67. Have skin in the game when Consulting - Interview with Ann Andrews

Ann Andrews - HR & Leadership Consultant Interview [Everything Business Consulting EP 67]

In this episode, we cover Ann's journey to consulting and experiences in HR, leadership and business. 

Quotes:
"The only thing worse than training an employee and having them leave, is to not train them, and have them stay." - Zig Ziglar

"Do you have staff?" - Ann Andrews' four-word elevator pitch.

"Planting the seeds" - Ann Andrews' philosophy for consulting. 

Connect with Ann Andrews:
Website & subscribe to her newsletter: https://www.annandrews.co.nz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annandrewscsp/
Buy Ann's books: https://www.annandrews.co.nz/shop/

Transcript:

MC Welcome to Everything Business Consulting, whether you are or you want to become a successful and high-earning business consultant, coach, or adviser. This show is dedicated to help you. Here are our hosts, David Thexton and Julius Bloem. 

Julius Today, I'm excited to interview Ann Andrews, who is an entrepreneur, a keynote speaker, an H.R. expert, a consultant, at one point in time, a franchisor. And the way I discovered her, an author. Above all, our guest today is an expert when it comes to people and leadership. Ann, there doesn't seem to be much that you can't do. So are you ready to share your vast knowledge and experience on our podcast? 

Ann I most certainly am, Julius, and there are heaps of things I can't do, I promise you. 

Julius Well, it seems that there was a lot you can do. And I want to understand a little bit more about you before we get to it, and where you've come from. Ann, can you tell us where it started and what it took to get to where you are now? 

Ann Well, yes, so I came from a very small town in the north of England where there wasn't very much work. And my mom had been in the Women's Royal Navy during the Second World War. And although it was a terrible time, she sounds as if she had a ball, actually. And so I thought that seemed like a really good thing to do. So I joined the Women's Royal Navy and after basic training, I never actually did work for the Navy. I was condemned to work with the Royal Marines and the division of men. And in those days, women didn't go to the front line. 

Ann We were very much back office and the division of men I went to work with, were actually what we now know as SAS. In other words, the men in our office were simply there waiting for the next whatever call-up they would get, which in those days was quite a lot of trouble in Northern Ireland. And what that meant for us in our office, we were very boring really, paying records. But what it meant was in our office, we all had to swap jobs every three to six months so we could all cover each other for when our men would disappear because we could come in one morning and suddenly all the men would have gone. And we literally had to keep all the paying records going till they came back. And so what I witnessed in the Royal Marines was the most amazing leadership and the most amazing teamwork. And I worked with them for four years. 

Ann So after my basic, after my four years stint, my first civilian job was actually with Johnson and Johnson, the baby products people. And I got a job as a work-study engineer, what we call over this part of the world time and motions. A basic in my job would be to go out onto the factory floor with my clipboard and my stopwatch, no technology in those days, watch what people did, time what they did, come back to the office with the rest of the work-study engineers and we would work out how they could work faster, smarter, cheaper. And I just thought this was really bizarre. And I ask, why don't we involved the people are doing the job? And of course, they said, what would they know? Well, they're doing the job. And it just started me thinking about this the way we work things. 

Ann Anyway, I left the job, had my children, survived teenagers, came back many, many years later as personnel manager for Tegal Poultry. And at that point, I really had no qualifications, I just kind of fallen into all my jobs. They sent me off to Auckland University to do the Diploma in Business in Personnel Management, a two-year paper. And the very first term, I heard about the self-managing teams of the Yorkshire coal mines during the Second World War. And of course, that's all my background, I'm from Yorkshire. You know, my mum had been in the services and so forth. So what had happened during the Second World War, like my Navy situation, men shipped out to fight and women for the first time in history took over everything. 

Ann They ran ambulances, ammunition factories, so forth. So eventually, as the war progressed, more and more men obviously were not coming back, and more and more men were required to go to fight. And, the government said to the mines, the coal mines, which is the only place women were not put, but the government said to the mines, the mine managers, we need more men. And the mines are saying we don't, we can't give you any more men. We're at a skeleton crew now. So and they said we want more men, and we're going to take more men, so it's up to you to work out how are you going to do that. And then, of course, they said we need more coal. 

