Tony Skinner (00:03.772)
Hi and welcome to the podcast channel for PodcastMyBusiness.com.au and the content channel for contentmadeeasy.com.au and today we’re joined by Les from NoLimitsToSuccess.com.au. How are you Les?
Les – No Limits To Success (00:19.371)
I’m fantastic, Tony. So happy you could have me here. Thank you very much.
Tony Skinner (00:24.644)
And just for LinkedIn purposes, what’s your surname again?
Tony Skinner (00:31.012)
Yeah, I couldn’t remember how to pronounce it. So best to ask. Good. Okay, you know, I reached out on one of the networks that we’re in, business networking and what have you, and business networking is really, really important for business. So how much networking do you
Les – No Limits To Success (00:33.774)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Les – No Limits To Success (00:55.221)
I think for me business networking is actually the most important. I think it’s one of the highest. If you’re going to grow networking and people, your connection with other people and the connection with other businesses, connection with other with your customers is the highest and most important thing. A lot of people focus, I guess, on
on systems and other things, but really underneath it all, any systems that are involved, there’s people connected to it. And as long as you can network, as long as you can grow your network, and especially if you’re growing your network up, I think it’s really important. But also, I really believe in giving value. If you can’t just network and try to take, I think giving value is highly important and giving back. So I think what you look at when
talking about networking sometimes we’re looking up or we’re looking for connections with people who we can do deals with and things like that but I think just as important is if you’ve had a level of success is being able to pass on and help other people grow and if you’re able to help other people grow I think it always comes back and loyalty is one of the most one of the key fundamentals I think around
any business and networking and communication.
Tony Skinner (02:21.264)
Yeah, that’s certainly true. mean, I do the Business Stories Masterclass as a way of giving back. I saw that frustration of people not knowing how to talk about their business clearly. It’s not much good, you know, doing a podcast video and blog if you can’t communicate.
Les – No Limits To Success (02:38.181)
Absolutely, I think if we are unable to provide enough value
Les – No Limits To Success (02:47.642)
people don’t expect, whether that’s within your business or around us, well, I think that’s the key to being a leader, really. And a business person or an entrepreneur should become a leader. And there are skills involved in that, but one of the biggest thing is being able to lift other people up and…
be able to help others, whether that’s your staff, whether that’s other people in the community or other connections. And if you’ve got joint ventures, whatever it is, is it’s how much can you do to lift others up and it reciprocates. And I think being able to give, if you don’t provide enough value to your customers, there will be somebody else who provides more value.
I think there’s that wow effect when you’re able to provide much more value than you’re receiving. And that’s what creates loyalty with customers or loyalty with clients.
Tony Skinner (03:50.022)
Yeah, and of course what we’re talking about today is your business of business coaching. And of course coaching is a huge industry. I in fact have a business coach. I believe in coaches. I’ve gone through quite a few coaches over the years depending on the need. You don’t always stay one person. I’ve been one person for a few years now because she changes and grows and as she changes and has grown and so have
Les – No Limits To Success (04:05.412)
Yes.
Tony Skinner (04:20.412)
So what do you think the fundamentals of looking for a business coach
Les – No Limits To Success (04:27.106)
I think that exactly is essential. I think you should be asking really first, do you have a coach? I don’t believe you should be a coach if you don’t have coach or coaches. I have five coaches or mentors, depending on how you frame it. Because I think the way I look at it is thinking about it.
I have never seen an elite athlete or an elite team achieve the winning position without a coach. And that’s just an expectation in sport. if you have ever experienced, business people often…
think there’s this DIY system, they’ve got to prove themselves or they just grow from what we call it, you know, the old E -Myth, going from a technician and then they become a business and they don’t understand the full business skills. And I don’t know, do you play golf at all, Tony?
Tony Skinner (05:43.474)
Used to and it’s quite funny. I do have a golf story. Of course I did So years ago, I used to work at Royal Queensland Golf Club. It was actually one of my first jobs and the guy the Guy there was Charlie Earp the guy who taught Greg Norman how to play golf But I don’t because I injured my knee in a golf it’s really weird and I injured my knee years ago I my knees are my back and everything else just
So I’d love to play golf. I know how to play golf. I the fundamentals of golf, but I don’t get to do it, no.
