"Your business and life will grow to where you grow."
Craig Schulze is a successful global businessman with a wide range of skills and experiences. He has worked as a corporate Engineer, owned multiple fitness centres and have also helped a company franchise their business.
During his 12 years in the fitness industry he was awarded franchisee of the year 2004, 2007 and 2009, and in 2005 he was South Australia’s fitness professional of the year. Craig was directly involved in setting up over 20 franchises, and owned 5 franchises. He now does active consulting to franchisors to help them grow their network through marketing strategies, build and leverage assets and value plus providing advisory and insight from building businesses and working with the biggest entrepreneurs in the world.
2020 he launched his One Shot Movement Brand which with a vision and mission to help inspire and educate people to live life with passion and purpose. His book ‘You’ve Got One Shot’ is a book about navigating through a challenge and then the lessons learned to help move me towards living a meaningful life.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Craig Schulze: I am an entrepreneur who has been in business for over 20 years. I owned a fitness club, that turned to owning 5 and setting up 22 franchises. During the global financial crisis I then started building businesses online and one of those ended up having customers in over 100 countries. Over the 20 years I have also been building wealth as property investor and part owner in multiple private companies.
In 2014 my wife and I lost our first son Ethan stillborn and that sent me on a path where I have been focused on leaving a legacy in regards to inspiring and educating people to make the most of their “One Shot” at life.
It started with a book You’ve Got One Shot and then a podcast called the One Shot Movement Podcast, which is interviews with 150 of the biggest entrepreneurs on the planet. I have also run a number of workshops, speaking events and am continually creating content for the world.
Now I do advisory / consulting for companies helping them build to be in the top 1% of their industry, plus keynote speaking, and continue to build a media business.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Craig Schulze: I learned most of the harsh lessons during the 2008 – 2010 global financial crisis. They were predominately around risk management and being too aggressive on growth and when banks stopped lending money I was stuck. People were keen to buy our fitness franchises but banks wouldn’t fund it, which made it hard to sell our business opportunities.
The good news during that time is that I re-engineered my business models and 4 years later had business online, working from home and sold all my bricks and mortar businesses. Basically, I looking trends in high growth niches and then took massive action.
Living in Melbourne Australia in 2020 – 2021 there were many industries in 270 days of hard lockdown. There were some business that could easily adapt and go through high growth but unfortunately for many that was extreme challenge. However, for me I was already working from home, online and not geographically handicapped to one location.
The good news is that while there is doom and gloom in the media about interest rates, inflation, fuel prices, crashes, food shortages and bad news at every corner. These recession type of economies are huge for opportunity, growth and transfers of wealth.
Again I reference the time post global financial crisis where I went from near losing everything to taking advantage of the new tech like social media, internet tools, smart phones and 4 years later was making 10x more than I had ever made. Same will happen again and there are obvious trends emerging.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Craig Schulze: Your business and life will grow to where you grow. So I am all about triple down on investment into yourself. Build networks and communities because your social capital is king.
If you haven’t mastered the art of leveraging time, money and meaningful relationships then now is a good time to get started. Get a coach, mentor, advisor, join a mastermind, do what ever you can to get good people around you. Keep an eye on emerging trends. Finally, don’t fall for the fear campaign.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Craig Schulze: It is a hard question to answer because a lot of what I was doing involved travel, speaking at events, and in Melbourne Australia that was impossible for near two years (apart from zoom events). But in other parts of the world it was nowhere near as bad, so I am not sure it was complete disruption of the entire industry but for a speaker in Melbourne it was 270 days plus of hard lockdown.
I did adapt and bring in a lot more business using a number of online strategies, I did leverage tech, but ultimately I also took a big deep breath and did a number of things that I could control and took the pressure off in regards to things I could not control.
One strategy that has worked phenomenally well for me is becoming a content creator and during the pandemic my shows, podcasts were getting huge global reach and my connections amplified exponentially. So I really went from a social media regular posting person to a genuine media company where people were wanting me to help them to the same.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Craig Schulze: For me I was planning for the next economic downturn post Global Financial Crisis. Good money management, good investing and planning for the rainy day.
If I had advice that governments would be issuing harsh lockdowns I probably would have changed the place of where I lived because I was already able to work remotely. In 2022 I am focused on building a stronger network of highly successful people.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Craig Schulze: I bring this perspective based purely on the Melbourne lockdown situation. People here will always embrace zoom, remote work, in their new world but right now human connection is on an all time high. People want to go to live events, people want socialise with each other, people want to reconnect with humanity.
There are many countries and areas that were not as effected and wouldn’t share that opinion but I see this everyday amongst communities, business owners, school parents, and small business.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Craig Schulze: I work from home on my own time. Each day is different but collectively throughout the day it might be 3-4 hours.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Craig Schulze: There is a famous saying that, “facts tell but stories sell”.
Sharing vision, sharing stories, sharing case studies, sharing testimonials, sharing company wins are all phenomenal strategies for business. I often teach through metaphors to help people learn. I often close speaking gigs with my rainbows and unicorns story to paint a picture of moving fast or slow or I use my matchstick story to sharing why every little thing adds up to a big thing.
If you are the CEO and you can not evangelise your business then find someone who can.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Craig Schulze: Businesses need to build their business on the values, principles and their vision and mission. I think businesses are being caught in the trap of many different agenda’s and are being forced to go along or be left behind.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Craig Schulze: All the topics above are the new tech for the future. In 2008 – 2010 it was social, smart phones, internet tools, wifi and now it is blockchain, crypto, NFT’s and the metaverse. My personal power strategy is in podcast content leverage and moving from business owner to business brand.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Craig Schulze: At the moment there is this top down dictator style attack from all angles whether it be business, government, media narratives, academia and schooling. So employees are feeling like they don’t have a voice anymore, for example, “you get this procedure for your health or don’t come to work on Monday”.
It is hard to feel valued when your personal values are not respected. Your personal values do not matter anymore, because everything is for “the greater good”. So some of the “great resignation” is related to people being forced to do something against their values, some of it is people simply have had enough and want to go and do something else.
In a free and democratic country you should be respected more than what we have witnessed in the last few years.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Craig Schulze: One of my early coaching tools I implement is the 7 areas of life to master to live in joy, fulfilment and happiness. If you can get to that place mentally, physically and spiritually then you can empower people in your presence to do the same. I think when you are in the zone of joy, fulfilment and happiness you can make the magic happen in your business.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Craig Schulze: Success to me relates to mastering the art of living in joy, fulfilment and happiness. If you can get into that place then so many things will happen for you naturally. Your relationships will be better, your business will be better, your love life and family life will be better, and you will find yourself in the zone.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Craig Schulze for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Craig Schulze or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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