IAM2878 – Founder and Podcaster Connects People to Opportunities

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Transcription:

Lewis Maleh 00:00
So I think my. My two bits is win or learn. And there's always going to be ups and downs, so don't think of it as failure. Always try and learn from the experiences. And 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 and I tend not to. I know. 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 00:54
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Louis Mallay of Bentley Lewis. Lewis is awesome to have you on the show.

Lewis Mallay 01:03
Thank you, Val, for Jo, for inviting me. Great to be on.

Gresham Harkless 01:05
Yes, super excited to have you.

Lewis Mallay 01:07
Thanks for joining me because I'm used to my own podcast.

Gresham Harkless 01:09
Exactly. We're switching. We're switching roles, so to speak. And I appreciate it and appreciate you being on and what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about Lewis so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing and. Lewis is the founder and CEO of Bentley Lewis, a leading boutique executive search firm and and host of the don't take 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 networking, he loves spending time with his family, running and doing. I'm sorry, CrossFit. Louis, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Lewis Mallay 01:54
Absolutely. Thanks for the introduction.

Gresham Harkless 01:56
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 and I wanted to kick everything off and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and we'll let you get started with the business.

Lewis Mallay 02:08
Absolutely. So. So Benny Lewis is an exec search firm and I founded it nine and a half years ago. Not that I'M counting. And 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 you kick off. So I worked for another search firm before and after five years I was itching to do my own business. I went to see my boss, I gave him my, my salary. I jumped off the cliff. Oh. After I was talking about it for like two years, my mum just said like, either do it or never talk to you about it again. All right, so jumped off the cliff, started the business and I served on my own and in the uk and I think like most companies, countries, you have a non compete clause. So I wasn't allowed to speak to my clients that I worked within my last firm for six months. So it was a great opportunity just to go and meet fresh new people. And from day one, I did a list of 3,000 companies I wanted to work for in the UK and I just went from A to Z and picked the phone up and started arranging coffees, meetings and just trying to generate some business and stuff. And when you start a business, you end up, well you're, you're, you're the only person, Joanna being like the salesperson, the hr, the marketing, the keener, the T person. I mean literally everything. And you're doing all of these things. And then when you want to build a business, you have to start identifying the roles within it and, and then start hiring people. And so after about, well after about two, three months, my mom came on board. Uh, she'd retired as a teacher and she was doing all the kind of the accounting and admin stuff. And then I started hiring recruiters and researchers and started to, to build. And it's been a real journey from, you know, the game is like up and down, ups, downs, wins, losses, you know, and the mentality has been you win or you learn. And so there's lots of successes of success as there's a failure and you're like, what can I learn from that? And then after that there's another win and you just keep going. It's been, been one of the best things I've ever done. It's been really cool.

Gresham Harkless 04:11
Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely a roller coaster ride. And, 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 like 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 wasn't my colleague. So the business, they last very long at all?

Lewis Mallay 04:33
Yeah, yeah. You never know. But I think a part of it is just trying.

Gresham Harkless 04:37
Yeah.

Lewis Mallay 04:37
Like it's the big thing that stops people doing anything. And in the uk, it's funny because people are always a little bit, you know, you speak to people in England, I'm going to start my own business. And they're like, oh, what happened if it doesn't work out? Oh, yeah, maybe I shouldn't do it. And then I've got some family in America actually. And I was like, oh, I might start my own business. And they're like, yeah, what's the worst that can happen? And you're like, get another job, you know. So 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. And yeah, you know, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. You know, a lot of successful people, their CV of their or their resume of their failures is longer than their resume of success.

Gresham Harkless 05:18
Yeah.

Lewis Mallay 05:19
And. And 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, you know, improved. And yeah, it's been really good, actually.

Gresham Harkless 05:30
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And a lot of times, you know, just as you kind of talked about the. The pain of regret is actually sometimes in the pain of failure because if you never really do it, you always wish that you would have done it, you don't know how it would have went. 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 wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. Tell us a little bit what you do, how you work with your clients that you have.

Lewis Mallay 05:54
Yeah. So Benny Lewis is an executive search firm. So we, we work with companies to find them people for their, their boards and senior leadership roles. And we're based in London by the bank of England and we work all over Europe. So our clients are 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 stuff. It's all over Europe, which is really interesting. Every country in Europe has a different attitude and culture and it's really interesting. Working with different types of people. And I started doing that from day one. And I was telling everyone I met, hey, I'm a boutique global search firm. And after about six months, someone actually believed me and gave you my first international role, which was a CFO search chief financial officer in Switzerland. And then, and then it just went from there and it snowballs and you start doing more and more work and big focus for me has been people. So it's all about building really good quality relationships with people. And then, you know, you're what, I'm representing the company and the people to market. I'm telling their story and people are buying into the story and, and so forth. It's really, really interesting. And I've worked with a lot of the same clients for a long time, which is really good. And it's, it's been, yeah, 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, great lady called Kelly who's, who's going to be running it there in Manhattan. And we're doing the same thing. So again, senior leadership roles all over the U.S. all our clients in London have offices in the U.S. and you know, these are like all international companies. There could be banks, insurance companies, private equity firms, medical devices, tech. So it's really interesting. So, so the boutique thing really works your clients quite like boutique firms. You know, it's a personal service. It means a lot to us. They get the benefit of working with all of our firm. And it's been really nice, actually.

