Category: Business Insights Series

This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where we speak with decision-makers and professionals who challenge how things are usually done. In this edition, we explore a conversation with Dr. Hesham Abdalla, co-founder of Hexitime.

Hexitime is a time banking platform created to help professionals exchange time and skills instead of money. It enables members to earn time credits for the help they give and use those credits to receive help in return. The platform offers intelligent search, collaboration threads, and real-time visual mapping to highlight where skills are being exchanged and where new connections could form. 

Its mission is to unlock the untapped potential in organisations by encouraging a culture of shared expertise, engagement, and continuous improvement. It began as a healthcare initiative in the UK and has since expanded to education and other sectors. The goal is to foster cross-boundary collaboration and increase productivity without extra financial resources.

Hesham brings a dual perspective to this work. He is a consultant paediatrician who spent most of his career in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and now serves as Director of Quality at Dubai Health, the UAE’s largest governmental healthcare provider. His experience bridges both corporate systems and startup thinking, which has shaped how Hexitime operates.

In our discussion, we covered what makes people and teams truly work together, and why the solutions aren’t always where you think.

Unspoken needs, unshared strengths

Most people find it hard to articulate what they need help with, or what they can contribute. As noted by Stanford social psychologist Xuan Zhao, people often “shy away from asking for help because we don’t want to bother other people” In reality, however, we are willing to help each other once we know someone needs it. 

Dr. Zhao’s research found that “the majority of help occurs only after a request has been made…people want to help, but they can’t help if they don’t know someone is suffering or struggling”.

People aren’t always given time or space to consider what they truly need or could offer. The questions remain dormant when there’s no room in the daily rhythm of work for them to surface. Hesham Abdalla has seen this many times during onboarding workshops at Hexitime, where a pair of simple questions frequently becomes a revealing exercise: What do you need? And what can you offer?

“Often people don’t know what they really need. They might know what they want, but actually what they need and who they need is sometimes completely out of their ballpark, otherwise they would have solved it a long time ago.”

These sessions expose how deeply people are conditioned to focus on their limits, not their assets. Teams often forget what they already know, or what lives in colleagues nearby. It’s a shared forgetting that stems more from routine than intent.

“Even within the same room, we are the people that we’ve been waiting for.”

That line captures the essence of what Hexitime tries to unlock. Every organisation has dormant value, but that value is rarely visible on a CV or job description. Some people are sitting on decades of experience or creativity they never get asked to use. Others are drowning but don’t know how to phrase their request for help without it sounding like weakness. Systems aren’t set up to make these exchanges easy.

And yet, once someone puts their need into words, or shares an overlooked skill or interest, the dynamic shifts. These interactions often feel different from typical peer-to-peer trades. They can unlock moments of recognition, and sometimes, a sense of relief. They say: you’re not alone, and what you know or carry is wanted here.

Participation here has emotional weight alongside its practical dimensions. The task of matching offers and needs, in that light, it reflects the culture of a workplace,and its humanity.

There is value hidden in people and systems

Hesham shared how, after resigning from his NHS role due to burnout, he came across a local time bank in his community. 

TimeBanking UK – a leading body in this field – points out that when companies exchange time and help, they can “share under-used resources” and even “strengthen local business networks”

It was a simple system: people offered practical help,mowing lawns, writing CVs, giving lifts,and received help in return, measured in time credits. No money changed hands, but a lot of value moved around. What stood out to him was how easily this approach tapped into skills and goodwill that were sitting idle.

“It was very asset-based rather than deficit-based. It focused on what I could do, rather than what I couldn’t.”

The experience made an impression. It wasn’t framed as innovation, but it shifted something fundamental: the way people saw each other. That outlook followed Hesham back into the professional world. In his NHS teams, he began to see how much knowledge was going unused,often because it didn’t align neatly with job descriptions or reporting lines, even if it held value. He described working alongside people with postgraduate degrees and decades of experience whose most meaningful insights remained boxed in.

“People were in their role-based boxes. And many of those knowledge and skills were just not wanted.”

This goes beyond staffing levels or training programs. Visibility plays a key role. Organisations often structure themselves around what’s already legible,qualifications, tasks, chains of command. But much of what makes people effective lives outside those frameworks: intuition, relationships, lived experience, adjacent skills, creative outlets. If none of that is seen, it also won’t be used.

Hexitime provides a structure that makes existing but often overlooked value easier to access and apply. The time bank reintroduces a way of seeing value in how people relate, contribute, and support one another. It says: if you can make people visible to each other in the right way, they’ll find ways to collaborate, contribute, and surprise themselves in the process.

And when that happens, it directly affects capacity. Because the truth is: in most organisations, capacity is not what’s missing. The mechanism for circulating it is.

Strong networks shape how well an organisation performs

Organisational charts can suggest structure. But structure doesn’t mean functionality. Hesham explained that traditional command-and-control models don’t predict successful organisations.

“Org chart is not predictive of how successful the company is, how profitable it is, how happy the staff are, or how safe the patients are.”

The way work gets done in a real organisation rarely follows the lines on the chart. Outcomes often rely on informal relationships, backchannels, unspoken dependencies, and the willingness of people to stretch beyond what their job title covers. These dimensions of effectiveness are almost impossible to track unless the system makes them visible and accessible.

Hesham and his team observed that the true measure of organisational health sits in how people connect,across layers, departments, and teams. If collaboration is built on formal requests and top-down directives, it struggles to breathe. But when people are encouraged to find each other based on need and skill, something more adaptive begins to emerge.

“The more networked individuals are, the happier they are, the more successful the organisation is.”

The “official” structure often hides the true web of collaboration. In fact, research on organizations tells us that work is embedded in informal networks. One analysis reports that even “individual contributions are always and inescapably embedded in the collaborative webs of social interactions”.

Hexitime gives form to this principle by making skills and needs discoverable across the entire structure. Instead of relying on someone’s manager to endorse a request or suggest a contact, the system creates direct pathways between individuals. 

Permission emerges from a culture of exchange shaped by shared initiative. It also means people are more likely to step up, not just when asked, but when they feel useful.

Lateral visibility changes how an organisation understands its own capabilities. It reveals who is quietly helping everyone else. It shows where mentoring, support, and leadership already exist., as everyday behaviours that shape how people support one another.

When you can see how people already show up for each other, you’re in a better position to support that system, learn from it, and grow it.

Some platforms grow through trust built over time

Unlike typical SaaS tools, Hexitime doesn’t grow through rapid automation or paid acquisition. Hesham described how their growth model is based on conversations, not conversions.

“It’s kind of spreading conversation by conversation, introduction by introduction, rather than a big bang approach.”

In many digital platforms, success is measured by volume,number of users, speed of adoption, frequency of use. Hexitime resists that framing. Its reach expands by way of personal networks and real engagement, not mass marketing. This approach takes time, but it builds cultural depth, something that automated growth rarely delivers.

That’s where the Shuri Network example fits in. Shuri is a national organisation that supports women of colour in digital health, a field that continues to be dominated by white, male, and middle-class professionals. When they adopted Hexitime, they used it to actively challenge who gets seen, who gets mentored, and who gets promoted.

“There were examples of people taking up job offers they wouldn’t have applied for, applying for PhDs they may not have considered.”

That use case led to more than new connections, it shifted how access and opportunity were distributed. Senior professionals who may never have thought of themselves as mentors offered support. Early-career individuals who may have felt invisible began to see real options open up. The structure of Hexitime made it easier to ask, easier to offer, and easier to believe that value can come from anywhere.

This level of transformation tends to emerge when people are encouraged to recognise their own needs and respond to others with presence and intent. It doesn’t come from formal onboarding alone, but from experiences that reveal what people carry and how they choose to show up. That’s not always easy, especially in environments where productivity is measured by speed and certainty. But if deeper change is what you’re after, the slowness of the process is a sign that something more rooted is taking hold.

Growth measured in conversations might not look impressive on a dashboard. But it leaves behind evidence that matters: confidence, career progression, visibility, and relationships that weren’t there before.

Technology helps, but the work is still human

AI is part of Hexitime’s future, helping make human processes more visible and easier to access. The team is building features to help users discover who might support them,especially when the answer isn’t obvious. A request typed vaguely or tentatively can be hard to match. AI can step in to read between the lines, suggesting who might help and why. This matchmaking function is designed to support meaningful connection rather than rapid interaction.

“Where we’re going with Hexitime is using AI to propose or suggest connections that would help you progress against your challenges.”

Technology in this context is being developed to lower the barriers between people,barriers of doubt, of language, of not knowing who to approach. Its role is to create more space for human connection, not reduce it. At its best, it allows people to ask better questions and notice what they’ve been carrying all along.

Hesham told a story that shows how surprising the outcome can be. A nurse who had been redeployed during the pandemic shared a poem she had written. It was raw, thoughtful, and deeply human. 

When encouraged to offer a poetry session on the platform, she hesitated. After all, how many hospitals ask for poetry workshops? But she posted it. And suddenly, something changed: a non-clinical, emotional, expressive offer opened space in a workplace shaped by protocol.

“Everybody needs poetry.”

The insight revealed how people bring their whole selves to work, even in environments that rarely create room for that. And every now and then, the team benefits from a shared moment that brings them back to what matters most about their work. AI may support those connections in the background. But it’s the human spark that carries them forward.

Conclusion: the network is already there. It just needs to be activated

From the outside, many organisations look fine. From the inside, they often feel disconnected,where much remains unspoken, underutilised, or resigned to habit. It’s difficult to name what’s missing when people aren’t even sure what’s possible.

What Hexitime facilitates is a shift in what gets noticed, drawing attention to what already exists but often remains unused or undervalued. It makes small acts of contribution visible. It gives people a space to notice what they’ve stopped asking for, and who they’ve stopped looking toward. This visibility adds depth to areas that are often one-dimensional,job descriptions, hierarchy, surface-level productivity metrics.

Organisations are full of intelligence that has nowhere to go. The structure doesn’t have a way to invite it, even if the contribution holds value. When someone offers something overlooked,a skill, a perspective, an unconventional kind of support,they’re contributing in ways that affirm their presence, depth, and capability within the organisation.

Hesham described the effect of this kind of shift:

“We’ve aligned the moral case with the business case. And that’s where the magic happens.”

It reflects a deeper pattern that describes rather than promotes. Many systems already carry the desire to be better,more connected, more grounded in purpose. But they don’t always know how to move from intention to action. Platforms like Hexitime open space for a different kind of conversation,one that’s structured but flexible enough to invite new ways of connecting.

If you’re asking yourself why certain efforts keep stalling, or why your people aren’t showing up the way they used to, the answer might not be found in the next training, the next hire, or the next metric. It might be waiting in someone you haven’t asked yet.

Book a Discovery Call to explore how to activate your organisation’s hidden network:

This edition of the Business Insights Series features Dr. Thomas Trautmann, founder of Happy Brains. With a background in computer engineering and science, Thomas eventually found his calling in behavioural marketing. Today, he runs a coaching and training business focused on ethical persuasion, blending neuroscience, psychology, and storytelling to help businesses become unforgettable to their clients. 

Through his company Happy Brains, he offers structured systems like the ‘Make Me Great‘ framework and the ‘Ethical Persuader’ method, both designed to improve how entrepreneurs communicate, influence, and build recurring trust. His programs combine human behaviour science with practical decision-making support, helping business owners shift from generic messaging to emotionally intelligent influence.

Before launching Happy Brains, he founded multiple companies and experienced first-hand the transformation that comes from emotional storytelling. In one case, he reported a 400% growth in business after shifting the messaging to focus on client emotion rather than logic. He has been working in neuromarketing and ethical persuasion for over 15 years, and developed the “Ethical Persuader” system as a response to what he saw as the missing human element in traditional marketing.

He’s based on the French Riviera, although on the day of our chat, he was unexpectedly grounded in Berlin. That gave us a chance to dive into a conversation about sales, self-perception, and what happens when marketing becomes more about the seller than the buyer.

Many business owners,especially those with a technical, craft-based, or operational mindset,struggle with selling. It feels off. Unnatural. Pushy. And while there are many frameworks that attempt to fix that, Thomas proposes something much simpler: start by understanding how the human brain makes decisions.

“Ethical persuasion means getting from people the decisions you want while you help them make the decisions they need.”

