How to be a Visionary Entrepreneur

Transcription

(Music)

Jeff Borschowa: If you're young and you're just starting out, you probably know somebody who already has done this. If I was smart, I'd go back in time and I'd do it this way.

Dan: Today on Time We Discuss, I wanna welcome Jeff Borschowa and it's Time We Discuss what it's like working as a visionary entrepreneur. Jeff, thank you for joining me today.

Jeff: Dan, it's a real pleasure. Thank you for having me on the show.

Dan: Absolutely, this is gonna be fun based on our pre-recorded conversation. This is going to be a blast guaranteed. So let's start right off the bat, visionary entrepreneur, what is that?

Jeff: I love it, great question. And first of all, I wanna shout out Tamara and thank her for bringing us together. So visionary entrepreneur is not something you will find in a career catalog or I'm gonna be honest, most people say so you're unemployed and I go, "No, I'm self-employed, there's a difference." A visionary entrepreneur is a class of entrepreneur. It might be redundant, but basically we see problems that other people don't and we find ways to fix them. And to be 100% clear, I love the EOS language. I am a visionary, I am not an integrator. So if you actually want my ideas implemented, don't ask me, that's your problem.

Dan: So that leads me to my next question. Do you actually have a, I'm gonna go old school here. Do you have a Rolodex of people that you can then hand your clients off to to get these projects implemented?

Jeff: Yes, so the a-ha, and I don't know who your audience is exactly, but for young people, start collecting people. And what I mean by that is you never know who you know that knows somebody or that can solve a problem. So early in my life, I realized I'm only so smart by myself, but I'm always smarter when I have friends. So what I've learned is I'm really good at diagnosing problems. And then I know part of that clear diagnosis is who can help them solve it. And this is, I think one of those things, I see a lot of people making this mistake. They think I have to solve the problem if I identify it. No, you don't. And for the record, sometimes it's not a problem, it's a series of problems. And so that's where I come in is I identify who needs to be brought in at what point. So I'm kind of like a coach slash quarterback, but I do a little bit of problem management because it's, it's like, okay, we're gonna sub in this person, take that person off. It is 100%, my network is really truly valuable to me because alone I can only solve one part of the problem, but as a tribe, there's no problem we can't solve together.

Dan: I absolutely love that. I remember speaking with someone a while ago and I was saying that, exactly what you're saying about collecting people. I mean, I can't even, if I look back three years ago, the amount of people that I know just from doing this podcast, for instance, I have a huge range of people and then tapping into their resources as well. It's amazing. I know an MMA fighter just by proxy now, it's crazy.

Jeff: I will say, it is amazing who you meet and whatever you're doing in life, I will never ever be without a podcast. I've had multiple versions, multiple variations, and I do it as much to learn, but it's also to connect because I never know who I know until I meet somebody new. And yeah, it's amazing when the old joke was six degrees of Kevin Bacon. I'm sure with podcasting, it's three degrees. You just move closer to people.

Dan: Let's talk about you starting this business. How do you go from, how do you actually land that first client and you say, hey, I wanna diagnose problems, I want you to give me money. How does that actually begin?

Jeff: I took a very traditional boring route. So the good news is it can be followed. Now part of it, and this is the piece I can't teach you how to replicate. I happen to be neurodiverse. And what that means is I'm both autistic and ADHD. So my natural superpowers, I see patterns other people miss. And I liken it to, it's like time slows down and I can see between the gaps, whereas a lot of people are so busy, they're just trying to keep up. So my traditional path, if somebody wanted to follow it and needed education, I went to university, I took a business degree, I took a detour into the world of accounting, which I don't regret, but I would not do again. I've told my kids skip that and go straight to the other. But the reality is in the world of accounting, you learn what you're willing to learn. So while my colleagues and peers were learning about the accounting world and they kept their head down and they did everything they were supposed to do with their work, I was the curious person walking around. I love doing audits, going to client venues, whatever the venue, if it was a factory, God help me, I was out on the floor. But I cared more about how the company moved through the building rather than, what was the, I could visualize the journey of the client and where did they go through the building? I cared more about the mechanics of the business than I did about the books. So it was just, I had to be really good at the accounting side so I could get my work done so I could go play on the shop floor. But that's really, naturally I went into consulting and then from consulting it was like, I hated solving the problem. Literally in my visionary world, my brain is done when the whiteboard is filled with ideas and we know what the path forward looks like. Then it's up to somebody else to take that path and actually walk it. I hated traditional consulting because there was always this expectation, you built the path, now you gotta follow it. And it was like, no, no, no, no. That's a you problem, not a me. But when I heard about EOS and Gina Wickman, I went, oh, I don't have to be the guy who comes up with the idea and executes it. That's a tag team, not a one person. And then I realized it was more of a relay than a tag team.

