Unlock the secrets to business transformation as Geert van Vlijmen AKA G, a trained legal eagle turned entrepreneurial guru, joins me, Mehmet, for a candid conversation on the daring shift from legal to the boardroom. Together, we dissect the essence of business success and the metamorphosis required in leadership roles for those who dare to venture into the world of innovation and risk. G’s narrative is a treasure trove of insights, highlighting the need for self-awareness, the strategic advantage of pacing oneself, and the pivotal role emotional intelligence plays in steering decisions.
Feel the thrill of the race toward business excellence as we draw inspiration from the high-octane world of Formula 1, comparing the meticulous strategies of teams like Max Verstappen's Red Bull to the fine-tuning necessary for business growth. Our conversation takes you through the gears of crafting resilient growth engines, emphasizing the significance of systems, processes, and the continuous refinement of business models. We spotlight the importance of customer acquisition and evolving alongside the market, alerting you to the perilous turns of following the pack without a tailored road map for your own business journey.
Embrace the discomfort that comes with personal and professional development, and join us as we champion the growth mindset that fuels progress. G and I reflect on the incremental steps that forge the path to achievement, viewing setbacks as invaluable lessons rather than roadblocks. Prepare to be inspired to set actionable goals, cultivate a supportive leadership environment, and understand that success manifests in various dimensions, tailored to each visionary's unique aspirations. So, buckle in and let's accelerate towards a future brimming with potential, as we navigate the twists and turns of entrepreneurial growth with G as our co-pilot.
More about G:
G is an international business and high-performance strategist. He supports business owners and their management teams to manage and grow their businesses. He supports them in creating a machine that helps them to move away from being "operators", so that they gain more freedom and business growth.
02:40 G's Journey: From Law to Leadership
04:38 The Startup Adventure: Lessons from Roy's Garden Tips
05:41 Mentoring Startups and the Power of Networking
07:38 Growth Strategies and Keeping Teams Motivated
11:23 Leadership Evolution: From Startup to Scale-up
14:37 Embracing Change and Making Tough Decisions
18:11 The Impact for Growth System: Tuning Up the Engine
22:16 Navigating Business Models for Startup Success
24:28 Unlocking Business Model Innovation: A Guide to Success
26:32 The Pitfalls of Copying Business Models Without Adaptation
26:55 Embracing Creativity in Business Models for Competitive Advantage
29:40 Navigating Uncertainty: Strategies for Business Leaders
31:41 The Power of Personal Development in Leadership
34:50 Small Steps to Big Success: The Incremental Approach
40:16 Looking Ahead: The Future of Business and Entrepreneurship
42:16 Final Thoughts and Call to Action
[00:00:00]
Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased joining me G. G, the way I love to do it as I was explaining to you before is I keep it to my guests to introduce themselves because I have [00:01:00] a theory. The theory is no one introduced themselves better than themselves.
Mehmet: So the floor is yours. Tell us a little bit about you, your background and what you do.
Geert: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm really, really excited to be on your show. Now people call me G because my first name Geert is actually hard to pronounce. So I'm glad to go by the name of G and I'm from the Netherlands.
Geert: And what do I do? I help business owners and management teams grow in size of business or manage the growth because sometimes we don't even want to grow more. Or and grow as a leadership team and grow as leaders themselves.
Mehmet: Great to have you again. By the way, just, you know, I like to do these jokes sometimes.
Mehmet: I was expecting myself to, you know, to, to pronounce your name as in, in, in the, the Netherlands language, uh, in, in Dutch. But, you know, I said, you know, I remembered like you told me, leave that to me. So thank you for [00:02:00] doing that for me. Now. Uh, let's start, you know, because this topic, I believe it's very important and on the show, although like it's called CTO, but I am big believer in, you know, the knowledge that people like yourself, they bring to the table when it comes to growth and leadership.
Mehmet: So Can you, like, tell me a little bit, you know, a transformative experience that helped you to shape, you know, your leadership style today? So what was like a little bit the background for you to choose this path and, you know, help others in doing
Geert: it? Well, I took a lot of jumps in my life. It started, I started in law, like way back in the day in university.
Geert: And then I thought, okay, you know, law is the thing, uh, tax law. And civil law combines that's cool. But after three and a half years, I actually wasn't happy. And everybody said, but gee, you can make so much money if [00:03:00] you stay in that profession, but I said, you know what, I'm going to jump. I didn't have a job lined up and I just jumped.
Geert: I said goodbye to my old job. And I, and actually quite soon, I find a new job. In a big publishing firm where I was supposed to make a software package for, uh, the, my old profession, which was like in law. And after three months I said to them, say, listen, I have one advice. Either we do it well and it will cost you more money or we don't do it at all.
