- Learn how to be a selfish leader
- Why every leader needs to be selfish
- How to decrease weekly working hours from 80 hours down to 40 hours and have the time freedom to strategize and develop new ideas in managing your company
Resources/Links:
Summary
Erno Hannink is a business coach. His unique ability is asking tough questions and push you toward action.
In this episode of Marketing the Invisible, Erno shares how helps his clients make smart decisions to accomplish faster what they want so they can create more freedom.
Check out these episode highlights:
- 00:49 – Erno’s professional background as a business coach
- 01:38 – Erno’s ideal client: a Business owner who has 5 -25 employees who work in the service and selling industry like coaching, consultancy or software
- 02:04 – Business growth and scaling problems Erno solves for his clients
- 02:56 – Typical symptoms that Erno’s ideal client would be experiencing before coming to him
- 03:51 – The common mistakes that people do before working with Erno
- 05:02 – Erno’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Find out what is it that you are the best at. What is it that you as the owner love to do. /li>
- 07:17 – Erno’s Valuable Free Tip (VFT): Get and read the book ‘It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work’, the book can help you find ways to improve your business
Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:
“Find out the most important thing that you are best at and spend 80% of your time working on that one thing and forget the other.” -@ernohannink Share on X
Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)
Tom Poland: Hello everyone. A very warm welcome to another edition of marketing the invisible. My name is Tom Poland being out here for a little castaways Beach in Queensland Australia joined today by Erno Hannink. Erno where you’re hanging out this morning.
Erno Hannink: I’m in did the sun which is nobody knows of course but it’s. It’s a time close to one home in the Netherlands and maybe people know online because it’s from a famous movie a bridge too far.
Tom Poland: Oh yes indeed. Oh, an exciting place to live about fifty-five years ago. Not the most successful battle the eyes ever had but nevertheless we’re here it’s a long time later. I’m on the other side of the earth to you and doing a different climate by the sound of it. So rather cool over there. Yeah. Folks let me introduce you Erno is a business coach and knows the very unique ability is asking if you like the tough questions to push his clients towards action. And my experience of folks from the Netherlands is they generally do ask tough questions so I’m not sure if it’s a genetic compositional idea but like the Northern Germans. But he coaches business owners partners founders CEOs people in charge of organizations on making smart decisions so that they can achieve what they want to achieve faster and in doing so creating more freedom and that brings us to the title of this little seven minutes interview which is how to make selfish decisions that enjoy more freedom we’re gonna do that in just seven minutes. So you know I got a very warm welcome my time starts now.
Question number one is Who is your ideal client?
Erno Hannink: It’s a business owner that has about five to 25 employees usually works in the business to business environment and sells knowledge to their clients. So they are really in the service industry and selling nice we need to be coaching or you know consultancy or software or anything like that.
Tom Poland: Yeah that sounds like a familiar target market. Yeah. Marketing the invisible. So question number two. What’s the problem that you solve when you work with those ideal clients.
Erno Hannink: I think the biggest problem that they are having is that they don’t have enough time for themselves because they’ve been working with the business for a while now and they’ve grown the business from just working working working at the same job they’ve been doing. Usually, they work like 60 or 80 hours per week for me. That’s that’s not the way you want to go you want to bring it down to like 50 or 40 hours. So that’s the biggest issue they have. You don’t have time to develop you know new ideas to develop innovations in the company to manage the people. So there’s a lot of stuff going on.
Tom Poland: Okay. So before they get to you they’re going to have some things happening in their business or their lives and I might describe those as symptoms so that’s question number three is other than being desperate short a time by the sound of it and working too many hours what are some of the typical symptoms that an ideal client would be experiencing prior to working with you.
Erno Hannink: Well what I see a lot is that like many hours they work and they are looking for a way out there but you can see it. They come in first in the office they leave the last column is usually filled with all kind of tasks and meeting them they everything they have to do. They feel there’s no way out. And often also the town is filled the task that you know they didn’t plan themselves it just happened to clients came in and employees came in and they entered a new a new task to do and they often also work working weekends and nights and they think they you know they say they love it because they love the job but I don’t think that’s the best way to work the business.
Tom Poland: Right. And so let’s say one of them wakes up one morning and does this question for and thinks Well I’ve got to change I mean I’m working too many hours and am neglecting my health my family I’m going to try something. What are some of the common things that they try that end up being mistakes when they’re trying to solve this problem that you could be helping them with.
Erno Hannink: Yeah. What I see a lot is that they are drawn to quick fixes to changing tasks and trying to find a way to do it more effectively. Task hacking or whatever you want to call this you know make building to do lists and finding ways to if they don’t get done in a day to do it in the evening. And what they forget to do is to change everything completely. And that’s what you need to do. And that’s why I have all these tough questions for them. They work at the symptoms and they don’t tackle the real thing. So if you will become more effective and stuff that you really don’t need to do that’s the wrong routine.
Tom Poland: How much do they hire more people unnecessarily perhaps.
Erno Hannink: No that’s not really the issue because what often happens is that they-they work so hard in the business day. They also still work a lot for clients and they ever feel they cannot be moved out of that part because if they do they don’t make enough money. That’s the feeling that they have. So yeah. And that’s really the direction that they need to go.
Tom Poland: Super. Three minutes left and three questions left. Question number five is what’s one valuable free action that you could recommend someone listened to those who can relate to the situation that they could take that will make a bit of a difference may not solve the whole problem but it’ll make a bit of a difference.
Erno Hannink: I think that the most important thing that you need to do is to find out what is it that you are the best at. What is it that you as the owner love to do. You’re good at it and you’re probably also the only one in the company that can do this. And you need to think about how can I spend about 80 percent of my time doing just that and forget about the other. What can I eliminate for my tasks on my calendar? If I can just focus on detail on these tasks. Say that you have two to three things that you are the best at. You are the only one that you can do. Then you’re moving in the right direction.
Tom Poland: You recommend that people measure the number of hours they spend on those two or three tasks.
Erno Hannink: No. Because in the beginning it’s gonna be very difficult just do you want to get used to the idea of switching to this task because he is so used to do billable hours and you know works for clients. And. It’s gonna be a big switch to do this.
Tom Poland: Right. All right. Thank you. So One and 35 left one valuable free resource that you can direct people to that it’s going to help them a bit more still.
Erno Hannink: I have a page which is um coach.me Coach.me/Ernohannink. And I think that’s my. And you have the URL and that’s um coach.me That’s where you can get coaches and sessions not for free. But it’s at a low rate and it’s online and you can just easily let me help you to get some tough questions to you. How you do stuff and make a change. So it’s not free but it’s you know it’s worthwhile.
Tom Poland: I’ve had a look at it. It’s not far off free. It represents tremendous value. Thank you. Fifty seconds left. And by the way that for those who are listening to the podcast is www.coach.me/Erno E-R-N-O H-A-N-N-I-N-K so we’ll publish it under the videos for those who were doing the videos. 30 seconds left has said that what’s one question I should have asked you but did.
Erno Hannink: What’s the book on your nightstand that you love reading new advice to people.
Tom Poland: Great great great question what’s the answer.
Erno Hannink: It doesn’t have to be crazy at work which is a great book to find ways to how you can improve your business.
Tom Poland: Super so it doesn’t have to be crazy at work get the book Erno Hannink thanks so much for your time this very cold Netherlands morning.
Erno Hannink: Thank you, Tom.
Tom Poland: Thanks for checking out our marketing the invisible podcast if you like what we’re doing here. Please, head over iTunes to subscribe, rate us and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.FiveHourChallenge.com.