CEO Group Call - Why Most Busineses Fail
Discover why most businesses fail and how to avoid common pitfalls. This CEO Group Call covers essential topics like execution, niche focus, lead generation, client selection, and modern sales strategies. Learn how to build a predictable, scalable business with strong leadership and personal branding.
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Why Most Businesses Fail – Insights from the CEO Group Call
In the latest CEO Group Call, industry leaders discussed the key reasons why most businesses fail and how founders can navigate common challenges. Below are the main takeaways from this insightful session.
1. The Role of Founders: Ego and Overthinking
Many businesses fail because founders get caught up in their egos or overanalyze decisions. Success comes from making informed choices while staying open to feedback and adaptation.
2. Taking the Right Actions: Focus and Execution
Execution is more critical than just having great ideas. Many entrepreneurs struggle because they fail to take consistent, focused action. Prioritizing execution over excessive planning leads to better results.
3. The Importance of Niche: Narrowing Your Focus
Trying to serve everyone weakens your business. Identifying a niche allows companies to deliver targeted solutions, attract ideal clients, and build a strong market presence.
4. Crafting a Simple and Effective Offer
Complexity kills conversions. Businesses that create clear, straightforward offers that solve specific problems tend to outperform those with overly complicated services or products.
5. Predictability in Lead Generation and Outcomes
A lack of consistent lead generation often leads to business failure. Building predictable systems for acquiring leads and converting them into clients ensures long-term stability and growth.
6. Selecting the Right Clients
Not all clients are a good fit. Choosing the right ones based on alignment with your business values and goals improves satisfaction and long-term success.
7. Predicting Success and Value
Successful businesses anticipate market needs and continuously refine their value propositions. Measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) helps in making strategic improvements.
8. Sales and Business Predictability
A sustainable business depends on predictable sales. Establishing reliable sales processes and tracking performance metrics ensures steady revenue growth.
9. Building a Strong Network
Networking is essential for business success. Strong relationships with industry leaders, peers, and clients open doors to new opportunities and collaborations.
10. The Importance of Execution
Ideas mean nothing without execution. Implementing strategies consistently and adapting when necessary separates thriving businesses from those that fail.
11. Modern Sales Strategies
Traditional sales tactics are evolving. Understanding digital sales, social selling, and customer engagement strategies is crucial for staying ahead in today’s competitive landscape.
12. Leveraging Personal Branding
A strong personal brand helps business leaders gain trust, attract opportunities, and position themselves as experts in their industry.
13. Synergies and Collaboration
Partnerships and collaborations create new growth opportunities. Aligning with the right partners can help businesses scale faster and reach new markets.
14. Founders and Pain Points
Understanding and addressing the biggest challenges founders face—like burnout, decision fatigue, and market adaptation—can improve long-term business success.
15. Lead Generation and Client Success
A solid lead generation system paired with an excellent client success strategy ensures not only customer acquisition but also retention and referrals.
The CEO Group Call highlighted that most businesses fail due to poor execution, lack of niche focus, weak lead generation, and failure to adapt. By prioritizing execution, building predictable sales systems, and leveraging personal branding, entrepreneurs can set their businesses up for long-term success.
Stay focused, take action, and build a business that lasts!
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction: Why Most Businesses Fail
01:11 The Role of Founders: Ego and Overthinking
06:25 Taking the Right Actions: Focus and Execution
09:31 The Importance of Niche: Narrowing Your Focus
14:50 Crafting a Simple and Effective Offer
21:17 Predictability: Lead Generation and Outcomes
27:06 Selecting the Right Clients
28:40 Predicting Success and Value
31:04 Sales and Business Predictability
32:21 Building a Strong Network
33:20 The Importance of Execution
33:54 Modern Sales Strategies
34:49 Leveraging Personal Branding
44:42 Synergies and Collaboration
46:54 Founders and Pain Points
52:00 Lead Generation and Client Success
54:51 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Transcript:
[00:00:00] So why most businesses fail or why do most businesses? I have put this together high level, but we can go deeper into any of the topics. And this is my personal experience, like my, me, myself, and I. Plus, um, I have mentored, I don't know, at least 30 to 50 startups over the last more than 10 years in different instances and different connections.
So I have seen a couple of things over and over and over again. And we are going number one founders, business owners, like let's say the leaders of the business. I just call it founders. Then, uh, niche, then we go offer. And then the, the number one or the number four biggest, biggest, biggest topic and biggest limiter of all businesses, the predictability [00:01:00] being predictable.
