IAM507- Founder and Podcaster Connects People to Opportunities

Lewis Maleh is the founder and CEO of Bentley Lewis, a leading boutique executive search firm and host of Don’t take out your phone! Podcast. Lewis has a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham, and began his career working in the fashion and manufacturing sectors before moving into the executive search industry in 2006.

His love of connecting with people has led him to a career in executive search and podcasting. When Lewis is not working, he loves spending time with his family, running, and doing Crossfit.

• CEO Hack: Alarm reminders at different times
• CEO Nugget: (1) Learn from experiences (2) Focus on what I'm doing
• CEO Defined: Serving people that work in your business and creating a conducive environment for them

Website: https://bentleylewis.com/

Bentley Lewis Socials:
Instagram: http://bit.ly/BL_INSTA
Twitter: http://bit.ly/BL_TWITTER
Facebook: http://bit.ly/BL_FACEBOOK
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/BL_LINKEDIN

DTOYP! Podcast:
Website: https://bit.ly/2tPsqlB
Instagram: https://bit.ly/2EtZuEM
Twitter: https://bit.ly/2C1kRwU
Facebook: https://bit.ly/2IQ0GYw
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/2w7IdgZ

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Lewis Maleh of Bentley Lewis.

Lewis, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Lewis Maleh 0:39

Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be on. Super excited to be joining because I'm used to my own podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:46

Exactly. We're switching the research and roles so to speak. I appreciate it and appreciate you being on it. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Lewis so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

Lewis is the founder and CEO of Bentley Lewis, a leading boutique executive search firm and host of Don’t Take Out Your Phone Podcast.

Lewis has a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham and began his career working in the fashion and manufacturing sectors before moving into the executive search industry in 2006. His love of connecting with people has led him to a career in executive search and podcasting.

When Lewis is not working, he loves spending time with his family, running, and doing CrossFit. Lewis, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Lewis Maleh 1:32

Absolutely. Thanks for the introduction.

Gresham Harkless 1:34

Yeah. No problem. I wanted to say podcasting that CrossFit. I don't know I have it on the brain. But I appreciate you taking some time out. I wanted to kick everything off, hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story.

What led you to get started with your business?

Lewis Maleh 1:47

Absolutely. Bentley Lewis is an exec search firm, and I founded it nine and a half years ago, not done counting. You tend to start a business in something you think you're good at, you don't realize whether you're actually good or not until the kickoff. I worked for another search firm before. After five years, I was itching to do my own business. I went to see my boss, I gave him my salary, and I jumped off the cliff. After I was talking about it for like two years, my mom just said like, either do it or never talk about it again. I jumped off the cliff and started the business.

I started on my own and in the UK and I think like most companies, and countries, you have a non-compete clause. So I wasn't allowed to speak to my clients that I worked with in my last firm for six months. It was a great opportunity just to meet fresh new people. From day one, I made a list of 3000 companies I wanted to work for in the UK. I just went from A to Z and picked the phone up and started arranging coffee meetings and just trying to generate some business and stuff. When you start a business, you end up while you're the only person showing up being like the salesperson, the HR, and marketing to clean, as a tea person, I mean, literally everything and you're doing all of these things.

When you want to build a business, you have to start identifying the roles within it, and then start hiring people. Well, after about two, three months, my mum came on board, she had retired as a teacher, and she was doing all the kind of accounting and admin stuff. Then I started hiring recruiters and researchers and started to build and it's been a real journey from the game is like up and down. Ups, downs wins losses and the mentality has been you win or you learn. There are lots of successes, there's a failure, and you're like, What can I learn from that? Then after that, there's another win and you just keep going it's been one of the best things I've ever done. It's been really cool.

Gresham Harkless 3:59

Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a roller coaster ride and it's so funny what you said in the beginning about a lot of times you don't know if you're good at it until you start. Funny enough, I started an editing business like I used to like to write so I was editing. But I learned very quickly when I sent out things with a bunch of grammatical errors. That editing was not my thing. It was my calling. So the visits didn't last very long at all.

