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Innovative Coaching Techniques for Personal and Professional Transformation with Adrian Koehler
00:44:08
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- [00:01]
A
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. 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 no somebody no better than a business coach. An executive coach worked with some of the top brands. Adrian Kaler with Take Newground.com. he's worked with some 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 these issues that maybe the audience is dealing with. We got a lot of other agency owners that listen as well as small businesses and large businesses. We got a pretty wide variety of listeners.
- [01:18]
B
So. So that's great, Matt. Great to have me on. Thank, thank you. Really appreciate it. I love what I do. I get to help very ambitious, brilliant people, you know, 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, 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.
- [01:51]
A
I love that. Takes courageous action. You know, that's one of the biggest things, like if you don't step out there and, and really take massive action in what you're doing, you're not going to move the needle like, right on. You know, people are at a kind of a, 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.
- [02:14]
B
Yeah, well, because people, we can't. We don't know what we don't know.
- [02:17]
A
Right.
- [02:18]
B
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 make sense? So it's like there's, there are invisible things I was saying earlier that are in the way for folks. And we're like, you know, the whole the old metaphor, it's like the, the fish can't see the water that they're swimming in because it's my, you know, it's, it's my perspective. And I don't often question. Humans don't often question their own perspective because they can't see it because it's so them, they've had it forever. You know, I'm 44. I've had my view of the world for 44 years. I don't know other views of the world unless I get really curious about 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, 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, that's the way we do it. We call it fierce advocacy. Is that we get really clear on the future that the person or the team or the company is 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, that usually is what generates the breakthrough for folks.
- [03:58]
A
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, that, that perspective on that. I mean, how do you, how 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, you're not sugarcoating it. How do you evaluate that? Like when you're, when you start to work with somebody, you know, to give them that third party perspective, like, I guess they first have to accept it, like I need this, or like how do you approach that, that. That. That relationship, to get into that place with somebody.
- [04:46]
B
Yeah, that's. It would be one of my specialties, I would say, at least on my team, and. And sets me apart, you know, in my. And hard to scale for folks, but the. 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, you know, 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 our, you know, 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. Let's say you're running an agency and you've got five people that. 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 wait. 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. I'm not, like, pointing this out as, like, 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, 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's easier. 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. Then you got to be messier than you want to be, man.
- [07:47]
A
Adrian, you're like going into the wounds, right? You're going into the wounds, opening them up.
- [07:53]
B
I. 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. You know. What did Young say? Carl Young, you know, very popular psychotherapist. He said, if you, 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.
- [08:40]
A
So, Adrian, I'm going to throw this out there and you, you may not have heard of it. This is like a, a PhD, like therapist guy talked about something called the law of deservedness. Have you ever heard this?
- [08:51]
B
Nope.
- [08:51]
A
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 deservedness and, and you gotta break, you gotta break some of those wounds, you gotta 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.
- [09:37]
B
Yeah, well, it became, 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, A, A transaction I'm having with reality, with myself. Right. And it's under the table. Right. So if I say I, 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. 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 Takini, who's my partner, who's 70 years old, who's brilliant, and he'd been doing work in the criminal justice system where if, if someone had gone through his training, the, the, the chances of him, of that person coming back to prison goes from 98 down to 12%.
- [10:51]
A
Wow.
- [10:52]
B
So they call that the recidivism rate. Like if you get out, how much? What's the percentage you'll come back, you know, because you know prisons or is a criminal factory. It's not like a rehabilitation center. Like they treat, 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. On 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. E. They're being criminal and they're lying to other people. Now a therapist will say, oh, excuse to not right.
- [11:34]
A
Whatever they want to do.
- [11:35]
B
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 man. It's okay. You know, if you want to get past it, let's just, let's act like the law of deservedness is, 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. Who decided that anyway? Was that God? Was that your family of origin? Was that culture? Who, 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. 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. There's just. It shuts down possibility for them. So, you know, I'm provoking what's possible for them. I mean, I'll often say to people in a seminar or in a, you know, one on one conversation, I'll say, listen, you're gonna fight for what's not possible. I'm gonna fight for what is possible. Who do you want to win? Which is obviously an unfair gambit. The answer is me.
- [13:21]
A
Huh?
- [13:22]
B
But, you know, they show up and they start to explore things and, and then in detail, explore what's necessary, what'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, consider. And. But if they do all those things, man, things just open wide up.
