DisruptED

A sales business can be a rewarding experience despite its many challenges. One of the many pros and cons that sales professionals face is finding the right team members that successful strategy relies on.

So, what should business leaders implement to set their teams up for success?

On the second episode of DisruptEd with guest William Gilchrist, host Ron Stefanski continues his interview with the founder of Konsyg. Gilchrist illustrates his journey to build Konsyg and his 15 years within the sales industry. Stefanski unearths crucial tips for entrepreneurs they can use to develop their sales team strategy.

In 2017, Gilchrist founded Konsyg in Singapore in order to provide on-demand services for tech companies who needed to boost B2B sales. Gilchrist says that “The Godfather” inspired the company’s name. In the movie, the consigliere is an advisor that guides the notorious crime family. Despite not being an actual mafioso, the consigliere’s advice is taken very seriously. For Gilchrist, he decided that this character's status is something he wanted to adopt in working with his clients.

“[The consigliere] was the professional representative of that family and the only person who could challenge and disagree with the family's leader because he's a professional. I said, ' this is the kind of relationship I want with my clients'. Not that I want to disagree and challenge, but I want to be able to advise [them] to take action and advise without it being an ego issue,” said Gilchrist.

Join the second part of Stefanski and Gilchrist's conversation where they discuss:

1. Challenges sales business founders encounter

2. How to set realistic expectations to manage and sustain business strategies

3. Ways that founders can shift their approach to build a sales team

Gilchrist offers advice to entrepreneurs like: “[If you've,] started a business and looking to build a sales team, [founders should] go sell [the product] themselves for about six months. [Founders should] elect yourself as one of the people who's selling [the business]. Then, you will get a much clearer view of the expectations that you're putting on your new sales hires".

William Gilchrist is the founder of Konsyg. Before creating his own business, he worked at Google and several startups in Singapore. He is an alumnus of Bowdoin College, where he received his B.A. in International Relations. Afterward, he attended Peking University and Cornell University to study Mandarin Chinese.

As we continue to penetrate the mysteries of space, another equally profound frontier remains largely unexplored: the ocean depths. Despite covering more than 70 percent of our planet, the vast majority of our oceans remain unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored.. As technology advances, we’re slowly peeling back this aquatic curtain, and companies like Triton Subs are at the forefront of this brave new underwater world. Triton’s latest feat? The world’s first submersible capable of repeated dives to any ocean depth. This groundbreaking vehicle represented a new pinnacle of deep-sea exploration.

With emerging technologies and innovative manufacturing techniques, ocean exploration is becoming more accessible, transforming industries from tourism to scientific research. But how do technology and advanced manufacturing reshape ocean exploration? And how might they revolutionize our understanding of the Earth’s last frontier? We dive into these questions with Patrick Lahey, CEO and co-founder of Triton Subs, a pioneer in the construction of specialized submersibles.

Taking risks can certainly be daunting, but it can also lead to opportunities one would never have fathomed. Taking risks is even a behavior aligned with entrepreneurial spirits.

How does taking a risk help an individual transition from an International Relations major to become current head of their own company? And how has customer engagement played a role in this transition?

On today’s episode of DisruptED, host Ron J. Stefanski speaks with William Gilchrist, CEO & Founder of Konsyg, an on-demand sales team service, to share his background passion for travel and how his educational route and experiences with a poor economy led him to a career in sales.

Sales is not a skillset that needs to be limited to the business industry; it can apply pretty much everywhere. Sales can help develop self-discipline, negotiation skills, customer engagement, determination, intrapersonal relationship building, and much more.

Gilchrist explained, “I moved to Singapore to take an unpaid internship in lead generation.” His supervisor said, “’Look, you need to know the sales stuff because you will always be able to exist anywhere in the world, any culture. Sales is the one skill you’ll always be able to use.’ And that was the start of my journey in Singapore.”

Stefanski and Gilchrist also discussed…

1. The roots of Gilchrist’s childhood passion for travel

2. What took Gilchrist from Chicago to Singapore to eventually creating his own company

3. How Gilchrist disrupted sales by finding others were experiencing gaps in their strategies despite being viewed as successful

Gilchrist explained, “Once you get to the meat of the skillset, what do you have? It’s not just reading off of a bunch of slides and talking about value. Nobody cares about your product. It’s about an actual skill to be able to morph it to something that is relevant to someone else. And that is what makes a professional salesperson different from someone who is just selling. Are you a salesperson, or are you just selling?”

