Stephen Brookes, the 257th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, is a wonderful photographer who has turned himself into an excellent businessperson.

Many service providers relish the job part of their business (e.g. photo shoots if you’re a photographer) but dread the business part of their business (the sales and marketing). Stephen, though, recognised from the start of his entrepreneurial journey that to build a successful company, he needed to spend less time working in the business and more time working on it.

Stephen’s company, Airview Group, which he founded in 2000, specialises in aerial photography, aerial filming and aerial surveillance, for real estate, property development, local government, advertising and emergency services clients.

Airview also has a fast-growing division, Airviewonline.com, which is Australia’s largest provider of aerial-view stock photos, and serves real estate professionals, architects, property developers, advertising agencies, inbound tourism providers, and local and national government bodies.

Stephen still does a bit of photography to keep his eye in, but mainly focuses on strategy, management, sales and marketing.

Stephen not only has a sharp business brain, he’s also very generous. As Stephen explained the intricacies of Airview’s business model to me, he was kind enough to offer some very astute suggestions for how I could grow my copywriting agency, Hunter & Scribe. The key is to do what Stephen has done with Airview, and create a process that can be systemised, repeated and scaled.

Which I will.

Thanks to Stephem I walked away from our lunch with a full stomach and an even fuller brain.