One Room. 48% Growth and a Lesson in Time You Can’t Ignore

This week inside EBN, the energy in the room said it all.

We dive into a powerful session featuring Peter from Spirit of the Rock, who shared the story behind his brand and the passion driving it forward here in Gibraltar. It’s a reminder that when you build something with purpose, people feel it.

We also celebrate a huge milestone as EBN grows by 48 percent in members, proof that something special is happening when the right people come together consistently.

And to top it off, we break down a practical time management session that hits home for every entrepreneur trying to juggle it all. Because growth isn’t just about doing more, it’s about doing what matters most.

If you’re building a business, looking for momentum, or simply want to be in the right room with the right people, this episode is for you.

Join us this Thursday and experience it for yourself.

Transcript

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This week we had a very entertaining presentation from Peter, who owns Spirit of the Rock, an independent distillery. That was very entertaining. I'll explain exactly what made it so good. We also reviewed Doreen, had some nice education slots on how we can manage our time, and the group grew by 25%. We have plenty, plenty new members, and let me explain. Hey everyone, Ahmed here, and welcome to Gibraltar's Independent Podcast. The home for you local dreamers, doers, and business builders for shaping the future of our rock. Each week we'll share real stories, fresh ideas, and powerful conversations to help you grow your business, your mindset, and your network. Because here in Gibraltar, we don't compete, we collaborate. Let's build something great together. We've been taught for years and years and years to prepare before a presentation. Always prepare from school, we go to high school, we go university, college. Always prepare for interviews, always prepare for presentations. Peter broke all those rules and it was still absolutely incredible. Peter also asked me to put some slides together for him, which is no problem at all. We didn't review them, we didn't get a chance in that same morning to review them. So Peter genuinely didn't know what slides were gonna come appear on the screen, and still the presentation was absolutely incredible. I'm sure everyone there will agree. Peter runs a business called Spirit of the Rock, independent distillery. They brew drinks here on the rock, which is very, very difficult to export anything from Gibraltar. We are that type of economy where we consume but we don't export, so it was a very unique type of business. Every slide it was like a surprise to him what was coming up next, but it was an interesting. Hundreds of years. He he took us through a timeline from like the 1700s onwards, it was incredible. He showed us some of his merchandise, his t-shirts, the branding was incredible. No, it was really, really, really enjoyable, honestly. Not just educational but humorous as well. Uh and yeah, so if you're not going to prepare for a presentation, don't also admit to the audience before you're about to start that you're not prepared. Peter broke all those rules and it was still incredible. So thank you so much, Peter, for that. Thoroughly enjoyed it. You'll you can see uh the photos on our Facebook page and our LinkedIn page as well. Really enjoyed it, and that's the benefit of having these education slots for our members. It's your opportunity to educate the members about your business. That's a unique opportunity. You don't get that. You're never gonna get into a room with 15 to 20 business owners who are sitting there for 10 minutes and are interested in hearing about your product and actually want you to win as well. That is what makes this situation so unique, our our chapter meeting so unique. You have people there that are willing and wanting you to win, and they're eager to learn more about your business. You couldn't do that on Main Street and just stop a group of random people and just say, Can you all sit down for 10 minutes and just listen to me talk? That just does not come anywhere else. This is why it's so unique. And as a result of his presentation, I think the same night or the maybe the following night, he had a gin tasting tour, and one or two of our members were able to attend that that tour as well. So complete return on investment, I would say, whether it was financial or getting the awareness and the brand out there. Peter, that was a a great success for you. So this is one of the benefits of becoming an EBN member, is you get this rare and unique and valuable opportunity. I'll be honest with you. But again, prepare that was amazing. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, the group grew by 25%, which is an extra six members over the last two weeks. So we're up to 20 members now, which is absolutely incredible. I'm enjoying it every week. I feel like I can't catch up with all the new members because the very next week more new members are coming, and it's like whoa whoa whoa, trying to catch up with everybody. It's it's incredible. Every week it's a breath of fresh air having new members coming in, learning about their businesses, and opening our contacts to them and their contacts to us, and we build the relationship over time. That's the idea of this group. That's why we meet up on a weekly basis. First of all, people think, Oh, why don't we just meet up every month? One once a week sounds a little bit intense. But once you start coming, you realize it's so important that you can actually feel quite isolated just going to work, and you've got con you've got clients, you've got customers, but you don't have peers, and you don't meet peers very often. Uh you've got family as well, but you can't talk to them about the same struggles that you're going through. And that's why it's really important to have this support peer group and to meet once a week, and you can feel the relationships building because the following week you build on what you spoke about last week. It doesn't start from ground zero where the following week we're just introducing ourselves again and just asking ourselves basic questions. No, we're building on it. If somebody had an issue the week before and we gave advice, the following week it's what did you do regarding that? Did you build upon it? How what was the result of those actions? And that's how relationships are built