Geert: And I said, Oh my God, this is such great advice. But that meant that I didn't have a job anymore, but I happened up staying in that company. And I became what, what was called a business developer, basically product development. And I was always between the end user new technology and new concepts. And I did that for about 10 years, always talking to big clients, seeing what did they want?
Geert: And can we build it sitting next to [00:04:00] developers? So I love software, right? And at one point I thought, even thought, you know, e learning, that's going to be the thing. It was 20 years ago. So I was always with these new ideas in front of the speedboat. And after 10 years of doing this, you know, I'm sitting on an island of one of my mentors.
Geert: And I think, you know what? I always wanted to be, become an entrepreneur, but I was a little bit too scared to do it actually. So on that Island, I decided I'm going to do that. So I asked guys, can you please. Uh, in a reorganization, give me some money. And then I go and I said, no, no, no, no. We want, we want to keep you.
Geert: And I said, okay, I'll go anyway. And that's when I started my first startup and I had this idea. I have all these creative ideas in, in, in the back of my mind. And I'm, I'm, I'm thinking, okay, one of the ideas was I have this garden. I don't know a thing about, about flowers and plants. Let me find a gardener and let's create an online platform where you can [00:05:00] basically decide what flowers you have and then get video advice at the right moment in time.
Geert: We called it Roy's Garden Tips because the gardener was called Roy. And to be honest, that was my most expensive study because I will, it was a startup. We built the whole platform, um, but we also got big learnings. Now at the time in my publishing firm, actually there's this book, I don't know if you know it, Mehmet, this is a book called business model generation and one of the producers I knew.
Geert: So, um, I made, let's say through my context, it got also published in the Netherlands. And because I was, you know, somewhat. Connected to that book. Uh, one of my friends in the startup community actually said, Hey, gee, what, why don't you become a mentor here? So I became a mentor in the startup community. And by being there for, for, for months and helping startups, I also met a presentation coach.[00:06:00]
Geert: And when I met the presentation coach, I also helped a little bit with his model and format. And before I knew it, I was also coaching startups when they get funding or when they needed to present at big organizations. And then something funny happens. More and more people, first startups, then scale ups, then bigger corporates started to say, gee, can't we talk?
Geert: Because you have this crazy combination between, uh, back in the day law, corporate innovation, startup innovation, communication. and personal development because that island where I was thinking that was one, actually one of my mentors who was big in personal development. And that combination helps me nowadays to help management teams and leaders all over the world to grow their company and grow their leadership.
Geert: And that's what I do. And that's my background.
Mehmet: Wow. What an amazing story. I love hearing these stories. You know, one, Of the things people ask me, you know, what excites you about, uh, continuing doing the podcast is hearing [00:07:00] these inspiring stories. And then, you know, of course, as much as I can spread these stories with fellow to be founders, maybe because you just mentioned something that attracted, Um, you know my attention when you said like you were scared, but you did it anyhow, you know And I think this is the biggest Uh, I would say thing that entrepreneurs, you know doubt a lot before Uh doing it and you know, this is the courage we need to to to To tell people about it so they can also take their, you know, deep maybe and start on being something.
Mehmet: Now, you mentioned a couple of things, uh, G, and you know, I would love to start from the growth, right? And one of the things, because you mentioned startups, scale apps, and then big organizations. So how do you think, you know, or what, let's, let me rephrase this. What do you think, you know, the [00:08:00] challenges of maintaining, you know, a momentum of growth, um, while keeping everyone excited, motivated, because.
Mehmet: Something we notice sometimes is the more the team starts to grow, some frustrations will come up. People will say, Hey, why we are doing this? Why we are changing? So what is the best approach to keep, you know, people motivated while of course being on the trajectory of this exponential growth as they say?
Geert: Well, you know, what is really important is that, you know, every year, uh, we We look at where do we want to go? Oftentimes we have this big hairy audacious goal, and then we break it down to steps, you know, year, where do we want to be in one year? Where do we want to be in three years? And when we have that as a management team, we can be very little, so we can do it with the whole team.
Geert: And then when, once we start growing, we go bigger and bigger. It's [00:09:00] really important that we broadcast that message and that we talk to the whole team. And if we are distributed, then we have leaders who have teams that, that, that that's guest reached distributed through the whole organization, if you will, so that everybody's on board and everybody understands our why and why are we doing some things?
Geert: Because the bigger we get, the more processes and systems we need. In order to maintain the quality and the value that we bring to the end and customer. So, and if that, and if, and if people in the organization don't know the why don't know the direction, it's also harder to make decisions and to, to, to all run the same direction, if you will.
Geert: Does that make sense?
