know, it was the wrong thing to do. So when it's working, go hard.

 

Heather Porter (30:10.114)

You too.

 

Jonathan Herps (30:19.862)

Focus on this.

 

Heather Porter (30:22.23)

I like that. Very good advice. One of the last questions I want to ask you is a little bit about the future and yes, AI. So what's the future look like for you, your industry and your business?

 

Jonathan Herps (30:31.19)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jonathan Herps (30:38.422)

So I'm a coach mental. I think AI has already changed everything about the way CEOs are coached. And it's already happening in my work. yeah, if I can give you an example, I was offsite with a client team last September for the two day advance. And this is a client who's been with me for three years now. They've tripled their revenue in that time.

 

But more importantly, profit and cash as well. When we started, the leadership team they had was just wrong. So we went through a series of hirings to put another senior team in place. And last September, I realized that we really needed to restate the purpose and restate the three year vision for the company. So I had the leadership, actually they were down here in Barrow.

 

Heather Porter (31:12.323)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (31:36.822)

which are nice and handy for me for change. And so I put the laptop in the middle of the...

 

Raymond.

 

Jonathan Herps (31:47.561)

And I interviewed using ChatGPT4, I think it was, I interviewed the CEO with a series of questions about his vision for the business. And it was straight out of the tool, my favorite vision tool. by the way, I'm going to mention Cameron Herald, vision tool. I have the same, but it's an R &D thing, rip off and duplicate, but always give credit for where I get things from. And I've enhanced it dramatically to where Cameron was in my view.

 

So I interviewed over 25 minutes the CEO in front of his team. We then got the team to make comments and ask questions. Once again, all recorded directly into ChatGPT. And 15 minutes later, I pressed the button and said to ChatGPT, I want you in my format, I'd uploaded.

 

the tools I use, the vision, the three years leaders intent, the winning moves. I told you, GPT, give it to us. And in the space of this hour, and this is like, this is last September, here was the whole vision, the leaders intent, the winning moves, all restated in a way that the whole leadership team had worked on together and were totally aligned on. And it fundamentally changed the business and gave them that next huge leap in

 

Heather Porter (32:53.112)

Wow.

 

Heather Porter (32:56.462)

Yep.

 

Jonathan Herps (33:13.878)

in the last year. That alone is a fundamental change in the way we can do business. I don't see AI replacing me, but I certainly see it enhancing the way I do things. I'm working on GPTs at the moment so that my clients, we're literally loading every tool, I've done 360 blogs over the years.

 

Every tool, everything I've written, everything I've recorded, we're loading into a GPT. And this AI-powered system, my clients are going to be, they have to come to me 24-7, have the face designed for radio, literally talking to them and answering, know, answering their questions, their ideas, giving them the frameworks instantly, not just in our scheduled sessions. And I think

 

The other thing about the AI is combined with human coaching is that it brings so the human brings judgment and perspective. The AI brings speed, data and precision. I think that's I was working with one client the other day and because ChatGPT came out. the data this podcast is the 13th of August, 2025. So ChatGPT has been out for four days.

 

And I was just doing some experimenting about we're looking at the structure of her business over the next three years and how we needed to change the structure based on automation, digitization, AI and everything else. And the thing about her business, she's renowned. They're renowned for the wow. Their clients, their service is just wow. But there's so much manual stuff in behind.

 

Heather Porter (34:54.061)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (35:09.29)

that over the next. So we literally designed three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, one year, two years, what the business would look like based on the power of AI and digitization, automation, automation that is coming in. And in the space of an hour, we also gave targets in the next three months, 20 percent of the boring back office ad hoc work is going to be automated. So, yeah, her judgment now is to

 

Heather Porter (35:21.134)

Mm.

 

Heather Porter (35:34.583)

Yes.

 

Jonathan Herps (35:39.316)

You know, when she can afford to do what, when she can afford to hire the people we've talked about, et cetera. And we're putting revenue targets on those. But, yeah, it's not going to replace anybody actually in the team. It's just going to refocus them doing what they do really well, which give that wow piece. And I think the other thing that AI is going to do is it's going to allow CEOs to stimulate, sorry, simulate strategic moves before making them. Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (36:05.614)

Okay, that's interesting,

 

Jonathan Herps (36:08.8)

testing growth, bits, hiring plans, pricing strategies in a safe environment before they commit. You know, I think on my industry, it's going to be fundamentally change the industry, I think in a hugely positive way. But I do feel for a lot of the coaches out there who don't have that experience of being a CEO themselves.

 

Heather Porter (36:11.267)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (36:37.592)

That's what it is.

 

Jonathan Herps (36:37.646)

in my little niche who, you know, they've borrowed stuff out of books, etc. Yeah, I feel for them being able to cope with this.

