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Visibility__Innovation___Purpose__Gordon_Jenkins__the_Visible_Guy

Visibility__Innovation___Purpose__Gordon_Jenkins__the_Visible_Guy

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Visibility__Innovation___Purpose__Gordon_Jenkins__the_Visible_Guy

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  1. Interviews with Influencers by Dallas McMillan Title Visibility, Innovation & Purpose – Gordon Jenkins – The Visible Guy Image Interview URL: http://digitalinfluence.com.au/visibility-innovation-purpose-gordon-jenkins-the-visible-guy/ Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWz2obcBUg4 See more Digital Influence Interviews: http://digitalinfluence.com.au/interviews  

  2.   Dallas:   Well  hello,  and  welcome  to  Digital  Influence.  Today  I  have  the  pleasure  of  interviewing   Gordon  Jenkins,  the  Visible  Guy.  Now  Gordon  has  a  really  fascinating  history  and  we   were  talking  earlier  about  the  passion  that  he  brings  to  business.  So  he's  working  in  the   digital  and  innovation  field,  but  he's  got  a  unique  take  on  it.  I  think  you're  really  going  to   enjoy  this  interview.     Welcome  Gordon,  thanks  for  coming  on  the  show.     Hi,  no  problem,  thanks  Dallas,  thanks  for  having  me,  and  welcome  everyone.     Terrific,  well  I'll  let  you  tell  us  about  who  you  are  and  what  you  do,  because  it's  a  bit   more  of  a  complex  story  than  some.  There's  two  aspects  to  your  business-­‐     Sure.     And  we  were  just  talking  about  how  they're  coming  together  and  it's  a  good  example  of   how  quickly  the  world  changes  and  how  we  need  to  respond  to  the  market  and  our   clients.  So  tell  us  about  you  and  your  business.     Sure,  love  to,  thanks  a  lot.  So  let's  start  off  with  where  I  am  today  and  then  go   backwards,  and  that  will  actually  help  you  understand  how  I  work  with  organizations.  So   straight  to  the  point,  people  call  me  the  Visible  Guy,  and  that's  what  I'm  getting  to  be   known  as  and  what  that  means  is  that  I  enable  invisible  people  in  organizations  to   become  visible.     Great.     It's  not  marketing,  it's  about  being  visible  and  something  that  I  call  networking  with   purpose,  and  let's  put  that  into  context  that  I  believe  that  invisible  people  in   organizations  collect  social  media  likes  and  business  cards,  and  visible  people  in   organizations  network  with  a  real  purpose  to  goals.  But  the  Invisible  Guy  is  relatively   new,  I  setup  a  business  called  Adaptive  Innovation,  which  is  a  management  consultancy   business  with  a  difference,  and  I  think  it's  got  a  unique  difference.  Yeah  we  focus  around   the  innovation,  around  opportunity,  around  success  but  as  you  will  know  Dallas,  and   people  listening  here,  there  are  thousands  and  thousands  and  thousands  of   management  consultants,  business  advisors  and  how  do  we  do  something  that's  real   different?     People  say  how  do  you  do  something  and  straight  away  I  go  right  into  the  outcomes  I've   achieved,  and  we  can  talk  about  some  of  the  outcomes  we've  achieved,  but  invariably   it's  about  the  passion  I've  gone  in.  A  little  bit  of  my  history,  about  10  years  ago  my  wife   got  diagnosed  with  a  life  threatening  illness  and  needed  a  double  lung  transplant  and  I   found  a  passion.     Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:     Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 2 of 15

  3.   [crosstalk  00:02:28]     And  I  found  a  passion,  I  didn't  find  a  passion,  I  started  to  understand  where  my  passion   was,  my  passion  is  really  about  charity,  foundations  and  really  trying  to  support  that.  So   a  lot  of  what  I  do  in  my  life  today  is  about  the  now,  the  opportunity  we've  got,  and  I  say   you  know,  in  our  lifetime  we  have  680  million  heartbeats,  that's  24,000,  25,000   heartbeats  a  day.  I'm  46  years  old,  I've  already  used  half  my  heartbeats  I  don't  want  to   waste  another  single  day  and  when  I  go  into  organizations  and  when  I  sit  with  people  it's   about  being  in  a  very  competitive  industry  and  change,  and  changing  now.  Not   tomorrow,  tomorrow,  we're  going  to  do  it  now  and  really  the  innovation  that  comes   around  technology  is  your  friend  and  not  your  foe,  and  it's  about  how  you  use  that   technology  in  order  to  do  that.     As  I  tell  people  about  Adaptive  Innovation  and  the  stories  behind  that  and  the  real   stories  of  businesses,  a  lot  comes  in  about  my  life,  and  more  people,  the  clients  were   more  interested  about  me,  about  the  culture,  my  culture  and  my  values,  and  that's  how   the  Visible  Guy  came  about.  Because  the  Visible  Guy  is  about  my  history,  my  childhood   as  being  bullied,  through  the  livelihood  as  a,  through  going  through  the  issues  with  my   wife,  through  her  transplant.  But  no  one  asking  about  me  as  a  person  and  that  got  me   thinking  about  organizations.  You  hear  the  comment  about  the  difference  between   hearing  and  listening,  well  we're  often  seen  but  we're  not  visible  as  organizations  and   people,  and  that's  really  how  Adaptive  Innovation  makes  sure  that  you  as  an   organization  and  you  as  an  individual  are  really  being  visible  to  your  network  and  to   your  ambassador,  your  ambassadors  know  how  your  going  to  be  visible.     So  that's  a  little  bit  about  me,  I've  spent  20  odd  years  in  financial  services.  A  lot  of  that   has  been  spent  on  the  client  facing  side,  working  for  investment  banks,  private  equity,   ran  a  family  business  with  my  father  for  35  years.  So  yeah  my  worldly  experience  is   quite  vast  and  quite  diverse.  My  network  is  huge,  I've  been  able  to  learn  off  other   people's  networks  as  well.  But  as  a  business  consultant,  as  a  coach,  it's  about  being   accountable,  it's  about  being  measurable  and  it's  about  having  very,  very  clear   outcomes.  If  it's  not  those  three  then  we  just  don't  get  on  really.     I  love  that  idea  that  innovation  has  to  be  now.  So  often  we  go  "oh  yeah,  we  should   innovate,  oh,  maybe  later"  you  know.     Yeah,  it's  really  interesting  now.  Not  only  is  it  now  but  give  it  a  go,  you  actually  have  to   give  it  a  go  and  understand  when  it  doesn't  work,  why  it  doesn't  work.  It  doesn't   necessarily  mean  your  wrong,  it's  the  old  analogy  about  what  makes  a  great  basketball   player,  it's  not  the  shots  you've  achieved,  it's  not  the  three  pointers  you've  hit,  it's  the   three  pointers  that  you've  missed  and  learning  from  that.  Innovation  changes  so  quickly   and  I  think  we  often  try  to  do  things  ourselves  and  what  innovation  really  allows  us  to   do  is  not  to  use  it.  So  for  example,  I've  got  someone  in  Peru  who  enters  all  my  business   cards  into  my  CRM  system,  cost  me  eight  dollars  an  hour.  Why?  Well  I'm  dyslexic  so  my   typing  sometimes  is  wrong  but  I  know  someone  can  do  it  and  it  saves  me  two  or  three   hours  a  week  to  do  it,  so  why  not  use  technology  that  way.   Dallas:   Gordon:       Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 3 of 15

