Problem Solving, Business Building, Personal Branding

This is Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor podcast. We will accomplish our goals through sharing experience, improving tech skills, increasing business knowledge, and embracing life. Let's dive into the next episode. Well, hello and welcome back. We're continuing our season when we're talking to people. It's a series of interviews. We have bounced all over the place, and in this new set, we're going to bounce again. We're going to be talking with Krishna Mohan for the next couple of episodes. This is definitely a switch from the last couple. We are going to get a lot more into business building and how to take your skills and your experience and spin those into something else, something that is uniquely you. This is a little deeper, in a sense, kind of interview. Again though, I think there's a lot that you're going to get out of it, particularly if you're wondering where you want to go next or where you want to take your career from where you're at. Maybe do a little retrospective on where you've been, what you've done, what you've learned, and where you can take that unique you that we've talked about so much in personal branding. But now it's about taking your unique ability to solve problems and turn that into a business or some sort of a reproducible process that allows you to bring something additional to the table for your customers and those that you work with. That being said, I think it's time to get started. So let's start our discussion with Krishna. Welcome back. And today we're going to start a couple of episodes where we'll split this up, but we're going to have a conversation with Krishna Mohan. And he is an entrepreneur, business coach, number one bestselling author, great all around guy, a lot of background. One of those people that you look at that I think as we've talked about in the past, you can look at and say, this is somebody I want to model some of what I'm doing to reach some of the goals and objectives that he has already done. And he also gives back in a way by doing leadership and business coaching kinds of roles that I think would be interesting to hear how those things work for us and how searching for somebody like Krishna can be very beneficial to yourself and your growth. And that being said, as always, I like to allow the, I think it's best for somebody to sort of give their own introduction. So we'll start with that, Krishna, if you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, and if you want to throw any little personal tidbits in as well, that will be greatly appreciated. Yeah, sure. Thank you for that introduction. And I'll try to summarize what I've been doing for the past 24 years. I started my career in sales right after my college, right after my college. And I joined GE as a sales trainee, got an year of intensive sales training. I really get the basics right. And then I ran an operation for a state for over five and a half years. And then I was the best guy in the country that was in India. And I was ambitious. I was hungry for growth. So then I moved to another company, Whirlpool, worked there for about three years. Again, I did very, very well at the time, beginning of my career. My only goal was learning and growing. I was not chasing money. I always believe that money will follow you if you do the right things. And then again, I moved to another company, which is Intertelecom. I was a key account manager for wireless division. And then at that point, I realized that's about nine years. At that point, I realized that I'm not learning anything. I'm not growing. It's just the positions, job titles, maybe income. That's not it. I know there is something more to it. I know that I need to learn things that again, my goal is to be in the C suite. Right from the day one. So keeping that goal in mind, I know that there is something missing. There is something that I don't know. And this is not the path for me to grow. So I thought education could be the route. So I did my master's in marketing management at the time. And then again, then I thought maybe I need to go to the US and then expose myself to the best economy in the world. So I came here. I did my MBA in international business. Again, got back to corporate world. Worked for a couple of IT companies in BD roles. And one thing led to other. It was an application development company, then a business analytics company, then I went to data center design consulting. I was a global enterprise account manager. And then at the time, I felt that finance, understanding balance sheets, bottom lines, income statements, all those things are important. I think I'm seeing that as a gap with many of sales leaders, BD guys. Then I went to school again to get a master's in finance, just to challenge myself. That really helped. And then I moved on to smaller companies, startups, really small companies, helping them on growth, helping them through the growth process, a startup phase and many phases, raising capital and things like that as well. And then at some point, suddenly I realized that I saw different problems in the corporate world. I saw different problems in the small business world. At the time, I believe that I have my own opinions, my own ideologies, my own solutions, which I think can solve those problems. And then I thought, OK, why not start getting to my own entrepreneurial venture? Because I know I can solve problems. And then that's how I started Genius Visionary. As a management consulting firm, helping small and large businesses at different levels. And slowly it led to a few other things like business coaching, which is primarily towards revenue growth and then funding and financing to set their financial foundation in the right place. Then got into Amanda advisory and Amanda consulting, a lot of cool stuff. But I also own a real estate company, which is more towards investments. I have a retail brand that I run. So that's that's in a nutshell, I guess, the journey. That's a that's an impressive journey. I guess one of the things when you started and we may bounce, I'll bounce back to a couple of those. You started Genius Visionary, was that something that you did? Was that just you? Did you have a couple of people that you knew that you saw formed it as a group? No, when I started, it was my own vision. Like I said, you know, this is all my lifetime learnings and observations, learnings and always seeking answers, always trying to figure out a way to solve the problem, whether it is branding, whether it is marketing, whether it is customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, fulfillment, so many things. So I identified a few areas and then that's how I started with my own vision. And then, you know, I have I mean, I have my team and I have others who bought my dream and my vision and they're part of my my plan right now. All right. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's something that in the IT world often talk about. It's really about problem solving. Obviously, yours is you have a broader range of problems that you've solved. I guess sort of digging a little deeper into that is across all these different areas, were you finding or you essentially finding some commonalities and sort of almost, I don't know, templates or processes or procedures that are what led you to your your own approach? Was this something that you drawn from all of these different areas or was it just one of the things where you just you had done it so many times that you knew you could jump into about anywhere and be comfortable solving a problem? I think the second option is more appropriate because we are in business. It's dynamic. You know, everything is changing all the time. It's not, you know, one size fits all or one way to do the same thing. So we have to do customization in the same solution, may not work in a different business. So that's why my own exposure to different complex situations and solving different complex problems in different industries helps me to correlate them and translate to a different business. So it's a combination of everything, but it requires understanding the customer, the business, and then understanding their goals, understanding their challenges, understanding their objectives, and then customize a solution to them, I think is where I'm at. But yes, I have a lot of tools in my toolbox. Whether it's a business finance suite, whether it is, you know, revenue growth models, branding, marketing, funnels, drip camp, all those things are tools. But you can you use those tools appropriately for the right, I would say, requirement. Makes sense? Yes, very much so. Now, have you, I'm going to assume that you've been working on a lot of different Have you, I'm trying to think of a good way to ask it. I guess the easiest way to ask this is have you seen where maybe you have something a little special you bring to the table due to the more horizontal experience you have versus somebody that maybe is deep in a given vertical, be it marketing or finance or sales or whatever, or is it something that you've been working on for a long time? That's a great question. So Rob, here is the answer to that question. No matter how good you are, there's always a better company out there. There is always a better solution provider out there. I'm very aware of the fact that one need to be able to do something I'm very aware of the fact that one need to position them right, whether it is their own company. The founder or the CEO himself need to have a right positioning in his market space. Being good and being exceptional is assumed, but still you still need to have your positioning, you still need to have your own personal brand, you still need to have your own messaging, you still need to have your own flavor that you bring into the table, which I think I have, but I don't consider myself as the best. I'm one among many, but I know my weaknesses more than my strengths. So I know my market and I do very well in my market. So there's no confusion or ambiguity. So I'm very clear on that. That's a good point there. I've heard different philosophies about knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Obviously, having that self-awareness is key. But then some people take the approach of let's focus on our strengths, and then other people focus on the approach of let's minimize or eliminate our weaknesses. Is there one that's particularly philosophy that's more suited to you? Yes, definitely. I play by my strengths. We got to win this game. That's the mentality, first of all. You have to focus on your strengths and leverage them and then build your whole company and everything around that. But still, you still need to differentiate yourself. You still need to have your identity. You still need to have everything else I mentioned. Otherwise, it's difficult to succeed is the right way to put it. Even if you are good and best doesn't mean you will be successful in the market. That comes out of experience. I'm not pessimistic on any sense, but experience teaches that. That makes sense. I want to go back and touch on you mentioned that you always have one of your objectives or where you saw yourself was in the C-suite. That has helped drive you, especially in the early years. I guess the appeal or what was that? Where did it start? What was the appeal for? How did that drive come up? It's a good question. Like I mentioned, I started my career with GE and Jack Welch, the legendary CEO, was running GE at the time. And the moment that's your first job and this is the person you're looking at as your role model, everything changes. Everything changes. Your dreams, your assumptions, your belief system, everything changes when you're exposed to that kind of CEO right off the bat. So the expectations also will change. And then as you start working, you realize, and first of all, unless you're, we have different metrics in terms of the way we are measured in our performance in GE. You can be an A grader, but you're nothing in the company, something like that. So if we have to be best in the company, and then if you're working with that kind of high-end energy, high-potential environment, something changes in the environment. And as I said, since I'm in the beginning of the career, I've seen people growing. As I said, I'm observing everything around me. I'm observing the leaders. I'm observing how people grow. I'm observing what my bosses, bosses, bosses are doing. I'm not just doing my job. So that's how something, and as you do that, you realize again, going back to your strengths and weaknesses, you assess your own personality. Who are you as a person? Are you people person? Are you just, you want to sit behind the computers? Those things also will come up. Again, as I mentioned, I was trained like one year on intensive sales skills. Through that process, at some points you realize that you are good at something. I realize that I'm good at, I have those qualities, just that I don't have those skills. I realize, and somehow, I don't know where it came from, but I'm always having some bigger dreams, even prior to that, just as a person. So then maybe that led, then I thought maybe because that's my exposure, maybe I thought that is the peak of that career. So why not try for that? It may take time, but let me try for it, something like that. Make sense? Oh, definitely. Now, I've gotten that that was Jack Welch's period there in GE. Yeah, very much a thought leader in many ways, a great speaker. I've heard some of his stuff did not work with him or anything, but definitely something that's left a mark on a lot of careers. And that seems to be a good place for us to pause for this episode. We will pick this back up next time around, and we're going to continue talking about his story, where he's at, and where he's going. Hopefully this has given you a little bit of, set the table for some of the conversation beforehand. And as you can see, there are some great minds that Krishna has been able to, I don't know if it's necessarily work with, but see them in action, see them somewhat up close. And it's one of those things where theft may be the greatest form of flattery. And that's one of the things that we can look at is where are people that we have seen, that we have worked with, that we've learned about, that we can maybe steal some things from them, steal some ideas from them. And steal may be a hard word because maybe it's a little more of a build on top of what they have put together. And you don't have to follow them completely. You can pick and choose. You can find some things that work from all sorts of different sources. That being said, we'll go ahead and wrap this one up and let you get back to it. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next.