 

Heather Porter (36:47.746)

Thank you for having this, this chat, this from this angle as well, because it makes a lot of sense to me that you have your own set of wisdom and lessons that you've learned and AI can't replace that. It's essentially to give you an example, because yes, GBT five just came out and my lead developer was using it for some coding issues. And he turned around and he said to me, this can replace one person on the team tomorrow. But I said, yeah. And how could it do that? And he goes,

 

Well, it's because of what I know to ask it that's key. So I love the, I love this conversation that you had and how it's just going to amplify people that are already switched on and understand what they're doing and have a good history of their business and knowledge.

 

Jonathan Herps (37:32.822)

And it's also all about the execution. the end of the day, comes out of the execution. It's great to have a, mean, Mike Tyson made the comment, yeah. A strategy is only as good as until you get smacked in the face. And, you know, the, it's great to do all these prompts into, ChatGPD. And I can show you, like, know. But unless you, you, you actually, actually execute on them. And it's not only ChatGPD, by the way.

 

Heather Porter (37:35.107)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (37:43.809)

Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (37:59.087)

Good point.

 

Jonathan Herps (38:00.896)

Yeah, I use just in my little world, I use chat. I use the Google version. I use perplexity. use notebook. So here's a great one for you, So I took the URLs of every CEO interview that I've ever done and I fed them into notebook, which is a Google product. I then asked notebook to analyze the 10 key lessons that the

 

Heather Porter (38:06.744)

Gemini, Yeah.

 

Yep. Yeah.

 

Heather Porter (38:18.901)

huh.

 

Heather Porter (38:22.658)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (38:31.477)

128 CEO interviews, what came out of them. So compare, contrast, etc. Twenty five minutes later, it spat out the 10 key lessons. It was it is I'm doing a blog in the next week on it. is and by the way, most of the key lessons I've mentioned already today. How long would it have taken if I had got an assistant to go through the 128 to try and work out the 10 key lessons?

 

Heather Porter (38:42.37)

Amazing.

 

Heather Porter (38:59.578)

so long. And I've done something similar. I've actually loaded in the transcripts I have a little like cheat sheet that I release once a year with the top quote theme, you know, takeaways. So I love that you're doing that too. It's so good. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (39:09.045)

Yeah, but you know, that is where it makes it easy and allows me to focus and allows my team to focus on what's most important.

 

Heather Porter (39:19.419)

brilliantly said. So where do people go and find out more about you if they want to work with you?

 

Jonathan Herps (39:26.077)

OK, so thank you for that LinkedIn, Jonathan Herps, my website, scale up growth.co. Not dom.com.co. if you want to more of me, YouTube, Jonathan Herps.

 

Heather Porter (39:28.366)

Hmm.

 

Heather Porter (39:45.3)

and to listen to your podcast. What's the name of that again?

 

Jonathan Herps (39:47.989)

It's on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

 

Heather Porter (39:53.153)

Excellent. Perfect, you guys. Now you have no excuse not to go and find Jonathan and tap into some of his incredible knowledge. And as we wrap up, is there a last piece of advice that you'd like to leave the listeners with?

 

Jonathan Herps (39:57.269)

Thank you.

 

Thank you.

 

Jonathan Herps (40:05.576)

Yeah, I know it's interesting. This is one of my questions. That's my last question. And it's fascinating the different views that come out. I'm going to get back to something I said earlier. If your business can't run without you, if you can't take a holiday, well, you don't own a business, you own a job. OK, so if that's the case, and in any business, the fastest way to change your business is to focus on who, not how.

 

Heather Porter (40:08.736)

Okay, there you go.

 

Heather Porter (40:14.082)

Yeah.

 

Jonathan Herps (40:35.455)

who, not how. So build an A-Play team that can deliver without you.

 

As part of that, get help sooner. It's cheaper than learning the hard way. You know, I always have coaches. I've got two at the moment. And they focus me on different areas where I'm just not as strong as I'd like to be. If you're a CEO or founder, go and find someone like me. It will accelerate your growth so much and it will give you the freedom to focus on growth.

 

Heather Porter (40:57.699)

Okay.

 

Jonathan Herps (41:08.797)

and get help sooner rather than sorry and get help sooner sooner rather than later. So right team. Who not how, which is part of the right team. So and that doesn't have to be full time people, by the way, it can be part time bringing someone in like I is a classic example. My clients are all are all focused on the moment. The problem with it is that.

 

You can break the business if you spend your whole time trying to implement AI or execute AI into it. So bringing a part-time resource to roll quick wins out, who not how, doesn't have to be full-time on your team. But get the right people working with you. Get the right advice. And you as the founder of focus on the growth and focus on getting your life back.

 

Heather Porter (41:57.419)

Mm. Mm. Thank you. That was beautifully said. Beautiful way to summarize. And thank you so much for being here, Jonathan, as well. really appreciate it. Thank you.

 

Jonathan Herps (42:06.122)

had I have enjoyed enormously, thank you. Cheers.