Excellence Expected, the inspirational business advice podcast. Hello and welcome to the premiere episode of Excellence Expected. My name is Mark Asquith, and before we get started properly, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for joining me at the beginning of this journey. A brand new podcast is always a chance for you guys as listeners.
I realise that, much like I do, you have your subscriptions, you have a schedule of podcasting that you listen to either on the commute to work, either at the gym, or whilst you're actually going about your daily routine. And to take a chance on a new podcast is quite an ask. It's a real disruption to that schedule, because, honestly, you've no idea whether the podcast that you'll be spending that time listening to is for you. On that note, I'd like to say that Excellence Expected is really for those of you who are running businesses, find yourselves up against challenging tasks within those businesses, find yourselves up against growth problems or entrepreneurial issues that you need a little bit of consolidation on or validation from peers on.
And Excellence Expected is really there for you. It's a business podcast by business owners for business owners. Okay, so you may be wondering, why Excellence Expected? Why the title?
What does it mean? Well, I'm a very busy business owner, and just like those of you out there who are already running businesses or perhaps thinking about getting into business, I struggle with time, and I struggle with self-improvement. I struggle with focus. I struggle with being as efficient as I want to be within that business.
And as a person, my personality, again, likely just like yours, is a personality that expects excellence all of the time. I expect myself to do the best I can every single day. And the title itself, Excellence Expected, is derived from a pretty popular Steve Jobs quote. Now, if you're a fan of Steve Jobs or inspirational business owners and entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, I have no doubt that you've come across this before.
And the quote goes, Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected. And I thought that summed up the mentality of us as business owners. We find ourselves up against challenges, tasks, trials and tribulations every single day that when you look at them singularly, they're actually not that much of a deal.
But when you put them together, it makes for a very, very busy and sometimes very stressful life. And as I said earlier, we all expect excellence from ourselves. It's why we do what we do. It's why we strive to make our business the best it can be.
So Excellence Expected truly is for business owners. And it is by business owners as well. Everyone that I will feature on the podcast in the future will be a business owner giving their own thoughts, their own advice, their own tips, tricks, tactics, mindsets that have allowed them to achieve what they've achieved in their life. And if you're short of time, if you are looking for a network of people to bounce ideas off, if you're looking for daily inspiration, weekly inspiration, if you're looking for somewhere to just hang out online and discuss things with like-minded people, an excellence expected is for you.
Many of the things that I will be covering are tactical changes to your workflow. They are specific answers to specific issues, but more so we'll actually be discussing a heck of a lot of mindset changes. I find that personally, I can accomplish tasks with ease and I can get through my day with ease. But the more I change my mindset, the more I optimize how I think, the more effective I become.
And I don't think I'm alone in that. I think many people have that same kind of approach to their own business lives. And it's sometimes difficult to accept that we can change our mindset, so I want to start looking in the future at how we can approach things differently, how we can accept things differently, how we can tackle specific problems that we're perhaps not happy with internally and change the way we think about them to find a solution. And the whole ethos of Excellence Expected, of the podcast, of the website at excellence-expected.com and everything I do really is about learning, sharing and growing together as an audience, as a community, as a network of business owners.
What I'd like to do now is just spend a little bit of time explaining why Excellence Expected exists. And when I say why it exists, I'm talking about the context in which it was created, the issues from which it was born and the journey that I've taken over the last 10 years to get to this point in my life and in my career, listening to a new podcast is, it is always interesting because you find yourself aligning with the host or the person that is presenting that particular episode on various levels. And with this being episode one, I'd like to give you some context around myself as well and just let you guys know where I've come from as a person and the challenges both in my personal life and my professional life that I've faced that have all culminated and brought me to this point where I feel as if I do have something to share with you and I do have something of value that you guys can discuss with me and take advice from or take mindset changes from. So around 10 years ago, I was working for a good-sized blue chip company in the north of England, having worked up from a teenager as an administrator into systems analysis and sort of a training role and I guess a data analysis role within that blue chip company.
And at the age of 23, I found myself, as most 23-year-olds do, pushing against the system a little bit and I found myself disagreeing with many of the, as I perceive them, inefficiencies within that business and the varying management styles and the ineffectiveness of, frankly, 90% of those management styles. And the biggest problem that I found was that the whole company ethos was, well, this is how we've always done it. And I really struggled with that. If you're a person that pushes forward and strives to improve themselves, I've no doubt that you struggle with that as well.
And that's sort of the kiss of death for any career move is that you land in an organisation where you feel throttled and you can't expand. So in 2005, I decided to leave full-time employment, which it was met with frowns from family members and from certain friends because I had nothing else. I didn't move from one job to another. I just quit.