This is where most businesses get it wrong. They talk about features, tools, systems, and their own journey. But decisions aren’t made in the rational part of the brain. As Thomas explains, we decide in the emotional, subconscious part of our brain first, and only justify those choices logically afterward. And science backs him up: Harvard research shows that 95% of our purchase decision-making happens in the subconscious mind. In fact, even with what we believe are logical decisions, “the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion”. In short, decades of neuroscience confirm that the feeling part of the brain drives decisions long before the thinking part ever gets involved.

Your client doesn’t care about your story

One of the stronger threads in the conversation was the problem with founder-centric messaging. Too often, pitches, emails, and websites are built around the business owner’s story, values, and experience,often presented with passion, but without real relevance to the client.

“To be honest, I don’t care about you. Don’t talk about you. Talk about me.”

The comment is jarring at first, but it’s true. Marketing expert Donald Miller probably said it best: “Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand.” When someone opens your website, email, or offer, their brain is immediately asking: What’s in this for me?

This question is hardwired. As Thomas points out, the human brain, especially the primal, decision-making part, filters out what it considers irrelevant or self-serving. If your message doesn’t quickly signal personal value, it’s ignored. In today’s content-saturated world, that window of attention is even narrower.

This brings us to a recurring blind spot in small business marketing: the temptation to start with origin stories. While these narratives are often heartfelt, they’re usually misplaced at the top of the page. Clients don’t show up wanting to hear how your business was born. They arrive with an unmet need, a lingering frustration, or a goal they can’t quite reach.

Thomas’s “Make Me Great” framework cuts straight into this issue. It’s a mental reframe: don’t write to express who you are,write to reflect who they are. It’s an invitation to see every page, pitch, or presentation as a mirror. One that shows your client a version of themselves that is capable, successful, and unstuck.

There’s also a strategic advantage here. Messaging that centres on the client’s internal narrative tends to outperform because it aligns with how decisions are made. If someone recognises themselves in your language,especially in a way that feels safe and affirming,they’re far more likely to engage.

This approach raises useful questions for anyone creating client-facing material today:

• Have you described the world through their lens?
• Can your offer be understood before your credentials are listed?
• Does your headline reflect their problem or your process?

In a time when attention is scarce and scepticism is high, self-centred messaging often fades quickly into the background, bypassed by an audience that’s constantly scanning for relevance. Empathy is helpful, but on its own it doesn’t change how a message is received. What often makes the difference is precision, structure, and an intentional shift from broadcasting to reflecting.

And if your messaging is too focused on you, your tools, or your method, they’ll never get past the headline.

Most people are selling to themselves

This led us to one of the most surprising, and relatable, parts of the interview. Thomas explained that many entrepreneurs are unknowingly building messages that are trying to persuade themselves, not their clients.

“We are making ourselves a decision that we think that what we do is the best thing for them. So we want to talk and persuade ourselves twice. And then it’s a mess.”

This observation cuts to the heart of a dilemma that most founders face but rarely name: the subtle trap of confirmation bias in communication. When you’re emotionally invested in your service, your instinct is to validate its worth at every turn. That can lead to messages that are more like internal pep talks than externally relevant content.

The effect? A pitch that feels self-assured on the surface but disconnected beneath it. There’s plenty of conviction, but little resonance. Thomas calls it “self-talk disguised as marketing,” and you can spot it in the wild. It’s the website that sounds like a keynote, the email that reads like a monologue, the sales page that’s really just a mirror.

This matters even more today, when digital audiences are faster to scroll and less tolerant of irrelevant noise. People tune out as soon as something feels rehearsed, impersonal, or emotionally one-sided. In that sense, marketing increasingly rewards congruence with the audience’s inner dialogue rather than over-reliance on persuasion techniques.

If you’re selling a service, especially one that involves a high degree of trust or transformation, you might want to ask yourself: Who is this message really for? Is this an honest invitation,or a disguised attempt to talk myself into it again?

There’s a skill in stepping outside your own assumptions and seeing your product through the eyes of someone who has never heard of it, who’s distracted, and who’s just trying to solve a problem they don’t know how to name yet.

This shift, from internal validation to external relevance, takes practice. It requires listening without needing to respond, and designing language that meets the client in their current state of mind. This might sound subtle, but it’s the foundation of trust-building communication.

It also forces a more honest kind of creativity. If you’re no longer building messages that make you feel better, you’re freed up to build messages that make sense. And when your audience starts nodding instead of zoning out, you’ll know it’s working.

Selling is just a normal part of life

Thomas suggests that the discomfort often linked to selling comes from a long history of misused tactics and unwanted interactions. We associate it with manipulation. With awkward calls. With sleazy tactics. But in reality, we’re all selling, all the time.

“Everything we do is about selling. You want your kids to do their homework, you are going to sell them on that idea.”

He compares it to everyday conversations: persuading your partner to watch a different movie, asking your boss for some time off, even coaxing a toddler through a tantrum. Selling plays a role in most interactions of daily life. In fact, author Daniel Pink points out that we devote roughly 40% of our work time to this kind of “non-sales selling” – influencing and moving others even if we don’t have “sales” in our job title.

And yet many professionals still flinch at being called a “salesperson,” as if it’s a dirty word that conflicts with their values or credibility. No wonder – one survey found 9 out of 10 people have a negative perception of salespeople

Part of this discomfort comes from cultural baggage. We’ve all absorbed caricatures of selling as something slimy or coercive: the fast-talking scammer, the pushy call-centre script, the overly cheerful pitch you didn’t ask for. In that context, rejecting “sales” can feel like preserving your integrity. But what if the real issue is the intent behind it?

Thomas reframes selling as a form of leadership, something closer to guiding than tricking.

“If you don’t like selling, why are you telling your kid you will not get your smartphone back if you don’t do your homework? That’s manipulation. That’s bad influence. That’s not ethical.”

This reframe matters because it positions persuasion within everyday ethics. If we accept that selling is always happening,in classrooms, living rooms, boardrooms,then the real question becomes: how do we want to show up in those moments? What are we reinforcing when we influence someone’s decision?

For entrepreneurs, this insight is especially relevant. Many of them avoid proactive outreach, hesitate to follow up, or feel uncomfortable stating their offer. They don’t necessarily doubt their work, but they may fear being seen as pushy. This hesitation can close doors they didn’t know were even open,across both business and personal connections.

There’s value in separating the method from the motive. Ethical persuasion involves choosing language and actions that make space for the client’s autonomy, with a clear intention to build trust and respect boundaries. It invites, rather than pressures. And when done well, it removes much of the internal resistance from the process.

In the years ahead, as automation increases and trust becomes the differentiator, the demand for more human ways of influencing decisions will grow. Persuasion, stripped of gimmicks and aligned with personal responsibility, might become one of the most respected business skills of the decade.

Why ethical persuasion works better (and lasts longer)

Ethical persuasion creates better results. When you shift the focus from your own agenda to the client’s internal drivers, you become more memorable, more trusted, and more likely to be invited back.

“Once you become unforgettable, you grow your chances of recurring business from 5% up to 70%.”

That kind of retention often reflects deeper alignment between a business and the emotional landscape of its clients,something that marketing infrastructure alone rarely achieves. When a client feels understood,before they even say a word,they lean in. They respond. They remember.

There’s something worth exploring in this idea of being “unforgettable.” In a time where attention has been atomised and relationships are fragmented across channels, becoming memorable is no small thing. Being remembered can go far beyond brand recall. It reflects emotional resonance,an impression that lasts because it connects to something felt, not just seen. When a business owner leaves a positive trace in a client’s mind, that memory shapes how and whether they come back.

Unforgettable impressions are often built through consistency, subtle emotional cues, and moments where clients feel seen rather than spoken at. Sometimes it’s a phrase that sticks, a gesture that signals attentiveness, or a tone that mirrors what the client didn’t have words for. These elements don’t always rely on volume or refinement. Their strength lies in the way they linger, often because they resonate on a personal level and feel emotionally accurate to the client’s experience. Ethical persuasion doesn’t rely on pressure. It works because it respects timing, pacing, and context. It moves at the speed of trust.

Looking ahead, memorability might become one of the core currencies in service-based industries. As AI-generated content grows, and more touchpoints become automated, the most valuable interactions will be those that feel human. Not perfect,just real, timely, and anchored in shared understanding.

So the question worth asking is: what would make your business unforgettable to the kind of person you most want to serve? If the answer feels vague, the path forward likely involves fewer tweaks to your logo and more attention to the invisible moments that build trust.

And that’s the goal: build relationships that last. What leaves a lasting impression often has less to do with polish and more to do with presence,the sense that someone has truly been acknowledged and understood.

The way forward

There’s no perfect formula for persuasion. But there is a shift worth making,one that begins with stepping away from self-promotion as the default lens for communication.

Stop selling to yourself.

Stop trying to justify your service.

Start listening for the fears, wants, and drivers behind the decisions your audience is already making,whether they know it or not.

“The cheat sheet is: think about them as human beings.”

That sentence might feel deceptively simple, but it sits at the core of what modern business communication often forgets. When people are overwhelmed by options, time-starved, and bombarded by digital noise, empathy becomes a competitive advantage. Not the vague, fluffy kind. The kind that requires discipline. The kind that asks you to observe more than you explain.

What does it mean to think of your audience as human beings? It might mean you slow down your response time, not to delay, but to read between the lines. And also it might mean rewriting your landing page in the voice your client actually uses in conversation. It could mean replacing half your pitch deck with a story that mirrors a struggle your prospect has never said out loud,but recognises immediately.

This shift also requires humility. If you’re deeply invested in your product or service, it’s tempting to assume it’s already valuable. But value doesn’t exist in isolation. It emerges in relationship. When your audience sees themselves reflected clearly, trust grows. And trust is still the shortest route to a decision.

Looking ahead, as automation continues to scale outreach and AI tools increase the volume of content, the conversations that create lasting connection are likely to centre on meaning,what feels timely, considered, and relevant to the person receiving it. Messages that land. Pages that feel written for one person. Pitches that show real understanding.

This kind of persuasion often feels understated. It’s rooted in thoughtfulness and coherence. It’s slower, more deliberate, and less concerned with making a big impression. When people feel genuinely understood, resistance softens. The decision becomes easier, as if something clicked into place at just the right moment.

If you want to find out more about Thomas and his strategy, book a call with him here:
https://home.happy-brains.com/book-strat-call

Want help turning your client messaging into something unforgettable? Let’s talk. Book a free 30-minute Discovery Call with Serenichron: https://calendly.com/serenichron/30min

This article is part of the Business Insights Series, based on a follow-up conversation with Anthony Tse, founder of Institute for Greatness (IFG). Anthony previously built and exited a group of kindergartens in Singapore and now coaches professionals and senior leaders through career transitions, leadership challenges, and personal development work. IFG combines one-to-one coaching, group sessions, and corporate workshops.

Our previous article, “Why resilient leaders turn setbacks into stories“, explored Anthony’s transition from finance to education and then to coaching and public speaking. It focused on how he reframed setbacks as opportunities and how his belief that careers are stories helps leaders reimagine their professional path.

This time, we focused on what happens once the foundations of a business are in place. Year two introduces different problems: how to increase visibility, how to build delivery systems that don’t rely solely on the founder, and how to maintain energy while preparing for scale. The questions raised in year two reveal patterns around identity, trust, and design. What kind of work feels worth doing? Which responsibilities need to stay close to the founder? What needs to be protected as you grow? 

Decisions about delegation or visibility change how your business is seen by others and how you relate to it day-to-day. They influence trust, autonomy, and the type of leadership you model to your team and clients. When you’re the founder, these decisions also shape how much mental space you have to think, create, and plan what’s next. The conversation became a mirror for what many founders go through when early traction begins to stabilise. We talked about leverage, delegation, visibility, and what it means to build a business you still want to run in five years.

Scaling doesn’t start with headcount

In the first year of launching a service business, most of the work happens behind the scenes: defining the offer, testing delivery formats, and understanding which clients resonate with the work. For Anthony, this meant coaching professionals 1-to-1, posting regularly on LinkedIn, and recording over 200 hours of sessions. From the beginning, he was thinking about building a method. A structure that others could eventually deliver. That intention influenced how he looked at every task: through the lens of how it might contribute to a larger system. And that leads to one of his earliest decisions:

“There are certain topics that I don’t enjoy as much and I may not be as good on… so I outsource them to people more experienced.”