Les – No Limits To Success (06:19.056)
Yeah, yeah. I’ve had, I don’t play golf anywhere as much as I want, but I remember this one time when I hired this golf coach. I only had him for 20 minutes, half an hour. He stood there watching my swing for, no.
five, 10 minutes, I was just hitting balls. He came over, he gave me about two or three tips and it was just about how I was holding the club, how I was, my stance, a couple of little things. And the change was just, the ball flew straight, you know, it was a lot longer. And that just gives you, you know, one instance of the value of a coach. A coach is looking at,
not, he’s not going to go in and take the club off you and start swinging it, right? He’s not going to come in and change it. But what he’s doing is just going, okay, well, just adjust this, just adjust that you’re doing okay. But these adjustments and they can be micro adjustments.
And it just, it gives you leverage. And I think that’s where, that’s what we’re looking for in business is leverage. We’re looking for changes, incremental changes that make huge differences. And that’s what a coach is looking for. My background is in building. So I look at it almost like I’m a builder. I am not an expert.
I’m not the best expert in marketing. I’m not the best expert in HR and I’m not the best expert in these details or the tactics. But what I’m looking for is overall strategy. There are coaches who do do that and when I get somebody to a point where they need a strategic or a tactical coach, let’s say.
Les – No Limits To Success (08:09.572)
Okay, you need a marketing coach now who’s going to help you specifically get this and grow it. I’ll be connecting to them to that. But what I’m looking for is overall foundational and fundamental growth so that you can scale quickly. But if you’ve got, if you have your foundations aren’t right and you build on top of it, that’s when the building falls over.
you know, leaning tower of Pisa. So it’s, if you’ve got your foundations right, then you can scale. can put people in place. You can have your systems in place, but without that, and one of the things that I see a big difference in and where I actually focus is not often the strategies. It’s often the business owner’s mindset.
I describe it as a devil at every level. There’s a challenge when you get to a certain point where you get to a, it could be a money mindset or it could be, you know, a confidence in an area that you haven’t done before. And it’s about getting them past that because often that’s what holds us back in business.
talking about coaching, I guess that’s my philosophy in the way that I coach, is it’s a broad view. It’s an overview and taking a step back and helping them take a step back and put the foundations in place for their business to be able to grow.
Tony Skinner (09:43.478)
Yeah, it’s like, what’s that term? The helicopter view where you zoom out and you can see, my god, there’s an elephant behind that tree that I didn’t see before or whatever it might be. There’s something I didn’t notice. And I’ve got a few friends in business, really really smaller businesses, and I keep saying to them, you know what, go to networking or just get out and meet people in business.
Les – No Limits To Success (09:49.274)
That’s it.
Tony Skinner (10:10.896)
Because if you’re not meeting people in business, you don’t know what’s going on. You’re not going to learn and grow and do new things. And again, the same with a coach. So my coach helps with content initially and all those sort of things. where should people look for a coach?
Les – No Limits To Success (10:29.904)
That’s a good question. I think first of all, you can talk to your network. Come to my website first of all. But I’m not saying I’m the coach for everybody. In fact, I
I have some basic coaching. There’s a bit of a story behind what I do is because I had to get to a certain level really before I could afford the coaches that I needed. Right? Because coaching is often…
out of the reach, the good coaches are out of the reach of small business and micro businesses, solo pro nos. And when I got to the point where I pivoted and became or decided to go down this line of coaching was how can I make it accessible from that bottom level right up, right? So when I’m…
when I’m dealing one -on -one with companies or businesses that are really wanting to scale fast.
you know, that’s probably out of the range of somebody who’s just launching or a solopreneur who’s starting out. But what I want to do is provide them the tools to get to that next level so that then they can afford, you know, that coaching that’s going, but also have that basis for starting. So if you establish that basis and you’re across the board with it, you will naturally grow to that next level and then it becomes affordable. there’s this starting the snowball effect is where
Les – No Limits To Success (12:07.834)
start but looking looking for a coach I think you’ve got to make sure that whoever you connect with is do your research see if you are comfortable with with heck connecting with them I think one thing you have to be able to I’ve had coaches in the past that they’ve given me great information but I think didn’t have proper rapport and so I moved on from them and
that was a good choice. And as a coach, if I don’t feel that somebody’s progressing with me, I will also say, you know, might be time to look elsewhere. Because I think it’s, if you’re not getting value for that interaction, then it’s a waste of both people’s time. And time is the biggest thing that we have in this world. You can’t ever get time back. So that’s one of my cause is…
For me, if something’s not of value and is going to grow something, whether that’s one of my clients or the business or what I’m trying to achieve, then let’s put that to the side, focus on what’s important.
