EP269: Stephen Brooks on Entrepreneurship, AI and Culture
Stephen Brooks joins Jens Heitland on the Human Innovation Podcast to discuss entrepreneurship, AI adoption in small and large businesses, and why culture is always set at the top. Drawing on 38 years in business and his new book The £10 Business Tool Box: An Entrepreneur's Guide, Stephen explains why every venture should start with a clear problem, why failure becomes the foundation of lasting success, and why there is no such thing as an overnight success.
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Why Every Business Should Start With the Problem
Over the past year, I have spent time with two very different groups of people. One was a cohort of university students from around the world, building their first business ideas during a summer program. The other was a set of senior leaders inside large European organizations, many of them dealing with restructuring, layoffs, and the arrival of AI at the same time. On the surface, they have little in common. In practice, the same pattern shows up in both rooms.
The students arrive with ideas, and so do many people leaving corporate roles. What's often missing is a clearly defined problem and a clear sense of who owns it. An idea without a problem has nowhere to land, and in my experience it rarely finds a paying customer.
My recent conversation with Stephen Brooks on the Human Innovation Podcast brought this into sharper focus. Stephen has spent 38 years building, running, and selling businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, and he wrote his new book for people at exactly this point. When he sat in on another recording during his visit, he noticed that the founder opened by describing the problem their company solves. Investors listen for that first, and the platform, the features, and the roadmap only matter once it is clear.
Large organizations face the same discipline at a different scale. Many are introducing AI because competitors are, and because boards and markets expect to see movement. The tools arrive before the question does. Teams get access to an assistant and are asked to find uses for it. What I see repeatedly is that adoption stays shallow when nobody has defined what the organization is trying to improve. Stephen put it simply: some companies may not need AI everywhere, and the starting point is understanding what you want to accomplish.
Culture shapes how far any of this goes. Over recent months, I have heard senior leaders describe AI with caution while their children experiment with it freely at home. The hesitation is rarely stated openly. It shows up as pilots that never scale and policies that protect more than they enable. Stephen sees a similar dynamic in smaller firms, where fear keeps the technology at arm's length even though a fifteen-person business could use it to grow into a twenty-person operation.
The consequences build slowly inside the organization. When tools are adopted without a named problem, people fill the gap with their own interpretation. Some use AI for small conveniences, while others avoid it entirely. The time that could have gone back to customers and colleagues stays locked in copy-and-paste work. Leaders then conclude that the technology underdelivered, when the gap sat in the framing all along.
Culture starts at the top, as Stephen said, and that applies here as well. Teams read what leaders do far more closely than what they announce. A leadership team that asks clear questions about the problems worth solving gives everyone else permission to do the same.
Entrepreneurs usually learn this through failure, often several times, before they build something that lasts. Stephen describes failure as the foundation a business is built on, because every misstep adds knowledge that carries forward. Large organizations have the resources to learn the same lesson with less pain. The discipline is identical in both settings. Before the tool, the plan or the pitch, someone needs to describe the problem plainly and name who it belongs to. Over time, the organizations that hold on to that question tend to stay closer to their customers and to the people doing the work.
Timecode:
00:00 Welcome back, Stephen Brooks
00:50 Leaving the US after fifteen years
01:59 Doing business in the US compared with Europe
06:55 How relationships are built in European business
07:56 Know what you know
10:08 The £10 Business Tool Box
13:28 Why working nonstop is no badge of honor
14:39 Start with the problem you are solving
17:23 Ideas without problems among students and corporate leavers
19:40 Starting from zero with AI
23:41 The fear factor holding small businesses back
25:01 AI and the human side of business
26:38 Large organizations, Copilot and cautious leadership
30:46 Culture starts at the top
34:23 Leading by example
36:43 Layoffs, courage and leaving corporate life
40:36 Social media and the myth of overnight success
43:45 Why it takes longer than you expect
45:44 Entrepreneurship is not for everybody
47:20 Stephen's next chapter in Europe
48:48 The European Perspective
Guest links:
Website: https://stephen-brooks.co.uk/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenabrooks1/
Transcript:
[00:00:02] Jens Heitland: Stephen Brooks in the house. It's a pleasure to have you back on the podcast for at least three episodes that we did, 35, 111, and 145, and a couple of group conversations. It's amazing to be back in one room with you.
[00:00:22] Stephen Brooks: Thank you so much. Do I get a T-shirt or something for
[00:00:25] Jens Heitland: Well, you being in so
[00:00:26] Stephen Brooks: many
[00:00:26] Jens Heitland: We'll get a cap
[00:00:26] Stephen Brooks: I'll get a cap. Yeah. I'll take the cap. Thank you for that.
[00:00:29] Jens Heitland: Let's start, for those that are haven't listened to the other episodes, which I think you should go back to listen to each of them, we got introduced by Gary- Mm-hmm ... who is a common friend of ours, years back, and you were living in Chicago. Now you're back in Europe.
[00:00:47] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:00:48] Jens Heitland: How did that happen?
[00:00:50] Stephen Brooks: The introduction or No
[00:00:52] Jens Heitland: the move going back to Europe.
