September 15, 2025 • 35 mins
What does it take to simplify complexity, stand out in a crowded market, and build a profitable practice as a fractional leader or consultant?
In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr sits down with Dr. Kayvon K—medical doctor turned entrepreneur, author, and Profit Finder at Simplify Profits. With a background spanning medicine, web development, marketing, and coaching, Kayvon brings a rare perspective on diagnosing business problems and turning them into opportunities.
We discuss how fractionals and consultants can overcome the three big roadblocks: not being noticed, not being chosen, and not closing sales. Kayvon shares how to simplify business development, position yourself as the expert, and avoid the race to the bottom in pricing.
You’ll also hear why complexity is the real enemy of profitability, how to leverage storytelling and clear messaging, and why being “different” is more powerful than being “better.”
Whether you’re a fractional executive, consultant, or small-business leader, this conversation will help you clarify your value, communicate it effectively, and accelerate profitable growth.
Connect with Dr. Kayvon K:
Website: https://simplifyprofits.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkayvonk
Free 7-Day Email Course: http://TalkToKayvon.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr sits down with Dr. Kayvon K—medical doctor turned entrepreneur, author, and Profit Finder at Simplify Profits. With a background spanning medicine, web development, marketing, and coaching, Kayvon brings a rare perspective on diagnosing business problems and turning them into opportunities.
We discuss how fractionals and consultants can overcome the three big roadblocks: not being noticed, not being chosen, and not closing sales. Kayvon shares how to simplify business development, position yourself as the expert, and avoid the race to the bottom in pricing.
You’ll also hear why complexity is the real enemy of profitability, how to leverage storytelling and clear messaging, and why being “different” is more powerful than being “better.”
Whether you’re a fractional executive, consultant, or small-business leader, this conversation will help you clarify your value, communicate it effectively, and accelerate profitable growth.
Connect with Dr. Kayvon K:
Website: https://simplifyprofits.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkayvonk
Free 7-Day Email Course: http://TalkToKayvon.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast once again. I'm
your host, David Carr, founder of Steward, a business bringing
people together to accomplish great things, including amazing guests. We
have a brand new guest of the podcast this week. Uh,
doctor cavon k is grateful to have you here, and
so we have met through one of our networking groups
(00:53):
called Success Champions Network, and I said, you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Know, hey, we've got to have you on here.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
You've got so many great insights and a journey, so
I just love having you here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hi David, thank you very much. I'm very happy to
be here. I'm glad that we met and we connected.
Every conversation that I had with you husband fun and
valuable and helpful. So if the idea of recording this
will help somebody else, let's do.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
It absolutely well. You know, you bring a unique perspective
to business, and I think you know, we all have
blind spots. But I feel like as you and I
talked before we started recording this podcast, and I felt
like you bring a great value in strategy. And I
was just talking strategy AI strategy, a different kind of
strategy in a recent episode, but I feel like you
(01:36):
bring a different strategy and perspective from your your background,
and I love for our listeners to understand a little
bit more before we get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You are a doctor, so look at that doctor, pevon K.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I'm gonna I'm gonna just refer to the K because
you know it's easy for me.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
But A or K super K Yeah exactly. You know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I love that you're so approachable. But to take us
back a about your journey, because like I said, you
are a doctor and what got you to what you're
doing today where you're helping this development fractionals and beyond?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yes, yes, okay, well well I connected. You know, both
what I do and the background store together in one
one I guess answer.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
After high school, I went to medical school and started
to study medicine. And it was a seven and a
half year journey. The whole medical school is one shot
back home. And it was going well and I was
enjoying it. I was a good doctor, and my patients were,
you know, getting the hope that they needed. But as
time passed by and life happens and you know, different things,
(02:44):
I noticed that I am changing and I'm not the
same person who started near the end, and basically the
empathy was too strong, and I was losing my ability
to hold that emotional wall between myself and my clients.
My it's my patients, and their pain was becoming my
pain and that sort of thing. I realized, this is
(03:05):
not working for me anymore. And I was feeling miserable,
and you know, I had nightmares and that sort of thing.
So this is near the end of it, about six
months or so before the graduation. So I thought, this
is not sustainable, you know, im, we have this idea
of I have put all of this investment in time
(03:26):
and energy in it. I should not give it up.
But what are we exchanging that for? And I noticed how,
you know, the feelings that I had, the miserable and
I thought, if I don't cut this now, it's going
to be five, ten, twenty more years of this. So
it was clear for me that this is not the
future for me. So I finished it, got the degree,
(03:47):
and closed that chapter. Especially being in front of a
patient was was very, very hard for me. I was
lucky that within a year or so after that, I'm
moved with my ex wife to Canada, Vancouver, where I
live now, which was a great opportunity in New City,
New beginning.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
And all of that.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
In that time between graduation and and the moving to
Vancouver to make money, I was my father's surgical aid.
He was an surgeon O BGVN. So that was easier
part of the medicine because you just go to the
operation room and patient is already you know, sleep, and
you do the operation and.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
You come out.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So yeah, with my father with it, so many sea
sections together. And which is the happier side of the medicine,
you know, bringing babies.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
To this world.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yes, yes, And my friends always make fun of me.
Look at this guy. His side hustle was sea sections.
So when I moved to Canada, this is back in
ninety eight, so internet and web design and a lot
of that was a big deal. My fifty six k
more than was a fast internet back then. So I
(04:57):
started to teach myself web design. I was already good
and comfortable with computer computers. In fact, during medical school,
I was already making money with computers. I had a
team of seven people helping meet with data entry for
different companies and that sort of thing. So I started
to teach my self web design and HTML and a
little bit of a graphic design. Then I learned about
you know a jaens and technologies like Javel, script and PHP,
(05:19):
and I taught myself programming and c sharp and databases.
So after about a year or so, I was a
you know, web developer.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Internet programmer. Yeah, I was doing that. I got a
job doing that.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I had my freelance stuff going on, and after a
while I had more projects and that became my full
time thing.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Then I had more projects and I had to ask
for help.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
And one day I found myself signing paychecks and I said, oh,
I guess I have a business.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Now, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So similar to the clarity that I had a bunch
of years ago, it was clear to me that I
don't know anything about business. So this is early two thousands, right,
I don't know anything about business. So I either have
to bring someone who knows, or I have to become
that person more attractive to me. So I started to
studying what is entrepreneurship? What is marketing?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
What business growth?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
All of that works? What about the teams and that?
And the more I studied, the more fascinating it was.
My web design and internet programming company. We grew up
to twelve employees. At some point we had clients as
large as Nokia, a lot of business clients. And as
we were doing that, we were setting up, you know,
(06:33):
the website and the technology behind it, they were asking
about other stuff that they were not part of our services,
which these are the early days of thin landing pages
and uptin page that sort of thing. So we got
into more and more of that, and the company morphed
into an online marketing company with the implementational technology side
(06:54):
of it. So we were doing that for a bunch
of years, and I'm still studying and learning and find
growth and marketing and everything around that fascinating. After a while,
I noticed a new pattern is emerging that my clients
are asking me to They're telling me that the technical
work is fine, but they find the highest value in
our one on one conversations. Something always comes up when
(07:18):
you are, you know, studying, and I was reading about
equivalent of fifty business books a year kind.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Of everything at the period a few years.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
So I thought, hey, I like talking, So I trimmed
all of the technical work around it, kept the conversations.