This line was telling,because it revealed how clearly he had identified his edge and made decisions to support it. Topics like internal company politics, for example, didn’t energise him. Rather than forcing expertise in areas he found draining, he mapped out a roster of collaborators who could cover those topics better. 

This choice reflected a business intentionally designed to align with his own strengths and with the goal of developing a coaching method that others could one day deliver. That goal shapes how delegation works in his model. 

The decision supports the creation of a coaching system that maintains his standards and thinking, while also allowing others to deliver it effectively. Delegating the areas he doesn’t enjoy or excel at helps him stay consistent with that larger intention: a business that reflects his voice but isn’t dependent on his presence.

Founders often feel pulled to be everything at once. Especially in the first year, when every client and every invoice feels like a lifeline, the instinct is to overdeliver and do it all yourself. This is a common trap. Many entrepreneurs (especially solo founders on a budget) struggle to let go. But that approach limits the business to the founder’s time and energy. What Anthony did instead was define boundaries early, as a condition for scale. 

In fact, research shows that leaders who master the art of delegation see outsized benefits: a Gallup study of over 500 CEOs found that “high delegators” achieved three-year growth rates 112% higher than those who struggled to delegate, and generated 33% more revenue on average. In Anthony’s case, carving out what not to do created room for real growth.

I’ve seen this pattern with many of our clients at Serenichron. When a founder starts identifying what drains them and actively structures the business around their strengths, decision-making becomes faster and more sustainable. Instead of worrying whether they’re missing out on opportunities, they start designing the right kind of growth,one that fits their energy, values, and zone of competence.

Anthony spent time observing his own reactions to the work and used those insights to shape his offer in a way that felt aligned with how he wanted to build and deliver value. That’s how momentum starts to build in the right direction.

Year two is about leverage

Now that his systems are in place, Anthony is exploring how to shift from 1-to-1 delivery into formats that multiply his time. This includes masterclasses, corporate workshops, and expanding the reach of his YouTube channel. What’s interesting here is how the move toward leverage starts with the delivery model. Group training, workshops, and content all create more surface area for the same thinking to travel further.

“The goal is eventually to have a roster of coaches.”

This shift in structure mirrors what many founders face as they move from stability into scale. It’s a transition that demands new skills,packaging knowledge, systematising delivery, and trusting others to carry the message. Anthony spoke about preparing these formats carefully, and finalising team engagements in a way that doesn’t compromise the experience for participants. These transitions often unfold gradually and without formal announcements. It doesn’t involve a loud launch or a rebrand. It’s built through assets,presentations, recordings, playbooks,that allow consistency across settings.

Anthony described these decisions in terms of infrastructure,something structural that supports weight and scales with intention. Not in the metaphorical sense, but in the real, structural way: something that supports weight later. That’s a valuable mental model. If you treat each content asset or workshop format as a beam or joint in the system, you naturally start to test for strength and adaptability. Does it hold under repetition? Can someone else run it? Will it work in another context?

The mindset here is calm, deliberate growth. It’s an approach we’ve also seen succeed with our clients at Serenichron: invest in building durable tools before you scale visibility. Because when the spotlight comes, you want your systems to hold. Anthony’s move from exclusivity to leverage is a buildout. And it’s the shift that, done well, compounds until it doesn’t.

Delegate the drain, keep the signal

Anthony keeps his core focus on client acquisition, coaching, and content. Nearly all other operations,including accounting, YouTube editing, and LinkedIn management,are outsourced.

“I always think about the trade-off: how much is my time worth? If someone else can do it cheaper or better, I outsource.”

Anthony’s approach to delegation is deliberate and clearly thought through. Delegation, for Anthony, aligns with the structure he’s been building since the early days of IFG. It reflects a long-term design choice aimed at sustaining focus and scaling effectively. 

Every time-consuming task he removes is a way to redirect focus to the parts of the work that move the business forward. This includes refining presentations, planning keynote speeches, and guiding clients through high-stakes decisions.

He’s built an infrastructure that protects his attention and keeps the work meaningful. That’s a useful lens for other founders to apply. Outsourcing decisions can reflect priorities such as energy, expertise, and overall design, rather than being guided solely by cost. In this sense, delegation becomes a leadership behaviour: a way of modelling what matters.

As I shared during our conversation: “I found that the level of resistance business owners have towards this mindset is much higher than I ever expected.” The instinct to hold everything tightly can stop progress entirely. Especially when founders equate control with hands-on execution, rather than strategic direction.

The mindset that built IFG is one that resists busywork disguised as ownership. What Anthony keeps is signal. What he delegates is noise. That filter helps the business stay focused, even as it grows.

Growth shows up in jumps

Business expansion doesn’t usually follow a straight path. In Anthony’s experience, growth tends to move in waves,there’s an initial push, a stretch of consolidation, and then another surge.

“Usually there’s an inflection point,and then the viral, referral effects start.”

He compared this rhythm to what happened with the preschool business he previously ran. In year one, they focused on building operations and defining a reliable experience. It wasn’t until year two that the flywheel began to turn,thanks to referrals, satisfied parents, and more confident messaging. Now, in coaching, a similar rhythm is emerging. There’s greater structure, better articulation of value, more client testimonials, and the first signs of external visibility.

Anthony is focused on designing a structure that supports long-term growth, with each stage intentionally planned. And that idea,growth as staged momentum,deserves reflection. In many service businesses, we see founders overwhelmed by the demand to grow fast without clear infrastructure. The result? Friction. Quality dips. Teams stretch thin. Anthony’s approach is a counter-pattern: start with the systems, then layer visibility, then scale delivery.

“Once you put the right system in place, 3x or 4x becomes easier than 2x.”

This observation points to a practical truth: growth tends to accelerate more smoothly when supported by the right systems. With strong foundations, the business can absorb complexity without breaking pace. What sounds counterintuitive is often true in practice: it can be easier to scale fast when your base is strong than to double a weak model slowly.

This reflects the classic flywheel effect described by Jim Collins: each turn of progress builds on the last, compounding your investment of effort until momentum takes over. In other words, many small, consistent pushes in the right direction can lead to a seemingly sudden leap forward once the flywheel gains speed.

This way of thinking about growth changes how founders prepare. Instead of chasing attention early, the emphasis shifts to asset-building: presentations, onboarding flows, messaging templates, video libraries. These assets create surface area. They allow the founder to replicate results without diluting quality. It’s a mindset that privileges readiness over reaction.

For readers designing year two or three of their business, the key is to prepare for incoming referrals by ensuring the business is equipped to handle them. What systems are in place to receive them? What client experience are they walking into? Anthony’s story shows that growth is a test of how well the business has been built to absorb it.

Design for the business you still want in 5 years

Anthony approaches business building with long-term satisfaction in mind. The way he structures IFG resembles the work of someone designing something they want to live in. This shows up in how he’s building content, training models, and even in how he thinks about legacy. Anthony’s design approach includes enjoying the process of reaching people and maintaining a sense of pride in how the impact is made.

“Now I know this stuff takes a long time… but hopefully year two is the jump.”

His patience acts as a filter. Instead of reacting to visibility spikes or chasing trends, Anthony prioritises formats that allow ideas to live longer. He reuses effective posts, turns them into assets, and repackages them into deeper resources. His philosophy is to build once and let that work travel,something we often encourage clients to do when designing knowledge products or advisory offers. He treats each part of his business as something that should accumulate value over time. It’s a mindset that filters out distractions and focuses on enduring relevance.

As I shared with him: “If you’re writing slop, then yeah, people won’t read. But if you’re writing something crafted, purposeful, addressing a real pain,that can be 10 pages long and still land.”

Designing for longevity focuses less on length and more on depth. And that changes how content gets written, how teams are shaped, and how delivery models evolve. It helps to be recognisable and reliable where it matters most, rather than trying to show up in every space at once. Anthony’s design choices remind us that a well-built system rewards you twice: once when it helps you show up, and again when it continues to deliver value without you having to repeat the effort.

Conclusion: build before you broadcast

The founders who build businesses with staying power tend to treat Year 1 as the groundwork phase. It’s when they learn where energy flows best, what processes are sustainable, and what offer they actually want to scale. The ones who succeed later are often those who resisted the urge to rush visibility and instead focused on getting the structure right.

Anthony’s current trajectory reflects that choice. His coaching business has developed reliable delivery systems, growing reach, and a point of view that resonates across platforms. The systems now support his ability to scale without becoming reactive. This stage of growth involves preserving energy, making clean decisions, and staying aligned with a long-term vision.

For founders reading this, it may be useful to reflect on what phase you’re in. Are you still in the buildout,refining the offer, installing the systems,or are you starting to sense a readiness to scale? Either way, the question that matters most is whether your foundation can support what’s coming next.

Anthony also shares ideas regularly on his YouTube channel. You can explore his talks and interviews here: https://www.youtube.com/@Institute_IFG/videos

Want help building systems that can scale with you?

In this article of the Business Insights Series, I sat down with Anthony Tse from Institute for Greatness (IFG), a former finance leader who built and exited a kindergarten group in Singapore and now coaches professionals and executives.

IFG is a coaching and advisory firm that works with professionals through to senior executives. The team supports career advancement and leadership development via 1‑to‑1 coaching, group training, and executive workshops. Programmes include career design, communication and influence, and preparing managers for C‑suite responsibilities. 

The mission is to take your career to the next level so you can live a more fulfilling life. We talked about career pivots, sales in high‑trust services, coaching patterns he sees across industries, and how he plans to scale IFG with a clear method and smart use of AI. 

Anthony has delivered several TEDx talks over the years, and took part in a major speaker event where he won the Audience Favourite award. Readers can explore his Business Insider feature and the event video titled “Your career is not a ladder – it’s a story” to see how he presents his ideas in action. These platforms continue to carry his message about careers as evolving stories to a wider audience. You will find practical ideas for brand, leadership, and growth. Let’s start with the belief that shaped his journey.

Why ordinary people can pursue greatness

Anthony explained the origin of his institute in direct terms, showing how the name links to the mission.

“Yeah, so the genesis of IFG Institute for Greatness really is to let ordinary people know that anybody can one day be great if they, if more like you can pursue greatness.”

Anthony’s belief is rooted in lived experience rather than abstract theory. For him, greatness shows up in the willingness to act when the safe option is to stand still. The people he coaches often arrive with doubts about whether they have the right background or the right timing. His message is that action, however small, builds the evidence you need to trust yourself. This is advice worth carrying into any boardroom or shop floor. Many leaders wait for the perfect plan, but by the time it arrives the market has moved. Progress belongs to those who start with what they have.

Recent studies reveal that “41% of people have taken a career pivot in the last 36 months while 35% have no planned career path at all.” This data reinforces Anthony’s philosophy that traditional linear career paths are becoming obsolete, and that embracing action over perfect planning is increasingly vital for professional success. As one career transition specialist notes, “Gone are the days where employees would start their career and end it with the same company. People are looking for more variety, progression and fulfilment from their careers.”

Here is how that belief looked in his own life. In 2009, during the financial crisis, Anthony lost his job in finance. He chose to treat the change as a release and moved fast. Within months he launched his first business, a hedge fund, at 30. The quote that follows is the line he uses to explain that shift.

“Unemployment actually equals liberation.”

That was how he reframed being laid off in 2009. Instead of reading the event as a closed door, he treated it as space to create something of his own. The way he tells the story matters as much as the event itself. By choosing the word “liberation,” he gives a signal to anyone listening: language shapes the way we act. 

If you call it failure, you stop. If you call it freedom, you search for options. Leaders can apply this directly in moments of disruption. A team that sees crisis as a constraint will shrink into caution. A team that sees it as opportunity begins testing ideas that might carry them forward. The insight is practical, the mindset serves as a decision‑making tool. The challenge is to see the space that has opened and take a deliberate step into it.

Career is a story, not a ladder

Anthony often returns to a phrase that frames how he thinks about work and life.

“Career is not a ladder, it’s a story.”

That is the working title of his TEDx talk. The idea comes from the many shifts he has lived through: a long career in finance, then building a kindergarten group, and now coaching. Each stage required him to rethink what success meant and how to approach work with fresh energy. Those experiences gave him a clear sense that careers cannot be reduced to promotions or job titles. He views them as stories that evolve, with turning points that often appear first as obstacles.