Ann So it's like, okay, well, how on Earth is this supposed to work? So one mine manager in the south of Yorkshire came up with the concept of the self-managing team. And basically, he said to his guys, I can't give you a supervisor. I don't have enough men, you know, the job, you know about your safety, you know about production, you know we've got a war to fight, all I can ask is do the best you can. So what they did was doubled production, reduced safety because suddenly they were in charge of themselves, they were self-managing. So I came back to Tegal Poultry with this magnificent new idea, and I said to my general manager, who had been at the job about two weeks, I said we need to turn the whole plant over to self-managing teams. Well, after he had gone and picked himself up off the floor, stopped laughing. He said Ann, and of course, when somebody uses your name in that tone, you know, it's not about to be followed by good news. 

Julius You're in trouble. 

Ann Yeah. They'd want more money, the unions would kill us, and in case you haven't noticed, poultry processing workers aren't very bright. Well, so, I was not impressed. Anyway, I kept nagging at him and said, look, just give me a team. I don't know anything, I don't know any more than anybody else. I've got my background in teams, I've got my background in work-study, just give me a team. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. So, of course, he gave me the team with the worst accident record, thinking it would either shut her up. In fact, I think he just thought it would just shut me up. Well, of course, we turned the place around. 

Ann You know, basically, all we did was I said, tell me what's working, tell me what isn't, tell me why you think that is and tell me what you think we can do about it, and basically put people in charge of their own areas. So we reduced accidents, we reduced absenteeism, we increased motivation. Yeah, I mean, it was just really simple. So that really was the start of it. So I'd been there for a few years when I got an offer to go and work for a very flash computer company. So I took the job thinking, well, it was about double my salary. So that was a really lovely incentive. 

Ann And it was to set up high-performing teams for them because they had lots of problems, too. But within a very short space of time, I realized that we had a values clash. I'm about people and they were about profits. And it didn't take me long to work out, I shouldn't have taken the job. But anyway, I made up my mind I had to be there for two years to get it on my CV. I had an amazing salary, so I thought I'm going to just put away as much money as I can because at some stage I will go out on my own. And that's really where it all stemmed from. And that is when I made the leap from being an employee to setting up as a consultant. 

Julius And when you started out, Ann, you set up a company by the name of the David Principle, 

Ann yeah, it's. 

Julius Is there a story about that name? 

Ann Yeah, it was just a little story I read about a consultant actually in the U.K., who'd been working with the British Rail when, of course, they were shutting all the railway lines down. So she had called her company, she told the story of when David was being carved, the statue of David, Michelangelo didn't actually see a block of marble. He just saw David inside and just freed up the stuff that wasn't David. And she said to her company, I don't know your ends as you do, but what I will do is I will show you how to bring those answers forward. 

Ann And it just really struck me because I was the same, you know, I would go with it to a company that had some kind of specialized whatever. And I'd say, I don't know your answers, but what I do know is your people know your answers. So let me work with your people and let's see what we can do to sort out the problems you're having because usually, problems are down to the people. 

Julius It's like you've unveiled the solution. 

Ann Uncovered.

Julius They already see uncovered it, absolutely I can see how that works.

Ann Because, yeah, if you ask any employee what are the problems around here, they'll tell you. They'll tell you. And then when you say to them, but why haven't you told your manager? They'll say, we've told them, and we told them, and we've told them, and we've told them. And it's not that managers and owners are bad, it's just that they've got their own challenges and all they hear from employees is what they see as whinging and whining. 

Julius Absolutely. 

Ann Yeah. 

Julius I found that, Ann, that employees and staff within a business can be an incredibly valuable source of information on how to improve it. 

Ann Of course, absolutely. They'll tell you exactly what the problems are. 

Julius Well, now, how long, Ann, have you been self-employed and working in your own business? And how did you come to the decision? You sort of alluded to it before that you were ready to become self-employed. 

Ann Well, I've been waiting for myself for over 30 years now. I just knew with this particular company where my soul basically died and I knew pretty much from day one I had to get out and I didn't want to go from the frying pan into the fire. And so I guess I'd been planning for about two years to go out on my own. And it's scary, you know. I mean, I'd never worked for myself before. I'd always had a job, and a salary, and a company car and, you know, health insurance and all of those wonderful things. So I knew it was a massive decision, but there was so many problems at this particular company and they were so close to being illegal. I basically negotiated my own redundancy and I negotiated a year's salary. 

Julius It's not a bad way to leave, it's perhaps the best way you can leave somewhere like that. You mentioned it can be a little bit scary going out on your own. And we find that some of our listeners who are considering becoming a business consultant when they're starting out, they feel the exact same way. They can be apprehensive about starting something new. What advice would you give them? 

