In the spotlight: Edwin and Joshua Kennedy, founders of the SalesPulse Group. SalesPulse improves the commercial performance, primarily for larger SME companies and Enterprise organizations in the IT sector.
What does SalesPulse bring to the table?
”SalesPulse is made up of individuals from different generations. By bringing together diverse knowledge and experiences, we can impact what happens at all levels of an organization and guide them to better results” explains Joshua.
Edwin: “The beautiful thing that you see in a business is that two generations react completely differently to questions and challenges. The younger generation generally asks: ‘why can’t we do that? There must be a way to hack this problem,’ while the older generation tends to respond based on previous experience: ‘we’ve seen this, we’ve done this before, this is what happened.’ When generations work together, you have the advantage of innovation, curiosity, and freshness paired with real-world experiences and capabilities developed over time. There’s no better combination.”
What makes your work together work so well?
Joshua: ”Real collaboration is not about command and control but instead about standing side by side to take on a problem together. We don’t tell each other what to do, we ask how we can help. This is essential and it’s what makes us effective.”
What do you see happening in the market?
Joshua: “The challenge companies are facing is ContinuousNEXT, the next step in digital transformation. The approach and philosophy of SalesPulse fits right in to this dynamic and gives us what we need to deliver results.”
Edwin: “Everyone wants groundbreaking innovation at scale – and they want to know that it will work. Two very different things. When we go looking for innovative ideas, we also want to know exactly they are going to play out – even though they haven’t been tried before. When you put two generations together,, you can get very close to this dream combination: new models from the younger generation and the hard-won experience of the older generation.”
What is your goal for SalesPulse?
Edwin: “We want to work with entrepreneurial people, who want to contribute something of value and improve business performance.”
Joshua: “We host regular informal gatherings, we invite interesting and entrepreneurial people to have a drink, talk to each other, and bring different networks together.”
Which companies or people do you admire and why?
Joshua: ”Companies like Media Monks, they know how to develop and deliver amazing creative every time. I’m also fascinated by organizations like McKinsey, that are able to go in and get business results in a short time – and do that for so many different types of clients.”
Edwin: “Chris Braakman, who sadly passed away two years ago. He was my first teacher 25 years ago and wanted to go live Asia, so he left for Hong Kong and, over the course of many years, growing his business and developing into a sought-after coach many top executives. Up until the end, he always made time to help me and I have so much respect for him.”
Edwin continutes: “Marcus Lemonis from “The Profit” is an inspiring individual. He knows how to empower people, how to help businesses, and can bring diverse organizations together to make them all more successful.”
What is your dream for SalesPulse?
Joshua: ”My dream for SalesPulse is to create a big international network of entrepreneurial people and companies, operating from multiple countries.”
Edwin: ”That’s my vision as well, along with the power of linking different networks, so that everyone can help each other and reap the benefits of a true cross-pollination of perspectives and ideas.’
What is the most important lesson that you both have learned along the way?
Edwin: “A fine quote from Confucius covers the bases: In every art, the masters once were students.”
Joshua: “Sharing is key. You have to accept that you can’t do it all alone and that you need other people to grow. So you need information from people with experience and knowledge to eventually become wiser yourself. The Line Up in karate is a good illustration of this principle: you stand ranked in a line; the people on your left are there to teach you something, the people on your right can learn something from you.”
If you had to give beginning entrepreneurs one tip, what would it be?
Edwin: “Give form to what you are doing! Do the work to truly understand what you want, what is the unique value you provide. Once you know that, you can spread this form throughout your network so that people know what you can do for them – and they’ll call you in the future when they need it.”
Joshua adds: “If you haven’t figured out the form you want to take, go talk to people who are entrepreneurs themselves and become wiser along the way. FOCUS is a good approach: Follow One Course Until Success.”