Called it coaching, and I have been a business growth
coach since two thousand and six.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
I've been doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
There have been sony ups and downs and lessons that
I have learned, all the mistakes.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
If there's a mistake in the.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Book, I have made the mistake, which is you know
my value now that I tell people absolutely miss yeah,
you don't have to. There have been different iterations, and
because I had to learn so much about how to
run a business that is just you, as well as
the things that I have learned with running a business
with teams and companies and my clients and that sort
(08:05):
of thing, I noticed that I'm getting a lot of
those questions. And just about a year and a half ago,
I was thinking, so who needs this a lot? And
I thought, I really enjoy working with people who are professionals.
The work has a big impact, is more on the
strategic level. And I looked around and at some point
(08:26):
somebody mentioned fractionals except those other people that I'd like
to hang out with, And as a bonus point for me,
I guess not for them. When it comes to basically
work on themselves and be their own brand and run
their own business, they need need even more help than
regular coaches and consultants. So I thought, these are the
(08:46):
groups that are This is a group of people that
I can really help and the kind of a thing
that I do is really valuable to them. So I
had been working with fractionals, helping them set up their practice.
There are different elements to it, you know, there is
the entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship mindset side of it. There is systems
and protacy processes. But the most important thing that is
(09:09):
on top of the list is business development is challenging,
not only for fractionals, for everyone to get out there,
how to stand out, how to you know, basically present
ourselves and become the choice, moving from being a vendor
to the experts in the mind of a person that
you were talking to. So that became the thing. So
(09:30):
I have been working with the fractionals. It has been good.
So all of these people who come from corporate background
and you know they used to fill sea level positions
are my clients now. And I guess my story arc
would be from c sections to sea level.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Well I love that. Well here, you know, here I'm
a business brand table. We're always talking to business owners
and business owners. You know, I think it's important that
you know the many of them are looking at higher fractionals,
so are looking to higher folks help them. They're not
in a stage where they can they don't need a
full time you know, you know C suite if necessarily,
and so knowing how they can pick through and find
(10:08):
that right individual or company is important. I think we're
I think your strength okay. And one of the reasons,
the one you have me on the podcast, is because
you've taken things that you just give us a whole
list of things that are very complicated, you know, from
surgery to all these technical databases and information, and you've
(10:28):
been able to make it, you know, something that is
easier to consume, understand, and appreciate. And I think that's
why the fractionals come to you, because it's like they're
dealing with a lot of complex issues and how do
we cut through that and make it clearer to the marketplace?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean, I feel like there's a lot there and
this is that's probably why they're gravitating UK.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Right. There are so many moving parts and you know,
you don't know you know which ones.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Apply to you or which one we should do first, and.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Less it has so many parts. It's it's a complex
and you know, if you just get the complex to
the complicated. Yes, already improvement and improvement, so there's value there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, oh absolutely, And I think I found this okay,
is that things get complex and we don't know how
to handle that, and then we often maybe trying to
offload stuff which it's too early, or we don't know
where we need to get involved with somebody like you
(11:28):
coming in And why have you on the podcast is
that you can come and be a resource to say, hey,
maybe I don't know what I don't know and I
have k that's made the mistake or send there and
he can look at things and see where I'm headed
in my company and say, might want to consider this,
you know right exactly that.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
That's that's how it works for well, not only just
my clients, for myself as well. We all need somebody
else to look at the work that we're doing. As
you know, we could have our own coaches. I have
my own you know, coaches, mentors and we help each
other or accountability buddies and and that sort of thing
that's external vantage point, external point of view is something
(12:05):
that we all need. It's not just we can benefit from.
We need it because for the sake of being human.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
We are too close to our work this whole. I
see it every day that the thing.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
That we do so easily for other people, it is
so hard to do it for ourselves and it's never
as good as because we don't have the same external
advantage point relationship with it. So right there, there is
one big value that we can provide to other people.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, no, it's so important.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
And that's what I love about being you through SCN
and others is that we meet others all over here
give us some different perspectives, yes, that we didn't maybe consider.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
And so.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know, as a as a business owner, myself not
necessarily a fractional, but I think I still take them
the things that you're sharing and apply to myself.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
How do you know.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
How as a business owners are fractional? Where should they
be you know, I guess looking at their business or saying, hey,
I might be missing the boat. Where's the way of
Like maybe they don't know exactly what it is, But
what are the symptoms the symptoms that.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You see, k Like what should be looking for? Like
there might be glad you mentioned symptoms. You know that
sounds so here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
There are signs and there are symptoms. And this is
something that I have learned from medical school. So stuff
that I learned over there, let's apply them to business.
Signs and symptoms. Signs and symptoms are two different things.
Symptoms are the things that the patient feels or talks about,
like they come to see the doctors say I have
a headache, or my arm hurts, or you know, I
(13:42):
feel nauseating. Those are the things that they come up with.
But through the examination or the lap tests, the doctor
I might find I might find I may find other
things like I take the blood pressure always very high,
or take a blood test there is something in the test.
Those are the things that the doctor finds, and those
are the science. And the combination of science symptoms helps
(14:04):
us with the process of diagnosis to see what this
picture is telling us. So I thought, that's how my
brain is trained to think. So I bring that to
helping my clients. There are signs and symptoms of things
that they're not happening.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
My business is called simplify profits. That whole simplification of
the process for the goal that we're going towards. So
when the money situation is tricky, whether it's revenue or
eventually profit, profitability, we want to do something about it.
So that's our symptom. Businesses are doing as well it
(14:39):
can do, or revenue is low and all of that.
The signs are we need to look for what's missing
in the picture and what needs to happen. So I thought,
the when you look at the market and somebody has
the challenge of revenue is not as much as I
want it, or the business is not growing, there is
this common answer that we get attacked by, bombarded by
(15:03):
every day that you.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Need more leads. You need more leads, leads.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Lead generation, lead generation, which you know is a good answer,
but cannot be possibly the answer for every situation that
everybody is dealing with. So but it becomes that I
have a hammer. Everything is a nail kind of a situation.
So whatever is happening, it leads, just throw more leads
at it.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
And I said, hold on a second, this.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Can't be like that, so let's look at it. Is
it true and where is it true? And when is
it not true? So after we're doing my work, this
is what I came up with. We as a business owner,
whether it's a small business or an individual, we have
one of the three challenges. Either people don't even pay
(15:46):
attention to us, or if we manage to get their
attention and it start a conversation, they don't choose us
and we don't become as I said, the expert or
the solution to them. And sometimes they choose us, but
they don't eventually buy from us. Yes, so those are
three different problems, and some people have the second one,
(16:07):
but the first one, but the first one not the
third one, and that sort of thing. So if that's
the case, if they don't pay attention to us, it's
a marketing problem, and if they don't choose us, it's
a connection relationship and branding kind of a problem.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
It's a messaging kind of a problem.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Because so many companies can help us bring a lot
of leads to our website or a landing page, but
things don't click in and people just leave because there
is that connection and the messaging and the branding problem
over there. And eventually they might make a connection with
us and they're interested to work, but the offer that
we have at the end, the way that the dealer
is set up is not a good way or it's
(16:48):
not a good time for them to make the sales happen.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
So we have it.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Let's call it marketing problem, messaging problem, and sales problem
or marketing problem branding problem. So if we have these
three different problems, why are they actually happening if they
don't pay even pay attention to us. Most of the time,
it's about all of the distractions that they're in their
(17:12):
life and in the market.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Everybody has.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
You know, the phone is ringing, or the messages are coming,
or emails are here. I have seventeen different things in
my head and it's very hard to, as you said,
to stand out in the market. So I have to
do something to stand out and be different from everybody else.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So that's the first step.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
When it comes to not choosing us.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
We might get their attention, but so many other people
are saying the same thing, so we all end up
suffering from sameness. So that's the situation that the challenge
is because of the sameness or the competition. And eventually,
when it comes to the offer, the sales part of it,
it becomes because the other two parts hasn't been done properly,
(17:56):
we end up sounding the same like everybody else and
becomes a game of whoever has.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
The lowest price.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
It's a race to the bottom comment that I become
a commodity. And usually when two things sound the same
and look the same and walk the same, we go
with the cheaper price. So whoever has the lowest price wins.
And my question is is that really winning? To do
more work for less money? How does that work?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Right?
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So, going with that, I thought, with the attention and
marketing problem and dealing with the distraction, we need to
get their attention by having a conversation that basically discusses
the right value for them. If you and I meet
and I start talking to something that is really important
for you, yes, that's the problem I have. Yes, he
(18:46):
knows it really well. Oh he just explained it better
than I could and all of that.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
That's the conversation.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
About the right value. And when we do that, people
feel heard. Right, they say, I have this problem and
we talk about it. So that's the very that's what
I want people to do. The first step is come
up with a very clear problem statement.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, well I want to get to that for a minute. K,
Because I think this is super important because I've noticed
this too. When you're you're a fractional okay, your versus
use of CFO or something. Okay, we're all dealing with numbers,
but how do you uniquely position because you're going to
sound the same like every fractional CFO out there. Yes,
I look at your numbers, and I do financial forecasting
(19:31):
or whatnot. I'm like, okay that from everybody else. How
are you, like you said, being noticed and relevant in
the marketplace? And this is what I hear you helping them?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yes, and it's simple. You know.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
It's something that they do and there are many aspects
to their business. I'm not a fractional CFO, but I'm guessing.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
One could be focused on team growth.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
The other one could be I'm a fractional CFO that
I helped with this strategy of more profitability with what
you got.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
I could be a.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Fractional CFO so that I am also knowledgeable when it
comes to product. I could be a fractional CFO that
specializes in being prepared, preparing your company for acquisition, or
or all the other scenarios that they could have. They
could be their specialties and sub specialties of announcing.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
That I have this title and this is the part
that I do.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Like I have a friend he's an accountant, but they
from all of different parts of accounting.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
They are into saving tax yep. So see that's the subs.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So the same thing can happen to every one of us.
And sometimes it's not about what we do, it's about
how we do it. Like my as you mentioned, my
brand has a lot to do with simplification and clarity
and getting making it you know, doable, and that sort
of thing. So anti complexity is is my thing is
how I do it?
Speaker 4 (20:50):
So that could be.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
So whatever we can bring to the picture to show
how different we are than other people, because at the
end of the day, better is not better. Different is
better than better. Yes, yes, if you show up, this
is how we are different. People understand us. If we
will occupy space space in their head, we become memorable,
(21:14):
we become unignorable, we become referrable, all of that because
we told them this is how I am different from
everybody else.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Well, and one thing you know you told me or
we talked about before we recorded the podcast, is that
you spent I don't know how many in you did,
like you did dozens of interviews as I recall, right,
talking to themselves, getting having these conversations to find out
and gain really number on building trust and and insight
with all of these individual Tell me a little bit
(21:43):
about that journey, because I think that's so fascinating. You're
a person that has done the work going through all
this data, combing through it.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
If you will, yes, well, thank you for asking the Yeah,
the the The thing that I noticed is we have
our specialties and we can help people. And when we
talk to people, because we're specialized in what we do,
we can't guess what their problem is. Yet every different
part of the market has its own version of it.
(22:09):
There are nuances, and it's important for people to feel
heard and after that to feel understood. And I wasn't
confident about the fractional market to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
If it was coaches and consultants, yeah, thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
But I thought, hey, there must be a difference here,
something that needs to happen. I need to hear it,
you know, from themselves, and I'm going to have a
bunch of informational interviews to really understand on both like mental, psychological, emotional,
the terminology the language that they have to to really
get it. Because the more I understand that, the better
(22:46):
more I'm going to be able to help them with
the right kind of a phrasing or solution, and as
like not this much, this much kind of yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
So I started to reach out to people, strangers who
had the fractional in their title, and I send them
a message, Hello, you don't know me, and this is
not a sales message. I am trying to, you know,
get into this market and build services. And you seem
like kind of a person who I would be serving
in future. Again, not as a sales message. I like to,
(23:17):
you know, pick your brain, hear from you, what are
the challenges, what's working, what's not working, and you know,
if you don't mind sharing your insights with me. I
sent so many messages. I don't have no idea how
many I sent, but I was.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I feel very lucky that fifty seven of them said yes.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I had eighty meetings with those fifty seven people, and
I was recording everything. So it was over two hundred
twenty nine hundred minutes of zoom recordings and over two
hundred and sixteen thousand lines of transcription.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Well, thank God for AI.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah right, oh, my.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
God allowed me to basically go through all of that,
listen to them, find the terminology, see the pattern, and
come up with product ideas, come up with problem statements,
identified the top ten challenges and from the top three challenges,
and with what I have learned, and like that collaboration,
brainstorming and challenging, discussion with with AI and then double
(24:15):
checking it with those people, I was able to, you know,
identify what needs to be done and guess what it was,
the same things that I could guess at before this,
but the new one says made it the right fit right,
even the language like we use this word here but
not for the other market and all of that.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
I mean that's just again, why whanted you have on
the podcast? As you guys are listening to k here,
He's done the work, he's put this together. So if
you're a fractional particular you know, like, man, how can
I dial this in better? Because people don't know, they
don't notice me or not choosing me, or perhaps not
even buying from you. This is where a comes in.
One of the things you brought up, Kay that when
we were talking that I think is important.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Is you said, you know what we're or like we're.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Talking about values and envision but but but but also
what we're against. You mentioned, like, how do we clarify that?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yes, we know that everything has that has a meaning.
