Podcast Transcript:

[00:03:18] Sean Steele: G’day everyone, and welcome back to the ScaleHQ Podcast. Welcome back to our regular listeners of course, and if you are joining us for the first time, we are thrilled to have you and you are in for an absolute treat. I don't know if we'll end up talking about anything to do with business, but we'll certainly going to have a lot of fun. My guest this week is Alena Smith, General Manager of Axial Training. A training company headquartered in Queensland, that does workplace apprenticeship and traineeship training in things like engineering and automotive and air conditioning and business and hospitality. And you guys have had, correct me if I'm wrong, Alena, more than 150,000 students complete qualifications in the last 26 years. Is that right?

[00:03:55] Alena Smith: Correct. Yes.

[00:03:57] Sean Steele: Pretty bloody impressive.

[00:03:58] Alena Smith: I know. I know. We're very proud of it. Very proud.

[00:04:02] Sean Steele: So, you should be. Well, I guess there's a bit of a context for our audience. We've known each other for a long time, so if we sound a bit familiar in this podcast, that's because we've known each other for more than 10 years.

[00:04:13] Alena Smith: Yes.

[00:04:15] Sean Steele: We used to work together back in the days of study group, and one of the reasons I was really interested in chatting to you today is we've connected many times over the years since we both left study group, but we have a lot of, you know, seven figure Founders in this podcast who want to step back at some point and install a General Manager who grows into a capable leader of leading the end-to-end thing and not just delivering on a strategy, but actually developing and owning the strategy. And you are precisely that for your Founder and I have watched you grow into that role in the last, is it seven years that you've been there now?

[00:04:52] Alena Smith: Eight.

[00:04:53] Sean Steele: Eight. Oh my God. Getting scary,

[00:04:54] Alena Smith: Yes. Yes.

[00:04:56] Sean Steele: And you've had such a big impact on that business. And so, I would love to unpack your journey with you, if that is okay.

[00:05:02] Alena Smith: Unpack away.

[00:05:04] Sean Steele: Rock on. Well, why don't we start first, like, give me the one-minute career overview and how you ended up actually working as General Manager at Axial.

[00:05:11] Alena Smith: Wow. Okay. So, I've been in education since I was about 23 years old, so I won't tell you how many years that is, but had quite a lot of different journeys throughout, the education sector, and I guess probably for those first 10 to 15 years I was really trying to find that thing that I was passionate about, you know, and it just wasn't gelling. So for me, when I came into Axial, I thought, you know what? This is something that can help these kids get to where they need to be, because I was seeing so many kids, or students, even adult, you know, teenagers, school leavers, things like that, coming through the system. And they just weren't doing anything. They were trying this or trying that or trying the other. And what I found was how can I help make an impact on steering these kids in the right direction from the get go. And never thought I'd find that in blue collar, if I'm honest. If I'm honest. Yeah. Didn't think I would find that in blue collar, but I did. And we've grown exponentially, three and a half times where we were eight years ago, which is insane. Yeah.

[00:06:45] Sean Steele: Well, I'm going to be asking you about the current scale of the business, so you can give me some numbers and give people some context about where it is and where it was. But first, can you just explain like, what's the problem that Axial solves? Who do you solve it for? How do you solve it so people get a bit of better context than my description of what the business does?

[00:07:01] Alena Smith: So, when I first took over at Axial, we were just an apprenticeships and traineeships provider. We then opened it up to the international sector and then we opened it up to VET in Schools, which is something I'm very passionate about.

[00:07:18] Sean Steele: So, just to be clear, for our audience, for those who don’t know those terms, so international, and when you opened up to international, that means you had international students who were coming from offshore countries and coming onshore to study in your campuses. And then the VET in Schools, for those who aren't familiar with that term, can you explain what VET in Schools is?

[00:07:36] Alena Smith: So, that's vocational education in schools. So, it's a pathway. So, most of the state governments all around Australia now are recognising vocational education as a pathway to university to take that emphasis off, was the old op now the new ATAR in order to help children bridge that gap somewhat and give them a little bit of an understanding of exactly what it is they would like to do sooner by dipping their feet in the water, dipping their tongue in the water, if you like. That’s where we come in.

