Walking the Path of Mentorship: A Journey with Jacob Spencer and Amanda Walker

In the bustling world of entrepreneurship, the path to success can often feel like a solitary one. Yet, amidst the chaos of business, there exists a beacon of support and guidance: mentorship. In the EO Melbourne Mentorship Program, transformative mentor-mentee relationships illuminate the profound impact of shared experiences and mutual learning.

One such tale unfolds between Jacob Spencer, Owner & Managing Director of Mobile Skips, and his mentor, Amanda Leigh Walker, Co-founder at Lord of the Fries, a life & personal development coach for women. Their mentorship journey was not just a series of meetings; it was a dynamic walk through the forests of insight, growth, and camaraderie. Instead of adding more to their already fully loaded  “to-do” lists, it was about cutting back, distilling ideas and practices down to their essence and refining their formula for success. 

Embracing the Journey: A Purpose-Driven Partnership

Although Jacob has previously engaged in the EO Mentorship Program, he opted to enrol once more for this intake, aiming to derive further benefits from the program. He shared, “I joined again because I was looking for different perspectives and experiences around things that I was going through and to have my blind spots opened up. I've always leaned into the idea that if you want to have a great business and a successful life with your family or personally, then you've got to start to work internally first. The mentorship program does that. It helps you focus on yourself and think about what you're getting from your endeavours and who you are as a person.”

It is also Amanda’s second round as a mentor in the Program. Her decision to participate again as a mentor stemmed from her love of learning from others while supporting them on their path. Together, they found a seamless connection rooted in their shared values of purpose-driven entrepreneurship. Their mentorship journey was characterised by service-mindedness, transforming business discussions into opportunities for personal and collective growth.

Walking the Talk: Lessons Learned Along the Path

Their sessions weren't confined by four walls; instead, they chose to meet for monthly walks and talks along Merri Creek. Through their exchanges, they unearthed many valuable lessons including embracing the whole path of reaching goals instead of focusing on the end game.

“On our walks, we don't have any distractions with devices, it's very informal. That, in itself, is excellent. We are completely present and in a space and mindset to have a really good open vulnerable discussion,” Jacob explained.

Amanda shared that she loved walking for the fact that “we get to enjoy the freedom of our business that allows us to get outside, open our minds and be creative, instead of tied to a desk.”

One of the key things that Jacob learned during his sessions, was that he has something valuable to offer others in every stage of goal creation. By sharing his journey with Amanda, together they were able to pull out nuggets of wisdom that would be valuable for people who are on the same path.

They found that the beginning, middle and end of any goal is equally as important as the finished product. To get to the finish line and only share the outcome is to miss the lessons along the way. We are all standing on the shoulders of others who have had to take the path to success. It can be messy and difficult to build it’s powerful too. Like in nature, the leaves are just as important as the roots. 

The Path Unfolds: Applying Insights for Growth

Another area they worked on together was the importance of aligning one’s business with personal values. Doing this resulted in a fresh understanding of Jacob’s corporate culture and purpose. “When you're leading a business and the heartbeat of the business comes from the culture that you bring, it starts with your values. I've seen that when I waver in my values or if I'm not using them to help guide the way we operate, the business and its people become misaligned quickly,” he stated.

Authentic Leadership 

A theme that ran through their sessions was about walking the talk and being an authentic leader. They share the similar idea that to be your best in business is to have a clear and positive outlook, an abundance mindset, be open to feedback, be willing to upgrade sluggish ideas, align personal and business values and create habits that anchor you to being your best self. To tell others to be on top of their game but not to practice the self-care and self-awareness required oneself is to be a hypocrite. In their mentorship, they held each other to those standards and encouraged congruence in the business.

Navigating the Terrain: Benefits of Mentorship

For Jacob, the EO Mentorship Program offered more than just guidance; it provided a platform for personal responsibility and vulnerability. By embracing these principles, Jacob unlocked the true potential of mentorship, leveraging it as a catalyst for self-discovery and growth. 

“To talk about the benefits, I'm going to bring it back to some of the core principles in EO and what we get out of the forum. We start with this wonderful gift that we have — somebody who is very experienced in business and life, who has been on a great journey and willing to give you time. Then it's up to the participant to get what they want out of it. The mentee is the person who should take responsibility for how they meet, what their discussions are about and what the goals are,” Jacob said. 

