SEO Podcast The Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing

Innovative Coaching Techniques for Personal and Professional Transformation with Adrian Koehler

• bestseopodcast.com • Episode 635

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Courageous conversations and addressing blind spots are key for leaders to overcome challenges and unlock potential. In this episode, Adrian Koehler highlights authentic communication, emotional intelligence, and marketing strategies.

• The power of courageous conversations
• Overcoming leadership blind spots
• How the "law of deservingness" affects self-sabotage
• Genuine connection in coaching
• Standing out in digital marketing
• Aligning authenticity with audience engagement
• Coaching for true transformation
• Difficult discussions that drive growth

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Guest Contact Information: 

- https://takenewground.com/

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriankoehler

- https://www.instagram.com/adrian.k

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The Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing podcast is a podcast hosted by Internet marketing expert Matthew Bertram. The show provides insights and advice on digital marketing, SEO, and online business. 

Topics covered include keyword research, content optimization, link building, local SEO, and more. The show also features interviews with industry leaders and experts who share their experiences and tips. 

Additionally, Matt shares his own experiences and strategies, as well as his own successes and failures, to help listeners learn from his experiences and apply the same principles to their businesses. The show is designed to help entrepreneurs and business owners become successful online and get the most out of their digital marketing efforts.

Find more great episodes here: https://www.internetmarketingsecretspodcast.com/  

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Speaker 1:

This is the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. Your insider guide to the strategies top marketers use to crush the competition. Ready to unlock your business full potential, let's get started.

Speaker 2:

Howdy, welcome back to another fun-filled episode of the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. I am your host. Matt Bertram, to continue our series of the movers and shakers that are going on in the industry, brought somebody no better than a business coach. Matt Bertram, to continue our series of the movers and shakers that are going on in the industry, brought somebody no better than a business coach. An executive coach worked with some of the top brands Adrian Kaler with Take New Ground dot com. He's worked with Nike, oppenheimer, broadcom, goldcorp I mean the list goes on. It's super impressive. You've coached some of the top executives dealing with conflict, all kinds of things, from transitions, exits, all over the place. So, adrian, just credentialize yourself real quick and we can get into some of some of these issues that maybe, uh, the audience is dealing with. We got a lot of, uh, other agency owners that that listen uh, as well as, um, uh, small businesses and large businesses. Uh, we're, we got a pretty uh wide variety of listeners.

Speaker 3:

So that's great, matt. Great to have me on. Thank you. Thank you really appreciate it. I love what I do. I get to help very ambitious, brilliant people generate results that for some reason for lots of reasons there are things in the way that they can't see. So I come in and just decode all that and help them understand what they're not seeing. And it's a series of inquiries. I've been doing this for a long time 15 years. I've been in the people business forever and the through line for my whole career is being with people in moments of crisis and helping them take courageous action.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Take courageous action. You know that's one of the biggest things Like if you don't step out there and really take massive action in what you're doing, you're not going to move the needle. Like you know, people are at a kind of a point where you got to get that momentum going. You got to get the ball rolling on some stuff and you got to break through different layers.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, because people we can't, we don't know what we don't know, right, we know what we, we know what we don't. Sorry, we know what we don't know, we know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know. Does that?

Speaker 3:

make sense, so it's like there are invisible things I was saying earlier that are in the way for folks and we're like. You know the whole old metaphor it's like the fish can't see the water that they're swimming in. Because it's my perspective. Humans don't often question their own perspective because they can't see it, because it's so them. They've had it forever. I'm 44. I've had my view of the world for 44 years.

Speaker 3:

I don't know other views of the world unless I get really curious about it and ask myself certain questions and then are willing to insult my previous certainty. And we all have things we know are true quote unquote know are true. That's our previous certainty and that's what's in our way. So you have to have someone that's willing to offend you, are willing to question you out of love. Hopefully. That's how. That's the way we do it.

Speaker 3:

We call it fierce advocacy is that we get really clear on the future that the person or the team or the company's committed to, and then we get really sober about reality and that's and and the future they're committed to and the current reality are not as close as they think. It's much farther than they think, which is offensive and might even be despairing for folks. But if they've got the right tools in place and they build the right culture, then that's really thrilling for folks. But you know, we don't learn this stuff in business school. We don't learn this stuff, you know, reading a book necessarily, because that's just content. We don't get connected to our context and how we're seeing the world. So that's that usually is what generates the breakthrough for folks.

