Ever wondered what it takes to transition from corporate leadership to successful solopreneurship? In today's Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we're featuring Mike Gross, a management systems expert who focuses on helping businesses with ISO certifications and professional training needs. With extensive experience as an Executive Vice President, Mike now helps organizations worldwide achieve crucial certifications in safety, quality, and environmental management, proving that sometimes the best entrepreneurial opportunities arise from unexpected career shifts.
Hi, Mike! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
My business has several aspects.
CONSULTING
I work with clients who are interested in obtaining or maintaining certified management systems for safety, quality, or environmental conforming to respective ISO standards. Clients often have customer requirements to obtain these standards, while others pursue it for potential business opportunities or simply to improve overall company performance. I work with clients to either implement or streamline the necessary processes for conformance or simply act as an internal auditor for clients (internal auditing is a requirement for these standards). I primarily work with manufacturing clients, but these standards apply to any organization regardless of product, service, or size.
TRAINING PROVIDER
I am part of the PECB network of training providers that offers courses to allow students to obtain professional certifications according to the ISO 17024 standards. Courses include in-person, live online, self-study, or e-learning options and cover standards and topics related to information security, cybersecurity management, technical cybersecurity, business continuity and resilience, privacy and data protection, artificial intelligence, governance, compliance, and risk, sustainability, in addition to quality, health and safety, and environmental. These courses are advertised online and I can provide them anywhere in North America and the Caribbean. Course topics include requirements of the respective standards, system implementation, auditing, or management.
CERTIFIED TRAINER
I personally teach my own courses related to safety, quality, and environmental management systems and I'm also available to any training provider in the network worldwide to support courses they sponsor. I am also one of the trainers for this network's quality management systems e-learning courses.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
When the last company I was working for decided to make an organizational change, I was released as Executive Vice President. They were well aware of my intent to leave soon anyway to make this leap into consulting, but my intended timing came a bit more quickly than I had originally planned. From the first day 'off', I made sure to keep a regular work schedule on my own, make a business plan, and take the necessary steps to establish my business. This work paid off as I was in conversations with my first client within 2 months. Shortly after I wrapped up a successful project with my first client, the pandemic hit. I was able to continue to at least break even and even attract additional clients, and as we were emerging from the pandemic I partnered with PECB. It was really at that point that I recognized I had diversified my services enough to make this business successful and more steady for the long term.
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
Early in my career I went through another reorganization at a different company and was released as Technical Manager. Within 2 weeks I had an opportunity to work with another local company to lead in preparing to certify their quality management system.
Transitioning from technical management with a large team to focusing as a principal contributor for a specific project was smooth, and I was able to use my prior experience extensively to quickly advance their progress. As this was over 20 years ago with a large, young family, I made the decision then that I would go back to a regular full-time job. Plus, I had the opportunity to launch a greenfield plant with former colleagues.
But, I also decided at that time I would return eventually to a consulting role once my children were fully launched and I had a few years of additional management experience to give me even more credibility, as I found consulting aligned well with my interests of being a teacher and coach.
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
All flavors of video conferencing have been a game-changer for me. I use them all.
The positive side of the pandemic is that we all received a crash course on how to use these various video conferencing platforms to work remotely.
This opened up the opportunity to continue to work through the pandemic with remote consulting and auditing. It also has allowed me to teach in all areas of the world, as I can now easily do so from my home office.
It has also expanded my consulting reach. For example, I have a recent experience working with a client, who I have never met in person, but who is well on their way to having their quality management system certified. Video conferencing is essential in my work.
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
I have already mentioned that twice in my career I have been released during reorganizations, which is not unusual for management or senior management. I didn't view these releases as failures but as chances to further grow and expand into different industries and directions.
Had these releases not occurred, I may not have found how much I enjoyed consulting the first time it happened.
The second time it happened, if I had stuck to my original plan to go into consulting full-time, I would have run right into the pandemic as I was launching. Without the initial success I experienced before the pandemic, I sense I would have a very extended launch period. I truly view the timing of the second release as providence.
The pandemic also taught me to use the downtime in between client work to keep a regular work schedule focused on marketing, refining my own work systems, and continuing education - all of which have really paid off since the client work has rebounded. Even today when I have holes in my schedule, I still keep regular work hours for myself to work on improving myself or my business.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
Overall, I believe I have taken a conventional approach in my space of accumulating work and management experience, along with professional credentials and certifications, to be able to attract new clients. Even my marketing and networking approaches I would consider conventional.
However, I do put a lot of effort into clients (and even potential clients who have selected someone else) to have honest conversations about why they did or did not choose me for the project. I am able to get a much better idea of what is working to sell myself, what is not working, and I have learned there are opportunities I lose simply because I choose to work solo and there are concerns about the work volume for one person and meeting client deadlines. This information and analysis has been important for me to refine my marketing message and (hopefully) attract clients for whom I WANT to work.
Recently, since I prefer to remain a solopreneur, I have been looking for colleagues who align well with my consulting approach to develop an unofficial referral network. I learned this lesson from my wife, who is in real estate, as referral is a common practice in that industry for a reasonable fee.
My thought is threefold:
First, I have had situations where I have to turn down clients I know I can help but I just don't have the available bandwidth. A referral network would allow me to offer work to another trusted colleague for a reasonable finder's fee.
Second, this can be a form of expanded marketing as opportunities may come in my direction if I ever find myself in a slower period.
Finally, it can potentially open up opportunities to partner on larger projects, essentially with the bandwidth of larger organizations in this space, but with everyone still working as individual consultants.
This strategy is still in its infancy, but I'm actively working to make it happen.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself to jump into consulting and keep the income rolling in just like I did at my full-time job. It didn't work out quite that way, but I was fortunate to have a nest egg saved up just in case. That covered the bills until I was finally able to ramp back up after the pandemic was passed. This advice is from someone who did not have this business as a side hustle before launching, and I expect transitioning from side hustle to full-time would be different based on the number of existing customers or clients. So, I definitely would advise going into working on your own with a nest egg to fall back on.
I also underappreciated what I call the admin side of the business, even as a solopreneur - accounting, time tracking, quoting, invoicing, estimated tax filings, setting up insurance, retirement accounts, etc. Don't be too hesitant to farm some or all of this work out as I found it was consuming a significant amount of my time. Reorganizing myself recently as an S-Corp and moving to a full service payroll software (yes, just for myself) has been liberating.
Finally, I have a business coach who is also a successful entrepreneur to challenge me and provide some much-needed advice. Advice from a coach or other colleagues can be invaluable to help you navigate challenges and provide some needed encouragement. I have found you don't need to have all the answers, but you do need good questions to ask people who do know the answer - and be willing to listen and learn. Even with my previous experience and now 6 years into consulting, I'm still learning quite a bit.
Want to dive deeper into Mike's work? Check out the links below:
- Visit his website mj-gross.com
- Follow Mike's consulting on LinkedIn: Michael J. Gross, LLC
- Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: Michael Gross
