Sometimes being ‘ahead of the curve’ means getting stared at like you’re a loony.
Jasper learned this the hard way. He pitched the idea that implementing sustainability can not only cut costs, but actually make your business more PROFITABLE.
In other words, “going green could MAKE you more green!”
Initially it didn’t go so well.
He was like Corpnicus trying to convince people the Earth revolved around the sun.
Thankfully Jasper didn’t get put in jail.
10 years later…
He’s now working with top companies to improve their bottom line AND help solve climate change at the same time.
This is his story.
In this interview you’ll learn:
- How he managed to convince businesses that sustainability CAN be profitable
- How to instantly set yourself apart as a business by using sustainability
- Why being ‘ahead of the curve’ doesn’t guarantee success… unless you have THIS
- Plus… the ‘secret weapon’ that gets him invited into podcasts, interviews, and shows
Check out Jasper here: https://bwimpact.com/moreimpact/
Full Interview:
OR
Main Keypoints
- 00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Jasper Steinhausen
- 00:45 Jasper’s Business Journey and Achievements
- 04:17 The Trigger Behind Jasper’s Business
- 09:11 Challenges and Overcoming Them
- 12:32 Marrying Sustainability with Profitability
- 17:01 Practical Application for Business Coaches
- 19:54 Changing Your Mindset for Business Transformation
- 20:24 Incorporating Sustainability into Company Values
- 20:54 The Power of Purpose-Driven Business
- 21:26 Sustainable Development Goals and Business Alignment
- 22:31 Leveraging Sustainability for Market Advantage
- 23:31 Helping Clients Clarify Their Mission
- 26:16 Networking and Building Connections
- 29:29 The Impact of Being a Bestselling Author
- 32:02 Long-Term Vision for Business Impact
- 33:39 Conclusion and Listener Gifts
Full Transcript
(0:00 – 0:13)
Hi and welcome to another episode of Founders Go Naked. Today we have a very special guest here with us. His name is Jasper Steinhausen and he’s all the way from Denmark, which is very unique for this podcast.
(0:13 – 0:17)
But welcome Jasper. Thank you so much, Terence. It’s a pleasure to be here.
(0:17 – 0:45)
Jasper is actually a founder for business with impact, and that sounds super interesting, right? And what it is, is that Jasper actually helps founders to use sustainability as a strategic advantage to actually grow and enhance the business. So that’s what we’ll be talking a little bit about today, plus he is the author of a best-selling book. So I’m super excited to have Jasper here today.
(0:45 – 1:06)
So Jasper, tell me a little bit about your business journey and what are some of the proudest achievements that you have had in your business journey? What a nice opening question. Well, you know, I get up in the morning to get business on the right side of history by becoming a force for good. So what I’ll be sharing here is reflected a bit by that.
(1:07 – 1:26)
So I have a couple of clients that I’ve been working with that are sort of stand out. So one of them is that I helped a company called Grundfos, which is I think the biggest or the second biggest pump manufacturer in the world. So responsible for you having water pumping around it when you open the tap in your house.
(1:27 – 2:06)
Also pretty good, it will be a pump they created, right? So that’s a pretty big company. And I help them get sort of raise and finalize their work on a climate ambition saying that, you know, they will take responsibility to make the entire value chain carbon positive by 2030 and helping them sort of fine tune that and make the foundation for getting that decision passed at the board, sorry, first at top management level and second at the board for them to really start pushing through on this. Has been a really interesting project to be part of.
(2:06 – 2:32)
We worked with them for a period of time. And interestingly enough, actually, I was part of initiating the idea like six years earlier, perhaps even eight or something on a different project, but where they asked us to look at what would be the consequences of a net zero vision, right? And we said, push the bit for, you know, why zero, why not positive? There’s so much more energy in creating something. It really sets you apart.
(2:33 – 3:08)
Today, you know, there are loads of companies that had a net zero strategy, but there’s still quite few that has a, let’s move beyond, right? And actually take more out than we emit. So that kind of took around six years of maturing before then came back with the project. So it also tells a bit about how long some of these change processes take, right? And for your audience that many of them are working with change and change processes, right? So I’m guessing it reflects a bit, but it’s just interesting, I think, to see how many years maturity actually takes some time.