Speaker 2:

You know, I think that a lot of people do have blinders on for whatever, whatever they're not seeing and whatever's not happening, or whatever is happening and why it's happening right. So you have those blinders and getting that perspective on that, I think it's good to say, hey, this is going to be a hard conversation. Before it's a hard conversation, I think calling it out is really, really important so they can brace themselves, I guess. But you're not sugarcoating it. How do you evaluate that? When you start to work with somebody to give them that third-party perspective, I guess they first have to accept it. I need this. How do you approach that relationship to get into that place with somebody?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that would be one of my specialties, I would say, at least on my team, and it sets me apart, you know, in my experience in the industry and hard to scale for folks. But the principle there is that if you can understand someone's pain and put language to it better than they can, you win. So we all have difficulties and as human beings we want less of them. And so there are things we choose not to notice. We don't know, we're choosing not to notice. It's almost subconscious for us. It's just what we're avoiding, what we're omitting, what we're just choosing not to see, and we're definitely choosing not to see the implications. So, for example, let's say you're running an agency and you've got five people that you work with and you know in your heart of hearts that the first person you hired, who's your buddy, isn't doing it. They're not delivering and probably they can't, probably the business has outgrown them. But you're not saying okay, how much time and energy is this costing me? You know kind of carrying, you know Todd around or whoever works for you. You know carrying him around and like paying him for really not doing much. How much time and energy is this costing me over the next five years. Most folks don't ask themselves that question, but that's a lot of pain, you know meaning. Like that's bad, quote, unquote bad. And if I consider that, then it provokes me to have the conversation that I'm unwilling to have with Todd or whatever you know. It's like I don't know if this is a good fit. I care about you, man, but this is. I think it's time, you know, and there's loving ways to have tough conversations which I always, you know, commit to have with folks because they they, they get it that I'm there for them.

Speaker 3:

I'm not like pointing this out as a gotcha moment. I understand that life's tough. We all want to. We have what we call four survival needs looking good, feeling good, being right, being in control. Those are gravity for the human being. We all want to do those things at all times and it's a different volume level for different folks. Some folks, you know, if you're listening, you're thinking about who in your life really wants to look good, who in your life really wants to feel good, who in your life really wants to be right, who in your life really wants to be in control. We all have those things, some people more than others. So I know that when I'm talking to somebody, so I know that like a touchy quote, unquote touchy conversation is going to illuminate that. But I I get that if I'm with them in the fall, the fall is easier.

Speaker 3:

The fall meaning like moving from out of ego and like how they look and and they get the fact that it's like, yeah, man, you're, you're really lying a lot Like you're full of it. It's okay, it's okay Now. Do you want to sleep better at night, is the question. Do you want to be more proud? Do you want to be more proud of yourself? Do you want to have actual trust and connection on your team? Yeah, good.

Speaker 2:

Then you got to be messier than you want to be. Man. Adrian, you're like going into the wounds right.

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean, for a lot of people that's like heavy stuff. For me it's. It's liberation, man, if I can, if, uh, you know, uh, what did Young say? Carl Young, you know very popular psychotherapist. He said if you want your branches to go to heaven, your roots must go to hell. Which is like if you want the glory, you got to touch all the stuff you don't want to touch. But if we do, but we live in such an honor shame conversation like either I'm good or I'm bad, or it just is Like if we get out of the assessment or get out of the like moralization of what should be happening and how should I be, and how do I make my dad proud, blah, blah, blah. Whatever your story is, get out of that. Just befriend current reality. It's okay, whatever's happening is perfect.

Speaker 2:

So, adrian, I'm going to throw this out there and you may not have heard of it. This was like a PhD, like therapist guy talked about something called the law of deservingness. Have you ever heard this? Nope, okay. So like, based upon whatever anybody thinks of themselves, right, that once they get to that certain place, they self-sabotage because they and it's probably called something, you probably have it, it's called something else, but but essentially they self-sabotage to fall below that line because they don't want to rise above it, because they have some, they have some kind of internal fear that it's literally they. There's this law of deserveness and and you've got to break, you've got to break some of those wounds to break, you got to break some of those wounds, you got to address some of those things to break out of it because you don't think you deserve that much, right? So, like, if you have this kind of success, you, you self-sabotage. I don't know yeah, what became?