  4.   My  articles  and  everything  are  all  written  by  me  because  no  one  can  write  for  me.  But   someone  can  do  all  the  spellchecking  and  the  grammar  checking  and  using  the   innovation  behind  that.  So  that's  what  we  bring  into  business  and  try  to  be  really   different  about.  It's  like  you  know  we're  on  Skype  now,  we're  on  this  Google  hangout   thing  now,  so  this  is  innovation.  Whereas  before,  four,  five  years  ago  we  would've  been   on  the  phone.     Or  just  not  done  it.     Or  not  just  done  it,  yeah.     It  opens  up  all  these  new  doors,  doesn't  it?     It  opens  up  the  new  doors,  there's  no  barriers,  and  I  think  in  organizations  and  people   today  when  I  go  into  see  them,  it's  really  about  the  desire  to  change.  If  people  say  they   don't  want  to  change  that's  okay,  to  me  that's  laziness  and  that's  their  own  decision.   When  people  say  we  can't  change  then  it's  really  about  understanding  why  you  don't   think  you  can.  You  can  change,  because  everyone  can  change,  it's  whether  they  want  to   change  that's  the  issue,  if  that  makes  sense.     Yeah,  great.  So  tell  us  a  bit  more  about  who  you  work  with.  What  are  the  problems  that   they  face  or  the  challenges  or  opportunities  they  see  that  make  them  think  look  we   should  get  in  a  innovation  specialist,  and  I've  heard  Gordon  is  good.  What  makes  them   come  to  you?  What  situation  are  they  in?     So  yeah,  it's  really  interesting.  About  98%  of  my  clients  are  all  referrals.  I'm  trying  out   some  really  interesting  things  on  marketing  just  through  Instagram  and  twitter  at  the   moment.  It's  really  interesting  the  interest  I'm  getting  for  the  Visible  Guy  through   Instagram  and  twitter,  versus  Adaptive  Innovation  and  if  people  have  a  look  at  the   websites  they'll  see  the  websites  are  completely  different.  But  when  you  dig  deep  and   look  at  the  framework  and  the  programs,  the  framework  and  the  programs  are  very   similar.  So  it's  understanding  the  marketplace  on  that  side  is  how  it's  attracting  for  me.   That's  quite  an  interesting  prospect.     Comes  back  to  this  thing  about  listening.  So  often  when  I  sit  down  with  people  and   organizations  or  individuals,  I  listen.  Which  is  hard  for  me  because  I  like  talking,  and  you   listen  and  in  essence  we  look  at  the  barriers.  What  I'm  trying  to  find  out  is  the  barriers   of  change.  What  are  the  barriers  to  change  and  why,  and  part  of  that  is  understanding   the  barriers  and  the  knowledge  you  gain  from  that  and  I  think  that  one  of  the  reasons   that  people  come  to  Gordon  is  not  because  of  the  solution,  but  my  network.  This   network  with  purpose,  it  is  a  very,  very  deep  network  and  it's  a  very  wide  network.  One   thing  I  learnt  very  quickly  in  this  business  is  don't  try  to  do  everything  yourself.  You're   not  expected  to  do  everything  yourself,  what  you're  expected  to  do  is  understand   solutions  and  understand  how  to  drive  solutions.     So  let  me  put  that  into  context,  when  I  work  for  one  client  we  saved  100,000  dollars  in     Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:       Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 4 of 15

