Why more marketing won't fix your sales problem | Thom Van Dycke, Van Dycke | ScaleUp Radio #650

What do you do when the business only works because of you? Thom Van Dycke spent almost twenty years as a pastor before building an advisory business for founder-led companies, and explains why hiring more marketing will not fix a founder who cannot step away from the work. Thom Van Dycke left ministry in October 2020, in the middle of a pandemic and a church split, with no business background and no idea what a lead generator was. His first six contracts, as he puts it, were sympathy contracts. He now runs an advisory practice working with founder-led businesses, mostly in construction and the skilled trades, that have grown successfully and then stopped. In this conversation he explains why founders plateau after they exhaust their network, why adding marketing to a business with no sales system makes the problem worse, and what actually has to be true before a founder can hand the work to someone else. Along the way he gives one test any owner can run this week: go to each of your employees and ask them why you are different from the crew down the street. Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:48 Who Thom is, and why successful founders plateau 04:32 Burn the blueprint, screw the formula 09:31 Twenty years a pastor, and then 2020 11:38 Six sympathy contracts, and losing Pastor Thom 16:55 Confidence comes from your numbers, not courage 19:41 The first year was an anomaly 22:33 Adapt, don't adopt 25:55 Skilled trades, AI, and what stops them growing 32:20 The assumptions nobody ever challenges 34:52 If the business only works because of you 38:43 Leadership, humility and positioning 45:07 What true leadership actually looks like 51:04 Quickfire, and where to find Thom About the guest Thom Van Dycke, Van Dycke https://www.thomvandycke.com   / thom-van-dycke   Mentioned in this episode Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle Alex Hormozi Simon Sinek About the show ScaleUp Radio is a podcast for founders of established businesses who have hit a ceiling, or can see one coming. More than 600 episodes with the founders who got past it. All 600 episodes: https://smart90.co.uk/scaleup-radio Subscribe on YouTube:    / @scaleupradio   From Smart90 Smart90 is the 90 day planning platform behind this show. If something in this episode sounded familiar, the Scaleup Challenges II report analyses what 305 founders said about the same problem: https://smart90.co.uk/scaleup-challen... #ScaleUpRadio #BusinessPodcast #FounderBottleneck