over time. A brick at a time, a brick at a time. That's why that's why when you meet your family members, you know, over Sunday lunch or over Christmas dinner, you don't start asking them their name and what they do for a living. You already know that because you've built that you've built that up over the years, so it's great. Also, when we one week we had a meeting with our leadership team, and we said, Okay, no more recruitment, we have to take a step back and build the foundation and just make sure our systems are in place. And that week we took a step back to not market and work on the foundations. The group actually grew even more. We got more members when we took a step back to solidify. I'm like, where's all these new members coming from? I'm not doing anything, but I guess it's it's built up over time the momentum. So thank you so much. I look forward to welcoming even new members this week as well. There's a couple more applications that have come in from last week, so I expect this number to go up as well next week as well. Doreen had who's a member of our leadership team, she had two education slots over the last week, which were very, very powerful. I won't give away all her juicy nuggets, but I will give the headlines. It was about time management and burnout. Work expands and life shrinks. Now, a lot of members were nodding their heads, a lot of members found a lot of value in this. And by the end of it, I think everyone felt that they Doreen was personally talking to them. We've all been in that situation where work just seems to expand, your life shrinks, and you have no time for yourself. That is what we're talking about. There's a principle called 888 principle. I won't say any more about that. I'll let Doreen in her one of our next education slots. Maybe this one comes around again in maybe six weeks' time. You need to be in the room to be educated on that. But it's about having the right portion of work life balance. A lot of us struggle with this as entrepreneurs, we want to keep working, working, working until we get to retirement, and then we're like, where's our kids that we wanted to play with? They've all grown up now, they've got their own kids. It's like, well, you missed out on the bedtime stories and the bathtime because you were sending out those emails or you were chasing down that last client for the extra sale, which our kids in 20 years' time won't look back on. So it's about appreciating that a hundred percent, and I think everyone in the room felt personally attacked or personally targeted by that message because we all suffer from it, right? We're all in the same situation. That was very, very hard-hitting as well. Another factor of these meetings is the weekly training and coaching. Now, this is on a personal basis. When we're in our meetings, we get the opportunity to stand up and educate the fellow members about our business. Now, this in itself is a coaching because how often do you get the opportunity to stand up and clearly and concisely talk about your business in one minute? And to be able, like an elevator pitch, and to be able to have a call to action to the people in the room. A call to action meaning how can they help me? What is it I'm looking for? And a lot of us go through our business for 10-20 years, never thinking exactly in one line, what is it I do and who is it that I help, and who is it that I would like to connect with. We don't go through that. I think I've noticed when members have come in and I've asked them this, their their pitch has gone from like a five-minute long jargon to now down to a minute, and now down to 30 seconds. Some of them are so concise now, it's down to like 30 seconds. This is what I do, this is what I'm looking for. Can you help me? Like that is like right down to like 30 seconds. We give them a minute, but when it gets to the 30 second mark, they're like, Okay, I'm done. It's like wow, when you first started, it was five minutes, and now it's 30 seconds. So, this is just shows you the power of weekly training and coaching, which is just repetition, you're just doing something more timed, you become more comfortable with it, and that is also one of the hidden benefits. You become better over time. When I give my own presentations, when I chair the meetings, I'm getting better every week. Now I know the script off by heart. I don't need to look at the PowerPoint as much, it's very casual. Uh it like anything in life, riding a bike, anything, and that is one of the benefits of showing up on a weekly basis. If you miss out on a week, you miss out on those connections because some visitors come for one week and you might not get them again. So every meeting, every week, is a unique mix of people. You're never gonna get the same. You're gonna get the same core people, but you're gonna get visitors and it's a different blend every single week, which cannot be duplicated the following week. So it's a very, very unique experience. We also welcome Adam Moon to the leadership team. He will be our secretary, he will keep us on track on the financials and make sure that we are growing steadily and effectively as well. Adam, it's great to have you on the team. Thank you so much for taking on this role as the leadership team. There's an episode, I think maybe the first or second episode of this podcast where I explain why you want to be on the leadership team. So go back and listen to that. It's the first or second episode, I believe. Very, very beneficial to be on the leadership team. So if you go back, listen to that episode, and you find that you know what, I fancy some of that. Please approach me, reach out to us. We're more than happy to consider applicants for leadership positions. It really does help you more than it helps everyone else. It's a self-development position. It really does help you more than it helps everybody else because it's you that's growing. It's your personal development. Thank you so much. I look forward to updating you guys next week on what is going on at EBN. And even more so, I look forward to welcoming you in person, shaking your hand into our room so that we can grow together. Thanks for tuning in to Gibraltar's Entrepreneurs Podcast. Remember, success isn't about growing alone, it's about growing together. If you're ready to connect with Gibraltar's power team and entrepreneurs, join us every Thursday moment and become part of the moment. And come, keep building, keep believing, and keep growing.