[00:00:54] Stephen Brooks: There is, in my opinion, a lot of turmoil going on in the United States at the moment, and I got to a point where I was starting to feel uneasy, just culturally and morally around some of the things that were happening, and so I decided to make the move back to Europe. It wasn't an easy one, because I really thought I was gonna stay there for some time and continue to build my business and look at other projects. But just got to the stage where I was uncomfortable Yeah and it seemed the right thing to do, and I'm pleased I did it because it brings me closer to some new ideas and brings me closer to family, means I can jump on a plane and pop to the Netherlands and hang out with you and our other presenters on the European perspective. So yeah, I'm very blessed.
[00:01:52] Jens Heitland: You have been in the US for a decade or so, right?
[00:01:55] Stephen Brooks: Over 15 years I was there, yeah.
[00:01:56] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:01:56] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Jens Heitland: Long time.
[00:01:57] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:01:59] Jens Heitland: Talking about entrepreneurship innovation, which we are all going to cover because there is so much fun stuff we need to talk about, what are the things that you took away from the US and the different way and the different cultural elements of doing business in the US as an entrepreneur, and then going back to Europe and doing business here?
[00:02:22] Stephen Brooks: I think in the US... Well, let's go back. In my opinion, and I've said this, I think I've said it on some of your podcasts and I've said it a lot on other podcasts, the word entrepreneurship is so overused. And I think if people don't know how to describe themselves or they need to feel they need to sit in some kind of box, entrepreneurship just fits, right? In the States, I think that, if you badge yourself as being an entrepreneur, there's an expectation that you're gonna have instant success.
[00:02:59] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:02:59] Stephen Brooks: And we all know that instant success doesn't come. You've gotta fail, and you've got to get yourself up and start again. So From the get-go in the United States, if you're gonna become an entrepreneur, everybody's looking, A, to see how successful you're gonna be, or on the other hand, they're looking at how quickly you're gonna fail. Right? so that's rule number one. I also think that the way in which people do business in the US, and somebody told me this very early on when I moved there, was that when somebody needs something from you, they are really gonna hassle you until they get it. But if you haven't got what they want but you think they need, it could take you some time to get wherever you want to be. So I was very mindful of that with the sort of work I was doing in digital cards and pop-up retailing and consultancy and things like that. The other thing, I think that as you move across, you know, east to west or west to east, whichever way you wanna go, the people's mindset changes as well. You know, by the time... If you're working with people in New York, you know, they're very cutthroat. They're very, "Let's get it done. Let's do... You know, we want it done now." But by the time you get to California, maybe they're a little bit more relaxed and perhaps a little more dynamic in terms of their thinking. I worked with T-Mobile many years ago on a project for pop-up shops, and their approach was quick and dirty.
[00:04:36] Jens Heitland: Hmm.
[00:04:37] Stephen Brooks: Right? Which was right for the time, and that's how I would describe working with people on the East Coast. You know, get it, just do it quick and dirty. In California, I think they're slightly more relaxed about it. There's a bit more investigation into the detail. So those have been my experiences, and don't get me wrong, an enjoyable experience, good and bad.
[00:05:04] Jens Heitland: Yeah. How does that translate if we compare that to now being back in Europe, and you're already, like, more than a year back.
[00:05:11] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:12] Jens Heitland: So what do you see from an entrepreneurial perspective running a business in Europe, and are there differences?
[00:05:22] Stephen Brooks: There are. I mean, the most common one is that you've got the language barrier, right? Yeah. And although English is widely spoken, and here in the Netherlands, you know, is probably It's easy a second language. Yeah. Is, it, you know, which is fabulous. Doing business in other parts of Europe can be slightly different. You didn't have that in the US and Canada. But I also think that there's slightly more respect For people doing business as well in Europe. And that transmits to getting to the right people and, if it's not right, not being ignored or gaslit or whatever the social term is these days Yeah, yeah but you know you can go back at some point and try and reignite that conversation. In the States it just seems that right, you're done, you're out, finished, you know, we're not interested. So I think, the relationships that you build in Europe are far more solid, because you, A, you've got some common interests in terms of being European and so on. Being British in America was a distinct advantage, don't get me wrong Yeah but, I think here there's more, there's more stability in the relationship, and people are more willing to help. That I didn't see a lot of in America.
[00:06:55] Jens Heitland: That's quite interesting. And that's then across Europe. Like, I mean, you're interacting globally still with your business as well. Is it really when we talk about the relationship angle, because I think that's one of the things, at least for me, what I needed to learn how important it is in business.
[00:07:11] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:12] Jens Heitland: Coming from large corporate, I knew internally it's super important, but you didn't focus too much, at least I didn't, because I was not externally facing in my roles. Sure. I didn't focus too much on external, but now I understand that it's everything in running a business or leading a business and building a business. Growing a business is, is the relationship angle.
[00:07:33] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:33] Jens Heitland: And if you're not good at that, you need to get into this. So how do you build relationships if we focus on that in Europe right now?
[00:07:41] Stephen Brooks: I would say it's the same way that you wanna build a relationship with a loved one. You know, you've got to have honesty, communication, integrity, and be willing to be vulnerable around things that you're not good at.
[00:07:55] Jens Heitland: Hmm.
[00:07:56] Stephen Brooks: And also be aware of your own skill set. You know, I sat on a plane many years ago, just chatting to a guy who I'd never met, and he was asking what I did and so on, and he offered me some advice, which was, "Know what you know, know what you don't know, and be known for what you know." Right? Great advice, and if you think about that, that transmits across everything
[00:08:20] Jens Heitland: Yeah ...