William Gilchrist is CEO & Founder of Konsyg and was previously Vice President, Asia-Pacific at MyDoc Pte. Ltd., and Head of Knowledge ETO, as well as Asia Pacific and Regional Sales Manager, Southeast Asia, at Google. Gilchrist holds over 15 years of experience in multicontinental technology sales and is Teaching English as A Foreign Language (TEFL) Certified. He learned Mandarin at Cornell University and Peking University and earned his BA in International Relations from Bowdoin College.

People from all walks of life decide to run for office, but a sizable number are people who have served the country. Per Veteran Affairs, there are 82 veterans currently serving in the U.S. Congress and one more veteran wants to join them. So, who is the next former Marine aiming to represent his district in congress?

For the continuation of the “Send a Marine to Congress” series of the DisruptED podcast, host Ron J. Stefanski resumed his interview with Matt Leiv, Associate Consultant for Moovance and congressional Republican candidate for the 14th District of Illinois. They discussed Leiv’s aspirations and what led him to launching his campaign, as well as his political approach.

One area the two also discussed were their stances on politicians and age limits, and whether one should be introduced as opposed to term limits. Leiv stated despite most of Congress becoming ineligible if an age-limit were to be enforced, that it is something he has given thought under President Biden’s leadership.

“There's certainly been questions about capabilities at that age of being in office and we’ve seen videos of situations where we kind of question, ‘Is that who we want representing us?’ It’s not just about, do they have the cognitive capacity, it's also, are they giving the presence to the rest of the world?” said Leiv.

Stefanski and Leiv further discussed …

The inspiration behind Leiv’s motivation to run for Congress

His hopes and goals for his constituents if he gets elected

What he wants his constituents to know and his plans for Congress if elected

“My entire adult life has been a life of service to the country. We’ve been a military family for just shy of two decades…So, if you want somebody who is a Marine, has got that experience, very assertive, straightforward, and has no problem fighting difficult fights. I'll ask the hard questions; I'll take the hard questions — I'm not going in to be a 30-year career politician. I’m going in to do right by the people and if that's only a few terms, that's only a few terms but we’re going to come in and actually make some changes and actually do what we said,” noted Leiv.

Matt Leiv is a former Marine, an Associate Consultant for Moovance and a strategic advisor for AI Startups. He is currently a congressional candidate for Illinois’s 14th District. Leiv holds several business degrees all from Fullerton College, University of Southern California, and the USC Marshall School of Business, and also has a certificate in executive leadership from the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Getting to Net Zero soon requires global decarbonization efforts involving multiple requirements and economic and government commitments. Steps are underway to make Net Zero a reality through Carbon Capture & Storage and other technical innovations. Still, the overall topic of decarbonization is a loaded one, with the pitfalls of politics to navigate and how to make the economics work while creating a more sustainable future.

In the latest episode of DisruptED: Education and Upscaling Edition, host Ron J. Stefanski featured Dr. Peter Temes, founder and president of the ILO Institute. Dr. Temes has been a longtime collaborator with Stefanski and is renowned for his role in driving innovation in large organizations.

In this insightful episode, Stefanski and Temes focus on the complex topic of decarbonization. Dr. Temes’s work indicates that politics takes a backseat in the discourse on decarbonization. Instead, the emphasis is on the underlying business models and economic incentives motivating a shift toward sustainable practices.

For over 18 years, the ILO Institute has engaged with large organizations, fostering innovation across various sectors. Of late, there has been a noticeable uptick in interest regarding sustainability and decarbonization, not just from entities within the energy sector but from diverse organizations. This interest has led the ILO Institute to undertake extensive research projects on these themes, offering them a unique perspective on the economic and societal disruptions arising due to climate change.

Dr. Temes’s research unveils that decarbonization is not solely about curbing carbon emissions. It also involves how organizations acclimate to new technologies and how these technologies transform the organizations themselves. For instance, the advent of electric vehicles, such as the all-electric Ford F-150, is causing significant disruption in the auto industry, mitigating pollution, and presenting new business prospects.

One of the surprising insights from Dr. Temes’s work is the potential emergence of ‘gridless cities.’ With advancements in battery technology, it’s plausible that cities could transition from reliance on power grids towards localized energy storage and production. The new Ford F-150, for example, can store enough energy to power an average American household for three days. As this technology evolves, it’s conceivable that vehicles could potentially power homes for weeks.

Dr. Temes also highlights that there is currently an enormous influx of capital into low-carbon and no-carbon infrastructure. Large corporations and utilities are investing billions into infrastructure that mitigates carbon emissions. This trend is not merely a gesture towards ‘green’ practices – it’s motivated by economic incentives and regulatory pressures.