[00:08:14] Sean Steele: Yeah. And so, for those, you know, anyone who's got teenagers would know that, you know, not everyone has got the desire or the interest or the capacity or whatever to go to university. It's not the right path for everybody. And so, this vetting schools, which has been a really significant growth area across the country in the last probably 10 years, I guess I would say, of saying to kids; hey, actually university doesn't have to be the thing, but here's a way of exploring maybe some other career options in a more practical way that gives you a chance to sort of, rather than just disconnecting at the end of year 10, here's something actually that might be really valuable for you that may still give you a university pathway or may give you a job pathway or both.

[00:08:56] Alena Smith: Correct. Exactly. Yep.

[00:08:58] Sean Steele: Sweet.

[00:08:58] Alena Smith: Right opportunities in that space.

[00:09:00] Sean Steele: Yeah. So you are, okay, so just explain those delivery models. So, you send people to workplaces to work between an employer and a student when they're doing an apprenticeship or a traineeship. So, someone’s going, is that how works?

[00:09:16] Alena Smith: Yeah, so with apprenticeships and traineeships, these are students that have elected outside of school, so they've stop school. They're full-time apprentices. They've ceased their secondary education. They've decided to become an engineer, and they work full-time on the job at their employer. And we send our trainers out there to train them and assess them on the job rather than taking them out of the employer into a block environment.

[00:09:51] Sean Steele: Got it. And so that means, you know, if you are the, this is the structure of an apprenticeship or a traineeship, they need to be doing a qualification whilst they're working and that employer gets access to, or that essentially there's some funding opportunities there for the employer?

[00:10:05] Alena Smith: There are. Yes, there are a lot of the funding opportunities have now ceased in Queensland, so we have seen a decline in apprenticeships, but, you know, we've been around for upwards of 25 years now. So, we've got a fairly good standing and we've just gone into New South Wales with the same model, which we've had some wonderful feedback about because they haven't had a lot of that kind of support, I think in New South Wales, so, yeah.

[00:10:35] Sean Steele: Okay, just so the people have got clarity. Because there'll be lots of people listening today who've never been exposed to traineeship or apprenticeships. So, you've got that employee who's doing, getting started in engineering. They've now, the employer's now not having to do all the training of the individual, the person is enrolled in a nationally accredited qualification, so you know what they're going to be able to do at the end of it, you've got a training partner, which is Axial, who's actually delivering the training for the student, and that might be partly online. They might be doing theory and activities and things online, and they're also then going to the employer to assess the student, to help the student, to mentor the student, et cetera. Is that alright?

[00:11:09] Alena Smith: So, we do everything at the place of business. Yeah. So, we go out there and do everything at the place of business. I guess the difference, but with us is that the focus and it's a very heavy focus and it's an expensive focus, but it's a very important focus is, and I think you and I have touched on this just before when we were chatting is the learning enhancement side of things where we're actually trying to ascertain how these kids learn or how these students learn. And really creating and tailoring from all of the different apprenticeships, traineeships, classroom training, international training, really doing a deeper dive and an understanding into how they learn at an individual basis.

[00:12:01] Sean Steele: So, can you give me an example of like, how that shows up, like how you might be thinking about learning differently that actually shows up in a practical way inside one of those environments?

[00:12:09] Alena Smith: Absolutely. So, a lot of the information I've come across and a lot of the data I've been doing a lot of study on it recently, and it seems to be that progression rates, completion rates when apprentices are studying from a computer, so studying from an online platform, are very substandard. They're poor. Generally, this is because when you are learning from a platform or software or device, there's a certain autonomy that has to go with that. And you are then suggesting that with that autonomy, they need to be able to read, write, calculate. So, a lot of these students that we come across, and I'm going to say a good 83% of them, which is the data that would, and this is within our own cohorts, are either ascertained or they're not ascertained. A lot of them are not ascertained. So, what that means is our trainer will have to go and assess how these kids learn. So, what we've done is we've put in a really large focus into new software programs, but actual hard copy assessments where we're printing our assessments in a way that is reasonably adjusted. But we're using things like dyslexic font. We're using physical tools to help them read, write, and comprehend. We're using a lot of visual aids. We're using a lot. We're working with autism Queensland in an order to try and gauge how to best deliver to people that may have spectrum or anxiety issues or things like that, and how to enhance their learning. I don't like calling it “Learning support.” I think it's Learning Enhancement. It has to be able to enhance. Everyone has got that skill. Everyone has got a skill. It's enhancing what that skill is and finding out how to do that. And that has been my focus probably for the last 18 months solidly, and probably going into the next couple of years, I would say. Yeah.