Dan: What are the types of people or the organizations that actually ... they seek your expertise?

Jeff: My favorite, favorite place, I love solopreneurs. And the reason I love solopreneurs, most of them are good at what they do. They're not in business because they know how to run a business. So I can give them little tiny things that move, but really truly my favorites. I love taking a company that's at 1 million and growing them to 10 because there's a lot of leverage and momentum we can build on if they've already got that million dollars in revenue. I've done work for multi-billion dollar companies. I don't love them because you got layers of politics and bureaucracy and red tape. I liken it to the Vietnam War. You never know when it's gonna end and where it's gonna, who your next enemy is. It's treacherous, but I really love my people and this was a huge, huge discovery. I now only work with other visionary entrepreneurs. And I'll just share a definition because I think it's critical. My version of an entrepreneur is they're somebody who will take a perfectly good business, tear it apart and try to make it better. We're notorious for spare parts and going, oops. We will literally pull the pin while we're flying an airplane, go, I wonder what this does. Oh, put it back quick. So entrepreneurs are always willing to break things to discover something new. On the other hand, there's the business owner and believe me, the world needs them. They're willing to take a business and optimize it 1% at a time. So they're very, they're methodical, cautious, careful. They're the ones who buy franchises because while the franchise must be good, they are the majority. And I will say this sincerely, I recognize this. A good business owner needs a good integrator to do the work and get things done. Visionaries, we're equally likely to splat or to launch something amazing and epic. So what looks like failure to most people, I have friends that are mortified about my life. We jump out of perfectly good airplanes knowing we'll fold the parachute and deploy it on the way down. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we misjudge the ground. The best part is we're okay with that and we get up and do it again. Everything is feedback to us. And I'll give you an example. I believe if we go back to the ancient days of ancient Rome, the gladiators are the entrepreneurs. They go in the arena, they're ready to battle no matter what the world throws at them. Rain or shine, they're there. Business owners are the vendors selling things to the people in the audience. And then you've got the audience, which is the general public. And depending on the day you have, they either thumbs up, thumbs down, you live or die. They judge you without ever knowing what it takes for you to be in that ring. And that's where entrepreneurs are amazing because we're resilient. We'll take our losses, we'll take our wins. Most of it's anonymous because we're behind the mask of our business. We're there the next day, no matter what. We lick our wounds and we come back.

Dan: Let's talk about specifics. Give me an example of something that you've actually done, business that you're actually involved with to try to help improve them. What was something that you discovered and actually helped identify, but then didn't solve.

Jeff: I love it. Well, I'll give you a very practical example of a project that I'm literally working on today. I have an accounting firm that wants to double their revenue. Now the problem most people have, and accounting is a, I'm gonna call it a constraints business. It's all about hours and time and productivity. Like there's a bunch of little levers we can pull, but in most accounting world, jargon, if you're gonna double your revenue, you need to double your staff, you need to double your effort, everything doubles. Which by the way, also causes risk because you've got higher staff costs. It is a risky business model. Now a lot of accountants will say, well, we'll go out and buy a block of business and then we'll grow, but they spend a dollar for every dollar of revenue they acquire. Again, high risk, slow reward. I do something very weird and this project I'm gonna be a little more involved. What we did was we looked at the existing client base and we asked the simple question, what else do they need? And we haven't finished the actual plan, but I have 99% confidence we're gonna double revenue without adding a single minute of extra labor cost. Which is low risk, it's high speed, but one of the tools I use a lot, and I'll give away one of my favorite trade secrets, I worship at the ground of the Pareto principle. And so the idea is really, really simple. 20% of your clients drive 80% of your revenue. And I've tested that across industries and it's almost always close enough to be true that I'm gonna call it, it is a natural law. So the secret is we're looking at the top 20% of their clients and we're asking them what else can we do for you? And I know from experience, we can double just doing that. The other thing we're doing is looking at the bottom 20% because the inversion is true. 20% of your clients cause 80% of your headaches. So this is, and I use something I call the four forces of flight, but basically we remove the drag at the bottom and we increase the lift at the top and it becomes more about momentum because they've already got the infrastructure.