(3:08 – 3:17)
So yeah, so that’s an interesting thing. Then, of course, you mentioned the book. I think that’s another achievement that I’m proud of.
(3:17 – 3:33)
I wrote it in a hundred days. And I think, you know, it’s been really, really an amazing thing to do. And I’ve been working for a while with having Daniel Priestley as a coach.
(3:34 – 3:45)
You might know him and some of your listeners probably do. And he always says, and I really agree with him. He says, the most important book in your life is not a book you read, it’s the one you write.
(3:45 – 4:07)
Because it just gives you a completely different level of clarity, but also really sets you apart in the marketplace for the people that haven’t. So it was really, really a great experience. And doing it a hundred days means it’s really, you know, it’s an achievable thing, right? I basically spend an hour a day writing every day in the morning.
(4:08 – 4:14)
Yeah, of course. I think every coach and consultant should have a book. But we’ll dive more into that a bit later.
(4:15 – 4:33)
Yeah, let’s do that. Yeah, but I’m just also curious, what triggered you to start this business? And what were you doing before? I mean, you probably were in some comfortable job or something. And what triggered you to start this business? Well, it actually goes way back, because I still remember it.
(4:33 – 4:47)
There’s a day in my life that started all of this, or an experience in my life that started all of this. And I was just a teenager. I was sitting in school, and the subject of this class was climate change.
(4:47 – 5:09)
It’s a geography lesson. And Tom, our teacher there, he tells us that the melting of the Greenland ice shield can disturb the Gulf Stream that brings the warm waters up to, and pretty much determines the weather pattern in Scandinavia. And it can disrupt it or potentially even stop it.
(5:09 – 5:36)
And ironically enough, if that happened, then global warming would mean that the Arctic climate we know from Greenland and North would actually could go all the way down across Scandinavia. And that did something to my young brain. I was kind of like, what? Is this the magnitude of the experiment that we humans are doing right now? So equally curious and equally like, okay, I got to understand more.
(5:37 – 5:50)
This seems like a meaningful thing to sort of engage in. So I’ve been working with sustainability ever since. And for many years, also through my university, also had an emphasis on the role of governments in regulating all of this.
(5:51 – 6:13)
So really saw that it was governments that held the keys for that. But then came COP 15 in Copenhagen, which was supposed to be where this agreement was reached, that came in Paris in 2015. And today, COP 15 in Copenhagen is widely recognized as the worst COP of them all.
(6:13 – 6:24)
And that is a bit of an achievement. That’s a bit of an achievement, given how poor some of the others have been. So I had first seat here, because I lived in Copenhagen.
(6:24 – 6:35)
And it was like watching a car crash in slow motion. You can just see, oh, this is going terribly bad. And so everything I’ve sort of came to believe in, was just sort of ripped apart right in front of my eyes.
(6:35 – 6:52)
But really disturbing. And where do I go from here? But out of that, over the following year or so, came that realization that it’s actually businesses that held the keys to creating the kind of changes that we want to see. So I’ve been working with that ever since.
(6:52 – 7:12)
And that’s actually the reason why I founded also Business with Impact. It is to help business leaders figure out, how do I do this in a way that’s really great for my business, as well as really great for the world? So that’s really the journey up until why we’re having this conversation right now. It dates back to early teenage years.
(7:13 – 7:36)
Yeah, fantastic. I mean, that is so fundamental, right? Why people get into business. And if you dig down deep into their life stories, usually something in their childhood or teenagehood that triggers it, right? I mean, for me, it was like, seeing people living in poverty.
(7:37 – 8:05)
And that was the trigger for me to start a marketing agency to help businesses so that more people can gain employment, entrepreneurship, and a passion about these items, right? So I think it’s so important that people actually think, okay, why are you in business, right? And I think you have a great reason to be in business, which is probably why you get up excited every day and ready to go, right? Well, right. Yeah, it is. It really is.