Speaker 3:

it became vogue, I don't know, 10 years ago, to start talking about the imposter syndrome. That's what became very popular and which is? I call that a racket. Racket meaning like a transaction I'm having with reality, with myself, right, and it's under the table, right. So if I say I can't surpass this law of deservedness or I've got the imposter syndrome, well, and people will complain about that, like I don't want to have it, but there's so many payoffs, so many payoffs to like this law of deservedness or this imposter syndrome.

Speaker 3:

This is why you know me and my business partners. We cut our teeth in the working in the criminal justice system. So you know I've been doing this work with executives. 15 years before that, I worked with murderers in prison and that's when I hired a guy named dan tacchini, who's my partner, who's 70 years old, who's brilliant um, and he'd been doing work in the criminal justice system where if, if someone had gone through his training, the chances of that person coming back to prison goes from 98% down to 12%. So they call that the recidivism rate, like if you get out how much, what's the percentage you'll come back.

Speaker 3:

Because prisons is a criminal factory. It's not like a rehabilitation center. They train people how to be criminals because of the context, and so we know. I mean here's a saying in our because of that work. A saying in our, in our work today, is all of us are criminals and some of us are just more arrestable than others. So I know that if someone is hiding behind the law of deservedness, they're lying to themselves I either being criminal and they're lying to other people.

Speaker 3:

Now a therapist will say oh, isn't that an excuse to not write on whatever they want to do, and yeah, I mean a therapist that believes in Freud will say, oh, isn't that hard, I'm so sorry it's in that hard. And I'll say, oh, you're full of shit, man, it's okay. You know, if you want to get past it, let's just. Let's act like the law of deservingness is bullshit, you know. Let's say that's what you use to justify your lack of action. Is there anything worth putting yourself at stake? That'd be my question. For the person let's say you fail, let's say, let's say you're not worth it. Who gives a shit? Who decided that anyway? Was that god? Was that your family of origin? Was that culture? Who? Who's running your life? Man, you or other people? Let's talk about it. You know that, because that's the core conversation about where they decide. I mean, who gets to decide what they're worth? You know. So it's really odd, because I work with all business leaders, but we go here because this is the core of everything. This is like human stuff and we act like business is transactional and what's the strategy and what's the plan? That's cool, but it's always a human being behind what's possible.

Speaker 3:

And I stand with folks to redefine what's possible, which is risky, which will put people into survival, which is if people don't know how to manage their own mentality, they're in trouble. It shuts down possibility for them. So I'm provoking what's possible for them. I mean, I'll often say to people in a seminar or in a one-on-one conversation I'll say, listen, you're going to fight for what's not possible, I'm going to fight for what is possible. Who do you want to win? Which is obviously an unfair gambit. The answer is me. But you know they show up and they start to explore things and then in detail, explore what's necessary, what's's wanted, needed to make that thing happen, which is usually conversations. They don't want to have actions, they don't want to take, you know, responsibility. They don't want to. You know, uh, consider and uh, but if they do all those things, man, things just open, wide up fascinating, fascinating, fascinating.

Speaker 2:

So can you give me some examples of like stories, that that where you've addressed these deep issues and it's just unlocked, uh, like all?

Speaker 3:

this potential, sure? Well, the first one that comes to mind. Obviously I'll leave names and company yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know, I got called in, let's see, had this work. I was coaching a gal at Nike. Her significant other was working at this company and and worked for the COO of this. Well, I guess the head of operations of this company. She wasn't COO yet. I coached her so she became COO and there was a new CEO at that company and the CTO this is a little bit complicated, I guess who was also the founder was really struggling, if that makes sense. So there's a founder who's the smartest one of the smartest engineers in the world had founded this company. There was a new CEO and we sat down together to talk about how this guy was struggling. Cool, so hear all that.

Speaker 3:

The next step is for me to talk to this guy. I talked to this guy, brilliant guy, and he's very confessional. He's very buttoned up. He's an engineer, right, so he's like hyper left-brained. But in my conversation with him we get to the point where he's in tears. That's not the point to be in tears, but he's like feeling the fact that he's killing the thing he's built. And this is like a world-class, well-known company. We connect, we started doing some coaching work together.

Speaker 3:

Um, things open up for him Eventually. Maybe to your point earlier. Eventually he actually wants to run the company but he hadn't yet owned the fact that he could do it. He was just kind of smart tech guy and you know, eventually helped him run the company and, you know, opened up that whole conversation for him, ended up working, you know, on multi levels, multi layers, you know, to help this company be successful, you know. So that's kind of you know all starts at a patio talking about real stuff like what's really going on, which even you know I was a stranger to him when we shook hands. But you know, 40 minutes later we're in the most vital, one of the most vital conversations in his life.

