If I Could Tell You Just One Thing…

I had an audio book recommended to me recently which I decided to make my first of 2019.

I’ve read quite a few books in my time which have all been great in their own way and I have taken something from all of them, but this one really resonated with me to the point where I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’ve never had that with a book before. I wanted to write about how this book made me feel about encouraging others to find their ‘moment’. That moment when you find something that gets your mind engaged and stimulated by your own personal development.

The book is called ‘If I Could Tell You Just One Thing’ by Richard Reed who is the co-founder of Innocent Smoothies.

The book shares Richards’s meetings with some of the world’s most inspiring and successful people. Within these meetings, Richard asks what one piece of advice they would pass on. These individuals include David Attenborough, Annie Lennox, Sir Richard Branson, Martha Lane-Fox and many more famous individuals who share their advice and story of their success.

For those that are not a fan of picking up a book and reading, this is an easy read with each section being quite short, so a great book for those who may want to start. There is also an audio book version available on iTunes. Each section is around 5 – 6 minutes; I found this most useful when driving to and from work as it got my mind working first thing in the morning and always gave me some morning motivation!

Miracle Morning

Following reading Hal Elrod’s ‘Miracle Morning’ another book I read quite some time ago, I like to start my day looking through motivational and inspiring quotes, as I’m a firm believer after reading ‘Miracle Morning’ that ‘Your day is pretty much formed by how you spend your first hour, check your thoughts, attitude and heart’. So what better way to start and end my day by listening to Richard share these stories to motivate me before my work day by being able to take advice and have a ‘buzz’ session if you like, from these super successful, inspiring people.

Following on from listening to Richard’s audio book, it really got me thinking that within MarketMakers and Lakeside, I am surrounded daily by a number of super successful individuals. So why hadn’t I asked them to share their stories and their advice with me to help me on my journey?

This is where I’d decided that I was going to make this a monthly goal, to reach out to one successful person each month throughout 2019 to gather my own version of Richard’s book.

So to start this, I thought I’d reach out to a couple of MarketMakers successful employees to ask them about their journey so far, their success and to get their one piece of advice.

Stuart Calver, Sales Director

Stuart has been with MarketMakers for 14 years in October and is a MarketMakers living legend. As with anyone, Stuart didn’t just fall into his role of Sales Director and has worked tirelessly over the last 14 years to get where he is today – so what a great place to start! Having also been with MarketMakers for some time, I started my conversation with Stuart reminiscing about the ‘old days’ and how we have always joked about the time he ran MarketMakers credit control and drove about in a Jeep Rangler. However, I’d never asked Stuart what he had done previously, or how he had become so successful in Sales.

Early Days

Stuart worked with Paul Thomas (MarketMakers previous owner) back when they were younger, they had a business called ‘Millennium Promotions’ where they would create local events for college students – Paul would organise the event and Stuart would sell the tickets. This was Stuart’s first and only sales experience before joining MarketMakers.

The business went on to do really well with Stuart and Paul going from arranging events for 20 – 30 students, all the way up to huge events with 600-700 people with Ministry of Sound DJ’s!

Soon after that, Stuart got a job at a local company you may have heard of called Thomas Sanderson – Stuart started his role here in the post-room before working his way up to the Marketing Department (formally ran by our very own Kirsty Dawe, MD of Really B2B). Stuart relays how be became complacent in this role and didn’t know what he wanted to do with his career and at that point decided to move on again.

The Jeep Rangler

Upon moving away from marketing and gaining some good skills, Stuart had come up with an idea for a website that was a play on Fantasy Football, called Beat My Mates. At the time, Stuart had a top of the range Golf GTI which he sold (this is where driving around in the Jeep Rangler came in), to fund the marketing required to get his website business up and running. Unfortunately, the website didn’t take off as Stuart had planned and he found himself again, on the look out for his next venture.

It was at this point that Paul called Stuart and asked if he would come and work at MarketMakers, doing Credit Control. This is what later led Stuart to start in sales as in 2006, Paul said to Stuart ‘you should go out and sell for us’.

For 2 years Stuart, in his own words, floated by convincing himself that he was giving 150% and getting away with it. It wasn’t until Paul told Stuart that it wasn’t working, that Stuart had the wake up call to change his mindset and attitude and actually give that 150%. It was at this point Tom James became our Sales Director (now MarketMakers’ MD), having joined the sales team at a similar time to Stuart.

Stuart told me that this was his turning point; he could see that Tom was a fantastic Salesman, he was smashing his targets so Stuart immediately attached himself to Tom, emulating his every move. Tom not only became Stuart’s mentor but also great friend.

Today, Stuart’s success continues and he has not only won more awards than you can count, but through hard work and dedication Stuart was the successor to Tom when he moved up into our MD position.

So from this, what was Stuart’s advice?

“Throughout your life, you will always get different people telling you what to do and what not to do, you will always get different people giving you different opinions. Whilst its important to listen to them all, be wise and conscious as to who you allow to shape your thinking. Everyone’s plan is different and that’s okay, sensor whose advice you take and look to those who have a proven track record. Set goals, have a vision and dream big”

I hope that you can take something from this blog and it would be great to hear what you think. Likewise, if you read this and are someone that would be willing to share their success story and advice, please get in touch!

I already have another super successful person to write up again for March, so look out for the follow up!

By Jodie Goodchild-Gwyther

Tags: Blogging, One Team, personal development, Success