Like mean like counting forwards or predictable is like calculating the future. Okay. Yeah, exactly. So founders. Three extreme things I'm seeing number one is ego, especially when it is experienced people like take, take myself as an example, I'm getting freaking 45 this year. And, uh, because I have been in, let's say executives positions and was responsible for huge budgets and, and big things and big corporate, um, that doesn't mean that I can run a business.
And the tricky thing for people like myself is that. I know in Germany, we have a saying like, I have the device at mid level, I guess, I like intellectually, I understand [00:02:00] everything from a business perspective, but that doesn't mean I can do it. And the tricky thing was that what I see with founders is that they're not putting themselves to that level where they should be, which is, I'm a beginner, I have no idea, and I'm just asking as many questions as possible.
Because they want to be seen as the experienced person. Like take myself, I was the global guy from Ikea and I don't want anyone else to see that. I have no idea. So that's one of the biggest limiters of founders that I've seen. I've worked with startups and the, the, the people were like engineers, deep technical engineers, uh, super, super smart, but they didn't ask the questions because they, Thoughts that they will look stupid if they're asking this questions because they are like PhDs and like rocket scientists.
And literally there were in this field. So no joke. Never stop asking. Which kind of question, [00:03:00] what do you mean? So it's, it's just asking every single dumb question that comes to your mind. It's not about that. There's a stupid questions. It's more about that. Some people, um, that I've seen are not asking the questions because they, they.
feel like they look dumb. They should be already above that question. And that's a big, big, big challenge when it comes to entrepreneurship. It doesn't matter. Ask every single question as dumb as it is. And this, this is a huge limiter because people then are not doing anything, which, which leads us to the next thing is overthinking.
A lot of business owners or let's say start uppers, um, that are starting, they have an idea and then they're already planning for the 20 million turnover. Like their, their, their, their idea is that the business is big. So [00:04:00] they're building it in the way that it is big on it instead of looking into what they Theoretically, no.
If at least if you have a background, like I, I know that I should do prototyping. I know that I should talk to customers first and everyone knows this theoretical, but what people do, they start building the whole thing. I had it the other day, uh, nobody from our community. So this, this person was saying, no, no, I have, I have to build the whole thing first and then I can sell it.
And I said, no, you should start the other way around. You should sell it first and then build it. So that's just one of the things that I see over and over and over again, start up small and even already big. The problem with that is that you work on topics that doesn't matter right now. Like you don't have a business if you are not having paying customers.
So understanding what is necessary to be [00:05:00] built right now to be able to service clients and what needs, what needs to, or what can be done later. So this overthinking and over preparing is a huge as well with founders, and I've seen it over and over again, including myself. Like I have launched businesses where I have built everything already and have not figured out anything.
And then I've built it and then it's like, yeah, nobody wants it. Okay. Let's put it into the waste. But again, it's good that you can use your community now after 20 years building it. Exactly. Now, the good thing is you, like, if you do this more often and if you fail more often, then it's, it's getting quicker, the iterations, and then, then you can get there faster.
That's maybe an important one. What, what we see the external perspective of successful entrepreneurs, [00:06:00] um, is that they have made it, but what we don't see that they have tried with eight businesses before one, one good example is Stephen Bartlett, the diary of a CEO podcaster. He has fucked up eight businesses before he succeeded with one.
Nobody sees same with a lot of other entrepreneurs. They did things that didn't work. And then figure it out afterwards. So, um, big one that leads us to the next one, taking the right actions. It's linked to each other. I always, um, take that from, um, the four hour work week guy, Tim Ferriss, which I listened to podcasts, I don't know, since at least 10 years.
Well, one of his things that, that he's describing in, in the four hour work week book is that you should be focusing on the tasks that, that are. Getting every other task moving. So what is the [00:07:00] domino effect of a business? Like, um, Felix was saying already, if, if, if you don't work on sales, nothing is coming.
So a critical part is understanding, especially if we take us as founders or CEOs, what is the number one thing that you need to be moving right now on? And that is like right now, the moment it's today, it's this week, it's this month. And then doing that thing so that everything else can happen. I was testing a new outreach strategy.
I was sharing this this morning. Um, with Dorches, where we are doing certain things to reach out to CEOs in a different way. And what I do is like, I just do this now every day, religiously. It sucks because I hate to do it. Um, but I know that when I know exactly how it [00:08:00] works and I got a big success, uh, through that this morning, um, after a week, I know what works and what doesn't work.
So if I do this, I know if I get one of this big clients for me, it's huge amount of money. And that gives a lot of freedom and everything else afterwards can happen. So instead of just to give you an example, we, we, of course, helping CEOs to build their personal brands and thought leadership position them in the market and so on and so on.
One part of that is them doing a professional photo shooting. So I can spend a lot of time now find more photo shooting studios and, and go deeper into what are the different settings we should be doing. Doesn't make any sense if I don't have the CEO in front of me and that is paying me. So what is the action that gets everything else in your business moving?