I didn't enjoy my life. I didn't enjoy my career. And I thought, well, why would I spend my time doing this? What is the point in this?
And moving on from then, I found myself working as a freelance digital consultant. And during that time, I worked for many superb organisations, people I really, really, really enjoyed working with, people such as the Ministry of Defence over in the United Kingdom, the National Health Service, a few of the larger banks over in the UK, and again, some more sort of blue chip corporations and companies in the north of England, actually, all over the United Kingdom as I think about it. That period in my life and in my career was a real, real fantastic time. It was a serious learning curve.
I met some superb people, people from majors in the army, the UK Armed Forces, who had seen everything. They'd seen war. They had seen everything. And they had such a good approach to life and to business and to accomplishing things that people said they couldn't accomplish, right through to inspirational managers and project managers and people that were innovating and inventing new products and services.
And that entire time really inspired me. I thought, it's fantastic. I'm here learning all of these things. I am only 23, 24.
I'm having such a good time with it. It didn't feel like work. And moving on from that, I thought that I still wanted more, despite loving it and enjoying it and really having such a good time with it and it'd been so valuable to me as a business person later in life. I felt like I perhaps didn't have anything tangible.
I was freelancing and contracting. And yes, I did have a limited company. But that was, I guess it was more of a vehicle for me to do my billing. And, you know, I saw my accountant once a year and we went through my tax return.
It was, you know, it wasn't really a business. I wasn't having to market myself. I wasn't having to create my own path in the business world. So in 2008, I took what was at the time an interest, a hobby, and I formed a web design and development business, a small agency, which was based in the north of England.
And I set that up with myself and one employee. The one employee is possibly the single biggest business mistake that I've ever made. And it's in no way a reflection on the person himself. It's actually, it's me.
I made a mistake in deciding to employ someone so early. I don't know why I did that. I think it was, I think it was something that made the business feel a little bit more tangible. It made it feel as if it was a real business.
You know, I had someone who I employed, someone who turned up on a schedule that I guess I dictated to a degree, and it just made it feel like a more tangible business, something real. And at the time, it did okay. It lasted for, I guess, a year before things got very, very difficult. And the reason things got difficult, again, we're down to my own inefficiencies.
I didn't really know how to develop the business whilst I was delivering the work that the business customers expected that business to deliver. So I was sat there doing the work and throttling the sales process. I had no pipeline of work. It was extremely difficult.
And in 2009, I had to let the employee go. And frankly, I got so disillusioned with the business that I decided to have a couple of weeks off and came back from that road trip that I took with some friends of mine. I traveled around Europe in an RV with some very good friends and had such a good time. But it cleared my thoughts.
You know, we were able to have a heck of a lot of long chats on that road trip. And I remember talking about a whole myriad of things with a good friend of mine, Adam, as we were both driving and, you know, everyone else is asleep in the back. And really just gaining some clarity from everything. And I think we both perhaps found clarity in certain elements of our lives on that road trip as well.
And I came back from that road trip ready to walk away from the entire business. For anyone that knows me and anyone that knows my personality, they will know that that's such a big step away from who I am. I don't. I don't like quitting on things unless there's a damn good reason to quit.
And to be honest, there wasn't. There wasn't a good reason to quit. It's just I wasn't good enough to make that business work at that time. Now, thankfully, I had some extremely good friends around me.
In the course of setting that business up, I met two very, very good friends. And I would almost class them as family members now. I met a chap called Donald Gent and a chap called Mark Wilmot, who ran their own very successful businesses. Donald run a printing company and Mark ran a photography and video production studio.
And they both did very well. And Donald had the idea of setting up a small boutique agency based on the fact that my design and digital skills were very complementary of his design and printing skills, which in turn were very complementary of Mark Wilmot's photography and video production skills. And so in very, very late 2009 into 2010, we did. We set up a small design and digital agency.
That agency then went on in 2012 to bring on two further directors, two other extremely good friends. And once again, I do think of them more as family members, Daniel Moore and Kyle Wilkinson. And since 2012, the agency, the MSQD, has gone in to employ 10 members of staff and work with some extremely big global brands, brands and businesses that back in 2009 were a pipe dream. I would have never, ever, ever in a million years thought that I would have been working with these brands at that time.
And the reason I say all of that is not to look like someone who revels in success, but it's actually to put into context why Excellence Expected exists. Because although the MSQD has been very successful and continues to grow and continues to attract some superb clients and we have such a good time, we're so proud of it. Despite all of that, in 2012, we had a very demanding year. We were growing very quickly.