[00:08:20] Stephen Brooks: that you might do in business. So I think you have to start out with, you've got to be genuine, you've got to be authentic about who you are and what you represent, and then have integrity around your business and what you can deliver. And if you can't deliver it, then be open enough to say, "This isn't what we do," or, "I can't do it for that price," or whatever it might be. Yeah,
[00:08:48] Jens Heitland: yeah.
[00:08:51] Stephen Brooks: Offered some alternatives to that. If you transmit that back to a retail environment, because that's an environment I know very well, 64% of people will go back to an associate in a store and seek them out if they gave them good advice Yeah whether they purchased or not. And I think that's the sort of relationship that you wanna have. You want those people coming back to you time and time again because you steered them in the right direction.
[00:09:19] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:09:19] Stephen Brooks: And, and that just builds credibility.
[00:09:22] Jens Heitland: Yeah, and that might be for some people a surface relationship, but in the end it's a start of an interaction and a relationship that you're building, and if you go back to that store, you will remember the face. You will remember Mm how this person made you feel the last time you were in that physical store.
[00:09:39] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. Absolutely. And in business, it's making sure that you've got a good CRM program, understanding when somebody's birthday is or what the relationship Yeah is that they're in, when's their wedding anniversary, what's... Have they got kids? All of those things because What's the dog's name? Exactly. Exactly. The devil's in the detail, and being able to then use that information to build that relationship.
[00:10:08] Jens Heitland: Yeah. So you came back and you... I mean, let's go back. You have owned several different businesses. Mm-hmm. You have sold businesses. You have worked with and in large corporations over your total career.
[00:10:23] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:24] Jens Heitland: You have written a book
[00:10:25] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm ...
[00:10:26] Jens Heitland: which I think is, if we look at 2026 from a timing perspective with AI as one technology really getting big and being applied in many different spheres in large corporations, everyone is using it somehow as one part. Then on the other part is a lot of organizations are transforming rapidly. People are getting left and let go
[00:10:57] Stephen Brooks: Mm ...
[00:10:57] Jens Heitland: quite a bit right now, or leaving on their own terms because they decided, like, "I'm not going to be in a large corporation anymore." Let's talk about the book. For whom is that book? What is it about?
[00:11:10] Stephen Brooks: So the 10 Pound Business Toolbox book, or the $10 Business Toolbox book as it is in the States, is actually my eighth book now. And I wrote this for It's an entrepreneur's guide. And so it's people that are thinking about starting a business, people that are maybe one or two years in
[00:11:30] Jens Heitland: Yeah ...
[00:11:31] Stephen Brooks: that are maybe being successful or perhaps they're not being successful, and trying to take them through all the things I've experienced in the last 38 years in business. And you very kindly wrote the forward for me, of which I'm eternally grateful for, but it's the book I wish I'd had 35 years ago.
[00:11:52] Jens Heitland: Yeah, agree.
[00:11:52] Stephen Brooks: And looking at, get the MVP out there, fail fast, understand and build relationships with a strong team, use AI in the best way possible. Stop using it as Google and start implementing it into your business. And fail fast and learn quickly. And so that's what the book is about. There is stories of my experiences related to each of the chapters. You know, I go back to saying and I'm asked often, "How did you become an entrepreneur?" Well, I don't know if you become an entrepreneur. I think you kind of grow into Yeah being an entrepreneur. But I was eight sitting on my grandfather's wall outside his house selling yesterday's newspapers for a penny, and made a fortune, much to the much to the disgust of my parents because there was... I just sat outside chatting to people and taking money off them, basically. But it's, getting the foundations in there, as I said, establishing good relationships with accountants or mentors, with technical people, but then not being afraid to ask for help. I think entrepreneurship, People wear a badge of honor of, "I'm working 24/7. I don't take a day off." Mm. "I don't have a holiday."
[00:13:27] Jens Heitland: Mm.
[00:13:28] Stephen Brooks: Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, as as I know you have, you know? Yeah. But it's not actually a badge of honor at all. It's, if you're at that stage, you really seriously need to stop, think, and reevaluate what you're doing, how you're doing it, and what's the purpose and what's the end result. So, asking for help and listening to podcasts, going to speaking events, going to network events all play a part in how you build that foundation, get that help, and hopefully grow your business.
[00:14:04] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And, I mean, we have spent the last four days together. I... Three days. Three days. Tomorrow it's four.
[00:14:12] Stephen Brooks: Tomorrow's four.
[00:14:13] Jens Heitland: So one of the things for me and as well from our conversation is there is no perfect way to build a business. There are certain things that you somehow need to get right over time, but it's always an up-and-down journey. Mm-hmm. For every entrepreneur, there's no overnight success, at least I think both of us have never met anyone being successful in business without figuring it out on the way.
[00:14:39] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:39] Jens Heitland: But let's really go deeper into linking it to the book, because what I like about the book, it's simple. There are simple things that you can do to get closer to where you want to get to. For me, if I'm looking at the big picture, number one is trying to understand what problem you're going to solve as a starting point, and for whom you want to solve it. And that's kind of, for me, the base of entrepreneurship. There's a problem, this person has the problem, how can I help Mm-hmm this person to solve the problem?
[00:15:15] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:15:16] Jens Heitland: And off you go.