It's a critical part and that's something It's not just in the beginning. It's it's all the time always going back to this I [00:09:00] even do this in big corporate like with the team. We're looking into okay this week. Is this what's going on? We have this goal where we want to want to get to it What is the one thing we all need to do and logically every one of you will say?
Yeah, of course Everyone knows this theoretically, but when we build a business, we often forget that because we are not in a large corporate, we are not in a setting where we, um, have 20 people around us in the beginning.
Next is a huge one as well. I mean, they're all huge, but it's this, this is a big one where I see a lot of startups and businesses fail. The niche is, we have that in one of the community calls as well, where I got this questions around this topic, like, why should I narrow my focus? Extreme example, not extreme.
Positive example from my side. So as you have seen, I have narrowed it [00:10:00] since, let's say, since since the launch of Heitland Media Group, which I did a soft launch since, since November. And what we did is we started out with personal branding for executives. And then I moved very, very quickly to personal branding for CEOs and thought leadership for CEOs.
So I reduced it from everyone to executives to CEOs only. So what happened last weekend, I got contacted by a CEO that Uh got to know me in one of the 24 hour walking events. That's the struggle again last year He didn't know me and he didn't know what i'm doing But he has seen my social media and he reached out to me and most probably i'm going to sell him big time this friday So I had a sales call with him seven o'clock this morning He reached out to me on on saturday and only because he [00:11:00] has seen that i'm focusing on ceos He is a ceo And he sees himself working with someone that does that specifically for CEOs only.
So if we turn this around, like what is your business doing and whom do you help? How can you narrow that as much as possible? That doesn't mean that it stays always. Like that, you can widen it afterwards, but to be very, very specific, we have talked about that when we talk, um, social media. So when you talk in social media, like if you, if you watch my content right now or read my content on social media, everything goes towards CEOs.
Like the language I use is different. The context I use is different. The things that I'm explaining, everything goes to CEOs. So Cool. For every one of you, it's like, what is your business, whom do you talk to, and go deep as much as possible. To directly talk to the person that is [00:12:00] buying your service, if it's B2B.
And if it's B2C, then it's even more obvious to speak to the one person. And don't think that it is too small. It's never too small. Because depending, we will see that when we go into the offer, you don't need many customers. If you take my CEO offer, I only need two customers to be able to eat from, from my business.
And most probably I'm reaching more than that or way more than that. Um, by the end of this month, another thing that's the next one is you're not solving a problem, especially in startup land so you have a great idea and You love to work on a topic because you you think it's amazing to do that If you don't solve a problem with a business, it's it's it's not [00:13:00] going to be selling in the future So it's always understand what problem you are solving in in in details That doesn't mean that you're, you're, you're not working with the aspirations.
So I always explain it in, in, in this two ways. One thing is what are the pain points and what is the desire? That's a sales strategy. You need to know these two things, and then you can build the bridge. So the psychology of humans is that we're we're running faster when we're running away from from a problem than running towards something positive.
I don't know why. I'm not a psychologist, but it's true. So you need to understand in depth what the problem you're solving and being able to articulate when you know that. And then you direct that, in my case, to the CEO. I can talk about the problems. And, and then they can see that, okay, that's an opportunity for me to [00:14:00] bridge to get to my desired state.
So a lot of startups struggle with that. Normally what you should be doing when you start a business from the beginning, you start with the problem as, as the number one thing. And then you look into what are the different, um, solutions for that problem. Obviously the problem is always linked to a person.
So let's say in my case, what that's the future of business. For me as well. I work with CEOs. I know all of their problems in the future and then I can build further products to solve their problems. If I solve the one, then you can solve another one, you can solve another one. But I'm not changing the niche.
I'm staying in the niche and just solve further problems for that.
Offer. Offer is what you're selling. Again, what I see a lot [00:15:00] is the offer is too complex. You need to be able to explain that in less than two minutes, better in one sentence. If people don't understand what you do, they're not going to buy. Doesn't matter what it is.
And sometimes it takes iterations, iterations, iterations to find out what it is. I give you my example. Personal branding for CEOs. That doesn't mean you know exactly what we do, but everyone understands that it is not about, um, doing a cooking workshop. Like, CEOs will understand, okay, that's about me. And it's about my personal brand.
So being very specific about what your offer is, and, and, and then being as well, simplifying it as much as possible so that other people can understand that the tricky thing is always that we assume [00:16:00] as, as founders or business owners, that everyone understands that what you do, because you, we are so deep in the topic that we're into that.
