.png)
Thank you to the 1,400 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 questions!
I hope reading
helps you in your leadership.
Cheers,
Jonno White
7 Questions with Berti Munro
7 Questions with Berti Munro
Name: Berti Munro
Current title: Digital Marketing Consultant/Video Producer & Editor
Current organisation: HYPED UP CREATIVE
Originally from South Africa, I moved to the UK in 2004 with my wife. I was a mechanical engineer that made the swap to digital marketing around 2006. Digital marketing was still in its infancy in 2006, so I focused on web design and user experience. With no experience I knew that no agency would hire me. Luckily enough I have always been entrepreneurial, so I set up my first web design agency and focused on helping small businesses create engaging websites. Fast forward to 2021, I have a digital marketing consultancy, a video production agency, an online children's sensory class and a tech business within the fitness space. I now help businesses no matter the size reach the right audience through digital marketing and video production. Some of my clients are some of the largest financial institutions in the world. Video in 2021 is by far the most important tool in business no matter the size. People can relate with someone on video, especially in this very weird time we find ourselves.

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader of a small or medium enterprise?
Work life balance, now with COVID and being at home it is all too easy to be sucked into the I do a few more hours vortex and you miss the quality family time.
2. How did you become a leader of an SME? Can you please briefly tell the story?
I have always been entrepreneurial, so I set up my first web design agency and focused on helping small businesses create engaging websites. Before applying for a job at a marketing agency, I felt I needed to prove myself first before just getting a job.
3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?
I am a late owl, and function between 4 - 6 hours of sleep. I would start my day around 8 - 9 spending time with my daughter, then start my working day at 9 - 5, at 5 I take over from the nanny and then have family time from 5 - 9, 10pm my wife has gone to bed so that allows me to brainstorm, catch up with admin till about 1 - 2am in the morning. This routine is Monday - Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are family time.
4. What's the most recent significant leadership lesson you've learned?
Learn to fail, as a business owner we never allow ourselves to fail and it is okay to fail, long as you learn from it and pick yourself up again.
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?
Start with Why - Simon Sinek. Start With Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
6. How do you build leadership capacity in an SME?
Trust, you need to trust that the person that you have hired can do what they say and that willing to be mentored
7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader of an SME so far?
Nothing comes to mind.