Speaker 3:

But most folks won't press into that. Most folks are going to like talk about, you know org structure and you know origin story all day long. Instead of what someone's committed to, you know we are annoyingly committed to the future at Take New Ground. You know we just. You know your history is interesting to you, for sure, and might be resourceful, but it's all about how you relate to your history. That makes it helpful, makes it resourceful. Otherwise, your history is your favorite excuse, because who cares what happened yesterday except for you? But how are you using yesterday and what's the impact of that on the future? So we're annoyingly cut through all the you know complexity or you know complications. I would call it more than complexity because things are naturally complex, but they're complicated when human beings get involved, because we throw our emotions into everything and our significances and everything and all that kind of stuff. So we will absorb the complexity but really diminish the complications.

Speaker 2:

Why do you think these kind of conversations are so hard for people to have like day to day?

Speaker 3:

Oh, cause we don't want to die as human beings. You know death, death is the ultimate right. Um, you know it's like we're. We're all going to end up dying, matt, matt, you're going to end up dying. Everybody in our life's going to end up dying. My dog that's sitting next to me is going to die. My kids are going to die. All that's reality. We're all going to die and we don't want to face that.

Speaker 3:

And in the midst of all these like transitions or you know these, these moments in time, it is a reflection of the death, of, like you know, and most folks don't believe in the power of resurrection I do like dying is actually the best thing. Dying to a bad idea is the best idea, but most folks want to hold on for a long time to prove themselves right, and you can either be right or be successful. That's your call. You know, if you're not, if you don't believe that you are an iterative process, and if you don't believe that inside of Adrian, inside of Matt, there are several Matts, there's several Adrian. Some of them are awesome, some of them are productive, some of them are generative and effective, some of them aren't.

Speaker 3:

I know the versions of me that don't produce effective outcomes. And I know them, I can see them when they show up. They show up as thinking and we are our ideas. The ideas we have end up becoming who we are. So it's good to shine the light on the versions of ourselves that produce the futures we don't want, and most folks don't want to do that because they don't want to. I guess befriend the idea that dying on a daily basis to our bad ideas is the best idea.

Speaker 2:

So one of the quotes that you've said is most coaching is bullshit. Yeah. Could you dig into that a little bit more?

Speaker 3:

Everybody's listening knows exactly what I mean. I mean you've probably met coaches which are kind of like guys in a really cheap suit. You know that, worked at ibm or something and went to some seminar somewhere and got some certificate and can walk you through a five-step process to do xyz, but they don't have any guts, they won't take you where you're unwilling to go. And so when I say most coaching is bullshit, it's because it just treats symptoms or just adds ideas. It's kind of like putting icing on a shit sandwich. It's still a shit sandwich. We got to take this thing apart and be brave enough to do the harder work instead of trying to make it seem better. You know what I mean. So it's like most folks treat symptoms and that just. You know that actually satisfied you could sell that it's so great to sell, that you know it's great to sell solutions instead of getting to causal issues. That takes guts, that takes time, investment. You know that. You know that takes willingness, that takes courage and it's easier not to.

Speaker 3:

You know, jump into those conversations. I mean most coaches are great people. I mean I don't know many of them. Um, I always get that question about hey, how many you know? Question about other coaches. I don't know any of them because they're just not my people. So most coaching is bullshit because it doesn't work. And uh, you know, I've, I've, since I've been in this industry for whatever 15 years. Uh, back then it used to be like this distinction between life coaches which, whatever that is. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And, and you know executive coaches, but most of them are very you know what's the word I was going to say Paradigmatic. I don't think that's a word, but they have some kind of shtick that they do no matter who walks into the room, instead of dealing with what's there and taking time and connecting with the person and realizing every person's background is full of nuances that if you don't know how to pay attention, you won't catch it.

Speaker 2:

No, I, I, I do know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3:

I'm not going to speak to it.

Speaker 2:

Um, uh, yeah, I don't. I I'm not going to speak directly to it, but I can tell you that, um, my, uh, my business partner was coached for a number of years by a, a business coach that certainly had a certain methodology that, no matter who walked into the room, they that's they did the same thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's right, and and it was, you know it. It worked for him, I guess. I don't know, but it yeah, I can tell you. I went to one of the meetings and I was pretty taken back by uh, there was, there was no level of connection, there was no customization. It was kind of like a script that just went down the list and said, okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, cool, here's, here's here's here here.