[00:14:31] Sean Steele: So, for those listening who are not in education, one of the things I want you to be thinking about when you're listening to Alena talk about how they are customising the delivery for the unique nature of the students in which they deal with, is going right back to you thinking about your ideal customer profile and how well you actually understand the problem space for your customer and the way that they need to, how do you set that customer up to be a hero using your product or service? How do you set them up to succeed? Because sometimes we fall into the trap of saying; oh, here's a problem. Here's a solution. That'll do. Now let's just focus on revenue growth. Whereas this is saying you need to continue to pay attention to actually how your customers are using that product or service. Do you need to optimise the way it's delivered, the way it's provided, the sort of mechanisms? Because sometimes your differentiation actually sits in there. You might be in an industry. Where you don't really differentiate on the what, like what you do may actually not be all that different to someone else. And so, I imagine Alena, for you guys, if you are delivering a nationally accredited qualification, there's a lot of people that do nationally accredited qualifications and do apprenticeships. Some people might think it's almost a commodity. So then where do you differentiate? You differentiate in the how, if you're in a business where actually there's not a lot of differentiation on, you have to differentiate on how, and it's actually those small things added up together. That produce better outcomes that build the reputation of the company and the word of mouth and all the other stuff. Do you think that's fair?

[00:15:52] Alena Smith: Absolutely. 100%. And people often talk about, you know, the revenue generating and Axial is very successful in that regard. However, that's come from the sheer quality that we instil the leadership team, the staff, the team in general. It's a fantastic team of people. They really are just wonderful and they've got the same set of values and passion for wanting to see other people succeed. And that is actually genuine. You know, we want to see other companies succeed. You know, we don't want to see because it affects everyone positively. You know? I want to see all education providers succeed and take on board what success, what underpins that success really? I think it benefits everybody.

[00:16:44] Sean Steele: It's one thing to say we deliver quality or we're going to differentiate on quality. It's another thing to then get so far into the detail that actually you've built the processes of the business to engineer quality. I remember, ah, geez, his name's Mark, but I can't remember Mark's last name. He from ProTech, who I interviewed some time ago. He built a, basically a labour hire company to 4,000 placed staff over 16 years. And the way he did that was to reverse engineer qualities and well, when somebody arrives on site that we've placed, that is what quality is for our customer. They look at the person and they go, do they have the right skills? Do they have the right tickets? Are they properly onboard or do they understand their values, how we operate in this area, blah, blah, blah. So, he like an engineer that he is, he really built a lot of high bars into the process of actually the way people are onboarded and recruited and selected and all the rest to ensure that every single time somebody shows up, quality is actually there. And that's what allowed them to then say, we do differentiate on quality and we actually go out. It's because we can prove how, and what I'm hearing from you is you've gone deep into the how to ensure that you're getting a quality outcome.

[00:17:59] Alena Smith: Absolutely.

[00:18:01] Sean Steele: Love it. Can you just give me a sense of the scale of the business, so whether that's on revenue bases or full-time equivalent employees or student numbers, like when you started versus what it is now.

[00:18:12] Alena Smith: Yeah, for sure. So, when we started, I took over with 900 students. We've grown that to about three and a half thousand students. Yeah.

[00:18:26] Sean Steele: And over what period? Over eight years?

[00:18:28] Alena Smith: Yes. So, we we're climbing. You know, so I've chosen a steady climb as opposed to the steep. And that was because we just wanted to really, for me personally, I wanted to really get in and focus on the right things and that just takes a little bit of time. But yeah, started on with 900 students. We currently now have 3500.

[00:18:59] Sean Steele: 3500. Not bad. Not bad over eight years. Happy Founder, I'm guessing in the background.

[00:19:05] Alena Smith: I think he is. Yeah. Semi-retired these days.

[00:19:13] Sean Steele: Sorry, go ahead.

[00:19:15] Alena Smith: So yeah, that would be round about, it was about a four three, between three and a half and $4 million turnover. And now we're about, between 11 and a half and $12 million turnover, even during Covid, so.

[00:19:33] Sean Steele: Beautiful. And I love a story of steady controllable, but solid growth. Because that's where quality businesses emerge when they hit eight figures, is they haven't just been going after revenue for the sake of revenue. They've actually got a quality of business underneath.

[00:19:49] Alena Smith: We just want to be around for a while, so.