Gresham Harkless 08:03
Yeah, that's, that's definitely awesome. And, and you might have already touched on this, but do you feel like, and I was going to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, which you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you or your organization unique. Do you think it's that boutique firm feel is that's what kind of sets you guys apart?

Lewis Mallay 08:19
Yeah, because this. So in the UK there's 40,000 recruitment firms alone. And then, you know, we work globally. There's so many, many similar firms. And really the difference is, is us like the individuals. So our attitude, our culture, our beliefs, you know, how we operate, how we live, our values, those things. And so people buy from people and so, you know, if they meet me and they, they believe what I believe and, you know, 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, more work. So I think in a services industry like Mine, really. It's, you know, the interactions, the customer service and our approach that really sets us apart.

Gresham Harkless 09:02
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And a lot of times I say, like, you know, a lot.

Lewis Mallay 09:06
You.

Gresham Harkless 09:07
You forget when you're talking about a business or an organization that is made up of people, and the. Those people, you know, have, you know, 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 Mallay 09:18
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And it's different to, you know, let's say a company that makes widgets or, you know, drinks and stuff. You know, you're selling products, maybe the taste is different and stuff with us, you know, where it's a service, so people are engaging with us to go and find people to work for them. So it's, it's kind of intangible. I mean, we're, you know, obviously we're finding people. So we're, We're. We're research. We have a big database. Our research skills are great. But then also we're, you know, we're telling the story. It's all about story, you know, like the candidates thinking themselves in the story of this firm, and should they move there, will their career be better there than where they are? You know, all of those things. And that comes from. I know. Does someone trust me to do that? And that's that connection you have with someone, I think.

Gresham Harkless 10:02
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And, you know, it's funny, I never looked at kind of like the recruiting aspect of bringing, you know, somebody in or on the team, but you're absolutely right. When, you know, you have an organization, they have their story, they have their values, they have their mission and all those things, and it's finding that right fit so that the story continues. But the story is even probably more powerful when that person vests on that position.

Lewis Mallay 10:22
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because what you find is when people are looking to move jobs or join, join companies, it's never. People think money is the main. The main move. It's never number one. It's like it's down the list. People, People leave managers, people join because they want to learn from an individual, or they stay because the team's 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 say, my business, that's what it's all about.

Gresham Harkless 10:55
Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be an Apple book or a habit that you have or what's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Lewis Mallay 11:07
I'm going to take someone's I podcasted with recently and, and he told me this awesome thing. So he gets up like a mid, like me. I get up, I get up at 5am every morning because I live in a big city like London and the world looks, London looks very different at 5am so it does itself in when everyone's out and it's so. So my alarm at 5am reminds me that I'm going to be the best person in the gym. And it gets my mindset to switch to. I'm going to be lifting some really heavy weights. So I'm going to be doing a good run and it just gets my brain triggered. And then I get into work at 8:30am and I have another alarm that goes off on my phone to remind me that I'm the best CEO. So when I walk in the office I just have a trigger. And then, so I'm going to be the best CEO. And then I get home at 7pm and another alarm goes off to remind me to be the best father and husband. And so after a really tough day, you know, you just want to come in and you can't be bothered to talk. The alarm just triggers me to be more interactive, have fun with my kids, my wife and all of that stuff.

Gresham Harkless 12:10
Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely agree with that. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you could happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Lewis Mallay 12:22
Yeah, so I think my, my was my. My two bits is win or learn. There's always going to be ups and downs. So don't think of it as failure. Always try and learn from the experiences. And 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 and I tend not to. I know, 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 12:48
Awesome, awesome, awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So Louis, what does being a CEO means? You.

Lewis Mallay 12:59
So I think the important thing Being a CEO is servicing the people that work in your business. It's about, it's making a nice environment where people can learn, thrive, make money, enjoy themselves and be happy. And if you can get that, then I think you have a, you know, a high performing team and a successful business.

Gresham Harkless 13:17
Absolutely. Yeah. When we're, when we're of service and we're actually serving, you know, 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 import, then it's very, it's very, it's a lot easier to be able to create that energy which creates that success as you kind of talked about as well. Definitely. Absolutely.

Lewis Mallay 13:35
Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 13:36
That makes so much sense. And that mindset, as you talked about, is a big part of it. So, Louis, truly appreciate your time and all the awesome things that 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. And 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 on.

Lewis Mallay 13:54
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 then do it, you're just gonna, you're gonna feel like you need to do it. So do that. Have an awesome, happy, healthy, successful 2020. Can't believe it's 2020 already. Amazing. If you want to get in touch with us and with me. So I'm on. I'm on LinkedIn. Louis Malay. I'm on Instagram, Louis Mal. I'm on Twitter, Louis Malay. My company, Brittany Lewis is on LinkedIn and 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 14:42
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. You have a great rest of the day too. And we will have those links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But appreciate your time and have a great rest of the day.