The Growth Zone

Christian Bartsch

The Growth Zone Podcast covers in 2023 topics from Innovation, Business, Startups, Marketing, ESG, Cyber Security and interviews with industry leaders. Our Mission is to help people to grow their business by applying sustainable business strategies in marketing and leadership. Thereby local communities enjoy more environmentally responsible and socially responsive contributions from the business world. | In Marketing we cover the core areas of sales funnels, branding, positioning, lead generation and online advertising. | When talking about startups we will look into innovation, funding, investment, technology as well as artificial intelligence. | An entrepreneur can not be successful if the mindset is dislocated. Confidence is so important for a good starting out into networking and gaining clients. | When you gain access to the knowledge and guidance of an experienced entrepreneur you can grow using coaching and mentoring. Hence, leadership, strategy and finding a solution to a conflict is so vital. | Subscribe to our newsletter at meetchrisbartsch.com/newsletter read less
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Episodes

How ESG and ISO27001:2022 ISO Certification interact to influence your business success
Feb 19 2024
How ESG and ISO27001:2022 ISO Certification interact to influence your business success
In this episode you will find out, how to the ESG rating system and the newly released ISO27001:2022 ISO Certification interact to influence a company's ability to attrack funding and new key clients. ESG is putting a growing emphasis on Information Security and Green Cyber Security. This is eventually leading to an influencial factore that impacts a company's ability to get funding, new clients aor even reduce their insurance costs. The ESG Rating is negatively impacted if a business has no apparent efforts towards protecting personal data or implementing an information security management system (ISMS). Here Christian explains how the ISO 27001 Certification process would take place. It is a quick and easy explanation of the steps.  He explains that you do not need to overcomplicate the ISMS documentation. Security policies are ther to improve security but not make life hell for employees. Writting the ISMS Documentation is not an easy task for someone who isn't deep in the ISO world. That is why it is recommendable to get help from an ISO 27001 Consultant (https://acato.co.uk) so that you save time, pain and money.  GET THIS BOOK >>> ESG Don't miss out on how to drive your business to be sustainable, while avoiding the ugly side of ESG, which can be a great revenue driver when applied in a non-toxic way: Get the 2022 edition of "The Sustainable Business Idea - A pocket guide to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)" written by Christian Bartsch. It is availabe at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers: ISBN: 979-8-8330-3548-1 SoftcoverASIN: B0BKWWJL4H Kindle edition GET THIS BOOK >>> ISO 27001 Don't miss out on how to introduce ISO 27001:2022 into your business to be sustainable and enforce information security, while avoiding unnecessary project bloating and eccessive consulting fees.   Get the 2023 edition of "Information Security based on ISO 27001 Strategies: A Leadership Introduction to Information Security" written by Christian Bartsch. It is availabe at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers: ISBN: 979-8865141501 SoftcoverASIN: B0CNPNGTR6 Kindle edition
Outsource without being distracted
Sep 20 2023
Outsource without being distracted
When building your business, you will need to get help from outside. You will hire freelancers or other small companies. Some might even be big companies. You need to be aware that such helpers tend to shift your original strategy towards changing them to what they prefer to deliver. This change of strategy might be motivated by their lack of knowledge, their focus on higher margin services or misunderstanding of your business model. Here an example scenario: Imagine you have built an IT company. You are serving SME clients. Every month you grow by 2-10 new SME clients. Gradually you are becoming profitable and adding more staff to your team. Some people you are hiring as full time employees and others you can only afford to have as freelance experts on bord. Eventually you decide that you need to increase the credibility of your new company. You identify a variety of potential methods to increase your website visitor's perception that you are a trustworthy company: branding by association with celebrities (e.g., Actors, politicians)branding by certification (e.g., ISO 9001 / ISO 27001) Someone might tell you, you need to a photo with a highly controversial politician. In reality, they want to make some extra benefits for themselves, while ignoring the fact that this celebrity might drive your clients away and thereby cost you a large portion of your revenue.  On the other hand, getting your organisation certified for having a trustworthy quality management system in place might even attarct larger clients that generate far higher revenues. Once you have those enterprises as clients you can use their branding to show that you are trustworthy because these large companies do not buy from everyone. Of couse, an enterprise in today's time will expect you to also have an ISO 27001 certification. In a later episode i will provide more guidance on the subject of company certifications. In particular SaaS Companies need today a information security management system which is certified in accordance with the international ISO 27001 standard. GET THIS BOOK >>> Don't miss out on how to drive your business to be sustainable, while avoiding the ugly side of ESG, which can be a great revenue driver when applied in a non-toxic way: Get the 2022 edition of "The Sustainable Business Idea - A pocket guide to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)" written by Christian Bartsch. It is availabe at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers: ISBN: 979-8-8330-3548-1 Softcover ASIN: B0BKWWJL4H Kindle edition