Dan: That's really cool. And I've heard that before, the 80-20 rule. You said, is that the Pareto principle, is that what it's called?

Jeff: Yes. Yeah.

Dan: That I did not remember, but once you start talking about the 80-20, I was like, oh yeah, this is all over the place, the 80-20. Yeah. Okay. Let's go back to someone wants to get started. What is the best way for them to get started doing what you're doing? We talked a little bit about education, but what if I, not me specifically, but a person really wants to do this. What is the best way for them to actually get started doing this?

Jeff: Take a summer internship as a crash test dummy and if you're still okay with pain, no, I'm kidding. Really, truly to get started, I would encourage people and the fundamental challenge is you can take, Harvard Business Review has all of these wonderful case studies and things like that. I genuinely, sincerely don't know how to learn this in a safe space because part of the learning is the acceleration of hitting the ground once and go I don't want to do that again. So literally they've got to be open to risk. That is the ground zero. If you want to be a business owner and you just want to make a quiet life and quietly move along, there's a lot of places you can go. I do know a lot of universities are now coming out with entrepreneurial tracks. It is very random and very weird, but I happen to know for a fact that the University of Tampa in Florida has a world-class entrepreneur program. Equally odd, the University of Calgary has a world-class entrepreneur program. But if we're talking somebody who's young and at the start of their life, let's say they're still in university, there are programs that teach entrepreneurial activity without the risk. So believe it or not, I started in junior achievement back in high school. Very low risk. Now also it was low excitement because the rewards were small and we were doing it for the experience. But there is a larger group, and I want to say Enactus, I might have it wrong, but they're a global organization that you as a university student become a member. And the whole point of it is you come up with an idea, you build the prototype, you find an investor who's just somebody who supports it, and then you launch it. And then it's cool, and I love Enactus because you compete at, they do like business pitches. So they bring in community members. I'm a volunteer, I help them once in a while. We give them feedback on their pitch, we give them ideas on their business program, but it's almost always tied to a university business program where it's an elective or it's voluntary, but those skills are critical because they teach you how to present, they teach you how to research. You build an actual business.

Dan: Let's say that you're a young adult, you receive some kind of education, whether it is traditionally through university or some life experience, you decide entrepreneurship, this is for you, this is what you want to do. But specifically, you want to be a visionary entrepreneur. That's what you want to do. You want to help people solve the problems without actually solving their problems. How does someone then take that leap and try to, I'm going to say convince businesses, convince organizations to hire me to help you figure out how to solve the problem and then actually send you off for someone else to solve the problem.

Jeff: Okay, so first of all, there's a Yiddish word that's appropriate. You need to have chutzpah. So that is, again, it's borderline insane, but it's the ability and willingness to take some pain. But honestly, if you're young and you're just starting out, you probably know somebody who already has done this. And the safest, best way, if I was smart, I'd go back in time and I'd do it this way, find a mentor that is doing it. And I'll give you an example. A friend of mine, he runs nine different companies. And whenever he finds somebody who's got the entrepreneurial spirit, he will make a role in his company for them and he will pay them. Now, basically they're an entrepreneur on training wheels, but every summer intern he's ever had, they go on to launch their own business. So again, if you like safety, every community has some sort of incubator program. You're always better and safer in a program. Now, if you don't pay attention and you don't listen, you're wasting your time in theirs. But there is almost every community I've looked at, there's some sort of business development, business incubator. And if you start early, I mean, there's simple little things like a lemonade stand or whatever, but really truly find a mentor who will look you in the eye and say, that's not gonna work. Or, that's a great idea, have you thought of this? Now, the key is a lot of people, I get approached a lot of people go, you'd make a great mentor. Yes, I would. Not to sound callous, but there's gotta be a give and take. And it can all just be, I've had people, they come to me and say, okay, you tell me what to do and I'll do it. And then they don't do it. The relationship doesn't last long because I get annoyed. So a good mentor protege relationship. And there are amazing people out there. I think in the US, there's a program called Score or something like that. These people, they've had their lives, they've had their successes and they just wanna give back. And the other thing is if you want, go hang out at retirement homes, there's bound to be an entrepreneur or two there. But the fascinating thing is, if you're a visionary entrepreneur, you will find others like you. Now, the other cheat I would encourage anybody who wants to become an independent business owner and entrepreneur, start a podcast and start interviewing successful entrepreneurs.