Mehmet: Absolutely. Absolutely. It makes sense. So let me just out of curiosity. Um, so organizations, they started to, to shift to the, uh, uh, objective pretty key results, the OKRs. So, so is this part of, of this strategy that they can [00:10:00] implement to overcome these challenges? Are there like some other tools or some other, uh, that call them like practices that they can do to, to achieve that?
Geert: Well, there are of course, a lot of systems to help companies grow. And then, you know, OKRs can be one thing. And, and, and I think it. It builds a lot of clarity as long as we are very clear in what we want to achieve in a year and we break it down into manageable objectives. I mean, a lot of companies before I, before I, uh, I, I get involved, they have like 25 goals and it's very hard to reach them.
Geert: It's like, okay, let's, let's do a few, but let's do them well. Right. So that we actually get the value that we That we, that we get what we aim for, but there of course are more tools. I mean, we have to stay in touch. We have to really be in deep conversation with our customers. And, and know exactly what they want and what we can deliver so that they experience the value.
Geert: It's, it's, I don't think that there's just one thing [00:11:00] that we do. It's, it's like the combination of everything makes that we provide the value. And of course, most important people in our company are the employees, because if they are happy, if they function well, we can all deliver to the customers.
Mehmet: Now, back to the leadership, I would say skills.
Mehmet: Okay. And because here I like to focus more about the startups and the dream of any founder is to take the company from startup phase to scale up phase to maybe exit somehow, maybe merge with some other company. Nevertheless, two things I want to ask you G, like First of all, are there like some characteristics, you know, that they have to, to, to have some attributes, I would call to, you know, be able to drive the business to, to the scale stage.
Mehmet: And if they don't have it, you know, usually do you [00:12:00] advise them to bring someone on board, you know, to, to take this leadership? Tasks I would say or do you advise them? No Like get yourself a mentor or a coach and then you go learn it Because sometimes I spoke with people and the main reason they told me they didn't start they said hey, you know I'm i'm technical.
Mehmet: I I know how to do stuff, but I never managed people or maybe I don't know how to put these P hacks, the big hairy audacious goals. So, how do you approach such, uh, scenarios,
Geert: I would say? Well, a few things I would like to say to that first. I mean, there are a lot of things that we haven't done, and, uh, I think it was people long stocking, uh, or at least it's a quote that's going around, say, I've never done it, so I might as well try.
Geert: Something like that, right? If we haven't tried, we can do it. I also believe that we all have our strengths. Thanks. And the bigger the company gets, you just can't do everything yourself and that's not scalable. So [00:13:00] it really is important to see, okay, what, what are my strengths and what would I like to get next to me and my team to make sure that we all play to our part and that one on one becomes three and four.
Geert: Now it's a very hard decision for some owners, let's say startup founders to, at one point say, you know what? I brought the company to here, but actually my role is maybe more of the visionary, or maybe my role is more of the organizer. And that takes a lot of guts, but oftentimes when you play to your strengths.
Geert: It helps to get the company further faster, right? So, um, yes, we can learn things. I am a firm believer in a strategy partner and a mentor and a coach. I mean, that's what I do. If, if I wouldn't believe that, then maybe I should get out of this business at the same time. Um, play to your strengths. Make sure that you, and, and get advice for the things that you don't know because you can Google all you [00:14:00] want and do that 24 7, but maybe somebody has already experienced and can just.
Geert: Help you accelerate your growth. And then if it's not your strength, let's see who we can find to add to your team. If the funding is there and if the budget is there, et cetera, if we don't have the funding or budget net, not yet, and you still need to do it yet, then of course. Uh, you know, step up and try it and, uh, and be okay with the experiment mindset in startup world.
Geert: Uh, the experiment mindsets, we, we do an experiment, we evaluate, we see what, you know, it's, it's fail fast in order to succeed soon. I think it's what they say, right?
Mehmet: Absolutely. And this is also brought to my, to my mind, a, you know, kind of a question, or maybe it's more a, a, uh, something that I noticed I've seen founders who were humble And you know, of course they didn't give up, but they understood after a couple of years, maybe, and when I say couple of years, sometimes it might take them 10 years.
Mehmet: They said, you know what? [00:15:00] We brought the business to, to this phase, but we think we should stay. We should go back maybe to become maybe in the product, uh, part, like, uh, Chief product officer or chief technology officer and let me bring someone who is like a veteran experience And they did well and I saw i've seen also like stubborn founders who said no, no, no, no No, I know it better than anyone else and no one can run this company And actually, you know, we we can I can say from my perspective they go to hit the wall now This is you know Staying humble g like it's also I think correct me if i'm wrong staying humble while also You How do you keep the belief that you had initially is very important.
Mehmet: Like how, how, how do you think, you know, they can manage emotionally because I know there's a lot of emotions that comes here. So from emotional intelligence, if you want to call it, it's important to have that, [00:16:00] uh, not only the IQ, the EQ also as well to be able to take such big decisions.