- [13:45]
A
Fascinating. Fascinating. So can you give me some examples of like, stories that, that where you've addressed these deep issues and it's just unlocked, like all this attention.
- [14:03]
B
Sure. Well, the first one that comes to mind, obviously I'll leave names and company names. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. You know, I got called in. Let's see, how'd 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 at this company, she wasn't CEO yet. I coached her. So she became coo and, 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's a new CEO and they, we sat down together to talk about how this guy was struggling. Cool. So hear all that. The next step is for me to talk to this guy. I talked to this guy, brilliant guy. And he's very confessional. You know, 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 start doing some coaching work together. 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, that's kind of, you know, it all starts at a patio, talking about real 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. 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 like 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 significance is into everything and all that kind of stuff. So we'll. We will absorb the complexity but really diminish the complications.
- [17:10]
A
Why do you think these kind of conversations are so hard for people to have, like, day to day?
- [17:15]
B
Oh, because we don't want to die as human beings. You know, death. Death is the ultimate right. You know, like, we're. We're all going to end up dying. Matt. Matt, you're gonna end up dying. Everybody in our life's gonna end up dying. My dog that's sitting next to me is gonna die. My kids are gonna die. All that's reality. We're all gonna die, and we don't want to face that. 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, you know, inside of Adrian, inside of Matt, there are several mats. There's several Adrian. Some of them are awesome. Some of them are productive. Some of them are, you know, you know, generative and effective. Some of them aren't. I know the versions of me that don't produce effective outcomes, and I. I know them. I can see them when they show up. They show up as thinking. And, you know, we are. Our ideas, like the ideas we have end up becoming who we are. So it's good to get 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 face the. They don't want to, I guess, befriend the idea that dying on a daily basis to our bad ideas is the best idea.
- [18:58]
A
So. So one of the. The quotes that. That you've said is most coaching is. Yeah, could you. Could you dig into that a little bit more?
- [19:10]
B
Everybody. 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, it's because it just treats symptoms or just adds ideas. It's kind of like putting, oh, icing on a sandwich. It's still a sandwich. We gotta 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 satisfies. 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, that takes investment, you know that, you know, that takes willingness, that takes courage. And it's easier not to, you know, jump into those conversations. I mean, most coaches are great people. I mean, I, I don't know many of them. 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 because it doesn't work. And you know, I, I've, since I've been in this industry for whatever, 15 years. Back then it used to be like this distinction between life coaches, which, whatever that is.
- [20:42]
A
Yeah.
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B
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 that every person's background is full of nuances, that if you don't know how to pay attention, you won't catch it.
- [21:09]
A
No, I, I, I do know what you're talking about. I'm not going to speak to it. Why not? Come on, man. Yeah, I don't, I, I'm not going to speak directly to it, but I can tell you that my, my business partner was coached for a number of years by a. Yeah. 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.
- [21:43]
B
That's right.
- [21:43]
A
And, and it was, you know, it, it worked for him, I guess. I don't know. But it, I can tell you I went to one of the meetings and I was pretty taken back by. 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. Here.
- [22:12]
B
I flash. I flash back to, like, 1986, maybe when I'm 6 years old, and remember those, like, Play DOH things? Remember Play DOH was like, cool. And you put them. Put the Play DOH in the thing. You just squish it down. It's just such like a. It's a factory. It's like, okay, here's my context, or, sorry, 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.
- [22:38]
A
Well, it was a franchise, so there's a franchise business coach. So that's. That's all I'm gonna say. But. Okay, so let's go to your. 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?
- [22:53]
B
Well, they're print. They're principles that guide us. There's principles that guide us? Yes.
- [22:59]
A
Could you. Could you kind of open. Open the door on that a little bit?
- [23:04]
B
Sure. 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, you know, BS is. And. 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. 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. 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 cr. That would require courage and would require them to actually manage, lead, challenge, maybe fire or whatever, I. E. 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 that most leaders talk about it like I shouldn't have to babysit these people. They're professionals. I pay them a lot of money, blah, blah, blah. And therefore I, I, I, I take myself out of the responsibility of being a leader, which is to transform people. Most people think leadership is to get somewhere. No, leadership is to generate results through other people. So their complications, whatever' for them is on you. That's your job. You gotta 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, is we get, you know, current reality really sober, right? 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. So, and I think we think about it through this paradigm. So let's see, if I were to, if we were in a seminar, I'd draw on the board P plus E plus O over C. So that is pat. P is the patterns. Because we're all pattern 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, but it's good to know them. And I can help folks see their patterns. O, O 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 other. The E is emphasis. We emphasize on whatever the thing is, like, you know, the, 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, you know, in those moments of revelation, I guess I'd call it, like 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. They have to come to their own revelation.