Speaker 3:

I flash. I flash back to like 1986 maybe, when I'm six years old and remember those like Play-Doh things. Remember Play-Doh was like cool and you put the put the Play-Doh in the thing and you just squish it down. It's just such like a, it's a factory. It's like okay, here's my context, all right, so here's my content, here's what I do. Here's my formula for success, or whatever they'll call it to sell it. Here's my formula. Let me just put you in this, and then here's the outcome. Well it was a franchise.

Speaker 2:

So it was a franchise business coach. So that's all I'm going to say. Okay, so you've developed, probably some methodologies that you use loosely right like there's got to be a path, there's got to be buoys sure you follow.

Speaker 3:

Well, there are print, there are principles that guide us. There's principles that guide us.

Speaker 2:

Yes, could you? Could you kind of open, open the door on that a little bit?

Speaker 3:

sure? Uh, it won't sound that sophisticated in this context, but I'll let you know the principles that guide us. Let's see. I mean, first thing is obviously the future, as I've already talked about. So we get the future crystal clear and if I'm asking questions about the future, all of the BS is going to hit the table immediately, because there are not only there are gaps in what's missing, but there's also tons of reasons why there are gaps, which is where all the BS is. And when I say BS, I don't judge it, I just like it's just so inauthentic and it's not productive. So even if we just get in a really authentic conversation about what somebody wants and we just call vision is a future worth having. So that's what vision is for us. Like what do we really want? Like not like what do you want? But what do you like really want? Like, not like.

Speaker 3:

I rarely talk about goals with my clients because goals are usually notions that would be great, instead of something that one is committed to, because there are things that they really want that would require courage and would require them to actually manage lead challenge, maybe fire or whatever ie risk. There's like lots of dragons on that quest that they might not want to face. So it's good to illuminate all that and just put our arms around all that. You know it's like, just accept all that, like yes, okay, here's what I really want and here's all the stuff I've told myself up until now I shouldn't have to deal with, which is how most leaders talk about it, like I just shouldn't have to babysit these people. They're professionals, I pay them a lot of money, blah, blah, blah, and therefore I take myself out of the responsibility of being a leader, which is to transform people.

Speaker 3:

Most people think leadership is to get somewhere. No, leadership is to generate results through other people. So their complications, whatever's going on for them, is on you. That's your job. You got to illuminate that and know how to navigate it. Most folks don't know how to navigate it, so they don't illuminate it. So first thing is we get the future really clear. Second is we get current reality really sober. So what's happening now? Not what you tell your investors, not what you tell your board, not what you tell your wife at home what's really going on? And we think about it through this paradigm.

Speaker 3:

So let's see, if we were in a seminar, I'd draw on the board P plus E, plus O over C. Word p plus e, plus o over c. So that is pat, p is the patterns, because we're all patterned people. We all have ways in which we think and do and behave and result and all that kind of things. Those are all patterns. Most folks aren't aware of those things. It's good to know them and I can help folks see their patterns.

Speaker 3:

Um, o, o is is omissions. There are things and when we're communicating there are things in which we don't share, and some of them we're conscious of, some of them we're unconscious of. My job is to turn the lights on. Let's talk about it. And how do we omit those things? Because we emphasize the E is emphasis. And how do we omit those things? Because we emphasize the E is emphasis. We emphasize on whatever the thing is like, the quarterly numbers or the market trends or the blah, blah, blah, whatever that we spend time. It's kind of like look at this and don't look at this. There's always emphasis, there's always omission. So we illuminated all that all over. What makes that meaningful is all over context, meaning what the aim is. So once we've got the vision clear, I can understand not only the current reality of the business, but also the current reality of the person, and that will illuminate the gap by which we will then be venturing. So that's kind of the, that's the conversational process. That's what's happening. They're not that aware of it as I am, but that's how I'm listening. When I'm on a phone call with somebody or in a meeting with somebody, I'm listening for those things, because the breakthroughs happen in those moments of revelation. I guess I'd call it I'm not there teaching stuff. I could teach stuff all day long, but it won't make a difference. Even though it might be compelling and very inspiring and very impressive, it just won't make a difference.

