Name: Bob Marsh

Title: Keynote Speaker

Organisation: RWMarsh

Bob Marsh is a sales keynote speaker with a proven history as a hands on seller and executive. Bob has been a sales leader and CEO at two category creating companies, has raised millions in venture capital, sold two companies, and has won and grew business from some of the top brands in the world.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Bob's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

That there are so many competing priorities. It's a challenge as a leader to sift through all the possibilities and then place your bets on what you believe will drive the greatest impact.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

The early days of my career were spent as a salesperson, and I was pretty good at it. There were plenty of ups and downs but it was clear that sales was my calling. While I always wanted to be the top performing salesperson on our team, and was competitive about it, I never looked at it as a zero-sum game.

Meaning, I was always willingly sharing my best practices, success stories, and failures, with my peers. While I wanted to be the best, I also wanted other people to be successful too and thought it was silly for them to struggle through the same things I did. My goal was for our entire company to be successful, and if the company did well, then I knew I would do well too.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

I like to get up around 5:15 and will either go get in a workout, or enjoy the quiet of the morning myself. By 6:30 I'll be dressed and ready for my day and grab a coffee and read my morning prayers, then the main stories in the Wall Street Journal, then take a look at my email and transition into my workday. I'll then be in the office around 8am to really dive in. At least two days a week I'll spend more time at home getting my kids ready and driving them to school.

I'm maniacal about my calendar, priorities and to-do-list, so operate with a decent amount of discipline around what I do all day long. I'm also a big believer in taking breaks to maximize my energy and creativity so work plenty of breaks in throughout the day.

While I'm not perfect, when I get home I try to ignore my phone at least for a few hours while we prepare and have dinner as a family and spend some quality time together.

I generally like to be in bed by 9:30 or 10 when I'll either read or watch something on Netflix to relax and get to sleep.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

James Clear, who is the author of Atomic Habits, has a great lesson called the Say:Do ratio. This is the ratio for how many things you say you'll do, compared to what you actually do. It's shocking to me how many people, including leaders, who have this ratio out of whack. If you say you're going to do something, then you either need to do it, or share that you made a mistake and can't get it done.

Anyone who is driven and wants to get better has a lot of ideas in their head. But if there's one thing that you want to get right, it's being reliable.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. I loved how it was written as a story which made it easier to understand and entertaining to read. It really helped me understand the importance of a team being aligned and willing to speak up.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

To really be honest with yourself about this question... Do you want to get into leadership to HAVE power, or to GIVE other people power? To me this is the essence of leadership, to motivate and inspire others to do their best.