Jay Staniforth is the Founder of Expert Unleashed, a high performance coaching business for coaches and online entrepreneurs. Jay focuses on habit formation and marketing strategy to help his clients with overwhelm, procrastination and self-sabotage, all whilst assisting them to scale their business. Jay started his business when he turned 30 and has since worked with over 100 business owners from around the world, with his biggest client achieving £1.2million in sales in just 18 months. He has been featured with HubSpot and Sniply as well as other global brands.
Jay Staniforth, Founder of Expert Unleashed
So tell us, who is Jay when he’s at home?
So I’m actually pretty introverted, I recharge better alone and definitely enjoy time on my own, but at the same time, I love spending time with a select few people who are close to me; the first being my partner, Naomi, another being my little dog, she’s a Patterjack called Kite, and then other people who I believe inspire me to become better every day.
What is it that you do for your clients?
From the outside looking in, it can seem quite complex, but in its simplest form, we help entrepreneurs to scale their business and confidently position themselves as THE expert in their specific niche, whilst still maintaining balance in their personal lives, their health and their relationships.
How does it all work then? How do you help your clients to achieve that?
Our process is built heavily around frameworks because this makes everything scalable. The first step is to instill a series of habits into their business - and personal life if needed - to ensure that the needle-moving activities are happening consistently, without these, it’s an uphill battle for any business owner.
Any signs of procrastination, anxiety, self-sabotage etc are usually dealt with during the habit implementation stage as we need our clients to operate from a clean slate in order to guarantee the result.
Our focus then shifts to the strategic side of things which mostly leverages my 10 plus years of experience in marketing. Every client we work with has the owner as the face of the business and we show them how they can leverage their story to connect with potential clients.
What advice do you have for a new business owner struggling to get things off the ground?
This is a great question, and actually where we do most of our work. The first thing I’d say is ‘get ready to fail.. a lot!’ - I see promises of ‘short-cut to this’ and ‘fast-track that’, but the reality is, nothing you have in your life right now that you value came from a short-cut or a hack - it came from consistent hard work, multiple knock-backs and a ton of learning… expect the same in your business!
Once you’ve genuinely accepted this, you’re ready to go. So then there’s five steps I’ll share with you:
Everything you’re doing in terms of marketing right now, stop! Chances are it’s not delivering. You need to free up time, and this is the best way.
Spend the time creating an incredible offer, an offer that people will feel stupid saying no to. I often hear people saying you need to get better at sales or do more with marketing. In a way they’re right, but everything starts with the offer.
Once you have an awesome offer, you need to focus on getting traffic. Get people in your circle so they can start to learn about what you do.
Next, you need to focus on your content. People buy into stories and this is where you can share yours. Practice sharing different angles of your story and the lessons you have learned so you can deeply resonate with your audience.
And finally, focus on the relationship. When you show that you genuinely care about the people you are talking to, sales becomes a closing exercise rather than a selling exercise.
What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
The ability to embrace failure, a willingness to learn from others and give credit for doing so, and the discipline to build needle-moving habits.
What are some habits that you have formed that would help other entrepreneurs?
Time blocking - Scheduling 1 to 2-hour blocks into my diary and turning off anything that bings or distracts me so that I can get into a flow state and achieve long periods of deep work. I get so much done by doing this.
Pomodoro Technique - I actually do a variation of this, but effectively it’s 50 minutes of deep work, and then an alarm that alerts me to have a 10-minute break. I use that break to get some water and walk around so that when I return to my work, my mind is refreshed and ready to go again for another 50-minute stint.
Labelling Habits - I have 5 core habit types that I diarise into my day so that I can focus on the outcome of a time block, rather than the task. So I have a morning ritual, a close of play ritual, non-negotiable habits, revenue-generating habits and needle-moving habits. These are in my diary every single day and help to keep me consistent in everything that I do.
Morning Ritual - I already mentioned this, but having a morning ritual will change the game for you. I get up early, at 5 am, drink a pint of cold water, then I educate myself for 30 minutes. After that, I have a 30-minute Zoom group routine I follow that includes meditation, goal setting, affirmations, gratitude, some stretching, and watching something motivational.
Who should hire or work with you?
We tend to attract a lot of coaches and service-based entrepreneurs, but as long as you’re a business owner looking to build your business online, and you aspire to be the face of your business, as well as a reputable force within your industry, then we can work with you.
Equally, if you’re struggling to grow your business because of lead generation problems, or because of overwhelm, procrastination, or self-sabotage, our programme really shines in these areas.
What is your favourite quote?
Harvey MacKay said, “If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent, you will keep it.” and this has stuck with me for a number of years because it really supports the idea of habit formation, and the areas I have seen the most success in my life to date have been those where I have been most consistent.
For anyone wanting to know more about what you do, where should they look?
The easiest place to learn more about Expert Unleashed is on our website, and we actually have an interesting quiz that you can take on there which will help you to identify where in your life and business you might be out of balance. It’s definitely worth checking out as we’ve had some real transformation stories from those that took action after receiving their results.
