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Ian Wynne reposted thisIan Wynne reposted thisJust pick up the f**king phone. Business has never had more communication tools and somehow never communicated less effectively. Entire projects now die in group chats. Deals stall in inboxes. Relationships drift because everyone is too busy “circling back” to actually speak. Messenger and email have their place, but they’ve also created an entire generation of professionals who will spend 45 minutes crafting a paragraph to avoid a five-minute conversation. The irony is that all the tools designed to speed things up have created more delays, more misinterpretation, and more people misreading tone like it’s a psychic exercise. The reticence to actually call someone is getting worse. Younger teams, especially, treat the phone like an artefact from a lost civilisation. They’ll Slack, text, DM, send voice notes, @-tag you in three channels, and then wait for the universe to deliver clarity. Meanwhile the problem sits there, breeding. So much of business is friction masquerading as communication. A two-line misunderstanding becomes a project delay. A vague message becomes a political issue. A misread email becomes a week of unnecessary “alignment.” All of which could be solved in one short, direct conversation. In PE and operating roles, this becomes even more painful. Value creation slows down because people are talking around problems rather than through them. I’ve watched multimillion-dollar initiatives stall simply because nobody wanted to pick up the phone and ask the obvious question. Here’s a simple rule that still works: If a message takes longer to write than it would to say, CALL. If there’s even a chance of misinterpretation, CALL If the stakes are high, CALL. If the relationship matters, CALL. If you’re on message 14 in a thread that hasn’t moved an inch, definitely f**cking CALL. The fastest way to accelerate execution is often the oldest. Pick up the phone. Say the thing. Solve the issue. Move on. Most friction in companies isn’t strategic. It’s people avoiding a conversation that would take less time than the messages they’re sending about it. #ClaymorePartners #notveryprivateequity #privateequity #valuecreation #communication
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Ian Wynne reposted thisIan Wynne reposted thisBuild relationships, not just customer databases.Retention Isn't About Numbers -- It's About RelationshipsRetention Isn't About Numbers -- It's About Relationships
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Ian Wynne reposted thisIan Wynne reposted thisI spoke to a business owner who gets to 100% of leads within 60 seconds. Guess what His close rate OF LEADS was… 55% He pays one full-time person to call their leads within 60 seconds of signing up. That's their entire job. Call leads within 60 seconds. Their sales increased by 391%. Today’s reminder to call your leads faster.
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Ian Wynne posted thisIf you're looking for a manufacturing partner, especially in the CPG world - pay attention. 4 Quick Lessons On Sourcing a White Label Manufacturer: The Factory is Not Your Marketing Team: (duh) **If they can’t help you think about product-market fit or positioning, that’s not their job, (some do and some can - don't rely on it) it’s yours (or your partner’s) don’t expect manufacturing expertise to translate into brand success. You Can’t Rely on the Product Alone: **White label products, by definition, are not unique. Your competitive advantage will come from brand narrative, packaging, and the customer experience, not just features. The old saying "if you build it they will come" - is not true in todays world of over saturation of marketing & messaging. Margins are Built on the Brand, Not the Cost Sheet: **Cheaper COGS are great, but if you can’t create & drive demand, price reductions just compress your margins further as you race to the bottom. Good marketing can justify premium pricing, even for commoditized products. Speed and Adaptability Win: **The best manufacturers aren’t the cheapest — they’re the ones who can scale production, support rapid iterations, and work with your timeline for launches. The best piece of advice I'm able to provide here, if at all possible find a good manufacturing partner that is willing to work alongside you, often times, they're not the cheapest.
