Gerry O’Brion has helped thousands of CEOs, executives, sales teams, and franchisees become the #1 choice in crowded industries. Gerry is the creator of The Power of Because: a powerful process to influence customers to buy from you vs. all their other options. Gerry spent his career as an executive for brands like Procter & Gamble, Coors Light, and Red Robin. He has an MBA from the University of Michigan and spent 8 years in the military.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
None
When business started difficulties overcame:
“as a speaker it is hilarious right? You are like I want to be a professional speaker but no one has ever heard of you, you don’t have a website, you don’t have a video, you don’t really even have content, you don’t even know what you are going to say. But in my case I had left my corporate job with no backup plan and I had to figure it out. And starting this kind of business is exceedingly hard because no one has ever heard of you, no one knows who you are, you are not known for anything ”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Thinking, Fast and Slow Book by Daniel Kahneman
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Book by Robert B Cialdini PhD
Favourite Quote:
“You teach your boy to walk but he learns to run himself” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Recommended Online Resources:
- Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware.
- The Week brings you all you need to know about everything that matters. More than a news digest it s an original take on world news as it happens
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“I really believe in the power focus. Take the things that you are going to do very carefully, don’t get distracted doing too many things or too many things for too many people because it ends up causing you to spin your wheels. Even with big companies, CEOs I work with in bigger companies, medium-sized, small companies the power of focus. Focus, narrow your customer set, narrow what you are saying is the special thing about why I should choose you. Don’t try to do everything, only try to do the things that are going to make the difference. And it’s your job to figure out which things those things are”…[Listen for More]
More About Gerry O’Brion:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill
Other Quotes From the Chat with Gerry O’Brion:
- “as a speaker specifically, I have helped some of the speakers start in this career… And I cut literally years of their learning curve because I understand how people get booked. The bottom line is someone watches your video and they look at your concept. Can your concept, can the thing that your promising change the future of my audience? And do I believe I can do it well? Because what’s on the line as the person makes the decision… Now this is true for all entrepreneurs… The person that makes a decision doesn’t want to make a mistake”
- “focus, focus, focus. So many times, it’s tricky for people that see themselves as entrepreneurs. They have millions of ideas. I am so happy for you to have millions of ideas. I only care about the one that people really need that is going to make you a lot of money… If you are interested in making money you need to focus, you need to focus on the narrow customer set that you are going to serve because it will be more believable and trustworthy that you can deliver for a narrow customer set than deliver for everybody. And do the things that matter to get those people to buy from you. You’ve got to listen to your customers and pivot your company based on what you learn and you’ve got to sell something people want… Sell something people need, sell something that they want and focus, focus, focus, focus, focus. If you try to do six things at once you are not going to be successful”
- “I spend my time trying to free my brain to be more creative. And I would encourage entrepreneurs to do that. What do you do that’s not focused only on your business or your entrepreneurship and trying to learn the next new business technique that some Guru came up with? How are you freeing your brain to have your own creative problem-solving ideas and thoughts? And sometimes not focusing on what everybody thinks is the best thing for business is the best thing for your business, is the best thing for you to help your brain be the most creative for your situation and create something new that someone hasn’t done before”
- “we need to be personally responsible for ourselves, for our actions, for our business, for our own success, for our investment and how did we spend our time and our money to become successful . We need to be personally responsible for ourselves. It’s no one else’s job to make you or get you to be successful or give you the answers. You can learn things from books or from podcasts or from gurus or from speakers on stages like me, you can learn them from wherever you want. But that’s only getting you to walk. You have got to run by yourself and it’s on you to do it. You don’t need to blame anyone else for your situation, you need to take responsibility what we can do to change our future becoming our successful entrepreneur. Take everything that you’ve learned and apply it to ourselves. There’s no answers for you out there is just input, there’s just learning to walk so you can then figure out how to go and run ”
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