LEAD TO BELIEVE
As a corporate coach, Dan Waldschmidt does more than suggest small changes. Through his EDGY metric, he helps companies exceed their perceived bar of success.
In other words, taking risks that might make you feel uncomfortable, but might also put your business in a position to get noticed and build customer loyalty.” Disciplined activity: “Commit to something you believe in; you have to stick with it long enough for it to actually work.” Giving mindset: “Conversations with customers and prospects aren’t about you.” (For Dan, gratitude’s key.) Y(h)uman strategy: “Can you identify the pain or fear that is driving them to do what they do? That’s the heart of Dan’s business gospel: Being human, being clear, and being tough; he calls his work, “Radical help for those who want it. Whereas other consultants would come in and go, ‘Hey, let’s readjust the labeling’ and ‘Let’s reposition this’—all very logical—but it’s missing that extra something and that extra something is what we bring. Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on what it is exactly.” Not really. Dan’s thing is all about knowing who you are and why you do what you do, working on an emotional, even vulnerable, level to connect with people. Doing that connects you to yourself, to your dreams, to your happiness and success. In a word, Dan focuses on the business of being a human being in a world of business. “The standard for us is, how do we create something so overwhelmingly magical? People confuse magic as what you sell. It’s not what you sell; it’s the methods. The methods are what create the magic.”
HIS BUSINESS-SENSE MAGIC
, as it were, began with preteen entrepreneurship. He started a lawn-mowing business—again, at 12. “After I got my flyers printed, my first day out, my mom asked where I was going, and I said, ‘To go mow lawns.’ And she asked, ‘With what mower?’ I said. ‘With this one.’ She said, ‘That’s mine. You can use our mower, but it’ll cost you.’” His work and demeanor feel and sound like a mashup of Tony Robbins, Oprah, Dale Carnegie, Dr. Phil, and the late Jim Fixx, the author of the 1977 bestseller, The Complete Book of Running, credited with “helping start America’s fitness revolution.” Dan’s no casual runner. An ultra-marathoner, he says he has logged some 17,000 miles within the last decade. In June 2015, he placed first in Greenville’s 100-mile Knock on Wood race, clocking in at 17 hours, 18 minutes. UltraSignup.com, a website that collects such things, says Dan’s sixteen hyper-long races rank him above the 91st percentile in his age group. “He’s a runner who’s not stopping at just running a marathon, but some crazy
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TEVE JOBS BELIEVED ‘THE USER EXPERIENCE MORE IMPORTANT THAN FUNCTIONALITY. . . OTION OVER LOGIC, UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE ER PUSHING PRODUCT.’”
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