1. What have you found most challenging as a leader of a small or medium enterprise?

Limiting the work in progress for myself and the team. In order to make progress with multiple initiatives that we are doing in order to grow, from marketing to sales, to delivery, it's sometimes hard not to be carried away with new and exciting projects. Hence, we are trying to complete the work that we have already on our plates before jumping into the new tasks.


2. How did you become a leader of an SME? Can you please briefly tell the story?

In 2015, my partner and I moved to Hong Kong to experience Asian culture, get international experience and explore many beautiful countries in the region. I was working in technology consulting and sales where I discovered Salesforce as a tool that helps companies grow. It excited me how easily I could build business applications, self-service portals, digital documents even without much background in coding. Over the years, I have become a Salesforce consultant and ever since have changed the way many companies find, win and keep new customers. When we were planning to move back to Europe, I created Namiru Solutions, an innovative Salesforce consultancy, with a vision to help companies grow on the Salesforce platform. With the help of Covid-19 and remote working, we are operating a global company from day one with clients from Hong Kong, Asia and Europe.


3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

My work life is a balance between marketing, sales, and overseeing projects. Every morning I look at the list of all tasks and ideas and write on a piece of paper 5 to 10 things that I want to accomplish during the day. Our days are usually never the same, so I keep it flexible. Sometimes we have the whole day workshop with the client, the other day it’s about phone calls and there are also days when there is nothing scheduled and we do the “deep work” - working on projects, creating content etc. Evenings are usually reserved for family and sports.


4. What's the most recent significant leadership lesson you've learned?

Things don’t happen overnight. We pilot new things and concepts with our team frequently, from new sales channels to marketing content to new solutions for our clients etc. Most of the time the results don't come immediately which can be frustrating in the beginning and it may feel like you are not being productive. However, these seeds of efforts that we planted a long time ago are actually proving fruitful these days. So we keep reminding ourselves that business building is not a sprint discipline but an ultra-marathon one.


5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

“Who moved my cheese?” From Spencer Johnson. It's a short story that when you achieve something you shouldn't get too comfortable. The moral of the story is to show what happens to the human if they accept or reject to change. This impacts me almost every day because we always make choices of whether we are going to do something that's uncomfortable but sparks some learning and moves us ahead, or whether we stay the way we are. Should I do [whatever is important and hard] or should I rather do [whatever gives pleasure and fun]?


6. How do you build leadership capacity in an SME?

We encourage everyone to share their points of view and try new things. But the most important is to take ownership of the proposed ideas and client projects. It's really important not only to throw ideas on a table but to think about how to execute them in the most efficient way and to follow up on them. That’s what helps us build trust between each other and our clients. And to me, leadership is about trust.


7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader of an SME so far?

We had a project where the estimate on our work didn't match with the deliverables. We simply quote less than the effort was in reality. This can happen and it is a job of every entrepreneur to bear the risks between expectations and reality. At one casual conversation with the client, we mentioned some of the goodwills along the project and the client appreciated it. Few months later, the client recommended us to another client on a bigger project. In fact, we turned reality into an opportunity. The moral of the story - if you make a mistake, acknowledge it and learn from it and move on.