It has a meaning because it has an opposite, right
like dark and light or I don't know, heaven and
hell or day and night. I imagine if one of
them didn't have an opposite it does it really click
in or does it have make sense?
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Doesn't have any meaning.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
So that's the habit that I have that everything I
noticed gets my attention. I'm thinking, so, what's the opposite
of that? What's the opposite of that? So if and
I told you my brand is Kivan.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
The Simplifier, but I didn't choose this.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I didn't even think like that, you know, because the
thing that you're good at or I'm good at, we
are oblivious to our own shreds. Right, I'm thinking, like,
doesn't it ever think like that?
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Apparently not.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
You know, somebody else does something and it's fascinating to
me and it's so natural to them. So because my
clients and market kept saying the same thing, Oh, you
made it simple, you made it clear, it's simplified. Now,
I thought maybe there is something there. So thanks for
listening to the market. I picked that and that's my brand.
But when you have that, so what is the opposite
(26:23):
of it? What is the opposite of simple? Really, let's
do somethinking here. So I obviously is complexity and complication.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
But what's the difference between those? Right?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So, complex situation is something that it has many moving
parts and we don't really know what the answer is.
We have to figure out an answer, We have to
come up with a solution to get closer to where
we want to go, to get our to get to
the results. Complicated, on the other hand, is we know
(27:00):
what the solution is. It has just too many moving
parts to head, you know, to sit in my head
in a way that I can understand it, and and
I'm basically lost. So there is no figuring out. It's
too much or too many things going on. So that's
the difference between complex and complicated. And as you can guess,
complex is the worst kind of situation. If I figure
(27:20):
it out and now I am dealing with something that
has too many moving parts, I am one step ahead.
So to me, a complicated situation is an improvement upon complexity.
So if I want to get to the ultimate goal
of simplicity, the opposite end of the spectrum.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
The enemy is complexity. So that's how I picked an enemy.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Then you go towards like, Okay, why does it get complex?
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Who makes it complex?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
And all of that to have your philosophical and perspective
reasons in doing the business.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, No, I think that's just genius. I mean, this
is just one.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Just a great point you're bringing up here, Okay, And
I think hopefully people are hearing this and they're saying,
this is why you would want to work with somebody
like k And that's why we have you on the podcast,
because you know, when we get these dialed in and
I think, you know, the more we can do this,
I mean, and I think both in the fractional what
you do. I'm working on the people side, But just
think about this as you're helping this business owner this
(28:20):
fractional get clear on them, Yes, how this will help
the rest of their as if they bring on employees
or other people. What I found working with business owners,
it gets clear, gets mighty. They might or they might
know it again what you said, They may here, but
they haven't communicated that clearly. Yes, And I know you
also have ways of helping people communicate better, right, Yes, yes,
(28:41):
you know, speak a little bit about that too.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yes, definitely, Well thank you for asking. Yes, So, yes,
I work with basically two groups of people. I'm guessing
this applies to you and many other people too. Either
I'm working with the individuals or I'm working with let's say,
teams or companies. Right, it's the same work, but it
kind of shows up in a different kind of a way.
So with individuals, it's that whole business growth coaching, how
(29:07):
to do business development, how to get attention, how to
build connections, and how eventually converts a bunch of those
connections into new clients. So attention, connection, conversion. The idea
is you want to be unignorable, memorable, and referrable.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
So there are tools that.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
We use that are frameworks that we have like storytelling
for business or story selling.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
There is closing.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
There is how to come up with your unique value proposition?
What is your unique selling proposition? And what's the difference
which one do you have to come up with? All
of the elements that they are under those in these
three main buckets, that's what I work with my clients,
and whether individual or a business, there are always three
stages and as you can say, I love the frameworks
(29:53):
that they have one to.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Three one two, three, yes, but there are three stages.
It's that whole.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I want you to remember that complexity, complicated conversation in
the back of your head when we look at something
before and anything else.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
First, we have to make it work right.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
It needs to get the ball from point A to
point B somehow. And this is where you know, we're
prototyping or maguy varying things and things are connected with
duct tape and band aid and that sort of thing somehow,
very manual.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
It works good, yes, first step. First we have to
make it work.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Then we make it work better, which is the process
of optimizations. And see what are the levers that we
can pull and push to make things go smoother and faster,
and eventually when we actually to make it work better.
So first we have to make it work, Then we
make it work better. Then we make it work faster, cheaper, easier,
(30:53):
and all of that. So the first part is getting
it going, which is the project management and getting to
something else. The second part is the optimization, and the
third part is automation and technology and outsourcing and that
sort of thing. The danger lies that we have been
trained and it's so attractive to us that we want
(31:17):
to jump to the automation and fast and a lot
too quick before it's actually doing the right work or
being optimized.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
So here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
If we don't pay attention to doing the wrong right
things and doing it in the right way, we might
optimize and automate they're doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Really, yes, yes, we do know that that won't get
really yeah no.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
So one part of my job is to put the
stuff to that and hold people to hey, you know what,
we have to be satisfied with the first stage that
it's working. Then we make it work better, then we
make it work faster. So with my teams and business clients,
it's all again about the communication. And biggest gap in
the communication is that whole either choosing you, are they
(32:04):
buying from you?
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Are they not paying attention to you?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Which is you know, the messaging and marketing which has
all of this stuff like positioning and pricing and offer
design and pitching and I don't know anipage design and
that's sort of thing they go under there. So but
it's that whole approach of one two three one two
three make it work. Is it buying you know, diagnosis
process to find out what's the right next step for
(32:28):
them and get busy doing that.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, man, you're work. I want you. We're getting squeeze
so much in here.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I know we're getting running out of time on the
podcast episode here came on? Now, I know I'm going
to provide links here in our show notes. So it's simplify.
Tell me make sure we're just already. Here is where
the where to find you? Where's the best?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
The website is simplify profits dot com. There you go, okay,
and you know there are links and menus and and
that sort of thing that you can go. There are
I think around twenty v of my previous trainings and
other things that they're there that they can watch for
freekam and other things, and if they want to connect
with me on any social media, I am doctor kave
(33:09):
on K so.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
D r K A y v O n K there.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
There's not any other doctor kon k is out there,
so I shouldn't have too much trouble finding uh k
on there. I mean, you've you've covered so much. I
think it's hopefully everybody's hearing this that hey, look you
don't have to go alone. You have another person that
you can get on your team, case one of them
and helping make sure that you're found, that you're you're converting,
(33:34):
you're getting those people that actually want to choose you
and actually buy from you.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yes, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Any last thoughts, any that's cake aways or or or
just well advices.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
We're wrapping up here.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah. One one thing I always think when I hear
somebody else, if they give me the next thing to do,
I think that has been valuable because so many times
people tell me what's going on, but not what to do,
so I don't want to make the same mistake. I
do have a well for now free, but I'm planning
to make it a low cost course in the future,
(34:07):
so it's not expensive. It's going to be I don't know,
seven or fourteen bucks or whatever, but for now it's
free and it's a seven day email course, awesome explanations
and worksheets and all of that, and it's a call
it like fixing your conversation is about those attention connection conversions.