Lewis Maleh 4:22

Yeah, you never know. But I think part of it is just trying. Yeah. It's the big thing that stops people from doing anything. In the UK, it's funny, because when you speak to people in England, I'm going to start my own business they're like, Oh, what happened? It doesn't work out. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't do it. Then I've got some family in America, actually. I might start my own business and they're like, yeah, what's the worst that can happen and you're like, getting another job.

I ended up just kicking off and I gave myself 12 months. I'd saved up for 12 months to cover my rent and stuff. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out a lot of successful people, their CV of DEF or their resume of their failures is longer than the resume of success. So half the time, you just got to do it and then you learn as you go. You learn from experiences, you get stronger, you get better your mindset gets improved and, yeah, it's been really good actually.

Gresham Harkless 5:23

Yeah, that makes so much sense that a lot of times just so as you kind of talked about, the pain of regret is actually sometimes in the pain of failure. Because if you never really do what you always wish that you would have done, you don't know how it would have gone. So it's great to hear that you've done it. Of course, you're encouraging us to do it as well.

So I know you touched a little bit, and I touched a little bit as well on Bentley Lewis, but I want to drill down a little bit deeper, tell us a little bit about what you do, how you work with your clients that you have.

Lewis Maleh 5:48

Yeah, so Bentley Lewis is an executive search firm. We work with companies to find people for their boards, and senior leadership roles. We're based in London by the Bank of England and we work all over Europe. So our clients, our financial services, firms, companies in the healthcare industry, technology firms, and we're finding them chief financial officers, chief executive officers, non-executive directors, sales directors, and all of the senior leadership staff. It's all over Europe, which is really interesting. Every country in Europe has a different attitude and culture. It's really interesting working with different types of people. I started doing that from day one.

I was telling everyone I met Hey, I'm a beauty global search firm and after about six months, someone believed me, and gave me my first international role, which was a CFO, search chief financial officer in Switzerland. Then it just went from there and it's snowball and we started doing more and more work. The big focus for me has been people. It's all about building really good, quality relationships with people. I'm representing the company and the people to the market, I'm telling their story and people are buying into the story, and so forth. It's interesting. I've worked with a lot of the same clients for a long time, which is good. It's been a good journey.

Last month, we opened in New York. So we now have Bentley Lewis, North America, I've got a great lady called Kelly, who's going to be running it there in Manhattan, and we're doing the same thing. Again, senior leadership roles are all over the US, all our clients in London have offices in the US. These are like all international companies, which could be banks, insurance companies, private equity firms, medical devices, and tech. So it's really interesting. The boutique thing works. Your clients quite like boutique firms, in its personal service, it means a lot to us, they get the benefit of working with all of our firms. It's been nice.

Gresham Harkless 7:02

Yeah, that's definitely awesome. You might have already touched on this, but do you feel like I was gonna ask you for what I call your secret sauce? What do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you or your organization unique? Do you think that boutique firm feel is that's what kind of sets you guys apart?

Lewis Maleh 8:23

Yeah in the UK, there are 40,000 recruitment firms alone and we work globally. So there are so many similar firms. The difference is us, the individuals, so our attitudes, our culture, our beliefs, how we operate, how we live our values, those things. So people buy from people. If they meet me, and they believe what I believe, and they like what we're doing, and they enjoy the service, then you build a strong relationship, and then you start doing more and more work.

So think in a services industry like mine it's the interactions, the customer service, and our approach that sets us apart.

Gresham Harkless 9:10

Yeah, that makes so much sense. A lot of times I say you forget, and when you're talking about a business or an organization that is made up of people, and those people have families, they have lives, so on and so forth, and a lot of times we gloss over that when we're thinking about business.

Lewis Maleh 9:26

Yeah, definitely. It's different to let's say, a company that makes widgets or drinks and stuff, you're selling products, maybe the taste is different. With us where it's a service, people are engaging with us to go and find people to work for them. So it's kind of intangible. Obviously, we're finding people so we're research, we have a big database, and our research skills are great. But then also we're telling the story. It's all about storytelling. The candidates think of themselves in the story of his firm and should they move there? Will their career be better there than where they are? All of those things. That comes from a need to someone, trust me to do that and that's that connection you have with someone.