Dan: That is really, really good advice. Yeah, there are so many different organizations out there. Several people I've talked to talked about Score and similar organizations. I spoke with Doug Lawrence last year, in 2025, he was a mentor and he talked all about what you were saying, it's a two-way street. You have the mentor-mentee relationship. It's not just the person that has the experience giving that other person experience. Each person has to get something out of that relationship. Really, really good. Certainly back to education briefly. So, like that, I've spoken to quite a few entrepreneurs on this podcast and I've had people that have talked about that they get out of high school and they start their business and they just do the thing and they're successful. And I have other people they've gone on to, they had a first career or something, they leave that and then they become an entrepreneur and they're successful. And then I have other people, they go to a university, they go for some kind of business thing and they create a business and they're successful. So three different paths. In your opinion, which one for this particular aspect, being a visionary entrepreneur, diagnosing problems, is it more helpful you think to go and go the traditional route, get a university degree in marketing, in business, in process improvement, or does it make sense to learn online or just find a mentor and are all three viable? What's your opinion?

Jeff: I'm gonna give you a really annoying entrepreneur answer but the short answer is it depends. So, and I will tell you what it depends on. If you are the kind of person, and I swear you will know somebody who's an entrepreneur, a lot of the ones I met, and yes, they've all gone different paths, but the ones who were born for it, they've been running businesses since they were 10. I have one who he had trouble in high school because he was already a multimillionaire and he didn't see the point of being in the classroom. And his mom was like, my house, my rules. So he had to finish high school. And there's the glory days of the entrepreneur who dropped out of a university. I personally believe that acquiring skills is critical. You need to be curious, you need to learn. So I don't care how you learn, you know you and you know best. Personally, if I could go back and do it again, I would have taken more risk younger and done things. Whereas, you know, I followed the, I had my career and then I started in business and I went, oh my God, why didn't I do this earlier? But I was always curious and I was always exploring. So if you're not curious, I recommend you take the long slow route because you're gonna take longer to learn. But I know people that woke up and said, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. And I'll give you a really, really hard example of a lot of layoffs. And I'm gonna sound really insensitive, but I see people go, oh, I've been unemployed for three years. Somebody helped me find a job. And I'm like, you've literally taken the risk of leaving your job, not by choice. Rather than waiting for a job, I would at least start doing consulting. But the thing I would say is sell what you're good at first to build the runway so that you can do something else.

Dan: Jeff, that is really, really good information. And I especially like the part where you're talking about if someone gets laid off or something like that, that, you know, don't just sit around, take control of your life and actually, you know, grab the like by the horns and continue to move forward. I absolutely love that. Now, Jeff, unfortunately I am running out of time, but before I hand the floor over to you, I wanna take a second and thank Tamara Pflug for introducing us. Tamara was in episode 49 as a confidence coach. Everyone, please go check out the video. The link will be in the description. Now, Jeff, this is the part of the show where I'd like to offer my guests the opportunity to talk about a project they're working on, a cause they believe in, more about their business. So if there's something specific you'd like to discuss, the floor is yours.

Jeff: Love it. Well, first of all, my final thought would be for an entrepreneur, when life gives you lemons, sell lemonade and lemon tarts. That's what, if you do that, you're an entrepreneur. I'm gonna say, I think, in the interest of time and respecting it, I would strongly encourage, I could tout what I do. I would encourage people to go check out Enactus. It is an amazing organization and I say this sincerely, if you're a student, be there as a student participant. If you're a seasoned successful entrepreneur, be there as a mentor. There is no greater high on this planet than watching young kids get it and move forward and do stuff. So that's my personal addiction, is watching and mentoring the youth. So my advice would be, be a mentor, find a mentor. That's what I would encourage people as a greater good public service announcement.

Dan: Jeff, that is absolutely awesome. I will get the link for Enactus. I will also get any other links you wanna share. I will put them in the description on the website. They'll be all over the place. And when people are trying to find that information, they can easily find it. Jeff, it's been absolutely awesome having you on Time We Discuss and we learned what it's like being a visionary entrepreneur.

Jeff: Well, thank you very much for having me Dan. And I hope somebody in your audience goes, "Hey, that's me."