Harvard Business Review research confirms this narrative approach to careers is particularly effective for leadership development. In their analysis of executive recoveries from setbacks, researchers found that leaders who view their careers as evolving stories rather than linear progressions are more likely to bounce back successfully. As one study noted, “Even a dramatic career failure can become a springboard to success if you respond in the right way.” The key is to “determine why you lost, identify new paths, and seize the right opportunity when it’s within your reach.”

“Every obstacle is really just a building block towards a climax of a chapter of your life.”

When leaders adopt this mindset, they often feel permission to stop defending past choices and instead focus on writing what comes next. This way of seeing work encourages people to bring their values into career planning. For a manager, it might mean shifting energy toward a role where influence matters more than hierarchy. 

For an entrepreneur, it could be the freedom to close a chapter on a struggling idea and begin testing a new offer without shame. The story frame changes the pressure. Instead of asking whether a role is high enough on the ladder, you ask whether the current chapter advances the plot you want to tell. That question is more useful because it ties your daily effort to meaning as well as progress. If your current role does not fit your values, begin sketching the first lines of the next scene and give yourself permission to keep writing.

From finance desks to school halls

Anthony spent two decades in finance, then bought and ran kindergartens, growing from one site to five and scaling staff from eight to about fifty. He turned around distressed schools during lockdowns and later exited to another operator. The work was hands‑on and demanded that he learn operations, hiring, and even direct customer engagement on the spot.

“I handled the school tours and open houses myself, speaking directly with parents about their concerns and hopes.”

This approach reminded him that each enrolment was a long‑term relationship built on trust. Parents choose a school with care, and the decision carries strong emotions. Anthony led tours and open houses himself, listened to concerns directly, and refined how he explained the school’s value. For founders, the lesson is that when selling something that relies on trust, you need to be close to the customer at the start. 

Early conversations are where you hear unfiltered questions, learn the objections, and shape a story that resonates. Once you have that understanding, you can equip your team to carry the message forward, but the original insights come only from being in the room yourself.

What coaching clients ask for most

After a year and a half of IFG, Anthony has started to see repeated themes in the work he does with clients. The requests arrive from different industries and at different levels of seniority, yet the struggles look familiar.

Anthony explained that even in his early stage of coaching practice, certain themes repeat themselves. Many of his clients share similar pain points, whether they work in finance, consulting, or tech. This observation gives weight to his advice, because it shows that the barriers leaders face often repeat across industries and seniority levels.

Communication is the most common challenge. Many leaders discover that what made them effective as specialists does not carry when they need to influence a wider group. Others arrive with questions about how to build a personal brand strong enough to travel with them if they change jobs. Another frequent request is support in moving from being a competent manager to being seen as a credible leader.

“Most people are just not great communicators, which you would be amazed to see even at senior levels.”

Anthony’s own practice of showing up online has doubled as both marketing and learning. His consistency on LinkedIn brought him new clients, but it also clarified his voice. Publishing weekly forced him to sharpen his thinking and create material he could use later in workshops. For readers leading teams, the insight is that regular output builds trust in two directions: potential clients see your expertise, and your own team sees the values you stand for. Try a weekly rhythm: one short post that tells a useful story and lands a clear lesson. Over time, those posts stack into a body of work that people recognise and return to.

Building a failure‑proof mindset

In our discussion, Anthony kept returning to the idea that setbacks, if handled deliberately, can strengthen a career rather than endanger it. He advises his clients to treat challenges as raw material for the next stage of their story, something that can be used to build momentum and inform the next stage of progress. When people realise that lessons learned in difficult chapters can make the next one richer, the pressure to appear flawless eases and growth becomes possible.

“People hire me because I tell them I’m just being human.”

This captures how Anthony frames adversity. It is a practical instruction with clear applications. He has lived through failed ventures and industry shifts, and he shares those details openly with clients. That openness builds credibility: it shows that failure is part of the process, not a reason to step aside. His willingness to name mistakes in public talks and in his book (“Breaking the Glass Ceiling”) gives clients permission to explore their own setbacks honestly.

For readers, the application is clear. Keep a short reflection log after each major challenge at work. Write down the event, the lesson you see in it, and one adjustment you plan to make. Review these notes monthly. Over time, you create a personal archive of resilience that can guide decisions and remind you of progress. Leaders who practise this exercise often notice that their teams follow suit, making reflection a cultural habit rather than a private one. This is how a failure‑proof mindset begins to spread beyond one person and into an organisation.

Scaling an institute

Anthony named his company an institute on purpose. He aims to build a method that other coaches can deliver, extending beyond a brand tied only to his name. He is building a structured framework for coaching, adding corporate training and speaking, and lining up a roster of coaches for when demand rises. He also wants to use his recorded sessions to train AI helpers.

Anthony explained that he has already collected hundreds of hours of coaching conversations, each filled with questions, responses, and reflections. The value is not in the number itself but in the way these sessions can be tagged and analysed. With structure, his approach can be turned into a clear method that other coaches can learn and apply. That allows consistency for clients and ensures the experience is not dependent on a single person’s style.

“I do want to expand it in 2026, potentially having a roster of coaches, potentially scaling, potentially putting in AI.”

That ambition points to a shift from a personal practice to a scalable organisation. It means designing training pathways for future coaches, creating clear playbooks, and ensuring quality control. It also means considering how digital tools, including AI, can capture patterns from his sessions and make them available as guidance. These plans show that scaling involves more than expanding headcount. It requires preserving the depth of the work while also reaching more people. The goal he set for himself is clear: scale in 2026.

On ownership, agency, and relationships

We both share a bias for building. When you run a business, excuses are expensive. That lesson applies whether you are running a start‑up or leading a department inside a global firm. Ownership means stepping into responsibility instead of waiting for someone else to fix the gap.

Anthony spoke about the way this principle shows up in careers. “A career is a life story inside of an organization and then across organizations, right?” The comment points to how careers are often shaped by the relationships that open doors, as much as by the plans written on paper. Skills matter, but they need to be seen, trusted, and connected to the right projects.

“Results are almost secondary because you need the… Relationships to achieve the results.” This line highlights a truth that many leaders discover late: outcomes rely on networks as much as effort. For readers, the practice is simple. If a project is stalling, draw a quick relationship map. Mark who needs clarity, who could use a visible win, and who simply wants to be heard. Often the path forward comes through one focused conversation rather than another spreadsheet.

Closing thoughts

Anthony’s journey across finance, education, and coaching reveals that growth rarely follows a straight path. Each stage added a new skill set, from analysis to customer trust to personal storytelling. For business leaders, the insight is that careers and companies alike thrive when they are treated as evolving stories rather than fixed ladders.

A practical growth lesson emerges here: resilience is built by structuring what you learn and making it teachable. Anthony’s plans for IFG show how personal experience can turn into a method, and how that method can scale with technology and people. For readers running their own businesses, this is a reminder to capture processes early, to test them in small cycles, and to make them transferable to others. That is how momentum builds without being tied to one person.

If your work needs a reset, write the next chapter. If your business needs structure, start with one repeatable process today.Anthony also shares ideas regularly on his YouTube channel. You can explore his talks and interviews here: https://www.youtube.com/@Institute_IFG/videos

Oren Meshoulam is a Canadian-born, Israeli entrepreneur and marketing expert. He started his first business at 16, running Dungeons & Dragons extracurricular programs. After military service, Oren built a career in call centres and management before transitioning to marketing. 

He led a major venture for AWACS, an Israeli car radar company, in the US. Frustrated with the lack of tailored support from marketing agencies, he taught himself digital marketing and founded his own agency focused on practical, business-first strategies for small firms.

Oren is now the co-founder of Tailor Made Marketing (TMM), a boutique agency that focuses on creating personalized strategies for small and medium businesses. TMM helps clients cut through the noise with services like PPC campaigns, social media management, website development, automation, data analytics, Amazon strategy, and training workshops. 

Their mission is to simplify digital marketing and offer transparent, hands-on solutions that actually move the needle. TMM avoids one-size-fits-all approaches and instead focuses on building strategies that are tailored to each client’s context.

This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where I speak with entrepreneurs and decision-makers to understand what’s working, what’s not, and where things are headed in the business world. In this conversation, we get into the reality of customer communication, how agencies fail (and why), and what actually makes a marketing strategy work for a business.

Let’s dive into why so many marketing efforts miss the mark, and what we can do about it.

Many companies hire agencies hoping for a ready-made recipe for growth. They’re presented with impressive dashboards, slick reports, and standardised packages,but often without any genuine engagement with what actually makes their business unique.

This experience shaped Oren’s belief that scaling a marketing agency should not come at the cost of understanding the client. When strategy is templated, it may produce short-term results, but it overlooks long-term fit. The nuance, the edge, the context that makes a business stand out,those can’t be templated.

Rather than risk exposing client details, Oren now uses this past frustration as a reminder to keep digging deeper. Every project starts with curiosity. Not with assumptions. That’s the difference between just running campaigns and actually building market relevance.

Know who you’re really selling to

Understanding your customer means staying engaged with their reality,consistently, deliberately, and without assumptions. In practice, it’s also the part most overlooked. Businesses often default to what they want to say, not what their audience needs to hear. The result? Campaigns that are technically sound but contextually off.

Oren made it clear during our conversation: most marketing efforts fail at the very beginning. They misidentify the audience, or worse, assume that their own perspective mirrors that of the buyer. That false equivalence leads to a cascade of mismatches,between offer and need, between tone and expectation, between product and context.

“The first thing we do, we actually analyse the end user before we even go into the accounts… once we had the profile, we went into the accounts, Google Analytics, Google Ads… and we see that the type of content, creatives, targeting, had nothing to do with the end user.”

When there’s no certainty around who you’re trying to reach, decisions around messaging, platforms, creative, and targeting become guesswork. Businesses end up optimising noise, not relevance. TMM Agency integrates a precise understanding of the target audience right from the beginning and forms the foundation for every strategic decision. Instead of relying on abstract personas built in isolation, the focus is on watching behaviour, asking real questions, and testing assumptions through actual user interactions.

“Usually us as business owners, we are not our own buyers. And it’s very hard to put a different hat and say, all right, then what is my actual buyer looking for?”

This disconnect is common, especially in founder-led businesses. The founder is often deeply invested in the product, emotionally and intellectually, and that passion can blur the perception of what the customer actually values. In this context, empathy plays a strategic role in decision-making and communication.

Knowing your customer means you can frame decisions in their language. It’s how you move from broadcasting features to offering actual solutions. It’s also how trust begins with a pattern of relevance that the customer begins to recognise over time, rather than a one-time pitch.

Thinking like your customer is hard work. It requires intellectual humility, structured observation, and a willingness to change course when the data doesn’t confirm your intuition. But that’s what sets apart campaigns that feel right from those that just fill space.

What today’s customers actually want

As PwC reports, speed and convenience are the most important elements of a good experience for over 80% of consumers. In practice that means customers will quickly abandon any process with too many steps or delays. PwC even found that a single bad experience can drive away about a third of customers.

Oren summed it up neatly: simplicity, speed, and satisfaction. These are the three qualities that define modern loyalty.

“The client comes down to only one thing… they want simple, fast, and seamless.”

He followed the catchphrase with clear, grounded examples. A banking app that freezes or requires too many steps leads people to switch providers, regardless of how reputable the institution might be. 

Fuel stations lose customers when the process of paying for gas takes longer than expected, even if prices or product quality remain competitive. It’s everyday friction that turns routine actions into frustrations. And people will avoid friction every time they can.

“I left two gas stations because it wasn’t convenient. By locking my car, going in, waiting in line… it’s time consuming. So no speed, no convenience, and obviously no personalisation.”

The key here involves more than improving a single point of contact; it requires designing the experience across the entire customer journey. Where can time be saved? Where can confusion be removed? Where can a moment of frustration be turned into a moment of relief? These questions reach beyond UX,they shape core business decisions and directly influence customer loyalty.

When you look at loyalty through this lens, it stops being a vague emotional concept and starts becoming a set of decisions businesses can actually influence. That’s important, especially for small and medium businesses who assume loyalty must be “earned” through branding alone. In truth, most customers stay when the cost of leaving feels higher than the benefit of switching. That cost is often time, energy, or convenience.