  5. SEO  marketing  for  them.  Now  I'm  not  an  SEO  expert  by  any  chance,  and  they  went  "oh,   we've  saved  100,000  dollars"  I  went  "no,  no,  no.  98%  of  your  clients  are  referrals.  You   don't  need  to  get  people  to  come  to  your  website,  what  you  need  to  do  is  when  they're   on  the  website,  what  are  they  then  doing?"  So  the  100,000  dollars  was  redirected  into  a   different  digital  marketing  expense.  It's  not  saving  the  money  but  it's  using  the  100,000   dollars  in  a  different  way  which  a  more  measurable  an  outcome  process.     I  sit  down  with  organizations  and  they  often  say  "you  know,  we've  got  problems  with   our  sales"  and  I  go  "okay,  talk  to  me  more  about  your  sales"  and  they  say  "well,  you   know,  we're  not  hitting  sales  targets."  Okay,  why  aren't  you  hitting  sales  targets?  As   soon  as  you  say  we're  not  hitting  sales  targets,  that  could  be  for  a  number  of  reasons.  It   could  be  because  its  got  the  wrong  salespeople  in,  it  could  be  we've  set  the  wrong  sales   target,  it  could  be  because  the  communication  is  wrong.  It  could  be  because  the  clients   just  aren't  interested  in  the  products,  there's  a  number  of  different  factors  behind  that,   and  one  of  the  questions  I  often  ask,  and  I  was  at  a  networking  function  last  night  and   they  were  talking  about  sales  and  I  gave  the  example  of  a  car  showroom.     If  your  management  team  comes  down  and  says  "you've  got  to  sell  10  cars"  and  I  say  to   Dallas  "you've  got  to  sell  10  cars"  and  Dallas  goes  "that's  great."  Dallas  is  thinking  well   actually,  I  was  thinking  I  was  going  to  have  to  sell  13  cars  a  month,  but  now  I  only  have   to  sell  10  cars.  Now  if  you  changed  the  question  around  and  go  "Dallas,  how  many  cars   you  think  you  can  sell?"  "Oh,  I  think  I  can  sell  13."  You've  gone  okay,  well  I've  just  got  a   30%  increase  in  my  sales  and  then  you  turn  around  to  Dallas  and  go  "well  if  you  can  do   15  a  month  instead  of  13  a  month,  do  you  think  that's  a  stretch?"  And  you  go  "oh  yeah"   and  you  say  to  Dallas  "well  if  you  were  to  do  15,  what  type  of  reward  would  you  want?"   "Don't  know"  and  then  go  to  Gordon  and  say  to  Gordon  "how  many  cars  do  you  think   you  can  sell,  Gordon?"  And  he's  gone  and  said  "oh,  I'm  thinking  I'll  sell  eight"  and  you  go   "oh,  okay."  Well  they're  below  your  expectations,  so  you  can  see  straight  away  as  a   management  team  if  you  go  in  and  you're  telling  Dallas  to  sell  10,  and  he's  your  great   salesman,  he's  taking  his  foot  off  the  pedal  but  then  you  go  to  Gordon  who  can  only  sell   eight.     You  need  to  understand  what  are  the  barriers.  Well  I  don't  understand  the  jargon  that   used  for  the  technical  side  that  you  want  me  to  sell  for  the  engine.  Oh,  okay  so  if  we   give  you  more  training  on  the  engine  and  the  components  of  the  engine,  do  you  think   you  can  get  to  10?  Yeah.  Okay,  well  let's  do  the  training.  So  you've  actually  gone  and   asked  the  questions  about  why,  and  then  I  look  at  that  and  go  okay,  well  that  person   needs  some  development  training.  That's  not  me  that-­‐     Yes.     Does  that,  but  one  of  my  partners  has  won  the  2016  HR  Leadership  and  Development   Program,  so  why  wouldn't  I  bring  that  person  in  to  help  with  the  development  program.   Get  that  person  skilled  up  and  then  I'd  work  with  that  client  to  make  sure  that  they   could  actually  get  the  sales.  Once  we  know  they  can  achieve  the  sales,  if  the  sales  drop   off  it's  not  a  sale  problem  you've  got,  it's  a  person  problem  not  wanting  to  do  the  job.   That's  the  type  of  detail  going,  I  think  often  people  come  in  here  and  go  right  into         Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 5 of 15

  6. solution  mode  and  we're  just  trying  to  work  out  well,  what  are  the  problems?  I  talk   often  about  having  a  panoramic  view  and  sitting  on  top  of  that  mountain,  getting  away   from  all  the  noise  and  just  looking  down  at  what  is  actually  going  on  in  the  business  and   how  do  we  go  around  it.     We  talk  a  lot  about  referrals  in  how'd  you  go  and  ask  a  client  for  referrals,  in  the  process   to  go  to  do  referrals.  People  say  to  me  we  have  a  problem,  one  firm  we  did  what  I  class   as  a  CIA  program,  which  is  a  client  intel  program  and  we  generated  three  years  worth  of   referrals.     Wow.     Three  years  worth  of  referrals  with  a  40%  conversion.  So  in  the  first  year  they  could've   achieved  1.5  million  dollars  in  new  revenue  on  a  5  million  dollar  revenue  base.     Gee.     Right.  They  didn't  do  it  because  they  didn't  know  actually  how  to  go  and  ask  the  client   for  the  referral  and  how  to  actually  upsell.  What  the  clients  have  actually  said  to  them   we  want  to  sell.     Right,  yep.     Sat  down  with  another  client,  we  found  out  clients  actually  think  they  were  cheap  but   staff  thought  they  were  expensive,  so  it  talks  about  the  value  proposition.  So  it's  not   about  your  sales,  you  can't  achieve  your  sales  and  you  think  it's  a  client  problem,  no  it's   not,  it's  the  staff  think  that  your  product  is  actually  expensive.  So  they're  actually  not   valuing  the  service  that  they're  delivering,  so  they  client  is  not  the  problem,  the  client  is   actually  internal.  So  those  are  the  things  that  we  really  look  at  and  when  it  comes  to   issues  like  that  internally  I  might  have  to  bring  in  an  accounting  firm,  I  might  have  to   bring  in  a  business  analyst.  It's  not  necessarily  me  to  do,  but  it's  all  about  the   accountability  and  knowing  what  outcomes  we're  going  to  get.     So  that's  why  I  think  I'm  a  little  bit  different,  in  terms  of  clients  I  get  from  all  different   types  of  sectors.  A  lot  of  this  revolves  around  coaching  as  well  and  at  the  moment  I'm   coaching,  it  sounds  quite  strange  this,  and  we'll  talk  about  innovation,  there's  an  18  year   old  lady  in  Costa  Rica,  believe  it  or  not,  a  lady  called  Sofia,  and  Sofia  is  a  bassoon  player   and  she's  been  awarded  into  the  Conservatorium  of  Sydney.  What  we're  trying  to  do   with  it,  we're  really  trying  to  make  her  visible  so  she  can  get  some  funding.     Now  I  got  no  idea  about  music,  in  fact  I  got  thrown  out  of  a  brass  band  because  I   couldn't  hit  the  triangle  in  tune.  Right,  I'm  bad,  but  I  actually  sat  down  with  her  and  just   talked  to  her  about  what  she's  doing,  how  she's  doing  it  and  we  got  her  onto  social   media.  We've  identified  a  few  people  but  then  you  forget,  she  says  to  me  "oh,  you  going   to  do  this  bird  thing?"  The  bird  thing,  the  bird  thing,  what  we're  doing  Instagram,  we're   doing  LinkedIn,  the  bird  thing,  twitter.  Right  so  you  think  an  18  year  old  knows  all  about   twitter.  No,  it's  not,  so  the  perception  that  you  think  people  know.     Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:       Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 6 of 15