Geert: Yeah, I agree with you.
Geert: With it. It takes a different kind of leader or let's say different kind of skills, maybe if you will, to, to get the company going and then when the company is going and growing at one point, you need systems and processes and maybe you're just not a system and processes person and, and, and you want to basically, you always growing right with everything that you do, but if you really feel it's not your wheelhouse, find people with other strengths and then, How do you, how do you make such big decisions?
Geert: I think first of all, it's, it's listen, listen to yourself, listen to feedback. And, and that takes getting quiet and taking time because I see a lot of business owner running day to day, just being in it, being the artist, if you, if you will, uh, doing the thing that you're great [00:17:00] at, but not taking the time and to evaluate, you know, and, and it, it takes time to evaluate.
Geert: And then of course. Um, getting some feedback, some honest feedback, maybe from outside. Um, also the people who are talking to you and want the best for you. And then of course you have to make a decision and say, what's best for the company, what's best for me and what, and it's also a timing thing, right?
Geert: Sometimes people say that, yeah, you know, you should do a, B or C, but you're still in it, so it is really situation dependent. But I really think outside feedback and taking the time to listen, listen to your feeling, listen to what other people are saying, and then putting that on paper and just looking at that for a while.
Geert: And so slowing down and taking the time to slow down and actually to work on your company and not in your company. I think it's a super, um, habit from, uh, from successful business owners.
Mehmet: Absolutely. You know, like slowing [00:18:00] down sometimes it's very needed. And I can say not only within, uh, in the company building perspective, like it applies on, on, on many things also as well.
Mehmet: Now, when, while I was preparing, uh, G you know, I've seen that you have the impact for growth system. Okay. And then you mentioned. Something, you know, this term really excited me. Tune up the engine, right? Yes. So can you tell me more about. The tune up the engine, what it said and how it can contribute to a sustainable growth because sustainable growth, something very important.
Mehmet: And, you know, we know that growth is nothing. It's not like something you can do it overnight. It's something you need to plan it. So walk me through a little bit, the tune up engine.
Geert: Well, here's the thing, right? We. There are a few, there are a lot of things that we need to do to tune up an engine. First of all, do you have [00:19:00] systems?
Geert: Do you have processes? Do, do you, are you, or are you just, you know, uh, still in a, in startup scale of mod doing everything that you can at the time. So, so it is the more mature the company gets, the more systems we need because we grow as a company. We want to still deliver the same quality. So we want to tune up the engine in terms of systems, organizations, processes.
Geert: But we also want to look at data. Data is super important. And, um, even, even in startup world, right? I mean, it's, it's, we look at data and data tells us the things without the emotional, uh, reactions that we might have. I mean, if you look at, uh, Max Verstappen, for example, I don't know if you know F1. Um, I, I think the listeners do, right?
Geert: Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton. Yeah, of course. Why are these? Yeah, of course. So, so why are these guys? So good at what they do. I mean, I remember the race of Max Verstappen when he became a world champion. [00:20:00] Like in, in round 52, it was like, oh no, he's, he's going to lose. But, but you know, the team, they look at the data, they, even though they know, uh, that they have tires and marks can feel it, they still look at the tire pressure.
Geert: They look at. Everything. So looking at data and seeing what that tells us, and then seeing the patterns in the data and then forming a strategy on it is also super important to, to basically tune your engine. Now, a race car goes fast and, you know, speed equals. Uh, let's say sponsors and sponsors mean cash and cash means that you can grow and you can innovate.
Geert: Well, if you tune your engine and you look at the data, but you don't put in the gas and you don't make sure that you don't have the speed though, then you have, then you have an issue, right? So. Tuning the engine also means how do you get customers? How do you, how do you get them through the funnel from no like and by, and what are your [00:21:00] processes and how do you make sure that people get to know you and understand you and, uh, and then want to do business and then become the ambassadors.
Geert: Uh, that you really want to have for your business. So there are a lot of things that we do in tuning the engine to make sure that, that it starts to work. And then actually as a management team, as a business owner, you can work more on the business and you have the people in your business. To drive the company forward, uh, while you look at the strategy and, and, and be more in control.
Mehmet: Absolutely. And, you know, I'm happy you mentioned about, you know, what they, they, how they need to think about building the business where they can get the customers and so on. And I believe this is one of the make it or fail it, uh, thing that probably struggle in. And, you know, personally, I speak with a lot of founders, [00:22:00] uh, at least in, in my area, in my region here, and I see some struggle sometime and I see, you know, some kind of, uh, lack of visibility.
Mehmet: And sometimes they do mistakes when it comes to coming up with the best business models. So in your experience, Gene, what are some common mistakes you see companies, startups in general do when it comes to choosing a business model that can actually, it will be part of this tuning up the engine. So, and how they can overcome these, these mistakes usually?
