Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal and business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Chase Kreger, CEO of Maximize Value Consulting, located in Covington, KY, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
At Maximize Value Consulting, we are the best at two things:
- We help your leaders lead better.
- We help your sales professionals sell more.
Every team needs an infusion of insight, an injection of inspiration, and a continuous shot of motivation. At Maximize Value, we deliver all three to help keep your leadership teams and sales teams in a position to win.
How do we do those three things better than anyone?
Insight: This is the 21st century; let’s stop the guessing game. To be more precise with how we support your team, we use our digital, proprietary assessments to analyze your team’s proficiency; then, we build a plan completely customized to the growing needs of your team.
Inspiration: Our trainers are dynamic, the training is transformational, and facilitation is packed with real-world exercises to help you learn. Lecture? Far from it. Traditional training? Not at all. Engaging? Absolutely! Thought-provoking? You better believe it.
Motivation: Our digital training platform offers over 500 videos, articles, e-books, white papers, and infographics so you and your team can learn anytime, anywhere.
Tell us about yourself
While earning my MBA in 2012, I became obsessed with sales and leadership. Armed with a dream to help millions of people and supercharged with enough energy to fuel a rocket ship to the moon, I was determined to use my expertise to help leaders lead and sellers sell.
But, like every story, there was a roadblock, and I found myself disappointed by the industry. Useless certifications, geographical limitations, expensive solutions, the experts weren’t really experts, most of the content was google-able, and the facilitators didn’t know how to facilitate. This list could go on and on.
I realized the best way to overcome all of these gaps was to go out and build a company myself that wasn’t trapped by all of these unnecessary limitations. So that’s what we did. In 2016, with the full support of Suzanne (my wife), I launched Maximize Value Consulting. Over the years, we’ve adapted to market demands, we’ve grown to meet our client requests, we’ve disrupted the industry continuums, and we have been able to transform the lives of thousands of leaders and sales professionals all over the world.
The staying motivated part is easy! Today, Suzanne and I have four little kids who bring us tremendous joy. I’m confident they will take over the company one day and will carry it to places I never could. I hope they keep me around as their unpaid assistant so I can witness it all first-hand.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
In just six years, I am grateful that we’ve already helped tens of thousands of people all over the world, but I’m even more energized by the fact that several of our partners have been in partnership with us since day one. Having that kind of loyalty to our brand is a tremendous honor, and we are appreciative of all the people who placed a bet on us when we were just getting started. It is primarily because of their loyalty to our brand that we’ve been able to refrain from all traditional marketing and social media marketing and just use word-of-mouth and referral-based selling to expand our reach. Thanks to our loyal partners, we have the privilege of impacting professionals in nearly every major city in America and six different countries around the globe.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Two things to mind:
- Avoid Distractions: “He who chases two rabbits catches neither.” – Confucius
You must train yourself and your team members to major in the majors. The more successful you become, the more people try to pull you in different directions. Oftentimes, the detours are seductive, so learn to focus on the signal and mute the noise.
2. Learn to Fail: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”– Einstein
When you are building something worthwhile – you are going to struggle, you are going to embarrass yourself, you are going to get criticism, and you are going to make the wrong decision. Learn from your mistakes along the way, but keep putting one foot in front of the next. To help me with this, I remind myself that he who runs into the darkness owes no explanation to those who stand safely in the light.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
I love quotes, so I’ll share three tips via three different quotes I love.
- “Build once, sell twice.” -Jack Butcher.
If you really want to be successful, you have to learn to divorce your time allocation from your income. If your earnings are completely dependent on you being present, then you’ll always have constrictions around your freedom. Master the art of automation. Outsource as many minutiae as you can. Then, use your money to buy time, and use your time to build something once that you can deliver to millions of people. - “Different is better than better.” – Sally Hogshead.
Find out what makes you different or what makes you unique. You’ll never be able to compete with Bezos and Buffet in their fields; they have too many resources and too much leverage. On the bright side, you will win at a high level if you identify what makes you better, what makes you an expert, and what makes you an original. Once you find those things, then go exploit your expertise in the service of others. - “The greatest among you will be your servant.” -Jesus of Nazareth
When you seek to serve, you’ll make plenty of friends along the way. Focus your energy on finding and serving the people whose lives will be significantly better with your help.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Young/Naïve Chase: Focus on learning, and the doing will just happen. Reality: Focus on doing, and the learning will just happen. Don’t get trapped into thinking your initial product or service needs to be perfect. Experience is the greatest teacher; just be courageous enough to let it keep teaching you.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://maximizevalue.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/maximize-value-consulting/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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