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Ian Wynne reposted thisIan Wynne reposted thisSales are simple when you understand this secret: The moment you start selling, you've lost. I used to be terrified of sales calls. Now my team and I close without ever feeling like we're "selling." Using a proven system I call “Pitch OS”. I've taught this exact system to founders who went from struggling to book calls to closing 30-50% of their prospects. Here's the 6-step sales system: 1. Lead With Curiosity Most salespeople start by talking about themselves. Big mistake. Instead, ask open-ended questions: • "What are you looking to achieve?" • "Tell me about your current situation" • "What made you book this call today?" Then shut up and listen. Listen and make mental notes. 2. Clarify Their Challenges You can’t help your prospect if you don’t truly understand their situation. Some great follow-up questions I use: • "Why is that important to you?" • "Tell me more about that" • "What impact does that have on your life?” Care about what they say here. The key is to dig deeper: • "What happens if this doesn't get solved?" • "How long has this been an issue?" Their answers become your roadmap. 3. Co-Create Their Ideal Outcome Once you understand their challenges, help them paint a picture of what success looks like: • "What's the ultimate goal here?" • "What would this allow you to do?" This creates a vision they're emotionally invested in. 4. Contrast Cost of Inaction vs. Investment Most people aren't afraid of the cost of your solution. They're afraid of making a change. Ask them: "If nothing changes, where will you be in 6 months?" Help them see what inaction will cost them. 5. Present Your Solution As The Bridge After successfully going through steps 1-4, I transition into the bridge: "Based on what you've shared, I think I can help because of my experience in [solving their problem]. Here's how we'd get you to [their ideal outcome]." I structure my solution around 3-4 clear pillars that directly address their challenges: "The first thing we'll do is build out what I call [Pillar 1], which will solve [Challenge 1 they mentioned]." Then, I’d go through each one in detail, following the same format. 6. No Manipulation I never use: • Fake scarcity ("only 2 spots left!") • False urgency ("price doubles tomorrow!") Instead, I'm radically honest about what my solution can & cannot do. Sales don't have to feel gross. Remember: Trust is built before the call, not during it. That's why my Content GPS makes sales effortless: • Daily content on social media solving real problems • Weekly newsletter building a true relationship • Monthly workshops with immense value By the time someone books a call, they're pre-sold on your expertise. __ Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Matt Gray for more. Want to learn The Growth Systems Behind The Most Successful Online Businesses? Join my free live Workshop on May 22nd (8 days away) to steal my homework: https://lnkd.in/epvajTiW
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Ian Wynne reposted thisIan Wynne reposted thisThe difference between $100,000 a day vs $100,000 a year is simpler than you think. People who make six figures a day are willing to: 1. Look stupid no matter what anyone else thinks. 2. Take risks that not many are willing to take. 3. Outreach and ask an unlimited amount of people to get what they want. I'm convinced that the first principle of building wealth is disregarding the opinions of others who don't have "it" but telling you that you're doing it wrong. The difference is simple, not easy.
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Ian Wynne reposted thisIan Wynne reposted thisI'm coaching 3 CEOs who fired their VP Sales at the end of Q1. I've had the same conversation with each of them and diagnosed them all with what I'm calling Product Value Denial (PVD). Product Value Denial is when a founder believes their product is exponentially more valuable than their customers or prospects think it is. They focus their attention on the few happy customers they have and utilize this to reassure themselves their product is excellent. They think... we just need more of those customers! They must exist! They ignore all prospects and customers who dislike their product. They believe "I am right and they are wrong". This level of denial is a delusion. The outcome for these 3 companies, unfortunately has been continued decline in revenue after letting go of their VP Sales. The internal conflict has grown substantially because it turns out the VPs were actually making a bad situation better, to the extent that they could. If your struggling to hit your sales targets, I implore you to be brutally honest with yourself and USE DATA to determine what's actually wrong. The data I'm referring to is not your sales and revenue report... it's your churn reasons and lost deal reasons. Those data points will always tell you why you're missing your revenue target. The WHY is far more important than the WHAT. If your product isn't amazing... stop blaming salespeople and leaders. You can't fix a weak product with a stronger sales leader. One doesn't compensate for the other.
Ian Wynne commented on a post
5d
More of a time investment, but making sure you're not surrounded by "yes" people, thus ensuring you have people in your life to challenge your thinking... this always creates better results.
Ian Wynne replied to a comment
2w
What i find more than anything else is a combination of too many "mission critical" priorities without the right plan and process to ensure relentless execution of the 1-2 main areas where you cant miss. Which causes & creates the scenario - where companies and executives fall short.
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Ian Wynne liked thisIan Wynne liked thisTHE DECISION SPEED CEILING FOUNDER TRAP Smart founders actually slow down their companies. Here's how it happens: You're probably the smartest person in the room, and you've built this thing from nothing. You know every system, every client, every detail, so naturally… Every decision runs through you. And that's precisely the problem. The more you hold on to, the more you become the bottleneck. #entrepreneurship #businessgrowth #leadership #founder #scaling Your team waits on you. Your growth waits on you. Your life waits on you. The irony? The same genius that built the company is now the exact thing keeping it stuck. The fix isn't working harder. It's letting go of the need to control everything—and building systems that scale WITHOUT you in the middle of every decision. The best founders don't run faster. They build machines that run without them. REPOST if this hit home. Drop a 🔥 if you've been the bottleneck (now or before—no shame—we all have).
