Gary Valkenburg, the Founder and CEO of World Manager, was at a Tony Robbin’s event in Fiji in 2009 when someone pointed out international business expert Keith J. Cunningham. Decisively, Valkenburg said he walked right up to Keith and said, “I started a company in my bedroom five years ago, launched my online product into 11,000 businesses in the world, and I don't have a clue what I'm doing!" Keith laughed, introduced himself, and said “What’s your name son?” A business relationship was formed.
After seeing Gary at a few more events around the world, Cunningham invited Valkenburg to participate in his hand-selected Board of Directors group, which consists of only eight business executives or owners who meet several times a year to work together under his guidance. “It was the best thing that ever happened in my business career,” Valkenburg said. Offering suites of online training, communications, human resources, and operations management reporting capabilities, World Manager had already established itself as the fastest-growing communications highway in the world. With clients in more than 40 different countries, Valkenburg said his biggest challenge was not knowing what he didn’t know. “I was making a lot of rookie mistakes when I met Keith,” Valkenburg said..
Cunningham first had Valkenburg gather his financials to get a snapshot of where the business was at that point in time. “Being forced to collect accurate numbers was when I first saw that I was in financial trouble,” Valkenburg remarked. “Keith helped me see how to immediately turn the numbers around and get back into the game,” he said. Cunningham then introduced Valkenburg to his easy to use CFO Scoreboard software, which is a state-of-the-art method of tracking, measuring, analyzing, and correcting business financial performance. Valkenburg said that by entering his financial statements into the program, he was able to quickly analyze his business and improve his decision-making process based on the numbers and financial results.
“In my first three months of working with Keith, sales went up 450% over the same period as the prior year, and expenses went down 43%,” Valkenburg said. “The ship turned right side up! The changes were thankfully immediate,” he added
A critical business skill that Valkenburg learned from Cunningham was to take his emotions out of the decision-making process. “I was always making emotional, ‘fly by the seat of my pants,’ cowboy decisions,” Valkenburg said. “Keith taught me that there is little space for emotions in the board room. Now, if I’m emotional, I won’t make a decision,” he said. One other valuable lesson he learned from Cunningham was how to call it tight with his team members. “If a team member is not doing a good job at work or making unnecessary mistakes, now I am not afraid to let them know,” he said. “ I say what I mean, whether it is good or bad. My team knows where they stand with me at all times.”
Cunningham said that Valkenburg has been a quick study, taken the advice and counsel he received, and radically changed the way he runs the business-end of his business. “Gary is one of those rare individuals who is extremely committed to his growth and excellence and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his success,” Cunningham said. “He has grown dramatically, but more importantly, Gary now understands the major tools and thinking strategies which will produce financial returns many years into the future,” he added.
Thrilled with the direction his company is headed, Valkenburg said World Manager is now a multi-award winning online platform and is being used by more than 20,000 businesses in more than 50 countries. “My chance encounter has led to a complete turn-around of my entire company in 2012,” Valkenburg said. “Keith’s wisdom has changed how I look at my business, the decisions I make on a daily basis, and my identity as a business owner.