This framework,simple, fast, seamless,offers a diagnostic tool. If loyalty is slipping, don’t jump to revamp your logo or launch a new discount. Instead, ask: where are we making things harder than they need to be? Where are we asking too much of our customer’s attention, time, or patience?

Good businesses respect their customers’ time. The better ones obsess over it.

Listening is hard. Adapting is harder.

Even when businesses receive feedback, many fail to act on it. They cling to an imagined market instead of engaging with the one that’s already present and showing signs of loyalty. That reluctance to adapt may come from fear, legacy assumptions, or the lure of a more ‘aspirational’ audience. But chasing an idealised customer while neglecting those who already believe in you is a costly misstep.

“We get that this is my client base, but I want these guys as well. And we’re constantly saying, until we don’t get the ones that actually are accepting you, they’re going to be your biggest advocates.”

This dynamic shows up everywhere,from startup founders targeting early adopters while ignoring existing users, to large brands that prioritise new acquisition at the expense of existing satisfaction. The customers who are already saying yes, already coming back, already sharing your work, those are the people who create sustainable growth.

Listening to them means studying behaviour, patterns, tone of voice in support tickets, or the churn that reveals where you’ve slipped. It means having the humility to say, “What I thought they wanted might not be what they actually need.”

“We do not know how to listen to our end client… we want to share our knowledge… and we’re not capable of just being quiet for a moment to hear what the client or the prospect actually needs.”

Many businesses,and agencies in particular,are built around outbound motion: show, explain, pitch, promote. But there’s a skill in staying still. In letting the customer speak without interruption. In resisting the urge to justify before fully understanding.

Businesses that develop this listening culture gain two unfair advantages: relevance and timing. They spot shifts early, they adapt their offers without losing momentum, and they speak in the customer’s language before the competition catches up.

This takes time to develop,and when done consistently, it becomes a competitive edge that compounds. Patience, self-awareness, and adaptability are cultural. And in business, culture has a longer shelf life than any campaign.

Partners, not clients

At TMM Agency, the client relationship is intentionally reframed as a partnership. This phrase reflects a real, structural principle in how they operate. It shapes how they build strategies, conduct meetings, allocate resources, and measure success. Oren’s philosophy is that mutual accountability drives better outcomes, and that approach has become the cultural backbone of the agency.

“This is also why we call them our partners. Because we actually see them as partners and not our clients… We have one common goal. It’s not me against them. If they win, I win.”

It’s easy to say you want a “partnership” with clients. Many agencies put that word in their decks. But few structure the relationship so that both sides are aligned on incentives and outcomes. 

At TMM, that mindset translates into a higher tolerance for friction,the kind that emerges through critical thinking, honest feedback, and shared accountability. If something isn’t working, it’s addressed. If the client’s assumptions are flawed, they’re challenged. And if there’s a tough decision to make, it’s made together.

What stood out in our conversation was how this approach builds trust over time. When you stop acting like a vendor and start operating as a co-pilot, you build traction that lasts through slow months, bad campaigns, or pivots in strategy. Clients feel it. And they stay.

There’s also a layer of self-discipline that this model requires. You can’t commit to true partnership if you’re guarding your process, avoiding transparency, or hiding behind jargon. You have to open the books, explain your decisions, and work in a way that invites collaboration rather than compliance. That’s a higher bar,but it builds stronger businesses.

Agency relationships are notorious for being fragile. But when both parties share risk, communicate openly, and pursue goals together, fragility gives way to resilience. That’s what TMM is designing for: a structure where growth is built on shared wins, not just deliverables.

Conclusion: Who are you actually talking to?

Marketing only works when it connects. And connection comes from relevance.

But what does relevance really mean? Effective marketing depends on more than keywords, channels, or trendy visuals. It requires context,understanding where your customer is mentally, emotionally, and practically, and offering something that fits that specific moment. Missing that moment often costs trust, which is much harder to win back.

When businesses take time to listen,to truly understand their customers,they start to see where the real demand lies. They pay attention to what’s being said,and what’s left unsaid. Silence, hesitation, workarounds, these are signals too. Real marketing begins when we stop assuming and start observing.

“Our job as marketers is how can we help you create a demand for your product, regardless of where they are in the funnel.”

Oren’s words frame it well: the marketer’s job is to generate demand. That means understanding not only who the customer is, but where they are in their decision-making. It’s a longer game. It requires more listening than pitching. More diagnosing than describing.

If your marketing isn’t landing, maybe the issue isn’t your product or price. Maybe you’re trying to meet someone at a destination they’ve never been to. Maybe you’re answering questions they haven’t asked yet.

Good marketing resonates. And that resonance starts with insight.

Welcome to another edition of the Business Insights Series. Here, we listen to people building businesses in ways that reflect their values, constraints, and lived experience, often without fanfare. 

This series focuses on real decision-makers navigating day-to-day trade-offs, uncertainty, and ambition in motion, people whose strategies are shaped by constraints, real feedback, and lived experience. This is the second interview with Henal Chotai, a UK-based coach and entrepreneur who previously ran a family-owned café.

Our first piece, titled “Where empathy shapes the business plan“ looked at Henal’s journey through hospitality, emotional intelligence, and steady leadership in times of change. It focused on how he built trust, community, and meaningful experiences by staying grounded in his values.

In this follow-up, we look closer at what keeps him going now. How does he keep building after the café? How does he stay motivated without burning out? How does he measure progress when the road is unclear?

Creating motion with minimal goals

Henal structures his work around small, achievable actions that help him stay in motion. This is part of a larger mindset that values movement over magnitude. One of the examples he gave was his daily walk:

“My minimum is five laps. I end up doing eight, nine, ten laps. But the bare minimum is five.”

This might seem like a personal habit, but it’s a principle he applies to his business mindset. Setting a minimum standard gives him an early sense of completion and control. That small commitment removes the mental friction of starting. And once he starts, he often ends up doing more than planned.

“If I can keep my baseline to the minimal while still trying to achieve more… that motivation comes from the small steps.”

Henal’s intuition is backed by research on motivation. Even tiny victories can create outsized momentum. As one Fast Company article put it, “Small wins matter big… They signal to our brain that progress is happening and big results are just around the corner.” In other words, that five-lap routine is a spark that makes you want to do lap six, seven, and beyond.

Business owners often deal with challenges that don’t offer quick fixes. Things like cash flow strain, retention issues, or inefficient systems don’t always respond to inspirational goal-setting. In those moments, a bold target might feel out of reach, while a stable foothold, something clear, doable, and suited to the moment, can offer a more reliable place to begin.

Henal uses structured habits and practical benchmarks to guide his decisions. He’s not driven by urgency or scale for its own sake. His idea of sustainability involves boundaries, a manageable rhythm, and keeping things aligned with real capacity. In this space, ambition takes a practical shape. It reflects the day’s energy, the available resources, and the progress that fits within those limits.

Client-based businesses often operate within shifting demands and unpredictable timelines. In those conditions, developing a structure that can flex with the flow of work, without creating burnout, is a valuable asset. 

A steady flow works best when supported by a system that absorbs variation and adjusts to changing conditions without losing momentum. Working with this pattern allows progress to build gradually. A structure that holds under pressure helps movement continue even when the path ahead isn’t fully visible.

Why action leads and motivation follows

Some entrepreneurs delay action until they feel more confident or until circumstances seem ideal. Henal works from a different cadence, where doing comes first, and understanding often follows from there.

“Motivation comes once you start doing action. Confidence comes once you start doing action. It’s not the confidence that you need beforehand to do it.”

Psychologists have observed the same pattern: motivation often follows action, not the other way around. If you always sit idle until you “feel ready,” you might never begin. As one psychologist wrote, “if you’re always waiting for motivation to hit, you may be waiting your whole life… because committed action comes first and motivation comes second.” In plain terms, confidence builds after you start moving, not before.

Rather than plan out the full shape of a project, he picks a small place to begin. When writing his first e-book, he didn’t worry about the structure or final draft. He wrote one page. Then another. Eventually, it became a finished piece. 

At the same time, he was exploring what worked on social media. One post didn’t get much engagement, so he examined the timing, rewrote it with more emotional connection, and posted again. That second attempt resulted in more than 500 likes and five new coaching bookings overnight.

What Henal demonstrates is the value of short feedback loops. By acting early and adjusting often, business owners can avoid the trap of overthinking and under-delivering. His philosophy prioritises testing in real time over pressure to deliver perfect results. He treats each action as an opportunity to learn, rather than a measure of performance.

“Sometimes things are not working. It could be that next one that you do, which is the one that will push you forward.”

Waiting for the right conditions can delay learning. By moving forward with what’s available now, entrepreneurs get actual responses from their audience. That response becomes the material to build on. This approach is a habit of experimentation grounded in small, consistent trials. A way to stay in motion, even when outcomes are uncertain.

Failing as a learning pattern

Henal talks openly about failure and how he reframes it in daily practice. On the wall behind his desk is a note that simply says “FAIL,” which he defines as:

“Further Attempt In Learning.”

That small reframing is doing serious work. For Henal, failure can act as a starting point for reflection and learning, especially when a result doesn’t go as expected. When a new offer doesn’t gain traction or a post falls flat, he doesn’t label it a dead end. Instead, he treats those moments as signals worth investigating.

“If you know that if I do fail, what did I learn from it? What can I do better for next time?”

This mindset supports consistent action. It also protects emotional energy. When mistakes are treated as opportunities to refine rather than reasons to retreat, it becomes easier to keep showing up. That approach reduces the sting of uncertainty, especially in digital spaces where feedback is instant and often public.

Henal’s viral LinkedIn post, one that brought in over 500 likes and multiple new coaching clients, followed an earlier post that didn’t resonate as strongly. Rather than viewing it as a failure, he adjusted the message and tone, then tried again. 

The difference wasn’t drastic. But he adjusted the message, shifted the tone. That willingness to experiment without overcommitting to an outcome is part of what keeps his ideas moving.

For entrepreneurs, this creates a framework for progress that doesn’t require perfect timing or approval. It just needs reflection, response, and one more attempt.

When small goals create real change

When people are overloaded, they often drift into distraction, scrolling, watching, avoiding the pile-up of decisions that quietly generate stress. What often looks like inaction can come from scattered attention and unclear direction. In these moments, complexity can crowd out focus, making decisions feel heavier than they are, and delaying any forward motion.

Rather than encouraging big changes or dramatic declarations, Henal works with people to uncover what already exists in their routine that can be slightly redirected. It might be a habit, a goal they’ve shelved, or even a feeling they haven’t yet put into words. His role, as he sees it, is to help them reconnect those threads, without adding pressure.

“They might not come back to me tomorrow, next week, next month. But in three months’ time, when they’re facing something… they might remember that one thing I said that helped.”

This idea of quiet contribution sits at the core of how he sees his work. And it raises an important point for service providers: impact doesn’t always show up when you expect it. The most helpful interaction might not be the one that lands a sale, but the one that changes a thought process. And that shift often happens days or weeks later.

Henal’s method values delayed results because he’s built trust into his process. He listens without rushing, responds without an agenda, and gives people something useful to carry forward. This work builds depth through presence, timing, and care, rather than aiming for visibility.

A mindset built to last

Henal’s current work in coaching continues the mindset he developed in hospitality, one rooted in steadiness, attention, and practical follow-through. His shift from running a café to offering coaching sessions hasn’t changed the way he sees people or progress. He still values the small interactions that build trust. He still shows up without theatrics, and he still prefers doing over declaring.

Rather than chasing milestones that sound impressive, he focuses on actions that actually support his values and the people he serves. When something works, he repeats it. When something doesn’t, he adjusts and moves on. That rhythm of consistent testing, paired with emotional awareness, creates a working environment that’s both flexible and grounded.

There are no formulas or performance scripts in his process. He relies on curiosity and consistency. Some steps spark insight. Some reveal new problems to solve. And each one builds on the last, even if the results take time to show.

For anyone building something slowly, whether it’s a new service, a shift in direction, or simply a way of working that feels more aligned, Henal’s approach offers reassurance. Starting small keeps things grounded. It encourages presence, honesty, and the willingness to act even when the path ahead isn’t fully clear.

If your momentum has stalled or the path feels uncertain, try finding one small step that feels doable and take it. That single move can often be enough to start a useful shift.

Want to explore what your version of small, steady progress could look like? Book a Discovery Call and let’s talk about how clarity, action, and trust can support your next step.