As for Amanda, she found fulfilment in supporting Jacob in his continued growth, relishing the opportunity to witness his evolution as an entrepreneur and individual. Amanda quipped, “It is a privilege to be a part of someone's journey, to be part of their business and life journey. It is an   to be able to walk with someone along  their path during this experience.” Not only that but Amanda was able to gain insight into her own business practices, values, and leadership by being with someone who embodies all that she strives to be: successful, humble, kind, aligned and service-minded. 

Walking Together: A Privilege and Honour

As Jacob and Amanda traversed the winding paths of mentorship, they discovered a profound truth: the journey is as enriching as the destination. Together, they embarked on a voyage of self-discovery, camaraderie, and shared growth, guided by the principles of purpose and authenticity. Their mentorship walks became more than just a physical activity; they symbolised a dynamic exploration of entrepreneurship, friendship, and the human spirit.

The path of entrepreneurship through acquisition

Not all entrepreneurs start their journey from a garage; some entrepreneurs decide to jumpstart the process and follow the entrepreneurship by acquisition path.

This is not a made-up term. As a matter of fact, top-level universities and business schools like the Harvard Business School, Columbia University, The University of Chicago, and Duke University, among many others, offer Entrepreneurship by Acquisition in their main MBA curricula.

The truth is that you don’t really need to have a brilliant new idea or a unique opportunity to become an entrepreneur. Some people prefer to look for an existing business that already has the available resources and assets and then scale it or do a pivot or bring the company to a better position than from where it was before. Acquisition entrepreneurship is a good option for those who want to put their advanced entrepreneurial skills into good use from the get-go because they can spend more time on implementation and putting things into motion rather than be stuck on conceptualisation, trial-and-error, and ascertaining the business environment.

Is it the right path for you?

This was the route that Mobile Skips Owner and Managing Director Jacob Spencer took, who acquired the business from the original owners. He said, “Whether choosing to start a business from scratch or acquiring an established business, both have their relative pros and cons, usually quite different from the other. In my case, I chose acquisition, as the option best suited my strengths and weaknesses.”

“Before making this decision, I spent quite some time identifying and listing clearly what I needed (and wanted) in a business to acquire—with fundamentals like valuation and profit a given. I then spent the lion share of my time on the non-financial attributes that would complement my experience and skills. The first challenge then presented itself: a very limited amount of acquirable businesses that fit my detailed list of requirements…there were none. So, the first lesson was prioritising the list so that the right compromises could be made,” Jacob continued.

While buying a company may seem less risky than creating a start-up from zero and then building it, there are still varied difficulties to face for those who choose this path. One of these challenges is looking for the right business that corresponds to the needs, wants, capacity and capability of the entrepreneur.

To successfully acquire a business, would-be business owners must be able to:

1.)    Do a proper search for the right business to acquire

This is a crucial phase in acquiring a business. According to Damian Blumenkranc, who has founded and sold businesses before like Creativa Videos and now taking the entrepreneurship by acquisition path, recently acquiring Sunset, a concrete precast factory in Melbourne, “The first challenge, and it is not a small one, is to find a business you are comfortable with to buy and run and close a deal.” It has to be done properly, checking into the background of prospective companies you want to buy, their profitability, and other factors qualitative that are important to you.

2.)    Review or come up with a good proposal and negotiate

When you have done proper research and preliminary due diligence, you can then prepare an offer and negotiate all the terms of the deal. It is critical to try to get the whole picture of where the company currently stands and what is important for the current owner for this transaction.

Another important factor in acquiring a business is having the capital needed to invest in the company. Here are a few options when it comes to financing the business:

• Direct investment – you put your own resources to invest as capital to acquire the assets or ownership of an enterprise. This is usually done without an intermediary or broker.

• Loans from banks – you apply for a business acquisition loan which you can use to acquire an existing company, buy a franchise or buy out your business partner.

• Search funds – if you have limited resources for capital, you can look for other investors to pool funds into acquiring and financing a business.

3.)    Take the reins and lead the transition of the company

The success of the acquisition does not end with the signing of the agreement. As Damian stated, “That is just the beginning. I would say the second big challenge of buying a running small business is that the business won't wait for you to adapt, learn and take over. You, as a foreign entity, need to catch up quickly and find your place in the new business. It is like jumping in the cockpit of a commercial plane in mid-flight and taking over the controls without causing too much turbulence.”

Once the deal is done and the sale is closed, immerse yourself in the company, engage with your internal and external stakeholders and review your plans and the changes needed to implement. You may need to reassure your new employees and customers, present a plan and work towards adapting your team, systems and processes.