[00:15:17] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. I was fortunate enough to sit into a podcast you did yesterday with a guest. And it was interesting that when you asked them to explain their business, the first thing they did was talk about the problem that they was Yeah they were trying to solve. Investors wanna know that from the get-go. It's not, "We've built this platform, it does this, this, this." The first thing you've got to be doing is explaining, "Here's the problem. Here's the solution I've come up with." And so, yeah, the book tries to guide you through that. As you say, it's a simple read. I'm not a huge fan of very complex books or anything like that, so I tried to write it in a way that I would wanna sit down and read it anyway.
[00:16:10] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Stephen Brooks: But I think, yeah, you... Anybody starting out, what's the challenge? What are you trying to solve? I think disrupting industries has had its moment
[00:16:24] Jens Heitland: Yeah ...
[00:16:25] Stephen Brooks: and it will probably come back at some point, but I think we're way past that now in terms of thinking. But yeah, set out what the challenge is, understand how you think you can solve it, test it, test it, test it, test it. Yeah. Because that first solution is not gonna be right, and it might be the 50th, it might be the 3rd, it might be the 500th. And history's littered with businesses that have been through that process. But then when you do find the solution stick to the core of that solution. Often businesses find a really core connection with their customers, and then for some reason they go off in different directions and they lose customers or they lose clients because they're not doing what they're good at.
[00:17:21] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Stephen Brooks: So I think that's really important as well.
[00:17:23] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And what is interesting for me, like I mentioned during our conversation the last days, I was working with students from all over the world in a program this summer Mm supporting them to understand how they can build businesses. Yeah. The thing that I see or have seen with the students but also see with a lot of people that have left corporations like I did couple of years ago and you did couple of years ago, is often they're not trained to focus on the problem. They're coming out of a company, they're coming out of university, and they have an idea, but they don't have a problem that they're going to solve. They just have an idea. Mm. And what I always drilled into with the students and everyone that is asking me for their opinion on an idea, I always focus on that problem because if there's no problem, there's no money most of the time.
[00:18:17] Stephen Brooks: Absolutely right. Absolutely right.
[00:18:19] Jens Heitland: And that's... When you come from an organization that has been successful, like I was working more than a decade in IKEA, which is one of the most successful companies on the planet, at least in home furnishing and retail. They have figured it out, and it sounds, looks so easy today, but when you go into the history of the company, the founder focused on problems and focused on solving that problems for families, for individuals in their home and so on, and then iterated the way to building a blue box store, which was not blue in the beginning, but over time went to be blue. But in the end, that's the essence of entrepreneurship to be figured out and how you can make money with that to solve Mm to solve that problem. For me, there's now a huge opportunity linking that to AI because AI is... There are many different variants of AI. One is you have ChatGPT, you have an interface Yeah and you use it on the phone, you use it on the desktop, wherever. And then you have now agentic AI, which is an evolution of that which you can leverage without needing a lot of stuff without needing a lot of things if you know how to ask the right questions.
[00:19:39] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:40] Jens Heitland: How would you start with the questions... Imagine you would start from zero today.
[00:19:46] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:19:46] Jens Heitland: Have every knowledge, all the relationships that you have, and you get AI access. How would you start asking the questions to an AI
[00:20:00] Stephen Brooks: That's a brilliant question can I just say? And I'm sitting here thinking there's probably 500 questions I would wanna ask. For me, I think you might wanna start with validating the idea that and the business that you've currently got. Let's... I'm an established business, right? My caveat to that is I think there's a lot of businesses out there that really think AI isn't for them because they see it as being a big corporate
[00:20:29] Jens Heitland: Yeah ...
[00:20:30] Stephen Brooks: machine that it benefits more. But actually, from the last few days of being with you, my understanding of that has completely changed in terms of how SMEs could use entrepreneurship to its... Sorry, AI to its advantage. So for me, I think as an established business, I would want to put as much of that information into that system to say, "Where can I make the improvements?" Yeah. "Where are the bottlenecks? What's working that I actually really don't know is working? I just assume it's working, but where can I now improve and be more profitable?" And then take that and then implement that into the business and find more efficiencies, better ways of doing it, better ways of communicating, better ways of marketing, whatever it might be. So I think establishing your current business as, yes, this is a business that does work is would be my first
[00:21:40] Jens Heitland: Yeah ...
[00:21:40] Stephen Brooks: my first question. It works, but how, how better can it work?
[00:21:46] Jens Heitland: The interesting part of that is... And I've seen it over the last half year playing with AI. I'm not an AI expert. I would consider myself a power user already, but it's... And it's truly possible. So if we take what you said is you have a business that is working. You earn money.
[00:22:08] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:09] Jens Heitland: You solve problems. You can give it the data that you have, your assumptions, and the things that you know, even to the details, "These are my customers Mm and that's how they're behaving. That's how I solve their problems," and it can come up with the things that you're asking questions to. Which means if you say, like to your point, is, "How could we improve our profit margin?"
[00:22:35] Stephen Brooks: Mm.
[00:22:35] Jens Heitland: Then it will look into the total data, and it will come up with an answer. And then you ask the next question, the next question, the next question, the next question, and then you drill basically down into the data. Mm.
[00:22:46] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:22:47] Jens Heitland: But it starts with the data. If you don't have it, it's very, very difficult.
[00:22:50] Stephen Brooks: No, absolutely right. Absolutely right.