Ann Well, as I say, for me, I thought I didn't have a great deal of choice. Though having said that, I was a solo mom with two teenagers, so it was a massive decision. You know, I had a mortgage, a car to run, and all of those kinds of things. So having tucked away a bit of money, that gave me a little bit of security. But I also knew it would take me a while to get work. Yes, I got the you know, the credibility of being able to say, look, I've worked with teams on X services, and that's a huge credibility to being X services, strangely enough. 

Ann But I still didn't have any way to prove to them, to other companies that I can do this for you. So what I did, was a couple of things. The first thing I did was, I started networking. Obviously, I got started to do that and get to know people and start to collect business cards and start to get to know people. But in the interim, also because I've been a woman in the corporate world with all that that entailed 30 years ago, and I'm not sure in some companies whether it's any better. I started running workshops for women, so that gave me some cash flow. That was my first thing. 

Ann But the other thing I did was, I learned to be able to ask questions of the various people I wanted to work with and what I did by way of a trial with the very first company that showed some interest in what I was doing. I said, look, I don't know how to do this consultancy thing other than the fact that I've been doing this team thing. So what I'd like to do with you is, I would like to give you a fee because of my work is once a month for six months, four to six months, depending, you know, you don't change organizations overnight. 

Ann So I'd say, look, I will be working with you once a month for six months. What I'd like to do if you're okay, is I will invoice you for half my fee up front, and then you don't pay me another cent until I have got the results that you want. And so it said, I've got skin in the game. 

Julius Yep. 

Ann And my first company was a concrete company, and because honestly, manufacturing for me was my passion. I love manufacturing plants, they're so, they are just earthy, you know, people tell it like it is. People stab you in the front in manufacturing, they don't stab you in the back. 

Julius You can see it coming. 

Ann You know, you've been stabbed. And so that gave me my first contract with some money upfront because I negotiated half my fee. But it also let me show that if you give me absenteeism, excellent turnover, all of those measures, I will work towards good. And I think we decided on a 10 percent reduction in accidents or a 20 percent reduction in absenteeism or something, and that's how I got my first contract. So that's your stepping stone. If it was a new person, you put some skin in the game. 

Ann In fact, I've even had clients where I've said, don't pay me until you're happy. 

Julius Wow, that's brave. 

Ann Well, I'll come in, and work with you, because I know, I know that I can do what I say I can do. And so it was so, yeah, come in. Why not, why wouldn't they? 

Julius Of course, they would, what do they have to lose? 

Ann Yes, give me your team half a day, don't pay me and I will come back in a month and we'll see what's happened. And when you're happy, you pay me. I don't do that now because I don't need to. 

Julius Ann, you mentioned before you asking some questions of presumably the managers and business owners at the start. What were you trying to find out or what was the objective of these questions? 

Ann Well, I heard about this, because I've never been a consultant before and never had my own business, I went to off to all these workshops on how to be to become a salesperson. I've never been a salesperson, how to market, you know, all of these things. And one of the things was, you know, the 30 second in the lift thing, 

Julius yep, the elevator pitch. 

Ann Yes, the elevator pitch. So I worked on that for a while. I was terrible at it for quite a while. But I worked out all I had to say to somebody if I met them, was, do you have staff? That was it. That's all I had to say, and they got oh, yes I've got staff. I was in, I was in, it was simple. 

Julius That's very funny you say that Ann, because typically what happens with our consultants more focused, more as a general business consultant, than the specific type of consulting you do, is all our consultants need to say is how's your business going? And it goes the same sort of reaction. And almost certainly staff is a big one that comes up. 

Ann Yeah, yeah. 

Julius So I've just said Ann, there is a bit of a difference between the consulting that you do and the business consulting that we focus on. However, I'm absolutely certain that a lot of your skills and knowledge would translate and be relevant to our listeners. Can I ask you what is consulting the way you perceive it? 

Ann Consulting to me is being passionate about some aspect of business yourself. To my mind, I am passionate about people, and if you're passionate about what you do, you don't have to sell it, people get it. If you're a passionate marketer, if you said, look, I can show you a way to market your business so that you get, you know, a 20 percent return on your investment or whatever, if you come from passion and you know your topic and you've proven that you can do it, it's a no brainer. 

