Meet Martin Norbury

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Martin Norbury. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Martin below.

Martin, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

It was thrust upon us unfortunately. In 2010 my career was on the incline. I had sold my business(es) in 1996 / 97 and joined the parent company. After learning the ways of the corporate world I was headhunted to turn around an ailing corporate which we did and received industry plaudits and awards. We were expecting our first child in 2010, but unfortunately she died at birth. As you could imagine this event changed everything. I left corporate life and started my own business again, just so I could be near my wife. My clients originally were from the same sector and I noticed how little family time they had as they were working all hours. Due to our situation and losing our daughter I decided to help them grow their business AND spend time with their families. Over the next 15 years, and with twins of our own now, we started putting together a Business Programme that enables owners to choose what they do with their time. It is a 9 step programme and we ran it with our clients for several years supporting them in their life plan. We have had numerous exits, financially and also physically from their business and over time have continued to reverse engineer the 9 steps based on what success looks like. We now license our IP to another organisation where we mentor their coaches and specialists to deliver it. Over 700 business have gone through or are going through the 9 steps and are getting to their ideal life…

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Most of the story was in finding my purpose.

I love seeing the impact the 9 Steps have on business owners. Results include

Retiring their spouses from their day job
Semi retiring themselves
Selling their business
Having time out of the business, whilst the business keeps growing
Building houses in other countries
Buying a yacht and spending time on it out of the business
Purchasing other companies
Selling part of their business to their teams

I wrote a book in 2016 called I don’t work Fridays which was a semi biographical business book on how to scale your business but not be a slave to it, which became an Amazon best seller.

I am married to Jacki and have 13 year old twin boy and girl (James and Lily)

I joined with an organisation which license our 9 steps called Masterplan and co wrote the Million Pound Masterplan book with the leader of the organisation…

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I believe the 3 key areas were Corporate understanding of running a business distilled down to the small business owner who knows their skill or trade but no real training in how to run a business

A key grasp of business maths to help business owners understand how to make their numbers work for them. Most small business owners are very ignorant about how numbers work in a business and as such ignore them at their peril

The ability to look for differentiation (following the understanding of numbers) to help the business stand out from the crowd and not have to compete on price.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

The book I wrote has had the biggest impact due to the level of business we have received from it and the doors it has opened.

The book that has had the biggest impact on the way I approach things is 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

So many lessons that I study it every December and always learn something new.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.myadvocatementor.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i_dont_work_fridays/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IDontWorkFridays
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinjnorbury/