Hey everybody, welcome back to Vision Pros Live.
I'm your host and coach, Fletcher Ellingson.
I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're in
this conversation. Why? Because on this podcast,
we get to meet people from all over the globe
who are chasing their visions, clarifying their
visions, and bringing their visions into the
physical realm. Our guest today is Tori Bjorklund,
and he's the founder and CEO of Victorified Consulting.
What does he do? We're going to get into that.
But first, let's welcome our guest, Tori. Good
morning to you. Good morning. Thanks for having
me on. Appreciate it. You bet. Hey, before we
get into what you do and who you help. I want
to start off with a win, something that's going
well. And this can be professionally, it can
be personally. But, you know, there's a lot of
suffering going on in the world. There's a lot
of disappointment. There's a lot of upset, discord.
We want to remind people that there's still good
happening and that we can be the cause in the
matter of that good. So lay it on me. What's
going well in your life? Yeah, actually, I'll
tell you two things. First of all, first thing
that comes to my mind is that In spite of the
fact that I'm in my 60s, I feel great. And I
made a decision when I was 52 years old to start
working out and lifting weights and things like
that, which I'd never done prior to that. And
so my health, I'm just really grateful to have
great health. The second thing is, Victorified
is my seventh company. And frankly, it's the
biggest struggle I've ever had in business. And
so one might think that's not a win, but I'm
learning so much more in this company than I
ever have before in any of the previous companies
I was involved in. So, you know, it's great.
I mean, it's a struggle. You know, fortunately,
we're, you know, keeping the wolves away. But
at the same time, I'm learning a ton. Wow. I'm
going to take a moment and just address a couple
of things you said. First of all. Yeah, health,
you know, that that saying health is your health
is the first wealth. The older we get, the more
we realize like, oh, that's actually spot on.
That's actually true. Yeah. So congratulations
to you for taking on your health at that new
level. I appreciate that because I'm in my mid
50s and. two years ago i made that same commitment
to take on my health at a new level um and so
i've been in the gym for two years uh working
out something i've never done i never went to
gyms yeah um i did other stuff but gyms and lifting
weights wasn't into it didn't like it um so it
has it's been an area of personal growth for
me too and it took a while yeah a good while,
but I actually look forward to going to the gym
now, which is like, I never thought. I'm not
sure I'm there yet. I love the results that it
gets. Yeah. So that's, I, so I look forward to
the results. I don't look forward to being in
the gym. Yes, yes, yes. Gotcha. And, and secondly,
you, you said, you know, this is your seventh
business and you're encountering some struggles
and. This is an important thing to talk about
because it's easy to talk about the wins. It's
easy when you're winning, oh, life's great. But
if you're running a business, there are struggles.
There are challenges that we wish weren't there.
And like you said. you're learning a lot. It's
causing evolution to occur. It's causing adaptation.
It's causing growth. And yes, it can be uncomfortable.
But I appreciate the fact that you brought that
up because number one, it just shows authenticity,
right? Things don't always go the way we planned.
And to say that out loud, and it just shows authenticity
and creates trust. So nice. Tori, the show is
called Vision Pros Live. And so we're curious
here about people's vision. What's that clarified
story that we're efforting to bring forth into
the physical realm? And so I want to ask you
if you will share with us your vision. Yeah,
absolutely. So I think I'll share it, but I'll
need to give a little background after that.
I really want to change the way technology consulting
is delivered in this world. I want to change
the industry. It's broken. And I really think
that we're on the verge of seeing that, in essence,
consulting is dead. And people just haven't realized
that yet. I'll let you ask the questions and
fill in a little context for that. This is fascinating.
Yeah. So what I heard you say is you want to
change the way technology consulting occurs in
our world. And you see, for the most part, that
it's... It's going the way of doomsday. So tell
me a little bit. Tell me what you mean about
that. Yeah. So there's a lot of consultants out
there, both small and large. And one of the things
if you look at statistics and of course, I think
I think it was Mark Twain that said there are
three kind of lies. you know lies damn lies and
statistics so you kind of have to take the statistics
with a little bit of a grain of salt and whose
numbers you use is is important but the reality
is that the buzzword today digital transformation
implementation of technology that changes the
way you do business they those projects fail
at a rate of 70 to 90 percent depending on whose
statistics you use now think about that and we've
heard we've all heard of really major failures
and costly ones and usually related to the government
or something like that but you think about a
company that say maybe doing 10 15 million top
line revenue annually and they sink a couple
million into a major initiative and and and it
fails that jeopardizes that business and this
is happening over and over and over again and
i mean you know if you're If you're playing baseball,
maybe 300 isn't a bad batting average. But if
you're playing in the world of business, succeeding
30 % of the time or less is catastrophic. And
in no other industry would this be acceptable.
I mean, if 70 % of the bridges built out there
missed the mark, you know, and we're 15 feet
from the road or whatever. Nobody would accept
that. Yet this has been acceptable for many years
and hasn't changed. Those numbers have been tracked
since the late 80s, early 90s. So those statistics
are alarming. I mean, I didn't I did not know
that. How can they be so high? I mean, seriously.
Yeah. And a part of that is, to be fair. how
you define success and how you define failure.
The differences between what the vendors consider
successful and what the clients consider successful
is night and day. So the clients, if you ask
them what does success mean, generally speaking,
it's not just on time and in budget, but that's
part of it, getting those projects done and that.
But the other part of it is, Hey, they did a
whole bunch of thinking before they undertook
this initiative. And they said, well, okay, it
might cost us $2 million, but we expect this
at the end of that. And that's going to make
us money. Because really, that's the bottom line
of the company. If it's not going to help you
make money, you don't want to undertake it. And
it's that part of it. Whatever they said they
were expecting from it, they never get that.
And when that never happens, they never get their
investment back. That's failure. A vendor might
say, well, we got you running on the software,
but never delivered the expected benefit. The
vendors will think it's successful and consider
it a success. And in those numbers, 20 % of them
never even get going live. They abandon it before
it's completed. And that's still way too high.
Yeah. Wow. Okay. So some big challenges. Yeah.
Enter Tori. Well, in my team, you know, Victorified
in general. And yeah, so here's the thing. The
way that we do consulting has to change. We have
to focus on the benefit of the client, first
and foremost, making the client success. our
primary success that's how we should measure
success and then the second thing is we got to
quit telling the clients what they want to hear
we need to tell them what they need to hear in
order to be successful i mean if you were a a
physician let's say you're a surgeon and and
somebody came in and needed to have some surgery
you wouldn't tell them well you know if you If
you don't want to do this, you don't really have
to do it if it really is a life -threatening
situation. And vendors do that all the time.
They tell the people what they think they want
to hear. And the leadership of the client will
often lean on them and say, oh, do we really
have to do all this preparation? Let's just get
this thing in and get it done. And they succumb
to that. And they're getting paid a lot of money.
Those vendors, those consultants are getting
paid a lot of money per hour. to be the expert
and instead of being the expert they find themselves
you know being the cheerleader squad or something
like that that's why i noticed on your website
you know one of your main pillars there is is
preparation right yeah yeah yeah so yeah because
companies are in a hurry to get the financial
results right Yep. So, yeah. And and you're you're
bringing up a couple of things that, you know,
it's good for for companies to hear this. This
is a good conversation because, yeah, a lot of
companies out there will tell you what you want
to hear. You're saying like, look, we're not
willing to do that because that's not in your
best interest. We're going to tell you what what
you need to hear. Right. And we're going to take.
due diligence to prepare you to set you up for
the type of success that you were expecting.
Exactly. That's exactly right. How does that
happen? What is, what is the, what's the preparation
phase look like? Yeah. So the first thing is
really defining the vision and, you know, that's,
uh, really apropos to your podcast and you, you,
you never do anything without vision. You know,
unless it's by happenstance and it happens to
you. But you have to have a vision for something
before you'll undertake it. And one of the challenges
is communicating that vision to the rest of the
organization. There's all kinds of people that
are going to use that technology that have no
idea why you're doing what you're doing and why
you're going to spend this money. And they'd
rather just have a raise. Just give me more money
and I'll work harder. You know, things like that.
But that's not scalable. And so technology meets
objectives that makes the company better and
and therefore then the chances for those employees
to succeed more. But they need to get that message
and it's not coming from leadership properly.
The second thing about that is you've got to
build the right team. You've got to. that experience
in these kinds of initiatives is really, really
important. And, you know, you got smart people
working for you, but smart people that haven't
ever done this or maybe done it once and probably
not very well, that's not going to cut it. You
need to get the right people in place and then
you need to have the right plan. to actually
execute that and a risk management plan around
that. And then finally, you need to have what's
called organizational change management. The
idea of saying. What is going to get in the way
of this change? What are the risks to our employees?
What are they going to do to subvert it? Or what
do they need to succeed with this? What does
the team need to succeed with this? And you get
all of that figured out. And so now you're mitigating
your risks. You're taking proactive stance on
helping people get through the change and understand
why the change is necessary. And then you execute.
on a project i mean a lot of people can do project
execution that's that's a very mature discipline
today as project management and project execution
but that aspect of the the people and making
sure you've got the right people in place and
helping them make it through the change and then
finally at the end we we call what we call sustain
this sustain stage is to help people really adopt
what the new change is as the DNA of the company.
It's oftentimes, well, we've never done it this
way. And that's that kind of fear and uncertainty.
And now at the end of having gone through that
implementation, you need to make sure that your
people are saying, this is the way we do it.
And that's the assimilation of the change into
the organization. So those are... I answered
your question about preparation, but it's all
the rest of it as well. Yeah, no, I appreciate
that. So, yeah, this is not an overnight process.
No, this is a large, large undertaking. How long
does something like that take? I mean, it varies
a lot. It varies on a matter of how complicated
it is, how broad the scope is. I mean, if you're.
implementing a new erp system for example i mean
that can be multiple years for a large for a
large company you know we we work with companies
that are you know have multi -billion dollar
organizations that can be multiple years um a
smaller company you know we're in in the middle
of an implementation with a client that's about
50 million in top line revenue you know that
can be eight nine months you know so uh it varies
in the scope of what's happening um yeah but
it it the first thing often is it really only
takes about a month to two months to really put
together a solid plan for the preparation and
and implementation Got it. Got it. And this is
I'm glad we're having this conversation. We have
lots of listeners who are in, you know, in those
businesses, 10 to 50 million. And so there are,
you know, there are there are CEOs and managers
listening to this. And they may have a jaded
view about this. Maybe they've been through it
and abandoned it, like you said, maybe that.
But. What I want them to hear is it is possible
if you have the right team in place. And so if
this is piquing your interest, then visit Tori's
website and read about what they do. Look at
some of the testimonials. Give us the domain
name for your website, please. Yeah, it's victorified
.com. Victoria, like the name, F -I -D -E dot
com. Okay, victorified .com. Go and check it
out. If you want to have a conversation, obviously,
I'm sure they can contact you via their website.
Someone will contact you and have some sort of
discovery conversation. It may be the time. If
you're listening to this, consider how serendipitous
it is that you're listening to this conversation.
And this is what's needed in your company. Maybe
this is the company to call. Maybe this is the
moment where you take action. So visit them at
victorified .com. And it may be your time to
partner with this company and move the needle.
I'm curious. Let's go back to what you said in
the beginning. You talked about this is a challenging
time for you. Yeah. This is a challenging business.
Help me understand why. What's going on and what
are you learning? Yeah. So the first thing is
marketing. Marketing has changed. You know, what
used to work doesn't work. Most people in the
marketing industry will tell you that. I don't
know what works, frankly. I'm trying to build
a business here and scale it out. And I'm finding
the only thing that works right now is my personal
networking. And that's always worked. That's
never changed. It's just that's difficult to
scale. I can only meet with so many people in
a week, you know, and so forth. So that's one
thing is getting that sales funnel built. And
second thing is really the messaging. And that's
probably part of feeds into the sales funnel.
problems as well. The messaging, a lot of people
are familiar with how consulting is done in the
past. So they have presuppositions about what
we do. And so we're not a very large organization.