(8:06 – 8:36)
I found that’s interesting, that having really strong alignment between your personal sort of bigger why, core values, and the business that you run. One of the things that I found interesting over the years has been that it really is a strong asset also when the going gets tough because you rebound a lot easier, right? You bounce back because it’s like, okay, so we all take hits from time to time when we are in our business. That’s what it’s like.
(8:37 – 8:44)
But you just know that it’s not just about me. It’s not just about the money. It’s not just about the team.
(8:44 – 8:59)
There’s something bigger at stake here, right? So get back up on your feet, right? Back out there, back in the ring. I just can’t allow myself to whine and like, ah, this is also, and have a down period. It’s just, okay, off we go.
(8:59 – 9:10)
What can we learn? Back up. We need to go, right? There’s something bigger at stake here. So I think that’s really interesting to have that alignment there that creates a powerful source of energy on the back.
(9:11 – 9:24)
Yeah, that’s so good. And I mean, that segues perfectly into the next question I want to ask you. It’s like, what are the main challenges you have experienced in your business life and how did you overcome them? Would love to hear that.
(9:26 – 9:52)
Yeah, it’s a really interesting question, right? Because we all have ups and downs. That’s what it’s like to start a business, get it off the ground. But when I think about it, I think the biggest challenge has really been that I’ve been ahead of the curve for at least a decade, right? So, you know, given where you live, you probably tried surfing, right? Yeah, not anymore now that I’ve got my load back, but yeah.
(9:53 – 10:14)
Yeah, but you have, right? And a lot of your audience would probably have at least been on a surfboard at some point in their life, right? And then you also know what it’s like if you’re paddling and you don’t catch a wave. You know, it’s really hard work. If you want to continue progressing, you just need to push and paddle, paddle, paddle, and nothing really happens, right? It’s really, it seems like, ah.
(10:15 – 10:40)
And then finally, when you get up on the wave and surf, life is so much easier, right? So I think that really describes the first many years, both of, I’ve also been formerly in a corporate, but also running my own different businesses in this field. It’s really been that, it’s that being ahead of a curve. Today, you can surf, but for at least a decade, it’s really been like trying to catch that wave.
(10:40 – 12:07)
But the amazing thing about that is that, you know, today it’s one of those things that, you know, I wouldn’t wish for anybody to try to do this in building a business, but today I’m really glad that I had these struggles because back then there was very, very few companies that sort of set up a quote-unquote green project just to sort of put everything in there, just because they wanted to advance something on sustainability, right? So it really taught me a lot about sort of on the essence of what I do today and the core of the book about how do I tie this into business? How do I train myself to learn how sustainability can solve a lot of the problems that it actually can, right? A lot of the business problems. So, you know, building that connection between sustainability in one side and strategy business leadership in the other, that bridge, very few people have that bridge because they either come from strategy business leadership, you know, kind of like business education or they come from a more technical environmental background and none of them have, you know, they only touch, scratch the surface on the opposite theme and insights, right? So very few people have that. So I think one of my biggest skills and competitive advantages today is grown out of spending a decade at least trying to catch that wave, right? Or waiting for it to build.
(12:08 – 12:52)
Yeah, I can imagine because you’d probably be like that, you know, I don’t know, for lack of a better analogy, like that prophet who preaches about, you know, something and everybody’s just ignoring him, going, oh, that’s that crazy guy. What’s he talking about? Sustainability, right? But then I’m glad you married sustainability with actually strategy, right? And actually that’s what I want to ask next because that sounds to me like a polar opposite between sustainability and profitability, right? So how do you marry that? I’m just curious because like a lot of people listening might just be thinking, oh, this sustainability stuff doesn’t apply to me. I’m just like a coach.
(12:52 – 13:42)
So yeah, how does it apply? How can they practically use it, Jasper? Yeah, well, there are two ways you can address this, right? One is going to cost you money and one is going to make you money, right? So the problem today is that most businesses and that’s whether it’s actually, you know, the coaching business themselves or the clients that they have, most of them then they deal with sustainability in a way where they have a very low or even no return on investment on whatever sort of effort and money they put in and also a quite low impact. So there’s a lot of wasted opportunity here, right? So that’s really the problem that we have. And the way to deal with this, to come back to your question, is to tie sustainability to the core of the business.