Ann Yes, in the initial stages, when you first start and you don't have that knowledge that you can do it. But I still believe if you're passionate about what you do, people will give you a go. Especially if you have, 

Julius if you have that passion. 

Ann Yeah, yeah, especially if, as I've said, you know, you're willing to put your skin in the game. I mean, I've known consultants say well, I'm not going to go and do that unless I'm paid upfront. And it's like, well, do you know that you can do what you say you do? Really, do you know one hundred percent? Because if you don't know for sure if this is your first contract, that's the wrong attitude. 

Ann If you say to somebody, I am happy to come in and work with you for half a day to show you how to do X, Y, Z, and if at the end of it you're not happy with what I've shown you, I won't invoice you. Who's going to turn that down and who after you spent half a day with your person and your passion? Nobody is not going to pay. I've never not been paid ever. 

Julius You're exuding passion, there Ann so I can see how that would absolutely work with you. One of the most important roles of a business consultant and a consultant, in general, is to act as a leader in the client's businesses without obviously becoming overcontrolling and dictating to the owners and the leaders that are still within the organization. Now, Ann, how can you balance this leadership and influence whilst building strong long-term relationships within the business? 

Ann Hmm, yeah, I have to be careful because I can be a bit bossy. My husband says not a bit bossy, very bossy. It's like look, I know how to do this stuff, just listen to me, just do this and listen to this. And I have to learn, I had to learn, you can't go in that way. People don't like you being bossy. So all I do, is I come from a question point of view, have you thought of, have you considered, have you tried? It's what I call planting seeds. I know if I'm sitting with an owner and he says to me, look, my people, I've got a high turnover or whatever, I know, I know I can help them. But I also know that they're in a fearful state. 

Ann You know, they're worried, they're stressed, they're not sleeping. It's almost like they've got a fog around them. And you're trying to say, look, you can do this if you do that. And it's like, no, it's almost like it's what I call overwhelm. It can offer the best advice in the world, but they're in such a state of stress that anything that you suggest is just more stress, isn't it? It just gives them more stress, oh, no, I can't do that because... 

Ann So all I do is I plant seeds, have you thought of, did you consider, what have you tried? I might even have a story to say, look, I was working with a client who inherited this, whatever, and then leave them with us. You don't have to get a sign-up the minute you're with somebody. I would be sitting at a networking event or whatever, and say have you thought of, have you tried? And they go, oh, no, I can't do that. So I say, look that's okay, let's swap cards. I'll send you an article or I'll send you something. And so I started a slow relationship with some people. 

Ann You can't always rush in and get the orders straight away, you know, how often is that likely to happen? So you just got to build the trust, really. And then, I mean, I've had some people on my books for fifteen years and I've done nothing. And then suddenly out of the blue, they call me. Because I send out regular newsletters, I stay in touch, I might have a book special or, you know, I keep in contact with people in my database and I don't sell, sell, sell. I think that's the worst thing you can do. 

Julius How do you keep a consistent flow of work? 

Ann It isn't consistent, consistent, and I guess some kind of semi-retired now, but I've just got a routine where I do a newsletter, I've got three or four different databases. And every week I write, I write something, I love writing and that's my thing. So I write a newsletter to various things. I put them on LinkedIn and it just builds my database. I send out my newsletter some weeks, like last week, I got two calls for me to speak at a conference, the week before that nothing. You know, so I just keep my newsletter going. I'm not in a financial situation now where I urgently need work. I mean, I like shopping, so it's nice to have somewhere and I don't want to vegetate, but it's just my routine of I write on LinkedIn. I put some of my newsletters out, I do a little bit of networking, not a lot. 

Ann The other thing I didn't mention, but one of the things I do a lot of is joint ventures. Like coming up, I've got a crisis management session with two other presenters. I was invited into that by a person I've known for a few years. I've got a workshop coming up with two other presenters on franchising, so I just do a little things like that. So it's just a 45-minute presentation, you share the marketing, you share the, you know, costs and the what have you, the organizing. And you always get work out of it. Always, I've never not got work out of one of those ever. 

Julius Is it like a paid engagement, and then you get work out of it from that or you do it.

Ann We call it a showcase. So this crisis management one, that's coming up, we charge two hundred and forty-seven dollars plus GST. 

Julius Yep. 

