Elliot Kay has a vision for his clients’ businesses’ growth, and it all starts with strategy
– Tell us about Strategic Brilliance Services and how you help companies to grow their businesses.
What we do is give people a tool that has been tested and tried over the last four years which has proven to help business grow. It is a tool that breaks down strategy, makes it simple and easy to follow, as well as fun – strategy is and can be fun. This tool has been used in companies from 0 to 400million turnover, we use it to build 100k+ businesses.
– Your work focuses on helping people to develop sound strategy, but what are the core tenets of strategy in your mind?
Strategy is one of the most important parts if you want to build a long-term business, most people are stuck in tactics vs strategy. Strategy is your roadmap and or blueprint to get where you need to go. It is what glues everything together and keeps you focused, I love it. In my mind you have to want to be doing something long-term and impactful.
– How did you arrive at this point in your own business journey? Tell us about your life and career so far.
In 2010 I had a great year, one of the most successful ever, I wrote a book, came third in Britain’s Next Top Coach and had a great year of revenue. I packed up my bags and followed a girl I was in love with to Australia, but within weeks of the start of 2011 it all fell apart.
All my clients finished their courses and moved on, an investment I made crashed and I owed the bank 150k, I fell into a legal battle with another company I was doing some freelance work with, so they didn’t pay me and the girl I was in love with told me she was off to work with a very successful businessman and didn’t have time for me. I came back both broke and a broken man. I knew then and there something had to change both in me and how I approach business. I set out to master business and strategy.
I found myself a mentor that offered to work with me on this and started to turn everything around, it took time but it has worked. Going from broke to owning three businesses, all be it I am merging two of them now. That is all because of changing everything we did to strategy.
I am also happily married now to an amazing woman. It took time and hard work, however it has been worth it. There is still more to come.
– What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work?
Watching my clients get results, truly taking them through the process and working on the big picture with them to grow their businesses
– What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever given or received?
The advice I was given was when I asked one of my mentors when we should get more aggressive on sales… his response was as soon as you want to have a bad reputation and want to lose all the hard work you have done in building up your reputation. It is fair to say we found our way of doing it without being aggressive.
– What brought you to The Best You Expo and what was your experience there?
I felt it was going to be the right place for my customers to be, and I was right. My experience was it was busy, the right place to be and we had fun.
– Finally, what do you hope to achieve for Strategic Brilliance Services in the next 12 months?
We want to run three seminars with more than 100 delegates at each;
we aim to grow the business turnover by 20 per cent; and to be the ‘go to’ guy for strategy for coaches, trainers, consultants and therapists. I want to have built at least ten business, all hitting the 100k mark within 12-18 months.
