Business Brain Food

This week we lift the lid on one of Australia’s biggest entrepreneurial success stories: Penny Spencer. She gave us so much great insight into how she got to where she is today. Her travel company turns over £65m per year and has 85 employees, and she is listed in Australia’s top 35 entrepreneurs.

We got Penny on the show not only because of her success in business but because she is a great advocate of business coaching and mentoring. She is a member of many different mentoring groups and has founded her own not-for-profit group for the travel sector called TIME. Her philosophy of never being too successful or too old to learn really is an important one.

See below for some of Penny’s top tips:

**  Set goals. It’s a common piece of advice but that’s because it works!

**  Accountability for your goals is key. This is where pier groups are vital.

**  Always be open to new people coming in to your business.

**  Penny works 'on' her business 90% of the time, and ‘in’ the business 10% of the time. It took her ten years to get to this point - it didn’t happen overnight - but it is something that most entrepreneurs should aspire to.

**  Be clear on the values of your company and employ people on the basis of your values. Values mean more than skills.

**  If you have happy staff you have happy clients. Staff should never be treated as a liability!

**  Make sure you pay yourself when you have your own business. An easy mistake entrepreneurs make is to not pay themselves and then gradually resent the business.

 

In this episode of Business Brain Food you will learn:

**  How to generate good referrals

**  The value of mentoring groups

**  A sustainable method of recruitment

**  The importance of being able to change direction

**  How Penny generates ideas

**  The power of networking

**  How to interview

**  How often to survey clients and how to review the results

**  How to prepare yourself to start a new business

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

**  Not long left to grab a place on one of Ben’s free 5-stage Business Exceleration™ workshops. Go to http://www.businessfasttrack.com.au for more information and to register.

**  Ben’s free business planning template can be downloaded from http://www.maxmyprofit.com.au

**  Penny’s website: http://www.pennyspencer.com.au

**  Penny’s travel company website: http://www.spencertravel.com.au

**  Penny’s book can be purchased here

**  All previous BBF episodes & show notes can be found at http://www.businessbrainfood.com.au

**  Twitter: https://twitter.com/bfewtrell

 

Call to action:

Penny is a great reminder to all of us that our entrepreneurial minds should always stay open to learning. Take heed of this advice: make sure you have a way of developing yourself.

Also, if you are enjoying these Business Brain Food podcasts, then make sure to share them via social media sites or email the links to family and friends. A lot of time and effort goes into producing each of these podcasts with the goal in mind of the more people we can inspire about business the better. You can help us do just that!

Until next time, have a profitable day!

Cheers,
Ben Fewtrell
(02) 9111 5000