[00:19:52] Sean Steele: Yes. Well, you've got 25 years of history to protect now, right? So, it needs to be legacy. What did you choose to double down on? Like ultimately you had a strategy in place to help you build medium term competitive advantage. I know we've talked about before that you are actually the largest provider of apprenticeships in Queensland outside the major, the government system, which is FAFE. So, you've built a real, a medium-term competitive advantage in the business. What did you choose to double down on? Because you can't double down on everything, right? Like, you have to channel your investments and your effort and your focus. What are the couple of things that you double down on that you think have built that medium term competitive advantage for you?

[00:20:32] Alena Smith: Competitive advantage. So, two things. The first one was the range of scope that we delivered, was to really…

[00:20:40] Sean Steele: Scope for? For those who don’t know what it means.

[00:20:42] Alena Smith: So, scope for those, is a range of qualifications. So, you know, I call them faculty. So, we might have an engineering faculty, a business faculty, and under that business faculty you might have a number of different business qualifications that you are delivering to any one individual. So, it was about expanding the scope of what we delivered, but it was more about understanding what was needed, what was needed, so not just expanding the scope. So, when you expand a scope in education, you have to apply to the government in order to get approval to deliver an accredited qualification. So, you really have to have a good business case essentially. There's a lot of information you need to provide. So, for me, you know, when you're going through all of those processes, it's not a case of; oh, we'll just go and get this qualification and offer it to the industry. Well, does the industry really want it? Does the market need it? But more of, is it going to make a difference? So, there's so many providers offering, and we talked about this just a minute ago, where it's apples and apples in a lot of cases. So, the need to understand…

[00:22:01] Sean Steele: Scope. That was basically products that were acquired in the market. And by the way, for those, Alana is alluding to it, but in regulated accredited education, every time you add scope, it's not like a one-off product that you'll just, you know, ‘Oh, we'll give it a crack, and then if we don't like, or it's not working, we'll just take it off.' It's like, you're adding a significant amount of work and you're adding a significant amount of risk every time you add a product because you've got lots of auditing and lots of compliance, and it's actually a big decision. And many people go into that decision loosely. And so, what you are saying is you really thought carefully about how you expanded your product to ensure that actually it was going to succeed by doing the right…

[00:22:36] Alena Smith: Very much so. And the way the government assess the risk as well is by what you have on the scope and whether you're delivering on shore or to offshore students. So, every time you make a decision, the risk profile increases. 

[00:22:51] Sean Steele: So, product development was therefore a key part of it. What else?

[00:22:53] Alena Smith: Absolutely. Culture.

[00:22:55] Sean Steele: Okay.

[00:22:56] Alena Smith: That was a huge, huge, huge…

[00:23:04] Sean Steele: Did you walk in with a culture that you wanted to build or like talk to me about, like how that sort of formed part of the strategy and how you thought about it.

[00:23:12] Alena Smith: I think the first 12 months I observed really, I did a lot of observation, , and I knew I had a lot of passion for wanting to make a difference. But I needed to understand if the people that were within the company had the same passion and were on the same journey. So, for that reason, I really needed to double down, as you put it on changing or trying to teach people how to think positively, how to deliver a really good product. I mean, and then fundamentally, were they really passionate about it? When I first walked in there, no one talked to each other. No one talked to each other. They'd sit right next to each other, and it was almost like just a well-oiled machine that was just, no one had a conversation. No one knew a lot about each other in terms of their personal life. So, for me, I'm thinking to myself, wow, I'm spending all of this time with these fantastic people and I know nothing about them. They know nothing about each other. How does this work? You know, because, I want to know everything about you. I want to know everything you're prepared to tell me. And I'm a really keen listener, you know, and I want to share that information that, you know, and really get to know people. And that was just hugely missing. That was hugely, hugely missing. So, a case of people just going through the process, rather than really having a good, long, hard, think about why. So, I really reintroduced the what's, ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ into the business, what we were there for, why we were there for, why we were there, and how we were going to execute it, and how specifically I expected them to execute it, because we are in education. So, if you're going to be in education, it's like anything, you've got to care about it.

[00:26:28] Sean Steele: Yeah. Well, and so what I hear in that as well is that you came to a place where you felt there was, it was sort of lacking some soul.

[00:26:38] Alena Smith: No, pulse.

[00:26:39] Sean Steele: Yeah, no pulse … I was going to say, that was the word you said to me. No pulse.

[00:26:42] Alena Smith: No, no, no.