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Ian Wynne liked thisIan Wynne liked thisMost founders don't have a growth problem... They have a self-created speed limit. And nobody tells them. Here's what's actually happening: Your company can only move as fast as you can decide. Not because you're slow. Because the system was built that way. Every decision routes back to you. Every initiative needs your read. Every team waits for your signal. Even when it looks like it doesn't. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: Growth slows without an obvious cause. Team capability seems to plateau. Your workload increases despite "scaling" Opportunities get missed because the system can't move fast enough None of it shows up on a dashboard. It hides behind competence. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹. It's not about effort. It's not about strategy. It's about how you're positioned inside the system. Decisions bottleneck at you. The team defers instead of owns. Systems exist - but don't truly operate without you. You became the integration layer for everything. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘀: You didn't build a business. You built a system that requires you to exist at the center of it. Here's how to know if this is you: Your team waits for you more than they decide without you. Things move faster when you're directly involved. Stepping away slows everything down Most founders don't see this until it's pointed out. If this hit - comment "LIMIT" and I'll send you the framework I use to find exactly where the bottleneck lives in your business. Repost if you know a founder who needs to hear this.
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Ian Wynne liked thisIan Wynne liked thisBest investments as a scaling CEO: 1. A stack of sticky notes (still the best planning tool ever made) 2. A good printer (you'll actually read that article if you print it out) 3. A meeting-free day in the middle of the week (I recommend Tuesdays) 4. A human EA who protects your calendar like a bouncer (AI is great, but Serena has my back) 5. An in-house recruiter (at scale, hiring is a full-time job) 6. A controller who can give you insights, not just a bookkeeper who gives you reports 7. A 30-day vacation (for entrepreneurs, rest is work) What did I miss? What did I get wrong?
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Ian Wynne liked thisIan Wynne liked thisYou wanna hear a totally gangster set of ideas from one of our members about how they made a $6K happy hour outperform a $60K conference booth? Well, you’re in luck: He bought a general admission pass and booked a happy hour at a bar two blocks from the convention center. 20 person cap. $3k. Surgical guest list. 4 target prospects he'd been working for months. 3 existing customers who had contractually agreed to be referenceable during their last renewal. Big logos. Names people in the region actually recognize. 2 channel partners for good measure. His prospects were having a beer next to a CIO who's already running the product and happy to talk about it. That's pretty standard stuff by now, but here's where it the move went into total gangster territory: Morning after the big Tuesday night parties, he set up at the Starbucks right outside the convention center. Another $1k in gift cards. Every decision maker who overdid it the night before stumbled in for caffeine. His customers were sitting right there, having real conversations over lattes he paid for. Nothing but caffeine, coffee, and credibility. But wait - there’s more! One person was assigned to capture photos and short video clips all day. Four hours of raw footage became three months of LinkedIn posts, reels, and co-branded content. Every photo made it look like they had a massive booth presence. Customer tags, event hashtags, partner logos. Full production value for $6k. Even more gangster was that he made the whole thing repeatable. During renewal negotiations, he'd already baked reference and logo rights into customer contracts. So the next conference? He had a roster of customers ready to show up and do the selling for him. Loved these ideas unconditionally, so wanted to share them here. When you’re looking at your next big industry event, maybe skip the booth. Host something intimate near the venue. Stack it 40% prospects, 40% referenceable customers, 20% partners. One person on full-time content capture. Budget a morning-after coffee play for day two. Run this four times a year in four cities. $24K will build what $200K in booth fees never could. Or drop $40-60K on a booth while your team stands behind a table for three days while 9,000 attendees walk past, grab a pen, and disappear forever. Up to you.
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Ian Wynne liked thisIan Wynne liked thisThe most successful individuals I’ve worked with rarely rely on motivation. They rely on structure, processes, and habits that sustain progress regardless of circumstances. A simple strategy: lower the barrier to action. Make the habit so small it becomes difficult to avoid. Momentum builds confidence. Confidence reinforces consistency. Consistency creates success.
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V6CO. LLC
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CEO Space International
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- PresentCEO Space is in its third decade of offering its signature week long cooperative marketplace, training and trade show experience for executives, entrepreneurs, professionals, investors, development and hyper-growth companies. Achieve your professional goals faster, easier, and more reliably. Do you have a product, service, project, dream or idea that could benefit others – or the world – if you could only put the right structure, funding, and resources in place to create it or get it to…
CEO Space is in its third decade of offering its signature week long cooperative marketplace, training and trade show experience for executives, entrepreneurs, professionals, investors, development and hyper-growth companies. Achieve your professional goals faster, easier, and more reliably. Do you have a product, service, project, dream or idea that could benefit others – or the world – if you could only put the right structure, funding, and resources in place to create it or get it to market faster? Imagine what might happen if you suddenly had access to 70,000+ key influencers who couldn’t wait to help you bring you and your company to the success you deserve? Experience CEO Space, the opportunity awaits you and the door is open
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