Even when we simplify it, we think it's simple from our side, but it doesn't mean that anyone else is understanding. There was, there, there was quite an interesting study, which is in one of the books behind me. I don't remember which ones. The most effective sales, um, language is the language you use for a five year old five to six year or five to seven.
So what they did, they, they used sales scripts and dumped it down. Um, and then they use kind of a language generator that was checking which grade of the language it is and what they found out the most successful sales communication is the one which, which is like targeted to. Five to seven year [00:17:00] olds,
five can, sorry. Uh, so in my topic is like we are doing like sales architecture. So we are helping companies to improve their sales basically with, uh, with furniture. So I need to say like, okay, uh, I can use your rooms to make 50% more money with it. Exactly. So, it sounded dumb, and it's not sounded anything like Yeah, it's not fleshy, and that doesn't mean that you market it the whole way like that, because that's, that's different, so you always have different, different parts of communication.
This is just the verbal and the words, um, but you know as well that this is the, the, the least amount of communication, like the feelings and the other stuff is way higher, but in, in the end, it goes towards that. How do you fine tune Like in your case, this like make money with new furniture [00:18:00] or whatever, whatever it's going to be something as simple that everyone gets it, what you do
and, and that in return will helps people to buy it. Because the tricky thing if, if people don't understand if you, if you just look into decision processes, um, Our minds are lazy, like if, if it takes too much energy to do anything, then you switch off, which means if you, if it takes too much energy to understand what you do, you're like the people will switch off and will not go deeper.
So you always need to get it so simple that they at least go then deeper and then from that level and then you can go more into the complexity of what I was working with, um, with the startup from. I think it's even Switzerland, um, a while ago, two years ago, which was working on energy, um,
[00:19:00] building new energy grid opportunities so that you can sell energy to each other and so on. And it was super complex how they explained it. And we found a way that they can explain it very simple. So that's, that's, um, it's a big one. And then the next part is not result oriented. And that doesn't mean always you need to have it upfront everywhere, but what do you do for the other side?
What is the outcome for the other person? If we, if we go on a personal level, of course, if you have B2B, then it's the outcome for the company as well. But the person that is buying, what's the outcome for the person that is buying? I give you the example. I've given the example a couple of times, but I asked the question this morning in, in, in the sales call.
I was, I was asking what is, what is an average customer value for you? This person was saying five to 10 million. So I know. What I can charge, right? [00:20:00] Like 1 million. Now, that doesn't mean that I will do that. But I know that I don't need to talk about 5 euro in what, what I'm, what I'm delivering. So I can turn this thing.
So I was asking what, what the average customer value is. So if, if, if this CEO is generating another customer through, in my case, visibility and credibility boost. Uh, having another conversation that leads to a customer, uh, it's a no brainer to invest the time and the money into my offering. So because this CEOs in my case and everyone in the end is result oriented, like every one of you right now in the call is in the call because you want to get something out of it.
You're not because here because of me, maybe yes, and, but in the end it's like you are in the community because you want to get results for yourself. [00:21:00] And that's, that's just key part. When you build an offer, simple to understand, and then focus on what is the result for the other person that goes back to what is the pain points?
What is the desire and how do you help them to reach them?
And then comes the predictability. There are two things when it comes to that. I could let, let's call it lead generation and outcome lead generation is how can you predict how much money the business is going to do?
If you can't predict that, it's very, very hard. You're, you're, you're kind of on the level of wishing for, for luck. And that means you need to build an engine that is getting leads into your direction. So example, um, you reach out to 100 people per day. And [00:22:00] you know, over time, this is the way I reach out to these people.
Let's say you, you text people from your phone phone book and say, Hey, I'm selling this, are you interested? And then if you, if you reached out to 100 people, then you know how many of them bought in the end. If you know this, then you have different steps in between. Let's say you sent the first message so you can iterate the first message.
But you have as well conversations in between so you can iterate all the different steps as part of if you then know which way works, you can crank it up. Let's say if you know it's 100 and out of 100 it's 10, then you, you, you can rank it, uh, like increasing example what I did last week was the testing of what we did.
So we built a new way of reaching out to CEOs. And I'm doing it personally. So I'm reaching out to the CEOs and we did 10 last week. Out of 10, I got one response. And this are [00:23:00] like big CEOs in my case, 10, 1 percent can be locked now. So now that means we do the same thing this week. Again, we look into.
What did I do differently with this CEO? Did I do anything differently? Is this CEO position different? Um, just to give you an example on, on details on that. So what I did was I was selecting CEOs. All of the CEOs have businesses that are above 500 million. All of the CEOs are in an industry that is not a fancy industry.