[00:22:51] Jens Heitland: And every existing business, small or large, has somehow data, even if it's based, let's say With the students this summer, when you start, you don't have much data, but you have assumptions. Because I think that's a problem that's really there. How do we solve that? How can we drill into, like, who has that problem? Is it really this person? Is it that person? Is it this company or that company? Who in the company has that problem? And then you can drill deeper, because when you want to market or sell to that company, you need to know all of that.
[00:23:26] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:27] Jens Heitland: And I think for me, AI is a huge opportunity for individuals that run a business, but also employees. I mean, doesn't matter where you are, you should use it and really find out how to use it.
[00:23:41] Stephen Brooks: And I think that's probably the next big expansion with SMEs Yeah as well, that people will become more comfortable with the use of AI. Listen, the fear factor I think just keeps... It makes people keep it at arm's length.
[00:23:58] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Stephen Brooks: But if you're a 10, 15 person business, it's not gonna make somebody redundant. I mean, the idea is that it's gonna turn that business into a 20 employee operation. Or it's gonna take them from being $100,000 in profit year, year two to being $300,000 in profit by year four.
[00:24:24] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:24:25] Stephen Brooks: If the AI factor, people have got to get away from the fear of it, and embrace it in such a way that it is there for our benefit, not as a substitute for doing menial tasks or whatever. But like you say, you've gotta put the data in. You've gotta ask the right questions to get the right direction. But using it to that effect can only benefit your business, in my view.
[00:25:01] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And specifically for me is in the end, the humans make the difference
[00:25:07] Stephen Brooks: Mm ...
[00:25:07] Jens Heitland: in a business, in relationship, and the AI is enabling the humans to focus on the humanness.
[00:25:15] Stephen Brooks: Absolutely.
[00:25:15] Jens Heitland: Because what is the value of someone, even if you like it, copy-pasting things in an Excel table every day?
[00:25:23] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:25:23] Jens Heitland: And I get it, there are people who love that, and they don't want to do anything else. But if you could give this to an AI tool or automation or whatever it is, and you focus on, "Hey, how can I help the other person? How can I talk to the other person?" Yeah and focus on creativity, the things that you love to do that bring joy to you
[00:25:44] Stephen Brooks: Yeah ...
[00:25:44] Jens Heitland: rather than doing copy-paste stuff.
[00:25:46] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. I mean, if you just think of the time factor alone, right? And being able to spend more time with your customer and having bigger conversations with them. And there will be salespeople out there listening to this, I'm sure, that will at some point have had a conversation with a client talking about what their business does, and the client will turn around and go, "Oh, I never knew you did that."
[00:26:10] Jens Heitland: Yeah, for sure.
[00:26:12] Stephen Brooks: And so, opening up those conversations, and now all of a sudden you're not just supplying a glass, you're supplying the cup and saucer that comes with it.
[00:26:22] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:26:22] Stephen Brooks: You know? So I think the time factor is huge. And if you're using that for your business if you're using that for more leisure, for more relationship-based activities, then that's just, isn't that just a good thing?
[00:26:38] Jens Heitland: Yeah, 100%. And I think that's, if we pivot to large organizations, the tricky thing in large organizations, what I see right now being connected to them as an external, they don't use AI. They have, most of them are using Copilot Mm-hmm which is the version of Microsoft Yeah, yeah which I think is If we, at, in my view right now, considering myself a power user, if you're zero is you don't use anything, and 10 is you use the top-notch that's possible, I think it's, if you ask me, Copilot is on 0.5. So it's far away from what Mm-hmm you really can do, and I get it with data security and all the other things, especially in Europe with GDPR, and it's important and you should not neglect that.
[00:27:32] Stephen Brooks: Of course.
[00:27:33] Jens Heitland: But specifically the companies that have the financial power, they can do way more with it. What is interesting and from the conversations that I have had over the last two to three months is the management team, if you take top management, they're not into it. Their kids are. Their kids are kind of poking the parents, like, what is possible, but they are still scared. So the culture of the organization is not there yet in pushing to implement something or daring to implement something.
[00:28:05] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:06] Jens Heitland: Mm-hmm. Which, which is quite funny to, to experience. You have multi-billion dollar companies, and they're not implementing it because the management is scared. They would never say it that way, obviously.
[00:28:18] Stephen Brooks: Goes back to the fear factor again, doesn't it?
[00:28:20] Jens Heitland: It does.
[00:28:20] Stephen Brooks: I mean, it's easier for a smaller business to implement AI, for sure. But larger corporates, if it, you're missing out on freeing up staff to do other things, to build those relationships with colleagues, to be innovative, to think about how can we improve the business instead of doing menial tasks. You know, copy and pasting into Excel, as you said a minute ago. But I think you've got to embrace how can it work for me, because that's the starting point. What is it that you want to accomplish, right? And if you can establish that first and then look at, okay, how do we use AI then to get to where we want to be, that's got to be better than, "Well, we should be using AI, but we don't know where to use it. But, we'll do that over there and we'll do this over here." And there's no real structure about how we're implementing it, we're just using it where we can because we need to be using AI. I think that's the other point Yeah as well, that there is that enormous factor of we need to be using AI 'cause everybody else is. Maybe you don't, actually.
[00:29:40] Jens Heitland: Agree.
[00:29:40] Stephen Brooks: Yeah maybe, maybe you don't. Understanding the... And it goes back to entrepreneurship, right? Understanding the problem that you want to solve and then looking at how do we best use the tools that are available in order to get to where we wanna be.
