Finding Success With The Right Mindset

Success is never about luck.

Success is about putting in the hours and dedicating yourself to knowledge and evolution.

There are no shortcuts or secret formulas here.

And if there were, this guy would probably know about them.

Lorand Soares Szasz has helped thousands of Romanian businesses find success. He also launched Upriserz, the Netflix for business training.

But he also failed sometimes (like most of us will at some point).

And he learned a lot from those mistakes.

How Do You Start A Business?

44% of companies in Romania have zero employees. 22% of them have one employee and 9% have two employees.

So 75% of Romanian companies have under 2 employees.

56% have less than 1 million Euros in turnover.

But why the grim landscape?

Besides running on pure instinct, we also have a trauma holding us back.

“The difference between a 50.000 euros businessman and a 1 million euros businessman is fear.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

Lorand was afraid too.

For example, he didn’t flourish because he was scared to hold training sessions in English.

That made him miss out on a lot of opportunities.

But he learned from these mistakes.

And he’s willing to share what he learned along the way.

Here’s what he thinks is the best “checklist” for starting a business.

#1 Mindset

Your mind will seep into your business. There’s just no other way around it.

If you’re looking for an opportunity, you’re going to find it.

But if you’re constantly thinking about failure… you might find failure too.

“The way that the entrepreneur thinks influences everything in his business.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

#2 Marketing

You can have the best product, the right mindset, and an awesome team.

If you don’t get the word out, you’re not going to build a brand.

People won’t know who you are.

So they won’t trust you either. That means marketing’s a must-have, even if you do it yourself or you let someone else take care of it.

#3 Sales

The thing is, marketing isn’t enough.

You can have an awesome reputation.

A trustable brand.

It’s all in vain if you don’t sign any contract.

So you need to be able to sell if you want a successful business.

#4 The Right Team

If you’re bootstrapping, you can make it work on your own for a while.

But if you do it right, you’ll still need to hire people at some point.

Even if we’re talking about a remote VA… that’s still an employee.

And it’s just as important to know how to hire (and how to fire) people as it is when you have 2000 employees.

#5 Systems And Procedures

A lifestyle business can keep you bogged down in its day-to-day activities your entire life.

But if you want to win the two most important resources of our time: time and money… Then you need to learn how to build processes and procedures.

Not to annoy new employees.

But to achieve clarity.

And to not have to work all the time.

#6 Finances

If you run a business guided by instinct… you won’t get far.

You need to understand what a break-even point is, you need to know your acquisition cost…

You need to know the numbers so that you know how to make decisions for your company.

Most people in Romania don’t know this.

They just run the business on a whim.

In fact, the numbers back it up, as you’ve seen in the beginning.

So you need to know your numbers. If anyone asks you right now: “What’s your break-even point?” you should have your answer one spreadsheet away, tops.

Juggling Fate and Determination

In 2018, Lorand shifted from offline training sessions to the online world.

And it was really hard in the beginning.

He lost a few hundred thousand euros.

So it seemed like fate didn’t want that shift to happen. But he buckled up and used his determination to pull out of that situation.

Just like he did many times before.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a closer look at his story.

Lorand was born in Romania, and he was raised in a small village. He’s part of an ethnic minority, so until the age of 10 he didn’t even speak Romanian.

That’s why he was bullied every day for his heritage when he moved to a bigger city.

But even if he managed to learn Romanian, the bullying didn’t stop.

At 14 years old he moved to Cluj to start high school, but he got bullied for his rural background.

In university, he graduated with a Bachelor’s in European Studies, but there he was bullied for coming from a theological highschool.

But through the pain, some things went well in Lorand’s early days.

He also studied psychology, because his parents pressured him to enroll in two universities.

That helped him see the value in therapy, and understanding the human mind, which helped him a lot later in life (as you’ll read in a bit).

But after more than two decades, Romania seemed a bit too much.