(13:42 – 14:09)
It’s to understand that there are loads of opportunities to creating business value. Typical, what we see is that companies are able to cut costs to increase innovation, increase productivity, customer loyalty, increase sales. You know, it’s areas like that, which is on any leader, business leaders plate already.
(14:10 – 14:56)
They’re just not aware that there’s like an extra layer in the toolbox that they can utilize for this. And this, especially if you’re a manufacturing company or if you’re a service company that has a significant, you know, sort of set of, I guess you would call it a bit of a tail of resources, right? Say you are, you might be a, you’re a service company because you are logistics, but you’re pretty, you know, you need all the equipment to be able to transport stuff, but whereas if you’re a coach, there is less of sort of direct cost you can save directly. But the trick here is to always focus in on the core of the business.
(14:56 – 15:17)
So I normally tell people, what’s your top five business problems at the moment? And what’s your ideal client’s top five businesses, problems, sorry. So that gives me two sets of five problems or more if they have different sort of ideal clients in different markets, but let’s just take one at a time. Some of them would probably be overlapping, like cutting costs or attracting talent or whatever it is.
(15:18 – 16:03)
And then say, okay, how could you, with your specific business, how could you help, you know, where is there a sort of a resource use connected to this somehow? What could we do to change this? Where is, where is, where is branding important? Where is, so there’s so many ways to this. And the key thing, and if you really, if you’re sort of a service service company like coaches, you know, you’re very often, they have a brilliant opportunity to be the fire starters, right? Because as a lot of this, and really, especially the starting point is really about, it’s really about how we talk about stuff. So that sort of transformation of that.
(16:03 – 16:28)
And if you like, we could dive into it a bit, but the role would very often be to sort of point out some of the, some of the opportunities here. And, you know, that goes for, let’s just say you’re an accountant. So you have all the numbers or you’re a legal advisor because you have all the, you know, set up around the business and you have access to senior leadership and they trust in you.
(16:28 – 17:13)
And the same goes for a lot of the coaches, right? So you have a unique opportunity when you are that sort of service, pure service company to, so the biggest impact you can gain is through your clients, right? It’s not, you know, it’s not your electrical car or your organic food or anything, you know, do that as well because it has strong signaling power, but in terms of actual impact, the majority of the impact you can create is through your customers. But yeah, if you like, we can dive into it a bit more, but. Okay, so let’s take a hypothetical example, like if I were a business coach, right? And I came to you Jasper and I said, look, I coach other businesses on how to grow.
(17:14 – 17:54)
I coach entrepreneurs or small businesses on how to grow. How would I practically apply what you just said there into my business? Yeah, well, the thing is that the way we talk about and approach sustainability make it a lot harder for ourselves to deal with it, right? So our language, our mindset, our approach, you know, it’s all about reducing, avoiding, stopping, and it causes our reptile brain to fight against it because you know how scarcity works, right? As soon as something is about to be taken away from you, it says, hold on for dear life, right? I might go hungry to bed. So it’s really weird.
(17:55 – 18:36)
And the more I think about it, and when I have this realization, kind of like an epiphany, some years back, I was like, you know, why are we doing this? Every time you hear somebody talk about this, it’s all about stopping, reducing, avoiding, letting go of, less bad approach, right? And that just means that your reptile brain and your audience will know this, obviously, who’s running the show. It just starts by saying, no, I’m not in on this deal, right? So we make everything so much harder. So as a coach where you have, very often you will be working on mindset anyway, you have a golden opportunity to help the business leaders get this right.
(18:37 – 19:53)
And thereby for them to improve their business and get access to some of the many types of business value that I talked about earlier on like cutting costs, innovation, productivity, talent attraction, increasing sales, customer loyalty, all of those things, all the good stuff, right? That it’s pretty reasonable to think that some of the challenges a lot of your listeners here will have, their clients will have, and the reason why they hired your listeners is probably related to this, right? So again, it’s like for you as a business coach to discover that if you could kickstart this, if you could help them see this the right way, if you could help them expand there and change, make that sort of mental transformation, as I call it, of their mindset, well, then everything’s gonna be easier for them, right? And that will mean that they will look back at you as the coach and say, oh, this was really amazing, right? You transformed my understanding of how I deal with this issue that’s just seemed to be growing everywhere around me. And I might personally really would like to, but I’ve never been able to see how should I possibly be able to do this without losing a ton of money. So yeah, so there are actually five major misconceptions that are causing most of these problems.