Like they don't do social medias, but I selected CEOs. Some of them are more active than others. And funnily enough, the person that was most active and almost the best one when it comes to social media was reaching out to me and answering. So now I will test this hypothesis that I have now. If a CEO is [00:24:00] already in tune with social media, they might be even more interested in the service instead of the other way around.
I reached out to one of the top CEOs in Germany. Um, and he has like the worst. LinkedIn profile I've ever seen. And he's like, he's in a billion company, like huge company. He has the worst social media profile, LinkedIn profile I've ever seen for a CEO. Yet, of course he didn't answer it. Maybe it's, so that's something where you need to go in for every of your business, understanding how you reach out to them.
If you do outbound and then what are the different messages? How do you reach out? What are the different tools? Um, do you do events like there are thousands of ways of generating leads? What is the one that works for you? And that means testing, testing, testing, testing all the time. And then when you have one.
Go to the next level. If we go back to Seraphine, Seraphine [00:25:00] was sharing in one of the calls that his best outbound method is going to the door and ringing the doorbell. the highest conversion. So what he should be doing is nothing else than that. Double down until you cannot do it anymore and then build others on top.
But if you have found out one version that is working, you, you know, let's say he's going to a hundred houses and he knows out of 100, I have 10, 15, 20 clients that we cut the trees. Then, you know, it's going to happen. And then it's just keep on grinding doing this. In my case. What we have found out, we are testing three different versions right now.
Three different outreach. One is a specific way which we started testing, uh, last week. And the other two that is what we are doing already since a while. And they all work. It's just we are fine tuning now parallel all on them. To see which is the highest conversion. And then I will [00:26:00] dump all of it and I will just go on the one that is highest converse.
So that means for all of you, like building metrics in details, understanding and validating every single thing. And then the other part is you need to, when you have a customer, a client, you need to be able to predict the outcome. So that, that means one thing is you select the right customers to go into your business.
Yeah, so that you know, okay, I will not move this person forward because I know the outcome is not going to come That's why I was hating coaching always so I I give you an example from a coaching perspective So you have people, you know, they're going to move the needle and you you you have over time You know as well this person will not move on because they always find excuses And now of course depends which type of coaching but what what I have seen is [00:27:00] The predictability that I can help that person properly is dependent on the other person.
So if I'm selecting a person that I will not be able to help, it's not fair to select the person and charge the person. So what I did then in, in the lead generation process, I was selecting the people out that I'm, I know are not going to be successful. So as more, you know, To be able to predict the outcome for yourself by making them successful.
Depending on what you do, let's say if we take Cona, understanding how you can bring the AI into the other business so that it works, or if we just take you planning a, a, a pro, pro, uh, planning a project as better, you know, that, that it's going to happen as better it is. So, and, and in your case, it's, it's, it's not just.
the handover of the plan if we think like normal planning processes like the project being built [00:28:00] as better that is and better it is for you because let's say you're designing an outside area which is going to be built where which is then generating leads for the future for you if it's successfully done if you just send out or you are in a lot of competitions where you know you might not have a chance doesn't help you Helps you from a learning process, but it doesn't help you from the money and business predictability
questions.
So like the predictable thing is like, um, the last thing basically that's the value for the customer. We need to analyze first for our case, right? Not analyze. You need to be able to do it. Like in your day, like we need to know that we can bring [00:29:00] him a value. Exactly. That's probably like you said, what you said is, let's say we furnished your hotel in a different way.
So you can charge higher rates, which in return may like you have higher, higher, like bigger month. If, if you know that you can predict that, then you can use it for sales, but as well, you will automatically get further clients because they will shout it from the rooftop. If you have a hotel in your case that has like new furniture all over and it's an amazing look and feel and like the experience of the interior has changed dramatically, everyone will shout it from the rooftop, which then generates more income for them and they will automatically recommend you to anyone else.
Same with the Airbnb stuff. So if you have an Airbnb owner that doubles the income in one season, they will automatically say, go to Felix. So as better [00:30:00] you can predict this, which then means, let's say if you, if we take the Airbnb, you can do a cheap version or you can do a proper version. And what your overtime will most properly understand is like, only do this, I, I'm not going to the, to do the cheap version or the more affordable version because the aha moment is not there or whatever it is.
So go going really so far that you understand exactly. What are the customers and clients you can deliver the results because that will move you forward and then you zoom in again Then you niche down. So let's say if you take me right now I'm I'm focusing on CEOs in the specific industry But I might be even going more narrow inside of the industry over time
because then I know this guys They have money. They have the problems that I can solve And [00:31:00] they're the easiest to work. Of course, that's then kind of further down the line. It really, the predictability starts with the whole sales engine, because if that's not happening, it's all wishing and hoping all the time.