I'm going to give you the link.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
That's kind of.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
A fantastic gift. Or I don't know if low thank you, yes,
yeah to. I think that would be a good place
to start. And from there they can you know, get
exposed to the material thinking, take the first few steps
until they're ready for the next step that we can
take together.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
That's great, okay, well, and again that's why I have
you here, because we're all about bringing value helping you
know first and if you find that, you see, that's helpful,
go further. And Kay is a great person to talk
to you can tell us, super friendly and welcoming. It
was a real pleasure having you on the podcast. I
really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Dare. Thank you very much much.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yes, thank you so much. Thanks everybody for for following along.
Of course you love it when you comment you come
back of our next episode and until then, do well.
Thanks everybody for listening.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Take care,
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast once again. I'm
your host, David Carr, founder of Steward, a business bringing
people together to accomplish great things, including amazing guests. We
have a brand new guest of the podcast this week. Uh,
doctor cavon k is grateful to have you here, and
so we have met through one of our networking groups
(00:53):
called Success Champions Network, and I said, you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Know, hey, we've got to have you on here.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
You've got so many great insights and a journey, so
I just love having you here.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hi David, thank you very much. I'm very happy to
be here. I'm glad that we met and we connected.
Every conversation that I had with you husband fun and
valuable and helpful. So if the idea of recording this
will help somebody else, let's do.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
It absolutely well. You know, you bring a unique perspective
to business, and I think you know, we all have
blind spots. But I feel like as you and I
talked before we started recording this podcast, and I felt
like you bring a great value in strategy. And I
was just talking strategy AI strategy, a different kind of
strategy in a recent episode, but I feel like you
(01:36):
bring a different strategy and perspective from your your background,
and I love for our listeners to understand a little
bit more before we get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You are a doctor, so look at that doctor, pevon K.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I'm gonna I'm gonna just refer to the K because
you know it's easy for me.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
But A or K super K Yeah exactly. You know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I love that you're so approachable. But to take us
back a about your journey, because like I said, you
are a doctor and what got you to what you're
doing today where you're helping this development fractionals and beyond?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yes, yes, okay, well well I connected. You know, both
what I do and the background store together in one
one I guess answer.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
After high school, I went to medical school and started
to study medicine. And it was a seven and a
half year journey. The whole medical school is one shot
back home. And it was going well and I was
enjoying it. I was a good doctor, and my patients were,
you know, getting the hope that they needed. But as
time passed by and life happens and you know, different things,
(02:44):
I noticed that I am changing and I'm not the
same person who started near the end, and basically the
empathy was too strong, and I was losing my ability
to hold that emotional wall between myself and my clients.
My it's my patients, and their pain was becoming my
pain and that sort of thing. I realized, this is
(03:05):
not working for me anymore. And I was feeling miserable,
and you know, I had nightmares and that sort of thing.
So this is near the end of it, about six
months or so before the graduation. So I thought, this
is not sustainable, you know, im, we have this idea
of I have put all of this investment in time
(03:26):
and energy in it. I should not give it up.
But what are we exchanging that for? And I noticed how,
you know, the feelings that I had, the miserable and
I thought, if I don't cut this now, it's going
to be five, ten, twenty more years of this. So
it was clear for me that this is not the
future for me. So I finished it, got the degree,
(03:47):
and closed that chapter. Especially being in front of a
patient was was very, very hard for me. I was
lucky that within a year or so after that, I'm
moved with my ex wife to Canada, Vancouver, where I
live now, which was a great opportunity in New City,
New beginning.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
And all of that.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
In that time between graduation and and the moving to
Vancouver to make money, I was my father's surgical aid.
He was an surgeon O BGVN. So that was easier
part of the medicine because you just go to the
operation room and patient is already you know, sleep, and
you do the operation and.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
You come out.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So yeah, with my father with it, so many sea
sections together. And which is the happier side of the medicine,
you know, bringing babies.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
To this world.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yes, yes, And my friends always make fun of me.
Look at this guy. His side hustle was sea sections.
So when I moved to Canada, this is back in
ninety eight, so internet and web design and a lot
of that was a big deal. My fifty six k
more than was a fast internet back then. So I
(04:57):
started to teach myself web design. I was already good
and comfortable with computer computers. In fact, during medical school,
I was already making money with computers. I had a
team of seven people helping meet with data entry for
different companies and that sort of thing. So I started
to teach my self web design and HTML and a
little bit of a graphic design. Then I learned about
you know a jaens and technologies like Javel, script and PHP,
(05:19):
and I taught myself programming and c sharp and databases.
So after about a year or so, I was a
you know, web developer.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Internet programmer. Yeah, I was doing that. I got a
job doing that.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I had my freelance stuff going on, and after a
while I had more projects and that became my full
time thing.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Then I had more projects and I had to ask
for help.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
And one day I found myself signing paychecks and I said, oh,
I guess I have a business.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Now, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So similar to the clarity that I had a bunch
of years ago, it was clear to me that I
don't know anything about business. So this is early two thousands, right,
I don't know anything about business. So I either have
to bring someone who knows, or I have to become
that person more attractive to me. So I started to
studying what is entrepreneurship? What is marketing?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
What business growth?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
All of that works? What about the teams and that?
And the more I studied, the more fascinating it was.
My web design and internet programming company. We grew up
to twelve employees. At some point we had clients as
large as Nokia, a lot of business clients. And as
we were doing that, we were setting up, you know,
(06:33):
the website and the technology behind it, they were asking
about other stuff that they were not part of our services,
which these are the early days of thin landing pages
and uptin page that sort of thing. So we got
into more and more of that, and the company morphed
into an online marketing company with the implementational technology side
(06:54):
of it. So we were doing that for a bunch
of years, and I'm still studying and learning and find
growth and marketing and everything around that fascinating. After a while,
I noticed a new pattern is emerging that my clients
are asking me to They're telling me that the technical
work is fine, but they find the highest value in
our one on one conversations. Something always comes up when
(07:18):
you are, you know, studying, and I was reading about
equivalent of fifty business books a year kind.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Of everything at the period a few years.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
So I thought, hey, I like talking, So I trimmed
all of the technical work around it, kept the conversations.
Called it coaching, and I have been a business growth
coach since two thousand and six.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
I've been doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
There have been sony ups and downs and lessons that
I have learned, all the mistakes.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
If there's a mistake in the.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Book, I have made the mistake, which is you know
my value now that I tell people absolutely miss yeah,
you don't have to. There have been different iterations, and
because I had to learn so much about how to
run a business that is just you, as well as
the things that I have learned with running a business
with teams and companies and my clients and that sort
(08:05):
of thing, I noticed that I'm getting a lot of
those questions. And just about a year and a half ago,
I was thinking, so who needs this a lot? And
I thought, I really enjoy working with people who are professionals.