It's difficult to change the way people think
unless you're a behemoth that can put a lot of
money into marketing. and messaging and so forth.
You know, it reminds me of when I was in high
school or junior high and microwaves were first
coming out. I mean, those companies that first
were creating the microwave and selling that,
they did a lot of work to get people used to
the concept of nuking their food. And if you
were a small organization trying to get that
into the market, you just wouldn't be able to
do it. without those kind of resources. So that's
part of what we're struggling with. But one of
the things we've done to try to mitigate that
struggle is to give, and it's unheard of, but
to give a guarantee and say, hey, we will guarantee
that you hit your objectives or we'll be working
with you to... to help you hit those objectives
at our cost. Not, you know, we'll come and basically
share in the cost to get you to where you need
to be. It's unheard of in the industry. Yeah.
Okay. Talk about it. a position of differentiation.
Okay. That's something to lead with for sure.
Yeah. I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you just
talked about that because that's something that
you just, like you said, there aren't other companies
doing this. Let's talk about our guarantee. We're
guaranteeing that you are going to get your results
or we're going to share in the costs until you
do. Really interesting. Got it. Got it. You know,
the, the sentiment that you just talked about
as well of like what is working in the area of
marketing. I hear that all the time. And I talk
with a lot of business people, a lot of business
owners. I hear that so frequently, like what,
what, which direction should we take for marketing?
And, but what I find interesting. and also continues
to resound is you're still playing the offline
game of personal networking. And that is also
consistent with what I'm hearing from people.
They're throwing money at advertising and I'm
not saying they shouldn't because obviously there's
some level of return. But what I hear consistently
over and over and over again, it's still this.
high level of offline marketing that is creating
a business, at least these long -term and big
money types of, of relationships. Right. So,
I mean, to, so to your concern, I got to say
like, well, keep it up because that seems to
the offline game seems to be somewhat unique
where everyone's trying to win the online game.
And if you're playing the offline game, that
may be giving you some advantage. Well, I think
it really helps with closing. And, you know,
I mean, we have a high close ratio and and and
then we have, you know, just super high client
satisfaction. You know, every one of our clients
is referenceable. Right on. The bottom line is
it's it is a challenge to scale that way. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Our guest today is Tony Bjorklund.
And. If you're finding this interesting, if you're
like I am, what I what I'm appreciative about
Tony is is his authenticity. He's not saying
it's all all roses here. He's like, this is real
work and it takes preparation. It takes time.
He's not going to promise you, you know, pie
in the sky here. Let's be realistic. So if you're
looking to work with somebody who has that level
of authenticity and who's willing to put a guarantee
in an industry where that doesn't exist, if you're
curious about this, reach out, have the conversation.
Any last words before we wrap this up, Tori?
I would say that I guess the last thing I would
probably emphasize is that. in the industry today
with AI and other things going on, being able
to pivot and change rapidly is becoming an imperative
in business. And frankly, the industry hasn't
figured it out yet. The technical industry has
not figured out how to make our clients agile.
in these areas and with major technical initiatives.
And I believe we have. And so, you know, if you're
worried about that and you're worried about being
able to, you know, not only what you need to
do now, but how are we going to become the kind
of organization that can be agile and change
and adapt quickly as all of this technology just
is accelerating. You need to get your company
equipped. for change and that's really what we're
about i like that i'm gonna put my own spin on
that i because what i heard you say is if you're
a company that's that's um concerned about remaining
relevant yeah then let's have a conversation
right absolutely yeah yeah yeah really good really
good um thank you so much for being uh on our
show today Yeah, appreciate your time. Appreciate
your expertise. And now it's time for you all
to get out there. Be a source of kindness. Be
a source of contribution. You do have something
to offer this world. I believe in you. Thank
you for being here today. I'm really happy that
you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is gonna get more
and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.