Tony Skinner (13:11.302)
Yeah, we were talking just before about mindset. So do you think somebody changing and improving their mindset is the quickest and easiest way to make improvements?
Les – No Limits To Success (13:25.748)
One of my coaches, JT Fox, one of the things he says to me and it always resonates is the things that have got you to the level where you are now will not get you to the next level. So I think the biggest thing is changing mindset. And when I say mindset, it’s about often the beliefs we have about the strategies we’re using and…
There’s negative mindsets and positive. Sometimes we become overconfident. There’s like the, know, modest touch where you’ve achieved something and you end up thinking that everything you touch is going to turn to gold. And that can actually be devastating. The second one is like when we get to a point and we become comfortable, what ends up happening is there’s a drop off at the end. Or the biggest thing is sometimes we’ve got…
inner beliefs, whether it’s self doubt, whether it’s a money mindset or something that’s causing this block, or it might even be just an area of our business where we’re just delegating everything instead of actually taking on and taking responsibility over. And when you can move to that next level, it just moves us forward so much quicker. And I say that because I’ve experienced it.
Les – No Limits To Success (14:51.268)
That’s why I teach what I teach is because I wasted so much time in my past. I struggled and struggled and felt like I was going around in this wheel. instead of taking off, I had these struggles with money mindsets. I had struggles with employment and all of these beliefs that, it’s hard to employ. And what it was was,
I was talking to people at my same level, my peer level, right? Getting advice off of people who agreed with me. And the problem with that is it doesn’t take you to that next level. So what you’re wanting to do is follow those people who have been through it, have gone to that next level. The top 1%, not the ones that are just stagnant, I guess, is probably all stuck because
It’s nice to hear that the economy is hard and that’s why I’m not doing well. But really, that’s when the successful people flourish. You know, so if you actually have this counterintuitive thinking and going, well, how can I? And it’s about getting somebody to take you away from your perception that you’ve got and have choice, because that’s the biggest thing we’re looking for. Having choices means that we have multiple options and then we find out which is the best one.
and go that way. That’s what a coach does. The same in sport. What they’re doing is they’re going over and going, what are you doing now? How can we change that to make it better? They’re always looking for that 1 % of difference. And that’s what a good coach in business does as well.
Tony Skinner (16:39.576)
Absolutely, okay cool. Alright, so anything else you’d like to add?
Les – No Limits To Success (16:46.352)
I guess my biggest thing, it’s in the title of my business, which is there’s no limits to success. I really believe that that is the mindset you have to have. If you want to achieve something, if you want, and we talk about goal setting, there was years ago, I thought, set five year goals, 10 year goals, all that sort of thing. But you know what, I choose to study.
ultra successful people because my business model and what I teach other people, teach my mentees, my students is model those of the top 1 % and if you’re able to model that, that’s what success, that’s what gives you success. And if you’re looking at it, they understand a couple of things, that they do things differently.
be different and they act different. And one of the essential things that I’ve noticed is time. Time is one of those commodities we have, we cannot get back. Money you can get back, know. Energy you can get back. But time, once it’s spent, you don’t get it back. And so speed of implementation, speed of decisions.
is one of those things we make a reasonable decision but also don’t procrastinate about it. If you’re going to go ahead with something, if you’re going to do something, do it the fastest way possible. And that’s why I get coaches is because it’s about going, well, how can I get there faster? And that’s why I have coaches and that’s why I coach is because we’re going to what we’re doing is going, okay, well, this path is trodden. It’s the fastest path.
this is the way you go. So that’s
Tony Skinner (18:48.483)
Okay great, thank you very much Lisa. Talking of time, like to do quick sharp podcasts rather than half hour, hour, two hours, ten hours, whatever it may be. Because we just don’t have the time.
Les – No Limits To Success (19:00.706)
No, thank you very much, Tony.
Tony Skinner (19:02.662)
Thank you. Alright so it’s Les from NoLimitsToSuccess .com .au and it’s Les Moir. Alright, thanks Les.
Les – No Limits To Success (19:10.33)
Thank you very much, Absolutely brilliant.