Speaker 3:

They have to come to their own revelation self-revelation yeah, which is distinct from you know, learning or insight. It's like, oh shit, I know this. Now I can't go back from knowing this. You know, and that's what I'm. That's what we're always going for is like epiphany level work with people, with people's. Why most coaching? Because they do that mechanistic thing that you're describing. There's no revelation in there at all. They're just maybe learning something which doesn't change a human being.

Speaker 3:

Think about the book you read 10 years ago. You can't, because you don't even know what it was, because it didn't matter, it didn't change your life. We're going for that. So that's what we're up to, and it comes from a type of listening. So there's like three other kind of principles always going on behind the scenes for us, which the first one is that people react to the world according to the way the world occurs to them. People react to the world according to the way the world occurs to them. People react to the world according to the way the world occurs to them. So you know who? Was it? Benjamin Franklin or somebody? Perceptions reality. True, the way I see things. I think that's the way that it is and we're not apt to question ourselves, because that's the way we see things and this is what I think, this is what I want, this is what I know, this is what I need. We just live in that paradigm. So that's the first thing. People react according to the way the world occurs for them. Secondly, the world occurs for people in language. So I am always in a conversation with a client, potential client, whomever. I'm listening to them in ways no one else probably has ever listened to them. I'm really paying attention, because their language will reveal their paradigm, the way the world occurs to them. And there are things. Always when I'm talking to somebody, there are things that aren't working or things that aren't happening that they say they want to have happening. So that's the second thing the world happens for us in language. The third one's where the money is.

Speaker 3:

Future-based language creates present state. Right, future-based language creates present state. So we live into the future that we see coming always. So if I say this meeting is going to suck, trust me, my brain will do its job. My brain will make sure I'm right.

Speaker 3:

Or if I say this person is a shyster, I will be listening for the way the person's a shyster and even if they're generous and sweet and caring, I won't even notice that because it doesn't show up according to my agenda, my agenda, which we don't own. It like that. My agenda is to prove myself right. Like the brain is a passive writer, it follows your intention, either conscious or unconscious. So people live into the future they see coming. So those are some principles behind our conversations, and then we always just jump in fresh years. I don't know this person, I don't know this background, but we're going to get to reality pretty quickly. So that's kind of the process. Obviously, we have a lot of things we do with companies based on what's wanted and needed, but that's always where we're coming from and that's what makes us both dangerous and a great investment.

Speaker 2:

No, I just enjoy listening to you. I'm sure someone listening definitely needs this conversation, or?

Speaker 3:

I love to talk to anybody you know.

Speaker 2:

Can you maybe describe some different examples where where you could come in and offer a lot of help? I know, uh, on your website, uh, one area is transitions, right, um, from pre to post mergers. Uh, high staff churn, founder exits. You also talk about KPIs. Um, you know, breaking down silos, uh, investor tensions. Can you just maybe break down some scenarios of areas where it makes sense to engage you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we love working with founder-driven companies. We've worked with big Fortune 500, fortune 100 companies, but our favorites are to work with founder-driven companies because I think entrepreneurs are the best. Yeah, they're also the messiest, which makes them great. You know they're always brilliant and action oriented and spirited and usually very dramatic. It's always fun. Founder driven companies are the best and you know they are usually the less structured and you know there's a lot of work to do. So we love working with those types of companies because there are some natural patterns I would say that come through those companies, right.

Speaker 3:

So somebody starts something. A founder, a brilliant person starts something and let's say they're successful. They usually actually don't want to run the company. They were quote unquote successful in starting. That's like their dirty secret. It's like I actually don't want to be a CEO quote successful and starting. That's like their dirty secret. It's like I actually don't want to be a ceo. I. I rarely meet a founder that actually wants to be ceo. They just are.

Speaker 3:

And there's a lot of conversations baked in that, several layers to that, but that's usually a conversation we'll get into right away. Because they don't want to manage people, they don't want to run meetings, they don't want to run a pnl, they don't want to do all these things, they just wanted, wanted to start the thing. They're like a pioneer and there's usually these dynamics where the pioneer, even though they started this thing that's successful, end up still pioneering. You know why they're a pioneer they like starting things. So there's usually lots of dynamics between there's a pioneer that's out here and there's a home base that's here and there's not a lot of productive conversation between the two and typically a ton of resentment. So that creates the need for at least two major things. One is some agreement from both parties about what's wanted and needed to make these things connected. Also mostly not dealt with by consultant types is the relational dynamic, meaning if you've got a group that's decided to resent a founder, that's a big deal to get under the hood.