[00:29:57] Jens Heitland: Yeah. No, no, agree. The, the critical thing in a large organizational context is then the culture.
[00:30:03] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:04] Jens Heitland: Like entrepreneurial thinking is often not there because the culture is not allowing it or the incentives are wrong, whatever it is. But it's quite interesting now being on the other side since a couple of years, I just see even more so how beneficial it would be for an organization Mm-hmm to tap into that, to focus on how do we do things differently, not for the sake of doing it differently Yeah but one hot topic from this week is how do we focus truly on the customer experience, focus on the customer that comes into our shop and wants to buy something?
[00:30:46] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. Yeah. We have a tale about that that you'll hear on the European perspective later, I'm sure. But listen, culture starts at the top, right? Whether you're a one-man band or you're 100,000 employees around the world, right? The culture is driven by the people at the top of the tree, and if you can't communicate that well, if you don't understand the culture that you're creating even, and I've seen that, then your business is always going to struggle, right? The, one of the biggest reasons people leave organizations is recognition.
[00:31:27] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:31:27] Stephen Brooks: Right? And that says a lot about that particular business, right? If your staff turnover is 50% or higher, you've got a real issue in your business, and there are businesses out there that have that.
[00:31:43] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:31:44] Stephen Brooks: You know, retail's a classic example because they don't pay very well, but equally they don't manage people. They don't, they don't support them. They don't train them. Um, they don't reward them. And, and that just transmits to the experience that you get in store. So I think it's important that as a leader of a business that you, you c- you're very open about what your culture is. What is it that you're trying to, you know, d- do with that business? How do you want people to, to be? And I'm sure, like I have, you've, you've worked with businesses where you just know the culture is wrong.
[00:32:20] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:32:21] Stephen Brooks: You just, and I mean for me it's actually, I'm not going to work with you because you're not a great fit for me. And you see that business bumbling along. And it's got the fear factor of AI, but it's doing something over there. And it's got high staff turnover here because the culture just isn't transmitted. If you look at VW, you know, and the layoffs that they're looking at and the restructuring that they're doing, you know, they had this plan that was never communicated to all of its employees. Now, you're never going to please everybody, but if you'd have set that out as a clear piece of communication and brought people along, I think they might be looking at a different situation. Now, one of the things I've always done where I've had sales teams is always get the whole team together first thing. And that goes back to my Woolworths days when I was a management trainee. Everybody comes together first thing in the morning, celebrate the successes, look at what the failures are, who did good, what are we going to do today? What's the ambition? And get everybody on board from like the get-go, right? And then to reward that, there is no point in rewarding somebody three weeks after they did a good job because it means nothing
[00:33:48] Jens Heitland: Yeah
[00:33:49] Stephen Brooks: But there are businesses out there that do that every day. And so the culture, the culture of that business, the focus that you give your customers is just, for me, the number one KPI in any business. That's what you should be looking at
[00:34:07] Jens Heitland: Yeah, 100% agree. And I mean, I, I have the fortunate situation that we are sometimes brought in to help fixing that.
[00:34:15] Stephen Brooks: Sure.
[00:34:15] Jens Heitland: But like you said, it starts from the top. Yeah. If the top is not living it, if the top is not communicating it, it's not going to happen.
[00:34:22] Stephen Brooks: No.
[00:34:23] Jens Heitland: You there are a lot of change programs I'm not a huge fan of that try to change the culture bottom up. Not saying it's not working, but the leadership team need to influence all the others as Yeah as being the good example. If you don't do that, it's not going to happen. You cannot demand anything from anyone else if you don't do it.
[00:34:45] Stephen Brooks: No.
[00:34:45] Jens Heitland: Like, if you... Stupid example, but if you want everyone to be in the office and you're not there in the office as the management team, nobody will come to the office. If you force everyone to be there, be there first Yeah and be there seven days or five days, in organizations in Europe at least, and then showcase that you're there, and people will come. If you're not there, it's not going to happen.
[00:35:13] Stephen Brooks: No, no. Strip that right back. If you're late for every meeting you go to-
[00:35:16] Jens Heitland: Exactly ...
[00:35:17] Stephen Brooks: it doesn't matter to anybody. Exactly. If you've got your mobile phone on the desk when you're having a team meeting and you're constantly looking at it, that's what everybody else is gonna do.
[00:35:27] Jens Heitland: Exactly.
[00:35:27] Stephen Brooks: You know? I think At the top you have an immense responsibility. And that weighs heavy on a lot of people. I know from personal experience. You're not just worried about your family, you're worried about everybody else's family and supporting them and making sure they get paid on time. But at the end of the day, what you're doing dictates what everybody else does.
[00:35:51] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:35:52] Stephen Brooks: You know? If you don't come to work looking like you're ready for work, no one else is gonna care. You know? Agreed. You turn up in sneakers and a T-shirt and baggy shorts
[00:36:02] Jens Heitland: And cap.
[00:36:05] Stephen Brooks: Branding, though.
[00:36:06] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:36:06] Stephen Brooks: everybody else is gonna be the same. And I know there are nuances for different businesses and different niches, but my point is that it Be ready for the work that you're gonna do. If you're leading, be ready for that to be led.