  7.   So  I  got  clients  from  there  all  the  way  through  to  my  current  client  at  the  moment  is,   one  of  the  bigger  clients  I'm  dealing  with  is  a  firm,  an  organization  called  Able  Australia.   Able  Australia  is  one  of  the  largest  disability  organizations  in  Australia,  and  we're  really   doing  some  really  interesting  with  their  clients  and  their  employees  around  what  is   known  as  client  intel  appraisal.  So  the  CIA  program  I  deliver,  and  what's  really   interesting  about  that  is  people  with  disabilities  often  aren't  asked  what  they  want  and   they  need  because  of  their  disability  in  trying  to  communicate  with  them.  I've  taken  a   platform  from  the  States  that  has  both  responsive,  from  the  mobile  perspective  but  also   accessibility  from  a  disability  perspective.  So  now  we  can  actually  go  down  and  actually   ask  the  person  needing  the  service  what  do  they  actually  want.  What  are  the  problems   they  actually  want  and  what  do  they  actually  want  to  do  it.  Now  it's  not  a  difficult   system  to  use,  but  there's  been  a  heck  of  a  lot  of  time  and  investment  on  my  part  to   ensure  that  the  products  I'm  bringing  along  is  the  right  product,  and  can  deliver  it  to  the   client.     But  as  I'm  talking  to  the  client  about  the  products  and  services  they're  delivering,  what   we're  finding  internally  is  there's  a  lot  of  technical  jargon,  and  what  they're  using   internally  and  they  assume  that  people  understand  on  the  outside.  We're  finding  that   people  on  the  outside  don't  really  understand  it,  or  aren't  necessarily  using  the  same   jargon  and  what  we're  finding  out  of  that  is  there's  actually  some  great  product  upsell   along  the  process.  That  services  that  clients  are  using  from  other  service  providers  when   it  makes  it  more  efficient  to  use  it  internally.  We're  also  finding  where  the  believe  in   services  are  required  for  the  future  as  well.  So  we're  asking  some  really  deep  questions   and  we  know  we're  on  for  a  winner  because  whilst  we  kind  of  kept  this  relatively  quiet,   we're  getting  already  inquiries  from  national  bodies  within  the  disability  sector  about   the  findings.  They  want  to  know  about  how  we've  got  the  system  to  develop  it.     Great.     So  it's  quite  a  varied  range.     Yeah,  definitely  diverse.     And  it's  diverse,  and  what's  really  interesting  when  you  go  into  an  organization  and  the   management  team  actually  turn  around  and  say  "well,  can  we  do  this?  Can  we  do  this?   Oh,  we  should  really  want  to  do  this."  You  become  the  facilitator.  You  don't  as  a   business  apply  it,  I  don't  even  have  to  sell  myself  now  because  the  management  team   can  actually  see  crikey,  we've  got  something,  we  can  really  dig  deep  into  our  client   knowledge  and  ask  staff  [inaudible  00:17:19]  and  why?  Because  the  outcomes  for  the   client  are  going  to  be  brilliant,  and  to  me  that's  an  innovation  that  probably  I  would  say   two  years  ago  wasn't  available,  12  months  ago  wasn't  available.     Wow,  great.     So  it's  brilliant.         Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 7 of 15