So Lorand borrowed some money and went to work in Portugal.

Sunny Days in Porto

When he got to Portugal, he got hired as a gardener.

In the next 3 years, he changed 12 jobs doing anything you can imagine: assistant cook, cook, secretary, babysitter, even personal assistant.

And that’s when everything changed.

He worked as a personal assistant in a business coaching company, which is still the largest business coaching company in the world. He was working for the Porto franchise, and that made all the difference.

And it’s all thanks to a simple rule his boss had.

Every employer had to read at least 30 minutes a day.

This was a big shift for Lorand.

“Until the age of 24, I only read two books.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

After two years of constant development in this company, he learned the ins and outs of business coaching.

He knew he was able to start his own business.

And he wanted more from life.

So he came back to Romania to start his own business coaching company.

Back in Romania

In the beginning, it was very hard.

He lost all the money he had saved up, without signing any client.

So doubt started to seep in.

But he pushed through. He convinced his wife to sell their wedding ring, which bought him some more time.

But he quickly burned through those funds too.

And he didn’t sign any clients.

That was 6 months into his return to Romania. So of course, the doubts got bigger.

He started to think Romania wasn’t ready for business coaching.

“In December 2008 I had to choose if I was to close my business or just push more.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

He chose to go at it again.

But he swore these were the last 3 months he was going to push through.

If he didn’t sign a contract in those 3 months, he was about to go back to Porto.

His brother trusted him, so he borrowed him just enough money to go survive for three more months.

One month in, he signed his first contract.

He went on to quickly sign three more clients, including companies that had millions of dollars in turnover.

So in the end, it worked out.

But slowly, he realized that his knowledge could better help people through training.

“I lost my patience with business owners.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

And after building a brand, holding training sessions all across the country, he made yet another shift.

In 2019, he launched Upriserz, which is a “Netflix” of business training.

The Shift To Online

Before they launched Upriserz, Lorand’s company had 2 million euros in turnover each year.

That’s why they figured the shift was going to be easy.

Especially since they offered a lot of value for a small price.

“So we were very hopeful about this project, we expected to triple our turnover. Big mistake.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

As you can guess, it wasn’t smooth sailing.

They only counted on the brand they already had.

They expected clients to transfer from their former business, which didn’t happen.

And it was actually pretty bad. For a few months, they were spending over 100.000 euros a month, and only getting back around 20.000.

In the end, they had to fire a lot of people.

“I think that was the worst day of my business career because all of them were great employees.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

So how did he manage to get out of this messy situation?

Well, in part because he micro-managed a lot of neglected processes, but also because he got involved in the sales department.

We mean… really involved.

Hands-on deck, full sail.

So that was the first lesson: whenever you start a new business, focus on building that business as a brand on its own.

Don’t count on a previous enterprise.

But he made another mistake: He didn’t adapt fast enough, so they lost around 400.000 euros.

But that was a lesson in and of itself:

“You can’t make 1 million euros if you’re not ready to lose it too.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

If you want to avoid this type of chaos, focus on selling.

Sales got Lorand out of trouble.

And sales will help you succeed.

“In the beginning, the most important thing for a startup is sales.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

After a while, you can outsource it.

Or find other people to do it for you.

But when you get started, you need to focus on sales.

Speaking of which…

Tips For The Aspiring Romanian Entrepreneur

Right now, only 80.000 Romanians invest in education after graduation.

Lorand’s dream is to bring that number up to at least a million people.

That’s why he created Upriserz. That’s why he had this interview with us.

But you can get more out of him than just buying a subscription on Upriserz. In fact, Lorand spoke at length about what the Romanian entrepreneur should focus on.

Here’s that in a snapshot:

The most important lesson is this: You need to build products.

Outsourcing is great, but it’s a race to the bottom.

As soon as there’s a cheaper alternative, big corporations will set up shop there.

“Being outsourced is dangerous because you’re only useful until there’s a better alternative.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

So you have to build something you can export.