[00:26:43] Sean Steele: I love it. And actually the fact that out of the two things that you've talked about in terms of kind of strategic, major strategic changes, the first one is product, getting their products right. And the second one is culture. And what I love about that, and I'm going to come back to this at the end, but for those listening, Alena, you weren't a General Manager before, like at some point you become a General Manager, like no one starts as a General Manager. But actually, you came from the technical side of the business. You had a strong, like, you know, director of studies, kind of academic, I don't mean university academic, but like a vocationally skilled academic and then transitioned to a General Manager. And so, when you hear the attention to detail that's gone into the quality of delivery, that's because I think your Founder did not choose a General Manager who was just super strong at sales and marketing was like, okay, they might have also focused on product and then going; great, let's get going. But actually not had the same level of care interest, consideration detail into how we going to engineer this delivery mechanism to ensure that we have a super the best, yes, ethical, but also best quality delivery system, because that's actually going to be our growth enabler. And it sounds like what you've done is done that through quality, attention of the process, and culture to ensure that that became something that was imbibed by the business as opposed to just directed by you.

[00:28:09] Alena Smith: You can't do it yourself. You know, it's never going to be a one man show. That's why you've got to give the kudos to the people. A hundred of them actually. So, we started with 50 odd staff, and we're up to about a hundred

[00:28:26] Sean Steele: A hundred now. Nice. Well actually, the other thing I love to hear about that is for those who've picked that up, you've got 50 staff and all of a sudden, you've only doubled the head count, but now you've actually got three and a half times the student count.

[00:28:39] Alena Smith: Yes.

[00:28:40] Sean Steele: That's about efficiency, right?

[00:28:41] Alena Smith: Wouldn't you know it though? You know, I met these people eight years ago and you know, untapped potential, Sean, untapped potential. And again, it was just taking notice of what these people had to offer and. I've got the most amazing team. They are awesome, not only awesome humans, but awesome operators. We never say there's no solution. There is always a solution. We find a way, but their growth along this journey because a lot of the leadership team that I chose, that I onboarded myself, I created the leadership team. There wasn't one when I took over. I sort of chose them, if you like, and brought them in and grown them, and they've grown exponentially with the business and they're now directors of administration and compliance, directors of sales. They're in their own right, which I love. I think that's great.

[00:29:48] Sean Steele: One of the things, Alena, that has always struck me about education is, and it's similar in many industries, but not all of them, is that there's never a shortage of opportunity. Actually, it's always the opposite. There is your primary job as a General Manager or a leader who's in charge of revenue growth is actually not to get crushed by the weight of opportunities because you actually have to figure out what to focus on. And it's really difficult because they're just everywhere. You can just see so many places that you could focus, therefore you probably would've had to say no to a lot of things during the scaling process. Even things that seemed like a great idea. What were some of those that you had to maybe consistently come back to and say no in the scaling process?

[00:30:34] Alena Smith: Yes. In the scaling process, I think one of the biggest things that I said no to was the, we had an overwhelming amount of people that wanted to go into nursing. You know, so nursing and setting up a a nursing program is no mean fit. And, you know, anybody who delivers nursing, it's huge. It's massive. But my thing was, and I vehemently said no. And my reasoning was that I didn't believe, I think there are people better suited. I think there are companies better suited out there to deliver that. I didn't believe that that was a good fit for Axial. I didn't think that we could do it justice, and that's a big thing to be able to say no. Even though I may have seen x amount of dollars attached to that from a purely business bottom line perspective. And there's an enormous capital investment that needs to go into that. That's fine. But could I do it justice? No, the answer was no. And I think to be able to raise your hand and say, look, that's not something that I can get behind because I don't think we're the right fit for that, and I'm not interested in going out to industry with something that Hand to God, I can't say is delivered at a five star level. So, that was a hard no from me.

[00:32:05] Sean Steele: I love that, you know, if you think about the Jim Collins hedgehog, with one of the dimensions of the Venn diagram that makes up his hedgehog concept is what are your people passionate about? Not what could they be passionate about? What are they actually passionate about? And you know, so fundamentally, like what are they all, and then what can you be the best in the world at? And when you look at those two things, you're like, well, I'm looking around. I don't have nursing faculty. It's not our core skillset. We're really good at all these other things. It's a completely different delivery model. And is that what we are going to be the best in the world at? I don't think so. And therefore, let's come back to commercial. Sounds nice. Yep. I understand there's money, but it's not everything, and we can still scale without chasing every rabbit.