The work has a big impact, is more on the
strategic level. And I looked around and at some point
(08:26):
somebody mentioned fractionals except those other people that I'd like
to hang out with, And as a bonus point for me,
I guess not for them. When it comes to basically
work on themselves and be their own brand and run
their own business, they need need even more help than
regular coaches and consultants. So I thought, these are the
(08:46):
groups that are This is a group of people that
I can really help and the kind of a thing
that I do is really valuable to them. So I
had been working with fractionals, helping them set up their practice.
There are different elements to it, you know, there is
the entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship mindset side of it. There is systems
and protacy processes. But the most important thing that is
(09:09):
on top of the list is business development is challenging,
not only for fractionals, for everyone to get out there,
how to stand out, how to you know, basically present
ourselves and become the choice, moving from being a vendor
to the experts in the mind of a person that
you were talking to. So that became the thing. So
(09:30):
I have been working with the fractionals. It has been good.
So all of these people who come from corporate background
and you know they used to fill sea level positions
are my clients now. And I guess my story arc
would be from c sections to sea level.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Well I love that. Well here, you know, here I'm
a business brand table. We're always talking to business owners
and business owners. You know, I think it's important that
you know the many of them are looking at higher fractionals,
so are looking to higher folks help them. They're not
in a stage where they can they don't need a
full time you know, you know C suite if necessarily,
and so knowing how they can pick through and find
(10:08):
that right individual or company is important. I think we're
I think your strength okay. And one of the reasons,
the one you have me on the podcast, is because
you've taken things that you just give us a whole
list of things that are very complicated, you know, from
surgery to all these technical databases and information, and you've
(10:28):
been able to make it, you know, something that is
easier to consume, understand, and appreciate. And I think that's
why the fractionals come to you, because it's like they're
dealing with a lot of complex issues and how do
we cut through that and make it clearer to the marketplace?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean, I feel like there's a lot there and
this is that's probably why they're gravitating UK.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Right. There are so many moving parts and you know,
you don't know you know which ones.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Apply to you or which one we should do first, and.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Less it has so many parts. It's it's a complex
and you know, if you just get the complex to
the complicated. Yes, already improvement and improvement, so there's value there.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, oh absolutely, And I think I found this okay,
is that things get complex and we don't know how
to handle that, and then we often maybe trying to
offload stuff which it's too early, or we don't know
where we need to get involved with somebody like you
(11:28):
coming in And why have you on the podcast is
that you can come and be a resource to say, hey,
maybe I don't know what I don't know and I
have k that's made the mistake or send there and
he can look at things and see where I'm headed
in my company and say, might want to consider this,
you know right exactly that.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
That's that's how it works for well, not only just
my clients, for myself as well. We all need somebody
else to look at the work that we're doing. As
you know, we could have our own coaches. I have
my own you know, coaches, mentors and we help each
other or accountability buddies and and that sort of thing
that's external vantage point, external point of view is something
(12:05):
that we all need. It's not just we can benefit from.
We need it because for the sake of being human.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
We are too close to our work this whole. I
see it every day that the thing.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
That we do so easily for other people, it is
so hard to do it for ourselves and it's never
as good as because we don't have the same external
advantage point relationship with it. So right there, there is
one big value that we can provide to other people.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, no, it's so important.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
And that's what I love about being you through SCN
and others is that we meet others all over here
give us some different perspectives, yes, that we didn't maybe consider.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
And so.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know, as a as a business owner, myself not
necessarily a fractional, but I think I still take them
the things that you're sharing and apply to myself.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
How do you know.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
How as a business owners are fractional? Where should they
be you know, I guess looking at their business or saying, hey,
I might be missing the boat. Where's the way of
Like maybe they don't know exactly what it is, But
what are the symptoms the symptoms that.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
You see, k Like what should be looking for? Like
there might be glad you mentioned symptoms. You know that
sounds so here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
There are signs and there are symptoms. And this is
something that I have learned from medical school. So stuff
that I learned over there, let's apply them to business.
Signs and symptoms. Signs and symptoms are two different things.
Symptoms are the things that the patient feels or talks about,
like they come to see the doctors say I have
a headache, or my arm hurts, or you know, I
(13:42):
feel nauseating. Those are the things that they come up with.
But through the examination or the lap tests, the doctor
I might find I might find I may find other
things like I take the blood pressure always very high,
or take a blood test there is something in the test.
Those are the things that the doctor finds, and those
are the science. And the combination of science symptoms helps
(14:04):
us with the process of diagnosis to see what this
picture is telling us. So I thought, that's how my
brain is trained to think. So I bring that to
helping my clients. There are signs and symptoms of things
that they're not happening.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
My business is called simplify profits. That whole simplification of
the process for the goal that we're going towards. So
when the money situation is tricky, whether it's revenue or
eventually profit, profitability, we want to do something about it.
So that's our symptom. Businesses are doing as well it
(14:39):
can do, or revenue is low and all of that.
The signs are we need to look for what's missing
in the picture and what needs to happen. So I thought,
the when you look at the market and somebody has
the challenge of revenue is not as much as I
want it, or the business is not growing, there is
this common answer that we get attacked by, bombarded by
(15:03):
every day that you.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Need more leads. You need more leads, leads.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Lead generation, lead generation, which you know is a good answer,
but cannot be possibly the answer for every situation that
everybody is dealing with. So but it becomes that I
have a hammer. Everything is a nail kind of a situation.
So whatever is happening, it leads, just throw more leads
at it.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
And I said, hold on a second, this.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Can't be like that, so let's look at it. Is
it true and where is it true? And when is
it not true? So after we're doing my work, this
is what I came up with. We as a business owner,
whether it's a small business or an individual, we have
one of the three challenges. Either people don't even pay
(15:46):
attention to us, or if we manage to get their
attention and it start a conversation, they don't choose us
and we don't become as I said, the expert or
the solution to them. And sometimes they choose us, but
they don't eventually buy from us. Yes, so those are
three different problems, and some people have the second one,
(16:07):
but the first one, but the first one not the
third one, and that sort of thing. So if that's
the case, if they don't pay attention to us, it's
a marketing problem, and if they don't choose us, it's
a connection relationship and branding kind of a problem.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
It's a messaging kind of a problem.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Because so many companies can help us bring a lot
of leads to our website or a landing page, but
things don't click in and people just leave because there
is that connection and the messaging and the branding problem
over there. And eventually they might make a connection with
us and they're interested to work, but the offer that
we have at the end, the way that the dealer
is set up is not a good way or it's
(16:48):
not a good time for them to make the sales happen.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
So we have it.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Let's call it marketing problem, messaging problem, and sales problem
or marketing problem branding problem. So if we have these
three different problems, why are they actually happening if they
don't pay even pay attention to us. Most of the time,
it's about all of the distractions that they're in their
(17:12):
life and in the market.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Everybody has.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
You know, the phone is ringing, or the messages are coming,
or emails are here. I have seventeen different things in
my head and it's very hard to, as you said,
to stand out in the market. So I have to
do something to stand out and be different from everybody else.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
So that's the first step.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
When it comes to not choosing us.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
We might get their attention, but so many other people
are saying the same thing, so we all end up
suffering from sameness. So that's the situation that the challenge
is because of the sameness or the competition. And eventually,
when it comes to the offer, the sales part of it,
it becomes because the other two parts hasn't been done properly,
(17:56):
we end up sounding the same like everybody else and
becomes a game of whoever has.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
The lowest price.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
It's a race to the bottom comment that I become
a commodity. And usually when two things sound the same
and look the same and walk the same, we go
with the cheaper price. So whoever has the lowest price wins.