We were extremely busy, which meant client demands were very, very high. We were struggling internally to figure out our roles within the business. We just merged with Kyle and Daniel and formed a bigger agency. And roles were becoming more defined.
Where everything had been a little loose before, roles were becoming more defined. And to be honest, it was a challenging year. We had a lot to do in such a short amount of time whilst maintaining a high level of quality. So around, I guess, the middle of 2012, I very, very nearly, and I mean this so sincerely, I very nearly burnt out.
I was so close to a very serious problem with burnout. And that entire year affected all aspects of my life. So I broke up with my long-term girlfriend and compounded with family problems and certain other issues around me. It made for a very, very bad year.
I was struggling personally. I became very, very, very difficult to be around. I alienated a heck of a lot of people and I found it difficult just to even get over that. And you know, you actually admit that I had a problem with burnout and I was pushing myself too far too fast and disregarding a lot of things in my life outside of the business that mattered.
Now, there is a happy ending to that story. The long-term girlfriend with whom I broke up in 2012, I then got married to in 2013. So there's a happy ending to that tale. And likewise, the business has done well from there.
But 2012 proved to me that I needed to change. I had to start putting in place processes and taking baby steps towards being a different type of person, not only in business, but in my personal life, in every element, every aspect of everything that I do just needed to get better. And I found myself analysing different elements of that life and saying, okay, well, what would I like to improve? I would, I'd like to improve my working life, of course, but more so I'd like to improve my time management, my effectiveness at the studio, my interpersonal techniques, the way I interact with clients and build those relationships and develop the communication skills that are so important to me as the customer facing side of the MSQD.
And around the same time, the team was growing. And because of that, I had to figure out how to become a manager of people, which is something that I'd never done. And, you know, only eight years ago, I was criticising the people management skills of other people, and it's what forced me to leave that permanent employment. And here I was having to manage people.
So I decided to step back and then take stock of how I was dealing with that management and start to improve myself. Not only that, as the business grew, I decided I need to do more work around my own techniques in pitching, in pricing services and products, and actually developing more products so that we, as a business, could better service our customers. And the biggest thing that came out of all of that is that I found a way to develop a better work-life balance. Now, it's not perfect.
And actually, I'm not sure that anyone has found the perfect work-life balance. And if you are sat there listening or if you're driving to work listening, when you get into the office and you have found the perfect work-life balance, please, please, please get in touch on the comments because I would love to hear from you. That would be amazing. The thing I have done is I've affected my own change.
I've become a better person. I've become more peaceful with myself. I've become more mindful of other people's feelings and thoughts. And that's helped every facet of my life.
It's helped my personal life. But more so, it's helped how I shape my network and how I shape the influencers around me. The people who can have a real effect on my business. I understand how best to work with those guys and how best to work for them to develop the best solution for everyone.
So 2012, a very, very challenging year. But it's brought me to a point where I feel that I can share my processes for improving. I can share some of the lessons I've learned. And every episode of Excellence Expected, I want to try and give you some actionable takeaways specific to a problem or an issue or a mindset or a challenge that you might also be facing and let you take those tips and tactics away and try to implement them into your working life.
Even if you just take one tiny thing away from every single episode and it improves your day just enough to matter, then Excellence Expected has achieved its goal. Why did I choose a podcast then? Well, to be honest, I've always enjoyed the editing side of things. I've always enjoyed music.