[00:36:22] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:36:23] Stephen Brooks: and then you can take people with you on that journey. Get them together, understand what you're trying to achieve on a daily basis if you have to, and then set people off to do the things that they've got to do, and then come back together again and celebrate the success of that day.
[00:36:41] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:36:42] Stephen Brooks: Good or bad.
[00:36:43] Jens Heitland: Circling back to entrepreneurship, so you mentioned Volkswagen and that there are a lot of jobs on the line. A lot of organizations have just announced that they're laying off people worldwide and so on. So there are people that are either trying to find a job or trying to build their first business ever.
[00:37:05] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:06] Jens Heitland: What is, from your perspective, a mindset that helps them to go through all the ups and downs that you're going to have as an entrepreneur figuring it out like we have done? I mean, you have done over decades, I have done the last seven years
[00:37:25] Stephen Brooks: I think you... It takes a tremendous amount of courage to step out from a corporate environment, whether you're forced to or you take that, you take that step. But I think you've got to understand what that purpose is that you wanna get to. Mm. What's the focus? What's the end goal? And have, like I say in the book, build the team around you that helps you. If you're gonna just sit there and think, "I've got this idea, but I don't know what to do with it," well, the first thing you wanna do is go and find somebody that is gonna help you get that idea out there or develop it. But I think it's courage that sets people off. Even today, I think 3,000 people are being made redundant globally from Uber. I mean, Who knows what technical abilities and knowledge that those people have.
[00:38:21] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:38:22] Stephen Brooks: And maybe we'll see all kinds of different startups just come from that 3,000. Who knows? But I think you, A, you need to want it. I think that's the thing that's always been in my mind. It's not about the money. If it's just about the money, I suggest you go and get a job because Yeah. It's easier you don't have to worry about the money. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. It's easier. But for me it's about, it's about the building. It's about the development. It's about the connection. And if you have that ability to and the courage to be able to achieve that, I think that's what you need to get going. But also there's a planning aspect in that as well. I often say on podcasts, when I'm asked, "What's the one thing you wanna leave people with?" And it's always the same, "If it's not bringing you joy, stop doing it."
[00:39:18] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:39:18] Stephen Brooks: And that's easy to say, but if you're in employment, you don't wanna just walk in one day and go, "No, I don't like this. I'm off." You need to make a plan. You know, what am I gonna do? Whether that's looking for another position or you wanna start something new. But again, I go back to what you were saying about students, about I've got an idea. What you should be doing is thinking about what's this challenge, what's this problem, and how can I solve it? 'Cause there are thousands of things that need fixing Yeah that we haven't even thought of, you know? So, take the courage. I think you've got to have energy. You've got to be fit physically as well because there is a tremendous strain on you as an individual. Don't work 24/7. Take time off. Eat well, exercise well. Remember who your friends and your family are, and stay grounded as well. I think there's a
[00:40:22] Jens Heitland: Yeah ...
[00:40:23] Stephen Brooks: too often that people do have, not overnight success 'cause there's no such thing, but they do have some success, and then run away with the fact that they've got success and forget about what it is that they're trying to achieve. So you need to stay grounded as well.
[00:40:36] Jens Heitland: Yeah. One thing to that is if we look at Instagram, TikTok, all this flashy social medias at least Yeah a little bit now in LinkedIn as well, it seems that everyone is super quick and making millions and so on. My experience, it takes you years to get to a good level.
[00:40:59] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:41:00] Jens Heitland: And to the up and up and down all the time. I think that's also one of the things to be aware of. I was not aware of when I started. I thought like, "I'm going out of a very large corporate. I will figure it out in three months and off we go, and then I'm fine." It's not going to happen, so the dedication to it is for me is like one of the things that I have with a friend that we just text to each other You can only lose when you give up. If you don't give up, you can never lose I love that. I love that And, we just remind each other, and at random when we see posts from each other, we haven't met for a year now, we just text it to each other. Just in between when you see the other person, like there's somehow energy going down, and then it's like comes the text,
[00:41:51] Stephen Brooks: Yeah ...
[00:41:52] Jens Heitland: you're right."
[00:41:53] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. "
[00:41:53] Jens Heitland: We're on it. It's a journey."
[00:41:54] Stephen Brooks: Well, if I could... It's bullshit, basically. There is no such thing as an overnight success. and what... even on Instagram and you know, Facebook or, whatever social you're on promoting what you're doing, what people don't see is the fact that you were doing it for three or four years before then and you weren't getting anywhere.
[00:42:14] Jens Heitland: Exactly.
[00:42:15] Stephen Brooks: And you've had to, go back and start again, or you've had to adapt or you've binned that idea and you're doing something else. There's no success without failure. I was at a conference in Germany last week, Gamescom. Everybody should go 'cause it's really cool. And I sat with somebody and they said to me, "No, I've never failed in business."
[00:42:39] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:42:40] Stephen Brooks: And
[00:42:41] Jens Heitland: Can't believe that ...
[00:42:42] Stephen Brooks: I... And I actually said, "I don't believe you. You're not... You know, you need to actually go back and think about that because that's just not possible."
[00:42:50] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:42:51] Stephen Brooks: And you know, even when you look at, very, very clever people and very successful business people, they've all failed. Everyone. We've all
[00:43:01] Jens Heitland: failed. And to consistently is never stopping. Maybe not as big, but...