And my question is is that really winning? To do
more work for less money? How does that work?
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Right?
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So, going with that, I thought, with the attention and
marketing problem and dealing with the distraction, we need to
get their attention by having a conversation that basically discusses
the right value for them. If you and I meet
and I start talking to something that is really important
for you, yes, that's the problem I have. Yes, he
(18:46):
knows it really well. Oh he just explained it better
than I could and all of that.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
That's the conversation.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
About the right value. And when we do that, people
feel heard. Right, they say, I have this problem and
we talk about it. So that's the very that's what
I want people to do. The first step is come
up with a very clear problem statement.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, well I want to get to that for a minute. K,
Because I think this is super important because I've noticed
this too. When you're you're a fractional okay, your versus
use of CFO or something. Okay, we're all dealing with numbers,
but how do you uniquely position because you're going to
sound the same like every fractional CFO out there. Yes,
I look at your numbers, and I do financial forecasting
(19:31):
or whatnot. I'm like, okay that from everybody else. How
are you, like you said, being noticed and relevant in
the marketplace? And this is what I hear you helping them?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yes, and it's simple. You know.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
It's something that they do and there are many aspects
to their business. I'm not a fractional CFO, but I'm guessing.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
One could be focused on team growth.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
The other one could be I'm a fractional CFO that
I helped with this strategy of more profitability with what
you got.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
I could be a.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Fractional CFO so that I am also knowledgeable when it
comes to product. I could be a fractional CFO that
specializes in being prepared, preparing your company for acquisition, or
or all the other scenarios that they could have. They
could be their specialties and sub specialties of announcing.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
That I have this title and this is the part
that I do.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Like I have a friend he's an accountant, but they
from all of different parts of accounting.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
They are into saving tax yep. So see that's the subs.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So the same thing can happen to every one of us.
And sometimes it's not about what we do, it's about
how we do it. Like my as you mentioned, my
brand has a lot to do with simplification and clarity
and getting making it you know, doable, and that sort
of thing. So anti complexity is is my thing is
how I do it?
Speaker 4 (20:50):
So that could be.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
So whatever we can bring to the picture to show
how different we are than other people, because at the
end of the day, better is not better. Different is
better than better. Yes, yes, if you show up, this
is how we are different. People understand us. If we
will occupy space space in their head, we become memorable,
(21:14):
we become unignorable, we become referrable, all of that because
we told them this is how I am different from
everybody else.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Well, and one thing you know you told me or
we talked about before we recorded the podcast, is that
you spent I don't know how many in you did,
like you did dozens of interviews as I recall, right,
talking to themselves, getting having these conversations to find out
and gain really number on building trust and and insight
with all of these individual Tell me a little bit
(21:43):
about that journey, because I think that's so fascinating. You're
a person that has done the work going through all
this data, combing through it.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
If you will, yes, well, thank you for asking the Yeah,
the the The thing that I noticed is we have
our specialties and we can help people. And when we
talk to people, because we're specialized in what we do,
we can't guess what their problem is. Yet every different
part of the market has its own version of it.
(22:09):
There are nuances, and it's important for people to feel
heard and after that to feel understood. And I wasn't
confident about the fractional market to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
If it was coaches and consultants, yeah, thumbs up.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
But I thought, hey, there must be a difference here,
something that needs to happen. I need to hear it,
you know, from themselves, and I'm going to have a
bunch of informational interviews to really understand on both like mental, psychological, emotional,
the terminology the language that they have to to really
get it. Because the more I understand that, the better
(22:46):
more I'm going to be able to help them with
the right kind of a phrasing or solution, and as
like not this much, this much kind of yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
So I started to reach out to people, strangers who
had the fractional in their title, and I send them
a message, Hello, you don't know me, and this is
not a sales message. I am trying to, you know,
get into this market and build services. And you seem
like kind of a person who I would be serving
in future. Again, not as a sales message. I like to,
(23:17):
you know, pick your brain, hear from you, what are
the challenges, what's working, what's not working, and you know,
if you don't mind sharing your insights with me. I
sent so many messages. I don't have no idea how
many I sent, but I was.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I feel very lucky that fifty seven of them said yes.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I had eighty meetings with those fifty seven people, and
I was recording everything. So it was over two hundred
twenty nine hundred minutes of zoom recordings and over two
hundred and sixteen thousand lines of transcription.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Well, thank God for AI.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah right, oh, my.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
God allowed me to basically go through all of that,
listen to them, find the terminology, see the pattern, and
come up with product ideas, come up with problem statements,
identified the top ten challenges and from the top three challenges,
and with what I have learned, and like that collaboration,
brainstorming and challenging, discussion with with AI and then double
(24:15):
checking it with those people, I was able to, you know,
identify what needs to be done and guess what it was,
the same things that I could guess at before this,
but the new one says made it the right fit right,
even the language like we use this word here but
not for the other market and all of that.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
I mean that's just again, why whanted you have on
the podcast? As you guys are listening to k here,
He's done the work, he's put this together. So if
you're a fractional particular you know, like, man, how can
I dial this in better? Because people don't know, they
don't notice me or not choosing me, or perhaps not
even buying from you. This is where a comes in.
One of the things you brought up, Kay that when
we were talking that I think is important.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Is you said, you know what we're or like we're.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Talking about values and envision but but but but also
what we're against. You mentioned, like, how do we clarify that?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yes, we know that everything has that has a meaning.
It has a meaning because it has an opposite, right
like dark and light or I don't know, heaven and
hell or day and night. I imagine if one of
them didn't have an opposite it does it really click
in or does it have make sense?
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Doesn't have any meaning.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
So that's the habit that I have that everything I
noticed gets my attention. I'm thinking, so, what's the opposite
of that? What's the opposite of that? So if and
I told you my brand is Kivan.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
The Simplifier, but I didn't choose this.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I didn't even think like that, you know, because the
thing that you're good at or I'm good at, we
are oblivious to our own shreds. Right, I'm thinking, like,
doesn't it ever think like that?
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Apparently not.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
You know, somebody else does something and it's fascinating to
me and it's so natural to them. So because my
clients and market kept saying the same thing, Oh, you
made it simple, you made it clear, it's simplified. Now,
I thought maybe there is something there. So thanks for
listening to the market. I picked that and that's my brand.