(19:53 – 20:01)
I call them the fatal five. And if you think there’s time for it, we could have a look at them. And I’ve sort of created corresponding what I call the five to five.
(20:02 – 20:14)
But so there’s a whole sort of setup around it. But really the key thing here is to change your mindset before you start changing your business. Because it really does come down to that approach.
(20:14 – 20:41)
So I think like instead of saying, okay, what is the sustainability thing? It’s kind of just something nice to have. And maybe one day I’ll do it. It’s like, why don’t you incorporate it into your company values and philosophy? And it could, like you say, give you opportunities to make your branding different, could also give you a strategic advantage as well, right? And even make your program different.
(20:41 – 21:19)
And it’s so much more than branding, right? It’s so much more than branding, right? And the thing is, I think this would resonate well with your audience given their understanding of how people work, right? So as you know, if we took any group of people, 100 people random and help them all clarify their why. I will have absolutely zero that came out with, I dream of a car or five planes or 10 houses. You never end there, right? We always end on something relational, right? So it’s people, it’s something living, right? Whether that’s a planet thing or a people thing, doesn’t matter.
(21:19 – 22:18)
But basically it’s all about something living, never about just stuff and money, right? Who cares at the end? So you could basically look at the sustainable development goals, right? Those 17 goals, if you take as part partnership, which is more tool and legal, which is also a bit of a tool, then the rest of 15 of the others are all different types of categories of something living. It’s either people or planet, right? So climate change, water, ending hunger, all of that. And if you just for the sake of experiment, imagine we took a hundred people and we help all of these clarify, then they would fit somewhere nicely, right? So just for sake of argument, let’s just imagine that they split out equally, right? Then if you run a business and you have found out that the bigger purpose for this business is actually to solve one of these, right? So you’re not just about creating a better product, you’re about changing the world through the way you make this product.
(22:18 – 22:28)
That’s your mission, right? That’s what you go out and do. That’s how you develop your business. Well, then all of a sudden, one in 15 in the marketplace would cheer on you.
(22:29 – 22:44)
So this is the tailwind. And this is a key thing that many people do not think about and realize. If you make yourself a force for good company, then all of a sudden, you will have something like one in 15 that will be cheering on you.
(22:44 – 23:14)
And if you’re on a popular subject like climate change or something, it’s even more, right? And that’s gonna give you such a tailwind because I might not need your product, but I really like everybody who is trying to solve what I feel is really something we must solve. So if I know anybody who needs that chair you produce or that service you have or whatever it is, well, your heads up, you should have a look at these guys because they’re really great. At the end of the day, of course, your service and your product has to stand the test.
(23:14 – 23:32)
That’s how it is. But it’s gonna give you, it’s the fast track to get into the finale where it’s just you and two or three others, right? And if you just imagine how much is that worth to skip from being one of a hundred in the marketplace to being one of three. And that’s the type of power you can get out of this.
(23:32 – 23:56)
So that’s if you help, imagine the business culture, if you help your client get this right, help them clarify the mission that something bigger than themselves, that’s their ticket to get on the shortlist again and again and again and again, right? Imagine that value. It’s huge. That’s fantastic.
(23:56 – 24:57)
I like that. It’s kind of like, yeah, you will attract some people and you will repel some people, but that’s okay because the people you repel are probably not the people you want to work with in the first place because they don’t share the same values, right? Exactly. And the better you are at sort of helping cut through the noise here and connect sustainability and business, the more you can attract because then there’s a lot of people who would like to turn their business in some form, but who doesn’t dare because they cannot at all see how am I going to do this in a way that’s profitable, right? So if you could help them get that clarity, obviously I’m not saying you should spend, 10, 15 years on the stuff like I’ve done, but I’m saying if you just learn the top part to get them started, then again, you’re the fire starter, right? So you just need to get the fire going.