And then it doesn't mean that you're not getting inbound. It's more about if you don't know exactly how you get more customers in, that's the the most critical thing for every business. That's where most of the businesses, like startups are dying because they're not having that shit organized.
Well, I had an example from a tech company. There was like 5 brilliant minds. They created an amazing system, but they spent like, they get it collected. They're getting invested a couple of millions and they made everything and it worked perfectly and then they need more money and then they [00:32:00] realized, okay, we spent like 3 million on something that is amazing, but we have no idea how to sell it.
So the, just the company failed because they didn't have anyone, they did like sales or at least like think about sales. So that's why they are like need to be like insofent then. And that's, that's what you see. That's why startups, for example, if you look at in the U S they're more successful because they put them through a machinery of how they, how they built that.
If you look at Y Combinator and so on, what they, what they're very strong is, is the program. And then the network they're putting these people in because even if they have no clue they put them with the right people in contact that kind of kick their asses in the program and over time with the right mentors.
I was just talking, was it Thursday last week with one of my friends who is, who is, um, venture capital and they're building a huge accelerator [00:33:00] in Canada. He was saying exactly the same. They do the same blueprint. Like you need to make sure that the startups go through the all the different steps. But then more execution focus, not the theory focus, which is a little, if you take the, the European accelerators that I have worked with, it's very much theory focused.
Like build your business model canvas, a business freaking model canvas doesn't help you with your business. It's the logic idea behind it. Yes. A hundred percent, but the execution of it doesn't help. Like, yeah, I know my market and I know all of this. But if you can't bring it like the, the horsepower on the street, it doesn't help you.
That's why I'm focusing always on, on like get shit done. Like Sabine loves. So it goes back to say it's because like when you're not going to people, then you cannot sell your product. Yeah. In, in, in the end you can have the best product if nobody knows it's existing, it's that you cannot [00:34:00] sell it. And it's, for me, sales is, is only the, the making people aware of it.
It's not pushing people to buy it because that's not going to work long term. You need to have a product that's awesome or an offer. It needs to, in the end, it needs to sell from itself over time. It's just that you need to make more people aware of it. And that's kind of the, the new way of selling. It's not the old way where you have like the people that are pushing you to buy something.
That's really clever Jens, so your presentation is like focusing on how we can get more sales and at the same time it's like showing what you can help us with this,
it's pretty good? It's sales, everything is sales in the end, if we go back to the whole system, um, Sabine and I talked about this an [00:35:00] hour ago, that the whole system that we are building is building you as the magnet. Of your business because we are all, um, not building a startup in the way that it, that we, we, we are not the driver of the startup or the driver of the business.
We own the business and we are driving. So if you are the attractor of the business and then utilize that, then you can drive it into, into any business and you can have different branches of your businesses going forward. That's, that's, that's the future for business and they're like extreme successful companies out there.
Diary of a CEO, the guy example, he's like extremely successful in what he's doing and his businesses as well. The podcast is just a side thing. You see in the end, he does not make money with the podcast. Maybe now he does, but it's, it's just, he did the podcast and then all of his businesses [00:36:00] went up.
Like in my case, just a little less,
but still works. It's still enough to feed families.
Any more questions?
You're silent bunch. Awesome. No questions. Okay. I was not thinking deep. How can I implement this in my strategy of my five companies I want to build? In
the end, all of it is, is logic and that's, that's the trick, tricky thing that goes back to the first slide from an ego perspective. It doesn't mean that when it is logic that we all automatically implemented [00:37:00] that I didn't. I did all the business model analyst studies and work with startups before and then.
I built my first business and it sucked. I
have realized during the couple of weeks that I have tried to look up for some particular things that I want to buy services. And I have actually come to the solution that, um, or a conclusion that's very hard to find. the things that I want to find. I'm pretty sure that there are those services available in Finland that I'm, I'm after, [00:38:00] but I can't find them.
So basically that thing, that chance you said that it's not about pushing sales to anybody, it's, it's about Uh, bringing awareness of that product. So the ones who need it, uh, have the possibility to buy that. Exactly. So that that's good. That's a 2025. Yeah, it's like a true game changer really and that in 2025 Like I shared last week.
I had the first inbound keynote speaking gig from chat gtp. Yeah That's nuts in my eyes still. Yeah, that's that's person chat gtp'd me not googled me Exactly. No, but that's the future if, if you're, if you're, if chat GTP or any other large language model doesn't know [00:39:00] what you do or like your business or whatever, it's, it's not there anymore because even if you take Google, they're going to switch to the same thing, which is giving answers, not just links.