Geert: Well, business models Um, at one point they start, right? So first of all, uh, of all is always, I think, evaluating the business model. Is it still working? Um, I, you know, there are a lot of in the, in the internet world for coaching. There is a lot of this high end offers. And now you see that the business [00:23:00] models are migrating to more low ticket offers because people don't want to spend that much.
Geert: So it's, it's looking outside, outside and see what are the business models that your clients actually in love with and how you can attract them. And then also being creative, right? Is it, can you go to a subscription model? I mean, we've, we've seen bigger companies like. Adobe, I believe that one time had a licensing fee and now are on the subscription model.
Geert: There's a lot of subscription models going around right now. So I think, um, really looking at the business model, also looking at partners, for example, right in your business model, it might be a initial fee and then a recurring fee, but then what can you do with your partners? I believe that it really pays to.
Geert: Stay innovative, stay thinking about your business model, see what's going around and then having a session and not only with, uh, let's say the sales, but do it with your whole team and maybe use something like the business [00:24:00] model canvas, which I talked about in the beginning, which is a tool. I think it's, it's, it's well known in the startup world.
Geert: If not, I can give you the link that you can put under here. It's not my thing. It's, it's actually. Uh, developed by Alex Osterwalder, but it's a cool tool where you can just draw your business model and make iterations of it. And, um, he he's, he's got a great book. I think, um, yeah, we can make a link, uh, to that.
Geert: If that makes sense, do you know, do you know the business model generation and the business model canvas?
Mehmet: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, actually if people are familiar with the lean startup canvas also as well. So it's like, actually they took it from there. They modified it a little bit to fit the lean business model.
Mehmet: And this is, you know, every time someone comes to me with an idea, the first thing I tell them, go either use the, you know, the business model canvas or the lean, if you prefer like the lean startup model and go see if you can answer actually the points that it's on, on that camera. And actually if people are going to put a link over [00:25:00] there for all, you know, the both of them, the most used ones.
Mehmet: So basically if you can answer these questions, Actually, you have, you have a business model idea. I mean, because one of the things that is how first you're going to acquire your customers directly through partners, right? And the second thing, your distribution, maybe what you were talking about G I think, and actually you can validate the idea because you know, the idea is pretty much related to the business model.
Mehmet: And this is here. It's applies by the way to B2B and B2C. I don't think there is a huge difference because at the end of the day, people get a buy.
Geert: And for, for bigger companies, I mean, we talking about starters, but even scale ups or bigger corporates, it's like be critical of the business model and, and see what is going on outside and, and talk to your customers. I mean, at one point, these companies get bigger and, and, and suddenly there's, I mean, management doesn't talk to customers.
Geert: Why not? I mean, [00:26:00] talk to your customers a lot. See what they love and what is something that you can improve not only in your service, but also in your business model. And that just requires a lot of, uh, cups of coffee and some cool interaction with folks, but that helps you to provide the value and to drive and to keep innovating.
Mehmet: Absolutely. Now you mentioned something about, you know, shifting from perpetual licensing to, to SAS model or subscription model. And you mentioned that they have to go outside and be creative with that now, but. What could be the pitfalls of just copying a model without doing a proper study? Like how important it is to keep this communication, not only with the clients, also with, with the market.
Mehmet: I mean, like, do, do they have always to follow the trends or do you think they need to be creative in, in, in that business model?
Geert: Super creative because You know, if [00:27:00] your, if your business, if your, your structure is different than your competitors, you have a business, a different cost structure. You have a different way on how you deliver.
Geert: You have a different way on the customer experience. I mean, every bit, it might seem the same on the surface, but you have to stay creative and, and actually, uh, get your competitive advantage, right? So not all, not even. Same businesses don't have to have the same business model and might not even be a good idea from, um, from a business point of view.
Geert: So you, you not only have to think what are the business models out there, but you have to do a business case. And get your worst, your, your best case, and, and then maybe experiment even with a little part, because it's not to say that a business model that works for your competitor will actually work for you.
Geert: It also depends on the people that you have, the skills that you have. So you really have to look into what fits my company at this stage. To get to the goal that I want to achieve in one year, two [00:28:00] years, three years. And that requires brainstorming, thinking, experimentation.
Mehmet: Actually to this point, I've seen, you know, some people, you know, usually they say go in the opposite direction where everyone is going.
Mehmet: And I can't remember the company name, but, um, they decided to leave the subscription model because they said. When we offered the customers like kind of a one-time fee with a, uh, maintenance fee as it was before actually their sales system grew back again because they were, they were struggling in growing their numbers.