Ann Per person, we do a half-day. So it's a pretty cheap half day. It was three of us and we each come from a slightly different angle and we all get worked out of it. So the audience gets value, you know, they've got a half-day for two and forty-seven dollars. But then they go on your database and then you start the cycle, you start the newsletter, you've got your little wheel that keeps going.

Julius I was going to ask you as well how did you built your database? You said you've got eight thousand people on it, that's a pretty decent amount.

Ann That's on LinkedIn, I don't know how I built that. I just put an article on most weeks. 

Julius Just goes up, and up, and up. 

Ann Yeah. Oh, and I've joined a few groups. I don't use LinkedIn, anything like I'm supposed to. I'm sure I don't, but I've got eight thousand people. 

Julius Well, that's nothing to sneeze at, that's for sure. 

Ann I don't know where they've come from but they just keep coming. But my big thing is my own database so that's just business cards, people I meet, pop them on the database, workshops like we've got these two workshops coming up. We'll have maybe I dunno, forty people on each, let's say two business cards say two more people go on my database. 

Julius Yeah. Just providing value and keeping in touch. And I really like what you said, Ann about planting the seeds. Now that could be seen perhaps as a little bit of a magic trick. And I want to ask this next question specifically about your H.R. expertise. Are there any magic tricks in that realm that business owners and managers should know about, that they probably don't know about when it comes to getting the most out of their people? 

Ann I mean, this is the missing link that I talked about earlier. I mean, if I'm working with a group of managers, I'll say, what do you tell your people about the business? And they say oh we tell them everything. And when I sit with the employees, without the manager, they'll say, what does your boss tell you? They say they tell us nothing. And so it's this gap in the middle of communication, of building trust, it's no different from us building relationships with our clients. Owners and managers need to talk to their people, ask them questions, get involved, know about them, talk to them, find out their challenges. You know the single biggest thing I leave any owner and manager with is the need to have regular one on ones with their people. 

Ann And so if you think, oh, I haven't got time for that, really? Well, I think you need to find some time for that. It's only 10 or 15 minutes maybe, or a coffee. How are you going, how are things, make it okay for them to tell you. You know, if you look at some of the things that are going on in the world right now with businesses, where there's this disconnect, where, you know, directors don't communicate with people and people don't know what's going on, communicate with your people. They're humans, they're not machines. They have homes and lives and, you know, quite often get a call to say, oh, look, you know, one of our best performers is just a pain in the neck right now. And they're not performing. So have you asked them why? No. Well, how about sitting and saying, how are you? They might be going through a marriage breakup and they're 

Julius They're giving Ann a call to see if you've got the answer. 

Ann Yeah. Have you asked them? Talk to them! Oh, no, I haven't got time for that. Well, please make time. Make time to talk to your people. Yeah, so it's just all of those interesting little human things, they're humans. Yeah. 

Julius I heard a very good quote Ann, and I'm paraphrasing here, but something to the effect of everyone has a neon flashing sign on their chest saying, I want to feel appreciated. 

Ann Yes. 

Julius And all that takes is some time and finding out how they're going. And I mean, like you said, it might only be 10 or 15 minutes once a week or once a fortnight. And for that other 40 or 80 hours that they're working in that time period, it's going to really pay off for you. 

Ann Yeah, they feel valued. 

Julius Absolutely. 

Ann Oh, yeah, yeah, I come back to the Tegal Poultry thing, you know, when my lovely general manager said, oh, you can't be doing something, can't be doing self-managing. Maybe they can, maybe they can't, but what's the worst in giving it a go. And so as I worked with a particular team and said, you know, how are things and what are the problems here? And they start to tell you and you build trust with them, you get to know them as people. And I think the big problem for a lot of owners and managers, and it's not that they're bad people, they're great people, most of them. It's that they think they haven't got time. They haven't got time to talk to the people. But my belief is, if you take the time to talk to your people in the good times when the bad times hit, they'll be your biggest supporter. 

Ann They will step forward and say, how can I help? But if you've ignored them through the good times when the bad times come and you say, oh, we need every shoulder to the pump, they're going yeah well, stuff you. You know, you weren't there for me when my marriage broke up, and you weren't there for me when my dad died or whatever, you know, you've got built those relationships. Yes, it takes a bit of time, but losing and that's the other thing, of course, if you don't value your people. 

Ann Zig Ziglar said his was about training, there's only one thing worse than training your people and having them leave, and that's not training them and having them stay. Well, the same comes to value, there's only one thing worse than not valuing your people and having them leave, and that's not valuing them and having them stay because they really are your robots, you know, show up at nine and leave at five and leave their brains at the door, people. Yeah, yes. That's my H.R. rant. 