[00:43:06] Stephen Brooks: No, no, no. But if you, if you're not learning from it and you keep failing, you've got a, you've Yeah got a challenge, right? But if you, if you fail fast, learn quickly and implement, yeah, you might fail again in some other way because there's something you didn't take into account.
[00:43:23] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:43:23] Stephen Brooks: But all that does is grow your success in the future. And actually failure becomes a foundation that you build a business on because you've got all of that knowledge and strength that's carrying you forward. So yeah, all these people on Instagram, whatever, it's Again, I'll just say it's bullshit.
[00:44:20] Jens Heitland: Yeah. And nothing wrong about them. I think No they're also on their way. They're just showcasing it in a way that everything is easy, and do this five steps, and then you're golden. Whenever I mentor entrepreneurs, and I'm never charging for it, I'm just doing it for fun, and only do it with people that I truly believe in Mm-hmm as an individual, I don't care about the business part. Sure. I always say to them, "You need to grind through." And not grind from 24/7, more grind from... It will take longer than you ever expect. If you think it's two years, it's five.
[00:44:20] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:44:20] Jens Heitland: If you think it's five years, it's most probably 10 years
[00:44:23] Stephen Brooks: Yeah ...
[00:44:23] Jens Heitland: to figure things out. Absolutely. And it's not bad, it's just part of the process. Because for me, I was thinking about what you do in big corporate, you do an MBA or whatever, spending tons of money getting additional education courses just to showcase that you have another
[00:44:43] Stephen Brooks: Mm-hmm ...
[00:44:44] Jens Heitland: another thing to get to the next level. For me, I think it's the best education I've ever had, being knee-deep into the shit and figuring things out. Yeah. Because, like, I know how I can learn, but I also know what mindset and how I get out of things. It's never quickly, but I know what to do, and then I'm just learning by doing it.
[00:45:12] Stephen Brooks: Life is hard, right? I mean, we live in a time where life is, for many people, tremendously hard.
[00:45:20] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:45:20] Stephen Brooks: Right? Business is 10 times harder because you've only got a limited amount of time. You know, you've got your own niche, you've got all the other factors of life itself going on around that. So yeah, I mean, it's a great place to learn, but if you... Like I said before, if you keep making the same mistake and you're not learning, then it's even tougher.
[00:45:44] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:45:44] Stephen Brooks: It's even tougher. there's also a point that, I think people tend to ignore, is it's not for everybody. And there is no shame in going, "Listen, I gave it my best shot, but actually it's just not for me."
[00:45:59] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:46:00] Stephen Brooks: There's no shame in that.
[00:46:01] Jens Heitland: Agree.
[00:46:04] Stephen Brooks: in fact, if anything you know, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to go, "You know, I'm gonna go back and get a job because it's safer for me, and I know what my capabilities are."
[00:46:14] Jens Heitland: Yeah.
[00:46:15] Stephen Brooks: and I think we just tend to ignore that. There's, you know, and there's lots of people do that, that we just don't celebrate the fact that they had the courage.
[00:46:23] Jens Heitland: No, agree. if it's about that, and it's not just because you give up, it's like you figure out it's not for you because some people are just better second person, third person
[00:46:34] Stephen Brooks: Exactly ...
[00:46:35] Jens Heitland: in a team.
[00:46:36] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:46:36] Jens Heitland: Um, absolutely fine.
[00:46:38] Stephen Brooks: Yeah.
[00:46:39] Jens Heitland: Agree 100%.
[00:46:40] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. '
[00:46:40] Jens Heitland: Cause in the end, going back to what you said, it's like being happy is the key to everything. It's not bringing you joy. If you're not happy in what you're doing, then don't do it.
[00:46:50] Stephen Brooks: Yeah. Yeah. If it's not bringing you joy, stop, you know? But also don't... Listen, don't just stop, right? Have a plan. Have a plan to move you to that place of joy, whether that's a week, a month, a year, five years, whatever. Have a plan that moves you away from that because we're not here very long, and you don't wanna be unhappy.
[00:47:20] Jens Heitland: With that, what's your plan being back in Europe that's going to make you even more happy than you are already?
[00:47:29] Stephen Brooks: I'm closer to family, which makes me happy. I'm closer to friends, which makes me even happier. For me, it kind of reinvigorated me in terms of looking at the business and how I can grow that even more and actually doing it with people rather than doing it on my own, which is what the really the last 15, 15-plus years has all of it all been about. So I'm excited about that next phase in just my life, not just in business, but just my life. And I do see that for me and the business as a tremendous opportunity. And the way that we're looking at structuring the business now means that actually there's a lot more people that can benefit from this business, and for me, that's really important. One of the reasons I wrote the book, right? It's just something I wanna give back. Yeah. It's time to look at what else can I be doing that helps other people that create, can create wealth, can create joy, can move them from one position to another, whatever that might be and that's my aim going forward.
[00:48:48] Jens Heitland: Looking forward to see and be part of it. Stephen Thank you thank you very much for being the fourth time, at least in a one-on-one conversation on this podcast. For everyone that is interested, look back into the old episode, and we are going to launch a new podcast that's Yeah called The European Perspective. We are literally recording today the trailer of it. So if you're interested in hearing more from Stephen, me, and some others, look out for The European Perspective. We will put that into the links as well in the show notes. Stephen, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure being with you.
[00:49:26] Stephen Brooks: Thank you, Jens.