Mehmet: You know, 'cause everyone became obsessed with MRR and A R and all these, which are important. I'm not saying they are not important and actually it's one of the brilliant, uh, I mean, business models ever because it's like recurring generating revenue, which is. perfect, but it doesn't work all the time because sometimes people, uh, they don't like this idea and they want to have kind of a treat.[00:29:00]
Mehmet: Hey, give me good price. I will pay you this now and then just, you know, I'll pay you something on the long run and still they can have the, you know, the recurring revenue, which is, which is absolutely fine. Now saying that, gee, what push from my experience, what pushes companies sometimes to do this is some macroeconomics going on.
Mehmet: So they, they think, okay, maybe there is a, you know, a crisis coming on the way we need to, to adapt, you know, our business model to stay resilient. So, and here you start to see that leaders might do something Not too much logical. So how do you advise leaders to navigate through these periods of uncertainty and probably maybe sometimes change in their whole industry because maybe they are you know on the edge of a big disruption and we are living in the age of AI So how do you usually advise, you [00:30:00] know, these leaders to act in such moments?
Geert: Well, it's hard to say in general, right? But what, what you need to do is you need to investigate and be very curious with your management team. It's really. Um, okay. What's coming at us? What are the worst case? What are the best case? How can we use what's coming at us? How can we adapt and, and go with the flow?
Geert: Now, if there's a big crisis, nobody's buying anymore and you're waiting way too long with cutting down your costs, you might be in deep trouble. So it really requires not being complacent with what you have, but always thinking, okay, what is the next innovation? How can we be surprised? And what could we do?
Geert: What, what are our B. And see scenarios, although I know that some people say, let's go, you know, go one route, but it's really the thinking and then the experimentation and thinking, actually what the clients want, because what you said is totally true. Sometimes your clients don't want a subscription model and they're actually not that happy.
Geert: So it's really under this understanding the clients, uh, [00:31:00] better the customer better than they might always, let's say almost know themselves and, and, and understand what the pattern is across. And then if big changes happen, you know, take a deep breath and sit down with people and, and have also people from outside ask you questions and maybe things that you haven't thought of, because if you jump into one direction and actually that's just a panic, then that is not good, but sitting still not equal, equally, not either.
Geert: Right. So it really depends if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Does this
Mehmet: resonate with you? Yeah. Absolutely. 100%. I loved it. Actually. Now you mentioned, uh, now some practices, I would say, but, you know, usually when, when you sit with your, with your clients, I'm sure that there are like some, maybe Um, I don't like to call them rituals, but maybe some practices, maybe there are some resources that they can [00:32:00] always go to for having this continuous personal development.
Mehmet: Honestly speaking, I will tell you G and I'm a very transparent guy. You know, I was when I was younger, you know, I mean, in early twenties, looking at this personal development, I, you know, I was acting arrogant. I don't know. I know how to You know, grow myself by myself. But of course, over the years I learned no personal development is something very crucial But of course here i'm and this is why I do the podcast.
Mehmet: I ask the experts So i'm asking you g how do I keep as a leader whether in a startup scale up in big company? How do I keep this personal development something? You know, continuous, not, it's like something I do it once and then I leave it. What, what do you advise your clients usually to do?
Geert: Well, first of all, what do you like, where do you, what would like to grow?
Geert: It's it's, you know, if you have a strength in something, making that even better can actually be great. I mean, sometimes you don't want to work on the things that you're bad at because you're just, you know, you get [00:33:00] somebody else to help you with that and support you. What I personally do is, is I look at the things that I want to learn.
Geert: And I know that progress often is found there where I'm uncomfortable. And if I'm uncomfortable, that's like a signal to me. Okay. I have to grow there. And then to me is like, you know, um, fall in love with the process and the results will follow. So if back in the day when I was 20 kilos heavier, at one point I said, okay, this is enough.
Geert: I want to become better. And I said, okay, I'll fall in love with the process. I don't care if it takes 10 years, five years to get in better shape. I would just go to the gym and eat better. And I looked at that every day and every day I moved the needle a little bit. So I think in order personal development, this is like, where do you want to grow?
Geert: Where do you get energy and what, what is required? And if it's a little bit uncomfortable, maybe that's an area that you want to go to. And for your business, it's as [00:34:00] well, right? I believe that, that, that our standards that we set and the habits that we have, they create our results. And if you feel that the business is not performing, what standards are you setting?
Geert: Maybe it's a standard that you have and how you behave and how your leadership comes across. Maybe it's a habit that you have and you think, okay, I know that I have this habit. I need to change it. Right? So determine for yourself, where do I want to grow? Where am I uncomfortable? What standards do I have and what habits?