But when you have that, so what is the opposite
(26:23):
of it? What is the opposite of simple? Really, let's
do somethinking here. So I obviously is complexity and complication.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
But what's the difference between those? Right?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
So, complex situation is something that it has many moving
parts and we don't really know what the answer is.
We have to figure out an answer, We have to
come up with a solution to get closer to where
we want to go, to get our to get to
the results. Complicated, on the other hand, is we know
(27:00):
what the solution is. It has just too many moving
parts to head, you know, to sit in my head
in a way that I can understand it, and and
I'm basically lost. So there is no figuring out. It's
too much or too many things going on. So that's
the difference between complex and complicated. And as you can guess,
complex is the worst kind of situation. If I figure
(27:20):
it out and now I am dealing with something that
has too many moving parts, I am one step ahead.
So to me, a complicated situation is an improvement upon complexity.
So if I want to get to the ultimate goal
of simplicity, the opposite end of the spectrum.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
The enemy is complexity. So that's how I picked an enemy.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Then you go towards like, Okay, why does it get complex?
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Who makes it complex?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
And all of that to have your philosophical and perspective
reasons in doing the business.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, No, I think that's just genius. I mean, this
is just one.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Just a great point you're bringing up here, Okay, And
I think hopefully people are hearing this and they're saying,
this is why you would want to work with somebody
like k And that's why we have you on the podcast,
because you know, when we get these dialed in and
I think, you know, the more we can do this,
I mean, and I think both in the fractional what
you do. I'm working on the people side, But just
think about this as you're helping this business owner this
(28:20):
fractional get clear on them, Yes, how this will help
the rest of their as if they bring on employees
or other people. What I found working with business owners,
it gets clear, gets mighty. They might or they might
know it again what you said, They may here, but
they haven't communicated that clearly. Yes, And I know you
also have ways of helping people communicate better, right, Yes, yes,
(28:41):
you know, speak a little bit about that too.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yes, definitely, Well thank you for asking. Yes, So, yes,
I work with basically two groups of people. I'm guessing
this applies to you and many other people too. Either
I'm working with the individuals or I'm working with let's say,
teams or companies. Right, it's the same work, but it
kind of shows up in a different kind of a way.
So with individuals, it's that whole business growth coaching, how
(29:07):
to do business development, how to get attention, how to
build connections, and how eventually converts a bunch of those
connections into new clients. So attention, connection, conversion. The idea
is you want to be unignorable, memorable, and referrable.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
So there are tools that.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
We use that are frameworks that we have like storytelling
for business or story selling.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
There is closing.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
There is how to come up with your unique value proposition?
What is your unique selling proposition? And what's the difference
which one do you have to come up with? All
of the elements that they are under those in these
three main buckets, that's what I work with my clients,
and whether individual or a business, there are always three
stages and as you can say, I love the frameworks
(29:53):
that they have one to.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Three one two, three, yes, but there are three stages.
It's that whole.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I want you to remember that complexity, complicated conversation in
the back of your head when we look at something
before and anything else.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
First, we have to make it work right.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
It needs to get the ball from point A to
point B somehow. And this is where you know, we're
prototyping or maguy varying things and things are connected with
duct tape and band aid and that sort of thing somehow,
very manual.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
It works good, yes, first step. First we have to
make it work.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Then we make it work better, which is the process
of optimizations. And see what are the levers that we
can pull and push to make things go smoother and faster,
and eventually when we actually to make it work better.
So first we have to make it work, Then we
make it work better. Then we make it work faster, cheaper, easier,
(30:53):
and all of that. So the first part is getting
it going, which is the project management and getting to
something else. The second part is the optimization, and the
third part is automation and technology and outsourcing and that
sort of thing. The danger lies that we have been
trained and it's so attractive to us that we want
(31:17):
to jump to the automation and fast and a lot
too quick before it's actually doing the right work or
being optimized.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
So here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
If we don't pay attention to doing the wrong right
things and doing it in the right way, we might
optimize and automate they're doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Really, yes, yes, we do know that that won't get
really yeah no.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
So one part of my job is to put the
stuff to that and hold people to hey, you know what,
we have to be satisfied with the first stage that
it's working. Then we make it work better, then we
make it work faster. So with my teams and business clients,
it's all again about the communication. And biggest gap in
the communication is that whole either choosing you, are they
(32:04):
buying from you?
Speaker 4 (32:05):
Are they not paying attention to you?
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Which is you know, the messaging and marketing which has
all of this stuff like positioning and pricing and offer
design and pitching and I don't know anipage design and
that's sort of thing they go under there. So but
it's that whole approach of one two three one two
three make it work. Is it buying you know, diagnosis
process to find out what's the right next step for
(32:28):
them and get busy doing that.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, man, you're work. I want you. We're getting squeeze
so much in here.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I know we're getting running out of time on the
podcast episode here came on? Now, I know I'm going
to provide links here in our show notes. So it's simplify.
Tell me make sure we're just already. Here is where
the where to find you? Where's the best?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
The website is simplify profits dot com. There you go, okay,
and you know there are links and menus and and
that sort of thing that you can go. There are
I think around twenty v of my previous trainings and
other things that they're there that they can watch for
freekam and other things, and if they want to connect
with me on any social media, I am doctor kave
(33:09):
on K so.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
D r K A y v O n K there.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
There's not any other doctor kon k is out there,
so I shouldn't have too much trouble finding uh k
on there. I mean, you've you've covered so much. I
think it's hopefully everybody's hearing this that hey, look you
don't have to go alone. You have another person that
you can get on your team, case one of them
and helping make sure that you're found, that you're you're converting,
(33:34):
you're getting those people that actually want to choose you
and actually buy from you.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yes, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Any last thoughts, any that's cake aways or or or
just well advices.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
We're wrapping up here.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah. One one thing I always think when I hear
somebody else, if they give me the next thing to do,
I think that has been valuable because so many times
people tell me what's going on, but not what to do,
so I don't want to make the same mistake. I
do have a well for now free, but I'm planning
to make it a low cost course in the future,
(34:07):
so it's not expensive. It's going to be I don't know,
seven or fourteen bucks or whatever, but for now it's
free and it's a seven day email course, awesome explanations
and worksheets and all of that, and it's a call
it like fixing your conversation is about those attention connection conversions.
I'm going to give you the link.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
That's kind of.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
A fantastic gift. Or I don't know if low thank you, yes,
yeah to. I think that would be a good place
to start. And from there they can you know, get
exposed to the material thinking, take the first few steps
until they're ready for the next step that we can
take together.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
That's great, okay, well, and again that's why I have
you here, because we're all about bringing value helping you
know first and if you find that, you see, that's helpful,
go further. And Kay is a great person to talk
to you can tell us, super friendly and welcoming. It
was a real pleasure having you on the podcast. I
really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Dare. Thank you very much much.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yes, thank you so much. Thanks everybody for for following along.
Of course you love it when you comment you come
back of our next episode and until then, do well.
Thanks everybody for listening.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Take care,
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