Our guest today is Chair, board director, business advisor and marketing thought leader, Andrew Baxter. He is the Chair of Australian Pork, Deputy Chair of Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and a Non-Executive Director at BirdDog (ASX), Foresters Financial, GrowthOps and Hypetap. He is also a Senior Advisor at BGH Capital and the Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the University of Sydney, and has been the Senior Advisor to KPMG's Customer, Brand and Marketing business. Prior to this he was the CEO of two of the country's largest communications agencies, Publicis, and Ogilvy.

When he was running Ogilvy Australia, Andrew had 17 companies reporting to him, and at Publicis he had 12. He soon realised that to grow each company you needed robust business plans for each, which had to have an easy to understand strategy, and a clear and prioritised set of must-do’s to execute that strategy. In 10 of 11 years as a CEO, this discipline led to top-line revenue growth.

After stepping into a portfolio career in mid-2018, Andrew was approached by a number of companies to cast his eye over their operations as a business planning consultant. He decided that the best way to ensure accountability of his advice, was to develop a business plan framework that leveraged his years of experience. The result was the 24 Hour Business Plan, which Andrew has now run for over 100 companies in the past few years, with much success.

This podcast episode includes:

• Host Elizabeth Gould introduces Andrew Baxter and refers to the key impact of Andrew’s message in the interview and the three practical tools she will share at the end . (0.0)

• Andrew described the early influences on his creativity and how that impacted his career choices. (1:58)

• The creative and often maverick thinking behind Andrew’s advertising campaigns that became household names for brands including Coca Cola and Jim Beam during the 80s and 90s, the "Golden Age" of brand recognition, with innovative campaigns and personal branding becoming increasingly important. (4:41)

• The mindset involved in creating campaigns for clients that may be rejected or not successful, highlighting the difficulty of navigating the industry's deadlines and competition. (10:01)

• Andrew discusses the limitations of AI in creating unique and original content, citing examples of AI-generated art and music that are merely replicas of past works. (12:21)

• The creative thinking behind redesigning the business plan model to create ‘The 24 hour Business Plan’ and how that has been so successful. (17:20)

• How selling hope and future success is important for employees, sharing examples of early-stage companies that have doubled their business in two years and larger companies that have grown by 60% after implementing their plans. (19:45)

• Andrew reveals how the process simplifies complex ideas in marketing, using storytelling and visualization to communicate strategy effectively., suggesting that simplicity and emotional involvement are key to successful implementation.(23:26)

• Elizabeth draws together three key takeaways for entrepreneurs to apply regarding mindset, attitude, and the magic of Andrew’s 60 second bbq rule! 28:25)

• And so much more!