You search yourself. So it's, it's, it's even more critical that you built a systematic way that whatever you do is, is present in the internet so that people that are looking for whatever you do can, can then reach out to you and find you. And even more so in, in, and, sorry, I, I, I go to you Felix, quickly.
No, it's okay. It's okay. Um, even, even more so in the small world where we are in, let's say if you take, I, I take me as an example. That's, that's, that's the easiest. I'm going to be known for helping CEOs to succeed with their personal brands. Give me now a year or two and I [00:40:00] have a couple of rock stars like you, um, which I use as showcase, uh, to get all the others in the future.
So that means the whole internet will know that I'm the person that is doing this with CEOs. And that's then more so in the future that people go then to your phone or and ask, Hey, Can you help me to do what Jens is doing?
So it's, it's, it's, people will use you as, as the name that will not look up for who is the best construction person that was like, give me the number from Sabina
from Finland. Until then she's working worldwide. So, and automatically and from home and completely digitalized. Felix, you had a question. Yeah. Like, uh, [00:41:00] uh, actually I'm helping also like a friend to build his personal brand right now. Uh, kind of like building a website, uh, besides all the other things I'm doing.
And I'm wondering how like backlinks working for our businesses, because there's like a couple of us that are quite active, like Frank, Kostner, Adelina, everyone is here, uh, also Seraphine. And we connected on the web pages as well. Does this helps us to grow together so we can all make like a rising star page on our page?
Depends what you do with it in the end. It's indexing it always helps but it's more what do you want to achieve with it? So I always look into what what is your goal with it? And then how can you utilize that for your goal is to push the website because I know it from like Uh, website perspective, when you're having more backlinks and, uh, relevant [00:42:00] connections through other companies, then your page is highly ranked and then more people are likely to visit you.
And that's pushes the visibility of all of us basically then. Yeah. But it's, it's not, let's say if you see it from a sales perspective, I would, I would rather reach out to 10 people per day. That's higher conversion rate than through that short term. Of course. Long, long, long term 100%. But that also means that you need to build more connections than just just the web's web page.
I give you a stupid example, but that goes into the same direction. Like, I have had now 240 ish podcast guests out of 240. Number one thing is more than half of them has not shared the episode anywhere, not on social media, not nothing, zero. And [00:43:00] they have not linked it to their website nowhere. Like they're not utilizing the power of what you just said.
If everyone would just do this automatically, and it's not that I don't tell them. Never is. It would be like, I have people, I know people that are aware on my podcast. The only way you can find them is through me. Which is good for me. I'm fine with that. Like you search their name and, and I pop up so that means, but that goes back to, to, to your point, Felix, if, if you built a strategic alignment between all of us, a bit what we do now with the social media challenge is you see the links growing over time.
So one thing is social media. The other thing you can do the same on, let's say, personal website, like we could do. More calls where we go deeper. Let's say an, uh, group podcast and this group podcast would be on [00:44:00] every everyone's personal website. And it's been indexing of all of them like all of that's no problem.
It's just does that lead to sales if we go back to the business thing, or is it distracting us? From from anything.
Sorry. Now it's distracting probably because right now we are basically building the crown of the personal brand and how about in the future it probably helps us.
I guess that depends on other synergies, other synergies between the, um, uh, between the people, right? So, let's say if there was someone who, um, is providing services, like, uh, Felix, to you, if you're providing services to, um, um, to, um, people who are putting their offices together, and there's someone else who's, um, providing office services, then there's probably synergies.
Um, if there's, [00:45:00] um, if there's no synergies, then it probably doesn't make sense, no? It really depends how you see synergies. I think there's short term synergies and long term synergies. We take Felix example. So if he's refurnishing office spaces. There's always an opportunity for me to work with the CEO.
If we just take Felix and me, easy, but even for you, like Felix is working with an office, which is a company that needs data topics. So there's also a link, even with Sabine that is working in construction. So it's, it's really how, how you see it, how short term and how long term you see this things
in the end is, is. And that is, that is then what we have seen when we are in person, getting to know each other is already helping hugely. We just look at the last two weeks. Um, at least if we look at [00:46:00] the WhatsApp group, it's, it's, I, I think there are opportunities where we can help each other way more than what we do right now.
If we just take, take the community aspect of it. And that's on personal branding, but even more so when it comes to business. Like what you, you guys even started already, like having the one on ones. And talking more in depth, like what are the opportunities, at least I know from Felix and hna talking about things.
Um, others I guess as well that we have also with HNA tomorrow. Sina, when we calling. Uh uh Yeah, exactly. Uh, and, uh, what, uh, James, you, you mentioned about founders mindset somehow, and what's your, uh, domino effect in your business? In mine? Mm-hmm . Mindset or business, what whatnot. Yeah. I, as the founders, the first, uh, the first point, [00:47:00] um, I, I would, I would, I, I, I understood as mindset and what's your mind and what's your domino effect.