Speaker 3:

You know we don't talk about concepts like forgiveness and business very often, but we need to because that's usually what's holding a business back from new results is the willingness to say what needs to be said and then get off it like forgive a person, start fresh. So you know there can be a whole. I mean, everybody that's listening knows what it's like to be in a company where there's so many elephants in every meeting that nobody's talking about. They're not talking about in the meeting, because that would take some courage. They're talking about the water cooler. They're talking about an email. They're talking about it in Slack. They're just not talking about it when it matters, which when the other person is there, because folks don't have character, you know. But we'll call folks to get really honest, which requires character and integrity and authenticity, and this whole idea of like living your word. Like you know, do I speak the truth or do I not speak the truth? I only speak the truth when it serves me. I don't speak the truth when I'm at risk and that's back to being just human stuff. So, you know, we like working with those types of companies because it's the very common patterns. We've seen it hundreds of times. We know what to do. I mean everybody's distinct, but there are patterns at play that always happen there.

Speaker 3:

You know, we worked in the big companies and we usually end up having this type of transformation inside divisions, you know. So I coached dozens of of leaders at Nike and they end up. You know, I, I. There was a big franchise firm called Korn Ferry that was coaching all of Nike. But then there was me. That was like everybody had to get special uh approval to work with me because the Korn Ferry person was like in a suit and stupid and a lot cheaper than me. I was a lot cheaper than me, I was a lot more expensive, but the results were worth it. Right? So they kept signing up for all these, for all these things, because, uh, you know, I ended up having the conversations the corn fairy folk, the corn fairy person, was unwilling to have. So we, we only work with folks that have guts. They don't have to have guts when they talk to us, but they have to be willing to have a courageous conversation, otherwise it's just not worth it. We won't take the money.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, no, I love it Well and I'm just compelled to say, just cause I've been kind of, you know, soapboxing here and every conversation I have with a client, I don't know anything and I can be wrong all the time. You know, it's like I can make an assertion, make an assumption and I'm pretty intuitive and I've been doing this a long time and whatever. But I can be wrong, I don't know. I don't know, you know, but I'm really curious and if I'm wrong, tell me. You know we get tons of feedback from our clients.

Speaker 3:

I don't want to come off arrogant, just like you know we can miss it and that happens all the time. But you know my commitment is to at least leave an Adrian size hole in the wall. We're going to get something done and you know you're not going to like wonder if I'm all in or not or if my team is all in. We're just all in and so if you've got some kind of yearning and desire for some new results, we'll make something happen so, adrian, I want to transition this a little bit as we kind of start to wrap up to digital marketing.

Speaker 2:

So, um, really, a lot of the listeners uh, look at digital marketing as a way to generate new business online.

Speaker 2:

Right, that's really what we're specializing in is lead generation, and you know the things that come to mind when, when you've been talking, which you really uh some deep thought, right, like, as, as you're talking, I'm thinking about thinking about some things, but, like, uh, you know, being genuine online, right, like, that's one of the things that, like you know, people are attracted to. People. They know like and trust, right, and, and being authentic, and you know saying what you feel, and you know you need to be what is it? You need to be hot or cold, not, not lukewarm, right, right, like, as the Bible verse says, and I think that too many people are lukewarm, uh, and, and their message gets lost. And so, if, if you were to kind of transition what you know into, uh, people that are in the online world, what would be like a tip or something you would give them to to help them in what they're trying to do, because it's a one to many-many kind of marketing or communication online?

Speaker 2:

yeah, like when they're talking to the masses or when they're talking to potential clients well, yeah, I mean I think that those are two separate things, right, but I think from the advertising or the marketing standpoint first, so you're trying to attract new customers Are there any kind of tips there? And then maybe okay, when you're interacting on the sales side. So I'm really thinking on the marketing side, but I'd love to hear both.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, I'll just share how we think about it. I mean, the principle that comes to mind first is you know, stand out, stand out, you know, and my I and my I'll relate to my business. I could, like sell people their best life. People want to buy that all day long. Uh, but we don't sell that. We sell, hey, let's clean up your and. And that means we're gonna connect with less people. We know that because a lot of folks don't want to deal with what they know they need to deal with. They'd rather, you know, buy something that's shiny than deal with the you know the dirt.