I've always enjoyed audio. And in fact, the music that you use is a podcast. you hear at the beginning and the end of Excellence Expected is a song I wrote called One Way Street and that gives you some idea of my kind of mindset you know this this whilst challenging didn't technologically faze me and in terms of podcasting I will lay the blame squarely at the feet of a good friend of mine Mr Gary Aylett who approached me in 2013 with the idea for a geek culture blog which we set up over at twoshotstothehead.com now Two Shots to the Head is a geek culture blog as I say which covers comics movies tv entertainment and really you know the whole gamut of geek culture I am self-confessed geek and early this year 2014 Gary actually approached me with the idea for a podcast for Two Shots and I didn't really know what to make of it to be honest I guess I was new to podcasting I didn't really know what the value of podcasting was for a business for a website for an organization and Gary twisted my arm I'll be honest I didn't really know what to make of it but Gary had a fantastic idea and he did take some of the pressure and he did a lot of the research around how best to set Two Shots to the Head as a podcast and we now do that every couple of weeks we have a good time we talk about what we enjoy talking about and the more we did that the more it got me thinking why not consider a podcast for Excellence Expected I already had a blog granted I wasn't blogging that much but I had a blog where I laid my thoughts down on business problems business challenges again business mindsets and it did generate some good feedback people were engaged people were generating discussion and you know we were talking we were we had a seed of a community in there and on holiday this year my mind never stops as I'm sure if you're a business owner or you're an entrepreneur your mind does the same thing it races at 100 miles an hour all the time and it's very difficult to switch it off and on holiday I did think to myself well I could probably do a little bit more than this I probably could set up a podcast but do I know enough do I know enough about that you know I don't really think even just in June this year that I had the confidence to set Excellence Expected up as it is today so when I got back I decided to bury myself in research I'm one of those people who must consume everything about a topic I have to know everything there is to know and my brain gets so full of information that sometimes I don't know where to let it out and Excellence Expected came together in my mind and as I say I did bury myself into the research and I found out a heck of a lot very quickly around podcast processing the equipment the best way to go about it I drew inspiration from some extremely successful people online some people I really really truly admire and one day I hope to meet people like Pat Flynn, Tim Ferriss, John Lee Dumas, Derek Halpern and even people like Dan Carlin who runs the Hardcore History Podcast and it's not it's not a business podcast but wow such good content and I guess I got to the point where I was confident enough to start talking to other people about Excellence Expected and the more I spoke about Excellence Expected the more a podcast felt natural what I will be doing is I will be publishing Excellence Expected every single week to the best of my ability every Monday morning you guys can expect a fresh episode some of the episodes will belong with others so for example there will be some 10 minute episodes around mindset changes actionable tips around a specific issue or a specific problem something I've come across or a friend or a colleague or a peer in my network or a listener over Excellence Expected has come across and we found a solution together so I will be putting a podcast together to discuss that short 10-15 minute burst of information what I will also be doing is interviewing some fantastic people some really inspirational characters from the world of business from all across the world with these discussions really focusing on honing in on specific problems so not only will you get inspirational stories and secrets to success from people who have been there they've walked the walk they've not only talked to talk but they've achieved it they've achieved their goals but these guys will also be revealing specific actionable help tips tactics and mindsets that include topics such as modern business planning recruiting the best and the finest talent for your organization how to meet your own fitness goals when you're so short on time I know personally I really struggle with that you know where where do I fit the gym where do I fit training I want to go for a run can I really take the time to do this how do I achieve these goals fitness wise and I've got some fantastic guests that do this every single day that will be there to share those tips I've got some of the UK's finest social media and search engine optimization experts who will be sharing how they leverage that technology and how the changes to that technology can be harnessed and optimized to benefit their bottom line and also your bottom line I've got some fantastic insight on how to run effective email marketing campaigns and also I've got a very very good interview coming up very soon which is around generating rapid growth in niche industries and specific vertical markets I'm really excited to be able to share this content with you and when I publish every Monday morning you can expect the show notes for each episode to be online at excellence-expected.com and don't forget of course that you can join the discussion by heading over to the website and diving into the comments section where of course I'll be promoting active discussion and I will be there on hand to chat with you guys and just discuss what crops up from each episode let's learn let's share and let's grow together you can also join the discussion over on facebook.com forward slash excellence expected at any time and you can actually shoot me a direct tweet as well I will be on Twitter answering queries just generally chatting with people who would like to share their insights and you can get me on at m2 which is e m for mother underscore t w o at m2 and as I say I do really really promote discussion I'd love you guys to get involved because not only will I be delivering the value each and every episode but you guys can help yourselves and help each other with this listen that's me done for one episode I want to keep this episode nice and short to allow you guys to figure out what you can expect from excellence expected moving forward I thank you once again for listening I really do appreciate you taking the time to insert excellence expected into your busy podcasting schedule and also your busy lives if you do love what you hear you can subscribe via iTunes by searching excellence expected and you can also find us on stitch by searching also excellence expected now if you do enjoy the show I really really would love it if you just leave us a really nice review tell people exactly what you think of the show and give it a very very honest rating that would really really help you can also visit the website at excellence-expected.com where not only can you engage in discussion with other like-minded business owners and entrepreneurs and you can also get a hold of me directly but you can also sign up to receive a free copy of my new book which is a blueprint a template for creating more time every single day it's something I really struggle with we all run out of time as business owners and entrepreneurs and we all wish we could create extra time during that day or another day during that week well through a lot of research a lot of trial and error I've compiled the processes and the innovations and the mindset changes the tactics and the workflow tweaks that I've implemented into my daily life and I've compiled these into a new book which as I say you can receive for free by simply heading over to excellence-expected.com and I guarantee you that template will help you create more time every single day to do the things that you enjoy thank you once again for listening it's been a real pleasure talking to you and don't forget the more you expect from yourself the more you will excel my name is Mark Asquith and this has been the premier episode of Excellence Expected until next time folks take care that moment of history and it's been the premier episode of Excellence Expected