  8. Dallas:   Awesome.  Hey  Gordon,  I'm  really  keen  to  hear  more  about  the  Visible  Guy  versus   Adaptive  Innovation  because  that's  a  really  common  question  with  entrepreneurs  and   as  someone  who's  sort  of  in  the  marketing  and  strategic  direction  space,  I  know  you  will   have  long  and  hard  about  your  own  situation.  I  have  to,  you  know,  you  end  up  with   these  business  brands  and  personal  brands  and  sometimes  it's  hard  to  know  how  they   fit  together.  So  tell  us  a  bit  about  your  experience  with  those  two,  why  they  were  born   separately-­‐     Sure.     Why  they're  coming  together.     So-­‐     What  people  should  do,  everyone  wants  to  just  know  should  I  be  a  business  brand  or   should  I  be  a  personal  brand.  Tell  us  the  one  word  answer.     So,  let  me  put  it  in  a  simple  way,  if  you  go  and  ask  four  people  for  their  view  you  get   eight  different  answer  and  you'll  be  more  confused,  whatever  you're  doing.  So  let's  do   Adaptive.     Adaptive  Innovation  has  been  a  natural  progression  of  me  in  business  for  20  odd  years,   right,  25  years.  The  Visible  Guy  has  been  ...  it's  passion  that's  been  there  but  I've  not   really  understood  it  until  now,  and  that  doesn't  mean  I've  missed  an  opportunity,  what   it  means  is  [inaudible  00:18:49].  Let  me  go  back  and  explain  what  that's  about.  When   Wendy  got  diagnosed  with  her  illness  and  we  don't  know  how  long  Wendy  has  to  live,   whether  it's  going  to  be  another  year,  five  years,  whatever,  our  life  changed,  we  got  off   the  corporate  gravy  train  and  we  started  completing  bucket  lists.     We're  on  our  sixth  bucket  list  now,  the  fifth  one  was  quite  interesting  because  that  had   shooting  involved  in  it  and  I  wasn't  quite  sure  what  shooting  meant,  but  we  went  to   Vegas  and  did  some  shooting.  But  completing  that  bucket  list  was  really  my  purpose   because  that  really  enabled  me  to  have  real  clear  goals  and  achieving  it,  and  let  me  tell   you  some  of  the  things  we've  done.  We've  gone  to  Italy,  we  spent  three  months  in  Italy,   two  months  in  France,  I've  learnt  to  cook  in  Tuscany.  We've  eaten  at  some  fantastic   restaurants,  our  passion  is  food  and  wine.  Food  and  alcohol.     When  I  was  a  kid,  I  was  bullied  as  a  kid  and  people  knew  I  was  getting  bullied  and  I  got   bullied  for  about  four  or  five  years  and  no  one  really  did  anything  about  it,  and  I  had  to   learn  martial  arts  to  actually  get  myself  out  of  my  trouble.  There's  times  when  I  thought   life  is  probably  not  worth  living  any  longer,  on  that  side.  I  struggled  through  school,  I   wasn't  the  most  intelligent  guy,  got  through  to  university  and  in  my  last  year  of  doing   my  master  degree,  found  out  I  was  dyslexic.  I  thought  crikey,  if  only  I  would've  known   six  years  ago,  eight  years  ago  my  english  would've  been  a  lot  better.     Then  when  I've  come  through  to  work  and  I've  worked  in  big  corporates,  I've  always   been  the  person  who  is  being  seen  in  organizations  but  I've  never  really  been  visible.  It   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:           Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 8 of 15

  9. almost  felt  like  sometimes  things  were  happening,  when  the  big  changes  were   happening  I  was  never  really  there.  So  I  was  always  missing  out  on  something  and  then   when  things  happened  with  Wendy,  yes  all  right  all  the  focus  was  on  Wendy  but  I  really   needed  some  help.  I  really  needed  some  real  emotional  coaching,  coaching  about  what   was  going  on,  life  and  death  situations.  But  no  one  cared  about  me,  no  one  asked  me   how  am  I  doing,  Gordon?  Or  what  am  I  doing?  And  when  they  did  find  out  that  I  needed   care  they  put  me  in  touch  with  a  very  old  female  psychologist,  in  a  hot  sweaty  room.  I   spent  175  dollars  talking  about  my  life,  came  out  and  thought  ...  they're  putting  me  on  a   path  that  other  people  have  trod  because  that's  the  only  way  to  solve  the  problem  and   what  that  means  is  that  I  realized  in  my  life  suddenly  that  we  shouldn't  tread  the  path   other  people  have  chosen,  you  should  tread  the  path  that  suits  you.  You  might  get  to   the  same  outcomes  but  you  need  to  tread  the  path  that's  right  for  you.     If  I  would've  been  allowed  to  do  home  economics,  which  is  cooking  back  in  the  UK,   there's  no  doubt  I  would  be  a  cook  or  one  of  the  best  chefs  in  the  world.  But  I  had  to  do   metalwork,  and  I  know  today  I'm  safer  with  my  sushi  knives  than  I  am  with  a  hammer   and  screwdriver.  Right,  give  me  a  hammer  and  screwdriver  you'll  knock  down  the  house,   give  me  a  set  of  sushi  knives  and  I'm  absolutely  fine.     Yep.     So  the  Visible  Guy  came  about,  I  met  a  guy  in  Melbourne,  and  I'll  give  him  a  plug,  he's   called  the  Bucket  List  Guy.     Yep.     And  I  sent  him  an  email,  took  me  six  months  to  send  him  an  email  and  I  said  I  don't   know  where  I'm  going  with  this  but  people  find  my  story  quite  interesting.  My  story  is   also  affecting  my  business  and  I  sent  him  a  list,  and  he  goes  you're  the  Visible  Guy.  He   said  no,  you're  the  Invisible  Guy  and  we  worked  on  the  story  of  the  Invisible  Guy,  and   the  Invisible  Guy  became  very  negative.  Started  giving  the  wrong  message,  so  we   changed  it  to  the  Visible  Guy  and  it's  about  helping  people,  it's  about  coaching  people.   But  as  I  started  talking  about  that,  people  were  relating  that  to  Adaptive  Innovation.     Sure,  yeah.     I'm  going  no,  they're  different.  They're  different,  they're  different,  they're  different,   they're  different.  But  the  market  has  moved  them  together  and  what  this  really  means   is  do  not  try  to  defy  where  the  market  is  moving  you.  If  the  market  is  saying  that  the   message  you're  giving  is  aligned,  it  is  aligned.  So  today  as  I  sit  here,  corporations  take   onboard  Adaptive  Innovation  because  of  the  systems,  the  framework  and  the  programs   involved  in  that.  Individuals  take  onboard  the  Invisible  Guy,  because  that's  personal   coaching,  that  type  of  stuff.  Leaders  of  organizations  mix  and  match  the  both,  and  what   I  say  to  people  is  don't  try  to  put  a  label  on  it.  It's  what's  underneath  it  that  it's  really,   really  important.  You  don't  know  whether  you're  engaging  the  Visible  Guy  or  the   Adaptive  Innovation,  it  is  in  a  sense  it's  a  whole,  what  I  class  as  a  black  hole.  It's   everything  underneath  it.     Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 9 of 15