Content note: This article includes references to gender-based violence, which may be distressing for some readers.

This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where we speak with entrepreneurs, builders, and business leaders to understand the challenges they face, the progress they make, and the lessons they learn along the way. In this edition, we spoke with Pranay Manjari, founder of Safe Odisha for Her, a grassroots organisation based in Odisha, India.

Her organisation, Safe Odisha for Her, is dedicated to preventing gender-based violence at the village and community level. It combines economic empowerment, local leadership training, and participatory governance to create what it calls “violence-free villages.” The team includes a diverse group of core leaders, advisors, and fellows working together to strengthen women’s voices in their communities.

Pranay transitioned from a stable career in corporate social responsibility (CSR) to building a mission-led organisation from the ground up. With a background in education and campaign work, she previously led the nationally recognised Daughter Forever campaign, influenced gender-based advertising standards, and ran for local office in Bhubaneswar to understand political systems at the ground level.

What started as a vision quickly became a daily reality, one where she wore every hat in the organisation.

“It is me who will document. It is me who will fundraise. It’s a very tiring job.”

Pranay’s story is a window into what many founders face: exhaustion, financial risk, and the urgent need for systems that don’t rely on heroic effort.

Shifting from structure to self-starting

Before launching her own initiative, Pranay spent over a decade in structured environments , first as a project manager in the construction industry, then as a CSR leader responsible for education initiatives that reached over 15,000 children. These roles provided a familiar rhythm: clear deliverables, a defined hierarchy, and steady institutional backing. When she moved into her own venture, none of that came with her.

“I invested all my retirement funds. I don’t have a job. It’s been financially draining.”

Everything rested on her. There was no operations team to delegate to, no financial cushion to fall back on. From programme design to building a team, from writing grant proposals to creating curriculum, every moving part had her fingerprints on it. She even ran for political office, aiming to better understand how local governance functions at the grassroots level.

What many founders underestimate is the shock that comes from leaving structure behind. Managing new tasks is only one part of the shift , the greater challenge is becoming the sole decision-maker for matters that were once shared across a team. The role of founder, especially in a social impact venture, often comes with invisible expectations: to be resourceful, strategic, inspiring, and tireless , all at once.

Resilience can fuel you through the beginning, but it won’t build sustainability on its own. Grit doesn’t replace documentation, delegation, or operational focus. This is where the cracks start to show. The mission may be valuable, but the organisation doesn’t yet have the internal strength to support it.

If you’ve ever taken that leap , from employee to founder , you’ll know this space well. It tests what you’re made of, but it also reveals what you’re missing. That’s where the work begins.

And in Pranay’s case, she’s done this without shortcuts, without fallback plans, and without institutional safety nets. Her story reflects the hard truth many founders live through, yet few openly talk about. It takes courage to continue in the face of burnout, loneliness, and uncertainty. And it takes a rare kind of vision to stay focused on the long-term purpose when the short-term costs feel so high. Her determination goes beyond admiration and offers valuable lessons. It shows us what’s possible when belief in the mission is strong enough to withstand the weight of the build.

The systems she needed , and didn’t have

In a study conducted by sociologist Nina Eliasoph, she explored how grassroots organisations often become performative under the pressure to attract and retain funders. Instead of deepening engagement with the community, teams spend growing amounts of time producing reports, showcasing impact, and telling the kinds of stories that align with donor expectations.

What begins as empowerment can shift into performance, with real participation giving way to what funders want to see. This dynamic is one many founder-led organisations navigate daily, and it echoes throughout Pranay’s experience.

What Pranay built in just over a year stands out, 26 fellows trained, 6 women-led micro-enterprises launched, and a three-part model that threads together economic empowerment, grassroots governance, and women’s leadership. These are practical interventions shaped through lived experience in rural India, focused on shifting daily realities and long-term outcomes for women and communities.

Still, numbers tell only part of the story. Behind them, the daily operations were fragile.

“Even though we do a lot of work, we don’t document it. We don’t share it. Because doing work takes all your energy first.”

The reality for many small or early-stage founders is this: the deeper the work, the harder it becomes to pull up and report on it. Without internal systems , no CRM, no donor funnel, no documented processes, a project that gains traction can quietly start to unravel. Pranay had no shortage of ideas, commitment, or initiative. But running an organisation without operational structure is like driving at night without headlights. You move forward, but it’s reactive, draining, and risky.

The organisation’s ability to support meaningful work depends less on having specific tools and more on building overall capacity. Systems don’t replace passion, but they do protect it. When everything depends on the founder’s stamina, sustainability becomes a daily negotiation. This is the moment many founders need to pause and ask: can this grow without me being in every part of it? And if not, what’s the very next system I can put in place?

Even a lightweight dashboard, a shared task board, or a simple database of contacts can begin to unstick the founder from the centre. Systems give small organisations the foundation to stay steady during early growth, when everything feels urgent and resources are limited.

What business leaders can learn from this

If you’re running a small or purpose-driven organisation, Pranay’s experience might sound familiar. Many founders step into leadership with strong conviction and vision, only to find that without systems, even the most meaningful work becomes overwhelming. Good ideas and deep care are essential, but structure turns them into something that can grow.

Too often, purpose-driven leaders try to do it all. The mission is personal, the budget is tight, and the team , if there is one , is part-time or informal. This creates an environment where burnout becomes common and expected within the way things are set up. Pranay’s journey reminds us that impact grows stronger when the work is replicable, shareable, and supported by more than one individual’s endurance.

Here are three takeaways:

1. Build your system before your spotlight
   Before launching that fellowship or campaign, map your tools: content tracking, donor pipeline, impact metrics, intern onboarding. Start small, but start early. Systems improve decision-making even while the work is ongoing. They provide clarity when moving quickly and help prevent costly missteps.
2. Delegate early and clearly
   Pranay attracted volunteers, interns, and supporters from top Indian universities , but struggled to fully delegate due to time and process gaps. A basic handbook, task tracker, or Loom video can go a long way. Delegation builds continuity by allowing others to step in, take ownership, and sustain progress over time.
3. Measure the invisible
   Burnout, skipped meals, 16-hour days , they don’t show up in quarterly reports. But they tell you something. Measure founder sustainability as a key KPI. If your energy is running out, your systems need attention , because longevity depends on it.

Conclusion: start strong, grow wisely

The founder-led hustle makes for a compelling story. It’s full of grit, sleepless nights, and those early wins that feel like personal triumphs. But compelling stories don’t automatically translate into repeatable systems. And when growth depends on one person doing everything, what starts with momentum can stall from exhaustion.

Structure is what helps channel that momentum. Even simple tools , a content calendar, an onboarding checklist, a shared folder with SOPs , create breathing room. They make space for growth without splintering. They allow creativity to flourish alongside clarity and consistency.

If you’re in the early days of building something with meaning, take a lesson from Pranay’s experience. Begin with the systems you think you don’t have time for. Build the documentation, the automation, the delegation, even in tiny steps. These foundations don’t slow you down , they allow you to go further, with less strain.

Research confirms this wisdom. Studies of startup founders reveal that psychological shifts occur in three broadly defined phases: (1) attachment, (2) uncoupling, and (3) opportunity. Founders who successfully navigate these transitions recognize they must delegate to free up their physical and cognitive resources and understand that effective delegation doesn’t make you less valuable; it turns you into a strategic leader.

Pranay’s story highlights an opportunity to evolve, showing how real impact can grow stronger with structure and support. With the right tools and a few focused adjustments, her vision , and yours , can scale in ways that are energising rather than exhausting. Because what starts as a solo effort can absolutely become a shared, sustainable mission.

Founders carry a lot. But they’re not meant to carry it alone.

This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where we listen to business owners and professionals who build impact without headlines. Some build software. Some scale fast. Others, like Henal Chotai, build steadily by showing up every day for their customers, their community, and their own values.

Henal has worked in hospitality, real estate, coaching, and ran a family-owned café. The most compelling part of his story focuses on emotional depth, presence, and how life experience can become a powerful business advantage. What happens when you lead with humanity before strategy? What if resilience became your best metric?

Henal is a UK-based entrepreneur who grew up surrounded by small-business life. Later, he ran a local café with his wife and is now focused on coaching, grounded in lived experience. Through his practice, Inner Vision Life Coach, Henal helps clients navigate personal and professional transitions with clarity and compassion. He offers support in areas such as mindset, resilience, and purpose-led growth, drawing directly from what he’s lived, not just what he’s learned.

His story is not an exception. It’s the ongoing reality of many small business owners who keep showing up, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. So the question becomes: how do we build businesses that last, in real lives, not just spreadsheets?

Henal has a few ideas worth listening to for .

Emotional intelligence from the front desk

Henal spent years in hospitality, and not behind a spreadsheet or strategy deck, but face-to-face with customers. From managing hotels to running restaurants, he was the one dealing with overbooked rooms, late-night arrivals, and frustrated guests whose expectations had just crashed into reality. He didn’t study conflict resolution or customer psychology in a formal way. He learned it in the places most of us try to avoid: in moments of tension, miscommunication, and human need.

“People can shout at me, people can scream at me, but it doesn’t affect me in the same way… You have to understand their pain, understand where they’re coming from.”

It’s easy to talk about emotional intelligence now, it’s on leadership books and LinkedIn posts. But Henal practiced it years before it became fashionable. Not from a seminar, but from staying calm when people were angry. From spotting signs others missed, like a customer’s swollen legs after a long flight. In that case, he brought her ice and towels without being asked. She was pregnant. Exhausted. And touched by the gesture. That interaction led to him being named Employee of the Year by Hilton.

So how do you train someone to notice what’s unsaid? Can you teach someone to spot discomfort before it turns into complaint? Henal didn’t use checklists or scripts. He listened. He observed. And he responded without ego. His response reflected attentiveness rooted in direct observation and instinct.

That skill, to tune into what isn’t obvious, is exceptional. And it helps shape a different kind of leadership. Because real leadership starts by understanding people.

Henal often returned to a simple principle he learned early on: you don’t have to shout to be heard in business. You just have to listen properly. And most people don’t.

A café that felt like home

When Henal and his wife opened their café, it reflected everything they’d lived and learned about hospitality. It became a space shaped by how they see people and the role of products within those relationships.

“People come in with nothing and they only walk out with a full stomach. But it’s that whole experience that was the main thing.”

That experience carried a personal touch, grounded in everyday interactions and genuine warmth. They posted unfiltered moments on social media, like Henal dancing in the kitchen while prepping food, and invited their customers into the rhythm of their day. His wife, the chef, often stepped out of the kitchen to talk to guests face to face. That one small act changed the dynamic. Instead of a silent transaction, it became a moment of connection.

Why does that matter? Because in a world full of automated greetings and digital menus, warmth is becoming a competitive advantage. Would you rather eat at a place where someone knows your name, or just your table number?

Their café evolved into a community fixture, welcoming guests with food and a familiar sense of belonging that made it a reliable part of daily life. Community value grows through consistency and real conversations that leave a lasting impression.

Henal shaped his approach through personal memories rather than relying on standard branding formulas. The same kind of energy he saw in his dad’s shop decades ago, asking after customers’ kids, remembering birthdays, pausing for a proper chat, was now part of how he ran a modern café. What some would call old-fashioned, he simply called necessary.

This reflected something current and meaningful, shaped by real-world needs and values. In an era of scale and speed, many people still crave the thing that tech can’t deliver: human presence.

Emotional openness as strategy

Henal spoke openly about how life shaped his approach to business, how real-world challenges can sharpen empathy, and how emotional awareness plays a powerful role in leadership.

“Even as a man, I still have emotion. You should be allowed to let that out before it affects you.”

During the UK lockdowns, when many small businesses faced sudden closures, Henal and his wife responded with resourcefulness and speed. With the café unable to operate normally, they transformed it into a pop-up shop, sourcing bulk ingredients, repackaging them, and delivering essentials to local residents.

He describes the kitchen filled with containers of flour, ready to be distributed in direct response to local needs as they emerged.

They launched a Shopify store, helped customers find essentials that were out of stock elsewhere, and hand-delivered them. In a time of distance and disruption, they restored a sense of closeness.

Beyond that, Henal also organised webinars for small business owners, pulling together experts like accountants and marketers to offer support and advice. Their response to crisis became a way to contribute meaningfully to the wider business community.