Julius Your H.R. rant, I like it. To add to that, I've actually found that having those conversations and just asking how people are and asking them what they could see needing improvement within the business. And as a consultant, I found that I've very, very quickly built relationships with people within a business that exceeds the relationship that their managers have with them, just by giving them the time of day. And that's not how it should be, but it's how it often is. 

Ann I know. On the other side, I do give owners and managers the benefit of the doubt. And I know that they're busy and I know that they've got their own challenges and they see it as time wasted. But one side, that's another, the planted seeds, if I can plant that seed, if when I'm finished working with your team, I leave you asking you once a month to sit with each of your people with 10 or 15 minutes, buy them coffee, ask them how they're going, then the work I've done with them will continue. If I leave and you don't, then you've just wasted your money with me. In fact, worse, because you've set a scene that said we care about you, but only as long as somebody is here, a consultant. And once they're gone, it's like, oh, well, you know, you had your three weeks of somebody, you know, warm, fuzzy, and you now get on with the job. Don't do that. Better not to have me in the first place. 

Julius You've given them their medicine and then they're fixed forever. 

Ann Yeah. 

Julius Looking at your experience as a consultant when you were giving this advice and the other advice that you give, how do you persuade your clients to implement these ideas and strategies and keep it going for the long term? 

Ann Well, quite often, I set some reviews where they know that I'll be coming, that I'll be coming back. That's sometimes the best I can do is to say, okay, part of my fee, but you've just paid me is that I will come back in three months and six months and 12 months and you don't pay me another cent will just pop back and see how things are going. So very rarely do I ever get to do the three reviews. But I think it's just the fact that they know that, oh my God, she's going to be coming back and checking up on me. 

Julius So it's that accountability that keeps them going. 

Ann Yeah, absolutely. And I keep coming back to the whole thing about, you know when I'm working with an owner or a manager, as I say, what is it? What is in it for you? What's the reason for you to have people do things differently? And that's when they say, well, you know, we've got its morale's low at the moment and all my good people are leaving and we've got customer complaints. So if you think of all those things and we can fix them, it's like your car. You don't take it in for a service once in its lifetime. 

Ann You have regular checks. How are we going? If it's a big organization, do surveys, how are things going? Are we slipping back, are we going forward and listen to what they're telling you. You know, this 360-degree feedback thing came out, it was the flavor of the month for a while and quite a lot of organizations said, oh, my God, it was all just bad news so we just chucked it all away. It's like well, that bad news is actually the potential to turn it into good news. You know, it's tricky. 

Julius We're getting delivered with opportunities and deciding not to act upon them. 

Ann Yep, no. Too hard. Well, it isn't too hard, it mustn't be too hard, it comes with your job. I mean one of the things I say too, which gets me into a lot of companies is, I say if I could free you up by 30 percent to be working on the business rather than in it, would that be worth you having me come and talk to you and your people? Yes, absolutely. But then when I show them how we do the 30 percent freedom because I said, would you like Fridays off? Yeah, I'd love Fridays off.  Cool, okay, well, I can get you Fridays off. 

Ann I can show you how to get Fridays off so easily, you will be staggered. So to get the Friday off, what we have to do is get them to start delegating, of course, handing over things that they shouldn't be doing. And then I say, okay, well, now I freed you up Friday. What I'd like to do is I'd like your Friday morning to be spent with your people and then your Friday afternoon you can go and play golf. But your Friday morning is going to be spent doing this one-on-one, sitting with people saying, how are you going? Where are you at? How can I coach and develop you? What are your five-year goals, all of those kind of things. So it's just little things like that. And it's not that they're bad people, it's just that they're busy working in when they need to be working on, you know, they shouldn't be doing the 30 dollar an hour jobs. 

Julius We call that chicken plucking, Ann, doing those menial tasks that they shouldn't be doing. 

Ann Busy being busy, busy looking busy, busy wandering around with a clipboard, or whatever the equivalent is. Yeah, that's not your job. 

Julius No, it's not. Now, undoubtedly, Ann many of the lessons that you have learned have been the result of struggles. In the book that I have read of yours, which is My Dear Franchisee's and there'll be a link in the show notes for you to find out about Ann's book where you can get that and her other books. This was the result of some serious frustration that you had. Now I want to ask about the lessons you learned and the process of franchising because that's what the book is about. If any of our consultants were working with a business considering franchising, what are the most important things that they should consider? 