  10.   In  terms  of  how  I  get  paid  and  where  my  life  is,  and  this  again  is  really  important  in   terms  of  the  message  that  we  give  to  clients,  about  25%  of  what  I  earn  on  the  Visible   Guy  goes  straight  to  our,  we  run  a  foundation  called  Lungitude  Foundation.  25%  of  the   that  goes  to  that  foundation  and  about  10%  of  what  I  earn  on  Adaptive  Innovation  goes   to  the  foundation,  the  difference  between  that  is  one  has  to  pay  for  my  private  wealth.     Yes.     Because  we  need  to  feed  and  live,  and  the  other  one  is  a  foundation  so  I'm  very  clear   about  what  goes  through.  But  that  straight  away,  talk  about  innovation,  when  clients   hear  about  that  they  want  to  know  more  about  the  foundation,  about  why  and  the   purpose.  Why?  Because  that  makes  them  understand  who  I  am  and  what  I  am,  the   culture.  I'm  not  going  to  deliver  a  service  that  they  know  benefits  thousands  and   thousands  of  people  and  let  that  reputation  be  damaged.  So  it's  really-­‐     Tell  us  a  bit  more  about  the  foundation  and  the  work  it  focuses  on  doing,  Gordon.     Sure,  so  the  foundation  is  called  Lungitude  Foundation.  The  long  name  is  Lung   Transplant  Research  Australia,  Inc.     Uh  huh.     [inaudible  00:24:51]  and  I  hate  the  word  not-­‐for-­‐profit.  I  do  not  like  those  words   because  a  not-­‐for-­‐profit  organization  is  a  profitable  business,  it  has  to  be  run  like  a   business.     Yes.     So  the  first  thing  about  our  foundation  is  we're  a  totally  governed  foundation.  We've  got   all  the  governance  in  place,  including  the  IP  and  the  trademarks.  As  any  business  owner   listening  here,  if  you  do  not  have  your  trademarks  and  your  IP  in  place,  get  it  in  place.  As   a  side  note,  the  Visible  Guy  has  gone  from  page  eight  on  Google  to  number  three  on   page  one  in  a  matter  of  two  weeks.  Do  you  think  I've  got  my  IP  in  place?     Yes.     I've  got  my  IP  in  place,  absolutely  I've  got  an  IP  in  place.  So  Lungitude  is  ...  it  provides   research  funding  to  the  lung  transplant  team  at  the  Alfred  Hospital  in  Melbourne,   towards  understanding  lung  transplant  rejection  and  lung  life.  It's  a  foundation  that's   emerged  from  another  foundation  that  was  setup  about  12  years  ago  and  again  it  really   comes  back  to  business,  you  have  to  understand  when  a  business  needs  to  be  changing   and  to  evolve.  The  name  of  that  foundation  was  the  Margaret  Pratt  Foundation,  means   probably  nothing  to  anyone  here.  It's  not  associated  with  the  Pratt  family  in  Melbourne,   it  was  because  it  was  associated  with  one  person.  So  we  needed  to  change  the  name  of   that  foundation,  so  we've  established  a  brand  new  foundation  with  new  governance.       Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 10 of 15

  11.   What  we've  managed  to  do  over  the  last  10  years  with  this  foundation,  is  we've   managed  to  initiate  research  which  today  is  saving  lives  all  around  the  world.  Not  just   saving  lives  in  lung  transplant,  but  we  now  can  work  on  people  to  prevent  them  from   having  a  lung  transplant  because  the  research  is  so  good  they  may  not  need  a  transplant   to  start  with.     Great.     It  goes  into  stem  cell  research,  it  goes  into  blood  cell  research  and  really  collaboration,   again  organizations,  so  we're  doing  a  lot  of  collaboration  with  the  Red  Cross  in  terms  of   blood  cells.  So  to  give  you  an  example  as  a  lung  transplant  recipient,  if  you  were  to  get   an  illness,  we're  now  able  to  go  in  and  found  out  whether  it's  the  lungs  that  are  sick,  as   in  the  DNA  of  the  person  who  provided  lungs-­‐     Sure.     Whether  it's  your  body  that's  sick.  Whereas  before  you  treated  the  whole  person,  so   that's  a  bit  like  with  the  computer.  If  your  computer  is  broken,  do  you  reset  everything   on  your  computer  or  do  you  just  go  in  and  find  out  what  part  of  that  program  is  not   working  and  correct  that  program.     Sure,  yeah.     That's  in  simple  terms,  right.  But  that's  innovation,  that's  where  commercial,  for  profit   and  not-­‐for-­‐profit  organizations  have  got  together  and  really  worked  about  it.  It's  a   fantastic  organization,  the  beauty  of  what  we  have  is  we  don't  know  how  many   thousands  of  lives  we've  saved  or  we've  extended.  What  I  do  know  is  that  Wendy  is   coming  up  to  a  10th  year  of  her  lung  transplant,  being  a  lung  transplant  recipient.  She   didn't  expect  to  get  past  three  years.     Wow.     Then  we  didn't  expect  to  get  past  five  years,  then  we  didn't  expect  to  get  10  years.  She's   now  threatening  to  be  with  us  till  I'm  85,  and  I'm  going  fuck,  I  don't  know  whether  we   can  afford  that.  But  it's  a  real  passion,  that's  the  passion  when  we  talk  about   organizations  and  don't  leave  it  till  tomorrow.  U  do  it  now,  your  competitors  aren't   leaving  it  till  tomorrow.  You  need  to  have  both  a  tactical  and  strategic  advantage  against   your  competition  today,  and  you  need  to  make  sure  that  you've  got  some  sustainability   to  alter  at  the  same  time.     [inaudible  00:28:36]  Foundation,  in  terms  of  a  strategic  plan,  in  terms  of  raising  our   awareness  [inaudible  00:28:43]  organization,  even  down  to  the  fact  that  we  make  one   of  our  values  is  we  must  have  fun.  We  must  have  fun  in  what  we  do.     Uh  huh.     Right,  if  we're  doing  this  for  16,  18  hours  a  day,  we  need  to  have  fun.   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:     Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 11 of 15