If you take founders as the founders fit to each other so that they are complimenting each other and not, not, not like have the same topics or the same things. Um, and specifically when it comes to strength. So some of you have seen him already. Uh, Andre, who was, um, part of a couple of calls, he is going to be my CEO in the future.
He's like a brain. So he's not a founder. I'm the, I'm the boss, but maybe he gets pieces of the business over time because that's something that's more a personal thing. I believe everyone that is working in my business should have pieces of that over time. But if we go, go to your question that The domino effect in the beginning in your case is like understanding who is the right [00:48:00] founder that is as well as putting the work in and it's not just I like the person it's more about like getting shit done because you are now in a phase if we take your AI businesses, like how do you get people that are getting things done, that's the first, let's say, two, three years, that's what you need.
And without asking for being paid in the best case.
That's, that's, that's, I mean, it really depends where you are right now, but for you, I think that's the number one domino.
And about the second, Nisha, uh, what pain are you trying to, to escape or what desire want to achieve? For me? Yeah. We don't have any pain. There is pain. So [00:49:00] example, why are you all here? What's your pain? So it, I I, I, I take it out of discipline. . Yeah. There, there's, there's different pain for each, each of all of you.
But if, if, let's, let's focus on the big CEOs. So the big CEOs have a challenge that they need to position themselves for the next CEO O role, I'm targeting CEOs, and when I talk about the big ones, I target CEOs that are not owner of the business. So they're hired. Which means they're, they're the CEO of this, let's say, multi million, multi billion company for, let's say, five, two, maybe seven, eight years, and, and then they're, they're either getting one step up or they're obsolete.
So what, what their pain is that they need to be relevant for the future. If, if they're not there, they're not existing. I have this [00:50:00] discussion right now with someone. So he's amazing in what he's doing, but he's completely not visible. He's trying to find the next CEO role, but nobody sees it because he's in an industry that is not visible at all.
He can be CEO of another business in another industry, but nobody knows him. Goes back to the same, like if nobody knows your offer, if nobody knows that you exist, why would you, why would I hire you?
That's one big pain point. Then the other big pain point is sales. So all of them logically understand that people buy from people and that if I, as a CEO show up, that you can convert like doors opening and I have new partnerships and so, but they don't know how to do it. And if they know how to do it, they don't have the time to do it.[00:51:00]
So that then goes back to, to, to pain, which I, then I give them the pain pill and say, we do it for you, like a hundred percent done for you. So I, I give them the, the, the painkiller straight away. Like, Hey, we can do everything for you. Just depends on what you want to pay. What's your budget?
So if, if, if we use that, that for you, if we talk about AI is, is really how can you solve things faster? How can you solve the more complex things in different ways? So that's, that's, that's a key part for everyone to find out when it comes to it.
And about the predictability, you mentioned, uh, late generation and the scaling and, uh, outcome. [00:52:00] Again, for me, So predictably, predictability, the last point, uh,
so how do we systematically lead generate or generate leads? What's, uh, yeah, or what's it also about you? You know, what, uh, what's your, what's your customer acquisition? So we have, we have three different ways. One is we reach out to the CEO directly with a specific audit that we did for them. Another way is we are putting leaflets paper into one of the richest areas in the Netherlands, completely different versions.
And, and, and the third one is we are reaching out in a, in a, in a different way to not the CEO, but to the PR managers. [00:53:00] So it's three different ways that, that we are, we are, we're utilizing. And right now they're all somehow converting. We're just looking into which are higher converting, which is in the end, less work.
We have one minute. Yo, you're the timekeeper and and And what's your client success metric? For example, what's your sales success metric? So for me, it's very very easy because we I know 100 percent that if we do it, it's going to work that's the highest success metric like if Example any one of your you in the call if I do 100 percent of your social media Your website and everything including outreach.
It's going to work Including outreach like sales. Uh [00:54:00] huh. It's 100%. I can promise you the question is just if you are ready to pay that upfront. Yeah, sure. So that that's that's that's I give you the example I was with with a couple of clients. We went to photo shooting. I did their website and everything.
So I know this is then it then it's on the level that that nobody else will will will reach that fast. Yes.
Like if we take us here, like I have done this the last last 10 years and all of you haven't done it the last 10 years. So I'm just ahead of you when it comes to this stage and I'm like a nerd on top of that. Yeah. So thank you. Good. See you in the other call. Yeah, exactly. We need to jump into the other call.
Five minute keynotes today. Yeah. Interesting. See y'all. [00:55:00] Bye.
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Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.