[00:32:50] Alena Smith: Absolutely. And, you know, if you can have the two things, scaling it, scaling the business with what fits well and what you're good at, then why wouldn't you do that?

[00:33:04] Sean Steele: It's also where you end up with a quality business, by the way. If you put yourself, you put your investor lens on. I mean, I saw a lot of education businesses as a buyer when I was looking at their, to your earlier point, their scope, what they're actually delivering. And I would just go; well, that's just weird, you know? Like, okay, they've been a business expert forever and then now all of a sudden they're in age care.

[00:33:26] Alena Smith: Yes.

[00:33:27] Sean Steele: Everything they do is in business and now all of a sudden it's like, why are you in age care like that? Just couldn't you have done more in business, something more innovative in business? Something different in business? You already understand this space. You've got skills in this space. Why are you doing aged care? Because it looked attractive.

[00:33:37] Alena Smith: Yeah. We're teaching plumbing and we're teaching childcare, you know, so I know I've seen it myself, and I think you've got to be able to call yourself out and say, no, no. I…

[00:33:49] Sean Steele: You got to say no to some stuff. It's the hardest thing too, right? Because you get excited and you can see the opportunities. And if you're growth minded, you get opportunities all over the place. But it's not always the right call. And I actually think that's where the leadership courage, and that's also where you get respect from your people, right? Because they can see that you'll say no to stuff that is commercially viable and sensible, but actually doesn't fit the heart of the business and make it a quality business. When you were scaling, you know, the reality is that scaling involves some delegation and some trusting of other people. And I remember early conversations with you where you were having to rebuild the learning management system yourself from scratch, like every part of that learning management system in the early days, you were all over, you were rebuilding that thing from day one. I'm just wondering, was there a particular role or a particular responsibility that was especially hard for you to let go of and how did you overcome that?

[00:34:40] Alena Smith: Yes. That was it. Absolutely. When I started creating and realised I couldn't create this great product as well as fix a business, build a business, run a business, and get it to where it needs to be, look after all of the staff, make sure the students are sorted and really taken care of. You know, that's my real passion is making sure that the education is just great. And finding different ways, different solutions to deliver that education. As a parent myself, that's something that I learned in my journey with when my children were younger, is that, I want to teach the kids. So, of course, the core of the education is the… well, learning management system, which holds all the student data. But the other system is the learning platform, which is what the students learn from. So, the learning platform didn't exist. It was freeware when I came to Axial and I got hold of that and we transitioned into, back then it was still Blackboard. And we took on Blackboard and it was phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. We’ve grown so much, we're now with cloud assess, but letting go of that and when I had to appoint a learning and development manager, I actually had to hand over all of my work and I didn't have control anymore, so I had to let go. And it's like, you know, you built this from the ground up and…

[00:36:33] Sean Steele: I bet that was a big glass of wine night. That one, like end of the day.

[00:36:35] Alena Smith: And you know, and you have to learn. It's like, you know, well, I'm sure you wash up really well or stack the dishwasher really well, but it's like watching my husband try and help me stack the dishwasher. And I go; I wouldn't do it that way. You know? And of course I go, but no, he's helping, so let him go. It's the same with this, right? You know, I've got such OCD about it, and then I go; no, there is other ways and I've got to be open to that. Difficult one.

[00:37:14] Sean Steele: If you think about that journey of building the business three and a half times over, what is a piece of advice that you commonly hear around scaling that you think is kind of commonly accepted by people, but that you've actually found to be untrue or not always applicable?

[00:37:29] Alena Smith: Goodness me. Ask me that again. 

[00:37:34] Sean Steele: What is a piece of advice that you think about scaling, that most people accept as being true, but actually you found to be untrue or doesn't always apply?

[00:37:43] Alena Smith: So many things. Look, I think in my experience, this business was an enormous vehicle to scale. There were so many things that were wrong that needed to be made right. There were so many things that needed to be improved upon, and we needed to bring the company into the century we're in now. So, it was kind of, I'm trying to say that in my mind.

[00:38:21] Sean Steele: Say that nicely. Yeah.