  12.   Yeah,  for  sure.     To  me  it's  a  real  passion,  to  give  you  an  example  last  night  I  was  at  a  function,  it  was  a   private  equity  function  and  they  said  "you  know,  do  you  have  any  real  problems?"  I  put   my  hand  up  and  said  "look,  I  have  a  real  problem  about  how  you  differentiate  between   the  emotional  need  and  the  physical  need."  So  I'm  focused  on  the  foundation  to  keep   that  running,  but  how  do  you  keep  on  doing  the  business  at  the  same  time?  And  just  by   talking  to  that  I've  picked  up  a  client  on  the  backend  of  that  who  wants  some  coaching   about  their  business,  about  how  to  get  the  right  culture  in  their  business.  So  it's  really   interesting.  To  me  it  all  comes  together,  I  know  it  might  sound  a  bit  mish  mash  but   Invisible  Guy  and  Adaptive  Innovation  is  really  ...  a  name,  just  two  names.  Underneath  it   continue  innovation,  continued  learning.  Continued  being  able  to  be  visible,  ensuring   that  I  stand  out.     Yeah,  for  sure.     People  know  who  I  am.  To  the  extent  that  now  I  get  introduced  as  the  Visible  Guy.     Yeah.     People-­‐     So  if  someone  is  listening  to  this  and  thinking  oh  look,  that  sounds  kind  of  interesting   but  they're  not  really  sure  where  to  take  it,  what  are  some  sort  of  red  flags  that  they   might  need  your  help  or  that  they  should  be  looking  at  innovation  or  alternatively,   things  on  the  horizon,  big  opportunities  that  people  should  be  gearing  up  for.  What  are   some  indicators  of  people  who  would  be  ideal  clients  for  you  or  someone  like  you?     Sure.  So  a  couple  of  things  along  that.  I  started  off  really  about  ...  I  focus  on  the   difference  between  client  satisfaction  and  client  loyalty.  The  two  things  are  completely   different  and  people  assume  if  you've  got  client  satisfaction,  you've  got  client  loyalty.   They  are  completely  different.  Let  me  do  that  for  you.  You're  on  a  Telstra  phone,  you're   happy  with  your  Telstra  phone  and  you  just  use  it.  No  problems  at  all,  you  just  use  it,   you  just  use  it.  However,  if  Optus  come  along  and  say  here's  a  better  deal  and  it's  going   to  save  you  100  dollars  a  month,  you'll  swap.  Right,  you're  satisfied  but  you're  not  loyal.     Yep.     If  you're  at  Cairns  Airport  and  the  only  airline  out  of  that  is  Qantas,  right  you're   absolutely  loyal  to  Qantas  because  you've  got  no  choice.     Sure,  yep.     It  doesn't  mean  that  you're  satisfied.     Yes.   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 12 of 15

  13.   Yes.  That's  two  very  simple  ways,  there's  an  absolute  difference  and  people  get  mixed   up  between  client  loyalty  and  client  satisfaction.  People  that  use  me  just  usually  ring  me   up  and  say  "hey  Gordon,  can  we  have  a  chat?  I've  got  a  problem.  Oh,  I  think  I've  got  a   problem."     Yep.     Or  "hey  Gordon,  I  want  to  go  into  this  market,  I  just  want  to  check  with  you  how  I  enter   this  market."  Or  some  people  ring  me  up  and  they've  been  referred  through  to  me  and   they  wanted  coaching,  so  where  do  I  direct  them  to?  First  thing  I  direct  them  to  is  my   clients.  I  say  "well  go  and  speak  to  my  clients  and  find  out  some  references."  I've  got  a   white  paper  on  client  loyalty  and  client  satisfaction  and  anyone  that's  here  can  just   contact  at  info@thevisibleguy.com  and  I'll  send  them  a  copy  of  that  or  go  on  the   website  you'll  get  an  automatic  connection  for  that.     But  I  also  sit  down  with  people  and  say  "well  okay,  let's  organize  a  15  minute  Skype  call   and  we'll  just  chat."  No  cost,  that  15  minutes  sometimes  goes  to  half  an  hour.  But  it's   just  chats  about  finding  out  where  we  connect.  In  terms  of  where  people  should  start   looking  if  they  think  they  want  help  or  if  they  think  they  should  start  looking  at  their   businesses,  I  listen  to  a  lot  of  podcasts.  I  don't  tend  to  do  a  lot  of  reading  because  I'm  a   dyslexic,  I  don't  tend  to  do  it.  You  can  do  podcasts  on  the  go  and  audio  on  the  go.  I  listen   to  a  lot  of  people,  I  learn  constantly.  As  a  coach  I  have  a  coach  and  as  mentor  I  have  a   mentor.  You  never  stop  learning.  I'm  inspired  by  some  of  the  most  remarkable  people  in   the  world,  famous  people  and  not  so  famous  people.  I'm  absolutely  empowered  by  the   ability  to  get  off  your  backside  and  just  do  it,  don't  make  excuses.  I  use  a  thing  that   nothing  is  impossible  because  I  am  possible.     Yes.     Understand  the  difference  there,  and  that  the  word  change  actually  says  can  change.  So   don't  give  me  any  excuses.  One  of  the  biggest  questions  I  ask  people  on  the  mentoring   side  is  are  you  living  or  are  you  surviving?     Right.     They  say  pardon?  I  say  tell  me  are  you  living  or  are  you  surviving?  Because  we  want  to   be  living  and  I  learnt  that  the  hard  way.  Just  surviving  day  by  day  is  not  the  way  to  go,   it's  not  good  for  your  health,  it's  not  good  for  your  emotions,  it's  not  good  for  your   interactions  with  people.  You  really  got  to  be  living,  you  got  to  have  a  purpose  and  that   purpose  for  me  is  the  passion,  and  people  say  how  do  I  find  my  passion?  I  said  you  don't   find  a  passion,  everyone  has  the  passion,  what  you  don't  realize  is  you  don't  understand   what  your  passion  is  and  what  to  do  with  the  passion.     Sure.     And  there's  a  difference  between  that.  I  can't  tell  Dallas  what  his  passion  is  but  when   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:     Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 13 of 15