Lessons learned

Damian shared the lessons he learned in every stage of the process. “For the search stage, I would say, you must have real clarity of the parameters of the business you are looking for (i.e., industry, size, markets, financials, structure, capital requirement, etc). For the deal stage, be as clear and specific in the letter of offer as you can regarding the deal – from what type of contract you will expect to use to even specific guarantees you will expect to have. If you have investors, keep in constant communication with them, and set clear expectations of the type of shareholders agreement you will want to sign. Finally, for the handover stage, make a good 90-day plan, grab every key aspect of the business, such as people, cash, occupational health & safety, marketing, sales, and manufacturing, and set a weekly plan for 15 days to 90 days with all the things you want to do for each area of interest. This will help you manage the workflow, prioritise and ensure that you don't drop the ball on something critical to the business.”

He added, “To be able to launch and build a brand that existed before, the first thing for me is to understand the history and heritage of the brand, do nothing until we totally get it and understand the market and consumers well. Once we feel comfortable that we understand and get the brand, it is time to plan the strategy for the next few years.”

The rewards of entrepreneurship through acquisition

Despite the challenges, struggles and difficulties, the whole experience and the results can be rewarding. “One of the significant rewards is that instead of having to start from scratch, you can immediately grow the business and make it more profitable, experiments and small changes can be meaningful from day one compared to a startup where you need to build momentum first. With a running business, you might be able to make small adjustments and get significant rewards quicker,” Damian pointed out.

Similarly, Jacob also finds his journey of entrepreneurship through acquisition satisfying. “The benefit of the acquisition is that much of the hard work proving out the product or service model had been achieved. But much like buying a house vs building one from scratch, some things needed remodelling, renovating and even rebuilding. When I bought Mobile Skips, much of what we could see and review was in great shape, but some elements needed to be rebuilt to enable our skip bin hire to be scaled. I realised these unforeseen things seem to be more normal than not and having available capital to deal with them (and expecting some issues) meant we dealt with them quickly, getting us back on track and growing the business with limited disruption. Having enough capital and resilience to ride the bumps in the early stages ensured we weren’t snagged down early on.”

“My most enjoyable part of the acquisition was having an established group of customers we could learn from and quickly improve our skip hire offer. This meant we were able to do some great research early on and update the service offering, making it even better and getting instant feedback from our customer base. This helped drive more sales quickly and also built loyalty with our customer group by listening and reacting to their feedback. Happy and loyal customers are a huge part of the acquisition valuation. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my journey with Mobile Skips since the acquisition almost 5 years ago. I hope these small experience shares somehow contribute to your journey as well,” Jacob shared.

Share with us your experience on entrepreneurship through acquisition, if you have any, or drop a question in the comments section below if you are contemplating acquiring a business.

Three Qualities of a Successful Entrepreneur

Jacob Spencer, Owner and Managing Director of Mobile Skips, cites the various virtues that he finds useful when leading a team. Among them, he names three qualities – persistence, patience and resilience – as the most significant in shaping him to become who he is today. He shared, “There are many, many traits and attributes that have helped me on my journey as a business leader.  On reflection, I believe these three have been the most important and have had the biggest impact on me.”

Persistence

“Having started my working life flipping burgers at McDonald's, I was exposed early on to the stories of Ray Kroc and his successes (and failures) in building the McDonald's brand late in his working life. Ray’s consistent and persistent drive to succeed, regardless of the hurdles, failures and unexpected setbacks, was inspirational. When problems arise, and they initially seem impossible to navigate, having the faith to persevere and persist and believing in our goal has helped ensure I keep moving forward and leading the team through uncertain times,” he remarked.

Patience

According to Jacob, “This one goes hand-in-hand with persistence.  A couple of years ago, I accepted that if I truly wanted a business that ran without my operational input and daily direction, I needed to invest the majority of my time in developing the team and the systems, then have patience in waiting for the outcome. This has been the hardest lesson, as many times my lack of patience has led to a setback—in the heat of the moment, when I see the solution I can’t help myself but to jump in and take over, eroding the hard-won progress already made.”

Resilience

“The last 6 months have thrown more at us than anytime I can imagine.  And, what's more, there is no delineation between the impact at home and in business. Recently, I heard someone reflecting on tough times, ‘without darkness, there is no light and without sadness, there can be no happiness’.  Difficult times are guaranteed, but so are the happier ones afterwards. Facing problems, recognising difficulties and enduring them have helped me realise that we are all much more resilient than we think and that I’ve still got a long way to go,” he acknowledged.

When faced with challenges and difficulties, Jacob finds that having persistence, patience and resilience enables him to meet them head-on with confidence and determination. These and many good qualities are necessary for those who aim to achieve their goals and reach the peak of success.