However, perhaps the most impactful revelation from Dr. Temes’s research is that decarbonization is an environmental imperative and a lucrative business opportunity. The shift towards a low-carbon economy is paving the way for a surge of new business opportunities, comparable to the rise of the commercial internet. Organizations that recognize and adapt to this change could reap substantial benefits.

In 2022, more than one-fifth of the 1,000 candidates for the U.S. Senate, House, or state governor on the fall ballot stated they had some form of military experience, per the Pew Research Center. And it makes sense. The leadership experiences in the military, combined with the consequences of political decisions that directly impact those in the military, can be largely influential in a veteran’s decision to run for office.

Why, though, would such a young veteran who is only 38 years old, decide to run for the 14th Congressional District of Illinois?

On today’s episode of Send the Marine to Congress, host Ron J. Stefanski speaks with Matt Leiv, AI Consultant and Strategic Advisor to several AI startups and candidate for the 14th District of the Illinois Congress, to discuss why Leiv decided it was time to serve the country in a different way by running for Congress.

Military involvement isn’t unfamiliar territory to members of the House of Representatives. In fact, currently, there are 82 House of Representative Members who are veterans, and Leiv hopes to become the 83rd.

“I can keep focusing on myself or I can stand up and step up again like I did previously and go to contribute back to the country,” Leiv explained.

Stefanski and Leiv also discussed…

1. Why Leiv decided to serve the country on the political front after serving on the military front

2. Leiv’s thoughts on the Trump campaign and his own plans for his political campaign

3. How his young age will fare amongst the older population of Congressional seat holders

Leiv stated, “The true conservative values—what it really comes down to—is smaller federal government, less interference in people’s lives, keeping the government as lean as possible in order to carry out policies that protect and preserve our liberties and freedoms. We’ve gone very far away from that. We’ve let it creep, over the years, quite a bit into a large, overwhelming government where you can see not just the deficit, but the trade deficit and the overall lack of reduction in the deficit.”

Matt Leiv is an Advisor to SN Investing LLC and Leap Inc. and is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps where he was a Sergeant, Infantry Combat Squat Leader and Corporal, Infantry Team Leader Special Operations. He is also Associate Consultant at Moovance and has served as an AI consultant for multiple companies. Leiv earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California and USC Marshall School of Business. He also has an AS in Business Administration and Management from Fullerton College and studied Fire Science at Western Oregon University.

In 2022, more than one-fifth of the 1,000 candidates for the U.S. Senate, House, or state governor on the fall ballot stated they had some form of military experience, per the Pew Research Center. And it makes sense. The leadership experiences in the military, combined with the consequences of political decisions that directly impact those in the military, can be largely influential in a veteran’s decision to run for office.

Why, though, would such a young veteran who is only 38 years old, decide to run for the 14th Congressional District of Illinois?

On today’s episode of Send the Marine to Congress, host Ron J. Stefanski speaks with Matt Leiv, AI Consultant and Strategic Advisor to several AI startups and candidate for the 14th District of the Illinois Congress, to discuss why Leiv decided it was time to serve the country in a different way by running for Congress.

Military involvement isn’t unfamiliar territory to members of the House of Representatives. In fact, currently, there are 82 House of Representative Members who are veterans, and Leiv hopes to become the 83rd.

“I can keep focusing on myself or I can stand up and step up again like I did previously and go to contribute back to the country,” Leiv explained.

Stefanski and Leiv also discussed…

1. Why Leiv decided to serve the country on the political front after serving on the military front

2. Leiv’s thoughts on the Trump campaign and his own plans for his political campaign

3. How his young age will fare amongst the older population of Congressional seat holders

Leiv stated, “The true conservative values—what it really comes down to—is smaller federal government, less interference in people’s lives, keeping the government as lean as possible in order to carry out policies that protect and preserve our liberties and freedoms. We’ve gone very far away from that. We’ve let it creep, over the years, quite a bit into a large, overwhelming government where you can see not just the deficit, but the trade deficit and the overall lack of reduction in the deficit.”

Matt Leiv is an Advisor to SN Investing LLC and Leap Inc. and is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps where he was a Sergeant, Infantry Combat Squat Leader and Corporal, Infantry Team Leader Special Operations. He is also Associate Consultant at Moovance and has served as an AI consultant for multiple companies. Leiv earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California and USC Marshall School of Business. He also has an AS in Business Administration and Management from Fullerton College and studied Fire Science at Western Oregon University.