  14. you  understand  what  your  passion  is,  we'll  help  you  explore  that  passion  and  expand  it   and  involve  it  in  your  life,  and  that's  where  we  crossover  from  the  Visible  Guy  to   Adaptive  Innovation,  in  terms  of  really  exploring  that  and  going  into  then  getting  some   really  great  outcomes  on  that.  Hope  that  makes  sense.     Yep,  for  sure.  Fantastic.  Well  thanks  Gordon,  there's  been  some  real  nuggets  there.     [inaudible  00:35:10]     You  did  share  briefly  your  details,  but  could  you  just  tell  us  again  how  people  can  get  in   touch  if  they'd  like  to  know  more  about  what  you  do  or  have  a  talk  to  you.     Sure.  So  my  email  address  is  info@thevisibleguy.com,  my  twitter  and  my  Instagram   handle  is  @imthevisibleguy     Uh  huh.     And  contact  me,  I'm  more  than  happy  to  have  a  Skype  call  with  anyone  and  just  talk   about  what  they  want.  Invariably,  I  might  not  be  able  to  help  them.  It  might  not  be  me,   but  it  might  be  my  network,  and  you  know  what  I  introduce  my  network.  To  give  you  an   idea,  in  the  last  12  months  I've  introduced  around  about  38,  40  people  in  my  network  to   other  people  because  there's  business  to  be  done  with  other  people.  I'm  happy  to  have   a  Skype  call,  happy  to  send  a  copy  of  the  eBook,  if  you  really  want  to  call  me,  you  can   call  me  on  my  mobile.  0414  414  481  and  typically  being  the  Visible  Guy,  yeah,  I'm  all   over  social  media.  So  those  I  think  are  the  easiest  way  to  get  a  hold  of  me  and  I'm  happy   to  have  a  chat  with  anyone  to  go  forward.  Because  that's  how  we  met,  Dallas,  we  met   because-­‐     [crosstalk  00:36:30]     There  was  something  I  wrote  on  social  media.  You  were  intrigued,  I  was  intrigued  that   you  were  intrigued.  We  got  together,  we  had  a  conversation,  probably  about  six  months   ago  now  I  think  it  was.     Yes,  it  was.     There  was  a  connection,  I  said  let's  hold  on  a  minute  because  something  is  changing  in   my  life  and  bits  and  pieces,  and  we've  kept  in  touch  and  that's  where  we've  come  from.   There's  intrigue  behind,  that's  how  we  develop  relationships  and  you  know,  that's  how   we  network  with  purpose.     For  sure,  and  something  that's  stuck  with  me  over  the  last  few  years,  is  that  so  often   when  we're  feeling  stuck  in  life  or  in  business  and  we  think  oh,  I  just  need  more  money   or  if  I  could  just  buy  this  thing  or  if  only  we  lived  here  we'd  be  okay.  But  so  often  it's  not   a  thing  you  need,  it's  a  person  and  someone  else  has  the  answers  and  it  might  not  be   someone  you  know  directly,  it  might  be  someone  that  someone  else  know.  So  rather   than  thinking  what's  the  thing?  Think  who's  the  person?   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 14 of 15

  15.   Exactly.  This  sounds  really  stupid,  but  the  daftest  question  is  the  question  you  don't  ask.     For  sure.  All  right,  well  fantastic  Gordon,  I  really  appreciate  your  time-­‐     Thank  you.  Thank  you  Dallas,  it's  great.     And  it's  been  a  pleasure  talking  to  you.     Cheers,  thank  you.  Thanks  everyone  for  listening.     Terrific.     Cheers.     Thanks  again,  and  we'll  see  you  all  next  time.     V i s i b i l i t y , I n n o v a t i o n & P u r p o s e – G o r d o n J e n k i n s – T h e V i s i b l e G u y Image Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Gordon:   Dallas:   Interview URL: http://digitalinfluence.com.au/visibility-innovation-purpose-gordon-jenkins-the-visible-guy/ Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWz2obcBUg4 See more Digital Influence Interviews: http://digitalinfluence.com.au/interviews   Gordon Jenkins - the Visible Guy Page 15 of 15

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