Why is your client avatar a tripping stone or stepping stone?
Sep 16 2023
Why is your client avatar a tripping stone or stepping stone?
When designing, building, redesigning and growing a business, people often ignore the basics of market positioning by not understand who they are actually serving. Today's episode focuses on: Why is your client avatar a tripping stone or stepping stone? What is a client avatar? A client avatar is a ficticious character representing our ideal client. By profiling this person's life and business habbits, we get a better understanding of what drives this person to say yes or no to our offer. This avatar profile is not only helpful for face to face sales situations but also for online marketing and funnels. We use a client avatar for B2C and B2B situations. In a B2B avatar we need to understand the mindset of the buyer. This mindset is affected by the local attitude towards new sellers and new products. Some regions are very welcoming while others immediately think you are a risk to their own career, if they buy from you. In contrast to a B2C buyer, a B2B client might be making a 6 figure buying decision which might be questioned by the head of finance or the CEO. A B2C client might only have to justify their purchase with their spouse or someone they are borrowing the remaining amount needed to pay for the product. Hence, people have different voices in their head that are interfering with your communication. Take the time to silence these voices, so that you not only get them to buy but also avoid buyer's remorse. GET THIS BOOK >>> Don't miss out on how to drive your business to be sustainable, while avoiding the ugly side of ESG, which can be a great revenue driver when applied in a non-toxic way: Get the 2022 edition of "The Sustainable Business Idea - A pocket guide to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)" written by Christian Bartsch. It is availabe at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers: ISBN: 979-8-8330-3548-1 Softcover ASIN: B0BKWWJL4H Kindle edition
The sustainable idea - Green Cyber Security
Apr 8 2023
The sustainable idea - Green Cyber Security
In this episode, Christian looks at how implementing ISO 27001 standards in a business can help form a real Green cyber security.  It takes a lot of effort to improve an organization's digital footprint. Buying equipment that is overly consuming energy and damaging the environment once it has to be disposed off, is not a great idea. Longterm IT procurement strategies need to focus on protecting the environment and the business.  Cyber security is an important part of the IT infrastructure of an organization, today. By implementing an ISO27001 standard one can improve the sustainability contribution of IT. Nevertheless, Green Cyber security is more than buying a green firewall and green coloured pens.  It is more a mindset and longevity game. You score high when you are protecting the environment, local communities and jobs. All 3 need each other to thrive. Find out how to avoid greenwashing in IT departments as ESG is often misused to overcharge companies for products that are in no real sense green.   GET THIS BOOK >>> Don't miss out on how to drive your business to be sustainable, while avoiding the ugly side of ESG, which can be a great revenue driver when applied in a non-toxic way: Get the 2022 edition of "The Sustainable Business Idea - A pocket guide to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)" written by Christian Bartsch. It is availabe at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers: ISBN: 979-8-8330-3548-1 Softcover ASIN: B0BKWWJL4H Kindle edition
The sustainable idea - The fossil fuel scam
Apr 7 2023
The sustainable idea - The fossil fuel scam
The sustainable idea - The fossil fuel scam The fossil fuel industry has been active in keeping sustainable green technology at bay. Greenwashing and ESG are popular methods to make their products appear greener than they really are. Lobbyist are active in many European nations with direct contacts to the heads of state. Find out whats happening - from the Author of the book "The sustainable business idea". What are the green trends and the fake trends. Understand the difference and spot the secret activities that are taking place to discredit any real environmental initiative. People read in socal media that people bought certain products and is was their worst experience. These products apparently were of low quality, they blew up or they simply gave them back. The community in those platforms is then responding in astonishement as they are showing actively with real photos that they own the products and are hapily using them every day. The negative narrative is being spread by hired trolls.  This kind of troll farms can be hired to attack entrepreneurs, local politicians and will even amass a mountain of lies to simply discredit any politician or political leader who is daring to threaten the fossil industry with their core products (e.g., oil, gas, coal) and complementary products (ICE cars, ICE vans, Gas heaters),  This kind of troll farming is not new. The Russian Governments have been using this strategy for decades to make western social media a toxic environment. The social media scandals of 2022 showed how many employees were needed in social platforms to stop tentions from going crazy. There is so much more. Listen and grow to make better sustainable decisions   GET THIS BOOK >>> Don't miss out on how to drive your business to be sustainable, while avoiding the ugly side of ESG, which can be a great revenue driver when applied in a non-toxic way: Get the 2022 edition of "The Sustainable Business Idea - A pocket guide to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG)" written by Christian Bartsch. It is availabe at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers: ISBN: 979-8-8330-3548-1 Softcover ASIN: B0BKWWJL4H Kindle edition