Ann Okay, so just to step back to how I came to franchise because I worked with quite a lot of corporates in New Zealand and Australia where I would be with them for two or three years. Which is very exciting, but eventually I just burnt out because if I got in with a corporate that said, look we've got 14 teams and I work with each team once a month for four months, four to six months, you start to multiply that by 16 teams. So I was pretty much burning out and I thought, I've got do something with this. I've got to bring in other trainers because there's only me, I'm on my own. And my husband already had a franchise. He had 32 franchises and he said, you can franchise it. So basically, a franchise is a system, it's just a system. And I had a system four to six months working with the team. So I franchised and I signed I think I sold 11 franchises at around twenty-five thousand dollars each in 18 months. My husband thought this was brilliant. He thought that he was going to retire. And let me keep him in the minutes, which he would like to become accustomed. 

Ann And so one by one, I watched them fall over. And so hence the book, because what I would say to anybody who is a) thinking of becoming a franchisor, b) working with the franchisor, is a franchise, is a franchise, is a franchise. And a lot of people don't get that. Even franchisors sometimes don't get that, a franchise is a system. It is not to be tampered with. You know, you spent years, I spent years building my six-step process, sold them to lovely people. I recruited meticulously, trainers, people who were already H.R. People. But as soon as they got my franchise, they wanted to change it. And of course, I'm saying don't change it. It works, oh but I think I could and, don't change it. It works. So hence the letter, hence the book. So if you're working as a franchisor, I get it that your franchisees will drive you mad because they want to change the system. What I say to franchisors is give them my book. And it's not just to sell the book, but once franchisees read it. They got oh, now I understand, my franchisor isn't my enemy, no. They're not my banker, no. How the system works, yes. So why would you spend your time trying to change the system when you've just paid all that money to buy it? You know, it just doesn't make any sense. So it's a tricky business model because franchisees to a degree have bought a business, they think they've bought, well they have, they bought a business, but it isn't their own business. It's somebody else's business. So it is a tricky model. But once they get it, then they relax and realize that don't waste your time trying to change something that already works. It doesn't mean that after a year or two of doing this system, you can't say to your franchisor, oh, look, I've got a couple of ideas that we can do it better. It doesn't mean you can't do that. But when your first year don't touch a thing, just follow the manual. Yeah, it is a tricky business model. 

Julius And what was the end result of your franchise? 

Ann So I had got down to my last three franchising. I signed up 11 and got down to my lowest rate and all three of them were really good, but they'd been with me for about two years. And so they got past all that, wanting to change everything and got to realize that the things that I was doing worked. It didn't mean we couldn't change things later, but let's just go with what we've got. So I was down to three and unfortunately, my mom in the UK got sick and I was having to go back and I'm an only child. So I was having to go backward and forwards to the UK to just help my mom get settled and then come back. And so while I was away, one of my franchisees called me and said, look, I'm really, really sorry, but it's not working for me. I don't have the network, I'm not a salesperson, I'd like to be released. And I said absolutely, no problem at all. 

Ann I mean, I wouldn't have even questioned that. It's there's no way I would want somebody to say that wasn't happy and it wasn't working. So he went and got a job and that was fine. The second franchisee was also an ex-military. And so I knew he could be brilliant. But he was working with a big company and they offered him a job as their in-house trainer. And I was overseas and I said, look, all I want to say to you is I totally understand. It's very flattering that you're offered a job and a salary and all the lovely trimmings. All I want to say and if you decide that you want to do that, I will I won't stand in your way. All I want to say to you is just know that when a company is in trouble, the first person that's shown the door is the trainer. 

Julius Yep. 

Ann And he said, I'll take that risk. I said that's absolutely fine, and a year later, he was made redundant. Poor guy. But that's cool. But my third franchisee was my biggest disappointment. Just before I went overseas to actually bury my mum, I had just signed up a big contract for about twenty-eight thousand dollars with a company. And I said, look, I can't, I can't do it. I've got to go back to the UK. But I've got this brilliant franchisee and she can do just as good as me, if not better. So I left the contract with her. And by the time I came back and I'd cleaned up the estate, and got back home, I suddenly thought, I haven't seen any reports come through because, you know, you get a monthly report of what you've sold, and so your fees and all of that, again, I haven't heard anything for months, but I've got so many other things happening. I just had gone past me. 