Geert: And you can do basically the same for a business. And then just say, what is one thing that I want to attack? You don't have to attack 10 things. What is the one thing that actually helps the most? And then just take your time. What a coincidence
Mehmet: is. Okay. So again, I'm transparent with, with you and the audience.
Mehmet: So this episode is published after almost two weeks and, or two weeks and half from the time of publishing this morning, you know, I'm going to [00:35:00] Something came to my mind about just what you mentioned about, you know, it doesn't matter how long it takes as long as you can measure it. And I said, I just wrote this morning a post saying like everyone is obsessed from zero to one.
Mehmet: While you should actually, of course it's important, but you should look at 0 to 0. 1 and even 0. 01 and keep doing this until you reach the one. So, just at least for me, this is how I look at it to motivate myself. And thank you for mentioning this, G, because I think always I remind myself and I try to remember to remind everyone that, hey guys, remember this.
Mehmet: You don't have something called overnight success. There's not comp, there's no one single company that, you know, achieved the zero to one really in, in, you know, one night or even one month, you know, it took them years to build this. And even if they had a quick success, you know, The founders themselves, they had struggled for a long [00:36:00] time until they, they came to, to, to the phase where they are today.
Mehmet: So thank you for reminding us about this and mentioning, you know, struggles and all this. And, you know, from, you gave us at the beginning some of, uh, these moments, but do you believe always, and this is important for leadership, I believe that Thaler Is a stepping stone to success. Should we always have this mindset or you tell me, no, Mehmet, you know what, like sometimes you fail and you fail.
Mehmet: So what do you think about that topic?
Geert: I think we all have our failures in, in, uh, in business. I mean, things we, we plan don't go the way we plan it or not to the level that we plan it. And then it's easy to look at everything that's wrong. Uh, you know, it's also at one point, I mean, it's okay to, to be not happy with something and just be human and, and all that stuff.
Geert: And then at one point, I [00:37:00] mean, what, what can you learn from it? Right. I mean, that's, that's, that to me, it's, and then whether you want to try again and you need to try again, that's a whole different ballgame, but. What can you learn? What is the, what is the, if the glass was half full, what, what can you learn from it?
Geert: And we all have the failures in life and in business. Uh, it's more, I think even the most successful people, they have failures, but it's their mindset around the failure. And then what they do with that, that takes them further, right? There are people who are in circumstances that we cannot even imagine and, and they achieve success.
Geert: And then there are people who are in much better circumstances. And, and, and I think that's mindset. And I'm, I'm not here to say that I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm human, right? I mean, I have my days and, and, and so does everybody. And sometimes it takes somebody to talk to, to see, Hey, but have you thought about this?
Geert: And then you take another step, take a deep breath and you go on, but [00:38:00] that's what your listeners will do anyway. Right. I think most important. This is to spend time on it with your leadership team with yourself and to say, okay, what's gone well, what's not gone so well. And what can we do to get closer to our goal and not spend all our time Googling and doing everything ourselves?
Geert: Can we speed up the process? If we want to speed up and sometimes we don't have to speed up and it's okay with the pace that we going, because I talked to some management teams and say, gee, I don't want to grow. I want to manage my grow growth. And I want to make sure that, um, you know, I can do other stuff as well.
Geert: And I think it's a, it's a fantasy to just only sit on an island and in five years, don't think about your business, but you can make a business machine. I mean, that's what I do with management teams. That is what I do with leaders is how can we get you out of the, the, the deep day today, and how can we get you more?
Geert: And with a management team, more of a, yeah, a machine basically. Love
Mehmet: that. And, you know, maybe I just. Keep [00:39:00] mentioning this quote from Edison too many times because for me, you know, I don't believe it's a failure to say learning a thing when he said like I didn't fail. I just discovered 99 ways that didn't work.
Mehmet: So, uh, absolutely. It's, it's matter of learning. The second thing you mentioned now, and I think I spoke to someone who told me the same thing. He said, You know, Mehmet, like, okay, everyone is also, you know, too much thinking how I can make the next big unicorn. Of course, I wish I can have my business to be a unicorn, but he mentioned something, you know, that really touched me.
Mehmet: And he said, I don't want to become a unicorn stepping on people and stepping on, you know, you know, being a unicorn at all costs. He said, no, I don't have to do this. I've been running the business for six, seven years. I know it might take me five, six more years to reach maybe a unicorn stage. I'm not in rush, you know, and I love this approach because the guy, you know, he's, he's very humble and he understood, [00:40:00] you know, this better than anyone else.
Mehmet: So thank you also for bringing this G. Now, as we are coming to close, I have two more things I need to ask you G. So first of all, how are you seeing, you know, the future of. You know, the business in general and the opportunities I had on entrepreneurs in the coming few years. Um, and where do you believe, you know, the key areas would be for entrepreneurs to take advantage for?