[00:38:22] Alena Smith: How do you do that nicely? So, we were trying to modernise, you know, and I think, you know, a lot of people were giving me a lot of advice at the time, and one of the pieces of advice that I was given, was and because I'm like you, I ask questions. I'm a keen learner and I learn every day and I will continue to learn till the day I die. So, you know, that's just something that is ingrained in me. I want to know more, but people would say to me, you know, they would give me advice on how to lead, and that, if the business wasn't working and fundamentally it must be the staff and the processes and the policies and everything that underpins that. And so therefore, you know, you've got to really kind of weeded out the dead wood and restructure, restructure, restructure. I'm hearing this word restructure and I'm thinking to myself, restructure? Been there, right? So, I didn't agree, I didn't restructure in the terms that people know of, which is, restructure the company, make people redundant, move them on. It was about almost re-interviewing people and understanding where they fit in the business and what value they can bring to the table. So, you know, we're not a charity, we're not here for you just to do nothing. And yes, there were casualties along the way. Absolutely. But that word restructure of just such a harsh, cold, restructure, restructure, restructure. We already had a good framework. The execution was wrong. So, they had the right idea. The right idea was there, the execution was wrong. So, restructuring the staff, restructuring the business, it was about changing tech, changing the execution, and seeing, and that's why I say, I mentioned to you earlier, if I had gone in with that mindset of restructure, restructure, restructure. Highly likely, there would be quite a few people in my leadership team that wouldn't be there today because, you know, and I would've missed out on leading an amazing team.

[00:40:51] Sean Steele: What you're saying is if, you know, had you just looked at performance and used performance as a criteria to go, you know what? Not performing time for them to go, let's just do a big sweep out of everyone who's underperforming. And you are like, no, actually I see there's potential in this business, but we may not have the right people in the right seats. We may not truly understand actually where they best fit in, where they can create value. So, let's figure out actually this asset that we have, let's make the most of it. And yes, that doesn't mean everybody stays on the bus, but let's not default to actually, and even though it's a really hard thing to do, right? Like anyone who's done restructures and I've done sadly quite a few of them. They're bloody difficult as the leader. They're difficult for the people. They're not fun. But also, they are an easy way out, if that makes sense. Because it's like, I'll just get rid of the problem and I'll start with a new set and everything will be fine. But you're like; well, actually you just got to do the hard work. And maybe there's some potential here. Okay. That's super interesting.

[00:41:51] Alena Smith: Yeah.

[00:41:52] Sean Steele: Given the journey that you've been on with Axial, if you could go back in time to the start and leave a note for yourself, what would it say?

[00:42:02] Alena Smith: “Slow down, woman.” Yeah, slow down. Slow down. I wanted to fix everything yesterday and I was working enormous hours and I've been seeing a lot of CEOs on LinkedIn that are now writing about burnout, actually. And it's real. It really is real because you really do put your heart and soul into everything, because you care. You care so much about the final outcome. And you're not doing it necessarily for everybody around you. You're doing it because you need to be proud of what it is you're doing. You need to be able to stand by it. You need to be able to say, I succeeded at this and I made it better. And I made, you know, for me, my driver is making the lives of others better. So, if I know that I've done that, that's the pinnacle for me. So, if I could send a note to myself back then it would be slow down woman, because you know, you really, those first two years I really drove myself into the ground and I burnt out from working six-seven days a week, and got very addicted to my laptop and my spreadsheets and you know, my EBIT and my this and my that, and my org charts. And it was almost like an obsession, you know, of trying to just get it right. And I think the biggest thing for a lot of CEOs is, irrespective of what industry you're in, is you are never going to get it perfect. That's the beauty of it. So, you've got to be able to go. Am I happy with how things are in the moment? Yes, No, maybe.

[00:44:07] Sean Steele: And to go even one step further on that, and I think I've probably said this some time ago on the podcast before, like I have been very fortunate to be around a lot of very successful CEOs, and I'm sad to say that there is an absolutely mammoth percentage of them who have convinced themselves that they are working themselves so hard and doing all these extra hours. They're never home and they don't have a relationship with their kids and their wife and all the rest or their partner, and why? Because they've told themselves, I'm doing this for you guys. I'm doing this so we can have a better life. I'm doing this so we can spend time together in the future. And you are thinking from the outside. You're not even going to have these people in your life in five years’ time because you're completely ignoring them. Like you're not going to have a body to enjoy it in because your health's absolutely toast. You're going to turn around and it's going to be tumbleweeds and they're going to go, where were you five years ago when actually we wanted a bit of time with you? And that's easy to say, and I know it's hard to do, but if you find yourself trapped in that lie that you're doing it for somebody else. It’s probably not the reality. That's probably not what they want from you. They probably don't care about the money, they actually just want the time with you. And it's a hard thing, I think, for every leader to grapple with, because you're always so motivated to make the thing succeed, but actually you got to take care of you and your relationships too.

