John Courtney of Boardroom Advisors on Fractional Leadership, Cashflow Forecasting, and Trusting Your Gut

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing John Courtney

John is founder and CEO of www.BoardroomAdvisors.co which is disrupting both the recruitment and consultancy industries by providing fractional Directors in finance, marketing, sales, IT, operations, strategy and managing as well as Non-Executive Directors. BoardroomAdvisors.co was founded 4 years ago, and now has national coverage in the UK and has expanded into Europe and further afield including India and Saudi Arabia. John is the recipient of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from techSPARK, a business award Judge and a conference speaker.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I am a serial idiot. This is my 7th business over a 45-year period, the others being in management consultancy, corporate finance and digital marketing. In my digital marketing business, I was a typical owner-manager wearing three hats — in my case CEO, Marketing Director and Finance Director. The business wasn’t big enough to afford a full-time marketing or finance person and I looked around for part-time people to fill those roles but struggled to find anyone of quality. BoardroomAdvisors.co was born…

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Recruitment without a recruitment fee, and without long term commitment or costs. Consultancy at ongoing rates. The best of both, without the drawbacks of either.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of my first ventures back on the late 60s as a schoolboy in Canada was producing a leaflet “Cricket for North Americans”. It went out with serious typos in, which brought more questions than about the sport itself. The lesson of course was to cross all the I’s and dot all the t’s…

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Freddie Laker taking on the airlines in the 70s taught me that small companies can punch above their weight and take on the establishment. Richard Branson of Virgin taught me how powerful a brand could be.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

As an owner manager I had a real hate of recruitment companies charging thousands for just making an introduction. And, equally, I couldn’t understand consultants charging high fees without even taking ownership. So, I can only see positives to this disruption.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

1.“Always have more money than you need”. My biggest mistake was 30 years ago when I had a cricket bat company. We had our 15 minutes of fame with newspaper, radio and TV coverage and were offered substantial investment (about £2m in today’s money). I turned it down as the fees were high, thinking I could make it successful with my own money. I closed the company 7 years later.

2.“Better to have a hole in your team than an a**hole in your team”. Several times I have filled a gap in my team too quickly, as I felt exposed. No longer, I have learned the lesson to wait until the right person comes along.

3.“Always get the best people”. In early businesses, I cut some corners and costs but it cost me dearly in the long run. Now, one of the proudest achievements I have is the quality of the 150+ experts that we have at BoardroomAdvisors.co — they have all scaled companies.

4.“More businesses go bust through lack of cashflow than lack of profit”. As an owner-manager I have had my fair share of the 3.45am wobbles — when you wake in the middle of the night worrying about how the business is going to survive. I controlled this by doing detailed cashflow forecasts to give me peace of mind.

5.“Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.” I am no genius but I follow this closely. If we launch a new service, I try and make it explainable in one sentence.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

As I mentioned, this is business no.7 and I would like to get to double figures before I am done! I was an early internet adopter some 30 years ago and was convinced that would change business — that led to the success of my management consultancy business and eventually to the launch of my digital marketing company. I am now an early adopter of AI and am equally convinced about its power to change our world — so maybe the next company will have AI at its core?

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

“7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “4 Hour Work Week” have both influenced me greatly. 7 Habits because it is just distilled common sense. 4 Hour because it makes you think how you can automate, how you can just focus on what’s important, and how you can travel the world while building a business. My wife and I have done house sitting in Australia twice while effectively running BoardroomAdvisors.co

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My Dad always said “Trust your gut”. And I have. And it has produced results, sometimes against the odds.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Integrating business strategy with intuition. Logic is good, analysis is fine, but gut feel and instinct needs to be listened to as well.

How can our readers follow you online?

The best places are LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngcourtney/ and Twitter at https://twitter.com/JohnGCourtney

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!