You should be obsessed with becoming an expert in sales. Everything else follows.
Meet Nicolas Verweyen – the Owner and Founder of VerDigital. Their mission is to help self-employed consultants and service providers set up and grow their business sustainably and very profitably.
Working together with consultants from all over Europe, he has identified the common misconceptions, traps, and bottlenecks that keep business owners away from their breakthrough and success. Using those learnings, Nicolas has developed the Consulting Growth System to help clients achieve much-needed clarity. They get away from the complexity within their business and implement effective strategies that connect them with their dream clients and enable them to get results for those clients effectively and at scale.
His core skills lie in mental awareness, mindset, marketing, and sales.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Nicolas Verweyen: I will start with one of the many failures that I have experienced. Back in the days, I was employed in my brother’s business, he has a Web Design and SEO agency. Our goal was to build the largest agency within Munich, the city where I was born and am still living. So without further due, I picked up the phone and called 100 CEOs of companies in the area. Every day. It wasn’t a lot of fun, all I received was rejection. I started asking myself: Why in this world am I unable to get this thing working? I am trying all kinds of techniques that I am reading on the internet, but nothing worked for me. I even booked a cold calling seminar. Still, no results whatsoever. Only after a couple of months without success, I started to realize that it is not about the techniques or smart approaches that I am trying to implement. But I realized that it is not about me in the first place. Back then I didn’t really care about the person I was calling, all I cared about was me getting an appointment with the decision-maker. I wanted to close. My fundamentals were very weak. Only once I understood this and started to genuinely care about what people were trying to achieve, what their problems were, what their dreams were, that’s when those fancy strategies showed results. And to this day this learning is still one of the most important ones I’ve had when running a business.Was there somebody in your life that inspired you to take that specific journey with your business?
Nicolas Verweyen: Going down the route of entrepreneurship was never just an option. It was always clear for me. The person who “brainwashed” me this way is and was my dad. When I was still in high school I started working for his business, he helped big corporations to increase profits by training their sales teams. So this was the only life model which I was confronted with. Obviously, I learned a lot about running a business, sales, and marketing from him.What are the most common mistakes you see entrepreneurs make and what would you suggest they do?
Nicolas Verweyen: Well, it depends on the stage of their journey. I personally have a lot to do with aspiring entrepreneurs, people who are just starting out, so I will share my observations about them. What I have realized is that many entrepreneurs channel their focus towards the wrong kinds of things. For example designing 5 different versions of their company logo, designing their website for months until they are “ready” to launch, creating pitch decks until they are “perfect”. That for me is procrastination at its finest. They are doing all kinds of things and because they are so “busy”, they are not doing the most important thing of them all: Talking to their market. Understanding what people in their market actually care about. Understanding how they can actually create outstanding value for these people. That’s what entrepreneurship is all about, not about the color of your business cards.Has the pandemic and transitioning into mostly online shopping affected your company positively or negatively?
Nicolas Verweyen: Very positively actually. Our model of working was always remote and fully digital. The model of consultants being onsite, charging hours for their presence is outdated, the pandemic has just accelerated this development. Many consultants have and are still struggling with understanding how client attraction over the internet works. Therefore many asked for help, we were fortunate enough to work together with great people and achieve some great results with them.In your opinion, what makes your company stand out from the competition?
Nicolas Verweyen: I am glad you asked this question. I will not directly answer it but I will explain why I think this question is very misleading to many companies and entrepreneurs. They think about “what makes me so different”? They think about themselves all the time, coming up with some empty words that try to convey why their business is superior to competitors. I try to look at it differently. All I care about is what my potential customers care about, and the results that I can provide for the clients that trust me and my expertise. That’s what I am optimizing for. And in the end, this is what speaks for itself, not some theoretical mission statement.You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
Nicolas Verweyen: Little to no ego, never satisfied, hard-working. Best Books on Leadership: Find the Best Resources to Lead EffectivelyBeing a CEO of the company, do you think that your personal brand reflects your company’s values?
Nicolas Verweyen: I am active in the service sector. I don’t have any product with measurements, weight, color, and special features that clients can compare to others or build their opinion based on. Service businesses are based on trusting the person behind the service. We are running advertisements based on my name. We attract people that can identify themselves with me. Therefore my personal brand is the foundation of the business. The good news: Everyone can actively influence it. What Makes a Good Team Leader? A Guide to Effective Team LeadershipHow do you monitor if the people in your department are performing at their best?
Nicolas Verweyen: First of all, you cannot expect your employees to perform if you have no idea about what they are doing. You need to know the little details. I have built up everything from scratch by myself, therefore I know every in and out. I check up with my team daily, making sure everything works smoothly and the KPIs are where they should be. As long as everything works as planned, I am giving a lot of free space to function properly. This gives me the freedom of getting back to my role as the builder in the business.What advice would you give to our younger readers that want to become entrepreneurs?
Nicolas Verweyen: You should be obsessed with becoming an expert in sales. Everything else follows.What’s your favorite “life lesson” quote and how has it affected your life?
Nicolas Verweyen: “The only person accountable for where you are in life right now is you and only you.” This perspective spares you so much energy. You don’t need to come up with excuses anymore. It’s you and only you who is responsible for the things that you have or don’t have in life. Get comfortable with it, that’s the only route to true success. This interview was originally published ValiantCEO.
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