Geert: Well, what I do know is that there's a lot of knowledge out there and, and, and I think it's key to find the knowledge that fits you, the stage of your company. There are also a lot of people who are selling courses and courses, but what fits you? And of course, AI is, is changing the world like super fast.
Geert: So how can you use AI if you haven't thought about that? I mean, even writing letters, are you actually, when [00:41:00] you're listening to it, are you implementing AI to your benefit? And or not, or where can you speed up, uh, things that you find mundane or things that you don't want to do. So I think AI is going to create a big shift.
Geert: And if you're a leader and you say, yeah, but I don't have anything to do with AI, I think, well, maybe think maybe the letters that you write in any language, you can, you can speed up your, at least the brainstorming power of AI. Now there are also some dangers to AI. And so you have to be careful. And I wouldn't throw my whole future in it if I haven't thought it through, but I think that is really a big, big change.
Geert: And also, I think, you know, our connectiveness, it's just like, you don't have to have. Uh, somebody that supports you right next to you. You can just hop on a zoom call or a team's call and find anybody in the world. Well, that's not new, but the question is, are you doing it? So a lot of things I believe that growing a business or managing a business, they're not new.
Geert: It's more like [00:42:00] losing weight. It's, there's no secret that, that you need to eat less and work out more. The question is, what are you doing with the things that you already know? And maybe you have somebody that say, Hey, you know, I've been there or I've seen this tool. This is how you can speed up.
Mehmet: Absolutely. Finally, gee, is there anything, you know, you want to leave us with today and where people can. Get in touch with you and, you know, learn more about your work.
Geert: Um, well, I think, you know, as I, like I said before, it's, it's like whatever you want to achieve, whether it's managed, just managing your business, growing your business, growing yourself is fall in love with the process and the results will follow.
Geert: Then if you need somebody you know, to brainstorm with, or your management team to brainstorm with, and then to help you speed that up, you can always reach me, uh, at my website, which is, uh, ww w ima j o.com, which is, it's spelled I-M-A-G-E-J o.com. If you [00:43:00] want, I have like, uh, you can have Bitly. Slash in my jail.
Geert: And I'm sure that, uh, through your website or through this thing, you can also reach me, but I really want to thank you and the listeners for taking time to listen to this. And I hope there's just one thing. If, if you heard one thing that you thought, aha, now there's a lot of chance that you, that you heard something.
Geert: You think, okay, that that's something that I can do now. You can listen to this and not do anything, but you would make my day. If you just without my help or whatever, make a commitment to yourself and to take action. Because I think the difference between leaders that just dabble around and those who achieve something is, is they put their mind something they into something, they make a decision.
Geert: And then each day. They take a little bit of action so that they achieve some
Mehmet: absolutely, you know, taking actions. And as I was mentioning as well, small steps, you know,
Geert: uh,
Mehmet: and this is how I managed even [00:44:00] to lose weight, by the way. So congratulations. Yeah. So, so because I, if I said to myself, I need to lose 10 kg in, I don't know, in this amount of time.
Mehmet: So what I start to do same, of course, everyone knows, uh, good habits, eating well and exercising. And then, you know, I put into this process. So I start to put this habit, waking up early, because, you know, I don't want to say, Hey, I don't have time. So I start to wake up earlier than I usually do. So I don't have now, Hey, I don't have time.
Mehmet: No, I have time. I'm up for 30 a. m. in the morning. So yes, I can't complain. And then, yeah, as you mentioned, G, like it's if you put the process and you believe in the process and believe me, it's, you know, one day I wish we could have maybe more episodes like this with you probably talk about this, you know, building the habits also as well.
Mehmet: So this is very important, I believe for technology leaders, for any leader and for founders.
Geert: Any leader for personal life, but also for business. If you really believe that the [00:45:00] business needs to needs to be better, what is the process? What are the little steps that we can take day by day to make the business better and to grow?
Mehmet: 100%. And for the audience, don't worry about the website that G mentioned, you will find all this in the show notes. So I will make your life easier. So you can go and check, check it out. G really, I enjoyed today's, uh, discussion with you and conversation with you. And, you know, again, as I always say, I learned a lot of things and I hope also the audience, uh, have learned many things.
Mehmet: And I liked your call to action at the end, start doing something, take action. This is the best takeaway, I would say ever I had on any episode in my show. So thank you very much for sharing that. And this is for the audience. So if you just discovered this podcast by luck, thank you for passing by if you did so Please subscribe and share it with as many as people you [00:46:00] can friends family colleagues And if you are one of the followers who keep coming Thank you very much for your trust and for all the support you show to me.
Mehmet: I really appreciate it and stay tuned For more episodes coming very soon. Thank you very much for tuning in and we'll meet again very soon. Thank you. Bye. Bye