But Romanians do have an edge over other western economies.

We only have 30 years of the free market, so if you start something today… You don’t have to compete with centuries of market capitalization.

But it can get pretty tough, especially because our mindset is dominated by fear and discouragement.

That’s why you have to look at other people’s mistakes.

And learn from them.

Bankruptcy in Romania

Here’s a lesson Lorand learned the hard way.

Don’t be a “parallel” entrepreneur. It’s called serial entrepreneur for a reason.

“You start a business, you build the business, you sell the business, and only then you think about starting another business.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

In 2016, Lorand had 6 businesses.

There are only 24 hours in a day, so he had to close or sell most of them.

But he had a pretty hard fall too.

Let me tell you that story:

Lorand is fascinated by cars. In a pledge to turn that hobby into business, he created an online platform to match car buyers with dealerships.

The gist was simple: buyers filled a form detailing their dream car, and then the platform sent it out to dealerships, which then had to send back an offer.

The system seemed flawless.

So he invested 6 months and 60.000 euros to make it a reality.

As soon as they launched, hundreds of people wanting to buy (high-value) cars started filling out the forms.

But the dealerships never sent out any offer.

And that’s when it hit Lorand: car dealers didn’t want to part 1% of their commission. They were accustomed to a different way of selling, and they didn’t want to change, even if the platform made their life easier too.

That meant that he had to educate his audience, the sellers, which he didn’t have the time for.

So he put a lid on it.

Took his losses, buckled down and learned a valuable lesson: understand your audience and make sure you don’t have to change their paradigm to make a single sale.

Business Partners and Employees

Lorand claims he’s not the best source of information for choosing business partners.

He had partners in all of his businesses.

But only one collaboration went well.

Seeing as he’s the only common denominator… the problem is most likely him and he is ok with knowing this.

Right now, he has no partners.

And he’s not looking for that type of relationship.

But he has plans to make loyal employees partners in the future.

What he can say for sure though…

Is that you want intrapreneurs.

That means proactive employees. People that work for you, but have an entrepreneur’s mindset.

For example, Lorand doesn’t care about his employees’ hours.

As long as they meet their KPIs, he’s happy.

He’s just looking for performance.

So his employees can work from home, come in the office whenever they want, and he even mandates that Wednesdays are work from home days, and Friday afternoons are always free.

He actually sees improved performance in those days.

However, too much freedom can hurt your company’s productivity.

So you have to strive to find the balance that works for you.

Speaking of balance…

Soup For Thought and a Happy Life

Balancing work and life is a struggle. You need to accept this from the get-go: you’ll never have the two in a perfect balance.

For example, Lorand has weeks that are filled to the brim with work.

But then he takes some time to recharge and spend time with his family.

But here’s something more profound: if you are married, understand your values, and your partner’s values.

For example, for Lorand, it’s business, money, family.

For his wife, it’s family, traveling, and fashion.

So they mix together pretty well. If Lorand lives his values, his wife can live hers. They stopped fighting in their marriage when they realized that they have different values.

And they started respecting that.

Do the same with those close to you, even if you’re not married.

Healing and Understanding Your Emotions

In the last two years, Lorand worked with therapists every week to solve his emotional limitations.

He had a traumatic childhood at times.

“So I worked to accept that everything that happened in my childhood was perfect for the man that I became today.” — Lorand Soares Szasz

As soon as he accepted that, he was able to move forward and impact more people.

For example, he stopped letting hate bring him down.

If you want to succeed, you have to do the same.

To End On A Brighter Note

Lorand built a successful business.

He’s one of the biggest names in business coaching and training.

But his story can be yours.

If you learn from his mistakes if you push harder if you get rid of fear if you have the right mindset…

…mixed in with strategy and skills, you can make it work.

Do you agree?

Oh and by the way: This article is a retelling of our interview with Lorand, which you can watch here.