Ann So when I came back, I thought, that's really strange. So I contacted the person. I said, oh, I haven't had any reports. And she said, Oh, no, they decided not to go ahead. So I said, oh, okay, well, that's right. That's sad, you know, I mean, how are you doing? No, no, I'm okay, and a week later, I got a call from the company, kinda out of the blue and they said, oh, we are so delighted with her. Wait, what? She'd taken my twenty-eight thousand dollar contract and she'd paid me, wire the two percent fees or five percent fees or whatever. And I was burying my mom, so I closed it down. 

Julius That's horrible. 

Ann Yeah. So I closed it down that night. And of course, my husband said, look, don't worry about it. You know, they reckon that it takes you 13 franchisee's before you get it right. And I said, uh, no, the computer says no, I couldn't do it again, it was too heartbreaking. So now what I do know is if I get more work than I can cope with, I've got about four or five people I know I can pass the work over to them, they give me a finder's fee. I'm happy, they're happy, so I do it that way. So that was disappointing. Yeah, but it's just the nature of business, isn't it? Yeah, just sad. 

Julius It is, it is very sad. And to close this interview, perhaps on a lighter note, Ann

Ann Sorry, yes, it's okay, I'm over it. 

Julius Could you give us and our listeners a couple of gold nuggets of advice that will help them in their consulting careers? 

Ann Yeah, it's definitely have some skin in the game. It's a very tenuous relationship when you first start out as a consultant with a new client. Consultancy can get a pretty bad name, you know because there are people who will take your money, sell you a lovely pitch, take your money and then leave you with not a lot. Don't be one of those consultants, have skin in the game. Put your credibility on the line by saying I am with you until we get this result. Look after your clients, it's the age-old adage, if you look after your clients, they will pass leads to you.  The number of people, I don't even have to market much anymore, now I'll get a call. They've been talking to somebody, heard you worked with their team, could you come and talk to me? Heard you spoke at their conference, we'd like you to come and speak at ours, build your business for the long haul. You may be able to get some really fast bucks early, but if there's no substance, it won't last. And your credibility, you've only got one reputation, that said, once your name is mud, it's mud. 

Julius Mud forever, and do you have any other nuggets for us, or is that the entire gold pan? 

Ann Oh yeah. One of the things I learned early on, somebody passed this on to me when I was starting off as a consultant and I was so convinced I could change the world, and everybody needed me and all of those kind, and wonderful things. And of course, you get your knockbacks and it comes back to, it's a kind of the planting seeds thing. This person said some owners change when they see the light, other owners change when they feel the heat. Some change when they see the light, others when they feel the heat. So that's why I stay in touch with people. If I talk to somebody and they said, oh, look, that's very nice. And I'm sure that was wonderful, but just not right now. That's okay, that's cool. I've got your business card, I'll pop them on my database. I contact them to say, look, I put out a monthly newsletter with, you know,  tips and tools. If you'd like to stay on my database, that's cool, you know, whatever. Very rarely do people say, no, I don't want to be on your database. And so once a month I send them. As I say, one client, 15 years he's been on my database. And finally, he said, I think we need you. 

Julius He felt the heat. 

Ann So, yeah, I know 15 years. I didn't even know he was still on there. Yeah. So just be in it for the long haul. 

Julius If anyone listening to this podcast wants to connect with you, where can they find you? 

Ann I've got a website, www.annandrews.co.nz. And that's Ann without an E, or they can email me ann@annandrews.co.nz. I've got a few free things that I send to people. I've got a wonderful flipbook, you know, that you can turn ebooks now into flipbooks. I've got a flipbook, I just had it converted, Leaders Behaving Badly. I wrote that when I saw all the terrible things that Donald Trump was doing. I'm looking at the values, leaders values. So it's a story of leaders who are doing terrible things, but leaders who are doing amazing things. So if they'd like to email me, I'm happy to send them a flip ebook of leaders behaving badly. 

Julius I'll make sure I put that information in the show notes as well. And I highly recommend subscribing to your regular newsletter because it's incredibly valuable for anyone who wants to improve themself in the leadership space or is dealing with people and can listen and make use of your very insightful insights. Well, Ann, thank you very much for that very frank and interesting interview, I'm sure our listeners will have gained a lot from it. 

Ann You're very welcome, Julius, and as I say to any consultant, it's the best job in the world. 

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