Douglas Vermeeren, an Entrepreneur of Influence

We live in a world exploding in ideas, businesses and entrepreneurship. Sometimes it’s hard for those without an entrepreneurial background or family history of business and experience to know how to navigate the competitive landscape of todays saturated marketplace. 

As a young man, Douglas Vermeeren struggled to find these answers and felt he was doomed to get stuck in the rat race. Dissatisfied and discouraged,  he was fortunate enough to be given the gift of a book called “Think and Grow Rich” by a friend. Upon reading the book, Vermeeren discovered that the author, Napoleon Hill had written it after conducting personal research and interviews with more than 400 of the world’s top achievers and business leaders of his day. This powerful book changed Douglas Vermeeren’s life in many ways. The most notable was that he now understood that to learn these high level principles of success he would need to seek out others in a similar way to what Hill did.

In a way very similar to Napoleon Hill, at 19 year’s old Douglas Vermeeren sought out top business leaders and high level achievers. He had a chance to learn from founders, CEO’s and top executive leaders from companies like FedEx, Nike, Fruit of the Loom, KFC, American Airlines, Uber, Hugo Boss, Expedia, UGG boots, Reebok, Kijabi, Southwest Airlines, Disney and many others. Hey made it his mission to learn from them. As a result, he was able to learn first-hand business strategies and concepts that most books are business training are missing. He was then able under their mentorship to create significant business success on his own. 

Recognizing the need for proper and effective entrepreneur training and leadership, Douglas Vermeeren started Entrepreneur of Influence. The program focuses on teaching those with a business idea or new business how to succeed in today’s marketplace. Students of the program not only experience Vermeeren’s expertise, but he brings with him many of the top business leaders from his original research. With these top business leaders as mentors or faculty members within the program Entrepreneur of Influence is consider one of the top business training opportunities available today. 

The program has a very high success rate in helping participants scale their business and navigate today’s highly competitive marketplace.

We caught up with Douglas Vermeeren at a recent Entrepreneur of Influence event.

SBT: What is the major difference between your program and what is shared by business coaches or other business training programs?

DV: I think the primary difference is most programs and business coaches teach theory and from their own level of experience. And unfortunately most have never scaled a business to seven figures or over before. While well-meaning most just don’t have the experience as we do with so many multi-national brand leaders on our faculty. These leaders have done it and they are currently doing it. They understand business and they understand the marketplace.

SBT: What’s the biggest challenge for most entrepreneurs and small businesses today?

DV: I think the biggest challenge is that most people have a very traditional view of what businesses need to survive. As a result most new business leaders are trying to complete a check list of what they think they need to be considered a success. At this event I was recently just talking to a business owner who was measuring his success by the number of employees, brick and mortar locations and general brand visibility. These are all terrible markers for success today. If things like this are on your checklist of what you think a business needs today you are going to be in trouble.

SBT: What do businesses need today?

DV:  There are many things that they need or should be doing.  To share a quick answer that will help your listeners let me give you 3 considerations. Firstly, understand your customer’s. They are the most important part of your team. Most people think of customers in terms of “them” and those that work with you or for you as “us.” You need to stop and recognize that your customers are part of your team and they are the most important part. Without them your company cannot exist. Secondly, Get really good at what you do. We have a saying in our training that “Mastery equals Monopoly”. When you get really good at these you rise to a higher level of influence and quickly you rise above your competition. Those seeking to do business with you or any company always want the best solutions at the best or fair pricing. And thirdly, you need to understand your marketplace. This will give you insights in marketing, products, pricing, competition and many other things you will need to be good at. If you are in business you must make these three things high priority.

SBT: What kinds of companies does Entrepreneur of Influence help?

DV: We have been successful at helping most companies we encounter, but the entrepreneurs and business owners I enjoy helping the most are the brand new startups.  Especially people who either haven’t started their business yet or people that are within their first two years. I find, that most of the time these people are more willing to listen and make changes. You can help them start right so that they can continue right. Generally businesses older than that have already created a lot of problems for themselves and it becomes a matter of untangling that mess and sometimes starting over again. I’d rather help someone do it correctly from the beginning. 

SBT: What has been your best success story?

DV: We have had many amazing success stories. We actually have the highest success rate of any business training program or business seminar series that I am aware of. The people who apply these principles do very well. We have had many sales to high 7 and 8 figure profitability and expand into global markets. We have even had a few of the business owners we have helped sell their businesses at an extremely high profit. But I would say one of my favorites was working with a little 7 year old girl build a publishing company and get her first books out. She has done extremely well and even published one of her sibling’s books out.  Obviously she had some parental help. But she knows the concepts.

SBT: What’s next for Entrepreneur of Influence?

DV: We will continue to train and support entrepreneurs around the world. We are doing a lot of world in the US, UK and Asia. The principles we share work anywhere, especially in today’s market. And I am still on my personal mission to meet, learn from and bring top business leaders into our organization as mentors. We currently share lots of great information for free online and host a variety of live events in the world. I hope people will comet and meet us.

SBT: How can an entrepreneur or business owner learn more?

DV: Join us on the Entrepreneur of Influence Podcast, YouTube shows or live events. You can find out more by going to www.EntrepreneurofInfluence.com or www.DouglasVermeeren.com