In this episode, we get to learn more about David Dugan, founder, business coach, and mentor at Abundance Global, a full service business coaching company that caters to small to medium-sized business owners.
David shared how their company adapted to the pandemic, the strategies they came up with to help their clients, and the strategies the company implemented to thread their way through these challenging times.
We also get to learn more about David’s thoughts on technology and innovation, his passion for business and helping business owners, and more personal, motivational stuff.
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In this episode:
- Who David is and what does he do
- David is the founder of Abundance Global, a specialist business coaching and mentoring company that caters to small to medium-sized business owners. They help business owners to have the confidence in their business as a pathway for them to have our remarkable life.
- “We love working with small to medium-sized business owners. They’re the backbone of every country. They employ more people, they take the biggest risks, and they’re the innovators of the future.”
- David shared his personal and professional background – his education, qualifications, and his love for business.
- “I felt that the security of what I used to do, I had to put that aside and move into something that was going to be more impactful on the planet.”
- What has been David’s biggest challenge through isolation and COVID-19?
- What the pandemic did to David’s company and his team was to speed things up in setting up their original plans through technology. They had been prepared for Covid but what they hadn’t prepared for is the speed that their members were going to get affected.
- “We put our business to the side and just said, ‘Okay, we have to give unprecedented value now more than ever before’. Not only because our members need it, but also that meant it was important for our business to do the same thing as well. So we just put everything aside and we’re going to double down on everything we do.”
- What were the strategies that David went through to figure out their members’ needs?
- David discussed in detail how they gathered the key information their members wanted and needed, and shared the strategy they used to process that data into an actionable plan that helped their members.
- According to David, the CEO of Google X predicted that the rate of change that humans move on is a very linear path, our ability to adapt to change. But what’s happened is the globe and the world around, and the speed of change has surpassed the ability of humans to adapt to change.
- What are some things that can help other people win their business?
- “The only reason we are in business is to solve other peoples’ problems.”
- Angela believes that listening is key and that as a trainer you can learn so much from your clients. “Teach to learn.”
- What does David think is his biggest achievement through all this?
- “The business-owner mindset is very much the same as someone who’s deployed in a wartime operational environment.”
- Abundance Global had a 100% retention rate going through Covid. He also felt inspired by his members as they showed their tenacity and grit to survive the pandemic by coming together as a group.
- A good bulk of David’s members have much better businesses and much more profitable businesses than what they had pre-COVID.
- From a business perspective, David believes one of the biggest achievements is that they can still offer great value during this great time and see people shine.
- “I know for the training industry and what we’re doing in our industry, it’s never going to be the same again, it’s going to be an expectation of online education.”
- Looking at the future of his clients, what does David think about the philosophy of ‘Everything will go back to normal’?
- “I actually don’t even completely agree with the phrase ‘New normal’, because I don’t think that this is going to be normal.”
- David suspects that there’s going to be another dip in the market and that the next 12 to 18 months is still going to be quite tricky to say the least.
- According to David, the pandemic just accelerated what was already happening in the business world. Building technology into the business is super important.
- “I think that everyone should be playing with or investigating how they can bring technology into their business to a higher degree.”
- David also suspects that there is a shift in the way we build teams. He believed that there will be a higher percentage of contractual role style and also that the way core teams grow will shift.
- What’s going to change is that, in the next six months and beyond, there’s going to be less competition for the people.
- “One of the things that I found is that there are so many people with so much knowledge and they’ve got some great ideas, but they don’t know how to pull it off and put it into something that they can sell.
- Where does David see Abundance Global in the next 6 to 12 months?
- David shared current and future strategies they are working and implementing soon.
- “One of the biggest challenges people have is around how to systemise a business and how to do all those areas.”
- How does David keep motivated each day?
- “I think it comes down to rhythm and rigour and rituals. I don’t think you get motivated. I think motivation is something that you do.”
- “If you win the morning you win the day.”
- The questions David asks himself at the end of each day: How have I loved today? How have I led today? How have I inspired today?