(24:58 – 25:13)
Then they start to see the opportunity and they will find their way, right? So you don’t have to say, okay, I’m going to learn as much as Jasper on this stuff. Don’t go there. Takes too long, but just concentrate on getting the fire started.
(25:13 – 25:48)
I just want to share a recent example that I guess supports your point is that, as I just mentioned, my whole thing is about helping to solve poverty, right? And I met up with a coach who is specializing in creating entrepreneurs out of kids, training them to be entrepreneurs. And we jelled so well because we’re like, yeah, I totally believe in what you’re doing and we’re just like, yeah, we really hit it off the park. We could have talked for hours because of just because we share the same values there, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(25:48 – 25:55)
Yeah, true. So super cool. That is a very good tip, by the way, and very practical.
(25:55 – 26:10)
So I see now how sustainability can fit into anybody’s business, really. I do have one question, Jasper. I mean, for you, a lot of your clients are big businesses, corporations, you know, high level guys, I guess.
(26:10 – 27:16)
Can you share some of your secrets as to how you actually get clients like this? Yeah, well, you know, that segues very well in from where we stopped just a second ago, right? Because as you know, a lot of these larger companies, they have created significant sustainability, climate, whatever goals, right? And as you know, and as all your listeners will know, the key to any client is solving existing meaningful problems, right? That’s it. If you’re good at that, then you get a shot at the title, right? And many of the businesses, all those who have done this right, they have set goals that are so big that they actually haven’t got a clue how to get there, right? Talking about Grundfos there in the beginning, right? How do I transform my entire value chain to become carbon positive? And this was back around 2021 or something. So I have a decade, right? And it’s a global company, right? As I said, the biggest in the world in its field.
(27:17 – 27:49)
So humongous task by any scale, right? So no idea how to get there. And the thing is that as I can help them see how could you take some of these steps in a way that’s gonna be good for your business and progress you towards this goal. And that’s really how I ever sort of get a chance to connect to these people, right? And then of course, network and a bit of luck to be honest.
(27:50 – 28:09)
Sometimes, you know, stumbling up into people, right? It is, right? It’s kind of like, oh, yes, right, good. I suddenly discovered you somewhere or somebody mentioned you or I heard you at a presentation at a conference somewhere. Or, you know, I’ve never heard about you before, but you seem to strike a chord the way you deal with this.
(28:09 – 28:28)
I’m open for conversation, right? So it could be anything, but it’s just really, you know, sort of back to… It’s the same medicine I take myself, right? It’s how I go out and show up. And obviously that’s also why, you know, it’s good to have the book. It’s why I have a podcast.
(28:28 – 29:23)
It’s why I post every day or at least five, six days a week on LinkedIn, just giving lots of valuable stuff away because it ups the chance that some of the people I would like to work with, they kind of stumble upon it or read some of my newsletters or whatever. And it’s kind of like, this is kind of interesting, right? He has something here because normally a lot of the big companies will go with their equally big, you know, the big five or something, right? Also from a sort of perceived risk reduction perspective, that these are, they must know what they do. So if I’m heading into unknown territory, let me walk with somebody with a brand that if it fails, I can at least say, well, yeah, but I hired these guys, you know, what else could I have done? Whereas I hired somebody nobody else knows, right? So that’s typically what you’re up against when you are that smaller player, even though you are trying to establish yourself.
(29:24 – 29:33)
But yeah, so I think those are some of the core elements. Nice, nice, I like it. And you mentioned your book, so let’s get back to your book.
(29:34 – 29:42)
And I know you’ve achieved Amazon bestselling status, which is super cool. Congratulations. Thank you, yes.
(29:43 – 29:59)
How have you leveraged the status of being a bestselling author in your business? Has it helped you in any way? I’d love to hear about that. You know, I could start by asking you a question. When we started talking and you figured, hey, this could be…
This podcast is hosted by Terence Tam, author of Lead Surge: 8 Radically Effective Marketing Funnels for Coaches and Experts. He is also the Founder of Radical Marketing, a digital marketing agency that partners with high-ticket coaches to scale their businesses with Webinars – by using a proprietary blend of story ads and battled-tested sales funnels to achieve better returns on ad dollars.