Running a business like a person

Throughout the conversation, Henal returned to a single idea: business should feel human. Many talk about this, but few truly embed it into the way they operate. Henal was one of the few.

He reflected on the atmosphere of his father’s newsagent shop in the 90s, a modest corner store that left a lasting impression through small, genuine gestures. There was no branding strategy, but there was care. His father took time to chat with customers, remembered their stories, and treated each visit as more than a transaction.

“You could go to the supermarket and buy a little bit cheaper. But they wanted to come in for the experience of talking with my dad.”

This quiet attentiveness stayed with Henal and became part of how he approached his own ventures. Rather than focus on growth tactics, he prioritised connection. He created environments where people felt seen and appreciated, and that left a deeper impact than any marketing push could.

Even in moments that could have been gimmicks, like the “Invisible Chips” menu item, a playful way to raise money for hospitality workers, he found ways to build connection. What customers remembered most were the shared experiences that turned a simple meal into something meaningful.

So what’s your version of Invisible Chips? What do you do in your business that makes people feel like they belong?

Henal’s choices in hospitality and beyond reflect a consistent approach. Authenticity came through naturally in the way he treated people, the way he listened, and the way he made the everyday feel meaningful.

Don’t copy, connect

Henal cautioned against comparing your business to others, a trap that’s easy to fall into when everyone else’s milestones, awards, and viral posts are just one scroll away. But what if the thing you’re comparing was never meant to look like yours in the first place? What if the goal is to build something distinct?

“You and I could open the same business right next to each other. But you bring your style to it, and I bring mine.”

Henal spoke from decades of watching businesses lose their spark by chasing what worked for someone else. He has seen how easy it is to slip into mimicry, copying price points, tone of voice, even visual identity, because it feels safer than inventing your own path. Connection often grows from originality, the willingness to bring something genuinely personal into the business.

Too often, entrepreneurs try to solve the wrong problem: how do I fit in? Henal would suggest a better question: how do I stand out while still being true to myself?

Authenticity takes ownership. Owning your story, your values, your way of doing things, even when it doesn’t look like the market leader’s playbook. That’s what creates loyalty. The way you offer your product or service often holds as much value as the offering itself.

Big brands can afford to be faceless. Small businesses carry the gift of personality. You get to make someone feel seen. Heard. Remembered. No algorithm can do that.

As Henal’s journey shows, what often stays with people is the way a business makes them feel, connected, seen, and valued.

And if you want your business to be remembered, maybe the best place to start is with yourself.

Discovery, resilience, and meaning

Henal’s story doesn’t follow the usual “exit strategy” plotline. He didn’t build his business to flip it, franchise it, or turn it into a lifestyle brand. He built it to survive, to serve, and to make meaning out of experience. His version of success lived in conversations, community ties, and the steady discipline of carrying on.

That kind of resilience takes shape through real loss, rebuilding, and deep reflection, far beyond what you’ll find in business books. Henal navigated through intense periods of uncertainty and change, moments that demanded resilience, adaptability, and a deep sense of purpose. And he didn’t use those moments to build a personal brand. He used them to build empathy, patience, and perspective.

We often talk about resilience like it’s a muscle. But it’s also a mindset. A way of showing up. And what Henal reminds us is that emotional intelligence helps you read a room, stay calm in uncertainty, and lead when no one has answers.

Henal began by focusing on people and relationships, allowing the rest of the business to grow around that core. With presence. With a willingness to act even when he didn’t have the full map. His journey suggests that some of the best businesses grow out of how we respond when things don’t go to plan.

Because anyone can follow a strategy. Few have the patience to follow people.

Ready to build a business that actually feels human?

Dr. Stephan Meyer, also known as “Dr. Change,” has spent over 30 years guiding companies through complex transformation projects. From co-founding a private equity firm to modernising infrastructure for German Railways and contributing to the Berlin Airport launch, his work spans sectors and geographies. He holds a doctorate from the University of Gloucestershire, where his research focused on improving the effectiveness of change management.

His mission? Helping visionary leaders turn their ideas into reality faster and with more impact. Through services like Business Wargaming, the Vision to Reality Workshop, and organisational audits, Stephan equips teams to challenge assumptions, define their direction, and take decisive action.

As rapid shifts in technology and AI redefine how businesses operate, Stephan’s experience is more relevant than ever. This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where we speak with decision-makers about what’s working, what’s changing, and what needs rethinking.

In this conversation, we explored how leaders can approach transformation with a level of ambition that reaches beyond surface adjustments, toward shifts that fundamentally reorient the organisation. We looked at how long-term transformations exhaust teams, and how timeboxing, focus, and narrative can preserve momentum. We explored why leaders must become guides, and why real change depends as much on emotional closure as operational success.

The result? A practical, thought-provoking roadmap for anyone wondering how to lead in a time when even change itself is changing.

Leading in a time when change itself is shifting

Stephan Meyer’s work has reached millions of people, even if they never realised it. His work spans both the physical systems we rely on and the unseen processes that shape how services function day to day.

He began his career at Accenture, where psychologists were routinely placed in the change management division. That starting point set him on a decades-long exploration of how organisations evolve, or stall out, and what leaders can do to manage that.

“I’ve been doing change management for 30 years now, 3-0, and throughout any industry you could probably think of.”

This quote adds weight to the claim. Stephan’s career covers decades of applied change work across industries, rooted in hands-on experience with real-world challenges. It’s the accumulation of patterns, lessons, and adaptability honed through navigating the complex terrain of transformation. From banking to infrastructure, Stephan’s insights are drawn from complex environments where transformation takes shape through practical challenges, evolving decisions, and ongoing friction. His long view gives him something rare in this space: pattern recognition. The ability to spot where legacy systems clog progress, and where fresh thinking can create breakthroughs.

But despite all that experience, Stephan actively questions the usefulness of older models and speaks openly about where traditional frameworks fall short. The context in which organisations operate today, especially in 2025, demands something far more flexible, far more human-aware.

As he put it, “The change industry itself is currently in the phase of paradigm shift. Everyone is confused. Everyone is trying out new ways of doing things.”

That observation sits at the heart of what many experts are now recognising. The rules of change management that once guided entire industries are fraying at the edges. Caroline Kealey, a veteran change facilitator, argues that old “paint-by-numbers” models simply don’t work anymore, calling them “the equivalent of showing up to an AI-enabled nuclear assault equipped with a fly swatter”.

Industry research echoes this shift, noting that modern change management is now “moving toward a more human-centred approach”, one that focuses less on rigid systems and more on how people actually experience and adapt to change.

In response, Stephan has developed a non-linear, adaptive framework, less of a step-by-step manual and more of a responsive toolkit. Change rarely offers perfection, but it benefits from responsiveness, intention, and precision, especially in uncertain terrain.

Why radical change is often easier than incremental tweaks

When we think of change within organisations, the dominant image is often one of prolonged, carefully managed evolution, consultants drawing Gantt charts, departments moving through phase gates, timelines stretching into years. This slow, methodical model has become the default. Yet Stephan Meyer argues that in many cases, it’s not the best approach. In fact, it can do more harm than good.

“Radical change is easier than incremental change. Why? Because you don’t have to keep in your mind all these exceptions. This department already works with a new process, but those departments still work with the old process. That is confusing.”

The logic is simple, but often overlooked: partial transformation fragments an organisation. When half the business is working with new tools, and the other half is still operating under legacy systems, inefficiency increases and frustration spreads. Coordination becomes harder, errors multiply, and leadership spends more time patching over cracks than moving forward.

To explain what effective radical change looks like, Stephan uses Sweden’s 1967 overnight transition to driving on the right side of the road. It was not done in phases, nor trialled regionally. It was swift, total, and above all, clear.

“One Sunday morning, 5 a.m., everyone, new procedure. That’s how it’s much more promising.”

Maybe it sounds dramatic, but Sweden’s famous “H-Day” changeover is a real example of how a single decisive switch can work. With years of preparation behind them, Swedes saw it “all came together in 10 minutes of organized chaos” at 5:00 a.m. on 3 September 1967.

The country was prepared, and in that brief window it became safer to drive across borders; over time accident rates actually dropped, the change was embraced, and life went on.

The principle holds across industries: sometimes simplicity and speed serve better than caution and consensus. When the message is simple and everyone moves together, teams often feel more secure, even amid uncertainty. What really rattles people are ambiguity, indecision, and prolonged disruption, conditions that blur priorities and wear down motivation.

Stephan recommends limiting major change efforts to no more than 18 months. Beyond that, motivation erodes. Stakeholders lose confidence. Prolonged change efforts often lead to more than fatigue, they drain engagement, leaving teams disconnected from purpose and progress. And disengaged teams don’t adapt, they resist. So if you’re planning a transformation, ask yourself: are you trying to ease people in, or are you unintentionally stretching the pain? A shorter, sharper effort, done with focus, might achieve more than a drawn-out attempt to please everyone at once.

Change is hard because people are tired

One of Stephan’s main insights brings attention to the emotional toll of change, an aspect often overlooked when the emphasis stays solely on structure or strategy. Too often, leaders approach transformation as a purely technical exercise: a matter of timelines, milestones, and deliverables. But this perspective overlooks the human cost. People experience change on more than one level, it shapes their workload, expectations, routines, and sense of stability.

“If the change goes on for too long, people are exhausted. They get burned out. They leave the company. People cannot stand endless change.”

The warning here is clear. Transformation without boundaries drains people. It introduces uncertainty into daily routines, stretches decision-making across too many months, and keeps teams in a state of suspended understanding. Prolonged instability can wear people down, eroding energy and gradually diminishing trust.

Stephan suggests timeboxing change. This means defining a clear start and stop. The middle may shift, but the structure helps anchor people. It allows for moments of intensity and moments of rest. This structure serves as a psychological safeguard that helps teams manage the emotional strain of turbulence. A sense of finality can restore energy because people know there will be a return to rhythm.

“Change should not be endless. It should have an end.”

In our work with clients at Serenichron, we’ve seen this principle play out again and again. Teams can tolerate high stress if they believe there’s a finish line. But when the process becomes the norm, they disengage. Progress can lose its meaning over time, becoming repetitive and directionless, more like treading water than moving forward.

One useful tactic is to plan for the cooldown phase from the start. Leaders often over-plan the rollout of change but forget to design the recovery. Ask yourself: after the transformation, how will your team know it’s done? What rituals, meetings, or communications will signal, “This is the new normal”? Answering these questions can give people something essential, closure.

Leadership requires storytelling, not just structure

In the midst of change, processes are important, but stories are what people remember. Stephan emphasises that the most effective leaders combine structural thinking with storytelling. They are narrative architects who help people connect to change in a meaningful way.

“You must have a vision. You must know exactly in what way the company is going to be different after the change. And an important skill is… storytelling. You have to tell stories why it is worth the change and in what way the future will be much better than the present.”

Storytelling acts as a leadership skill that moves beyond communication, shaping how people make sense of change and their place in it. It offers people a reason to care, a role to play, and a picture of where they’re headed. When teams understand why the change matters, not just what is changing, they’re far more likely to commit emotionally. Otherwise, the transformation can feel like a cold sequence of instructions detached from meaning.

The most powerful stories connect to lived experience, rooted in consequences, everyday frustrations, and future hopes. And crucially, they cast the employees, not the leader, as the protagonists.

“I’m not the hero. I’m the guide helping the hero through their metamorphosis.”

That line from Stephan might sound theatrical, but it’s grounded in deep organisational truth. Leaders who position themselves as heroes tend to overshadow their teams. But leaders who act as guides empower people to step up, navigate the tension of change, and feel ownership of the outcome.

At Serenichron, we’ve seen this repeatedly. Clients usually come to us looking for someone who listens, simplifies the chaos, and helps them reframe their story in a way that makes sense to their team and customers alike. Clients often look for support that goes beyond tools, something that helps give their change a voice, a shape, and a future people can rally behind.

What business gets right that governments often miss

Toward the end of our conversation, Stephan raised an interesting question, what would happen if governments were held to the same standards as businesses? He has spent much of his career thinking about systems, outcomes, and public value, not just within corporations, but across society.

“In the world of business, there is a professional way of looking at quality. All of this does not exist at all in the world of politics. If a government doesn’t have quality, and a government doesn’t do any, isn’t of any use to the population, it’s redundant.”