Gresham Harkless 10:14

That makes so much sense. It's funny, I've never looked at the recruiting aspect of bringing somebody in or on the team. But you're absolutely right when you have an organization, they have their story, they have their values, they have their mission, and all those things. It's finding that right fit so that the story continues. But the story is even probably more powerful when that person is in that position.

Lewis Maleh 10:34

Absolutely. Because what you find this, when people are looking to move jobs, or join companies, it's never people think money is the main move, it's never number one, it's down the list. People leave managers, people join, because they want to learn from an individual, or they stay because a team is amazing and they're getting on. So really, when you boil it down, people want human contact, and they want to work with great people, and they want to have good interactions and so my business, it's, that's what it's all about.

Gresham Harkless 11:09

Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an app or book, or a habit that you have, or what's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Lewis Maleh 11:22

I'm going to take someone that I podcasted with recently, and he told me this awesome thing. He gets up like me, I get up at 5 am every morning, because I live in a big city like London, and the world looks, like London very different at 5 pm. So it doesn't seven when everyone's out. My alarm at 5 pm reminds me that I'm going to be the best person in the gym. It gets my mindset to switch to I'm going to be lifting some really heavy weights. I'm going to be doing a good run and it just gets my brain triggered. Then I get to work at 8:30 am.

I have another alarm that goes off on my phone to remind me that I'm the best CEO. When I walk into that office, I just have a trigger. Then I'm going to be the best here. Then I get home at 7 pm and another alarm goes off to remind me to be the best father and husband. After a really tough day, you need to come in and you call me to talk. The alarm just triggers me to be more interactive, and have fun with my kids, my wife, and all that stuff.

Gresham Harkless 12:30

Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely agree with that. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. That could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you could hop into be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Lewis Maleh 12:43

Yeah, so I think my two bits are win or learn. There's always gonna be ups and downs. So don't think of it as a failure. Always try and learn from the experiences. My motto for the year is not to worry about things I can't affect. There's a lot of things going on in the world. I tend not to, I don't worry about them. I just crack on with my work. I focus on what I'm doing and it's much less stressful.

Gresham Harkless 13:13

Awesome. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote, CEOs on this show.

So Lewis, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Lewis Maleh 13:24

So I think the important thing about being a CEO is servicing the people who work in your business. It's about making a nice environment where people can learn, thrive, make money, enjoy themselves, and be happy. If you can get that, then I think you have a high-performing team and a successful business.

Gresham Harkless 13:43

Absolutely, yeah. When we are of service, and we're actually serving, our clients and the people that are on our teams, and we're keeping that top of mind and make sure that that's of importance, then it's a lot easier to be able to create that energy, which creates that success, as you talked about as well. Yeah, that makes so much sense in that mindset, as you talked about as a big part of it.

So, Lewis truly appreciate your time and all the awesome things you're doing. What I want to do is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best people can get a hold of you, subscribe to the podcast and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

Lewis Maleh 14:22

Yeah, no, thank you very much for having me on. It's been awesome. I want to wish everyone a really happy new year. Write down your affirmations and your goal-setting. You just mentioned it and it's good. Once you've written it down, and you've written it down. If you don't do it, you're just gonna feel like you need to do that.

Have an awesome happy, healthy, successful 2020. I can't believe is 2020 already. If you want to get in touch with us and with me, I'm on my LinkedIn Lewis Maleh. I'm on Instagram Lewis Mal, and on Twitter Lewis Maleh. My company Bentley Lewis is on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter as well, and always happy to receive an email or a call.

Happy to help if we can and yeah, have a lovely rest of the day.

Gresham Harkless 15:15

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. You have a great rest of the day too. We will have those links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. Appreciate your time and have a great rest of the day.

Outro 15:26

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

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This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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