- [27:14]
A
Self regulation.
- [27:16]
B
Yeah. Which is distinct from, you know, learning or insight. It's like, oh, 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. That's why most coaching, because they do that, you know, mechanistic thing that you're describing is not. There's no revelation in there at all. They're just maybe learning something, which is. Doesn't change a human being. It's interesting. I mean, 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. You know, 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. 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 that's, 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 to the world 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, 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, 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. Future based language creates present state. Future based language creates present state. So we live into the future that we see coming always. So if I, if I say this meeting is gonna suck, trust me, my brain will do its job. My brain will make sure I'm right. 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. But 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.
- [30:24]
A
No, I, I just enjoy listening to you. I'm sure someone listening definitely needs this conversation or I'd love to talk to anybody. Yeah. Can you maybe describe some different examples where, where you could come in and offer a lot of help? I know on your website, sure. One area is transitions right from pre to post mergers, high staff churn, founder exits. You also talk about KPIs, breaking down silos, investor tensions. Can you just maybe break down some scenarios of areas where it makes sense to engage you?
- [31:10]
B
Yeah. So we love working with founder driven companies. We've worked work with big, you know, Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies. But our favorites are to work with founder driven companies because I think entrepreneurs are the best, you know, 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? So somebody starts something, a founder, 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. I, I rarely meet a founder that actually wants to be CEO. They just are. 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 P L. They don't want to do all these things. They just 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, that creates the need for at least two major things. One is some agreement from both parties about what's wanted 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. 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'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 in Slack. They're just not talking about it when it matters, which, when the other person's 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 don't 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, they're 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. 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 Fairy that was coaching all of Nike, but then there was me that was like, everybody had to get special approval to work with me because the Corn Ferry person was, like, in a suit and stupid and 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, you know, I ended up having the conversations the Cornframe, 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.
- [35:26]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, I love it.
- [35:31]
B
Well, and I'm just compelled to say, just because 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. 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.
- [36:24]
A
So, Adrian, I want to transition this a little bit as we kind of start to wrap up to digital marketing. So really a lot of the listeners look at digital marketing as a way to generate new business online. 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've really some deep thought. Right. Like as, as you're talking, I'm thinking about thinking about some things. But like, 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, 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. Like as the Bible verse says. And, and I think that too many people are lukewarm and, and their message gets lost. And so if, if you were to kind of transition what, you know, into 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 kind of marketing or communication online.
- [37:48]
B
Yeah. Like when they're talking to the masses or when they're talking to potential clients.
- [37:52]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, I think that those are two separate things. Right. But I think from the advertising or the marketing standpoint first, like, 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.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah, well, I'll just share how we think about it. I mean the principal that comes to mind first is, you know, stand out. Stand out. You know, in my. I'll. I'll relate to my business. I could like sell people their best life. People want to buy that all day long, but we don't sell that. We sell, hey, let's clean up your. And, and that means we're going to 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.
- [38:50]
A
Feels good.
- [38:51]
B
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 could 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. We've got a. 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 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 gonna play. That's where we're going. Might as well talk about it right now. You know, like, I. 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 here, 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 have. 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. Like, there's a distinction between rapport and trust. Trust is, I'm here no matter what rapport is. Do you like me? 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 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, at least run some tests on, 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 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.
- [42:03]
A
I like that. I like that. Well, Adrian, if people want to hear more and, and you, you, you have such a, a warm and general demeanor. Like if people want to connect with you, like, how's the best way for them to find you?
- [42:19]
B
Sure, they can easily find me on Instagram. Adrian K. Love to talk with anybody. You can email me. I'm sure my email address on the website. Adriana Take newground dot dot com, hit me up and let's just have a conversation. 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, 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 just, you know, that you're under, that you're underperforming given your own view. We've got, you know, these four day leadership off sites called the Revenant Process. You can go to, you know, 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. So either way, love to have a conversation, help you figure out what's right for you. So just hit me up, Adrian. Take new ground.com or Adrian K 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.
- [43:34]
A
Awesome. Well, Adrian, thank you so much for your conversation. Everyone. 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 for now.