Speaker 3:

Feels good, that's right. But if you can, you know, if you can connect into those kind of philosophical challenges of people, the stuff even private, like things people don't talk about and if you can build trust, there you've got. I mean, this is how we built our business. We haven't spent really any money on zero money on like advertising. I mean we've got a video on the website. We paid some money to get made, but it's pretty robust. If anybody watches it, you'll hear our true message, which will ostracize a lot of people, which is totally cool with us. We don't care. If you don't want to deal with the shit, great, save us time. I don't even want to talk to you. I say that kind of brashly. I just mean, like that's the game we're going to play, that's where we're going. Might as well, talk about it right now. You know like I get the whole. You know, sell them what they want, give them what they need. And trust me, when I'm like in a conversation with a potential client, I'm like very sweet and very, you know, loving, and I don't come out of the box like this. I was trying to give you guys as much value as possible and get down to brass tacks, but very warm, very connected, hear all the stories, listen to it all. But then at some point in a conversation, a sales conversation, they're going to say something and I'm probably going to say to them if you were lying, would you want to know? And that's a gambit. They say yes, and then I offer a contrarian view, which most people in a sales conversation are not going to have, because they want to protect what they would call rapport. But I want to build rapport so I can break it and build trust. There's a distinction between rapport and trust. Trust is I'm here, no matter what Rapport is. Do you like me? Rapport and trust Trust is I'm here, no matter what Rapport is. Do you like me?

Speaker 3:

So anyway, I would just say to folks like you know, get courageous in your approach and set yourself apart. Like, don't go for the masses, go for folks that want what you want and I don't know what that is for folks that are listening. But think about your really ideal client and the type of not only type of business they have. Most people talk about that, but they don't talk about the type of attitude they have. Like, we have a very specific attitude. We're working, we're dealing, we're wanting to work with and we have to really filter for that attitude, because if that attitude's not there, then we can't even do the process because they're not going to have the willingness to like walk through the fire. We're going to ask them to walk through. So that would be my main thing, with hopefully, some helpful thoughts along the way about how to think about it. But I decided to get daring and at least run some tests on.

Speaker 3:

You know what happens if I decide to set myself apart, because most people in the online marketing just as a whole, it's a lot of cookie cutter stuff. You know it's a lot of like clickbait stuff and it's not a lot of human stuff. It's not a lot of cookie cutter stuff. You know. It's a lot of like clickbait stuff and it's not a lot of human stuff. It's not a lot of get to the get. You know, cut to the quick. And so if you set yourself apart that way, you know you're going to catch some eyeballs. I mean, how many ads do we, you know, flip off of? Because we're like, I know what this is. It's just so. There's just so much stuff that's just done all the time instead of something that's actually capturing and speaks to the audience at a place that most people won't speak to.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I like that. I like that. Well, adrian, if people want to hear more and and you, you, you have such a warm and general demeanor, like if people want to connect with you, like how, how's the best way for them to find you?

Speaker 3:

Sure, they can easily find me on Instagram, adriank. Love to talk with anybody. You can email me. I'm sure my email address is on the website adriantakenewgroundcom. Hit me up and let's just have a conversation.

Speaker 3:

If anybody's interested in this type of work, I guess on a couple fronts. One is if you've got like a business that you care about and things aren't where you want it to be, I'd love to explore what that is and see if we can help. If we don't think it's the right fit, I promise you we'll tell you If even just you, as a leader, maybe you don't want to transform a business, maybe you just you know that you're under, that you're underperforming, given your own view. We've got, you know, these four day-sites called the Revenant Process. You can go to Take New Ground and go to public trainings. It'll show the Revenant, all those that are above. Or we've got a very kind of more specific business leadership training called the Intrepid, which happens over three weekends and you can sign up for that.

Speaker 3:

So either way, love to have a conversation, help you figure out what's right for you. So just hit me up adriantakingthegroundcom or adriank on instagram. Love to have a conversation with anybody. Nothing's a waste of time. If you're listening to this podcast, you're my, you're my people awesome.

Speaker 2:

Well, adrian, thank you so much for your conversation. Uh, everyone. Uh, if you're looking to grow your business with the largest, most powerful tool on the planet, which is the internet, reach out to EWR for more revenue. And if you're dealing with some issues and you're not getting there, reach out to Adrian. Have a conversation with them. Until the next time, everybody, my name is Matt Bertram. Bye, bye-bye for now.

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