[00:45:31] Alena Smith: Absolutely. And I think there's a lot to be said about self-care, and self-care to be able to work at that level, you know, because in order to give back, you've got to be okay in yourself. So, it's a really big thing.

[00:45:46] Sean Steele: Alena, we're close to time and I've got a question I really want to ask you. If you could only take one lesson or experience, perhaps, into the future, into your next CEO role. So, whether that's continued growth of Axial or a different challenge or whatever it is from your time in scaling Axial, what would you take with you?

[00:46:10] Alena Smith: The one lesson, Hmm.

[00:46:13] Sean Steele: Or the one experience, you know, it could have been a super valuable experience that you've had that actually might've even been crap, but actually you would’ve realized it.

[00:46:20] Alena Smith: Yeah. Look. I figured out the type of leader I wanted to be, you know, and I figured that out by watching others and observing others. And the type of leader I want to be is the, or I hope I am, and, you know, but I'd like to be able to take that leadership style and make a difference in other companies and the lives of others as well. It's not necessarily that, you know, I leave Axial and do that. I love what I do and I'm happy to stay there, but I think it's if you've got a valuable contribution and a good value proposition that you can offer people in order to help them, not just make money, but actually make a difference. You know, I mean, if you can do those two things, what a great outcome for everybody. So, you know, for me, there are two types of leaders. There are leaders that are authoritarian. And I'm not saying that's the wrong way, it's just not my way. I'm not an authoritarian person. I lead by example, I lead by teaching, I lead by learning. I lead by human, but I've also got a lot of opinions about how things are. I'm certainly no wallflower, but I think that's probably the biggest thing is the leader I've learn to be is what I would take into the future. And I figured that out. So, you know, that's working well for me.

[00:48:06] Sean Steele: Alena, thank you so much for our time together today. You know, for those who are listening, and I know so many Founders that desire at some point to be able to install a quality General Manager into their business, and it is the biggest risk for them, right? Like it's a huge sort of succeed or fail. It's a big risk, you know, like it's a lot of money, but it's also a big risk. Because you know, you're going to invest a lot in that person and probably could be a while before you really know whether they can actually deliver and can they pick up any of the strategy piece or where do they sort of default their time to, blah, blah, blah. But for those of you listening who are thinking about this, what I want you to take away from this is that, freedom is possible when you hire the right, not just any General Manager. And let's be clear, Alena wasn't a General Manager before she got hired. She was the Head of Learning Development. She was an Operational Manager, she was Director of Study. So, you can imagine being the Founder, going out to market for a General Manager, seeing all these resumes and getting this experienced General Manager over here and this ex-CEO over here, and then getting Alena's profile of Director of Studies and Head of Learning Development and going, but then having the foresight to discover that actually she had the right character, the right commercial acumen, the right hunger to take ownership, the right desire to actually treat that business like her own, which I know it's unique and not all General Managers can do that. But I think this is a great example of the fact that they're out there and I know your Founder and full credit to him for having the foresight to make that decision because I think you've done an amazing job with that business.

[00:49:40] Alena Smith: We’re telling him every day how smart he was.

[00:49:44] Sean Steele: I bet you do.

[00:49:45] Alena Smith: I do.

[00:49:46] Sean Steele: Just make sure you've negotiated sufficient equity, mental note for all General Managers.

[00:49:50] Alena Smith: All done. All done. Yeah.

[00:49:52] Sean Steele: Excellent.

[00:49:53] Alena Smith: Well-looked after.

[00:49:54] Sean Steele: Alena, if people wanted to get in touch with you or follow along with what you're doing at Axial, where would you direct them to?

[00:50:00] Alena Smith: Oh look, I'm on LinkedIn. My phone number is on there, email. I'm always up for a chat. Love a good chat.

[00:50:09] Sean Steele: Love it. Excellent. Well, I certainly hope to see you for coffee or lunch at some point soon. I am super grateful for your time today and for sharing your wisdom, and I guess we'll be seeing you soon. Thanks so much, Alena.

[00:50:23] Alena Smith: Thanks, Sean. See you. Bye-Bye.