Stephan’s critique taps into a larger issue: the difficulty of measuring performance in systems where accountability is diffuse and feedback loops are broken. In many governments, change is reactive, not designed. Departments lack shared KPIs. Incentives often reward stability rather than improvement. In contrast, businesses that ignore quality signals, customer complaints, churn, declining market share, face real consequences.

But this isn’t a blanket criticism of public institutions. Stephan’s point has relevance for business leaders, too. Any organisation, public or private, risks decay when it stops listening. When feedback is avoided or ignored, stagnation creeps in.

That’s why Stephan proposes borrowing frameworks from business to rethink how we structure public systems. One of his ideas is a freemium/premium model for government services, where levels of access and support could be transparently tied to tax contributions. It’s provocative, yes, but more importantly, it challenges us to think creatively about value exchange and the role of transparency in building trust.

Even if his suggestions aren’t directly actionable, they nudge us to ask better questions: How do we define usefulness? What systems in our organisations aren’t being held to account? And what happens when improvement is nobody’s job?

Final thoughts: don’t confuse activity with progress

The most useful insight from our conversation? When executed with intent and structure, radical change becomes a strategy that helps align teams, simplify complexity, and maintain coherence during disruption.

Repeated micro-pivots with unclear direction often exhaust teams more than transformation itself. When people are pulled in slightly new directions every few months without seeing tangible outcomes, it wears down trust and energy. It creates a sense of spinning wheels, not forward motion.

This is where strategic boldness matters. Leaders who take the time to clarify what will change, why it matters, and when it will be done, create psychological safety, even during disruption. Change becomes purposeful rather than perpetual.

Insight functions as a communication tool that supports alignment, helping teams stay coordinated during change. Storytelling, structure, and sensible timelines act as levers for performance, tools that shape how effectively teams adapt and deliver results.

If you’re leading through uncertainty, ask yourself this: Are your team’s struggles a result of too much change, or too little change happening in too many disjointed directions? Sometimes effective leadership means choosing a different pace or direction, one that brings vision and forward motion when the road ahead feels unclear.

This article is part of the Business Insights Series, where we speak with entrepreneurs, professionals, and decision-makers about what’s working, what’s not, and where things are headed in their world., where we speak with entrepreneurs, professionals, and decision-makers about what’s working, what’s not, and where things are headed in their world. 

In this conversation, we spoke with Serena Fordham, founder and CEO of ProspHER, an organisation supporting women in business and the workplace through events, learning platforms, and corporate partnerships. As part of their mission, ProspHER exists to support female empowerment and education by giving women access to the tools, community, and opportunities they need to thrive professionally and personally. 

From corporate workshops and festivals to a digital platform that enables skill development and self-directed learning, their focus is on turning intention into action and vision into achievement. This vision is reflected across their three core offerings: FEST, QUEST, and HUB, each tailored to provide practical, engaging, and inclusive paths to progress. 

What began as a local virtual agency  has grown into a group of three companies, a seven-person C-suite, and a community of over 125,000 people. Yet the team behind it remains lean, and the focus firmly people-first.

Serena’s leadership style was reshaped by a major shift in her personal life that required her to step back from the day-to-day running of the business. Rather than slow the business down, this challenge catalysed a new phase of growth, one rooted in trust, autonomy, and long-term thinking. In this article, we explore how Serena and her team have scaled without losing their soul, and how they’re building sustainable growth through focus, relationships, and time-tested strategy.

The structure behind staying small(ish)

When Serena took a step back from day-to-day operations in 2023 to focus on personal priorities, she expected disruption. What followed instead was a steady proof of trust. Her team filled in the gaps, and the business kept running.

“Even with me removed… they just all rallied around and filled the gaps.”

This moment was operationally impressive and culturally significant, highlighting the kind of deep-rooted trust that shapes resilient teams. It revealed a depth of confidence that many businesses aspire to but rarely design for. For small and growing teams, the real test of structure is not when things are going well, but when the founder steps away.

ProspHER operates as three distinct entities: a Community Interest Company for events, an Education arm for training, and a Technology business for its new digital platform, ProspHER Quest. Each of these has clear leadership, defined roles, and specific goals. The leadership team, a seven-person C-suite, is responsible for their own areas, from tech to finance to PR. Tasks are managed through shared Trello boards and structured processes that work remotely and flexibly.

However, this structure wasn’t built overnight. It reflects a deliberate shift from reactive management to proactive design. Serena described this focus as a turning point:

“It allowed me to step back and look at that bigger picture… actually work on the business rather than in it.”

And that’s a critical inflection point for founders: the moment you move from being the engine of everything to becoming the architect of what’s next. Serena didn’t outsource her vision, she structured it. Rather than scaling through layers of middle management, ProspHER doubled down on focus and values alignment. Each leader in the team brings not only functional expertise but a genuine investment in the mission.

Leadership approaches like this are often misunderstood. They prioritise avoiding burnout by creating spaciousness, giving competent people the autonomy and focus to lead in their lane without unnecessary complexity or hierarchy.

Working with time, not against it

Many founders learn the hard way that bigger business doesn’t mean better boundaries. Serena’s experience made her reconsider what growth actually costs, especially in personal terms.

“By slowing down personally, the results for ProspHER and the opportunities that have come our way… have been more than if I was working 60–70 hours.”

In the entrepreneurial world, overworking is often worn as a badge of honour. But what Serena proves is that long hours don’t necessarily translate into long-term success. Instead, she reframed her energy as a finite resource, and began allocating it with care. It’s a subtle but powerful shift: choosing sustainability over hustle, and systems over scrambling.

This rethinking of productivity and pace translated directly into how the team approaches projects. Deadlines are realistic. Wellbeing is built into scheduling. There’s no glorification of burnout. Serena now balances her work with recovery, journaling, and family time, and the culture of the business reflects that same rhythm.

The ripple effects of this are profound. By modelling a healthy balance, Serena gives her team permission to do the same. 

Founder well-being is only part of the picture. What Serena’s approach really challenges is the traditional image of a high-performing business, one that sacrifices people for pace. Instead, it offers a model where performance and values aren’t competing forces, but connected ones. And in many ways, it’s a challenge to all of us: what are we calling “growth” that’s actually just exhaustion?

Rather than pushing for constant speed, the team works with what time allows, not just in hours, but in life seasons. This kind of pace awareness is rare, and it’s more strategic than it looks on the surface. It builds resilience.

“I’m definitely not that founder and CEO that gets up at five in the morning… I like my sleep, I like my cuddles with my children.”

That boundary supports healthier ways of working and for many business owners, that’s exactly the recalibration needed.

The long shelf life of trust

If the team model is one way ProspHER has scaled without bloating, the other is how it approaches sales: slowly. Strategically. Built on relationships over transactions.

Their community includes 60,000+ social followers and over 125,000 email subscribers. But Serena sees each contact as a long-term connection, not a quick win.

“We’ve never disregarded any relationship we’ve had.”

This feel-good philosophy also functions as a practical, results-driven strategy. In many business circles, relationship-building is viewed as a ‘nice to have’, something you do around the more urgent work of closing deals. 

But for Serena, it’s the centre of gravity. ProspHER has structured its CRM system, communication cadence, and even event programming around the idea that every contact is a potential collaborator, not necessarily today, but eventually.

Some of their corporate partners came from connections made years earlier. Others from women they once supported as founders, who later joined corporate teams. And some from companies that said no the first time but came back when the timing was right.

There’s no pressure to close. Instead, they use HubSpot to track meaningful conversations and follow up months down the line. This structure enables what Serena calls a “holistic sales approach” that focuses on fit and values.

“That one relationship could give us a good few avenues into different companies… not just now, but five years down the line.”

If you’ve ever felt like you’re wasting time following up with people who didn’t convert immediately, this is your reminder: time is not wasted if trust is being built. Long game selling moves with intention, not urgency. And for businesses that care about reputation, alignment, and genuine community, this becomes a strategic edge, an approach that strengthens both connection and consistency over time.

Cost-effective doesn’t mean cutting corners

One of the more overlooked strengths in ProspHER’s growth story is how deliberately the team treats its tech stack. Tools like Trello and HubSpot are used intentionally, selected to align with how the team actually works, not just because they’re widely known. Nothing sits in the system unless it earns its place.

“It allowed me to step back and look at that bigger picture… actually work on the business rather than in it.”

This tells us something important: consistency is the outcome of intentional design. The use of Trello here – a popular project and task-management suite –  reflects a structured way of maintaining coordination and visibility, helping seven C-suite leads stay in sync without constant oversight. It’s a practical decision shaped by leadership priorities.

Across many of the business owners we advise at Serenichron, we see the same tension: growth creates friction, and friction leads to tool-chasing. It’s easy to confuse a new feature set with progress. But every tool you add has a cost, sometimes in money, always in attention. Serena’s team resists this by pausing to ask better questions: what are we solving, really? Are we streamlining, or are we just layering?

Operational awareness like this rarely draws attention. You won’t see it on a splashy About page. But it enables a business to stay light on its feet when others slow down under their own complexity.

There’s something else here too: the courage to choose simplicity in a landscape obsessed with scaling complexity. Fewer tools. Smaller systems. Better decisions. implicity reflects a level of maturity in how teams scale with intention.

Serena’s team doesn’t rush into adopting new tools or platforms. They’ve had moments where a shiny tech promise added more confusion than clarity. That’s why they now pause to ask a more strategic question: do we really need this, or are we solving the wrong problem?

Serena’s team shows us that how a business scales is just as important as how much it scales. And in an age of app fatigue, thoughtful tech restraint might just be your most underrated growth strategy.

Future focus: global reach, same grounded roots

While the structure and relationships have kept ProspHER lean and effective, their next stage of growth is anything but small. Serena and the team are preparing to take their learning platform global, with a focus on high-growth and values-aligned markets like the Gulf region, including Dubai and Saudi Arabia, where women’s professional education and empowerment are fast-developing sectors.

Going global changes not only the scale but the entire operating context. What works in the UK might not translate seamlessly elsewhere. That’s why the team has already begun cultivating partnerships that bridge local knowledge and international goals, including collaborations with university researchers and agencies with experience in regional expansion.

But growth at this level comes with pressure: to move quickly without losing sight of the core mission; to adapt without diluting. This is where ProspHER’s past choices, prioritising infrastructure, alignment, and values, create a strong foundation.

The strategy remains the same: build patiently, prioritise relationships, and keep the mission at the centre. In an era where globalisation often means rushing into new markets with cookie-cutter tactics, ProspHER is choosing to grow with cultural awareness, strong local partners, and strategic intent. For founders looking at international opportunities, this is a model worth watching.

Conclusion: trust builds the better business

One recent study published by Harvard Business Review suggests that founder-CEOs who remain too long in the same operational role may unintentionally hinder team autonomy and agility. It found that leadership transitions, where founders step into more strategic, architectural roles, can make companies more adaptable and resilient. ProspHER’s evolution supports this: their lean C-suite and clearly defined roles empower leaders to own their areas without bottlenecking through a single figurehead.

Serena’s shift away from daily operations marked a clear change in role clarity, one that enabled others in the team to step forward with confidence and ownership. Instead of scaling through control, ProspHER scaled by distributing responsibility. That choice created space for innovation, trust, and long-term coherence.

Their leadership model shows that sustainable growth stems from clarity, structure, and shared purpose, not from expanding layers of management. ProspHER is thriving, and that speaks volumes about the power of conscious leadership design.

This approach raises a bigger question for founders: What if the real measure of growth lies in how closely it aligns with your original intention, not just in how fast or how far you scale? ProspHER shows that focus-driven expansion is not only possible, but often more durable.

One of the overlooked truths in business is that sustainable growth requires rhythm, not rush. What stood out to me in Serena’s story is that they’ve architected their progress on principles we deeply value at Serenichron: clarity of vision, patience in execution, and the ability to filter signal from noise. Their tech is intentional. Their leadership is shared. And their sales cycle, while slow by some standards, is grounded in trust and long-term return.

For business owners weighed down by complexity or urgency, Serena’s approach offers a practical path: scale by sharpening, not stacking. At Serenichron, we often work with leaders ready to simplify their systems and reconnect to what really moves the needle. ProspHER shows what’s possible when every part of the business, from tools to team to timing, supports the same direction.

If you’re looking to rethink how your business scales, or even just how it breathes, let’s chat.