What positive traits do you want to build up in yourself? What characteristics have you found helpful when taking the entrepreneurial journey? Share your thoughts below.

Jacob Spencer keeps it clean, lean and simple

In life, we often accumulate things that we need, want or like. Over time, these items are no longer necessary for us, yet we still keep them and allow them to occupy space and collect dust. Jacob Spencer’s business, Mobile Skips, comes in handy for those who do some spring cleaning, DIY jobs or moving residences or offices to take out the non-essentials and keep spaces neat and orderly. 

Mobile Skips is a business that Jacob acquired from the original owners two years ago. Although he spent most of his career in the food and hospitality industry, he found that the rubbish business is simple to understand and manage. He still has his fingers dipped in the food space because of his involvement in the non-profit social enterprise, called Streat. However, he is more focused now on Mobile Skips, bringing to the venture all his learnings from his previous experiences.

His business is helpful in discarding garbage, which is a growing concern for many areas around the world. Even in various aspects of our lives, we need to sift our thoughts and emotions to rid ourselves of excess baggage. In the business journey, decluttering the turmoils and focusing on substantial things are helpful in running an enterprise. Here are some actions you can take to get you to do some entrepreneurial clean-up so that you can fix your eyes on the essentials of business.

1.) Decide to give it a go

The primary impediment to doing some spring cleaning is the failure to make a decision. It is often stalled and pushed at the back of our mind until more items arrive that make the task seem unattainable. In the entrepreneurial journey, decision-making and risk-taking happen almost at every turn.

“You've got to have a go. Fail small and fail lots of times small, and try things new the first time because you will learn by doing that. You've got to fail at even the tiniest thing and keep going until you get success. When you succeed at that one new thing, it'll build some confidence and some belief. An old mentor of mine said to me once, 'You'll never regret doing something. You'll regret not doing something.' So, even if you do it and it doesn't work, you'll learn something from it,” Jacob imparted.

2.) Put a system in place

So as not to be overwhelmed by all the chaos and topsy-turvy things, put a system on how to organise your things, where you separate those you need to retain from those that you have to throw away. The same way when you manage a business, having a structure and systems keep things manageable.

“We've built a brand new booking and operating IT system, which means that we can run everything remotely. We've embraced technology to allow us to automate a lot of the processes in our business, which has been great and has helped us enormously,” he said. That includes making the process easier for their customers. Jacob cited the need to understand the needs of their customers and walk in their shoes for them to build a good product or service and provide solutions to their problems. They have also enforced a system for their franchisees to connect and communicate better through a network.

3.) Discipline yourself

The key to overcoming the tedious task of spring cleaning is having the discipline to tidy up things regularly. For Jacob, “One of the biggest learnings has been the discipline to do a little bit every day on improvements. Sometimes, the big goals seem insurmountable.”

Challenges like cash flow and time management can be a burden. But Jacob found that having restraint and control in managing cash and time can help ease the load. “What you need to do is to put in discipline practices that allow you to solve problems, move forward, and get stuff done in the shortest time possible to the best quality, so then you can go and enjoy the rest of the day or the week with your family or your friends and have some balance,” he quipped.

4.) Learn and enjoy

Make decluttering a fun and learning experience. With all the challenges and hard work in running a business, the entrepreneurial role can be a lonely place that can give you sleepless nights. “It takes up most of my thinking. As a business owner, you never stop thinking about your business. You never stop dreaming about it, waking up in the middle of the night. It's important to me that it's enjoyable and doesn't take up all my time,” he said.

Jacob needed people who could understand his circumstances and give objective insights. He found a remarkable group through EO Melbourne, where he gets to meet other entrepreneurs. “It's great to see that there are so many other business owners that have similar challenges but also have been so successful. When I started to scratch underneath the surface of EO, it looked like it's a place that could solve that problem for me.”

5.) Eliminate the rubbish

The hardest part of cleaning up is letting go of things. We hold on to items we no longer use or want because we have a sense of ownership over them. Similarly, in business, there are things we need to let go to keep things simple and lean.

“Things we want to throw out are unnecessary egotistical costs. You grow and add more things, having bigger offices and more meeting rooms. We don't need them. We're challenging ourselves to throw that stuff out and reduce where we don't need,” he remarked.

Now, it’s time for you to take a look at your enterprise and see where you need to simplify things to keep your business neat and orderly at all times.

Know more about Jacob Spencer through his LinkedIn profile. Read about Mobile Skips at https://mobileskips.com.au/.